I looked pointedly at Amber who was trying her best not to look at me while we took cover behind several armoured crates as a hail of bullets landed on our cover.

“I… I didn’t expect this ok? How was I supposed to know she was here and would also bring a power armour?”

“And you said I was stupid for wanting to prepare a little bit more… I could have looked for some equipment that could help us here…”

“Alright, alright… That was my bad. So you got any plans, Tera?”

Our current guns are just only going to scratch its armour so those are pretty much useless… Unless there’s some kind of anti-armour weapon in this warehouse, I don’t think we stand a chance fighting it head on.

The other way is to lure her back to the hangar and I can use my ship’s weapons on her. Her power armour may be able to withstand personal sized weapons, but I doubt it could stand up to a ballistic cannon to the face.

Or… If I was crazy enough… I could get close to it and plug my Codex in and hack it from the outside.

That would not only disable the power armour and render her helpless, I can also claim that power armour for myself after this fight ends…

Ok… I think Amber is rubbing off a little on me because the last idea sounds like the most attractive to me. But the problem of getting close to her without being blasted apart still persists.

I turned to Amber, “If I can get close to it… I might be able to hack into and disable the power armour. Got any ideas?”

She raised an eyebrow, “You know how to hack as well? Is your memory coming back or something?”

“I don’t know if it will work yet, but I think I should be able to do it. So do you have a plan or not?” I asked, ignoring the bullets that whizzed above our heads.

She looked around for a moment before nodding, “I can create a distraction. But whether you can make it to her or not would be up to you. You still up for that?”

“Fuck it, we’re already trapped here aren’t we?”

Her lips curled up into a grin, “Perfect. Let’s do this!”

She turned away from me and cupped her hands over her mouth, “Hey bitch! Why are you so scared of me that you would use some power armour instead of fighting me face to face?!”

There was a soft whirring noise before more bullets ricochet off our cover, “Hahahaha! Big words from the bitch hiding behind cover! You want to die that badly?! Then let me grant you that wish!!”

The shooting suddenly stopped and heavy stomping sounds could be heard coming towards us.

Looks like she gave up on destroying our cover in favour of charging at us.

“Go!” Amber cried out, before darting away from behind the cover.

The sound of gunfire echoed through the air as the pirate shot at Amber, the bullets piercing through the space where she had been moments ago.

I watched as she rolled behind another stack of crates just in time to protect herself before the hail of bullets caught up to her.

I took the opportunity to dash out from my own cover on the opposite side of where Amber had run out from, flanking the pirate from the other side.

She spotted me and started to turn to point the machine gun in her hands towards me and a hail of bullets flew towards me.

I managed to avoid most of it but one or two of the bullets managed to land on me, my shield flaring up to deflect the bullets away from me.

I rolled under the next hail of bullets which caused her to overextend her swing and show her back to me.

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She wanted to turn back again to face me but a container suddenly flew through the air and smacked her in the face, courtesy of Amber.

While the pirate was distracted, I leapt onto her back and activated my Codex, navigating through the menu until I found the option to remote hack the armour.

When I told her that I wasn’t sure if I could actually hack the armour, it was because I was not too sure on how the hacking mechanics work here.

If it was similar to the game’s hacking mini-game, then I was quite confident that I would be able to hack it quite easily.

All you needed to do was to match some colours from one side of the screen to the other and that was it. It was so stupidly easy that memes have been made of this and there were even mods made to make it more challenging.

For me, I did not bother trying to make it more difficult since I felt it was an unnecessary waste of time anyway.

The screen fizzled for a moment and a very familiar screen appeared.

Yep… This is going to be easy.

In just two seconds flat, I finished matching the colours and I had access to the power suit, bringing me to another screen that showed me the status of the suit.

I immediately tapped on the option to power down the suit and eject its occupant, my commands being registered immediately with the sound of a high pitched whine from the suit.

“What?! What’s going on?!! What did you do to my suit?!” The pirate screeched.

A hissing sound came from below me and I leapt clear of it, allowing the back of the suit to open up to reveal the pirate that was inside the power armour.

She frantically fiddled with the suit controls hoping that would be enough to bring the suit back online.

Seeing that it did not work, she smashed her fist against the side of the armour a few times in an attempt to kick start it but it remained dormant.

I levelled my gun at her, “Step out of there or I’m going to shoot!”

She turned and scowled at me, “You wouldn’t dare!”

I pulled the trigger and shot her in the arm, making her cry out in pain from the wound.

“I’m not asking again!” I warned.

She gritted her teeth but obeyed, slowly stepping out of the power armour with her hands raised.

Amber joined me by my side, “Oh wow~ You managed to do it! Ahahaha! You’re really the best, Tera! Let me take it from here!”

I didn’t get to respond to her before the blonde Mercenary lunged forward and punched the pirate across the face, sending her sprawling on the ground.

“Now who’s the one on the ground now, you bitch?” Amber spat, kicking the pirate while she was still on the ground.

“Guk… You… Do you know what you’re doing?! If you kill me here… The others will definitely come after you! You will be hunted wherever you go!”

Amber took out her blaster and pointed the barrel at her, “What makes you think I was not prepared for that? Besides~ Where do you think we are now? Do you think they would automatically assume that it’s me who did you in? You have way more enemies than just me, after all~”

Before the pirate could say anything more, Amber fired her blaster, shooting a round right between her eyes and killing her instantly.

I refrained from saying anything while she stared at her corpse with a cold gaze.

Meanwhile, I made sure to check the surroundings to ensure that there weren’t any more pirates hiding around that might be waiting to attack us.

“Tera?” She called out to me suddenly.

I turned back to her, “Yeah?”

“If you don’t mind… I would be overloading the generators and blowing this entire place up.”

I frowned, “You’re not planning to blow yourself up with it, are you?”

“Huh? Of course not. I’ve yet to blow you yet, Tera, why would I be doing that now?”

“Right… So where’s the generator room?”

She waved her hand at me, “Oh I can do that by myself, why don’t you bring that power armour back to your ship first while I deal with it? I’ll meet you back at the hangar.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, “Are you sure you want to do that alone? We’re not even sure that there’s no other pirates inside this base after all…”

“I can handle myself, don’t worry about me.”

I gestured at the power armour, “Why don’t I just follow you in that? Could be a good opportunity for me to get used to it as well.”

“Hmm… Good point. Or are you just reluctant to leave me alone because you can’t stand the thought of being away from me? Ehehehe~”

“Well, you need someone to bail you out if things go wrong after all.”

She scoffed at my words but did not say anything to refute it.

I took that as a sign that she was waiting for me to start piloting the armour and climbed inside it, using my Codex to overwrite the ownership of the power armour to myself instead.

Well, this was quite a fruitful trip so far~