Six

by Matteoarts

It's been years since the fall of Spyglass. Ships are being attacked by an unknown entity, and the only link they have is the number six. As Gray and her team of 'Ghosts' attempt to connect the pieces of the puzzle, they begin to unravel a dark plot spanning decades. They must race to discover answers, knowing that what they find will change the frontier forever.

18. Primus Inter Pares

There was a moment of silence among the Ghosts, all staring at the hole in the Imperator's hull, tongues of flame licking its edges.

"Well ... shit," Danvers said numbly.

Husher didn't say anything, very clearly speechless in reaction to Ava's sacrifice. Tobias seemed rather confused by his surroundings, simply trying to adapt as best he could, but Vogel was the most focused as he pointed to the air around them. "Gray!"

Several ships of the fleet were approaching their position on the top of the Imperator. While they didn't fire, their bottoms opened up and began deploying more of the half-armored soldiers-the Insos. The Insos poured forth, landing on the hull and drawing chrome daggers and axes, looking several centuries out of place, before charging at the Ghosts with furious intent.

"Ghosts, go weapons-free!" Gray ordered, pulling free her G2 from her back and lining up one of the Inso's in her HCOG scope. One pull of the trigger and he was falling on his face in a spray of blood. The issue was that there were immediately another three Insos who took his place, and now they were closer. Like a torrential flood, the Insos surrounded them on all sides and sprinted towards them.

Vogel was beside her in a second, spinning up his Devotion light machine gun and laying down a stream of covering fire. Danvers and Husher worked together on the oppsoite side, Danvers picking off enemies at range with his Longbow DMR and Husher using a CAR SMG to eliminate the targets that did get close.

"Give me a weapon," Tobias coughed. Gray reached to her side and pulled free her sidearm, a B3 Wingman, and tossed it to him. He braced the handgun carefully against the back of his left wrist, keeping it remarkably stable as he fired in spite of his weakened state.

Insos fell dead all around them, expressions barely changing as bullets and energy projectiles ripped through their ranks and tore open their bodies. Many kept charging forward, managing several meters before their heart finally stopped, all in an effort to drive a knife into the group of Pilots they were hellbent on taking Tobias back from.

"They're fanatical!" Husher shouted, grabbing one by the throat that had gotten too close and slamming him down, crushing his neck. Even still, the Inso drove his blade into Husher's metal shoulder before he died. The simulacrum pulled the knife free and flung it back at the masses of Insos. "That's the second damn knife I've taken today!"

"Keep firing!" Gray ordered. "So long as Tobias is here, the ships won't dare fire on us!"

That was the plan, anyhow. Keep Tobias away from the Advocate, use him to disincentivize more drastic measures. And despite how overwhelming the Insos' numbers were, it seemed possible.

And then a blur flew by and Tobias was gone.

VI

Six had been engaged with Alastor suited up in LE-5, trying to lead him away from the ship with Four while the others stole Tobias away from it. He'd heard Gray's order to come back, though he hadn't been able to respond given the intense focus required of his and Alastor's combat. And then he'd heard the whole exchange over the comms between Gray, Husher, the Advocate and Ava.

And now, still flying in the sky and fighting Alastor, he could see the gaping, flaming hole in the Imperator where Ava had just crashed the Horizon through its hull.

In an instant, Alastor adjusted his trajectory and began rocketing towards the point of impact and the very visible squad of Pilots fighting atop the Imperator's hull. Six chased after him, twisting and turning through the air in an effort to catch up, but Ellie's systems weren't fast enough to compete with LE-5's. Allastor streaked right through the middle of the group, yanking Tobias away as he passed and carrying him along in flight. An instant later, Alastor disappeared down into the hole of carnage left by Ava's sacrificial impact.

Six slowed to a stop next to the Ghosts, and began laying down covering fire alongside them, cutting down the Insos. Gray spun around. "What just happened? Where's Tobias?"

"Alastor took him!" Six answered. He hurriedly began ushering them all towards the same hole in the hull. "Go, go! You can't stay here, the ships will start to fire!"

Other Inso-controlled ships were approaching, and their forward guns were all angling in preparation to take a shot, other Inso lives be damned. Seeing that Six was right, Gray waved to the other Ghosts. "Move, move, get below deck!"

They all ran from their location which was overrun within seconds of them leaving it. Sprinting to the edge of the hole, there was a moment's hesitation before they were jumping into it blindly, smoke and debris clouding any sight of what awaited them below.

The Ghosts aimed for what walls they could see, using their jump kits to slide down and jump from surface to surface in the hot, fiery pit that the Horizon had left in its wake. Behind them, they could hear the howls of the Insos who jumped after them, their bodies hitting debris and slamming against the side walls, becoming entangled or impaled in the wreckage.

Gray landed on a loose panel, and the whole thing slid sideways, sending her tumbling down into darkness. She was falling through smoke and darkness-and then something caught her by the ankle, and she looked up to see the Six's optics as he flew the rest of the way down the hole, making it to the bottom where he dropped her gently on the ground. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she waved him off. The other Ghosts landed moments later, worried faces turning to relief when they saw she was okay. "We need to get Tobias back-"

"I'll take care of that," Six said. "but none of us are getting out of here without a ship. Find one, take control of it. Shouldn't be too hard, considering where we are."

The Ghosts glanced around the interior of the massive ship for the first time. It was clear they were in a shipyard or hangar of some sort, though unlike any they'd ever seen. Sand covered the floors entirely, decorative pillars of alabaster stone rising from beneath and marking pathways. Ships rested atop the dunes of sand like it were a dockyard on the surface of a planet, and the lighting was dark aside from the one exit to the hangar leading out into the daylight of Loki.

"Alright," Gray conceded. "Go. We'll take care of the ship." Six left without another word, opting not to use his suit's thrusters, but instead sprint away quietly and stick stealthily to the shadows.

"Danvers," she said, turning around. "You trained in operating enemy aircraft, didn't you?"

"I'd like to point out that it was a theoretical course done in the safety of flight instructors," Danvers said, "but yes."

"Then it looks like you're taking lead. Let's find you a ship so you can get it working."

VI

"Six, I can feel your heartrate spiking. What do you have planned?"

"Something pretty risky," he admitted to Ellie. "Alastor will be taking Four to the Advocate. We can't allow them to leave if the handoff goes through, so I need you to take care of something for me."

In a fluid motion, he popped open the seals on Ellie's armor and stepped out onto the sandy floor, turning back to her. "You know this place as well as I do, maybe better. The ship's taken some damage, but not enough. Take the main reactor offline, make some noise. We need them to think you're me, and you need to take this ship down."

"What about you?" she asked.

He bobbed his head deeper into the hangar where they knew the palace was. "I'll use the distraction to get Four back. But to do that, I need the Insos off my back. Hence the distraction."

"I don't like the idea of you being by yourself." She let out a sigh. "But okay. Stay safe, Six. Please."

He smiled. "You too, Ellie. What would I do without my best friend?"

The Nomad stepped over to him, looking down at him, and placed her arms around him in a brief hug before releasing him and flying off in the direction of the main reactor. He drew the concealed Wingman Elite he kept at his side and made his way across the dunes to where he guessed the handing off of Tobias would take place.

VI

"Any luck?" Husher asked, dragging the last of the Inso corpses into a side closet-what remained of the crew they'd snuck up in this ship.

"It's not exactly easy trying to learn the operating system of a ship from a faction that's developed its own technology for however many decades isolated from the rest of the galaxy!" Danvers hissed, overexplaining as he tended to do when agitated. "Give me a damn minute!"

"You've had a minute, now hurry and is hunk of metal in the air, or we're all dead-"

There was a soft hum of energy throughout the hull as the thrusters came to life. "I did it!" Danvers exclaimed, half excitement and half sheer relief in his voice.

Gray tapped his shoulder encouragingly with a closed fist. "Knew you could. Now, we're just waiting on Six and Ellie-"

A crackle of static came through the ship's radio transceiver. "-espond immediately."

"Is it one of theirs?" Vogel whispered. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything-!"

Before Danvers could finish protesting, the message repeated. "Repeat, this Amelia Vale, former leader of the FDN, hailing Ghosts on an open channel. Priority one. Respond immediately."

Gray immediately lifted her hand up to her helmet, reaching out to the sender on a more secure link between comms. "Vale? What are you doing here? How did you know-"

"Oi, you didn't expect me to leave my team without backup, did you?"

She'd never been so happy to hear that South African accent in her life. "Blisk, it's Gray. I can confirm that Four has returned, we're currently aboard the flagship of the fleet."

"The big bastard down there? Our own ships are moving in, been attempting to hail the fleet down there."

"They won't respond, it's the Advocate's fleet. We've been engaged with them, and have taken control of an enemy aircraft to evacuate Four once he's been retrieved."

Vale came back on, and her follow-up question was quick and to the point. "What do you need?"

VI

Peering over a dune, Six saw the palace. A legion of Insos between him and it, but they weren't what he was focused on. At the end of a stone path leading to the palace, on the steps themselves, Alastor was handing Four off to an unmistakable figure surrounded by an entourage of Inso honor guards-the Advocate.

"My Advocate," Alastor said, his voice carrying all the way over to Six with devotion. "I bring you your prodigal son."

Tobias was released, dropping to his knees in front of the Advocate. "I don't know who the hell you people are, but ... but ..." His voice died in his throat as he looked up at the Advocate for the first time and saw their face-his own face. The similarities between the two were stunning, just as Six knew they would be to even his own face as well. You might mistake them for brothers were it not for the lines of age in the Advocate's forehead and cheeks, the streaks of silver running through his hair, and the most notable difference-his deep brown eyes, in sharp contrast to the stark blue ones both Four and Six had.

"Welcome home, Four," the Advocate said softly, and yet it was so quiet that his voice could be heard with perfect clarity. "I've long missed you since that surrogate stole you away for yourself. A new chapter of our lives-yours and mine-will begin soon." The Advocate knelt down, taking a long look into Tobias' face. "You possess the Codex, and thus have unknowingly prepared the means for me to take possession of it."

"If you think I'm going to just give you the Codex-"

"No, quite the opposite. I'm going to take it for myself. Very soon, I shall cast off this body which has lasted me so well in favor of your own. Immortality must come at a price, I'm afraid, which you will pay. The procedure is efficient-my brain, enriched by the younger bodies it inhabits, will now inhabit your own body. You will be relegated to a passenger in your own body, only able to watch through my eyes in a subconscious state." The Advocate smiled, looking at Tobias' eyes. "It's the one imperfect thing about the cloning process, your eye pigments don't develop further than a newborn's. Don't worry-they'll be replaced with my own soon enough," he said, gesturing to his own brown eyes.

Tobias simply looked horrified and without a proper response to what had just been revealed to him, but the Advocate didn't wait for one. "Get him on his feet. I want us out of this system immediately before-"

As if on cue, a series of explosions began to rumble through the hull from a distance away. Good job, Ellie, Six thought to himself.

The Advocate's jaw tightened, one of the only signs of anger Six had observed in him. He waved his hand to the legion of Insos. "It seems the core is under attack, and of Six's doing. Dispose of him if you must. We will depart immediately upon repair of the core."

To hear his life thrown so callously away by someone he'd admired his whole life stung, but Six tried not to let it get to him. Instead, he hunkered down behind the dune until he was sure the Insos had departed, then vaulted over the dune and began making his way toward the palace. There were service elevators that ran in long tubes from just inside its walls to the top of the ship, just underneath the hull. There, Six knew that the Advocate could dig in securely and await word that the core had been repaired, or even call for evac from an Inso ship. He couldn't allow him to get away like that.

But as he was ascending the palace steps, there was a burst of thruster noise from behind him, and he felt himself get yanked backwards and thrown down to the bottom of the stairs. He scrabbled back up to see Alastor staring him down, still suited up in LE-5. Without Ellie, Six would have no chance.

Six threw his hands up. "Alastor, wait-"

Alastor threw a punch that knocked Six on his back, pain radiating from his ribs. "You shouldn't have come back, my pupil," Alastor said gravely, and there was genuine sadness there in his voice. "The first time you escaped me, you could have lived free. You could have led a good life."

Six shook with the effort, but he continued holding his hands up and stood back up, favoring his injured side. "Please. We both know that the Advocate was always going to kill me. You knew that-but you can't have always wanted that for me."

Alastor said nothing. He simply raised his arm, a gun barrel extending from the forearm.

Six steadied himself, not shying away. "Nothing I ever did was good enough for him. But you-you were proud of me. And I think-I think I needed that more than I thought I did. You were closer to me than he ever was. So I'm begging you now Alastor-please don't do this."

The gun barrel remained raised. But it did not fire. Alastor seemed to consider-his helmet split open, revealing his face. It was hard, and stony-but conflicted. "I do not have a choice, Six-"

"Yes you do," Six argued. "I thought I didn't have one either, but I did. We always have a choice. Sometimes, you just need someone to help you see it."

They stared at one another in silence. Alastor's arm shook ever so slightly, and the barrel began to spin.

"You can be free of him Alastor," Six pleaded. "We can be free-both of us. You don't have to kill me."

"Six, I must obey—"

"You don't. Let me go. Let me save Four-and we can leave here together. As friends." Six felt an unexpected lump in his throat, realizing just how close he'd felt to Alastor growing up, closer even than his own father.

He remembered those harsh training sessions, being struck squarely with Bo staffs and swept off his feet-but also the tender moments, where Alastor had helped him up and bandaged his wounds, taught him proper form so that he would avoid mistakes in the future. He saw the warm smiles, an expression the Advocate never gave to Six, and hoped to see one now.

Several tense seconds of waiting and silence ensued. All around them, Six and Alastor could hear the sound of explosions as complications from the failing core rippled through the ship. There was a shaking in the ground now, grains of sand shifting and sliding down the dunes-without the core, the ship would have to rely on backup systems to remain in the air, but it seemed they were having a hard time with that. Creaking metal reverberated through the air.

Alastor's brow pinched, his arm wavered-and then he let out a sigh, lowering his arm. Six could hardly believe it-his stoic mentor, perhaps the most dedicated of all the Advocate's loyalists, was letting him go. Alastor barely managed to meet his eyes, but there was the slightest uptick at the corners of his mouth. "I guess I was right, in a way. I did teach you to be better."

For a moment, they shared a heartfelt silence. Then a cool feminine voice accused, "Traitor. Primus Inter Pares."

In an instant, Alastor's faceplate sealed itself up, his face turning horrified for the fraction of a second that Six could still see it. His limbs locked in place, and a muffled screaming could be heard as a white-hot glow emitted from the seams of his armor, and blood began to seep through.

"ALASTOR!" Six shouted, but there was nothing he could do. A moment later, LE-5 opened her chassis and Alastor's charred, blackened corpse tumbled out and curled in on itself, sporting puncture wounds matching that of several blade-like protrusions that he could see on the inside of LE-5's suit.

"You didn't think the Advocate wouldn't have failsafes in place, did you? After the disloyalty shown to him in the past?" LE-5 murmured, a sinister edge to her voice taking over. "I assure you, he has no tolerance for such notions."

Six tried to get around her-Four was still being taken with the Advocate to the service elevator-but LE-5 easily caught him and lifted him off the ground. A blade protruded from one forearm. "The Advocate has no need for you any longer," she crowed. "He has a superior model now."

She drove the blade forward, and he twisted in her grasp, kicking enough to offset her aim. The tip of the blade scored a deep gash in his side, tearing through his suit and skin beneath. He took hold of the pain and compartmentalized it, using what momentum he'd gained from the kick to angle his body and bring one arm up holding his Wingman Elite. He fired into the arm holding him until one of her servos failed, and she released him. He tried to dart away, but she was simply too quick for him and kicked him to the floor.

He groaned, holding his bloody side with one hand and reaching for his sidearm with the other, but LE-5 knocked it away with a backhand slap, the gun skittering out of reach. She leveled a gun barrel at him, and he watched it spin up. "Any last words, Six?"

"Yeah." He grinned a bloody smile. "You're still a cheap knockoff compared to Ellie."

LE-5's optics narrowed. "I look forward to working with your replacement. Goodbye, Six."

Just as she fired, a white and gold mass slammed into LE-5 and knocked her to the ground. Six leapt away from the point of collision, shielding himself as the writhing mass on the ground threw out bits of metal and paint before separating, LE-5 on one side, and Ellie on the other between her and Six.

"Let me handle her," Ellie said, waving Six away. "The Advocate still has Four-go!"

There was a time that he would have argued, wanting to stay and protect Ellie. But he had to trust in her just as she had to trust in him-and besides, there was a glint in her optics that told him she really wanted to tear out LE-5's circuitry with her bare hands. He grabbed his gun from where it had fallen and scrambled to his feet, leaving the two Nomads to their duel.

"Looking for a rematch, sister?" LE-5 taunted, steadying her arms to each side.

Ellie punched one fist into her other waiting palm. "If I remember, you ran from that fight."

"Like you would have survived. I'm an upgrade to you in every way."

Ellie crouched low. "Don't fuck with the original. Bitch."

The two Nomads launched at one another and began spinning about in the air and crashing across the ground, each fighting with blatant intent to brutally annihilate the other. Six could hear sparks erupting from each clash of their chassis as he vaulted the steps up into the palace, running to where he knew the service elevators would be.

As he skidded around one corner of the ivory floor, however, he saw that he was too late. The cylindrical shaft that traveled from the interior of the palace to the top of the Imperator was shut, its transparent walls allowing him to see that it was already traveling upward, far overhead.

"Shit." Six sprinted up the stairs of the palace and braced himself as he spotted an open window and leapt through it, turning and climbing up the spires of the palace, using his own jump-kit to bound higher to each handhold. Eventually, however, he reached a stopping point and glanced back at the shaft-the elevator was still out of rich, slowly and steadily rising up, the Advocate and Tobias clearly visible inside with the latter surrounded by honor guard Insos.

"This would be a lot simpler if I could just fly up there," Six growled to himself, but Ellie was buying him time right now. He had to think, he couldn't just scale the sheer shaft in time-

An explosion blossomed on the underside of the hull, far above. Against its bright backdrop, he could see several dark silhouettes whizzing by-repair drones. Each was flying in formation, carrying construction panels and materials to immediately begin reparations to the hull and core, as the Advocate had commanded. He now saw hundreds of them flying through the air, focused on their task-including right over the palace and steadily climbing higher.

Forming a new plan, he took a running start and leaped off the edge of the palace spire as one of the repair drones flew by. He braced his legs, landing sideways on the wall replacement panel it carried, and breaking into a slanted run. He quickly reached the end of its length and jumped again to an adjacent panel carried by another drone, a bit higher this time.

He had to get higher. When he ran out of space on this panel, he spun in the air and used his jump-kit to propel himself up, just barely grabbing the edge of another drone's panel with his fingertips and hoisting himself up onto its top, balancing precariously before continuing in his upward ascension as speedily as he could. Meter by meter, he jumped and wall-ran through the air with the flow of the drones, picking each target along his path to the elevator shaft, moving to cut it off. A hundred feet in the air now, and he was close enough. He jumped onto a free flying drone without a panel, grabbing it and using it to swing himself towards the shaft just as the elevator was rising to meet him.

Feet first, he smashed through the wall of the shaft and immediately was on the offensive. The Advocate shielded his eyes as the Insos charged forward and Tobias was knocked to the floor in the commotion. Six fired at one Inso and dropped him immediately, but the other Inso swung their arm, knocked the gun aaway, and pressed him to the wall, immediately following with a hooking motion whereupon Six felt a sharp piercing pain. Six kicked out with both feet and sent the Inso reeling out of the hole he'd crashed through, falling to their death down below.

Six reached down to see the Inso's dagger in his side, pulling it out with haste as he just managed to get it out before a fist slammed into the side of his head. The Advocate was fighting him now, unleashing blow after blow upon him with dangerous precision. Six had almost forgotten the very reason why he'd been born-so that his paired clone, Five, could be harvested for needed organs while Six would be trained and his body honed for the Advocate to one day possess it. The Advocate clearly had done the same with the body he currently occupied, as it took everything Six had to match the Advocate's ferocity and counter his moves.

Sidestep, adjust footing.

The Advocate missed a punch and Six slammed his elbow into the man's face.

Press the advantage.

He backed the Advocate against the wall of the elevator, giving him little room to move.

Change stance, block.

He swapped positions again, sowing further confusion in the Advocate's mind, and prepared himself for a blow with the dagger in hand.

End it-

As he'd driven the dagger forward, the Advocate grabbed it and pulled hard, exchanging spots as now Six was the one against the wall, yanked the dagger away and buried it between the bones of Six's forearm, pinning him there.

"You thought to best me? Me?" the Advocate asked incredulously. "I've been fighting since before you were an idea in my head, Six. The only true power is knowledge, and knowledge is me-"

A pair of hands wrapped around the Advocate as Tobias leapt atop him, trying to pull him off of Six. The two men fell to the floor of the elevator all while it continued to ascend, and Six watched helplessly, unable to join in.

The Advocate quickly turned his attention to Tobias, shaking free the weakened man and delivering a swift kick. Six looked around for any way to help, felt his searching hand touch his fallen gun on the ground. But what good would it do? Even if he shot the Advocate now, the elevator would be nearing the top of the ship, and more Insos would be waiting to take him and Tobias-

The elevator. Six glanced up and behind himself through the transparent glass, saw the cables that kept the elevator to the bracketed shaft it climbed up. With no other options left to him, he lifted the Wingman Elite, took aim at one of the cables, and fired.

The reaction was immediate. The bullet tore through the wall and severed the cable, and the elevator stopped-then immediately began sliding back down the shaft at breakneck speed. The Advocate was knocked off Tobias by the jolt, and then they were all holding on for dear life as the elevator raced towards the bottom.

Down below, Six could just make out the sight of more repair drones zooming past the elevator in search of a task. He aimed in their general direction and fired again and again and again-

One of his marks hit true, and a repair drone flew out of formation, losing control of itself and crashing into the shaft below the elevator. The resulting explosion shook the elevator to its core, and then derailed it entirely. Six felt tearing in his arm as the dagger holding him to the wall was dislodged, and then he, the Advocate, and Tobias were all thrown from the elevator as it careened off track, and all Six saw around him was bits of metal and glass.

There was a second or two of terrifying free fall, and then the hardest whumpf he'd ever felt and heard as he crashed down the side of a sand dune and skidded to a stop at its base. His whole body felt like it was on fire-he was bleeding internally, he knew that much.

Four. Get to Four.

Unsteadily, he forced himself to his feet. He looked for his gun or the dagger through blurry vision, but didn't see either. What he did see was the wreckage of the elevator shaft, strewn about the hangar, with fires raging all around the dunes. Where were the Advocate and Tobias?

A grunt of pain. Six hurried himself, limping towards the noise. Walking around a flaming box of storage crates, Six saw the scene before him; the Advocate, bloody cuts covering his face and body, and Tobias looking much the same way. The Advocate held Tobias to the ground with one foot on his neck, slowly crushing his windpipe.

"All this destruction," the Advocate panted, gesturing his arms wide to the flaming hangar of the Imperator, "and for what? Did you think I wouldn't accomplish my goal?" His boot pressed harder into Tobias' neck, and Six moved forward, but the Advocate held him back with a dagger-the Inso's dagger. "You're in worse shape than I am, Six. Surely you recognize a lost fight when you see it?"

It was true, Six was losing too much blood. The patches of his suit on his arm and sides were stained red, dripping his life into the sand. He'd be no match in hand to hand for the Advocate in his state.

"My Insos will arive any minute," the Advocate commanded. "Four and I will be one. You can't stop it, Six."

The barest bit of movement beneath the Advocate caught Six's eye, but not the Advocate's. He was too focused on Six, his expression one of total superiority. "You may share my blueprint. But only I can be immortal—"

With the last of his strength, Tobias threw the Wingman that Gray had given him to Six who caught it and snapped his aim to the Advocate in an instant. One shot rang out, taking the Advocate in the gut and knocking him back. Lying on the ground, Six's second shoot took him in the leg, blowing out his knee and eliciting a howl of agony.

Tobias crawled away from the Advocate, gasping for breath, while Six limped towards him. The Advocate gritted his teeth, looking away from his wounds to meet Six's eyes. For the first time in his life, Six saw fear in those eyes.

"Six, no!" the Advocate commanded, trying to keep his voice steady. "I command you—you cannot do this! You owe me your life, you owe everything to me—"

"I owe allegiance to no man. No regime. No doctrine," Six said, repeating the wisdom the Advocate had imparted on him since he'd taken his first steps. "You told me knowledge is power. But you also said compassion is weakness. You were wrong—these past days, I've been shown compassion when I didn't deserve it. And you're wrong—it's not weakness, it's strength.

The Advocate glared him down. "Every breath you take, every strength you claim, it all comes from me. You're my legacy, but will never have one of your own. You'll never escape this path I built for you."

"We are alike," Six conceded. "Maybe too much alike." He lifted the gun. "But I'm also what you'll never be."

"Without me, you're nothing!" the Advocate spat.

"No. Without you, I'm better."

There was an ear-splitting bang, and the Advocate's head snapped back before falling limp as his body slumped onto the sand, blood dribbling out of the hole in his forehead.

Tobias' head twisted around to see the corpse, but he made no comment. Six stayed silent, unsure of what he could say in the wake of killing the closest thing he had to a parent. Eventually, he worked past the mental block in his head and settled on, "Goodbye, father."

The sound of feet cresting the dune caught his attention, and he turned to see Insos lining the dune above, overlooking him and Tobias. They stared down with nonplussed expressions, the Advocate's corpse the center of their focus.

Six grabbed the Advocate's collar, lifting the body and then dropping it again for emphasis. "Your debts are paid. Go home to Imperium. Leave with your families. You're free."

Perhaps it was the fact that the Advocate was very clearly dead and not getting back up, or maybe it was the fact that he looked himself like the Advocate and that carried some kind of subliminal authority to them. But the Insos dispersed without incident, and Six and Tobias were left to themselves once again.

"I'm really glad that worked," Six said, releasing a breath. "If they'd wanted it, we'd both be dead."

Tobias was staring up at him with more than a little confusion. Six extended a hand to him, helping him up. "I know it's been a long day for you, but you'll have to bear with it a little longer. Promise to explain later. Right now, I need you to get to Gray and the others. They should have a ship waiting to take off by now." He took out the transceiver from his helmet and handed it to Tobias. "Use this to stay in contact with them."

Tobias obeyed, plugging the transceiver into the side of his own battered helmet, the visor half shattered. "What about you?"

Six turned towards the dunes of the hangar, Wingman hanging at his side. "My best friend's still out there. I'm not leaving without her."