He only had one chance.

Dixon charged forward, ready to bring his fist down on her face and make her spit blood one final time. But his fist never made contact. She dodged to the side, grabbed his arm and twisted it around behind his back painfully.

She was strong, thanks to her augments, but he was still taller, and she was clearly in a bad shape. He jerked his elbow back and hit her chest. He could hear her make a choking sound, and whirled around. She stumbled backwards, and another shot rang out. This time, he was hit, but it was only his left arm. He could still beat her to death one-handed.

"Fuck my orders," he growled, "You're going down."

She stood before him bent over, spitting on the floor, and he made his move to blow out her lights for good. But then she raised her head again, and for a split second, their eyes met. She wore a wicked smile on her bloodied lips.

Because he killed me.

She blocked his fist with her hand as if it was nothing, gripping it so tightly that he could feel the bones in his fingers break one after the other. She forced his hand down and a scream of pain escaped him. She grabbed his other arm and dug her thumb into the bullet wound, and the flash of pain that surged through his body forced him down on his knees. He missed his augments. If he still had them, they would nsend a surge of adrenaline through his body that would keep him going. But now there was no surge of anything but pain, and nothing was left to keep him going.

Now on his knees, he looked up at the girl that had subdued him, and wondered what kind of chems were flowing through her body to get her fired up like that.

"Well, well," Amy Larsson said with a devious smile. "Looks like the tides have turned, asshole. You know what they say. You always meet twice in life."

"Twice?" he put forth, through teeth gritted in pain.

Because he killed me, her words echoed through his mind again.

"What's wrong, little bitch?" she sneered.

And suddenly, he remembered.

"You- you're that girl from Thanatos 3!" he realized, staring at her organic eye in disbelief. "The little scientist bitch whose rich boyfriend bought her corpse! I can't believe it, you were dead! How did you-"

"Shut it," she growled.

"No, I recognize you now!" he exclaimed, "How is that possible? You were dead! Deader than dead! Your head was fucking pulp!"

She punched him in the face, and he recoiled. He fell back and stumbled away from her, suddenly afraid on a very basal, fundamental level. This woman was dead. He had beaten her to death with his own hands, he had bashed in her skull and then broken the rest of her, just to relieve his anger at her words. Yet there she was, right before him, looking ready to return the favor.

"How is that possible?" he whispered.

"I have a bad habit of coming back from the dead to settle my scores," she hissed, and with one last punch, she did.

~ ~ ~

"Amy? Amy!"

She stood before the lifeless body of Lieutenant Dixon of Orion's Reach, and seemed completely catatonic. Phil grabbed her shoulders and shook her softly.

"Amy, dear?" he called her again. "Are you okay? All that blood..."

She snapped out of it and shook her head.

"Don't mind me," she said, "What about Becky? Nova? Ben?"

"Ben is dead..." Phil said in a low voice and wiped some stray tears from his eyes. "I always knew that day would come... But... I guess I had always thought I'd be the one to go first, because I was always the weak one."

Amy looked up at him, her face white as paper against all the blood smeared across it. The white part of her hair was dyed pinkish from it. Underneath the layer of grime and gore that seemed to cover her, she wore a compassionate smile that he had never seen from her before.

"You're not weak. You defended this place. You came back for us when Ben..."

She cast a glance over to the corner of the room and sighed.

"Well, what about the others, then?" she asked.

"Everyone made it out safe," Phil said. "Most people are leaving the planet, just in case..."

"I'm good, too," Nova called out from his cover behind the table. "I just... can't really move. I think they hit an artery. Would somebody kindly...?"

"I... I'll help him," Ed said, reluctantly leaving Becky behind to go over to Nova. She was pale and seemed unable to move her body, but she was alive and otherwise unharmed. She looked up at Amy wide-eyed and whispered, "Thank you."

Amy made a dismissive gesture and turned back around to look at the mess they had made.

"Now what should we do about them?" Phil asked beside her.

He counted five bodies. He had shot one himself, one had died during the first part of the skirmish with the scandroids. Amy had killed Dixon. The two youngest looking ones were lying in puddles of their own blood, but were still breathing. "You seemed familiar with that Lieutenant. Do you think they'll have backup?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't think so.. They came to Six alone, but I do think somebody will come looking for them eventually."

At her words, one of the bodies on the floor whimpered silently. She cocked her head to the side, and the expression on her face instantly reverted back to an expressionless mask.

"Hm. Interesting."

She walked up to the man, and squatted down next to him, her feet in a pool of his blood.

"Meyer, was it?"

He only sniveled in response.

"Do you think you can get up?"

"Please..." the Hunter whimpered. "I don't want to die... I don't... I just..."

"It's alright Meyer, don't worry about it," Amy said compassionately and patted his shoulder. "Come on, get up now. Sorry about your nose."

Meyer slowly got up into a sitting position. The lower half of his face and the jacket of his uniform were drenched in his blood, and his nose looked like he had walked into a wall. He stared up at Amy, then at Phil, then back at Amy.

"Please... I will do anything... just... please don't kill me..." he stammered.

"Well, what do you propose, Meyer?" she asked him.

"I... I yield! You can... you can take me hostage or whatever, you can keep me as a slave, I can... I can work here at the bar, I can work for you, I'll do anything you say!"

"Oh Meyer," Amy said and heaved a sigh. "Look at this place. It will take a while to rebuild, and you don't quite strike me as the type for construction work... besides, offering yourself as a slave? Seriously? Aren't you sick of all this? Sick of taking orders and doing other people's bidding?"

"Am I... what?" the young man stared at her, dumbfounded.

"Don't tell me you enjoyed coming here and getting your ass handed to you." She spoke to him in a soft voice, as if he was a child.

"I... I didn't," he said, sounding like he was about to cry.

"Don't tell me you enjoy hunting augments with those nasty contraptions of yours?"

"I... I don't!"

"Then why are you with Orion's Reach, Meyer?" she asked him and locked her gaze on him like a snake on a mouse, about to devour it.

He swallowed hard. "M-my.... my father told me... he told me... honor for the family... and..."

At his words, Amy suddenly burst into laughter.

"How honorable, to die at the hands of some covert augs in a dirty bar on a forgotten planet," she said, and gestured at the chaos and destruction around them.

"I... I never thought it would be like this..."

"Of course you didn't. You never do. You follow orders, and then, one day, you find out that perhaps you don't want to. But by then it's too late. You're already in too deep," she said.

Meyer nodded, averting his gaze.

"I have a proposition for you, Meyer," Amy said, and got back up on her feet. She stretched her hand out to him.

"You get a choice here today. You can walk out of this. You can go back to your shuttle, back to your ship, and back to your superiors. You can tell them that you found nothing on Six, but you were attacked and ambushed by a group of raiders who captured and tortured you, and killed your less fortunate colleagues. You only made it out because Sergeant What's-His-Face over there heroically saved you by throwing himself in harm's way to allow you to get away and report back."

Meyer gulped and remained silent for a few seconds. "A-and... the other option?"

Amy Larsson cracked a grin that made the man before her shiver.

"Alternatively, you get to die an honorable death at the hand of a covert aug in a dirty bar on a forgotten planet."

For a second, the man seemed to hesitate, but then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he took Amy's hand and she pulled him up to his feet.

"I'll do it."

"Good," she said. "Now strip."

"E-excuse me?"

"You heard me right."

~ ~ ~

An hour later, Amy Larsson stood in front of the entrance of the Backside, leaning against the wall under a little porch roof and stared up at the rainy sky. A bundle of clothes, drenched in blood, rain water and mud rested on the floor next to her. Nova stepped out and walked up to her. She didn't seem to take any notice of him as he leaned against the wall next to her, careful to go easy on his freshly bandaged shoulder. He looked at her for a long moment, then he followed her gaze.

"They even parked in a red zone. Can you believe it," Amy remarked.

"Assholes," Nova commented and shook his head in disdain.

Together, they watched in silence as the small grey shuttlecraft ascended through the pouring rain.

"Do you think he'll keep his promise?" Nova asked her.

The Hunter named Meyer had left alone. In the end, his colleague with the broken jaw had choked on his blood while unconscious, so he was the only survivor of Orion's Reach. Meyer hadn't shed one tear for his fallen comrades.

"I don't know. I think so, but..." She paused for a moment. "Either way. Six will never be the same. It's no longer safe. Without Ben-"

"Amy," Nova interrupted. "Thanks."

She turned to look at him, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"For saving my hide back there. I owe you one," he elaborated.

"Oh. Well. You better remember that," she said flatly. "I will take you up on it someday."

"I'm counting on it," he said and smiled.

They both fell silent again, while the rain continued to loudly beat against the metal roofs of the Town.

"What about you?" Nova finally said in a soft voice. "Did you have somebody have a look at your wounds?"

"I'm fine," she just said.

"No you're not. You were coughing up blood all over the place back there."

"You saw that?" she asked and raised an eye brow. "I thought you were behind cover and couldn't move."

"Hm," he hummed. "Let's just say, I don't need an Augur to tell me that you are not okay."

For a moment, they looked at each other in silence.

"Whatever," she said and shrugged. "I'm gonna head back out now."

"Right now? But they want to have a funeral for Ben once the sodden stops," he said.

"I don't think I should be there."

"I think Phil would want you to."

She shook her head softly and looked at the muddy floor. "Still... I don't..."

Nova put a hand on her shoulder, and even he seemed surprised for a split second that she didn't just shrug it off, or jump at his throat.

"Amy... you know that this is not your fault, right?" he asked her.

"Is it really not?" she asked back, staring up at him.

"It isn't," he insisted, but the look on her face made it clear that she didn't quite believe him.

"Besides, there's nothing to be gained from dwelling on what happened. We bury our dead, and we get to live another day. We get to rebuild. Might even use some of that scandroid tech to come up with a surveillance system. Fucking parking offenders are seriously getting out of hand." He flashed her a sardonic grin. "So... it's over now."

A hint of smile appeared on her face, but she shook her head softly. Then she patted his healthy arm, and picked up her bundle.

"No, Nova," she said as she stepped out into the rain, ready to leave.

"This isn't over. It has barely begun."