As the battered but intact War Bus rolled back into NCR territory, its hull still sizzling with leftover void energy, President Kimball stepped out—alive, shaken, and very much aware that the world had shifted.
General Oliver, bruised, bandaged, and fuming, approached with a cadre of surviving NCR brass. The soldiers stood straighter at the sight of Kimball, though their eyes often flicked to Six and his crew like they were looking at something just short of a living myth.
Kimball offered a stiff nod to Oliver.
"General. The mission was a success."
Oliver glanced at the still-clouded skyline, and the twisted husk of a Zetan warship strewn like a broken god across the valley.
"Define success."
He growled, voice low.
Boone stepped off the ramp behind Six, rifle slung casually across his shoulder.
"You're alive. They're not. Simple math."
Oliver turned his glare to Six, who returned to his base form.
"You leveled the battlefield, vaporized alien tech—our potential tech. We were supposed to secure that. NCR could've reverse-engineered it."
Cassidy leaned against the bus with a smirk.
"Reverse-engineer it? You barely survived it."
Six didn't flinch.
"You want the wreckage? Take it. It's already yours anyway."
Oliver narrowed his eyes.
"You're just going to give us the Zetan wrecks? Why?"
Six tapped his temple, and a faint glow shimmered across his eyes—the soft flicker of his power dancing in the irises.
"In return, the NCR will make me the Senator of Nevada. I will be the man who brings the entire Mojave region into the NCR government. Additionally, I will utilize my family's merchant company to supply food to all NCR territories and assist Kimball in getting reelected as president."
Six said, hiding the fact that everything his Eyes of the Spirit scanned. Every piece. Every byte of alien data. Every strand of energy. He could recreate it with his Creation ability.
Oliver looked like he had bitten into a lemon. Hard.
"A Senator?"
He spat.
"You're not even an NCR citizen. You've run independent, rogue operations, upset our command structure, made half our officers feel obsolete—"
Kimball cut him off with a raised hand. His voice was low, calm, but carried the weight of a man who had seen death from orbit.
"He saved my life, General. And everyone else's. Including yours."
Oliver clenched his jaw, clearly biting back something more venomous. But Kimball wasn't finished.
"And he's offering to do what we've failed to do for years: stabilize the Mojave. Feed our people. Integrate a region that's been slipping through our fingers since the Dam."
Six said nothing. He didn't need to.
The silence between words was weightier than any threat.
Kimball turned toward him, voice more political now—measured and deliberate.
"Senator of Nevada. Mojave integration. Your family's company becomes an official supplier to NCR territories. In exchange, you support my reelection campaign?"
Six nodded once.
"And."
Kimball continued.
"you'll maintain your... more discreet operations to keep threats like this from ever blindsiding us again?"
Six gave a small smirk.
"You get reelected. NCR thrives. I get to keep my people safe, my territory autonomous, and your enemies nervous."
Kimball extended a hand.
"Then it's done."
Six clasped it, and a sudden pulse of unseen power flashed through their grip—a silent oath, a contract not just signed in ink but woven into fate.
Behind them, Oliver muttered a curse and stormed off, barking orders at his men to start salvage operations, than blinked, visibly rattled as he regained Six's attention.
"And General."
Six continued, walking past him.
"I don't hoard. Let your techs dig around in what's left. Play empire. Patch together plasma cannons if it makes you feel safer."
He stopped, then turned just enough to glance over his shoulder.
"But remember this, Oliver. The first time you think about turning that tech on my people? I'll know. The eyes are always watching."
Rebecca stepped out behind him, arms crossed and unimpressed.
"And I don't let my husband take on armies alone anymore."
Oliver muttered something under his breath, but Kimball raised a hand.
"That's enough, General. We owe them more than we can repay. Let them go."
Six gave a slight nod.
"We were already gone."
Cassidy watched him go, then flicked her cigarette.
"Hell of a time to be in politics."
Boone just muttered.
"Hope they know what they're agreeing to."
Rebecca stepped out of the bus, arms crossed, her expression sly and satisfied.
"They don't. But they will."
Six turned his eyes back toward the Mojave, the wind tugging at the edge of his coat like a war banner returning from the front.
With the NCR's recognition now official, and the power to reshape the political landscape of the West in his hands, Six didn't just win a battle.
The War Bus revved to life, lifting from the snowed ground as it headed back toward their next location, then next to Goodsprings, the NCR forces watched the bus rear slowly fade into the distance.
In the weeks that followed, NCR scientists picked through the wreckage and reverse-engineered what little they could—primitive by comparison. Meanwhile, Six stood deep within his Vault with an over-enthusiastic Lloyd Asplund, hands outstretched, as matter obeyed his will. Zetan blasters, cloaking tech, ship cores—all reconstructed perfectly. Enhanced.
Though Six now had to deal with Lloyd humping all the Zetan tech.
Lloyd squealed as a shimmering plasma core snapped into existence in front of him with a high-pitched vrrrm, bathing the Vault chamber in eerie green light.
"Boss! BOSS! It's beautiful! The anti-grav module alone could replace six nuclear microgenerators! And—and the phase modulator— Cécile, Nina, look at this! LOOK!"
He lunged toward the tech, hands outstretched like a child on Christmas morning.
Spritz!
A jet of water hit him square in the face.
"Down, boy."
Cécile sighed, standing with her usual calm air as she held up the water bottle like a pistol.
"You're going to short-circuit something. Or mount it. Again."
Nina, beside her, gave Lloyd a narrowed look over her glasses and muttered.
"And we just got the stabilizers dry after the last incident..."
The Earl of Puddingl, draped over a workbench with a Zetan fusion rod balanced precariously on its back like a makeshift saddle, meowed with distant judgment.
Six stood nearby, arms folded, faintly amused as he watched Lloyd drip on the reinforced floor and squeal in triumph anyway. Around him, his creation fields buzzed and twisted, converting thoughts and scanned schematics into reality—whole Zetan engine segments, interstellar armor plating, even cloaking fields that rippled in and out of visibility like smoke on glass.
To anyone else, this would be madness.
To Six?
It was Tuesday.
He looked over at Viktor, who was calmly drafting blueprints for modular Vertibird upgrades nearby, occasionally glancing at the alien tech like it was simply the next logical step after nuclear-powered farm bots.
Behind them, the deeper levels of the Vault pulsed with life—engineers, droids, Brotherhood trainees, and even settlers now moved with purpose and unity. Alien tech being integrated into everyday function. Farming drones with Zetan energy cells. Medical beds that healed fractures in minutes. Batteries that lasted decades.
Cécile's voice snapped him from thought.
"By the way, Sir."
She said, tilting her head.
"We're almost ready to run simulated starship tests in Sector C. The cloaking mesh works with the gravity plating, but the atmospheric containment might still be a little... volatile."
Nina adjusted her glasses, tapping a holopad.
"And we need another session with Lloyd's DNA. Zetan biology might be more compatible than expected. Also, your children might inherit some... enhancements."
Lloyd, still panting, perked up at that.
"MY children are gonna have Zetan gene overlays?! I AM THE APEX SCIENTIST!"
Spritz!
Another squirt.
Six smirked faintly as the tech behind him shimmered, the beginnings of a starship engine warping into being.
"Focus, Lloyd. First we finish upgrading the Vault. Then…"
He turned slightly, voice low, a storm in his tone.
"Then we reshape Earth's position in the stars."
Because the Zetans had come expecting to conquer a broken planet.
What they got instead… was the future's architect.
And he was just getting started.