“Suit trail’s faint,” Riven muttered over comms, helmet light cutting under a twisted van. “Last ping shows him near the blast crater. His reserves are at nine percent—assuming the mask isn’t cooked.”
“No signal on our end,” Roy answered. “We’ll link up with you.”
Nera swept her optics across slabs of broken concrete and rebar. HUD icons tagged heat signatures, debris, unstable walls—none of them him.
Why did you charge that thing alone?
The image of him standing in front of the Ripper, empty-eyed and unflinching, pressed like a bruise behind her ribs.
“Suit’s down to seven,” Riven grumbled. “Spores are scrambling tracking. Rat—”
“Don’t call him that,” Nera snapped before she could stop herself.
Roy crouched beside Riven, rifle hooked on his shoulder. “Never seen someone his size face a beast like that,” he said quietly. “If he lives… ‘Rat’ doesn’t fit anymore.”
Whren’s voice cut in, clipped and breathless. “Don’t write him off yet.”
For a stretch, all Nera heard was boots on rubble, distant metal groans, the hiss of spores burning against suit filters.
“Found his glove,” Roy said suddenly. “No limb inside. Mav, any read near my position?”
Nera’s optics zoomed in on a pale shape under a collapsed wall—a hand, half-buried. Her body moved before her brain caught up.
“There!” she barked, sprinting.
She skidded to her knees beside the rubble. Karauro lay jammed in a pocket of broken concrete, suit scraped raw, one side of his helmet blackened. Dust streaked his visor. For a heartbeat he didn’t move.
Then his head turned the smallest fraction toward her. Clouded eyes met hers.
“Nera…” His voice came out a rasp, barely air, but he tried to smile.
His eyes rolled shut. His body sagged, sliding toward the gap.
Nera shoved herself into the rubble, bracing her boots and hauling him in against her armored chest before the ground could shift. His weight was dead, but the faint rise and fall of his chest thrummed against her plates.
“Argos, we’ve got him,” Whren’s voice came over comms from somewhere behind her. “Alive. Send the Hauler and a med kit to the north gate. Now.”
Engines growled closer, echoing through the ruins. Unit Seven tightened around them, rifles outward as if the ruins might try to take him back.
Whren dropped beside Nera a moment later, visor up, med glove already humming. She pressed it to Karauro’s neck, exhaled once. “He’s alive,” she confirmed. “You can insult him later. He’s Spine now.”
Nera scowled, throat tight. “He’s just an idiot.”
Whren didn’t argue. She only kept him breathing until the Hauler doors slammed shut.
Nera stepped out of the briefing room the second the doors hissed open, boots finding the most direct route that wasn’t toward the med bay. Past the mess. Past the hangar. Past the overlook where the Shield turned ruin-light into a tired blue pulse along the walls.
Anywhere but med.
Her comm pinged.
WHREN: Walking laps, or avoiding something useful?
NERA: Busy.
WHREN: Change of plans. I need you in med.
NERA: Use the other techs.
WHREN: I would, if I trusted them not to let our favorite idiot rip his IV out and crawl to the hangar.
Nera’s jaw clenched. “He’s out cold,” she muttered.
WHREN: He was. He’s been stirring. Pulse spiked when someone said Vesta outside his door. I need someone he’ll listen to. That’s you. Five minutes. Sit. Scowl. Stop him if he tries anything heroic from a hospital bed.
She stopped at a junction, hand resting on the cold rail.
“I’m only there to stop him doing something stupid,” she said.
WHREN: Perfect. That’s the job description.
The line clicked off.
Nera turned, boots already redirecting toward med.
It was duty, she told herself. Argos would want him watched. Whren needed eyes. Someone had to make sure the boy who charged an Altered Ripper didn’t decide to walk it off.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
It had nothing to do with the way his voice had sounded when he said her name in the rubble.
Nothing.
The med bay doors parted with a soft hiss. Lights were dimmed to a low hum. Monitors blinked in quiet rhythm. Karauro lay on the nearest bed, bandages taped along his ribs and brow, an IV line snaking into his arm. Without his helmet, he looked younger. Too young.
Nera took the chair beside him, armor creaking as she sat.
“Try any tricks,” she warned under her breath, folding her arms, “and I’ll staple you to the mattress.”
His eyelids twitched, but he stayed under. Up close, she noticed the crude necklace resting by his shoulder—a ring threaded through a scrap of cord. Same one from the helmet cam, when he’d frozen over that girl’s hand.
She shouldn’t care.
Her fingers flexed once against her thigh before she reached out. Stupid, she told herself. He won’t even feel it.
Her hand hovered, then settled lightly over his knuckles. Warm. Too warm. Human.
As she began to pull away, his fingers closed around hers—weak, but deliberate.
Nera went rigid.
Karauros brow pinched, lips shaping a name that never quite formed. His grip tightened just enough to say don’t go without ever waking.
She could have yanked free. Should have. Instead she let him hold on for a few breaths, jaw locked, heartbeat far louder than the machines.
The doors hissed open behind her.
“Nera?” Whren’s voice drifted in, followed by soft footsteps. “You two having a moment I should bill for?”
Nera tore her hand back a little too fast. “His hand moved,” she said quickly. “Thought the IV shifted.”
Whren’s gaze flicked from the line to Karauros still-curled fingers to Nera’s face. “Uh-huh.” She turned to the monitors. “Relax. I’m not going to staple soft spot to your file.”
“I don’t have one,” Nera muttered. “I have a liability that throws himself at monsters.”
“Funny,” Whren murmured, adjusting a setting. “Looks a lot like someone who stood between us and a corpse wall.”
Silence settled, filled only by the steady beep of the heart monitor.
Later, Whren sat alone at a console in the corner of med, eyes fixed on Vesta’s footage. Suit telemetry scrolled beside the grainy video.
She scrubbed to the moment Karauro reached the rubble and clawed himself toward Anvi’s motionless hand. Heart rate: spike. Expected.
Then, when the blast slammed him into the wall, his vitals went wild—only to flatten into a hard, unnatural plateau as he pushed himself back up.
Not crash. Hold.
Most people’s pulses crater under fear. His hit a wall and stayed there.
On audio, his voice came through the comms, ragged but disturbingly steady. “I’ll kill you.”
Whren pinched the bridge of her nose, discomfort tightening her jaw. She didn’t like not understanding what kept someone on their feet.
She liked the alternative—him not getting back up at all—even less.
She pushed away from the console and crossed back to the beds, boots whisper-quiet on the floor. Karauro slept, face slack, lashes damp with old sweat. Up close, without the numbers and video between them, he was just a kid who should’ve died twice already.
His fingers twitched toward the ring at his throat, brushing the metal once like a reflex. A cracked whisper slipped past his lips.
“…Anvi…”
Whren’s expression softened despite herself.
“Yeah,” she said quietly, tugging his blanket a little higher. “You’re not the only one carrying ghosts.”
She killed the overhead light, leaving only the monitors’ pale glow and the thin strip of emergency illumination by the door. Then she stepped outside.
The corridor buzzed with low activity. Roy leaned against the wall opposite the med doors, helmet dangling from his fingers. Aaron stood a little further down, arms folded, head tipped back against the metal.
Roy pushed off when he saw her. “Well? Our rat going to chew through another day?”
“He’ll live,” Whren said.
Roy sagged in obvious relief. “Good. I was about to start a fight with whoever said otherwise.”
Aaron’s gaze sharpened. “What’s the ‘but’?”
Whren glanced back at the med doors. “His vitals do what they should when things go bad,” she said slowly. “Spike hard. But they don’t come back down like they should. It’s like something else grabs the wheel halfway through and refuses to let go.”
Roy frowned. “Meaning?”
“Meaning he’s running on more than adrenaline and dumb luck,” Whren replied. “And I don’t know if that’s going to burn him out or keep him standing when he shouldn’t.”
Aaron exhaled through his nose. “We’ve all got something broken that keeps us moving. Spine wouldn’t exist otherwise.”
“Yeah,” Whren said. “He still feels… wired different.”
Heavy footsteps approached from the far end of the hall. Argos came into view, Nexon plating still scuffed from the search, his single eye taking them in.
“How is he?” he asked.
“Breathing. Stable. Stupid as ever,” Whren answered. “He’ll walk again.”
Roy shoved his hands into his pockets, trying for casual and missing. “He took that hit like he’s been doing this his whole life,” he said. “Didn’t even ask for backup. Just went.”
Argos hummed low in his chest. “Some people run,” he said. “Some freeze. A few lean in.”
His gaze locked on Whren. “If he’s different, we watch him. If he breaks, we catch him before he takes anyone with him. Until then, he’s Spine. Treat him like it.”
Roy’s mouth twitched. “So I’m officially allowed to bully him into card games in the mess?”
“That means,” Argos said, already turning away, “you don’t let him think he’s alone.”
He walked off toward command, footsteps fading.
Roy blew out a breath. “Guess that’s as close to a pep talk as we’re getting.”
“Go shower,” Whren said, stepping back toward med. “If he wakes up to your stench, he’ll think he died after all.”
Aaron clapped Roy’s shoulder as they headed down the hall. “Come on. Pretty sure the Ripper smells better than you do right now.”
Whren paused once more at Karauros bedside. The monitors showed the same stubborn line—no spikes, no crashes. He shifted, brushing the ring at his throat again.
“Stop making everyone bet against the ruins for you,” she muttered.
He didn’t wake.
Outside, the Shield hummed over a world that hadn’t noticed one boy survive it.
Inside, wrapped in Spine’s sterile quiet, Karauro slept on—caught between the warmth he’d almost found and the cold waiting when he opened his eyes.
Later, in his office, Argos watched the Vesta footage Whren had sent. He paused on the frame where Karauro dragged himself up from the rubble beside Anvi’s outstretched hand, teeth bared at something off-screen. Dust swarmed the lens; the suit mic caught every ragged breath.
“Is the mutt recovering?” he asked without looking away.
“Better than he should,” Whren replied, standing beside him. “Physically, the Regen did its job.”
She hesitated. “Mentally… the ruins don’t leave anyone untouched. Spine doesn’t have therapists; we have more broken people.”
On the adjacent monitor, a system window blinked:
[DECRYPTION ERROR – FILE E-246 // ATTEMPT 3 FAILED].
“I know,” Argos said. “That’s why I’m assigning him to train with Maverick and Ilene when he’s cleared. They’re not attached. They’ll keep him busy, not coddled.”
“And you think that keeps him from burning out?” Whren asked.
“He’s not a soldier,” Argos said. “Not yet. But he has fire. If he doesn’t learn to control it, it’ll eat him from the inside out.”
His expression stayed hard, dreads shadowing the left cyber-optic. The cigar in his mouth remained unlit, forgotten.
“Just make sure that while you’re teaching him not to burn out,” Whren said quietly, “you’re not the one throwing him into the furnace.”
Argos looked back at the frozen frame—Karauro half-buried, still dragging himself forward.
“That’s why we watch him,” he murmured. “And why we don’t look away.”
His wrist terminal chimed.
ONYX CORPS // CONTRACT INBOUND
LENIOS OUTPOST – THREAT CLASS: TITAN
ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 72 HOURS
One prompt pulsed at the bottom of the holo:
ACCEPT / DECLINE
Argos didn’t hesitate.
He tapped ACCEPT.
Karauro didn’t freeze—he chose the line and paid for it. Nera’s mask slipped, Spine moved as one, and the Altered Ripper felt… deliberate.