Weight Behind the Ribs

  The sky of Vesta shattered like glass.

  Cracks spidered through the blue—thin at first, then widening—each vein pulsing red while something black pressed at the edges, impatient.

  Below, towers burned. Their mirrored faces threw the broken sky back at him in a hundred warped reflections.

  Anvi’s head rested on his shoulder. Her fingers hooked into his sleeve like none of it mattered—flames, sirens, the dying light.

  For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to her warmth and the gleam of a city that still looked clean from far enough away.

  “Anvi,” Karauro whispered.

  Vesta felt wrong and perfect. The dirt was soft green. The air didn’t bite. For the first time he could remember, breathing didn’t hurt.

  This is where I belong.

  “Anvi, where—”

  Sirens rose.

  Fire crawled up glass, swallowing floors. Windows burst in waves—one tower, then the next—like the city was blinking itself apart.

  “We have to move!” he shouted.

  She didn’t.

  Her hair hung damp. A single drop fell onto thirsty earth.

  Her body listed toward the ground, cheek streaked with cooling ichor. When he tried to scream, his throat locked. The world burned in silence.

  The cracks in the sky tore open.

  Something black and wet began to seep through.

  A voice hissed—layered, serpent-slick, winding down his spine.

  Wake up.

  WAKE UP.

  Karauro’s eyes snapped open.

  White ceiling. Harsh lights. Antiseptic and metal in the air. The dream clung to him—Anvi’s hair, green streets, that torn sky.

  A masked face leaned over him.

  “He’s alive! Whren—!” a young tech blurted, already backing away. “Watch him, okay, Lira?”

  The tech vanished.

  A girl with brown hair tucked back grabbed a towel and pressed it to Karauro’s shoulder like she’d done it a hundred times. “You’re soaked,” she said. “You scared half the ward with that heart rate spike.”

  Karauro swallowed. “Sorry.”

  A sting in his left hand pulled his eyes down.

  His fingers were clamped around the ring at his chest. Blood beaded where it had cut into his palm, spattering the sheet.

  Lira froze. “Okay. Yeah. We need to treat that.”

  She yanked open drawers and started digging—too fast, annoyed in the way only family could be. “Great. Big sis picks now to disappear…”

  Whren’s sister.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Karauro loosened his grip. The pain felt distant, like an echo of the dream. The red sky still hovered behind his eyelids.

  “Stay here,” Lira said, already halfway to the door with gauze in hand. “I’ll grab the good stuff. Don’t move, okay?”

  He nodded.

  The door hissed shut.

  The med bay shrank around him—monitors humming, lights buzzing, each beep a small needle under his skin.

  His eyes drifted to the exit.

  Before he could argue with himself, he swung his legs over the cot. The room tilted, then steadied.

  Someone had left his undersuit folded on a chair. He pulled it on with stiff hands, jaw tight. The IV patch on his arm tugged; he ignored it.

  He left before the machines could convince him to stay.

  Red droplets marked a crooked trail behind him.

  ---

  Lira came back with her arms full. “Okay, I found—”

  She stopped.

  Empty cot. Hanging IV line. Blood drops leading out.

  “…oh, come on,” she groaned.

  The door hissed again.

  Whren walked in mid-sentence with the young tech beside her. “Lira, how did he—”

  Whren saw the cot.

  All three stared at the dangling line and the fading trail like it was a confession.

  Lira lifted her hands. “Yeah. About that.”

  ---

  Nera didn’t need to guess where he’d go.

  She climbed until the Spine’s overlook curled along the inner edge of the Shield—below it, the Lower Market flickered neon and rust; above it, platform lights gleamed cold and clean.

  Karauro stood at the rail, undersuit clinging damp to his back. The IV patch on his arm hung crooked like he’d ripped it out mid-thought. He stared through the Shield as if it wasn’t there.

  Nera stopped beside him. Didn’t grab him. Didn’t bark.

  Just looked at the blood drying in his palm… and the way his fingers kept tightening around the ring like it was the only thing holding him upright.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said, quieter than her usual edge.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No,” she corrected, eyes still forward. “You’re standing.”

  He didn’t answer.

  The Shield hummed. The city below sounded far away—like someone had turned the world down.

  Nera exhaled once. A small crack in the steel.

  “Come on,” she said. “Before Whren turns you into a science project.”

  Karauro hesitated—then pushed off the rail and followed, half a step behind her like he didn’t trust his own hands.

  ---

  The regen pod hissed shut.

  Blue light washed over Karauro’s vision. Cool gel climbed around him, soaking into bruises he hadn’t admitted were still there.

  “Three-hour cycle,” Whren said from the console. “Minimum. No arguments.”

  Outside the glass, Nera folded her arms. Aaron leaned back against the wall, sunglasses pushed up, faint cyber-glow behind them.

  Sedation crept in.

  Karauro’s last clear thought wasn’t the Ruins, or spores, or the things that wanted him dead.

  It was Anvi—green streets—and a sky cracking open.

  It should have been three hours.

  On the monitor, regen climbed, peaked—and leveled out too fast.

  Cycle complete, the pod chimed.

  Whren checked the timer.

  One hour, fifteen.

  “Absolutely not,” she muttered. “You’re cheating, kid.”

  “Everything okay?” Aaron asked.

  “Pod thinks he’s done,” Whren said. “On principle, I disagree.”

  Nera’s gaze stayed on the readings. “Safe to pull him out?”

  Whren watched the numbers—tissue stable, inflammation low, stress high in all the wrong places. “Safe enough. Physically.”

  Nera leaned closer to the fogged glass.

  Karauro’s chest rose.

  Then—half a second later—the gel around his ribs rippled as if a second inhale happened underneath the first.

  Nera’s optics flickered.

  Inside the pod, Karauro’s eyes opened a slit.

  …We’re awAke.

  Whren’s hand hovered over the override. “What was that?”

  Karauro blinked, slow. Too calm. The mist curled around his lashes like it knew him.

  The pod cracked open.

  He sat up too easily.

  Aaron watched for a stagger. “Lightheaded? Short of breath?”

  Karauro’s gaze drifted to his own hands as if checking they still belonged to him. “Just… tired,” he said. “Not broken.”

  “That’s new,” Nera murmured.

  Whren didn’t look amused. “Don’t get used to it. Miracles bill interest.”

  Karauro wiped gel from his palm.

  The ring imprint was still stamped into his skin.

  Deeper than it should’ve been.

  ---

  Three days blurred.

  Maverick hammered him with firing sims until his shoulder stopped compensating and simply held.

  “Again,” Mav said whenever a shot went a hair off.

  Ilene ran him through cover drills and breach practice until his lungs burned. No coddling. No applause. Just corrections and another whistle.

  Karauro spoke less. No nervous chatter. No filler jokes. Short answers, a few blunt questions, all focus.

  Every night, Whren checked his numbers.

  Every night, the bruise maps faded faster than they should.

  By the end of the third day, his body moved cleaner.

  The weight in his chest did not.

  ---

  Deployment morning.

  The lower hangar throbbed with engines and voices. Hauler ramp down. Ammo crates stacked. EDP charges ready. Lenios coordinates pulsed red on the holo-slab.

  Unit Seven clustered near the ramp—Nera locking plates, Aaron flexing cybernetic fingers as green checks pinged across his HUD, Roy bouncing on his heels, Taron swearing at a stubborn drone, Riven quiet as a shadow.

  Karauro stepped out of the equipment bay in a Nexon suit that wasn’t brand-new, but his.

  Helmet in hand.

  Expression calmer.

  Eyes a little colder.

  Roy whistled. “Look at you. Stray got house-trained.”

  Karauro lifted a brow. “You calling Spine a house?”

  “More like a half-collapsed kennel,” Taron said.

  Nera watched Karauro’s stance—less flinch, more weight. He met her gaze and held it.

  “You clear on your role?” she asked.

  “Stick with you and Mav,” he said. “Watch your flank. Don’t die.” A beat. “In that order.”

  “Add ‘listen when I say pull back,’” she said.

  He didn’t argue.

  Argos stood above them on a crate, holo circling his wrist. The Shield’s hum vibrated through the floor.

  “Listen up,” Argos called.

  Voices dropped.

  “Lenios Outpost has a Titan-class Griever chewing on its walls,” Argos said. “Onyx can’t hold alone. We reinforce the line, thin the horde, and keep that thing from turning Lenios into a crater.”

  Roy leaned toward Karauro. “If you’re wondering what a Titan is—don’t. You’ll meet it.”

  “Spine doesn’t get clean jobs,” Argos continued. “We get the ones still bleeding. You watch the merc next to you. You keep them standing. You come back standing.”

  His gaze caught Karauro a heartbeat longer than the others—then moved on like nothing happened.

  “Load up. Wheels up in five.”

  Engines roared.

  Nera sealed her helmet. HUD tags lit—friendlies, route, Lenios perimeter.

  As they headed up the ramp, Roy called, “Last chance to fake a fever, Rat.”

  Karauro’s mouth twitched. “Already ditched med once. Don’t think they’d buy it.”

  Nera walked beside him. “Good,” she said. “I didn’t drag you out of the ruins just to watch you hide from them.”

  The hauler doors slammed shut. Vibration rolled through the deck as they lifted—Spine shrinking in the rear feed.

  Karauro closed his eyes for half a second.

  He forced Anvi’s memory deeper, like tucking a blade where it wouldn’t fall out.

  Then he opened his eyes to the dim hauler light and took a slow breath.

  U nit Seven surrounded him. The distant rumble of guns echoed from Lenios through the comm—faint, constant, waiting.

  His glare hardened—not into bravado, but decision.

  Fear wasn’t leaving.

  So he’d use it. Embed it. Make it muscle.

  And this time, when the sky cracked open—

  he wouldn’t freeze.