Osterman walked across the carpet in his field office, wishing he could take off his work boots and enjoy the expensive luxury he'd afforded himself. But he had more business to tend to.

"Alright..." Osterman said, slipping into his chair and touching the power button on his computer. "Runt's going to be here before you know it. If I know that Springer, we'll need to get him a little medical attention right off the bat."

Cameron grunted, and slipping into a chair across the room from Osterman.

Osterman watched the booting icon on his screen for a moment as he thought. Medications for Springers weren't too hard to come by on Pathmos. They may have to synthesize a few things for Runt, though. He wasn't the average Springer, and he wasn't exactly in need of their version of aspirin either.

Just hope he makes it. Osterman thought, chewing his lip.

The meeting could have gone better. At least Runt was alive, though. He'd taken precautions, and he had some help. Osterman had done just about all he was able to do. He hoped it was enough. Yet as the threat of another friend lost hung over his head, something nagged at his sense of guilt, promising him that he hadn't covered every base. Something insisted he try a little more, spend a little more, and maybe he could save the little Springer.

Osterman chewed his lip, and glanced at his office phone.

"I'm going to make a call to one of the labs around here, see if they can make some specialty medications." Osterman announced. "Relax if you want. It's been a long day." He said, glancing up at Cameron.

His assistant nodded, already staring at his datapad as lights danced on his face.

"You watching the news?" Osterman asked.

Cameron shook his head.

"No. The weather. It's how I unwind."

Osterman gave him an odd look. "By watching the weather?"

"Yeah. It's nice to know we have it good here on Pathmos." He explained. "I mean, Imbra is looking at another record blizzard, the moons around Balmut are all getting radiation storm warnings, there's a science station out past the second belt that's on lockdown because of a fluke asteroid passing through their orbit. Heck, New Medina has a sand storm in the process of blanketing a whole hemisphere. You know what the forecast for Pathmos is?"

Osterman cocked his head to ask.

"Rain." Cameron said, shutting off the screen to his datapad. "A little snow here and there, but mostly just light showers. Everywhere else in the system has death-weather. We have rain."

"Pretty mild." Osterman said. "We've got the nicest weather for three systems."

"I don't know why we don't have more immigrants." Cameron said.

"The terrorists, mostly." Osterman said matter-of-factly. "They drive away half the people.

"We ought to have them dealt with by now." Cameron said with a shake of his head.

Osterman nodded.

"I agree." He said. "But we can't fix the problem without Runt. And he probably can't help us fix it unless he makes it out alive."

~

Runt turned the handle on the conference room door.

Things, for once, weren't as bad as they could have been. With a diplomatic waiver and the promises of two regional powers that Quixxa would be well-received, the weight on Runt's shoulders seemed lighter.

There was hope.

If only it wasn't half a city away, somewhere under a sandstorm. He thought, stepping into the light and shutting the door behind him with his tail. He exhaled, and wiped his hands on his pants with a shudder.

At least I've got the suit.

He just hoped the suit would turn out to be a frivolous add-on to a stressful day. He hoped he would show up, retrieve Quix, wave goodbye to his friends, and disappear like a vapor. He even got a crooked smile as he let an old fantasy dart through his mind...

They've never really known who I am. He thought. But now they'll see me in my suit, with armed guards, being whisked away into the night...

Runt smiled a little wider, and let the nugget of pleasant thought dwell on his mind while he tapped the edge of his datapad and started off towards the lockers attached to the Obsidian headquarters. He navigated a few of the smooth concrete halls quietly, thinking as a handful of other employees came and went.

It'd been a long time since he'd worn his suit on the ground. Almost since he'd arrived on New Medina. He remembered those days so fondly... before he'd realized just how hellish this world was. Not the heat, nor the sun. Not the sand or the seasons. Just the people. At first, he'd been able to settle in on New Medina, spending most of his time in these halls or wandering the college in the cool of night.

Those had been better days.

When he'd spent nights enjoying the stars, whiling away hours with his nose buried in a textbook atop a quiet building somewhere on campus. Watching the nocturnal launches in awe as the engines lit up a world, or listening to the thunder of the landings from inside the bunkered offices under the docks.

Something about the fresh, lonely world had quieted his soul. Just knowing that he was on a hostile world, and yet, that he was alone in his joy was enough to make him smile and sleep deeply.

Before long, Quixxa came around.

And what a dimension she'd added.

Runt smiled as he thought of it, taking another turn towards the lockers.

She'd shown up with fire and gusto, the only way she knew how. Like any friendship, it was tense at first. But that tension faded like sunset into a cool, comforting, and intimate night that only they shared.

The meetings became lunches, the messages became exchanges, the pills and information became side notes. It was a new world, yes, but a world with a friend who shared it. The stars weren't so lonely after that, and the nighttime launches became a shared spectacle.

Things had been wonderful, in a way. Wonderful in as much as Runt knew he wasn't welcome, yet he'd found a place where he belonged. The sort of welcome that he felt in this scorching desert when he delved into the icy sanctuary of his dorm. It didn't belong. And that only made it more precious.

But that was only at the start.

As he found more places to spend his time, New Medina found more places to ambush him with stresses. His carefree spirit became a liability as long hours in cool coffee shops lingered into the searing noon hours and stranded him. His shortcuts across ledges and light poles slowly faded into memory as the rooftops were blocked off with anti-climbing spikes and his ledges became shooting galleries for nationalists with rocks and tempers.

As his university classes intensified, so did the pressures from students and faculty who'd discovered his off-world origins and his dreams of Pathmos. Anxiety started to chase him inside while the stars waited sadly for him, and the threat of those he had once ignored kept him scuttled away indoors while the glorious launches shook the earth and sky.

A once wide world had narrowed to a tight corridor of fears as the eyes that had once overlooked him as a mere runt now saw him as a target.

Runt stopped at the door of the locker.

It had been a long, long time since his first days on New Medina. Nearly everything had changed. But now, he was due for an even larger change. And finally...

It was a change for the better.

He put his hand to the door, and pushed.

The door lurched away from his hand, and Juan appeared behind it.

Runt startled, and pulled his hand back.

"Oh... wow. Sorry. Hey Juan." He said, darting his eyes to the ground and back up.

Juan barely managed to pull his lips from a bitter frown.

"Hey. You headed to a shower?"

Runt nodded, and cocked his head.

"Yeah, why?"

"You might want to give Hawke some space. He's uh... processing some stuff." Juan said quietly.

Runt's brow furrowed.

"What do you mean?"

The Rojax's expression loosened as Runt saw some sort of dark realization dawn on his face.

"Oh... you don't know." He said, swallowing. He exhaled, and shook his head.

"There's no easy way to say it. Patches stayed back at outpost seven about a week and a half ago to do some business, and shortly after we left, she stopped replying to Hawke's messages and wouldn't return calls."

Runt's stomach dropped. They had been dating...

"They broke up?" he asked, already feeling his extremities chilling with empathetic sorrow.

Juan gave Runt a pained look as his eyes pinched together.

"Not exactly." He said. "The Coast Guard says she's been kidnapped. Hawke is cleaning out her locker. Sorry you found out like this."

Ice had wrapped around Runt's heart, and numb, trembling sickness was seeping through his veins as his stomach turned to stone and his heart cracked like glass. He felt his cheeks flare hot, and his skin blanch cold. Grief hit like a bomb, and invisible hands started to grasp at his skin and pull him towards the floor.

"I... I wish I'd known sooner."

Runt felt like he could throw up. Choking tendrils of guilty responsibility constricted around him as he thought. Maybe he could have tried harder to bring down the MLA. Maybe he could have crashed another server and prevented it, listed more names, anything.

Part of his brain told him that it was ridiculous to blame himself.

But his anxiety seized the reigns of his heart and drove him to the rivers of guilt. His anxiety could lead him to these waters. And while it couldn't make him drink, it could hold his head under.

"How's Hawke taking it?" Runt asked, his saliva turning sticky.

"Hard."

"I hope they're both ok..." Runt said.

Juan nodded.

"Same here."

The Rojax mulled something for a moment, his eyes searching the floor.

"Hey, on second thought, if you could talk to the big guy... He could use it. He's pretty fond of you, you know. Hearing from you might do him some good."

Runt almost choked on the request, but nodded nonetheless. There was just so much pain in that room... and it didn't stop there.

Patches had parents. And maybe siblings. Friends. They all had to know she was missing sooner or later. And Hawke, he'd lost a love. Runt hadn't felt heartbreak before, but the simple name of the condition frightened him. The stabbings of depression and anxiety had seemingly fractured his heart, and ripped at his chest like knives. What would true heartbreak feel like?

He didn't want to know. And he wished Hawke didn't have to either.

"I'll try and chat with him. Runt said. "Thanks for bringing me up to speed."

"Of course. Take care of yourself, Runt." Juan said with a cold shrug. "I really am sorry you didn't hear about it. We've all been trying to cope."

Runt braced himself on the door, and looked into the locker room.

Grief sucked every ounce of warmth out of his body. He'd known her. He'd worked with her.

Hawke loved her.

Runt swallowed, and thanked Juan as he ducked into the lockers and steeled his nerves. The sudden loss had robbed the air of all sounds, and numbed his body. It hadn't numbed his mind, however. A friend had lost his love. A friend had lost her freedom. Runt sought to crush what had wounded the both of them.

He let out a quivering breath, and looked for the showers before he donned his suit. The MLA had taken so much from him, and from those he loved. Yet, if he hurried... if he strained and struggled hard enough, and if his data made it to the stars fast enough...

Maybe a lonely, broken-hearted Springer could undo some of the wrongs, and ease some of the pain. Maybe he could protect his friends.

Runt looked at his trembling hands as he heard the door shut behind him. He was frail, he was broken, and he was far from alright. Yet perhaps that didn't matter.

Maybe he could be the Hero anyway.

~

Cameron leaned back in the chair as Osterman started to unlace his work boots.

"You're really that worried about Runt?" Cameron asked, still tapping quietly at his datapad.

Osterman paused in unlacing his boots and glanced up at Cameron.

"I have to be. He's our biggest asset, and he's also the biggest soft target in this whole system."

"Yeah, but as long as we keep him away from the MLA, he'll be alright."

Osterman slipped off one of his boots and let loose a dark chuckle.

"I wish that were true, Cameron. I wish it were." He said, starting to unlace the next. "The MLA is a threat. The biggest one. But they're not the only, and maybe not the worst."

"What?" Cameron challenged. "How exactly is a terror organization not the worst threat?"

Osterman slipped off his other boot.

"They're not the worst, because they're only a symptom." He replied. "We could vaporize every last MLA ship and wipe out their combatant list tonight, and by next Saturday, there would be a new terror organization. The problem never has been just the terrorists. It's the people and the ideas supporting them."

Cameron bobbed his head.

"Ok, yeah, I agree with you there. But still, the terrorists are the dangerous ones. They're the ones with missiles and guns."

Osterman felt a tingle run down his back. That wasn't exactly true...

Cameron continued. "I mean, if the MLA would just come back after we destroyed it, what's the point of sending Runt into such a dangerous place?"

"We're not just trying to fight the MLA." Osterman said. "We're after New Medina too."

"Why are we fighting New Medina?" he asked, wrinkling his nose. "What's so bad about them, besides being kinda backwards?"

Osterman stood up, debating for a moment. Cameron was as close to this as anyone. He deserved to know the whole story. Carl suppressed the empty ache that suddenly arrived in his gut, and paced towards a cabinet.

"You've got security clearance up to confidential, right?" Osterman asked, keying a code into his hard-locked file cabinet.

"I do..." Cameron answered.

"Alright. Then let me show you why we're fighting." Osterman said, pulling a file out and flipping it open.

The first page, as usual, was a bureaucratic and well-polished cover page that masked a several-hundred sheet journey through man's inhumanity. He flipped through the pages briefly, noticing that the dates were as recent as a few weeks ago. The images that accompanied the pages still haunted the back of his mind.

He handed the dossier to Cameron.

"That, Cameron, is why we're fighting."

~

The lockers were well used, drenched with water-based humidity that made Runt's skin feel soft and a little raw as the water condensed onto his skin. Runt's cotton shirt had already started to cling to his skin uncomfortably as he sat on the bench and wiped his feet with an alcohol-dampened towel.

But the choking humidity and tacky bench weren't what made Runt squirm.

It was Hawke.

Leaning on one of the lockers across the aisle from Runt, Hawke was peering into Patches' locker. In the small locker room, there wasn't room to separate the male from the female, nor was there need to. The majority of the lockers were unfilled, and the area was never crowded.

Yet now, Runt felt as though he needed miles more space. Or rather, that Hawke needed it.

Runt pulled his eyes from Hawke's defeated form and looked back down as he finished cleaning off his left foot. He was ready for his suit.

Runt stood up, unfurling his tail from beside him. At its full length, he had to cock it to one side as he punched in a code and opened up a broad locker. The metal door creaked and let out a puff of heady, home-scented air from the airtight vault. A helmet sat on one of the hooks inside, the side of the jet-black crown emblazoned with his family name, along with the signatures of his family.

He smiled warmly at their memory.

They'd pooled their money and helped him afford the suit before he left, and they'd signed it as a memory for him to keep while he was away. He knew that a few systems away, there was still a family rooting for him, and a home waiting for him once his job here was done.

Something told him that he wouldn't disappoint.

Runt pulled his shirt off his back and dropped it on the floor of the locker.

He pulled the chest plate off the back wall and started to slip it over his head. He pulled it on, the armor covering his abdomen and leaving room for separate pieces to cover his hips and upper tail. He wiggled inside, slipping his arms through. As he did so, he realized just how much New Medina had taken its toll. The once comfortably tight suit was loose over his abdomen.

He pulled the pelvic girdle off the wall next, slipping it over his lower back and wrapping the armor around his belly. The outside of the suit wrapped around his hips and thighs, and actuators immediately started to pull the suit into a seamless unit where his chest piece and girdle met.

The battery packs in the suit, which had been on a drip charger, would last for days on end.

But this was still not what the suit was for. It wasn't for stopping bullets or providing cover. It was for work in harsh conditions in space. Its resilience was because of the danger of being punctured while working, not because of a need to stop an attack. Yet, it would have to do.

The armor recognized Runt's body, and started to adjust as more systems connected and activated.

The chest piece tightened itself around his frame, the supple interior pressing against his skin like a blanket.

Runt glanced around and stripped off his pants and undergarments, and slipped on the under-tail pad. Actuators grabbed it and cinched up around his legs and tail, sealing in his trunk as he reached for the greaves.

Runt heard a locker nearby slam shut.

He leaned back and looked.

Hawke. He'd shut Patches' locker, and was pacing towards Runt.

Runt felt himself blush, and rushed to stuff one of his legs into a greave, pulling the second one off the wall as his suit assimilated the next piece.

By the time Hawke arrived, Runt had managed to get his legs inside the suit. He was just starting to slide one of the two tail sections over his long whip of a tail when Hawke stopped at Runt's locker.

"Hey Runt." the bulky, short-furred Kavera said.

Runt looked at him and took him in for a moment.

Hawke was even more spent than he.

His short-shaved fur was glistening with beads of water from the condensation, his greyish-brown pelt unkempt and almost certainly un-showered. His kind was different from humans and Springers in its shape. While Humans and Springers had differences in their limb's shape and position, Kavera had a difference in number. Two sturdy pairs of legs held up his rock-solid torso and two arms, and there wasn't but a nub of a tail. Their proportions couldn't have been farther apart from Springer's slender, fluid grace. These Kavera, they were built like tanks.

But despite the broad shoulders and flanks that rippled with muscle, Runt knew there was an inside just as vulnerable as his. One that was raw and bloodied by the evils of this system.

Runt nodded back at Hawke, and felt his mouth start to dry up.

"Hey Runt." Hawke said, his voice caked with gravel, like he'd been crying. "How have you been?"

Runt steadied his heart, and let out a breath.

"I've been alright..." He