The salarian let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, we’re right back to where we started.”
“No,” Sloane corrected, “we’re worse than that. You’ve planted the seed now, the ‘supplies are running out’ seed.”
“Yes. Well, about that,” he said. “We need to draw up a plan for rationing.”
“That we do.”
“Are you available now?”
Sloane glanced at the clock, then felt the pang from her stomach. “Let me find breakfast first.”
A big meal, she decided. As much as she could stomach, before the belt had to be tightened.
And then she’d crack some skulls, if needed, yell some obscenities, if confronted, and all around wait for the station to explode.
Or maybe everyone would just cope.
Nah. She still didn’t feel that lucky.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sloane had been right, Addison mused. They’d gotten lucky, at first. Perhaps that’s why the security director volunteered to join Kesh’s team on their mission to clear a path to the nearest ark docking bay. Once there, they hoped to locate a backup set of sensor interfaces—one that could be brought online.
Addison couldn’t really blame her. Sloane had waited a day, to make sure there was no violence in the wake of the announcement, then left a competent team behind. She gave the security director that much credit. Had there been any backlash, Addison had no doubt Sloane would have stayed.
Really, things weren’t so bad. Some harsh words and a half-hearted punch or two thrown in the commons, then everyone had taken the announcement with a sort of “what else can go wrong” sunken attitude.
With things in shape, Sloane had taken Kesh’s offer of hard, manual labor and taken her version of a vacation.
That had been two days ago.
Maybe it had just taken a couple days to really sink in. A couple days of newly instated rations and the sudden realization that the rations they did have were already in the red.
The mood had changed in the Nexus. Drastically.
Addison walked the halls, as Tann had suggested, though it only made her feel more useless. She oversaw colonial affairs for a failed colony, an advisor to their “acting” leader. Soon, people would begin to ask what “acting” meant, exactly.
Seeing the Garson recording had an unintended consequence: It reminded them of what they’d signed up for versus what they’d actually got.
She avoided the sidelong glances people gave her as she walked. The growing hunger in their eyes, the thirst, and with those the accusation that it was her fault. It wasn’t fair, but she supposed politicians were always the ones to take the blame when a natural disaster took the population by surprise.
In every pair of accusatory eyes, she heard their unvoiced anger. How could you not have envisioned this? We trusted you. We sacrificed everything because we believed in your plan.
Fair or not, that’s what she heard in her head as they looked at her. In truth she hadn’t been much involved in the disaster-scenario planning. She’d been laser-focused on her actual job, drawing up plans and contingencies for first-contact scenarios with the species they would meet.
Oh, how she’d dreamt of those moments! Alien races unlike any they’d experienced in the Milky Way. The possibilities, and challenges. She’d pictured herself seated at a formally set table, sipping asari wine, Jien on her left and some dignitary from a benevolent and wise new species on her right.
Instead she was sleeping on the floor, boiling water to purify it as if she were on some survivalist training course.
Addison stopped in a hallway bridging two sections, expansive windows on both sides with what should have been magnificent views of space. Days earlier she’d come through here by shouldering her way past the “watchers,” a group who’d volunteered to act as lookouts until sensors were online, lest the Nexus be totally blind. They’d sat or stood, day and night for weeks now, watching for any signs that the Scourge was making a return appearance.
Or, more hopefully, scanning for the approach of a Pathfinder ship. So far they’d seen neither. Just unfamiliar stars, and with the rationing news, they’d evidently found better uses of their time. Today the hall was empty.
Addison sat in the middle of a bench and folded her hands in her lap. For a time she did not move, drinking in a whispering quiet marred only by the ever-present whir of life support, which she had to admit had been working flawlessly since that turian and his team had made emergency repairs.
They were working around the clock to keep it limping along, but still it was impressive. It must feel nice, she thought, to be useful.
Addison shook her head. That wasn’t a healthy way of thinking, and she knew it.
Her omni-tool chimed. Couldn’t be Sloane, her team was too far away for the meager comm network the crew had hobbled together. She answered and sat back as Tann’s face appeared floating in the air before her.
“Any word from Sloane?” he asked.
“No,” Addison replied. “A runner from their group came back this morning. He said he’d asked if she wanted any message delivered, and she’d just laughed.”
“That sounds like her,” Tann mused.
“The runner said they think they’ll clear the passage by tonight, and then we’ll know if we have sensors or not soon after.”
“Hmm…” The Salarian tapped at his chin. “It’s taking longer than I’d expected.”
Addison could only shrug. Everything seemed to be taking longer than expected, since the food shortages became common knowledge.
“Well,” Tann said, “as much as I value her advice, decisions still need to be made.”
Addison paused, gauging his words. Wariness and excitement, but most of all? She’d grab anything to be busy. And in the end, things had to be done. No matter what.
“What did you have in mind?”
The salarian smiled. “As long as you’ve advised me, that still counts as being advised, yes?”
“True.”
“And you know how Sloane gets annoyed when she’s asked to weigh in on minor matters.”
“Also true,” Addison said, already seeing where this was leading.
Tann went on. “I think we should see how many such minor matters we can clear from the list before she returns. It’s what you’d call a win-win I believe. Not only do decisions get made, but Sloane is spared from the monotony of the process.”
“Minor matters,” Addison repeated. “Like what?”
“I had an idea that perhaps we should repurpose one of the refrigerant tanks to serve as an additional water purifier. The team tells me it’s possible with the materials we have at hand, and would only lead to a slight temperature increase within the livable areas. As a result, we would have enough extra fresh water to allow people showers once every two days.”
“Oh,” Addison replied. A hot shower sounded like extreme luxury. Her skin tingled just thinking about it. “Define ‘slight’?”
“Well within human tolerances.”
“Tann…”
“Two degrees Celsius, on average.”
“Better, thank you. Um, yes, I think that sounds like a good plan.”
“There,” he said, “you see? A decision made, and one less thing for our security director to worry about when she returns.”
“What else have you got?” Addison asked. A bit too quickly perhaps, but she was beyond caring. Doing something that felt like actual accomplishment felt too good to care.
“Let’s meet in Operations and go over the list?”
“Perfect,” Addison replied. “On my way.”
* * *
She walked down a hallway where a team of krogan workers was welding a complex, if somewhat ramshackle, array of support beams into place. A temporary fix to a ceiling that could no longer support the weight of whatever lay above. None of them paid Addison any attention, so complete was their focus on the work.
And yet as she passed she thought she could feel s
omething radiating off of them. Not hatred, or even resentment, feelings she often sensed from other races in the emergency population. No, this was something else. Their body language, so deliberately continuing to work despite her passage. Their lack of eye contact, as if by force of will they were allowing her a brief respite from the accusatory glances others cast her way.
They seemed to be saying, “We’ll handle this, now go solve the bigger problems.” Addison stopped at the end of the short hallway and turned back toward them.
“Thank you,” she said.
This earned a few confused looks. They looked to each other as if trying to figure out who she’d spoken to.
“Thank you,” Addison repeated, “for all the hard work.”
“Well, sure,” one of them replied. Then he went back to the task at hand.
Addison continued on, mind churning now. So many questions, concerns, and possibilities. Answers were still apparitions at the edge of that mental fog, always blurring away to nothing if she tried to grasp at them.
And then, one didn’t. It stayed just visible, moving no closer or no farther as she worked toward it. This became a path, of sorts, and with each little step Addison found some of her old confidence. Her sense of purpose. This was the right thing. The idea she’d been waiting for.
So simple, she began to curse herself for not thinking it sooner. It was the price to pay, she supposed, for allowing herself to become so depressed, but she’d fix that now.
Over the last leg of her walk, Addison worked out the basics in her head. She resisted the urge to call Spender and task him with figuring out the details. That was something she’d done too often of late.
No, this was hers to begin.
Help could come later.
Foster Addison swept into Operations with her chin up and a focus she’d not felt since the Scourge first struck.
Two crew members sat at the main console, in a hopeless vigil that sensors might magically start to work, or a signal might get through. “Any sign of the arks?” she asked them as she passed.
“Negative,” they both said in unison.
Always the same answer.
Tann stood just behind them, looking at a datapad.
“I have a proposal,” she said before Tann could speak.
“Err, good!” the salarian said with more than a little dubiousness. He had his own list already displayed, but with a tap of his long finger it winked away.
“We can spare eight ships,” Addison said firmly. “I’ve worked through the numbers, and with the rest we could still support an evacuation. It’s time, Tann. We can’t wait for the Pathfinders. We need to scout the closest worlds and find out if there’s anything useful nearby. A suitable location for an off-Nexus colony, resources we can harvest or mine.”
“Hmmmm,” he replied.
If I can just convince him… Addison forged ahead.
“We can’t just keep huddled up in here, hoping our supply problem will magically go away. Hoping the Pathfinders will come and rescue us. They should have been here by now. We all know it. It’s time we accepted it.”
“Addison—”
“Let me finish.” Tann drew back, clearly surprised. “As for rationing, it only delays the inevitable. It won’t take another run-in with the Scourge to kill us all. One more little thing goes wrong in hydroponics and it’s over. We’re done.”
“You’re right,” Tann said. “I agree.”
“My plan will work if we staff—” she pressed. “Wait, what?”
“I agree with you.”
“That was… easier than I expected.”
He sensed her puzzlement and explained. “My attempt to persuade people to return to stasis failed,” he said. “And now rationing has had a negative impact on morale, cutting into the progress of repairs. So, yes, I agree.”
“Well,” Addison said, “shit, Tann, I’m glad to hear that.”
“Sloane won’t like it,” the salarian added. “But, go on. Staffing, you were saying?”
She’d almost lost her train of thought. Yesterday she might have, but the focus she’d gained had done wonders for her mental state. Addison felt like herself again.
“I thought at first a simple pilot and co-pilot arrangement would be best. Minimal, so as to not take able-bodied personnel away from the efforts here. Perhaps even letting the automated systems handle the flights, essentially using the ships as giant unmanned probes.
“But now I realize we not only can, but should fully staff the shuttles. Mount true exploratory missions. Not only will we get better results, but we’ll reduce the drain on our supplies aboard the Nexus.”
“Very interesting, indeed,” Tann said. He stood and joined her by the table, bringing up a display showing the nearby star systems. The map had been created using old-fashioned measurement methods, based on visual observations. Rough to the point of being useless, but it was all they had.
Tann manipulated the interface. “These, perhaps?” He pointed.
“Yeah,” Addison agreed. “That would work.”
“Hypothetically, who would comprise the crews?”
Addison had already worked out the basics, but decided to allow Tann the feeling of participation. Besides, he might discern a better way.
“Pilots and co-pilots, those are easy, and in fact we already have capable pairs awake. Beyond that, a sensor tech for each.”
“Don’t we need them here, to fix our own sensors?”
“No,” Addison said. “To calibrate them, yes, eventually, but right now they’re all waiting on fabrication. They’ve taken to menial tasks in the meantime.”
“I see. Okay, who else.”
The list went on like that. Xenobiology, astrogeology, engineering, medical, and security.
“Security?” Tann asked dubiously.
“I think that would help ease Sloane’s concerns. Just in case someone suffered a mental breakdown, or one crew decided to take their ship and forge their own path.”
“Neither of those seem very likely,” Tann observed.
“Still, Sloane worries about that kind of thing, and her team is… excessive in number,” she said. “I think that’s fair to say.”
“Until food runs out,” Tann responded. “Then they all will be needed.”
“Well, yes, but that’s the whole point of this. Preventing that day from arriving. Besides, these systems are close enough that all of these ships should return before our supplies reach critical levels.”
Tann stared at the display, scanning the map and, Addison guessed, mentally juggling the pieces that would be in play.
“Unless any of them run into problems,” he muttered, as if to himself. “A mechanical failure, the Scourge, or something unforeseen.”
“It’s a risk,” Addison said, nodding, “but we’re not going to get out of this without taking some chances.”
“Hmm.” Tann stood and began to pace. In that moment Addison knew she’d convinced him. The rest would be details.
Finally, her time had come.
She pinged Spender. “Get to Operations right away,” she sent, hands shaking slightly as she typed the letters out. “Colonial Affairs is open for business.”
* * *
Spender took on the task of creating preliminary crew manifests for the eight missions. While he did that, Addison went to the Colonial Affairs hangar and made a personal inspection of all the shuttles.
Many were already in use as temporary shelters. But not all of them, and moving the occupants around in order to fully empty eight craft wouldn’t take more than a few hours.
The bigger issue, which she had anticipated but underestimated gravely, was supplies. The temporary occupants had been heavy-handed in raiding the stores, evidently thinking that because they’d made the ships their homes, that meant everything inside belonged to them.
Discussions turned heated, but Addison’s quiet summoning of security to help “clear the air” soon took care of that.
“Th
ank you,” she said to Kandros, the officer who’d arrived.
“It’s my job. No thanks necessary.”
Addison moved on toward the next craft.
“What’s all this activity about, anyway?” he asked, lingering alongside her.
“We’ve decided to send some scouts out. Catalog the nearby worlds, hopefully find some resources we can use, or make contact with the arks.”
“Security Director Kelly is on board with this?” he asked, sounding dubious.
Uh-oh, she thought. “Sloane didn’t have any objections,” she told him, watching carefully for his response.
He just nodded, studying the flanks of the nearest vessel. “You know I have some experience with that kind of thing.”
Addison stopped and turned. “Do you?”
The turian shrugged. “It’s sort of why I came here. Why I joined up, I mean. Somewhere along the line I wound up in security, but back home I was in counter-terrorism.”
Addison didn’t know this man, barely knew his name, but she could see a look in his eyes she’d seen in the mirror often enough.
“Spender’s in charge of the rosters,” she told him. “If you’re interested, I mean.”
He stared at the sleek ship for another long moment, then glanced at her and smiled. He quickly looked away, then walked off, saying nothing more.
Addison tapped a quick note to Spender on her omni-tool. Kandros in sec ideal for scout mission, if you need one more.
The reply came a minute later. I’ll talk to him. Thanks!
Foster Addison smiled to herself. Good morale was a powerful thing, she thought.
* * *
By evening the first of the scouts slipped out from the Nexus’s shadow and lit off into the vast emptiness beyond. Addison and Tann watched it from Operations, which still lacked a forward wall and thus provided one of the more impressive—if terrifying—views of their surroundings.
Provided, Addison mused, you only want to look forward. Which suited her just fine.
They toasted each departure, wishing the assigned captains good hunting as they neared the very meager range of the Nexus’s transmission capability.
Kandros, commanding the shuttle Boundless, promised they’d be back soon, and added, “Tell Sloane to save my seat at the card table,” seconds before powering past comms range.
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