“I mean,” she stressed, a smile tugging at her lips despite her simmering frustration, “do you have time to talk about Nexus business?”
His expression cleared, mandibles moving as he chuckled. “Oh, that. Sure, Sloane. Or should I stick with director?”
She grimaced. “Sloane.”
“Got it.” He tipped his drink into his mouth in that unique way turians did, and Sloane took the opportunity to study him as she took a pull of her beer. There was a one-drink limit at the commons. Sloane had to make the best of it.
Calix didn’t look like a turian managing a criminal enterprise. He was as relaxed as she’d ever seen him, though still as weary as ever. They all were. She watched him carefully as she, well, metaphorically ripped out the tooth.
“Irida Fadeer is in custody.”
“Irida?” Another blink. “For what?”
“Sabotage, illegal access to secure networks, classified data theft.” She ticked them off with raised fingers. “Causing a lot of collateral damage and casualties.”
“Any deaths?”
“Not for the lack of trying,” Sloane replied bitterly. “Half a shift is out of commission for a few days, and we’ve got a salarian in medical who’s critical. Might be that by morning we’ll be adding murder to the charges, instead of just attempted.”
“Hell, I’m sorry.” He rubbed at his crest with his free hand, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Were you involved?”
He went rigid at the accusation. She watched him, studied every line of his features. Some said turian faces were hard to read, but it wasn’t so. Sloane spent enough time with them to get the gist. He was upset—though at the question, the casualties, or disappointment in Irida? She couldn’t be sure. But he met her gaze with a forthrightness that somehow managed to reassure her.
“I had nothing to do with it. Nor,” he added calmly, “did anyone else in my crew. I’ll stake my job on it.”
Sloane let out a relieved breath. She couldn’t say why she believed him, but she did. He didn’t prevaricate, didn’t dodge the question or her stare. Her body relaxed a fraction more, and she took another swig from her bottle. The frothy beer fizzed going down.
“What did she take?” he asked. “You said classified.”
Sloane tipped her beer, frowning down into the dark neck of it. Buying time, really. Deciding how much to say. Sloane decided to enfold him in her trust, get him on her side of this, lest his loyalty to Irida become a barrier.
“A database. Full of maintenance data, equipment placement, that sort of thing. I can’t figure out why.”
“Can’t you?”
That got her attention. Sloane’s gaze lifted to meet his. “Explain.”
The turian let out a long, gusty sigh. He shifted in his chair, set the whiskey on his leg and cradled it there. “Think about it,” he said slowly. “You’ve felt the tension in the air, right? People are worried.”
“I know.” She pulled a face. “It just adds to the real problems.”
“It is a real problem,” he corrected. “First we woke up in chaos, then we found our leadership dead.” He gestured at her. “Suddenly, there were three people in charge nobody really knew. No offense to you or Addison, and okay, maybe a bit to Tann, but Garson was the heart and soul of this mission.”
“Thanks for pointing out my lack of heart and soul,” she cut in wryly. His eyes twinkled with returned humor, but he didn’t stop to address it.
“You wake up a lot of people to get things back in order, they see the mess and lack of stores of food, not to mention this mysterious and downright dangerous Scourge looming all around us, and then you ask them to go back to cryo on faith that things will be okay. When they don’t agree, they start getting rationed. Rations are inevitably cut, and people start getting hungry. They want answers. Hope. Will the scout ships return? Will the Pathfinders ever arrive? Will the Scourge finish us off? Patience dwindles by the day, Sloane.”
The list annoyed her, mostly because he was right. She leaned forward, cradling her beer between both hands, braced her elbows on her knees, and scowled.
“Justification isn’t what I’m interested in, it’s motive.”
“You humans have a saying for it,” he said, unfazed by the irritation she didn’t bother hiding. “Waiting for the shoe to fall?”
“Close enough.”
“The pioneers aboard the Nexus have hit obstacle after obstacle.” He gestured at the commons around them, which was deceptively quiet given the nature of their discussion. “Tensions are running high. Every emergency, accident, and failure leaves them feeling more exposed. Less safe. Leadership treats them like babies you can put down to bed—”
She couldn’t help but snort. “You aren’t a parent, are you?”
He laughed outright, shaking his head. “All right, perhaps that was a bad analogy. Point is, to them, leadership seems to want them to perform like VIs—on command, when necessary, power down when done. Like good little machines.” He shrugged. “They’re scared, Sloane. They think no one will protect them when that shoe falls. They don’t want to be in cryo, helpless, when it happens.”
She could see it now.
“By stealing that information,” Sloane said slowly, thinking it through, “Irida could be ready when the shoe drops—she’d know where everything is, and perhaps how to get to it. But for what? A siege? A threat?”
“No,” Calix said quietly. “Think about it the other way around. It’s a ticket to some freedom. Maybe she just wants to make sure there’s a place where she and others like her might feel safe.”
“Great.” Sloane rubbed at her forehead, then pinched the bridge of her nose between two tense fingers. “Meanwhile this presents a threat to everyone else on board. What are the odds she passed the data off to someone else?”
“Only she and whomever she may have talked to know for sure. The real question here, I think, is how do we stop the shoe?”
That was an excellent, excellent question. How did you reassure hungry, scared people that everything was going to be okay? Hold out hope for the Pathfinders? The scouts? Talk up hydroponics? Would an “everything is going to be okay” cover it?
Hell if Sloane knew.
Maybe Addison would. Maybe even Tann would have ideas that didn’t involve forcing people back to sleep.
“If you don’t mind me saying,” Calix offered cautiously, “it may start with how you treat Irida.” She scowled. “I know, I know, she’s on my team and of course I want her treated well, but if she winds up out the airlock, if her punishment is perceived as a warning to others…”
She squinted at Calix, and thought of the way she’d carried herself during the arrest. The punch she’d thrown, and what she’d said. But more than that, the punishment Sloane herself had advocated back when those terrorists had tried to steal a shuttle.
“Do you think I’d space somebody over a dissenting opinion?”
His crack of laughter forced him to put a long hand over his drink to keep it from spilling.
“You? Nah. You’re a hard woman, Sloane, but you’re not completely heartless.” At her grimace, he cocked his head again. “Why, is our ‘acting director’ spreading rumors?”
“If it helps his position.” Now she grimaced. “Ugh, I shouldn’t say that. I have no proof.”
“Probably don’t need any.” He hummed a low note of wry humor. “He’s a real piece of work, isn’t he?”
Sloane’s chuckle felt sharp in her chest. “And then some.”
“Well, stands to reason.”
“Because he’s salarian?”
“Just an observation.” Calix leaned forward, fingers curved around his glass so he could swirl its contents at her. “He’s a numbers type. An ‘at all costs’ sort, right? It’s important to him to keep the upper hand in a power play. After all, power is money.”
It should have been money is power, but in this case, the turian was dead right. Tann, sh
e admitted silently, would much rather have the power. “Whatever that’d net him on this floating wreck,” she said aloud.
The turian’s index finger uncurled from around the glass to point at her. “It’d net him plenty. Including full say over operations. I bet he wants a finger in everything.”
Sloane grunted a laugh, uncomfortable at how cozy this conversation had become, but unwilling to draw a line. It felt good to talk to someone who understood the clusterfuck the council had become. Calix seemed to understand.
“Sorry I don’t have better news, Sloane. Things are tough.”
“Things are out of control,” she replied.
“Why did you come here?”
“Fadeer. And the drink.” She lifted her bottle in salute.
He studied her, slowly shaking his head. “I mean why did you, Sloane Kelly, security director, come to Andromeda?”
“A fresh start,” she said automatically. Calix was too clever by far for this pat answer, though. And she didn’t have any reason not to say. “Because I didn’t have anything to leave behind. Because it was a chance to do things right, for once. To be better.”
“You could have been better back home.”
“This is home.”
“You know what I mean.”
Sloane looked away, gathering her thoughts. “It’s hard to make things better,” she said, “when you have so much momentum in a certain direction. Thousands of years of ingrained biases, time-tested laws that no one even remembers why they were written. Regs in place because that’s the way it’s always been done.”
Calix inclined his head, agreeing, and also encouraging her to go on.
“That sort of cruft drives me insane,” she continued, though she couldn’t quite say why. “No, the problem with ‘back home’ is that even if you could be a catalyst for change, you can’t hope to do more than get the process moving. And hope that, well after you’re dead and gone, something works.”
“You could have requested a post at some colony, far from the Citadel. Surely there’s no shortage of out-of-the-way places where you’d have the rank needed to be in charge.”
Sloane found herself nodding. “True. I thought about it, but that’s a fresh start only for me. And eventually the colony would be drawn back into the fold, the day it’s no longer considered irrelevant.”
He chuckled dryly. “I’d say you’re jaded, but that would be an understatement.”
“Yeah, well,” Sloane said, then trailed off. “Thanks for the drink, Calix.”
“You got it.”
Sloane downed the rest of her beer, then pitched it toward the receptacle. Calix watched it arc through the air. It clinked as it rebounded off the inner edge, then sank into the bin.
“A fraction to the left,” he murmured, “and you’d be cleaning up glass.”
“Story of my life, friend.” Her smile showed teeth as she forced her weary body up from the chair. “Story of my fucking life.”
The turian lifted his glass in solidarity—sympathy, acknowledgement, and good luck all in the tip of dark amber liquid.
She’d need it all before this ended.
* * *
Sloane went back to the security offices, dragging ass and she knew it. As she threw herself down into the nearest chair she wrestled with the truth—that Calix hadn’t offered any answers. Just more questions, and the metaphorical shoe.
Had Irida Fadeer been working alone? Was she after something specific? Rations, or other resources?
Were other Nexus personnel involved? If so, how many?
Talini looked up from her temporary desk, setting her tablet down gently. “Did you get anything from Corvannis?”
“Yes… and no.”
The asari cupped her chin in her hand, elbow planted. “Let me guess. More questions?”
“How the hell do you do that?” Sloane muttered. “It’s like you know.”
“I just figured. There hasn’t been much interaction on the feeds to indicate the existence of co-conspirators. Chatter between members of her team, of course, but we haven’t found anything damning. They’re just concerned for her, and angry with us. Typical. Judging from the surveillance, she acted alone, for what it’s worth.”
“Is it too much to hope that she’s an independent?”
Talini shrugged. “There’s a case for every scenario.”
“Including the one that justifies sedition?” The asari’s rueful smile told Sloane the answer. She cursed vividly. Cursed some more, and when Talini only shook her head, Sloane added a few in turian. For color.
When she finished Sloane leaned back in her chair and glowered at the ceiling, her mind furiously grinding on the facts. Calix had told her more than she’d asked. Made it clear and to her face that people were scared. It was one thing to feel it yourself, and something else entirely to hear it from someone else.
She rubbed at the back of her sore neck, wondering why she’d said as much as she had. An instinct, she supposed. An innate ability to spot the trustworthy, the loyal. The turian had shown her over and over that he’d work to the bone for this station. His team had, too.
So what set Irida Fadeer off?
A small cup of dark, steaming liquid clicked against the desk next to her elbow. Sloane glanced over, then sighed in unashamed ecstasy when the rich aroma of coffee filled her nose.
“I dipped into supplies,” Talini confessed, nudging the cup closer. “You look like you need it.”
Hell. Sloane wouldn’t deny it. “Thanks.” She picked up the cup and held it between her callused hands, absorbing its warmth, its fragrance. Talini rested a hand on Sloane’s shoulder, in a brief moment of understanding.
“Hang in there.”
“Best as we can.” She glowered into the dark brew.
Six-hundred-year-old coffee. Fucking tragic, really. The coffee had aged better than all of them.
Sloane sighed. “All right. Let’s get to work.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A pin drop would have boomed like thunder in the still room.
Foster Addison stood at the main console, behind two technicians seated in front of the only two monitoring stations that worked. Behind her, Tann paced. Sloane Kelly stood off to one side, leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest. Addison could feel the pressure building inside the security director, like a balloon being flooded with air, flirting with that moment when the whole thing would burst.
Otherwise the modest control room within Colonial Affairs had been cleared of personnel. For security reasons. Addison studied the screen on the console, trying to temper her hopes as well as the growing ball of dread that lurked in her gut.
Six of the eight expeditions had returned, all empty-handed. The worlds they’d visited were in ruins, apparently ravaged by the same energy tendrils that had nearly destroyed the Nexus. What Tann had dubbed the Scourge.
Two of the returning ships had been heavily damaged, limping back to the station by the slimmest of margins. In one of those ships a reactor had failed as they rode the sudden wrath of a Scourge tendril. The entire crew remained in the infirmary, near death due to radiation poisoning.
The other ship had attempted to reach a promising moon in the local star system, Zheng He, only to find that one of the Scourge’s larger tendril bands enveloped the entire rock, like a snake wrapped about its prey. Sensors were unable to penetrate the mysterious blanket, and the shuttle’s captain had decided a landing would be too dangerous.
Four more vessels simply had met with similar results. Worlds seemingly once verdant were toxic wastelands, unable to provide anything useful.
Addison chewed on her lip. Not only had they failed to find a source for supplies or, barring that, a place to evacuate the Nexus, they’d also burned through a significant quantity of their rations in the process. Every returning ship was nearly empty, and their stores would have to be refilled if they were to fly again. Two of those were out of commission for repairs that might not even be possi
ble to make with the parts on hand.
It had come to this—the last two. Addison couldn’t look at Sloane Kelly. Her officer, Kandros, was on one of those ships. Addison had been partly responsible for sending him. Caught up in the excitement that her beloved idea was finally being taken seriously.
It wasn’t her fault Sloane had been away, out of comm range, when the plan had been hatched. And few could argue Kandros’s credentials. He was the perfect candidate to lead one of the missions.
Few could argue, yet it only took one. The security director hadn’t taken the news well. In hindsight, Addison could see why.
“Hmm,” one of the techs said. An older man named Sascha, human, gray at the temples with a calm way of going about his tasks. He hadn’t been out of this room in more than a week—not since the reports started coming in—and he hadn’t complained about it once. Same for the asari who was seated to his left. Both had been sworn to secrecy, an oath that would be taken very seriously since the arrest of Irida Fadeer.
Despite all the precautions, though, rumors had already begun to spread.
Doesn’t much matter, Addison thought. It’s only a matter of time before we have to make an announcement. The question was, would there be a celebration, or something decidedly less upbeat.
“Hrmm…”
“What is it, Sascha?” she asked.
“A blip.”
“A blip?” Sloane repeated.
Sascha leaned in closer to his screen, pointing at an indicator. Addison had memorized these displays by now. Spent hours staring, hoping. The entire console had been rigged up from whatever parts people could scrounge, and part of her wished she didn’t know the kind of kludges and scraps of code that were holding it all together.
In this case, a sensor used to inform the station’s cleaning staff of a need for laundry service had been repurposed to listen for the transponder frequencies of the scout vessels. For a split second there, it had heard something. Then it had gone dark. Sascha leaned back, and let out the tiniest of sighs in impatient exhaustion.
“This is a waste of time,” Sloane said. “Sensors can barely detect our own hull in this mess. We’d be better off with binoculars.”
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