Andromeda

by Jason M. Hough

  “Going to need you to step aside,” Calix said. “And keep your hands—”

  One of the guards dove to the side, pistol drawn in a flash.

  Gunfire erupted from Calix’s group, ending any semblance of control he might have.

  “Focus fire!” someone shouted.

  The guard who’d dived, still airborne, began to shudder as rounds slammed against his kinetic shield. Energies rippled across its surfaces and then, when it had taken all it could, the flaring stopped. The next round took him square in the forehead. His leap ended in a lifeless thud.

  Spender made eye contact with Calix, then. A single glance. Then the bureaucrat broke and ran, arms clasped over his ears. He crossed in front of the two guards, elbowing one as he went, disrupting her aim. An accident? Calix wondered. Filed that. Soon enough the politician was clear and still running, out of the line of fire. Calix ignored him. He found he had his own weapon raised, his finger squeezed tight on the trigger. The weapon chattered, bursts of fire that nearly blinded him, the sound of it buffeting his ears and sending them ringing. On instinct he crouched and moved sideways, not that there was any cover.

  One of his gang took a round to the gut and doubled over, howling in pain, rifle skittering across the floor. Armed maybe, but they lacked the armor Sloane’s officers wore.

  The two remaining guards backed up into the hangar, firing as they moved. One began to writhe under another salvo of concentrated fire. She shrieked and fell to the side as the shield gave out, her knee exploding. Calix had done that. Fired the round that wounded her. He only realized it a second later.

  He’d shot someone. Ruined their leg. Ruined their—

  Another shot hit the guard he’d felled, this one in the throat. The howling turned into a strained wet gurgle.

  The lone remaining guard dove behind cover, a random crate, popping up a second later to spray bullets across the attacking force. Calix stood in the open, numb at what he’d just seen. He knew the danger, the bullets flying past him. One grazed his pant leg, a tug he barely felt. Then a member of his group tackled him.

  He fell to the floor, a body landing heavily on top of him.

  They’ve turned on me already, he thought. Then Calix felt a warmth at his side, reached down and saw the blood on his hand. The blood of the person who lay on top of him. He was dead.

  A round pinged off the floor a hand’s-width from his face. Sparks flew into his eyes. Calix had no time to mourn the body that lay over him, to honor the sacrifice this person had made. He couldn’t even tell who it was yet. Instead he rolled toward the battle, causing the body to flop onto the floor in front of him, providing a barricade.

  He saw then. It was Ulrich. He looked into the man’s eyes and saw life still there. Ulrich blinked at him.

  “I…” he said, blood in his mouth, and then bullets tore into his back. Three wet thuds, each leaving a little less life in those eyes until, finally, mercifully, they became glassy and still.

  Calix felt the last warm breath on his face, and then nothing. Ulrich had saved his life, and in return Calix had just used the still-living man to further shield himself. That had been Ulrich’s payment for years of loyalty and camaraderie.

  “I’m sorry, friend,” Calix said under his breath.

  The corpse made no reply.

  Anger welled up in him. The circumstances didn’t matter. This death was a result of the poor decisions made by the Nexus’s leadership. Not just those currently in command, but going all the way back to the planning days, when a fucking bureaucrat had decided on some asinine rules of succession that failed to take into account who might be put in charge. The system would pick whoever happened to be of highest seniority, as if that were all that mattered.

  As a result, an inept moron bean counter and a depressed ambassador were making life-and-death decisions for thousands of souls. Sloane, at least, had her shit together, but as far as he was concerned her presence among that group could be attributed to luck, not design.

  It culminated here, in the death of a hard-working innocent man, loyal both to the mission and to Calix Corvannis. He pushed himself to his feet and began to walk toward the hangar, his rifle raised. The security officer hadn’t moved from behind the crate. Calix walked right around the side of the box and shot the surprised security officer point blank. A barrage that sapped her kinetic shield in seconds.

  The woman convulsed under the onslaught, her mouth in an ‘O’ of surprise even as the life went out in her eyes.

  “Grab everything,” he said, to everyone and yet no one. “Carts are there.” He pointed to a row of the levitating platforms all parked in a line along one wall.

  Then he went after William Spender.

  The man had made his home in a closet near the vast hangar, just a few meters down the hall. He’d locked himself inside. Calix tried his omni-tool, then remembered that his access had been yanked. So he knocked, hard. “Are you in there, Spender? It’s Calix. Open the door.”

  A voice inside. Muffled. “I can’t be seen talking to you.”

  “Why’d you help us back there?”

  “Did I?”

  Calix chewed on that, but only for a second. He wanted to hear the man’s words, however calculated they might be. He needed to know if he had a leadership insider sympathetic to his cause. “If you’re with us, just say so. I can protect you.”

  “I’m not with anyone,” Spender snapped.

  “Spender—”

  “You might want to run along now, Calix. I have a duty to report this event.”

  Calix puffed out a breath. “We’ll discuss this later.”

  A muffled, single laugh from inside. “Yeah. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you on the other side.”

  And then Calix heard Spender’s hushed voice, reporting the very attack he’d just helped Calix win.

  Calix Corvannis could only shake his head, and hurry away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  She’d reached a full sprint when the armory came into view. Sloane stopped a dozen paces out, crouched behind a low railing, and surveyed the scene.

  Bodies. The splatter of blood.

  Her gut twisted into a knot. Those were her people in there. Her family. Cut down. And by Calix, for fuck’s sake. She’d known he was clever. Politically savvy. But this? He’d kept this side hidden well.

  “I’ve got at least two officers down,” she said. “Who’s armed?”

  Several of her team chimed in, and without needing an order they came forward while the others moved to the back. Sloane pointed at two of them and gestured toward the right side of the armory entrance. The others would know to follow her to the left.

  Pistol in hand, she was off, running again while bent at the waist, her eyes darting from the path ahead to the door off to her right. Her team moved like fluid, spilling through the sporadic cover and flowing across the open space before reaching the bulkhead like a wave against a seawall.

  Sloane did not hesitate. She nodded once to the officer directly across the bulkhead from her, and the two of them rounded the corners and entered the room with barely a pause. She swept her weapon to the obvious hiding places, fist loose on the grip, finger resting on the trigger, all of it cupped in her off-hand palm.

  “Calix!” she called out. “Surrender now and we’ll show leniency. You have my word.” Sloane wasn’t quite sure if she meant that, but she knew her team wouldn’t believe it. They’d see it as a tactic to get the enemy out in the open, and that was fine. Maybe that’s what it was.

  Nothing stirred. The room remained as quiet as the bodies that lay within it. Sloane moved to the nearest victim, felt for a pulse, and found none. A deep pain gripped her—and a fear as well. Whatever the reasoning for this, whatever Calix’s motivation, blood had been shed. Security had been targeted.

  Her team would be out for revenge.

  Sloane debated giving the speech. One she’d had to give many times in her career. The need to maintain professionalism. Respect f
or the rule of law. Innocent until proven blah blah blah. In her experience security personnel always reacted the same way to that speech. Lots of nodding and agreement, and then it all went out the fucking window the moment they had their perp in sight.

  Screw it then. This was more, so much more, than a simple altercation. They’d raided the armory. Stolen weapons. She glanced around and didn’t need to take an inventory to know. Whole shelves had been emptied. This room had been stocked to handle whatever the Nexus might encounter in Andromeda, and for a security staff ten times what she’d been able to wake for the emergency.

  Enough to supply a small army.

  “Spread out,” she said. “Search the room.”

  They were long gone already, but she needed a minute to think. Her team flooded in and began an aisle-to-aisle search. Sloane lifted her wrist and tapped into the omni-tool. She called for medics.

  “Bring body bags.” She reported the deaths of three security staff and one life-support tech in the armory.

  “Sir?” She jumped involuntarily. One of her officers had approached from the direction of the weapons lockers. The ones with military training always called her “sir.”

  She let it slide. “Go ahead.”

  “They were smart,” the woman said. “Only took the weapons that didn’t have tracking gear. We won’t be able to find them via sensors.”

  “Figures,” Sloane replied, shaking her head. Calix knew his stuff, or someone with him did. She wondered what other surprises he had in store. She also wondered how long he’d been planning this. Bits of her interview with him after Irida’s arrest replayed in her mind. She’d gone to get information from him, and somehow told him far more than someone of his rank needed to know.

  He had that way about him. She shuddered at the memory of it, feeling like the victim of a con. Combined with the knowledge that his entire team had followed him from their previous posting, and phrases like “cult of personality” started to flitter through her mind.

  Their search complete, the rest of her team gathered around. One look at their faces confirmed what she already knew. As she suspected, they’d gotten away.

  “Tracking down these weapons is our top priority now,” she said to them. “Arm up as best you can, with whatever’s left. I’ll need two of you to remain here with the door closed and locked. Minch, Kwan, you handle it. No one gets in unless you clear it with me first. Understood?”

  They both nodded. Someone offered Sloane a rifle. She took it, checked the load out, and deactivated the safety.

  “Everyone else with me.”

  * * *

  “We have to seal the room,” Tann said.

  He ignored the shocked intake of breath from Foster Addison. She’d reach the same conclusion soon enough. For now, there was no time to debate. He left her at the console and strode toward the doors.

  Spender stood near the wall, casually reviewing who-knows-what on his omni-tool. More reports of looting or firefights, no doubt. Spender had been in the middle of just such a battle only minutes before, and barely escaped with his life from the way he told it.

  Tann nodded to him as he passed. “Help me secure the room.”

  No guards were posted at the Operations door. Hadn’t been since the Scourge had struck, in fact. Tann marveled at that, in hindsight. Despite everything, he’d never once thought to have security posted here. Whatever grumblings the crew might have, he had not truly believed anything like this could happen.

  A miscalculation, one he intended not to make again.

  Spender helped him with the doors. There were three entrances to Operations, two of which led to blocked passageways, but they sealed those all the same. The time for lax security, for taking chances, was over.

  “In a strange way,” Tann said as he rejoined Addison, “this altercation gives us the excuse we need to act with impunity. If the crew won’t return to cryostasis of their own accord, they—”

  “How can you even be talking about that?” Addison asked, naked disgust on her face. “Three people are dead in the armory. Who knows how many more in Hydroponics.”

  “That is exactly what I’m talking about,” Tann said, confused at her resistance.

  “The bodies are still warm and you’re already trying to twist this into some kind of advantage.”

  He shrugged. “Of course. Any event must be factored into future decisions and directions. Naturally—”

  “I can’t listen to this right now,” she said, and she walked away. Tann debated following her, explaining, but Spender caught his eye. The man held up one hand and made a face, a uniquely human expression that said, I’ve got this.

  So be it. Tann went back to the console. Its capabilities were still limited, but one thing he could do was access cameras placed around the station. Not all of them, but some. Hopefully enough.

  Every one of them showed nearly the same thing. People running about, or clustered in groups embroiled in heated conversation, some on the verge of violence. Panic and chaos. Exactly what Calix Corvannis wanted, no doubt. Tann stroked his chin, impressed despite himself. He’d underestimated the turian. Or rather, he’d had no reason to estimate him at all. Calix was middle-management. A capable life-support technician and a reasonably good leader of his team. Tann wondered what kind of background could lead someone like that to exhibit such political acuity.

  He brought up Calix’s personnel file and skimmed it. Nothing stood out. Assigned to various ships and space stations throughout his career, rising to a rank of chief only a year before the Andromeda Initiative put out its open call for volunteers. Interestingly, Calix’s application had come in late, and it wasn’t just him. He and his entire team had all applied simultaneously. In his application Calix had stated that they would join the Initiative together, or not at all.

  Tann pondered this for a moment. He pulled a chair over and sat. Sipping water, he pulled up the dossiers on everyone that reported to Calix, skipping the summaries and analysis in favor of the detailed parts. He began to read.

  * * *

  Three levels below Operations, a group of armed civilians rushed into a common area frequented by the non-krogan members of the crew.

  Calix had hoped it would be empty, that people would have decided it best to stay in their quarters until the situation settled down. He’d neglected to consider the fact that most didn’t have quarters. They’d taken to sleeping in the commons, out of necessity and perhaps for the company.

  And so there they were. Clustered in little groups, engaged in hushed, urgent conversations. The room went quiet at the sight of him and his… gang? Somewhere along the line he’d begun to think of them that way, and saw the truth of it in the eyes of those who were now staring, wide-eyed.

  How we must look, he thought, barreling in with assault rifles in hand and the splatter of blood on their uniforms. For an instant Calix feared they might seek to block his path. Then came the odd sense that they might instead burst into applause. Congratulate him for standing up for their rights.

  What actually happened was both.

  Shouts of derision, exclamations of support, all mingled together into something else. The crowd split along ideological lines and chaos quickly ensued. Fights broke out. People shouted, falling to the floor, running for safer ground. Somehow he found himself at the center of it all, surrounded in a bubble of loaded weapons wielded by his almost perversely loyal team. His gang.

  Yes, Calix thought, that really was the most apt description. No getting around it. Most of them had been with him for years. A bunch of misfits he’d somehow managed to tame, one at a time. They’d said—after the Warsaw—that they would follow him anywhere. He hadn’t meant to put that to the test when he announced he was going to apply for Andromeda. In fact, he’d hoped to finally break from this life and start fresh. But they’d been good to their word, and before he even realized what was happening, they’d decided for him that the application would be for the entire team.

  That had b
een born more of a desire to leave a horribly commanded ship en masse than anything else. He doubted back then, as he did now, that they’d really understood what they were getting into by joining the Initiative. They just wanted to be part of something.

  Well, they got their wish, and then some, he thought.

  Calix stopped halfway through the room. He held up his hands and called for silence as his armed escort maintained the circle around him, their guns pointed outward like spears. The crowd continued to jostle, arguments growing heated. Calix opened his mouth to appeal for quiet again, but before he could one of his techs fired off a few rounds into the ceiling.

  The crowd went dead silent, all eyes on him.

  Calix waited for the dust and debris to settle before addressing them.

  “All of us were pulled from cryo for a reason,” he said. “To fix the Nexus. This isn’t just some ship we’ve been assigned to. It’s not a temporary post. The Nexus is our home. Our shelter. We still don’t know what damaged this place. Nobody does. Our leadership talks of the Scourge, but a name is about all they have.”

  He had their full attention. Decided not to squander it.

  “Now we learn this Scourge has lain waste to every planet in our vicinity. One of our scouts didn’t even return, probably another casualty. This unknown force could strike again at any time and we wouldn’t know, because sensors are still broken with little hope of repair.”

  “Maybe the sensors team needs replacing!” someone shouted.

  Another voice fired right back. “We can’t fix anything without the parts. It’s fabrications that can’t cope with—”

  Yet another voice interrupted. “Fab is doing everything it can to keep up. But every time we start manufacturing something, we’re told to cancel it because a higher priority has come up.”

  Nods of agreement.

  Calls of “bullshit.”

  Blame met with blame.

  Calix raised his hands again. “We’ve all been working hard. If we blame anyone, it has to be our interim leadership. They were never chosen for this job, and they’re clearly not capable of it.”