Silently venting all the things she wanted to say, Sloane made it only a few steps into the anteroom when the Nexus began to tremble.
CHAPTER THREE
“What the hell is that?”
Sloane didn’t have an answer. The ship trembled and quaked all around them, heaving as if stretched in too many directions. They swayed, colliding into each other before both women found their feet. The awesome shriek of metal tearing apart echoed through the corridors. Addison half-ducked, throwing an arm over her head.
Sloane had only just locked her stance down, preparing for a deeper roll, when the shifting stopped. Again, metal strained and groaned, rolling hollowly through the otherwise eerily hushed chamber. When it faded to nothing, they stared at each other in grim silence.
For a long moment, nothing moved.
Not them.
Not the ship.
Sloane let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “No follow up,” she said. “That’s good—or at least it isn’t bad.”
“Another explosion?”
“Doubtful.”
“How can you be sure?”
Sloane braced a hand against a tilted column and studied the bulkhead above them, half expecting it to suddenly crack and fall. What a way to go. “Because it didn’t feel like one,” she said flatly. “Whatever this is, it’s affecting the whole ship, like… like an earthquake.”
“An earthquake in space?”
“Now who’s being sarcastic?” Sloane retorted.
“I figured I’d meet you at your level,” Addison muttered, more than a little superiority in the curt jibe. That earned her a hard glare.
“All I’m saying,” Sloane said, dredging up her failing reserve of patience, “is that none of my ‘under attack’ bones are twitching. And that jives with what a technician postulated on my way here.” Much to Sloane’s dismay. In some ways, an attack was easier to handle. Protect the station, kill the intruders.
“Who?”
“T’vaan, I think. Asari.”
Addison’s eyes widened. “She’s all right?” The hope in that sentence, the fact it ended on a question, was enough to kick an ache in Sloane’s conscience.
Wordlessly, she shook her head.
Crestfallen, Addison seemed to deflate, withdrawing a little more from Sloane. “She was one of the science team.”
Yeah. Sloane figured. She nodded, focused her attention again on the empty chamber. The ceiling held. “Well, she echoed what you said. Something weird on the sensors. So which way to Ops from here? Let’s figure this out.”
“Past the Cultural Exchange and along the spoke arm.” Then, in a somber tone, “Unless the path is blocked.”
“Then let’s move,” Sloane said, “before anything else collapses.”
On that, they could both agree. Even so, she eased her pace. Her toe ached mightily, and she didn’t like the way Addison’s wound had already begun to purple under the medi-gel. Concussion, definitely. She kept a wary eye on her, trying to figure her out. Leaving the bridge? And to find Garson, no less. She’d failed in one, but maybe that was just coincidental. Maybe she’d gone looking just as Garson returned to the bridge.
If she’d stayed, would Addison now have the answers to this mess?
Maybe.
If what she said checked out, Sloane wouldn’t want to be in those shoes when that report hit somebody’s desk. Leaving one’s station when shit hit the fan? Looked bad. Even for a director.
No, not just somebody’s desk. Jien Garson’s. Addison reported directly to her, just as Sloane did. Although knowing the Initiative’s ideals, they’d figure out a way to have a committee review Addison’s misstep.
Despite her personal aversion to bureaucracy, and her own occasional run-ins with disciplinary boards, she had faith in the Nexus leadership. Garson would do the right thing, however committee-happy she and her team might be.
Assuming, the suspicious little voice in Sloane’s investigative nature piped up, the woman was telling the truth.
A fact she’d let sit for now. All things considered, she’d suspected just about everyone of potential sabotage at this point. Evidence first, conjecture later.
A sudden clatter tore through her reverie, made Sloane jump back, her pulse racing. She’d never missed her weapons so badly as now. Ahead, a panel split from the wrong side and spilled its guts all over the corridor. Tubes hissed and writhed, releasing a hot blast of steam.
So much for less destruction. Beyond the thrashing mass of tubing, more sparks lit the dark. The devastations that flickered in shadow looked so damn odd compared to the section of clean corridor they stood in now.
At least she hadn’t yelped.
Sloane made Addison wait, leaving the other director fighting to steady her breath. Sloane sniffed the air gingerly. No noxious fumes, at least. Small favors. No flames, either. Just broken ship. Broken wires.
Broken plans.
“Shit,” Addison breathed. “Hope that was nothing important.”
“One more busted pipe,” Sloane observed, “out of thousands. Let’s keep focused.” She wiped steam and adrenaline-induced sweat from her brow. Later, maybe, when the worst of this was behind them, she could worry about a single broken pipe. Or thousands.
Stepping gingerly over the writhing tentacles, she winced when a few jumped and sputtered. Droplets of cooling fluid arced up onto the wall.
“Not too hot,” she said over her shoulder. “Just stay away from the active ones.”
Addison wrinkled her nose as she followed. She was starting to look a little bit glassy around the edges, despite her attitude. “It’s like something rolled through and just…” She flailed with a grimy hand. “Ripped out bits here and there.”
“Stay focused,” Sloane repeated hastily. “It’ll get sorted, eventually.”
“Forgive me if I don’t share your optimism, but eventually isn’t going to cut it. We had enough to do already to begin our mission. But this…” A silence descended, broken only by the hiss and sway of the cords as they left them behind.
A tinge of guilt poked Sloane’s conscience. “Garson will have a plan,” she said without looking back. “We’re in Andromeda, after all. The other side. We made it.”
Maybe that surprised her reluctant companion. Maybe she just needed to hear it. “Yeah.” A slow agreement. But at least it was that.
For a time neither spoke. Even when Sloane had to step around four more bodies, Addison remained quiet. Numb, more like. It was a hell of a lot to take in.
“Let me know if you need to rest,” Sloane tried.
“We’re about two sections away,” Addison said instead. She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Jien had intended to hold a briefing before…” Again, a wave of vibration, though mild compared to before, rippled around them. She winced, held her stance and waited it out. When it died, she smiled a grim little slash. “Before all this.”
Sloane set her jaw and proceeded at a pace too quick to be strictly safe, but at this rate, they’d at least get answers faster. The whiplash of hope to fear to nerves would get her before anything else did.
She hoped they would be answers they wanted.
Damn. There was that word again. Hope.
It was what fueled them all. Every last one of the people still in stasis, every man, woman and child who had registered with the Andromeda Initiative—every species, human to turian to salarian to asari. Hell, even the krogan had signed on looking for a way off their wasteland homeworld, all because of hope.
Now on the brink of going up in flames with every step closer to Operations, every push past destroyed paneling and hanging tubes and wires. The debris scattered around the corridor had flaked off the paneling that had been so warm and gleaming when Sloane had first walked it.