Emergency ECS (end of cryostasis) protocol, the screen read, above Tann’s name.
Two more names were displayed, along with their status and, more importantly, their purpose: Directors Foster Addison and Sloane Kelly, advisors to the temporary commander.
Kesh was not listed. Nor any of the other two dozen or so known to be awake.
It shouldn’t have surprised her. Shouldn’t have stung. All this data did was confirm what Kesh had suspected. She had not been awoken for a sudden and absolute need for leadership. She wasn’t among those designated for such responsibility.
A krogan wasn’t meant for that. Not even here, where everyone had touted the words fresh start as if they knew what it meant.
They didn’t. Not the way she and her clan did.
Nakmor Kesh, one of the greatest contributors to the very station now falling apart around them and who knew the Nexus better than most, had been woken to clean up the mess. She stared at the back of the salarian’s head and tried to imagine why anyone would have put him in charge. Discounting her own contributions, Kesh figured at worst, Director Sloane Kelly should have been leading in this scenario.
But then, Kesh knew the reason. Politics. Council politics, anti-krogan politics, red tape. Call it what they would, it had to be the source.
A fresh start born out of old, destructive habits.
This truth bit deep. She’d hoped—indeed, based her decision to come on this mission in the first place—that they were leaving, truly leaving, the Milky Way behind. All the prejudices, all the old scores. A chance, in other words, for the krogan race to begin anew as equals to the peoples around them. Not just because they said so, but because they’d show those same peoples exactly why they were every bit as competent, industrious, and determined as they were.
At the departure celebration, she’d admitted as much to Nakmor Morda. The veteran warrior had roared with laughter, and drank deep to the folly of idealism. The memory left Kesh embarrassed… and angry. She had the right to hope for a better way of life. Stronger integration.
She was nobody’s naïve youth. But Morda, she was a different entity entirely. Harder, brutal when necessary, and Clan Leader for a reason.
Kesh did not relish the day the leader would wake to this so-called new galaxy.
“Hold on,” Sloane said, gesturing at the screen. “Everyone in my chamber was woken up, and the one adjacent. How do you know I was part of this… protocol or whatever?”
Kesh grunted something impatient. “The logs don’t lie,” she said flatly. Without being asked, she stepped forward—muscling the salarian out of the way simply by getting close enough—and brought up the screen now that terminal access had been unlocked. “The other pods were genuinely damaged, but not yours. See here? That group, and these three. Pod damage. Otherwise they would still be asleep now, or worse. But yours, that was protocol.”
“But I remember it damaged.”
“After protocols had begun.” Kesh’s thick finger stabbed the line.
Sloane opened her mouth, seemed to think better of it, and said nothing.
“It appears,” Tann said to the two human women standing on either side of him, “that the three of us will be spending a lot of time together.”
“Until Garson is found,” Kesh added pointedly.
It was as if she were not even in the room. Part of her, the undiplomatic part—the krogan part, steeped in lifetimes of conflict—wanted to ram her fist in the salarian’s flat, ugly face.
The security director saved her the effort.
Sloane shook her head, her features grim. “Yeah. Not happening.”
“What?”
“Advisory, my ass. Until this situation is under control I’ll be calling the shots.” She forged right over Addison’s breath for words, over Tann’s blinking onslaught of speechlessness. “This is an emergency, a possibly deadly one, and until we’re out of this damned mess, the last thing I want to do is argue costs with a revenue officer, no disrespect.”
Kesh fought a vicious thread of humor.
The salarian met her gaze, mouth tightening, and then focused squarely on the Security Director. “I understand your concern, but the mission protocol—”
“Fuck protocol. Look around us, Tann. We’re going to be lucky to survive the next hour. And you know what? Fuck the mission, too.” Addison’s eyes flared, surprise and anger. “I’ll worry about the mission when the last fire has been stamped out.”
The salarian drew back, but froze when Kesh lumbered to her feet. “Security Director Kelly is right.” Simple words. Simple tone. She wasn’t the placating kind.
The woman frowned. “Call me Sloane, will you? Titles give me a headache.”
Kesh could respect that. “Sloane,” she amended, “is right.”
Tann’s eyes narrowed. “Your opinion is noted.”
She may as well have suggested they repaint the Nexus Tuchanka-gas pink for all the consideration he gave it.
It took more energy than Kesh had to keep the irritation from her voice.
“Fact. Not opinion.” She gestured toward the screen. “Life support is failing. Everything from core power to ventilation is taxed beyond spec as the ship tries to compensate for all this damage.”
They all stared at her. Various degrees of inquiry and bemusement. Or, in the salarian’s case, outright impatience. There was no time for this.
She growled, raising her voice. “The Nexus is dying.”
Sometimes only bluntness worked.
All three snapped to a different kind of attention. One that processed this new data with, in Kesh’s opinion, not nearly enough fire.
Tann looked at Addison. Addison looked at Sloane. Sloane just narrowed her eyes, staring at the lone functioning screen, lost in thought. Kesh could almost see the wheels turning in there.
The salarian dusted off his sleeve. “Well then. I suggest—”
Sloane cut him off with an upheld hand. She looked to Kesh. “Who’s in charge of life support, and are they still alive?”
Kesh knew the name already. The turian reported to her directly. She poked and swiped at the screen.
“Calix Corvannis. Competent, if a bit… you know, turian.” She noted Sloane’s lips quirk, just enough. The human understood. Adding a turian’s casual arrogance to this party would be a fascinating new thorn in Jarun Tann’s side, to say nothing of the species’ unique devotion to the meritocracy. One foolish move, and they’d all hear about it.
In various degrees of respect, depending on said turian.
Calix was a good officer, but he had a way of holding his cards close. Kesh had learned to respect his space, and he to respect her orders. How that would hold up in this new environment, only time would tell. “He is still in stasis,” she observed. “Status… at-risk, but nominally. Like everyone else.”
“Wake him.”
Tann frowned. “What?”
“And his crew,” Sloane added, ignoring him.
“Wait just a moment,” Tann said, raising his voice. He held out his hands, though whether to get Sloane’s attention or make Kesh belie the order, she didn’t know. “That does not seem wise at this stage.”
Sloane whirled on him. “Are you telling me that it’s not wise to fix our failing life-support systems? Really?”
Give credit where it’s due, Kesh thought grudgingly. The salarian held his ground.
“I am asking if it’s wise to add more oxygen-consuming, waste-producing bodies to this situation,” he replied stiffly. “Life support may be failing, but it’s already struggling to provide us a breathable atmosphere, is it not, Nakmor Kesh?”