Kesh glanced at the display. “The air will become toxic to the humans first, in about… forty-three minutes.”
“There,” Tann declared, as if handed a victory. “You see? Wake this Calix Corvannis and whoever else, and it might cause the very system you wish them to fix to instead fail.”
Sloane Kelly closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples. “So what’s the alternative?” she asked. “That we let life support fail slowly because trying to fix it might cause it to fail faster?”
Tann smiled. “I haven’t suggested anything yet because you interrupted me.”
Sloane’s lips curled into a genuine snarl.
“Both of you relax, please,” Foster Addison said, stepping between them. “Speak your mind, Tann. Just be quick.”
The salarian gathered himself, straightening his sleeves. “Wake only this Calix fellow and let him decide if the situation calls for additional help. He is, presumably, an expert. Perhaps he can recruit some of us who are already awake to assist, instead of increasing the non-stasial population.”
The red-haired woman didn’t hesitate. “Agreed.” She looked at Kesh, as if it were decided.
Sloane let her furious glare bore into Tann for a few more seconds, then turned to Kesh as well. “Wake Calix, then. You and I will meet him at his pod, appraise him of the situation and help, if needed.” She infused more bile into the word “help” than Kesh would have thought possible of a human, but it was a petty gesture. Even Kesh could see that the salarian had a valid point.
She nodded to Sloane and marched toward the exit, stepping over smashed equipment and lifeless bodies as she went. Sloane followed, saying nothing else.
“What should we do while you’re gone?” Addison called after them.
“Find Garson, before I go insane,” the security director muttered.
Kesh said nothing.
Louder and over her shoulder, Sloane called out, “Try to keep the reactors from going critical. Barring that, if you can get communications working, that would make things a hell of a lot easier. Do you agree, Deputy Director of Revenue Management Tann?”
“It seems a prudent—”
“Good.”
Kesh led Sloane Kelly out of the room and into the fractured hallways of the dying Nexus, glad that no one could see the gallows humor she could feel cramping her facial muscles. Every krogan liked a good fight, whether it be against the elements or some living being. Whatever lay ahead, it wouldn’t be boring.
She accelerated to a full run, Sloane limping slightly but still right on her flank. They were at war against that old and tenacious enemy: the clock.
The clock, Kesh noted, was winning.
“Sure you know where you’re going?” Sloane asked.
Kesh rolled under a support beam fallen diagonally across a hall. She came to her feet, leapt over a bed, and powered on. Some of their route was dark, and a small emergency light on her uniform provided just enough illumination.
The mess didn’t faze her. Finding a bed all the way out here? Now that took some incredible physics.
“I all but built this place,” Kesh said between strides. “I know the Nexus ‘like the back of my hand,’ as you humans say.” She thought about that for a moment. “I’ve never met a human who really knew the back of his hand, though.”
Sloane grunted, dodging the same obstacles. Impressively enough, she’d fallen back only a few meters. At a particular junction, Kesh skidded to a stop and darted off to the left.
“It’s right up here.”
“Hold on,” Sloane called after her.
Kesh turned in time to see the human tapping away at a small keypad on the wall, one of the few still functioning. A panel beside it had the markings of security.
The panel slid open, revealing a small cache of emergency supplies. Sloane reached past a bank of medical kits and selected a pristine Kessler pistol. She checked the load-out and activated the weapon.
“You believe we will need it?”
“A precaution.” Sloane shrugged. “Comfort.”
“You can’t shoot space, Sloane.”
“I don’t intend to,” Sloane replied with a half-smile. She was remarkably less edgy away from the others. More focused. “But some civilians came out of stasis when I did. They were panicked and barely manageable. We don’t have time for that kind of crap now. If this Calix wakes up and loses his shit, we’re all dead.”
“Point taken. Still, do me a favor?”
“No promises.”
Kesh spread her hands. “Calix is the only person on board who really knows the life-support systems inside and out.”
“You don’t?”
She didn’t rise to the bait. “I do, but I have my exceptionally skilled hands full. So if you need to shoot him,” she continued mildly, “aim for the leg.”
Sloane laughed, a full sound that told Kesh everything she needed to know about the human’s sense of humor. Much more like a krogan’s, or a turian’s, than not. “Deal,” she chuckled. “But I don’t plan on shooting anyone. Call it an attention-getter.” She pocketed a few clips of ammunition and a first-aid kit, then slung an emergency rebreather over one shoulder. Kesh grabbed one as well, and they were off once again.
Halfway along the next hall, a series of red emergency lights embedded between floor and wall flickered, then bloomed to dim life. Overhead, a useless alarm began to wail, only to be silenced a few seconds later.
Kesh rested her hand on one wall. The faintest of tremors rippled under the thick skin of her palm. “She’s coming back from the brink.”
This earned an amused snort from Sloane Kelly, and no more. Instead, she ran on, taking the lead.
“Left here,” Kesh urged at the next junction. “Chamber D-14, on the right.”
This corridor looked as if it had taken the brunt of the station’s damage. An illusion, for Kesh knew other sections had fared worse, but she’d yet to traverse devastation like this. The floor had buckled upward, a bundle of wrapped conduits and pipes poking through the bent metal tiles. Like a broken bone through weak human skin.
Steaming orange liquid dribbled from the sheared pipes, spilling down the raised section like volcanic discharge. A bank of lights, still dark, swung from the cables that should have connected them to the ceiling.
“What a fucking mess,” Sloane muttered. “You sure the terminal said Calix was in stasis?”
“As of ten minutes ago, yes.”
They scaled the little mountain of floor tiles, stepping over the orange river of foul-smelling fluid.
Miraculously, the door to D-14 was undamaged. With emergency power holding, Sloane tapped in a code on the crooked panel beside it and stepped back as the door whisked open.
A silent, pristine chamber awaited, cast in dim red by lights around the perimeter of the floor. Like coffins in an ancient tomb, eight stasis pods faced in toward a central examination couch on a rotating dais. Frost still clung to the window of each pod.
Kesh’s gaze swept across them all, finding a green light on each. Finally. Something going right. She shouldered her way past Sloane, bent over Calix’s pod. A swift check over the control terminal brought even more relief.
“Integrity confirmed. He’s okay.”
“Finally,” Sloane said, mirroring her own thoughts. “Wake him. And not the gentle way, there’s no time for it.”
While Kesh input the commands, Sloane wandered over to the terminal beside the examination couch, trying to activate it. Judging from her curse, it didn’t respond.
“Try the comm,” Kesh suggested. Sloane moved to the small device mounted beside the door. Slapped a button. Poked it. In her peripheral, Kesh watched her make a fist and punch it—more of a love-tap, really. Well, it wasn’t the human’s gift.