By the end, he hadn’t moved.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re still here. Which means the oatmeal comes with a price, I’m guessing?” she asked.
Spender shrugged. “A security matter, actually.”
The fog of sleep vanished. “What’s happened?”
“Oh, no, no!” He held out his hands, placating. “Nothing. I just… Foster has put me in charge of consolidating our supplies. Cataloging what survived the, er, incident. That sort of thing. We should collaborate on locations to store it all.”
Sloane’s other eyebrow joined the first. “Okay. Question: Why do I care?”
“Because,” Spender replied patiently, “it needs to be somewhere secure.”
“Ah.” Sloane set her cup on the nearest stand. Paused, and frowned at him. “Wait. Addison’s worried about theft?”
“Director Tann suggested some might not appreciate the need to conserve, given our circumstances.” Again, that smile. “Foster and I agree.”
Oh, hell, Sloane thought. She knew exactly what some Tann worried about, and she wanted to throttle him for holding on to such backward thinking. Still, in a roundabout way, he brought up a generally broader point. Weapons and life-saving necessities, to be safe, probably needed to be stored somewhere safe. “Doesn’t the station have a warehousing district?”
“Several, actually. The only one nearby, however, is inaccessible.”
Not surprising. “How about one of the hangars, then? Only one has ships in it, the rest are all to be filled once there’s traffic.”
That had him brightening, like he hadn’t thought of it. Maybe he hadn’t. Sloane had no idea how he operated. But even the way he nodded, like one part encouraging and one part settled, made her feel like he overplayed his efforts. “That might work,” he mused. “Yes, I think that would be perfect.”
“Glad to help,” she said wearily. “Talk to Sergeant Talini. She can make sure everyone appreciates the need to conserve.”
Again Spender nodded, this time with a knowing half-smile. “I’ll run it by the other directors, just to make sure everyone’s on board with our plan.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Suddenly it’s “our” plan, she thought, irritated. What a weasel. Sloane waved him off. “If you need me to tell them to be on board, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll get a couple of my people to check out the auxiliary hangars and pick one that’s suitable.”
The man stood. At least he knew when a conversation was over. Sloane lay back on the couch and threw an arm over her eyes. Her body demanded more sleep. Or coffee. What it didn’t want was another day of putting out fires.
She could guess just which of those she’d get.
But since he was here?
“If you find some coffee, Spender…” Sloane called out to the diminishing sound of Spender’s footsteps. She let the sentence trail off, pointing a finger at her mouth instead.
From somewhere toward the door, she heard him chuckle. “Understood,” he replied.
Just the idea of it seemed to quell her body’s state of fatigue. And her mind wouldn’t shut up. Every possible gap in her thoughts, those places where true rest lurked, was filled instead with concerns. How many were awake now? Had there been any problems? Did Kesh need help?
It was the idea that Tann might be guiding the priorities of the workforce that finally drove her to swing her legs off the couch and stand up with a groan. She felt stiff, thirsty, and she was hungry again. Her limbs felt like a drunk volus clung to each one, dragging her down.
Maybe there was no coffee. Yet. Sloane, out of options, defaulted to the only thing that could help.
Stretching her legs, she made her way out of the commons, through the larger weave of people beginning to fill it, and lurched off into a brisk morning jog.
It would do. Until coffee.
An hour later, still desperate for that coffee, a sharp headache pressing at the back of her eyes, Sloane stood atop a desk and faced more than six hundred Nexus crew. The area wasn’t meant for an assembly. It should have been a tranquil office space for the administration staff.
Woulda, shoulda. If wishes were packets of Earth-grown brew, they’d all have coffee for days.
Most of the assembly stood. Some were sitting on tables or in oversized chairs. Many were on the floor, still getting over the fog of a crash-awakening from stasis. “Cryo-funk,” she’d heard a few of them calling it. The term seemed to be spreading as fast as news of the loss of their leadership.
Nervous chatter filled the room. Sloane picked out phrases here and there.
“What will happen to the mission?”
“Can we go back? Is that even possible?”
“The Pathfinders will save us.”
“It has to have been an attack. What aren’t they telling us?”
“So many krogan…”
She didn’t even bother trying to ignore it all. Better to let it all wash over her, absorb it. Because this was better than mass panic, which at least for now remained comfortably below the surface.
“Let’s get started,” she said as loudly as she could. She had to force the words out of her mouth. Then she raised her arms above her head, willing quiet. Some noticed. Many more did not. Sloane laced her hands atop her head and looked up at the ceiling. “Don’t make me yell,” she said, more of a sigh than anything else.
She didn’t have to. Kesh slammed one heavy fist into the nearest table. The boom tore through the vast space, and by the time it echoed back, Sloane had everyone’s full attention.
“Thanks,” she muttered.
The krogan shot her an unrepentant smile. Mimicked by each krogan around her.
“This isn’t a speech,” Sloane said to them. “It’s not a pep talk. We don’t have time for that shit. What this is, is a battle plan.”
A murmur swept through the gathered crew. She let it settle, using the time to will a fresh spike of pain to retreat in her skull.
“Most of you are aware of what’s happened,” Jarun Tann said loudly, interrupting her.
Sloane glanced right, mouth twisting. She hadn’t noticed that he’d stepped up onto the desk beside her. Great. He seemed to have plenty of time for this shit.
He went on, a bit louder. “Even so, let me explain it once so there is no confusion, or rumors.” Even though what they mostly had was just that. Rumors, conjectured between the directors. Great. “As far as we can tell this was not an attack. Once the sensors are back and the science team can investigate, we’ll know with absolute certainty, but what I can tell you is that upon arriving here the Nexus collided with what appears to be a natural phenomenon.”
Wait a second. They’d only just speculated on this.
“Long tendrils of densely packed particles,” he went on. “This… this scourge, whatever it is, has done a staggering amount of damage to the station.”
Shit. It was too late to retract now. Even if their hunch was right, the only thing she could do was focus them inward, not outward. People didn’t always need all the intel.
Fuming, she cut in. “Which is why you’re all awake.” Annoyance laced her tone, and she didn’t really care if he knew it. “You’re all experts in the Nexus’s various systems. We need you to do what you do best—analyze, stabilize, repair. The goal right now is to keep the station functional enough to support us. Secondary to that is making sure we can evacuate if further damage occurs.”