All of them had taken a turn for the irritated.
As the hours clocked in, and Na’to only occasionally muttered to himself, the krogan had run out of ways to taunt him, and Reggie, and even Andria. They’d also run out of ways to bait each other.
Now Arvex sounded like he was ready to wring salarian neck to get out of the warzone the Nexus’s steady drift had placed them in.
The palp of the Scourge had spread. Somehow, as if pushed by an unseen force, the past few hours had seen it increase in length.
Worrisome.
“The good news,” she said, tapping her comm feed, “is that we’re just about done consolidating power through this auxiliary.”
“What’s the bad news?” Reg asked behind her.
She was very much aware of three krogan heads all focused on her. Even if two of them remained outside an airlock. “Well,” she said slowly. “The bad news is that once we’re done here, you, me and Na’to get to go have dinner.”
A beat.
“Why is that bad?” Reg asked.
“You clearly don’t pay attention to what you eat,” Kaje said. He’d taken up position near Reg, taking a break between shifts playing Shoot the Trash.
Andria hid a smile. “Basically.”
“Hey, if it means I can have dinner with Emory, I’m all for,” Reg replied defensively.
“Oh, right. The sweet couple.” Andria made a gagging sound.
“Don’t be jealous.”
“You know I am.”
“What are you humans babbling about now?” Na’to’s voice finally cracked the comm, sounding tired but triumphant. “I look away for just a minute and you’re already engaging in verbal showdowns?”
“A minute?” This from Wratch. Sheer disbelief. “What kind of salarian loses track of time?”
“A brilliant one,” Na’to said primly. Andria watched the camera feed bounce as he pulled himself out of the hatch. The wires, fuses and platelets attaching it all securely whizzed by in a streaming blur.
“Uh…”
“Shut it, Wratch. Like you never lost time in the varren pits,” Kaje laughed.
“No, that—”
A clatter drew Andria’s attention. Then another. She looked around, saw Reg doing the same.
Then Kaje surged to his feet. He pointed out over the emergency bulkhead. “It’s moving!”
“Shit,” Andria hissed, already reaching for the next frequency in her omni-tool. “Shit, shit—Engineering to bridge, I’m looking at a tangle of Scourge just outside Warehouse 7B.”
“Copy that, engineering,” someone said. She didn’t know anyone in bridge, had no idea who was talking, what rank. “Approximate depth?”
“The hell if I know!” She scanned the black, trusting Reg to keep a close hand on their friend’s gear. “It’s all over the place up here, one wrong move and—”
A large shadow loomed slowly into view. Brilliant lines of gold and red energy laced across them, through them, as if something superheated had dragged through the plates.
Her mouth dropped open.
Kaje reached out, caught her by the arm and dragged it closer to his face. “Those explorers sucked out of Dock 11? Yeah,” he growled into the mic, “they’re coming back!”
Addison met Sloane coming out of central commons, synthetic feathers in her hair and a puzzled sort of amusement twisting her usual broody expression.
“Hey,” she said by way of greeting. Her eyebrows knotted. “Did you shoot a giant chicken?”
Sloane looked down at her Avenger, then up again with the same odd look. As if she’d stumbled into an alternate dimension and wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Hey, Addison.” A pause. She offered a hand. “Pinch me, would you?”
Addison blinked. Then, when Sloane didn’t drop her hand, she took a fold of the security director’s skin and pinched.
Hard.
“Son of a—thank you,” she said sharply, jerking her hand back. She looked back at the commons door, and for the first time, Addison heard what sounded like screaming.
Her eyes widened. “Sloane, you didn’t.”
Sloane, shaking out her hand, moved away from the door. “Please. One, there’s no chickens to shoot here, unless you’re counting turians—”
Addison cleared her throat.
“Two,” Sloane added, “I didn’t shoot anyway. They’re…” A pause.
Addison splayed her hands, eyebrows raising even higher. “What? Because from here, it kind of sounds like someone’s getting cannibalized. And you have a gun.”
To her surprise, a half-smile curved Sloane’s mouth. She gestured, with the hand she’d pinched and not the firearm. “You can look, but maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a mess.”
“Sloane.”
This time, when the security director started laughing, Addison threw her hands up. She marched around the woman, waved frantically when the sound of screaming intensified. The door slid open and Addison saw…
Synthetic feathers. Specifically, feathers covering two people, and a round of drinks being poured for five more. A larger crowd surrounded them, fist-pumping and throwing bets.
“A drinking contest?” Where the losers were feathered by synthetic stuffing. And the winners just kept drinking.
And the bets just kept climbing.
Addison very slowly backed away, and let the door ease shut again.
Sloane’s laughter bordered on the hysterical. “And you… you know what?” she gasped.
Addison turned, still trying to wrap her head around the sight. “There had to be at least fifty people in there.”
Sloane’s nod sent her off-balance. She fell back against the corridor wall, cradling the Avenger.
“Drinking.”
Another nod. Tears began to leak out of her eyes, rolling down red cheeks as she struggled to breathe.
Addison’s hands lifted to her face, covering her mouth as it dropped open in horror. “And you just rolled right in with your rifle, didn’t you?”
This had Sloane howling with mirth, sitting down hard on one of the empty decorative tiers stationed at various intervals.
Unbidden, laughter began trickling up through Addison’s mingled horror and exasperation. “Sloane,” she said, trying for curt. But her humor betrayed her.
“I know,” Sloane panted.
“An assault rifle!”
The woman held it up, barely able to hold onto it. “I know!”
“You could have used the cameras!”
But Addison had started laughing too, and as Sloane just shrugged in elaborate, breathless hysteria, she gave up all pretense and just let it all fly. Addison hadn’t seen that much smiling or heard laughter like that since the drunken reverie of the departure celebration.
That had been months… make that years—make that centuries—ago. The last time she’d seen her fellow directors.
Inappropriate, yes. Untoward. Overreactionary. But as the doors slid wide and two humans stumbled out, a barrage of shouting, howls of the losing betters, and wild cheers followed them out.
Peals of laughter filled the corridor. “What, hey, Directors!” said a cheerful human.
Sloane could only wave them aside. “Let them drink,” she told Addison, still chuckling. “Blow off steam. If it gets rowdy, I’ll send in a few krogan to glare.”
Addison winced. “Maybe less krogan, more coffee?”
“I sup—”
The comms crackled to life all around them. “Warning! Brace for impact,” came the order, and all amusement abruptly died. Sloane caught Addison’s arm, who swept another around the most unsteady of the humans staggering by.
Just in time. The station shuddered.
Then it rocked.
Na’to yelped as a large fist grasped him by the front of the suit, jerked him bodily out of the hatch. He felt the sole of his boot catch on something, heard it clatter. “Watch it,” he exclaimed, already attempting to twist around to check for damage.