“Her what?”
“Commando leathers,” Reg muttered to Nnebron.
The kid stared at him.
“No,” Reg added for Irida’s sake. “Not tonight.”
She nodded, allowed herself to be helped off the table. “’Kay. Next time?”
“Next time,” Nnebron said firmly. “Right now, I got a powerful need for some help, uh…” A pause. “Uh, for…”
“Nnebron needs an escort,” Reg said quickly. “He’s struggling with some power conduits. You wanna help?”
Irida shrugged, and as they led her across the floor, her bleary, watery eyes focused on the crowd.
Her mouth twisted. “Cowards,” she spat.
“Whoa!” Nnebron put his arm around her waist, helping her while Reg moved forward to guide—and ultimately shove—a path through the staring, muttering crowd.
“They jus’… they jus’ sat… and watched…”
“Oh, girl.” Nnebron’s voice wavered. “Come on. Let’s go drink this off.”
“Gonna show them,” she said as they half-pulled, half-led her down the corridor. She turned over her shoulder, her features set in acid lines. “Gonna show you! You don’t understand… What happens when they start this!”
“Okay, Irida,” Reg murmured, exchanging a look with Nnebron.
“First people die,” she shouted, stumbling. Reg held her up. “Then rations! It won’t end!”
Nnebron and Reg, they knew. They’d been there.
Death. Starvation.
A leadership that would do anything to save their own asses.
“Not until we do something,” Irida said miserably.
Nnebron and Reg both laced an arm around her waist, all but carrying her between them as they strode away from the silent, staring commons. “Okay,” Nnebron said patiently. “Okay. But first, maybe we drink to the memory of the best damn salarian we’ve ever known.”
Reg nodded in exaggerated agreement, until Irida noticed and tipped her head in mimicry. “Sounds good, right? Let’s drink to Nacho.”
“To Nacho,” Irida repeated.
Nnebron’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “To Nacho.”
“They’ll see,” the asari whispered.
“We’ll be okay.”
Weeks. Goddamned weeks of watching her compatriots like a hawk, reconfiguring her security patrols and duties to cover the eight officers stolen from her, and dealing with more and more outbursts among the rationed. The reasons didn’t matter—they all varied, anyway. Tempers were short. Fears were high. Stomachs were empty. Water almost gone. One wrong word, a look, a gesture…
Hell, Sloane had been awake for less than fifteen minutes before she had to bust up a brawl between a krogan and some idiot who didn’t understand lethal differences in weight categories.
Her head hurt.
All this because what? The slim hope that their scouts would find some nearby garden of bountiful delights? That the Pathfinders wouldn’t run into the Scourge themselves and wind up torn to shreds before anyone even woke to know about it?
A grim thought, even for Sloane.
The tension in the Nexus was palpable, a sort of stretched hope and rising desperation. She felt it in the corridors, in the galley and mess hall, in the training rooms her sec forces used to release whatever stress they could.
Rations were getting tight. Tighter by the day. Even so, Addison’s faith in the scout ships remained unwavering—a slim beacon of hope slowly bleeding those who held onto it. Faith, determination, was strained.
Along with everyone’s tempers.
Definitely Sloane’s.
She paced hydroponics because at least the budding green hope of future food felt more peaceful than the bare, stark metal and busted plating of the Nexus halls. The krogan were everywhere, handling emergencies, rebuilding hydropod frames, shoring up tattered bulkheads. Sloane hated to admit it—if only because of the prejudices they couldn’t seem to shed—but Kesh’s krogan workforce was a goddamn lifesaver.
Literally.
They were also big, and a unit, for all intents and purposes. So far willing to work under rationed sanctions, but for how long? They didn’t eat light.
Yet another concern among the many Sloane had vying for top priority in her head. The krogan. Tann’s increasing willingness to ignore her advice, if he even sought it in the first place. The near constant stream of scraps, arguments, and quibbles. Those could turn big, fast—and then what?
Sloane paused in front of one of the shattered hydroponic frames, staring blankly at it while she chewed on that question. Across from her, a krogan grunted as another brought him—her?—a panel to weld onto the frame.
The hiss of the seared metal and the wicked orange flare of the krogan’s omni-tool lit them both to a wild hue, flickering in and out like a demented strobe light.
Sloane frowned. She imagined what would happen if Kesh’s workforce decided enough was enough, that their labors weren’t to be taken for granted, or that their bellies needed to be full if they were going to keep up this frenetic pace. She tried to picture her security force standing up to a horde of angry krogan, and shuddered. If things tipped too far, she’d have no choice but to turn her forces on them.
The very idea of it made her queasy.
She tucked a fist against her sternum. Heartburn that had been simmering there for the past week, and she made a face as it gurgled.
Addison said she stressed too much. That she needed a break. Maybe she did. Maybe she stressed just enough. Either way, it didn’t matter. This was Sloane’s job—and despite what snide data-pushers thought about her straightforward way of getting things done, Sloane Kelly didn’t enjoy using her officers as a threat mechanism.
None of this could be blamed on the crew. They were hungry, scared people. That still couldn’t be an excuse to let them go wild. Somehow, morale needed to be raised.
But, shit, how?
Sloane growled under her breath as she spun and paced the distance back to the farthest hydroponics bay. This one gave off a warm glow, nurtured by the light designed to stimulate ecologically sound plant growth. All the hopes in the galaxy rested on these fragile little green blots. Well, on them, and on the scouts Addison had sent out.
Prognosis? Not good—and for the first time in her life she couldn’t blame the leadership, because she was the goddamn leadership.
“Shit,” she hissed, reflexively clenching her fist. She wanted to punch something. Anything. And how would that look? Who knew how people would react. Sloane didn’t want to be the flame that lit the damn fuse. No matter how good a brawl might feel right now.
Fortunately for her unraveling temper, Talini interrupted her brooding with a well-timed comm chime.
“What?” Sloane snapped, barely giving the asari time to register the visuals much less offer a greeting. Less fortunately for Sloane’s unraveling temper, the asari didn’t look like she had good news.
“We need you in maintenance, deck eight.” Flat. Grim. “There’s been an accident.” Behind the digitized tension in Talini’s voice, Sloane heard shouting. Pain. Anger.
The fucking fuse already?
“On my way,” Sloane said abruptly as she spun on her heel. The krogan watched her go, only the briefest pause in the clanging accompaniment to their work.
The first indication of trouble met Sloane the moment the elevator doors hissed wide. Darkness hid half of the corridor, the other half illuminated in stuttering pulses by lights struggling to maintain connectivity to the grid. Emergency lights bloomed red where they worked, flickered weakly where they didn’t.