Talini thought about it. Seriously. “No battlemasters around here. Only one I ever heard of was of the Urdnot clan.”
She was serious. Sloane stared at her, then gave up the thread entirely and said instead, “Let’s investigate the rosters anyway.”
Talini nodded again, keying in a few items to her datapad. The screen glowed as she lowered it to study the large network room. “This begs the question—why here?”
Sloane wondered the same thing. The answer, unfortunately, wasn’t too difficult to assume. “Server room, right? Information.” She jerked a thumb at the hole in the wall as she strode back toward the doors. “That’s a distraction. Like Jorgat said. Find some techs capable of going over entry logs. I want this place examined from every angle. You sit down with one of our info-sec crew and access the visual registries. Quietly, Talini. Rumors of espionage or sabotage are the last thing we need right now.”
“Yes, Director,” Talini responded smartly. She turned and followed Sloane out. The door hydraulics whirred, shuddered, but couldn’t close. Jorgat’s impact had jammed one side off its track.
Whoever did this, whoever put one of her own in the medical ward and put the lives of these techs in jeopardy… Sloane’s hands clenched again. Her teeth locked down on a series of words Talini didn’t deserve hearing.
She’d find them.
No more crew members would die on the Nexus. No more civilians, no more techs, no more. This was her station. She’d go down protecting the people in it.
Especially from themselves.
Irida Fadeer might have swapped her commando leathers for an engineer’s uniform, but that didn’t mean she’d lost her touch. Breaking and entering wasn’t the hard part. A few decades ago she might have relied on brute strength to get the job done, but technical expertise plus experience made it simpler than that.
Not without some casualties, she admitted silently as she left the engineering bunkroom. She’d done her best, but humans had this saying about breaking eggs to create meals, right? Fortunately, no one had died.
A big plus in her ledger.
The other plus being the database she’d acquired. Calix had told them to keep an eye on their supplies, but it wasn’t enough. Between the rations and the rising tension that filled the station, Irida knew something would break soon. They all knew. Calix was ahead of the game, at least, but worst-case scenario? They’d have supplies, but no information. Information made all the difference in situations like this. Especially the kind she’d taken. The protected stuff. The things they didn’t want anyone to have.
The contents were too much for her to fully digest. She skimmed enough to know it was a true prize, though. Patrol routes. Camera placements. Plenty more, no doubt. Calix could do a lot with that kind of knowledge. Protect themselves, their supplies, and the people still in stasis.
She couldn’t help her smile. It felt good to do something to ensure the safety of her unit, her crew. Calix deserved that, and so much more. He’d stood up for her, for all of them, before. He’d do it again, and this time she’d have his back, too.
“Feeling proud of yourself?”
Irida froze as the security director’s nonchalant voice rolled out from the corridor ahead of her. Sloane Kelly stepped around the corner, her hands empty, gaze sharp as a vorcha smile. Irida blinked. Her insides lurched, but she simply widened her grin and nodded respectfully.
“Director?” she said. Easily. A greeting, a little inquisitive. But behind her, she sensed as much as heard more security officers move into place. Damn it all. So she hadn’t been as careful as she’d hoped. Had the salarian seen her after all?
Maybe she should have killed him when she had the chance. Just to be sure.
Too late now. Sloane prowled closer. There was no other word for it—not that Irida could summon. She understood Calix’s respect for the woman, but this put both of them in a bad spot.
“Irida Fadeer,” the director said. “You are under arrest for breaking and entering, destruction of Nexus property—”
“To say nothing of asari, salarian, and turian property,” said a woman’s voice from behind Irida. She was trapped.
Ugh, great. That meant Irida would have even less luck popping out of this one. She’d seen the sec-force asari at work.
“Destruction of Nexus property…” Sloane repeated loudly, with a twitch under her eye that did more to cause Irida concern than anything else. She frowned, taking a half step back.
“Wait a minute, Director, what am I supposed to have—”
Sloane didn’t let her finish. With surprising speed and greater strength than Irida expected, the human pulled back a fist and rammed it hard, fast, and ugly into Irida’s face. She grunted at the impact, hit the corridor wall and rebounded into a wobbling pile at the security team’s feet. Stars swam in her eyes. Her cheek went from a strange tingle to sudden howling anguish.
Irida shook her head. No use.
She should have seen this coming. Hell, she should have planned on it, but for all Irida’s mercenary experience, she never would have expected a human Alliance officer to break protocols.
“…and for assaulting one of my team and fourteen Nexus crew,” Sloane snarled, panting. Irida didn’t know much about the woman, but as the security team wrapped hard fingers around her upper arms and dragged her to her feet, she knew one thing for certain—no Alliance, not even Sloane Kelly, would attack someone without being absolutely certain of the facts.
She’d been caught. A quiet rage welled in her, at herself more than anything.
“Take her to the brig,” Sloane snapped. “Prep her for questioning. And search her goddamn bunk,” she added sharply as she turned on her heel and strode away. Irida sniffed hard. The blue splatter of her own blood left dark streaks down her shirt. Pain danced in her sinuses. Her cheek felt as if it were on fire.
This was it. The end for her.
“Got anything you want to say?” It was the human holding onto her. Irida’s gaze slid to the asari gripping her other arm. Nothing. No help, no sympathy there.
Ah, well. Sisterhood only went so far.
“No,” she said, and spit a wad of blue-tinged mucus to the floor. If nothing else, she’d be damned if she took anyone else down with her. That part at least she’d done right. Calix knew nothing of her actions, and could not—would not—be dragged into this.
Mentally, Irida dug in. The Initiative wouldn’t execute her—they wouldn’t dare. Worst case, she’d be put back in cryo, like that bunch that had tried to steal a shuttle. And who was it who could override stasis pods?
At least, she figured as her escort double-timed her to the lift, she’d get some much-needed sleep.
The doors closed on her smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Eos loomed dead ahead, an eerie crescent against the veins of the Scourge and the starry backdrop far beyond.
“Anything yet?” the captain asked, voice aimed at his science officer.
The turian shook his head, saying nothing.
“How is this possible? We’re right on top of it, for fuck’s sake.”
The bridge of the tiny shuttle was crowded, even down two members who lay sedated in crash-bunks just aft. More victims of the Scourge, and not likely the last. Right now, though, it wasn’t the injuries Captain Marco cared about, it was the goddamned sensors. The Scourge could make the tiny shuttle flop about like a fish on dry land, sure, but it absolutely annihilated any chance for a reliable sensor reading. Every scan came back different, or not at all. Despite Eos, the closest habitable world to the Nexus’s current position, being right in front of them, the screens oscillated between empty space, several moons, an asteroid field, and even a sprawling fleet of quarian cruisers, depending on which second you happened to look.