Despite all the precautions, though, rumors had already begun to spread.
Doesn’t much matter, Addison thought. It’s only a matter of time before we have to make an announcement. The question was, would there be a celebration, or something decidedly less upbeat.
“Hrmm…”
“What is it, Sascha?” she asked.
“A blip.”
“A blip?” Sloane repeated.
Sascha leaned in closer to his screen, pointing at an indicator. Addison had memorized these displays by now. Spent hours staring, hoping. The entire console had been rigged up from whatever parts people could scrounge, and part of her wished she didn’t know the kind of kludges and scraps of code that were holding it all together.
In this case, a sensor used to inform the station’s cleaning staff of a need for laundry service had been repurposed to listen for the transponder frequencies of the scout vessels. For a split second there, it had heard something. Then it had gone dark. Sascha leaned back, and let out the tiniest of sighs in impatient exhaustion.
“This is a waste of time,” Sloane said. “Sensors can barely detect our own hull in this mess. We’d be better off with binoculars.”
The light blinked again.
“There,” Sascha said.
“I’ve got them now, too,” the asari beside him said. Her name was Apriia, and while she lacked the calm demeanor of her counterpart, she more than made up for it in her attention to detail. The instant her screens noted the presence of the scout ship, the asari’s hands began flying over the interface.
“Which one is it?” Sloane asked. “Get a reading before it vanishes.”
Addison winced. She could see it already, but couldn’t bring herself to answer. It felt like a betrayal, a weakness, to make Apriia say it, but she just couldn’t.
“It’s S7,” the asari said. “Marco’s ship. Mission target was a planet called… Eos.”
Sloane gave no reaction. It wasn’t Kandros, which meant they’d hear from him last.
“Try to establish a link,” Addison said. “Quickly!”
“Already on it,” Sascha replied.
Tann stopped his pacing and stood at Addison’s side. They were in this together. He’d reminded her of this fact the first time an alert had gone out that one of the scouts had returned. Back then, though, Addison suspected his reminder had more to do with sharing in the glory. The fact that he still stood by her now—after six failures—said something about his character, at least. He could have distanced himself. Could have said she’d pressured him into allowing the scouts to go out, which wouldn’t have been too far from the truth.
No, Tann had stood firm. They’d agreed to this, effectively cut Sloane out of the decision, and so its consequences were theirs to share, good or bad.
A loud pop sent Addison reeling, hands thrown up to protect her face as hot sparks showered her. Sascha went over in his chair. Apriia flew to her feet, backing away as flames began to flicker out from a gaping black hole that appeared on one of the borrowed bits of gear strewn about the workspace.
Addison blinked, turned to cry out in alarm, only to be elbowed aside by Sloane. The security director stepped in and sprayed the flame with an extinguisher she must have pulled from thin air. Fire out, she tossed the used-up device aside and was already kneeling beside Sascha when Addison’s wits finally caught up.
With a shaking finger she tapped a message out on her omni-tool, sent directly to Nakmor Kesh with the highest of urgency. Sec-cleared tech repair team needed in CA immediately. Most urgent.
The reply came just seconds later. Incoming.
“Repair crew on the way,” Addison announced to the others. “Will we need a med team?” This last directed at Sloane. The security director shook her head, and helped Sascha back into his chair.
Minutes later a team of four krogan arrived. Addison watched Sloane check each of them against a list Kesh had provided. Everything proved to be in order, and they filed in.
“Here,” Sascha said, pointing. He needn’t have bothered, though, since smoke still curled from the fried equipment. Two of the technicians laid heavy bags on the floor nearby and splayed them open, a pile of random parts and wires in one, various banged-up tools in the other. It all looked like so much junk.
This is never going to work. Her mind raced. There had to be another way to make contact—but of course there wasn’t.
Tann sidled up to her. “Even without this latest… glitch, sensors aren’t good enough. It’s possible they’ll arrive before we can make contact,” he said. “We should prep a hangar, an empty one, and have a team waiting with food and water.”
A burly krogan—burly by their standards—gently but forcefully pushed Addison and Tann away from the console, making room. The tech crawled underneath and began yanking controller boards and who-knows-what-else from the bottom of the system.
“There was no damage down there,” Tann snapped.
“It’s all connected,” the krogan shot right back.
Tann leaned forward. “Even so, this is an emergency. We only need it to work for ten minutes, not a lifetime.”
“Let them do their job,” Sloane said. She had moved back to her spot by the door, but her voice carried no less authority for it.
“Their job is what we say it is,” Tann shot back. An uncharacteristic outburst. He smoothed the front of his uniform. “Forgive me,” he said to Sloane. “We’re all on edge here, so let’s just try to remain calm.”
Sloane looked at the ceiling and shook her head.
Tann pulled Addison aside. “We need to discuss what will happen if neither of these last two scouts return with good news.” His voice was low, but Addison glanced toward Sloane nonetheless. She gave no indication of hearing.
“One of them will,” Addison said. “They have to.”
“Wishful thinking is not an effective way to govern.”
“Well,” she said, “I guess that’s why you’re in charge.”
Tann stared at her, digesting her words. In that moment Foster Addison wanted nothing more than to be alone. In a sense she already was. She turned away from the salarian and moved to stand near the console again, ignoring the krogan’s feet that almost touched her own. Tann was right, of course. They did need a backup plan. The problem was that every option Addison could think of ultimately led to the same result—abandoning the Nexus. Ending the mission. Walking away from all the sacrifice and hope.
Hell, we might as well turn around and go—
“Got it,” the krogan said. He pushed himself out from under the desk and was standing in front of Addison by the time his words registered.
“Got it?” she asked, numbly. “It’s fixed?”
“I think so. Try it out.”
Before she could say anything Sascha and Apriia were back in their chairs, hands gliding over the interface screens. The group of krogan gathered a few meters away, their tools already packed, waiting to see if the fix had worked so they could get back to whatever they’d been doing.
A crackle erupted from the speakers, then a loud hiss of static masking urgent words.
“…injuries. Require… at docking...”
“Repeat, Scout 7,” Sascha said. “The Scourge is effecting your transmission. Repeat.”
“Good to hear your voice, Nexus,” the ship’s comm officer replied. Her words were still garbled, but clear enough to discern now.
“We need to know what you found out there,” Addison said. “Please report.”
“Nothing good I’m afraid,” the woman replied. Addison had to strain to make out the words. “Marco’s been badly injured. Hope the other… fared better.”