The krogan didn’t notice. “Heard it from Botcha,” Kaje continued. He walked out from around the dark bay, stretching out his big, gnarled hands. His hide crinkled with every move. “Botcha was up in Operations repairing an inverter when the news came.”
“What news?” Calix demanded. It took all he had to keep from launching off that crate and shaking—trying to shake—the krogan. Both of them.
“No planets,” Wratch grunted as he punched the metal paneling lightly. It gonged. “No supplies.”
“The Scourge destroyed ’em,” Kaje added.
“Deader’n Tuchanka.”
“Almost.”
“Yeah. No turians.”
“Yet.”
The two exchanged another look and burst out laughing.
Calix couldn’t join in on the joke—not this time. No supplies were coming. No scouts bringing good news.
“And the Pathfinders?”
Kaje gave a hefty shrug. “No sign of ’em.”
No sign of the Pathfinders. They knew this, and yet the leadership was sitting on it. Toeing the same line they had since day one. The scouts will return, the supplies will be restocked, the planets will be terraformed…
Lies. All of it. Maybe not initially, but at least a couple of weeks’ worth.
The krogan were still bantering when Calix, numb with betrayal, unfolded from the crate and left hydroponics.
Hydroponics, where two tanks of algae had taken root. One looked ready to fail. While that was worrisome enough, the leadership kept on telling them all that hydroponics would flourish once they had colonial resources to supplement it. That the scouts would bring back new seeds, new hope for fertile ground.
Without those resources, the Nexus was back to two functional hydroponic bays. Just two. That wasn’t enough to feed a single department, much less the number of active people on the station. Priorities had to be re-shifted, information had to be disseminated. How else were they expected to survive?
None of this made any sense. And how badly did I misjudge Sloane Kelly?
Calix accessed his omni-tool and almost called her. Almost. He sent a short message instead. “Any news from the scouts?”
The reply came less than twenty seconds later.
“Nothing,” was all it said.
He stared at the word for a long time, simmering anger building to rage. A blatant lie, assuming these two krogan could be trusted, but he saw no reason why they would make such a story up.
So the leadership was sitting on the news. Even Sloane, whom he’d imagined to be better than this. For weeks they’d known, and said nothing. Which meant…
His fury drove him back to engineering in record time. “Gather up,” he said, stepping over his team’s greetings. The lash in his voice had them jumping to obey. Not because they were afraid of him, he understood. Because they knew him.
Calix didn’t rattle. Not easily.
The snap in his voice, tension in his demeanor, was all they needed to know something was up. In a matter of moments they’d put their work on hold and came to stand around their boss, each in a different stage of curiosity. As Calix surveyed the faces of his crew—many friends as well as subordinates—a pang of regret struck him at Irida’s absence.
She’d been with him longer than most. Dedicated, skilled. Loyal. Had she seen this coming? Is that why she’d given him that data?
Irida had always been good at planning for this sort of stuff. She had been the first to smell the cover-up by the captain of the Warsaw. Maybe it came with asari intelligence. Maybe she just had a more realistic view of people than he did. Either way, Calix had what she’d given him.
And a crew ready to hear him speak.
Calix wouldn’t let them down.
“You all know what kind of things we’re dealing with,” he began. “The situation here aboard the Nexus.” His hands clasped behind his back, and in unconscious mimicry, much of his team did the same. Alliance and military training. Even contractors picked it up, if they stuck around long enough.
Nnebron’s brow furrowed.
Smart one. Like Irida, but with less tact.
“Rations are tight,” Calix continued. Nods peppered the team. “The station is in need of more repairs than it has crew to repair her.” More nods, a few emphatic grunts. “Whenever we ask for updates, we get the same song and dance we always have.” Calix met the eyes of his crew as he listed them off. “Scouts will return soon with planet coordinates. Rations will lift. The Pathfinders will find us. Just work a little harder, a little longer, and everything will turn out fine.
“New homes,” he added as he turned and paced to the edge of the team. “New food and resources. A chance to create that new life we’ve all been promised. Away from the prejudices and the disasters of the old worlds from which we came.”
The world they’d left behind. Six hundred years in the dust.
Calix had to take a moment, rest a hand on Nnebron’s shoulder and swallow the pang of homesickness he didn’t know he’d carried until he saw it in the faces of his team. His friends. His mandibles moved. He paused. Then said the words nobody had wanted to say.
“We all know what we left,” he said quietly. “The kind of crap that happened on the Warsaw.” Nnebron nodded at that, his mouth a thin line. “Leaders who order us to try and cover up their mistakes, or worse, withhold the truth from us and let us toil while they plan an escape.”
Eyes widened. Calix nodded. “We thought Andromeda would be different. That we’d be leaving that kind of thing behind. And then we lost Na’to.”
“Boss?” Nnebron took a step forward. His dark eyes spoke volumes, echoing the uncertainty in every face. “What’s this about? Is it Irida?”
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.
“Secrets,” he said, enunciating every syllable, “plague the Nexus leadership. Like a drug, a habit they can’t break.” He opened his eyes. Met the stares of his team, and made the call he knew he could never take back. “They told us we’d have new planets.” His hands clenched. “It’s false. They’ve known for weeks that the planets around us are dead.”
Andria paled.
“Wait, dead?”
He nodded. Andria had been there when Na’to died. Reg and she both had taken time off to get it together.
Reg came back first.
Andria’s tone earned an instant and total state of focus from the entire group. Her question echoed through them all.
“Dead,” Calix confirmed. “Torn apart by the same Scourge that nearly took us.”
She flinched, half-turning to hide the worry in her face. Nnebron put a hand on her shoulder.
“They lied,” Nnebron said blankly, then he swore.
“Weeks?” Andria whispered, and she looked at Calix. Her freckles had almost paled out. “They’ve known for weeks?”
“So it seems.”
She blew out a hard breath and jammed her hands in the pockets of her pants. “I don’t—I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Nnebron said bitterly. He turned to the rest of the team, his slim back to Calix, and gestured expansively. “How long have we been working down here, eating every word they sent us? Like we were some kind of orphans begging for scraps.” His voice rose, the anger growing. “We’re part of the Nexus, too!”
“Nnebron, nobody is saying we don’t exist.” Calix tilted his head. “Only that—”
“Only that we’re not important,” Andria cut in, her pallor replaced by an angry flush. Calix knew then he couldn’t let her down. Couldn’t let any of them down.
“The planets aren’t going to save us,” he added, raising his own voice, “nor the Pathfinders. We need new plans, friends. New contingencies. New directions—”