He hoped Kesh would understand. He thought she might. After all, if a krogan couldn’t understand rising up against oppressors, who could?
Calix stopped in an alcove one turn away from the hangar Spender had designated the station’s temporary warehouse.
“Arm yourselves,” he said to those around him. He dropped his bags and selected the first weapon his fist wrapped around. A Mattock assault rifle, at least he thought so. Not exactly his area of expertise. Whatever the specs, however, it would do.
“Once we secure the room,” he said, “I’ll need three of you to ferry these bags inside. Then we’ll use the lev-carts to move everything toward the ark docking bays.” The location just tumbled out, as if he’d worked it out weeks ago. In truth it had simply popped into his head, only because he’d heard a krogan say that they had cleared a path there recently. The space remained, as of yet, empty of any equipment, and Calix had a strong feeling that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.
His team all nodded as if this were sage wisdom. Only in that moment did he realize they were right. That he’d picked the perfect place. If only they could get there, and secure it…
“What lev-carts?” Andria asked.
Uh-oh…
“There’s bound to be a whole bunch of them inside,” Calix replied. He hoped it was true, otherwise this little rebellion would end in a very short siege.
Once everyone had selected a weapon, he nodded and took up the lead once again. He walked more slowly now, battling a voice in his head that kept shouting at him to stop here, to turn back. Rounding the next corner was the point of no return. Ahead lay a future as a traitor, an outlaw. Behind lay six heavily armed, overworked and underfed wrenchers with blood in their ears.
Right here, right now, he feared them more than what might lay ahead. With any luck, they’d take the supplies and be in a position to negotiate with the council. Find a way to keep the crew out of cryo. Scavenge the rest of the station if they had to. There had to be something. It just required a different way of thinking.
He rounded the corner.
Three guards were huddled in front of the open bulkhead, engaged in conversation with Spender.
“Going to need you to step aside,” Calix said. “And keep your hands—”
One of the guards dove to the side, pistol drawn in a flash.
Gunfire erupted from Calix’s group, ending any semblance of control he might have.
“Focus fire!” someone shouted.
The guard who’d dived, still airborne, began to shudder as rounds slammed against his kinetic shield. Energies rippled across its surfaces and then, when it had taken all it could, the flaring stopped. The next round took him square in the forehead. His leap ended in a lifeless thud.
Spender made eye contact with Calix, then. A single glance. Then the bureaucrat broke and ran, arms clasped over his ears. He crossed in front of the two guards, elbowing one as he went, disrupting her aim. An accident? Calix wondered. Filed that. Soon enough the politician was clear and still running, out of the line of fire. Calix ignored him. He found he had his own weapon raised, his finger squeezed tight on the trigger. The weapon chattered, bursts of fire that nearly blinded him, the sound of it buffeting his ears and sending them ringing. On instinct he crouched and moved sideways, not that there was any cover.
One of his gang took a round to the gut and doubled over, howling in pain, rifle skittering across the floor. Armed maybe, but they lacked the armor Sloane’s officers wore.
The two remaining guards backed up into the hangar, firing as they moved. One began to writhe under another salvo of concentrated fire. She shrieked and fell to the side as the shield gave out, her knee exploding. Calix had done that. Fired the round that wounded her. He only realized it a second later.
He’d shot someone. Ruined their leg. Ruined their—
Another shot hit the guard he’d felled, this one in the throat. The howling turned into a strained wet gurgle.
The lone remaining guard dove behind cover, a random crate, popping up a second later to spray bullets across the attacking force. Calix stood in the open, numb at what he’d just seen. He knew the danger, the bullets flying past him. One grazed his pant leg, a tug he barely felt. Then a member of his group tackled him.
He fell to the floor, a body landing heavily on top of him.
They’ve turned on me already, he thought. Then Calix felt a warmth at his side, reached down and saw the blood on his hand. The blood of the person who lay on top of him. He was dead.
A round pinged off the floor a hand’s-width from his face. Sparks flew into his eyes. Calix had no time to mourn the body that lay over him, to honor the sacrifice this person had made. He couldn’t even tell who it was yet. Instead he rolled toward the battle, causing the body to flop onto the floor in front of him, providing a barricade.
He saw then. It was Ulrich. He looked into the man’s eyes and saw life still there. Ulrich blinked at him.
“I…” he said, blood in his mouth, and then bullets tore into his back. Three wet thuds, each leaving a little less life in those eyes until, finally, mercifully, they became glassy and still.
Calix felt the last warm breath on his face, and then nothing. Ulrich had saved his life, and in return Calix had just used the still-living man to further shield himself. That had been Ulrich’s payment for years of loyalty and camaraderie.
“I’m sorry, friend,” Calix said under his breath.
The corpse made no reply.
Anger welled up in him. The circumstances didn’t matter. This death was a result of the poor decisions made by the Nexus’s leadership. Not just those currently in command, but going all the way back to the planning days, when a fucking bureaucrat had decided on some asinine rules of succession that failed to take into account who might be put in charge. The system would pick whoever happened to be of highest seniority, as if that were all that mattered.
As a result, an inept moron bean counter and a depressed ambassador were making life-and-death decisions for thousands of souls. Sloane, at least, had her shit together, but as far as he was concerned her presence among that group could be attributed to luck, not design.
It culminated here, in the death of a hard-working innocent man, loyal both to the mission and to Calix Corvannis. He pushed himself to his feet and began to walk toward the hangar, his rifle raised. The security officer hadn’t moved from behind the crate. Calix walked right around the side of the box and shot the surprised security officer point blank. A barrage that sapped her kinetic shield in seconds.
The woman convulsed under the onslaught, her mouth in an ‘O’ of surprise even as the life went out in her eyes.
“Grab everything,” he said, to everyone and yet no one. “Carts are there.” He pointed to a row of the levitating platforms all parked in a line along one wall.
Then he went after William Spender.
The man had made his home in a closet near the vast hangar, just a few meters down the hall. He’d locked himself inside. Calix tried his omni-tool, then remembered that his access had been yanked. So he knocked, hard. “Are you in there, Spender? It’s Calix. Open the door.”
A voice inside. Muffled. “I can’t be seen talking to you.”
“Why’d you help us back there?”
“Did I?”
Calix chewed on that, but only for a second. He wanted to hear the man’s words, however calculated they might be. He needed to know if he had a leadership insider sympathetic to his cause. “If you’re with us, just say so. I can protect you.”
“I’m not with anyone,” Spender snapped.
“Spender—”
“You might want to run along now, Calix. I have a duty to report this event.”