But a uniform, tattered as it was, didn’t mean jack right now.
“That’s far enough,” Sloane barked. “Name and rank, now.”
He stopped, shaking hands held up in instant surrender. The paler skin of his palms oozed angry fluid, raised burns criss-crossing both hands. She sympathized. But then, anything could have caused those wounds—opening searing-hot cryopods, or a little sabotage gone wrong. She needed to know which one.
That was her job. The man visibly trembled. “What’s happened? Are we under attack?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” she replied flatly. “Now who the hell are you?”
“Chen. I’m… I’m just a junior regulator,” he added, but coughed violently on the heels of it.
Sloane didn’t recognize the name. “What department? Medical? Please say medical.”
“Sanitation.”
“Perfect. Just fucking perfect.” She shook her head. “Look, it’s not safe out here. Go back to your stasis pod.”
“N-No!” His recoil was as physical as it was visceral. “I can’t!” Visible tremors coursed through the man’s narrow build. “It’s awful. Everyone’s dead. I think. I just ran. There was fire, and—pods were just… just—”
Yeah. She got it. She reached out, caught his shoulder and ignored the crackling pain it caused her hand. “Listen,” she said, steadying him. “I’m Security Director Sloane Kelly.”
“Security?” His eyes, streaming in the smoke, crinkled with effort. “We’re under attack, then. We must be!”
Because the alternative was so much worse.
Sloane made a face. Her mouth tasted like ash. Her throat stung. She felt like she hadn’t eaten or drank anything in centuries, which might be the case. But he wasn’t any better off than she was, and given the look of him, he was no saboteur. Not unless he’d cherry-bombed the operation restrooms for a laugh.
She wanted to sigh. She didn’t. “I don’t know what’s going on, okay? I’m trying to figure it out. Show me where your stasis pod—”
“I’m not going back there. I can’t.” He gestured back the way he’d come. “If you want to go stare at it, be my guest, but you won’t…” A sob thickened his voice. He ducked his head, swiped the back of his hands against his face. “The whole thing sealed off. I barely made it out. I don’t know… I still can’t…” The shoulder under her hand shook violently.
Sloane sized him up. Sanitation, huh? Her gut said he’d fold at anything uglier than a backed-up drain. “Okay. Okay. Listen, you need to make your way to the CA hangar, understand?”
“Can’t I stay with you?” Pleading. Scared.
She barely held back a grim smile. He wouldn’t like it. “Sure, Chen. I’m going to check your stasis room.”
He reversed stance so fast, she found herself holding air as he slipped by her. “Actually, the hangar sounds pretty good,” he said quickly. “You said it’s clear?”
Thought so. “Watch out for stray wires,” she said instead. “Now get going. Others are gathering there, you’ll be safe.”
“Thanks. Thank you.” A pause. He swung back her way, then back the way she’d come. Then, with a manic kind of helpless smile, added, “You be careful. Director. Ma’am.” A final, wobbly gesture, then Chen stumbled off. Vaguely in the right direction.
Sloane watched him go. He’d make it. Probably. The damage looked worse her way, not his. “Careful doesn’t get the work done,” she muttered.
The janitor had not exaggerated.
She found the door first, across the hall from where it should’ve been attached, laying on one side. The room itself looked like a war zone. Stasis pods lay jumbled like so much garbage, and many were open. Sloane had seen a lot of death in her life, but could not keep her own hand from covering her mouth at this sight.
The bodies lay everywhere. Dozens of them. Many were burned, others had just been heaved from sleep and lay crumpled against the walls and furniture. One lay splayed under an overturned pod, only the hand and foot visible from underneath.
Everything was still, silent but for the hiss and crackle of busted tech and sparking wires.
“Anyone in here?” she called out. Not because she had any hope there would be, but because she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t. But there were no replies. Not even a desperate cough.
Bodies splayed out, casualties of some big stupid mistake or somebody else’s pride… Yeah, these were images she thought she’d left behind.
Sloane turned away, battling down a growing sense of gut-wrenching dread. Adjacent to the pod chamber was a reception room. Her recollection of the Nexus’s layout gradually came back to her. Cryostasis chambers were sprinkled throughout the vast ship, and bundles of them were connected to special rooms where newly awakened crew members could relax and acclimate while they waited for their superior officers to come and welcome them to wondrous Andromeda.
Meanwhile someone from medical would evaluate their health, psych would make sure they hadn’t lost their marbles while asleep. A representative from Sloane’s team would be on hand in case they had lost their marbles and, as a result, their cooperative spirit.
That was how it was supposed to go, anyway.
They’d all drilled for disaster scenarios, yet no one had imagined a total failure of… everything.
The room would’ve been nice, if not for the large support beam that had fallen right down the middle of it, smashing couches and tables beneath its weight. Sloane could picture this place, crowded with personnel milling about and talking excitedly, all buzzing with the ambitions Garson had fanned. It was a small mercy, Sloane figured, that this calamity had happened while the vast rooms, halls, plazas, and parks were still empty.
A long, shuddering groan echoed through the entire ship. Sloane frowned.
“That can’t be good.”
On the wall across the room, a rectangular panel caught her eye. A terminal, exposed by an open panel. The screen was on, displaying the Initiative’s logo.
Sloane vaulted an upended couch and wove her way between a mess of overturned tables and chairs. Halfway there, a loud pop triggered the survival instinct that had seen her through too many battles to count. She dove for cover.
A shower of sparks rained from the ceiling. The room went dark, save for emergency lights along the bases of the walls, and that single glowing screen behind the open panel on the far wall.
A body lay beneath the display. An asari, sprawled and lifeless under the weight of a light fixture shaken loose in the calamity.
When nothing else exploded, Sloane eased from her precarious niche and studied the body. The asari didn’t move as she approached. Didn’t breathe. Nothing.
Sloane Kelly shifted her focus to the screen, telling herself now was the time to gain a sit-rep. Except the logo was gone now, replaced with that damned red word again: offline. Sloane wanted to scream in frustration.
Instead, she checked the body, already aware of what she’d find doing it. The woman had become the body in Sloane’s mind.
The chaos another battlefield.
Fire. Ash. Destruction.
All of it caught up to her when she touched that still neck. This woman had sacrificed everything to come here. They all had. And for what?
Loss. Disappointment. Death.
Sloane clenched her jaw. This stranger was a friend for the simple reason that they’d shared the same goal, given up the same things.
What had the asari’s final thoughts been? Fear, Sloane supposed. Anger, maybe.