Calix puffed out a breath. “We’ll discuss this later.”
A muffled, single laugh from inside. “Yeah. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you on the other side.”
And then Calix heard Spender’s hushed voice, reporting the very attack he’d just helped Calix win.
Calix Corvannis could only shake his head, and hurry away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
She’d reached a full sprint when the armory came into view. Sloane stopped a dozen paces out, crouched behind a low railing, and surveyed the scene.
Bodies. The splatter of blood.
Her gut twisted into a knot. Those were her people in there. Her family. Cut down. And by Calix, for fuck’s sake. She’d known he was clever. Politically savvy. But this? He’d kept this side hidden well.
“I’ve got at least two officers down,” she said. “Who’s armed?”
Several of her team chimed in, and without needing an order they came forward while the others moved to the back. Sloane pointed at two of them and gestured toward the right side of the armory entrance. The others would know to follow her to the left.
Pistol in hand, she was off, running again while bent at the waist, her eyes darting from the path ahead to the door off to her right. Her team moved like fluid, spilling through the sporadic cover and flowing across the open space before reaching the bulkhead like a wave against a seawall.
Sloane did not hesitate. She nodded once to the officer directly across the bulkhead from her, and the two of them rounded the corners and entered the room with barely a pause. She swept her weapon to the obvious hiding places, fist loose on the grip, finger resting on the trigger, all of it cupped in her off-hand palm.
“Calix!” she called out. “Surrender now and we’ll show leniency. You have my word.” Sloane wasn’t quite sure if she meant that, but she knew her team wouldn’t believe it. They’d see it as a tactic to get the enemy out in the open, and that was fine. Maybe that’s what it was.
Nothing stirred. The room remained as quiet as the bodies that lay within it. Sloane moved to the nearest victim, felt for a pulse, and found none. A deep pain gripped her—and a fear as well. Whatever the reasoning for this, whatever Calix’s motivation, blood had been shed. Security had been targeted.
Her team would be out for revenge.
Sloane debated giving the speech. One she’d had to give many times in her career. The need to maintain professionalism. Respect for the rule of law. Innocent until proven blah blah blah. In her experience security personnel always reacted the same way to that speech. Lots of nodding and agreement, and then it all went out the fucking window the moment they had their perp in sight.
Screw it then. This was more, so much more, than a simple altercation. They’d raided the armory. Stolen weapons. She glanced around and didn’t need to take an inventory to know. Whole shelves had been emptied. This room had been stocked to handle whatever the Nexus might encounter in Andromeda, and for a security staff ten times what she’d been able to wake for the emergency.
Enough to supply a small army.
“Spread out,” she said. “Search the room.”
They were long gone already, but she needed a minute to think. Her team flooded in and began an aisle-to-aisle search. Sloane lifted her wrist and tapped into the omni-tool. She called for medics.
“Bring body bags.” She reported the deaths of three security staff and one life-support tech in the armory.
“Sir?” She jumped involuntarily. One of her officers had approached from the direction of the weapons lockers. The ones with military training always called her “sir.”
She let it slide. “Go ahead.”
“They were smart,” the woman said. “Only took the weapons that didn’t have tracking gear. We won’t be able to find them via sensors.”
“Figures,” Sloane replied, shaking her head. Calix knew his stuff, or someone with him did. She wondered what other surprises he had in store. She also wondered how long he’d been planning this. Bits of her interview with him after Irida’s arrest replayed in her mind. She’d gone to get information from him, and somehow told him far more than someone of his rank needed to know.
He had that way about him. She shuddered at the memory of it, feeling like the victim of a con. Combined with the knowledge that his entire team had followed him from their previous posting, and phrases like “cult of personality” started to flitter through her mind.
Their search complete, the rest of her team gathered around. One look at their faces confirmed what she already knew. As she suspected, they’d gotten away.
“Tracking down these weapons is our top priority now,” she said to them. “Arm up as best you can, with whatever’s left. I’ll need two of you to remain here with the door closed and locked. Minch, Kwan, you handle it. No one gets in unless you clear it with me first. Understood?”
They both nodded. Someone offered Sloane a rifle. She took it, checked the load out, and deactivated the safety.
“Everyone else with me.”
“We have to seal the room,” Tann said.
He ignored the shocked intake of breath from Foster Addison. She’d reach the same conclusion soon enough. For now, there was no time to debate. He left her at the console and strode toward the doors.
Spender stood near the wall, casually reviewing who-knows-what on his omni-tool. More reports of looting or firefights, no doubt. Spender had been in the middle of just such a battle only minutes before, and barely escaped with his life from the way he told it.
Tann nodded to him as he passed. “Help me secure the room.”
No guards were posted at the Operations door. Hadn’t been since the Scourge had struck, in fact. Tann marveled at that, in hindsight. Despite everything, he’d never once thought to have security posted here. Whatever grumblings the crew might have, he had not truly believed anything like this could happen.
A miscalculation, one he intended not to make again.
Spender helped him with the doors. There were three entrances to Operations, two of which led to blocked passageways, but they sealed those all the same. The time for lax security, for taking chances, was over.
“In a strange way,” Tann said as he rejoined Addison, “this altercation gives us the excuse we need to act with impunity. If the crew won’t return to cryostasis of their own accord, they—”
“How can you even be talking about that?” Addison asked, naked disgust on her face. “Three people are dead in the armory. Who knows how many more in Hydroponics.”
“That is exactly what I’m talking about,” Tann said, confused at her resistance.
“The bodies are still warm and you’re already trying to twist this into some kind of advantage.”
He shrugged. “Of course. Any event must be factored into future decisions and directions. Naturally—”
“I can’t listen to this right now,” she said, and she walked away. Tann debated following her, explaining, but Spender caught his eye. The man held up one hand and made a face, a uniquely human expression that said, I’ve got this.
So be it. Tann went back to the console. Its capabilities were still limited, but one thing he could do was access cameras placed around the station. Not all of them, but some. Hopefully enough.
Every one of them showed nearly the same thing. People running about, or clustered in groups embroiled in heated conversation, some on the verge of violence. Panic and chaos. Exactly what Calix Corvannis wanted, no doubt. Tann stroked his chin, impressed despite himself. He’d underestimated the turian. Or rather, he’d had no reason to estimate him at all. Calix was middle-management. A capable life-support technician and a reasonably good leader of his team. Tann wondered what kind of background could lead someone like that to exhibit such political acuity.