No, Sloane knew better. She saw their uniforms—those of the life-support crew. But even without that, she could see their faces. Expressions she knew well, from a thousand sec-cam recordings and, less often, in person. Thugs and common criminals wore that expression while doing their deeds.
Then she saw Calix, right there in the center of them. They weren’t protecting a fallen comrade. They were protecting their leader.
For a split second Sloane’s eyes locked with the turian. She knew her gaze asked why? And his seemed to say, Because you forced me to. No remorse in that fleeting glimpse, nor any hint that this might end here, peacefully. He and his group weren’t just going to lay down arms.
“Too many civvies around!” one of her officers shouted over the crowd. Sloane refocused on her immediate surroundings. Someone—a human male amped up on adrenaline—whirled toward her and threw a punch without realizing who faced him. He tried to pull the fist back, too late, and caught Sloane on the chin. The bastard was big, and even with his effort to stop himself there remained enough force behind that fist to send her staggering a step back.
She tasted warm rust in her mouth, and spat.
One of her officers, Martinez, stepped in and coiled to strike. Sloane tried to shout no, but only blood came out in an ugly cough. Martinez struck the man in his gut with the butt of an assault rifle. Sloane heard the air woosh from the man as he crumpled to the floor.
Not like this, she wanted to shout. Someone in the crowd saw the attack, hadn’t seen Sloane get hit, and jumped to conclusions.
“Security’s against us!” they shouted. “Resist!”
Sloane tried to grab Martinez by the arm, to hold him back, to appeal for cooler heads. But her fingers missed his bicep. She felt the brush of sleeve against her fingertips, and he barreled into the fray. Her officer slammed into the protester who’d shouted, leading with his shoulder, and the pair went down in a tangle of limbs. The crowd closed in around them, and just like that, Martinez was gone.
The melee changed, then. It took on a life of its own, transforming into an all-out brawl. Sloane knew this moment, too, from past experience. There would be no miraculous return to common sense. No, this would end only when one side was beaten into submission, or retreated. All they could do was push toward that moment, as fast as they could, and hope in the seconds between now and then that no weapons were discharged.
Calix and his circle were making their way toward a bulkhead opposite the one Sloane had entered. She kicked an asari out of her way and moved closer, ducking a punch in the process, returning it with one of her own that landed. A nose splintered under her fist. She didn’t stop, dimly aware that she shouldn’t get too far from her team. For the thousandth time she wished Kandros were here. He’d recognize this and know to stay at her side.
“They’re going for the bulkhead!” a woman shouted. One of hers. Sloane realized the cry had been meant for her.
“I know,” she called. “We’ve got to cut them off.”
And then the woman stood next to her, with her, like Kandros would have. Another officer appeared to Sloane’s left.
“Use your omni,” she said. “Seal it.”
Of course. Sloane knelt and tried to forget the combat swirling all around her now. A knee jostled her. Someone almost stepped on her hand as she struggled not to fall. Finally there was a precious second of calm. Sloane attacked her omni-tool, found the menu, accessed her location marker on the map. Then she found the door, and set it to closed.
She glanced up. The door didn’t budge.
Calix and his group were almost to it.
“What the…” she said to herself. Her eyes narrowed. In her glimpse of Calix she’d seen the omni on his arm, and she remembered. The database Irida had stolen. Among the litany of items it contained, one was bulkhead maintenance codes. Calix had claimed ignorance of the stolen data, but he’d had it after all. That’s how he got into the weapons storage. That was why all of the doors had opened. Everyone had unfettered access to everything—and she’d only left guards at the armory. She’d deliberately kept her forces out of sight, as a way to inspire calm.
“I’m such an idiot,” she muttered. A list of all the vulnerable places ran through her mind. Operations. Security’s offices. The Colonial Affairs hangar. The spare hangar appropriated for supply storage. The water tanks and reclimators. The still-sealed cryo pods.
The vast, unvisited, silent portions of the Nexus. Down a tunnel she herself had helped Kesh clear. Calix wasn’t on the verge of being cornered. He was about to trap her and the rest of the waking crew in a tiny portion of the vast station.
Oh, fuck.
Sloane watched as Calix, his cohorts, and a small army of sudden converts to his cause all entered the access tunnel. She could see a whole fleet of lev-carts in there, and people waiting with them. Piled with rations and water and who-knows-what-else.
Now the door closed, at Calix’s command via a wall panel.
Sloane Kelly called for a retreat.
She headed toward Operations, sending frantic messages to Kesh as she went. So far the krogan had not replied. Sloane wondered how the Nakmor clan was reacting to all this. They hadn’t exactly jumped willingly back into their cryo pods either.
On the other hand, they were near the end of the list. And besides, Kesh could always threaten them with the wrath of Nakmor Morda, should they complain.
They should consider themselves lucky Morda’s not awake, she mused. Then again, we’re all lucky Morda’s not awake.
Calix had betrayed Kesh, too. Technically he worked for her, one of the few non-krogan teams to report to Kesh. Had he discussed any of this with her? Were they collaborating? Sloane let out a worried sigh. She doubted it. Refused to believe it. Kesh was loyal to the mission, despite her differences with the leadership, Tann in particular.
But damn… if the krogan were part of this. If this turned out to be some kind of coup designed to re-cast the political landscape of Andromeda before old biases became entrenched once again…
“We’d be doomed,” Sloane said to herself. Her team, no matter how well trained, no matter how much help they received from civilians, were no match for an organized krogan opposition.
She glanced at her omni-tool again.
“C’mon, Kesh. Respond.”
Her team passed clustered groups of the Nexus’s crew. Some were gathered around wide-open doors, presumably defending what lay behind. Their work or their own possessions, Sloane hoped—though from what she saw in some of their eyes, their intentions might be decidedly less honorable.
“What’s wrong with the doors?” someone shouted at her. “Why won’t they close?”
“We’re working on it,” Sloane shouted back without stopping. She couldn’t spare the staff to help defend the contents of those rooms. Calix knew this, too, the clever bastard.
She reached a promenade that ran parallel to one of the Nexus’s long arms. The view should have been glorious. Verdant gardens. Personal vehicles streaking along, citizens strolling as they shopped or sought a meal and the company of their fellow crew.
But the wide space had been heavily damaged in the Scourge. Part of the deck above had collapsed along its edge, obstructing the exterior view. The net effect was a wide avenue lined with shops on one side, still packed with their wares, and a mess of debris on the other.