She almost collided with Spender coming through. He must have been waiting right inside.
“So?” he asked in an oddly hushed tone. “Did you catch them?”
“Afraid not,” Sloane replied. It hurt to admit. She almost launched into her story, but Spender gave a quick nod and stepped aside, letting her through as if he no longer cared.
“Well, well,” Tann said, “the spymaster returns.”
“Not now, Tann.”
“You could have told us you were installing hidden cameras. We should have discussed the privacy implications—”
“I said I’d beef up security,” she shot back.
“You neglected to specify!”
“Look,” Sloane hissed, “this has to wait for later. We’ve got a mutiny to deal with, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
The judgmental glare did not waver, but he let her in all the same. By unspoken agreement the rest of Sloane’s team remained outside. Talini gave Sloane a terse nod as the door sealed. A tiny incline of her head that somehow managed to say, We may not be in there with you, but we’re all with you.
Emboldened, she turned back toward Tann. The slithery Spender loomed in the background, as if uninterested now.
“They hit the armory,” she said, blunt and to the point. It seemed best. “At this point they might be better armed than we are.”
“How could this have possibly happened?” Tann demanded. “The one room in this station that should have been impenetrable, and from what Spender tells me Calix and his criminal gang just waltzed right in.”
“He had the overrides for the doors. It was in the data that asari stole. I don’t know why I didn’t think—”
“I thought the criminal you jailed had not passed that information on?”
“So Calix claimed.”
“And you neglected to change these codes?” Tann asked, already pacing. “Despite the circumstances?”
“I…” she paused, allowed herself a steadying breath. “I think this is going to be a short fucking meeting if you try to pin the whole thing on me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Tann paced, his steps so fierce Sloane thought it only a matter of minutes before he’d wear a visible path into the floor.
“Reports of looting are coming in from all over,” he said. “Fighting in the common areas. Hydroponics is ruined, and may never recover.” She let him rant, barely listening, her eyes cast upward to the ceiling.
“We need to get the doors closed,” Spender said. “This station is wide open right now, enabling all this behavior.”
“Agreed,” Tann said. “In fact I don’t understand why it hasn’t been done yet.” He aimed this at Sloane.
“Because Calix made sure it wouldn’t happen, not without a full reset of the configuration.”
“So do a full reset,” Tann said. “What are you waiting for?”
“A full reset takes time, and while it’s in progress a lot more than just open doors would be rendered insecure.”
“Shut them manually then.”
“A team would have to be sent to each door, and then it would need to be protected until the reset could be performed.”
Tann only grumbled at this, because this at least he understood. Manually closing all the doors would require a large workforce, which meant the krogan. As of yet, no one had been able to locate them. Or Kesh.
Or Addison, for that matter. She hadn’t been seen in hours. Probably found a dark corner to hide in, Sloane thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.
“Spender,” Tann said.
“Sir?”
“What assignment was the krogan workforce on when all this started? Where were they?”
Spender didn’t need to look it up. “Replacing ruptured electrical conduit between decks nine and ten.”
“And Kesh was with them?”
“Who knows. She’s got her big snout in everything.”
“Now, now,” Tann said, though without any real force. Spender barely tolerated Kesh, and the feeling was mutual, which was probably why their paths so rarely crossed. Some history there, but Sloane had yet to ask either of them about it. “Answer the question.”
“I have no idea if Kesh is with them,” Spender said bluntly.
Sloane saw where this was going. “I’ll head down there and find her.”
“Send a team,” Tann said. “A small team. I think you should remain here. You’re the face of security. You need to be seen… securing.”
Sloane glared at him. “With all due respect, I’ll make decisions about how best to make use of myself and my officers.”
Tann stopped, mid-step, and faced her. He said nothing.
Sloane went on. “Calix worked for Kesh. We don’t know yet what Kesh’s… attitude… toward this activity is.”
“Are you saying she’s in on it? That the krogan are part of it?”
“Do not go there,” Sloane said quickly. The last thing she needed now was for Tann’s natural distrust of the krogan to become a factor. A bigger factor than it already was, at least. “The krogan have been nothing but loyal from the moment they woke.”
“So had our life-support team.”
“I have no reason to believe they’ve turned on us. What I do fear is that Calix has already thought about this. That he chose his moment when he knew they would be far away, out of comms range.”
Tann nodded thoughtfully. “He might have even done something to sabotage them.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I would.”
Sloane sighed. “You know, no one has suggested the most obvious approach to this. I could try talking to Calix.”
The salarian looked at her as if she’d spoken in an alien tongue.
“You?” Spender’s eyebrows climbed halfway to his hairline. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Got someone else in mind?”
Spender let out a smug laugh. “Someone with a bit more political finesse, perhaps. I’d be happy to deal with Calix—”
“Should we have a listen to the speech you wrote for Tann? As a masterclass in political finesse.”
“This is an irrelevant conversation,” Tann snapped. “We do not negotiate with terrorists.”
Sloane stepped up to him, got right in his face. “Done listening to your advisors, are you?” To his credit, Tann held her gaze. He did not step away.
“Forgive me,” he said carefully. “I assumed that you, of all people, would agree with such a policy.”
“Oh, I do, I do,” she replied. “I’m just not convinced yet that the term terrorist applies.”
“You may need to reexamine your definition of the word then,” Tann said, showing surprising backbone. “They assaulted the armory. Killed the guards you posted there! Burned hydroponics. I could go on, but really, isn’t that sufficient?”
Sloane found she couldn’t argue, yet didn’t want to admit he was right, either. She clenched her jaw and stared him back.
Tann held up his hands. “Look,” he said, “find Kesh. Maybe you could track down Addison while you’re at it, but the bulk of your team needs to remain up here, visible. We need to restore order as much as we need to stop Calix, whatever method we end up choosing to stop him.”
Sloane heard all this, agreed with it, even, but she shifted her gaze to Spender and glared wrathfully for a few seconds before speaking.
“When this is over,” she said, staring at the weasel, “there’s going to be some changes around here.”
With that she turned, and left. In the hall outside her team waited, arrayed as if expecting an invading army to come at Operations. They all looked at her expectantly. Sloane steeled herself.