She could see it now. And unlike her moments of exhausted weakness before, this time Sloane found she did not want to ignore it, or walk away.
“I lost my temper, I admit,” Calix was saying. “Went back to my team and told them all about the scouts, and the lies. I guess I should have known they’d amplify and hone the whole thing into a call for action.” Calix studied her, tapping one finger on the desk idly. “I can’t help but wonder how things might have been different, if an announcement had been made the moment the news came back. It was the weeks, Sloane. The weeks of hiding it that got me. That made us all realize you—our leadership—were planning something that would not be in our best interests.”
“Tann and Addison, they wanted to wait until there was a new plan,” Sloane said automatically. “Until we could be ready to handle the crew’s reaction.”
“You went along with this,” he said. Not a question. “I thought you were better than that, Sloane. I thought you were one of those who would stand up against that kind of thing.”
“I am…” she said. “I was. Fuck, what the hell was I thinking.”
“You agree with me, then.”
Sloane looked into his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah I fucking do.” Then, “But what’s happened since, Calix. It’s too far. Theft of weapons. Killing my people.”
“The bloodshed couldn’t be avoided. I wish that had gone differently, but… well, what can I say? Your people are loyal, too. They fought well.”
She battled down an instinctual rage, born of the loss and guilt as well as the desire to defend her people. Rage wasn’t going to put an end to this, though. Nor would it fix the Nexus. “We have to find a way out of this, Calix. A solution that doesn’t destroy us all. As soon as they decide I’m missing, they’ll send the entire security team here—”
“Hence the raid on the armory,” he replied. “There was one armed group on the Nexus, now there’s two, and evenly matched. If history has told us anything, it’s that the real talking can’t begin until the odds are even.”
“So let’s talk. Come up with something and I’ll take it to Tann.”
He was shaking his head before she’d even spoken the name. “That’s the problem now.”
“Tann will listen to me. He trusts me.” Maybe.
Calix drummed one finger on the table, staring at her. “Did you know Tann came to me, and tried to get me to give him life-support override privileges?”
She blinked. “What?”
“True story,” he said. “This was months ago. Well before Irida’s arrest. Not due to the recent… concerns. He just wanted it. No reason given. Just in case he needed to do whatever Tann thought needed doing. To make things ‘better,’ no doubt.” The word better dripped from his mouth like a poisonous slug.
Sloane remembered Tann raising this idea in one of their meetings. He claimed to be concerned that the information might disappear if something were to happen to Calix, or Kesh.
“Why didn’t he go to Kesh?”
“He did,” Calix replied. “Kesh said no.”
And that hadn’t been enough to stop him. Fuck. Try as she might, Sloane couldn’t chalk that up to the usual salarian–krogan tensions. This was something different. This was straight-up deceit. She looked at Calix.
“I said no, too.” She processed all this, or tried to. “I didn’t know he’d come directly to you.”
“Makes me wonder what else you don’t know.”
That made both of them.
“Sometimes I think I should have stuck to my first instinct,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Leadership,” she said, and felt a weight lift from her shoulders for the admission. “When we learned Tann was, what, eighth in line to stand in for Garson? Maybe I should have declared a state of emergency right then and there. I almost did.”
He said nothing. Just looked sad; not an expression she often saw on a turian face, she realized.
“I should have refused to wake him,” Sloane went on. “Protocol be damned. I never imagined anyone but Garson in charge. Never dreamed it could happen.”
“Who could have?”
“Hell, we should have given the job to Kesh. She would have been perfect. At least made her an advisor. She would have held Tann in check, that’s for sure. Hell, I should have put you in charge.”
“Me?”
He seemed genuinely surprised by the suggestion. Sloane had made it without really thinking it through, but the more it hung there between them, the more it seemed right.
“Yeah,” Sloane said. “Why not. Look at the way your people have flocked to you. Look, there’s still time. I’ll talk to Addison and Kesh if Tann won’t listen. Maybe that’s the path out of this. You become an advisor. Represent your crew.”
“And Kesh? She deserves that more than I do.”
“Tann would never allow that.”
Calix shook his head, borderline angry. “You think he’d consider me, a turian who has committed treason and caused death and damage, but not a loyal and competent krogan? That’s exactly the kind of thing we should have left behind, Sloane, and you know it. There’s no place for it here. No point.”
“I agree with you.” The vehemence in the words surprised her as much as him.
He sat there for a long moment, thinking.
A knock at the door. Three hard pounding beats. Calix opened it with his omni-tool.
“They’ve come,” Reg said.
Sloane stood, not caring that the chair came with her. “I’ll talk to them. They’re security, they’ll listen to me. I’ll explain—”
“Not security. Too many for that.”
“Who then?” Calix asked.
“No idea, but they ain’t here to talk.”
Sloane Kelly’s thoughts went from the possibility of peace to a dark, dark place in an instant. “Calix. You said there are two armed groups on the Nexus now. Equals. But that’s not true, is it?”
“Meaning?”
“There’s a third, Calix.”
And she saw the understanding dawn in his eyes, an expression quickly replaced with… not fear, but stubborn resignation. “Nakmor,” he said, in a low, terrible tone.
Sloane, her back to the giant, thrust out her hands, the chair dangling painfully. “Cut me loose and get me my omni-tool. Kesh will listen to me.”
“Kesh ain’t with them,” Reg said.
Sloane turned slowly toward him. “Who then?”
“No idea.”
“Get everyone on the barricades,” Calix said, already moving toward the door.
“Cut me loose!” Sloane shouted at his back.
One foot out the door, Calix paused. He slipped a tool from his belt and tossed it in her direction. A compact foldable blade. She couldn’t catch it, of course, so she let it bounce off her midsection and clatter to the floor. “Wait,” she said urgently. “Wait! What are you going to do?”
Calix met her eyes. “I’m going to defend my crew. That’s all I’ve ever done.” A hard statement, for all the passion around it.
“Don’t. Don’t fight. The moment you do—”
“They sent the krogan, Sloane.” He shook his head. “You don’t get much more direct than that. The time for talking is over.”
“It’s not the right way,” she argued. “Calix, if you surrender now…”
The turian’s laugh was bitter. “What, you think Tann will just accept our apologies—and clean up his act, too?” Another shake of his head, hard. “We tried, Sloane. It’s time to do what’s right.” A shrug, halfhearted at best. “Whatever the cost.”
She stared at him, stunned.
He left without another word.
The door remained open behind him.
Hell.
Sloane dropped to her knees, rolled over to get her hands on the tool, then rolled again onto her side. She fumbled with the handle, worked her numb fingers around the sides of it, and pulled until the short, sharp blade clicked into the open position.