Anger and agreement rippled through Calix’s crew. Sloane held out an arm, as if that single barrier would hold them back.
“As you can see, Tann,” she said over the gathering noise, “you aren’t exactly off the blame train either. None of us are,” she added tersely, and if her stare pinned too long on Morda, the clan leader knew why. The Nakmor’s toothy smile wasn’t exactly friendly, but at the same time, Sloane didn’t think the krogan held grudges. After all, they’d won.
Thanks to Sloane’s surrender.
Tann bristled. “That is entirely unfair.”
“She’s right,” Kesh said abruptly. She folded her arms over her chest, frowning at Tann and Addison where they stood by the central dash.
The salarian rounded on Kesh. “That is quite enough out of the third parties, if you please. The krogan have done more than enough, and—”
“They killed Calix,” someone in the back shouted. Irida. Shit. Sloane hadn’t considered the asari’s habit of sticking a finger in metaphorically infected wounds. She reached back, grabbed the closest person—a turian with a blackened eye swollen shut and new scars appearing across her cheek—and jerked her close.
“Get her to shut up,” she muttered.
The engineer nodded and pushed her way back through the prisoners.
“All sides in this,” Kesh continued, utterly unfazed by the minor scuffle, “tasted death. Made mistakes. If we’re holding them to theirs—and we should,” she added sternly, “—then we should admit to our own.”
Beside her, Morda snorted. It sounded almost as if she’d spoken. Said something like “soft”. Then the larger krogan added, clearly and sourly, “You have your own missteps to account for, Kesh.”
Sloane raised an eyebrow as Kesh turned toward her clan leader. The pair started to square on one another, but then the ancient krogan, a male, stepped between them. “One target at a time,” he said, every word rolling from his mouth like rusted railway spikes. A simple step, a casual comment, and both krogan paused.
Abruptly Addison raised a hand, frowning. “Sloane Kelly, as the security director, what do you have to say for yourself?” A hush fell over the rebels. Even Irida quit muttering.
Oh hell. Sloane didn’t even need to think this one through. Ignoring the security—her security—she took three steps forward to stand squarely between the Operations council and Calix’s crew. She wasn’t stupid, though. She knew as well as anyone that several members of her team had a line on her as she moved. Would they shoot if she forced the situation?
They’d damn well better. She didn’t train them to hesitate.
“I have a lot to say for myself,” Sloane answered. She clasped her hands behind her back, settled her stance, and looked Tann dead in the eye. “Unlike some people here, I have a lot to say for others, as well.”
“Now, you—”
“I speak for the people behind me,” she continued, cutting him off. “They were hungry and terrified already, before learning their leadership had lied to them.” Loud. Deliberate. “I speak for Calix Corvannis, who saw a bad situation getting worse, and did what he thought was best to bring hope to this failing station.”
Tann’s eyes narrowed to vicious slits.
“I speak for Jien Garson and the real leadership this station expected.”
Addison’s lips whitened.
Kesh’s brief exhale mirrored the tension her words sent lancing through Operations.
“But most of all?” Sloane thumped herself on the chest. “I speak for the common fucking sense that said we don’t lie to our people, we don’t play the ruthless game of ‘who can live and who can die,’ just because we’re too chickenshit to own up to our mistakes when we make them.” She shot a glare not at Morda—who had earned her share of Sloane’s fury—but at Tann. “We don’t,” she said, stressing every level word, “send our own against our own.”
The salarian straightened, hand flattening on the panel beside him. “What would you have done?” he snapped. His voice trembled. “What could you, oh great security director, have done different that would have brought back order?”
Sloane shook her head. “I was already there, Tann. Talking it through, trying to bring Calix to… who knows. We’ll never know, will we?” The finger she jabbed at Tann could have been a razor blade for the way he flinched. “Somebody sicced the krogan army on us before we’d gotten that far.”
Addison shook her head. “They weren’t supposed to go in shooting.”
“Untrue,” Morda cut in, a sudden surge of danger in her growled interruption. “We were told to go, and I quote the skinny sand-rat, ‘whatever it takes to secure the mission.’ Do not dare to cast the blame for this on us.”
Tann sighed loudly. “Of course a krogan would assume that means ‘kill everyone.’”
Kesh threw out a hand so fast that it collided with Morda’s armored chest and sent an echoed thud through the rest of the crowd. Sloane tensed. While every security person reached quickly for his or her weapon, the clan leader let Kesh’s hand stop her knee-jerk forward momentum.
“We will have words,” she promised. “Rest assured on that.” But Tann just shook his head in that way that suggested he had better things to think about. Smug bastard. The full force of his attention shifted once again to Sloane.
“Regardless, you broke all the regulations of your office,” he said. “You killed members of the Nakmor clan—”
“They came at us guns blazing!”
“That you were there to witness it speaks volumes concerning your own loyalties, does it not?”
Sloane’s fists clenched. “I was trying to negotiate, you puffed-up fish-bait.”
“Against orders,” Tann reminded her, and Sloane didn’t have a counter for that. She had gone against his request to wait. But then, had she waited, would the krogan have murdered them all?
Her lip curled. “I regret none of my choices.” “And you will be held accountable for them,” he assured her. “Consequences.”
Sloane didn’t expect anything less. The real question was, what did he have planned?
“First, however,” he continued, shifting his attention to the rest, “we handle Calix Corvannis’s accomplices.”
Nnebron’s jaw tightened. “You can—”
“Shut it,” Sloane snapped.
The man’s fists clenched, but he jerked his chin and amended whatever he was going to say. “We fought. We lost. What now?”
Well, he wouldn’t win any diplomatic awards, but Sloane appreciated the brevity.
Tann and Addison exchanged a glance.
Never good.
“You have two options,” Addison said.
Tann nodded. “Option one grants you something of your initial desire. The urge to do things your way,” he continued. Nnebron’s dark eyebrows lifted.
One of Sloane’s did the same.
“We are prepared to offer you a fleet of shuttles.” Addison folded her arms, studying the crew. “Fueled and stocked with supplies. You can take your unsatisfied crew and set out on your own.”
“Are you serious?” Nnebron asked.
“Yes.”
“Exile?” Irida said, forcing her way to the front. Sloane bit back a sharp curse as more weapons primed, focused now on the asari.