But to shed more…
Morda’s head turned. The krogan that flanked her met her stare. Even Wratch, the dumb pyjak, had stopped grinning his bloodthirsty grin.
Kesh pressed her hands together. “Clan leader,” she said, her voice low. “Are you willing to let this go?”
Morda looked back, teeth gritted. “No,” she said. “It is one too many, more of the same when we had been promised a new life.”
Kesh nodded solemnly. “Then I have an alternative, if you’ll hear me.”
Morda hesitated, but then the wizened Drack spoke, all the gravitas his thousand-some-odd years had earned him resonant in his voice. “Listen to her, Morda. She’s more familiar with these two-faced councilors.”
Fair enough an observation. She nodded once.
“Krogan are not new to tough environments,” Kesh said. She gestured toward one of the large viewports—and the caustic, vaporous tendrils of death that tangled beyond. “We tamed Tuchanka and we will tame Andromeda, but perhaps…” She shrugged expansively. “Perhaps, clan leader, the krogan must find their own way, beholden to no one. Maybe,” she said, drawing it out, “the krogan deserve to find what suits us on this so-called other side.”
Clever, Morda mused. Clever and bold. She may not have always agreed with Kesh when it came to matters regarding the krogan and the Nexus together, but separately…
Kaje rumbled a thoughtful noise. “Sounds interesting.”
Wratch’s grin came right back. “Sounds fun.” A beat. “Less turians.” They both snorted.
Morda ignored them all. “And you?”
Kesh held her gaze. “I will stay.”
Morda kept her gaze on Kesh. “Why?”
“I don’t support what was done to the Nakmor clan,” Kesh said flatly, “but I have put the blood of both hearts into this station. Someone from the clan must stay and ensure the krogan are not entirely without allies. I choose to be that someone.”
Morda rolled her shoulder, even as she rolled the ideas in her mind. She wouldn’t lie—the thought of taming this deadly galaxy, that so frightened the salarian and his council, pleased her perversely. And Kesh, for all her refusal to take sides, had a point.
Morda took a step forward, seizing Kesh by the collar. She jerked the krogan forward, but rather than the spike of foreheads that might have followed, Morda stopped and stared at her, eye to eye.
“You will not forget your allegiances, Nakmor Kesh.”
“Never,” Kesh replied.
Morda held that stare for another moment longer. Then, with a grunt, she pushed the engineer away, turning her back. On Kesh. On that prejudiced, stuffed-head salarian.
On the Nexus.
“Make the necessary preparations,” she roared as she strode away, footsteps pounding like a batarian war beast on the hunt. “We leave when the exiles do.”
Behind her, she heard Kesh exhale a hard, stilted breath. Morda decided to end the conversation there, to let Kesh stew no matter how cold it made her seem. Kesh knew what her suggestion had cost the krogan, and what it cost Morda to accept.
The Nakmor Clan would be victorious, with or without the Nexus.
It seemed that some things on this so-called “other side” would not be so different after all.
Generations to produce a dream.
Hours to shatter it.
Tann leaned against the solid metal frame of the viewport. The long hangar spread out before him, bustling with activity. Ranks of krogan filing into the small armada of shuttles being provided them, Nakmor Morda at the head of the group, arms folded in defiance and resolve, overseeing the exodus. Now and then she would lift her gaze toward him, and her stare would bore into him before he’d look away.
The krogan were matched in the distance by the exiles. Sloane Kelly and her band of criminals, and the sympathizers that had chosen a slow death in Scourge space than life on the station. Hard to think of them that way, but Tann couldn’t get around the truth.
They were less organized, but just as fearless. Surrounded by security, their groups formed, and soon enough they began to head for their assigned ships, too. Bags slung over their shoulders, pushing lev-carts of bundled supplies. Two weeks of food and water, Spender had said.
Tann lowered his head.
Easy to see all this as misfits and malcontents taking their leave, and good riddance. Harder to admit the truth. The people out there represented a sizable number of the Nexus’s population. His construction crew, and the better part of the life-support team, chief among them.
Tann might have won against the mutiny, but the cost was truly terrible. No getting around that.
A mess, he thought, and shook his head as Sloane boarded her shuttle without so much as a glance back toward him.
So many had given their knowledge, their time, their bodies, and various forms of exertion to make the Nexus happen. So many had pinned their hopes and their dreams on this, their foray into Andromeda.
He looked up, farther than the docks and the folded hubs of sectors waiting for repair, saw the eerie colors of the Scourge, floating beyond. Waiting. Drifting. Somewhere in there drifted devastated planets.
The bones of dead civilizations, too, according to some of the scouts.
He folded his arms over his chest, trying not to notice that it felt more like trying to protect his aching insides, and less like casual posturing. A soft knock behind him alerted him to another guest, but it was too late to pull on his usual mask of logical calm now. At least it would be Addison. Something about her way of moving. She had a distinctive tread.
“Hey,” she said.
Tann didn’t look behind him. He didn’t need to, and she didn’t need him to. Foster Addison was a perceptive human. And he didn’t know how to hide his uncertainties now.
“All that time,” he said, not an answer or a greeting, but it was all he had. “All those plans and dreams and hopes. A masterpiece, and it was ours to create.” In his peripheral, Addison climbed the steps to the large window and took up a similar position a short distance away.
“Jien Garson had a way of making it sound like an adventure.”
“An adventure,” Tann repeated sourly. “A grand new galaxy with innumerable fertile landscapes to provide us with all that we needed.” He closed his eyes, let his head fall forward until his brow thumped against the solid pane. His breath fogged it on a shaky exhale. “I don’t know, Foster. I don’t know that I made the right choice.”
“Which one?”
“Any,” he admitted, his voice very small. “All I wanted was for the Nexus to blossom, to fulfill its role from the start. I swear to you, I made every choice with this in mind…”
Addison, in perhaps the most damning reaction, said nothing.
Tann laughed, and it felt weak, even to him. “Sacrifice,” he said bitterly. “Jien Garson spoke of sacrifice. She said that by undertaking the journey, we made the greatest sacrifice we would ever make.”
“Something tells me,” Addison said quietly, “that was optimistic at best.”
“At worst, a lie.” Tann opened his eyes, lifted his head as a ship’s exhaust flared at the docks. Wavering spots of color. He rested the tips of his spindly fingers on the pane. “Did she know, do you think?”
“Know what?”
“That what she said was probably a lie? Or, at best, marketing?”
Addison’s chuckle was little more than a short exhale. “I think Jien Garson felt what we all felt.” She straightened, made her way to Tann’s side to watch the ships prepare. “Hope is a powerful thing, Tann. For a brilliant, ambitious woman like Jien, for governments willing to fund them. For normal everyday people.” A faint trace of humor edged into her voice. “Even for logical salarians.”