Jason Hough - Mass Effect - Nexus Uprising

So she set her weapon on the floor, and placed her hands at the small of her back, and waited.

They weren’t gentle, but despite the vengeance they unjustly wanted for their incarcerated friend, they didn’t hurt her, either. Sloane soon found herself being marched, prodded, and pushed through the narrow twisted passage that led, after nearly twenty minutes of walking, to join the corridor she and the Nakmor clan had cleared months ago.

The hallway, one of the Nexus’s main arteries, was clear in only the loosest application of the word. Debris and jumbled equipment still littered its length, but it had all been piled to one side to allow reasonably easy passage. Sloane regretted that decision, now. It had been the easiest way to open the corridor, but now all that piled junk served as cover for Calix’s makeshift army. Every discarded crate or torn-out hunk of air processor she passed had one or two rebels crouched behind it, all of them well-armed thanks to their score.

Any regrets she felt about coming here alone, however, vanished at the sight of them. If she’d come here by force with an entire squad at her back, it would have been a bloodbath no matter which side emerged victorious. These assholes might be untrained, but there were a surprising number of them, and they had the advantage that they could wait and remain behind cover as long as it took.

“Looks like you’ve made yourselves at home,” Sloane said to the brute in front of her.

“No talking,” he grunted back.

So original. Sloane sighed and went on counting the enemy, creating a little database in her mind of their positions, weapons, and any other details that might be of use. She hoped she’d never need it, but it beat trying to talk to the walking barricade.

He led her into a fabrication room where massive machines lay under protective coverings, dormant and cold. Surrounding these were untidy rows of shelving and workspaces, twisted and jumbled together by the Scourge. More cover, and plenty of room for the rabble. Beyond, if Sloane’s memory served, lay one of the empty ark hangars.

From there Calix and his people would have access to nine tenths of the station’s real estate, not to mention the access and expertise required to wake whomever they felt they needed—people they could tell any story they wanted. Sloane could no longer deny how brilliant this action was. Calix was no mild-mannered supervisor. Far from it.

“Director Kelly.” His voice filtered in from the adjoining small office at the side of the factory floor. Sloane turned and saw him step out, to stand amid a core group of life-support techs. His trusted inner circle, no doubt. These things always took on the same characteristics.

She nodded to him. “Calix,” she said. “Not sure what title to give you, actually. Sorry.”

He jerked his chin at the brute, his wishes implied in the gesture. A few seconds later Sloane felt her wrists being freed. She immediately went to work flexing the numbness from her hands and rubbing the ache from her wrists.

“I don’t need a title,” he said. “I just need better decision making.”

“Tann’s doing the best he can. We all are.”

He chuckled, dryly. His cronies picked up on it and echoed the reaction. All a bit forced , Sloane thought. Typical .

“Can we talk?” she asked him. “In private?”

“Depends,” he said. “Is this just a diversion? Get me away from the front when the attack comes?”

“No one’s coming to attack, Calix. We need you—all of you—back at your stations.”

“You need us in stasis,” he said. “And before that, you need us to put everyone else back in stasis. But that’s not going to happen.” He said this for his own gathered cronies, not her. A tactic she knew well.

“No one is coming to attack,” she repeated. “I just came to talk. I want to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“All of it.” She swept her arm across the room, indicating the band of wild-eyed miscreants this turian had somehow rallied to his cause, whatever it may be. “Why you did this. People are dead, Calix. Many more are injured. What little supplies remain to us have been looted or destroyed.”

For several seconds he just stared at her, as if still trying to decide if he could trust her. If he felt any remorse over the loss of life, he managed to keep it off of his sharp features.

“Take her omni-tool, Reg,” Calix said to the brute. He waited in silence while the device was removed, then took it when it was offered to him. Calix powered it off and tossed it aside. He cast an accusing glance at the brute, and Sloane understood that they’d made a mistake by not taking it from her in the first place. She filed that. She hadn’t taken the time to have it auto-transmit her location back to anyone, but she could always say she had.

“All right,” Calix said. “Let’s talk.” With that he turned and went back into the room.

The brute, Reg, nudged Sloane toward the door.

The hours ticked away with no word from Addison, Kesh or Sloane.

Tann waited, watching the feeds as rebels barreled through the hallways on looting sprees that left injured in their wake. The longer he did so, the more he began to suspect malfeasance from his would-be council partners. The more he suspected, the angrier he became, with one person as his focus.

He understood the urge to go against the grain—even if that grain represented the fundamental basics of law and order. Every being, whatever the species, eventually strayed. It was only natural. Biological , even. An imperative that appeared in every sentient lifeform.

Tann wasn’t unfeeling. He did understand. With anything else—anything less weighty than the future of the Nexus mission at stake—he might have entertained Sloane’s efforts at rebellion. After all, opportunity could be found in all things, even this.

But in that moment, as the Nexus crew rose up in mutiny around them, Tann couldn’t take the chance. Too much was at stake. The timepiece on his omni-tool moved inexorably toward too long . He started making plans.

Contingencies, backups, failsafes.

Somebody had to take charge of this clusterfuck, as Sloane would so colorfully describe it.

“Spender.”

“Yes, sir.” The human unbent from his near-permanent hunch over the feeds he monitored, turning his full attention to Tann. Smart man. Easy to get along with, Tann felt, especially when it came to getting things done—and right now, Tann needed something done.

“Leave us,” he said over his shoulder to the few other people who occupied Operations. The pair, assigned to watch the erratic sensors for any signs of the missing arks, looked at one another. “But what if a signal—”

“Have there been any signals at all?”

“Negative.”

“Then you can afford a break. Now, go.”

“Uh… where, sir?”

Tann’s large eyes squinted across the room at them. “Find somewhere,” he said tersely. “You are intelligent beings, by all accounts.”

They retreated without further argument, murmuring as they went. Good. At least somebody around besides Spender would do as he asked. Once they had moved far enough away that he could expect some semblance of privacy, Tann turned back to his assistant and braced both long hands against the dash. For emphasis, not because he needed to lean.

“This has gone on long enough. First Addison and Kesh, now Sloane, all incommunicado. We’re on our own. We need to act before everything is lost.”

“Act, as in what, exactly?” Spender asked. Then, as realization dawned, he added knowingly, “Arms.”