Jason Hough - Mass Effect - Nexus Uprising

Finally, finally , Morda nodded. Once. Short. Sharp. “Consider it done.” She turned, and the krogan parted like thunderous water to let her out first. As one, they left to prepare for battle.

As the last krogan boot cleared the doorway, Spender turned to face the two workers who’d been brought in to act as witnesses. “Get back to work,” he snapped.

They glanced at one another, then quickly left the room, smartly using the other door.

William Spender watched them leave, and then stood alone for a long, steadying breath. “Nothing left to do,” he said to the empty chamber, “but see which way the wind blows.”

Sloane was thrust into a chair across a narrow table from where Calix stood. Her wrists were bound behind her back, the nylon strap looped through the seat’s metal slats. The brute pulled the cord so tight she felt a warm trickle of blood down her wrists.

“That’s really not necessary,” she said, careful to keep the pain from her voice.

Reg only grunted. He moved to stand behind her, as if to grab her head and twist at the tiniest sign of trouble.

Calix took the seat across from her. He glanced up at his enforcer and jerked his chin toward the door. Reg left, and Calix tapped something on his screen. A few seconds later, Sloane heard the door click shut.

“Sorry about him,” the turian said. “I’m afraid the leadership’s favorability ratings aren’t too high at the moment.” With that he leaned forward. “You shouldn’t have come, Sloane. It’s not going to change anything.”

“Your people are very loyal to you, aren’t they.”

“Just figuring that out now?”

Sloane shook her head. “I learned that from Irida. What she did, it was all for you, wasn’t it? But this…” She would have swept her arm to indicate the small army outside the door, if she wasn’t bound at the wrists. “I never thought they’d go this far. Never thought you would, either.”

“To be honest, neither did I.” He looked away, lost in the past. “It started back home, on the Warsaw . I never expected to become their leader, or their hero. I think maybe I was even trying to get away from them when I decided to join the Initiative.”

“So what happened?”

“They insisted, and I couldn’t bring myself to decline.”

The words trailed off. Outside, Sloane heard the busy sounds of barricades being erected, and the nervous idle chatter of people waiting for fate.

“It was the same with Irida,” Calix said conversationally. “Believe it or not, but she went after that data cache entirely on her own, because she thought we might need it in the coming storm.”

“You lied to me about that.” Sloane lifted her chin a little.

“I suppose I did,” he said, unapologetic and yet clearly not proud. “But then, you lied to me, too.”

“Irida was treated—”

“I’m talking about the scouts,” Calix said. He fixed a disappointed gaze on her.

Sloane went quiet at that.

“I asked you directly, Sloane. Remember the message I sent? Any news from the scouts? And your reply? You said nothing. That was the spark, you know.”

“You’re blaming this all on me?”

“The spark,” Calix repeated. “Blame is impossible. This is the culmination of a hundred events and decisions—good and bad—which can’t be pinned on any one person.” He leaned in even closer now. “What matters is what we do now, Sloane. Not what we did.”

The whole mess flashed through her mind. The Scourge, Garson, the waking of Tann. All of it. One common trait in all the bad presented itself to her, focused by Calix’s words. The fulcrum that made every big decision fall on the side of the mission, rather than the crew.

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.”