Jason Hough - Mass Effect - Nexus Uprising

“She’s with us now,” Reg said. Something in his voice convinced the others. Trust. In him, not her.

They backed across the room, covering one another, firing indiscriminately into the horde that followed. Sloane tried to ignore the screams, those who hadn’t managed to back out fast enough and found themselves inside the storm of krogan wrath.

Sloane let Reg take point. He seemed to know the way. Perhaps he’d scouted this room for Calix, helped map its secrets and exits. Or maybe he was just as blind as the rest of them.

A thunderous explosion came from somewhere across the way. For an instant the far wall became lit with the silhouette of battle.

Ahead lay a door. Reg turned and leaned toward it and knocked a shelving unit full of spare parts out of his path. Sloane skirted sideways around the mess and heard someone behind her slip and go down. Or maybe the sniper had got them. Too hard to tell now.

Reg was five meters from the door when it exploded inward. Shrapnel splattered across his body. He dropped, a lifeless sack, and skidded across the final few meters into a cloud of smoke and debris.

Sloane tried to stop, but those behind her pressed. They’d rather face the unknown than the krogan at their backs. She saw Nnebron at her side now, others behind him. All eyes were on the door as they continued to rush toward it, rifles coming back around to the front.

“Enough!” a voice shouted.

The one voice in the entire station that could make everyone in the room stop and take notice. Nakmor Kesh pushed through the smoke. Behind her, Sloane saw familiar faces. Her security team, or some of them at least. And she saw the accusation in their eyes, the disbelief, the growing hatred.

“ Enough ,” Kesh repeated, this time for Sloane specifically, all bile and disappointment. In response she held up her hands, letting her rifle clatter to the floor. Those around her were less willing, but somehow she’d become their leader and, after a tense few seconds, they did as she did.

Nnebron was last, and he stared at her as he let his weapon slip from his fingers. His gaze held equal parts accusation and resentment, as if to say, This is all your fault.

Sloane Kelly laughed, then, though no one else seemed to get the joke. Somehow she’d become both the reason for their rebellion, and its de facto leader. A failed one.

Isn’t that just perfect.

All the fire drained out of their hundreds the moment their leader fell. Even if they hadn’t stopped fighting, even if they’d pushed harder, desperate to the end, it wouldn’t matter. Calix was the heart of them. And the opponent, well, few could be more terrifying.

Hope had turned to fear, and that fear had fueled a revolution they thought they couldn’t lose. Sloane recognized that. She understood it. Felt the twist in her chest when Calix’s brain and blood had sprayed.

That didn’t mean she was going to be anyone’s punching bag.

Lawrence Nnebron was a man on the edge—wiry, angry, and unwilling to let anything go. The moment Sloane entered the crowded cell, he came at her like a man with nothing left to lose, his lips peeled back in a twisted snarl and murder in his eyes.

As she sidestepped his swing, caught his wrist and spun him around, that look turned to something much younger. Much less sure.

Soul-deep loss. Of friends. Of self.

Of his place in the universe.

The paneling clanged loudly as she rammed him against it, pinning his head to the wall and tucking his wrist high enough up his back that he’d regret moving. He cried out, echoed by the other seven rebels in the cell. Just one cell of many, and all down the hall Sloane heard the arguments, the blame, and the anguish of loss.

“Stay put,” Sloane demanded.

Talini watched from the door, one hand hovering. “Will you be okay?”

As long as the sergeant was there, the others probably wouldn’t attack—but they wouldn’t talk, either. Never mind that Talini wasn’t there to help Sloane at all. She was there to lock her supervisor up for mutiny.

Ironic as hell, isn’t it?

Still, the fact she waited long enough to watch Sloane’s back meant something. Sloane shot her a grim smile, intended as thanks, and a silent acknowledgement of everything she couldn’t say.

The asari didn’t smile back. With a hard set to her mouth, she turned around and shut the cell door behind her.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the crowded room were Nnebron’s labored breathing and the shuffling of people who couldn’t figure out what the next step would be. They were tired, bruised, bleeding where the hasty bandages hadn’t held. Like Sloane, they were hurt.

Unlike her, they didn’t have the sheer pride that kept them from showing it. Sloane let out a short sigh.

“Let’s get this over with. I’m not here to fight.”

Nnebron jerked, but his arm strained and he froze again.

“Then get off me,” he snarled.

“Not until you settle down.”

“Fuck you,” he gritted out. “Pig!”

Quaint. Sloane kept a wary eye on the indistinct shapes just in her peripheral, but they seemed content to hover. Without a strong leader, they’d lost their direction.

Without Calix, they’d lost their heart.

She was careful not to push the engineer’s arm any farther, not wanting to break it, but she didn’t let up, either.

“I’m not here as security,” she said tightly. “I’m in trouble just like you. Just like all of you,” she added, turning her head to nod at the others. At the flurry of suspicion and disbelief sent her way, she turned one way, then the other, so that they could see her sides. “Here for the same reasons you are. Calix believed in you. Will you let that go to waste?”

Sweat beaded her captive’s brow. His eyes screwed shut and he tugged at her grip, only to groan in mingled pain and anger when she didn’t ease up on his arm.

“Come on, Nnebron.” She spoke to them all. “You guys took up arms against an injustice and your side lost. There’s no getting out of that, for any of us.”

“But—”

“I helped as best I could to save your lives from the krogan,” Sloane cut in quietly. A knife’s edge. “I couldn’t save Calix, and for that I’m sorry. I really am. But he’s gone now, and you’re alive. I want to make sure you stay that way, you get me?”

“What about the rest of our crew?” For a man at a disadvantage, Nnebron managed fierce and determined admirably well. Sloane admired that much, at least. “What about Reg? He died. Ulrich, Calix… ” He visibly flailed. “Reg’s husband is still out there, we can’t—”

“ These are the choices we made. ” Anger lifted her voice. Dragged audible claws through the crowd, and a grunt of surprise from Nnebron. “Get this through your head! I can’t do much for anyone else while locked in here, does this make fucking sense to you? We have to play the system now. Any opportunity out of this cell will be an opportunity to make new choices.”

Sloane had done nothing but trust the system since the moment the Scourge caused her crash-wake. She’d done her duty, followed the Initiative’s protocols. Tried to do right by everyone. And this is what it had gotten her.

Locked up and out of options. Even her fellow captives saw her as the enemy.

No more.

“Those who were too injured to be locked up here are under surveillance in the med-lab. Where they will get the care they need,” she added firmly. She had Talini’s promise on that. “Right now, what we have is us. You and me, Nnebron. The people in these cells. That is it. So what are you going to do?”