Jason Hough - Mass Effect - Nexus Uprising

“How bad?” Sloane asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” the asari replied, shaking her head. “They’ve been very close-mouthed.”

“Probably afraid you’re loyal to me,” Sloane said with bitter humor. “I guess I get that much.”

Talini’s mouth twisted. “I’m sorry, Sloane.”

“Yeah.” She rolled her shoulders, then laced her hands behind her head, looking straight ahead. “So am I.”

Sloane exited the cell. In the hall, the other prisoners stood in two long, erratic lines, and hardly anyone spoke. Well over a hundred rebels, she guessed, the fight in them tempered by the knowledge that next would be their punishment.

“March,” Talini said, and took the lead.

That was the last anybody said during the long, tense walk to Operations. Along the way they were joined by more prisoners—ones whose wounds hadn’t been severe enough to keep them under medical care. Upon arrival they were shown through the doors, and Sloane was utterly unsurprised to find the area ringed with her own security forces. At the center sat Addison and Tann.

Kesh stood a little farther away, engaged in a low, tense conversation with Morda, Wratch, and another krogan—one paler than the rest, gray where the others showed more color in thick krogan hides. His was scarred, brutalized by wefts and ridges, and he very clearly looked older than the others. Ancient, given krogan lifespans.

Morda barely spared her a glance, save to acknowledge Sloane’s presence with a grunt and lift of her broad head.

Kesh looked up, her gaze earnestly serious. Morda thumped her on the shoulder with a hard fist and said something low and rumbly. Sloane didn’t know what passed between them, but Kesh’s sigh rolled through Operations like a warning of distant thunder.

Tann slanted the krogan a startled, wary glance, which let Addison speak first.

“Thank you, you may all put your hands down.”

Tann’s mouth dropped open. “Didn’t we—”

“We can at least afford them some respect,” Addison said, an aside everyone heard.

“Respect? These people—”

“Cut the bullshit,” Sloane interrupted, dropping her hands and pushing her way to the front of the group. “We all know what we’re doing here.”

Tann’s gaze narrowed on her. “That’s far enough.”

“Yeah, like I’m going to risk getting shot just to wring your scrawny neck,” Sloane responded, but she didn’t push it. These two had unleashed Morda and her krogan warriors on Nexus civilians, and given the order for a sniper to take Calix out. One of Sloane’s own officers had pulled the trigger. That stung, almost more than any of it.

“What’s your stunningly brilliant plan this time, Tann?” she finished flatly.

Addison’s glare sharpened. “How about you shut up for once and listen?”

“How about you look at the facts here?” Sloane shot back. She jerked a thumb at the group behind her. “You think they deserve everything he thinks they should get?”

Voices murmured behind her. Nnebron muttered, “It’s his fault we were hungry anyway.” Not quiet enough to go unheard. Not loud enough to grab center stage. But she saw the rims tighten on Tann’s wide, round eyes.

“You’re all here because you took part in a rebellion that put the future of the Nexus in jeopardy,” he said firmly, clearing his throat in a bid for authority.

“Please,” Nnebron snapped. Sloane shot him a fulminating glance over her shoulder, but he didn’t look at her. His eyes pinned on Tann, hatred simmering under all that fury. “ You made the choice to hide the truth from us! You were going to let us starve because of your indecision.”

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.”