Mass Effect: Andromeda — Nexus Uprising

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kandros met her at the hangar door accompanied by four of the team, including Talini. Good. Her biotics would no doubt come in handy.

All of them had come prepared as she’d directed, wearing Initiative-certified Elanus Risk Control Services gear and carrying just enough firepower to put down the problem without risking casualties.

“Did you talk to info-sec?” Sloane asked Talini.

The asari saluted. “Yes ma’am.”

“And?”

“They’re on it.”

Sloane nodded her thanks. What she was asking info-sec to do would probably seriously piss off Tann, to say nothing of Addison and all the others, but security was her job. For now, until everything settled, every access to secure networks would be recorded. Visuals and all. If nothing came of it, great. But if something did…

Something like this?

Next time, she’d catch it before it reached this point. The privacy implications were worth never having a hostage situation again.

Kandros eyed the door through a modified Kuwashii visor, which fed him enough data to keep his shots accurate and his intel sharp. “Info-sec has all ten arrayed outside the ship, with the hostages still holed up inside. Everyone else has been evac’d.”

“That should save on time.”

He nodded. “We move in on your order.”

Her blood already surging into adrenaline-fueled clarity, Sloane primed her Avenger. “Shoot to take in,” she ordered clearly, “but do what you have to in order to ensure the safety of the mission. I want all of you upright when we’ve taken these bastards down.”

She couldn’t care less how many of the would-be thieves remained upright at the end of this, but she couldn’t say that out loud. If these traitors had intended to hurt the people of this facility—pioneers like them—then they deserved whatever was coming.

Various degrees of salutes and nods met her order. Kandros’s mandibles tipped up in approval.

Turians. It’s like they had a weakness for women in charge. She’d never met one who didn’t get all… turian-eyed when she started calling the shots. Except maybe Kaetus, but he’d joined one of the arks. Sloane rolled her eyes, and glanced at Talini. “Shields up when we open the door. Find cover, then lay down hell.”

“You got it,” the commando replied. She rubbed her un-gloved hands together with glee. “Say the word, ma’am.”

Sloane checked her team. They all faced the doors, weapons ready. Faces set behind visors.

“Save that ship. Bring in those hostages.” With a last breath, she gave the word they waited for. “Move.”

Manually overriding the door took only seconds. As the panels swooshed wide, a rippling field of blue biotic energy spread in front of them, absorbing the first bolts of firepower. Sloane never really got used to visuals through a biotic shield, all distorted and slightly off, but it got the job done, and that’s what she needed most.

The crew split, finding cover behind crates and gear and the stockpiles of stuff hauled out of the ships to make room for personnel to bunk down. Sloane ducked behind a row of tarp-wrapped blocks. Kandros plastered his back against a tall stack of crates. The shield in front of them rippled as cries rang out.

“Get them!”

“Cover the ship!”

The reports of enemy assault rifles echoed through the hangar. A quick glance over her cover showed Falarn at the back rear, eyes wide and rifle spewing uneven bursts of fire. Obviously not trained to fight.

“Get down,” she heard. One of hers, too late. She jerked as a stray bolt slammed into her shoulder, triggering her shields. Sloane ducked, unable to give the enemy a rebuttal.

Instead, she locked in on comms. “Talini, drop a surprise for that back row. Kandros, take Gonzalez and circle right. I want that back entry covered. Keep them away from the hostages inside that ship. Someone lay down cover fire!”

“I’ll keep them pinned!”

Sloane acknowledged the volunteer with a short, “Do it,” and waited until she heard the volley of cover fire. “Go, go,” she called through the comms, leaping over her own cover.

Just as she did, the space behind the thieves distorted, bulging inward and then blooming out in a vivid purple-blue wound of space and time. Falarn’s expression cracked into sheer panic as the vortex caused by Talini’s biotics sucked him off his feet, stripping away his gravity.

Two more yelled as they collided with the spinning distortion, and Sloane couldn’t help but grin as Talini yelled, “Eat that!” in the comms.

Sloane landed hard on her feet, Avenger aimed and finger squeezing the trigger. Short bursts, that was all this one needed. Anyone lucky enough to escape the asari’s singularity scattered, many finding cover behind elements of the shuttle. Smart, really. They knew it was as much an asset as those inside it.

“Get the hostages!” someone yelled. In her peripheral, she saw a would-be thief in a Nexus uniform dart toward the ship. Kandros was too far away. Talini was busy. Sloane swung her weapon around and let loose a short burst of firepower. Blood spurted as the human went down—leg and side, probably not fatal. Probably. But at least he wouldn’t be going near the hostages.

“I could have taken that,” she heard in her comm.

“Too slow, Kandros.”

She grinned at his snort, then ducked as the butt of a rifle arced over her head. A millisecond later, Gonzalez let loose a sharp yell. “I’m hit!”

“We got bogeys in back,” Kandros added.

And one in front of her—the owner of that rifle.

“Busy,” Sloane gritted as a big human woman, all muscle and thick neck, dropped a heavy hand onto Sloane’s helmet. Before Sloane could wrench loose, strong fingers found purchase in the crevice around the neck, then shook. Hard.

Her Avenger went flying, her sense of balance shattered under a wash of vertigo as she was jerked bodily off her feet. Pain slammed into her back as the woman swung her into what had once been cover. The kinetic barriers didn’t help physical damage. Not nearly as well.

The enemy heaved her back up into the air and slammed her against the next closest object. She didn’t know what the hell it was—just that her head rang like a gong, her neck strained from the pressure, and she’d bruise from knee to ribs tomorrow.

Swearing, out of control, she flailed at the fastenings of her helmet as the woman jerking her around grunted with effort. Just as the world spun at peak speed and momentum, Sloane’s helmet gave way.

She went sailing ass over elbows, barely remembered to protect her now uncovered head, and slammed into the side of the ship. That rang like a gong, too. A big one.

Anything Sloane might have said was lost in a groan of effort as she collapsed to the floor in a tingling, throbbing mess of aches and battered limbs. Fortunately for her, the bruiser of a woman hadn’t expected to suddenly lose Sloane’s mass. By the time she got her balance back, Sloane surged to her feet and charged.

Armor met muscles—which, Sloane reflected as her entire body jarred, were thick enough to act like armor anyway. The woman grunted again. Sloane mirrored it, legs straining, arms clamped tight around her opponent’s middle.

Sloane tried to lift her. Throw her. Nothing happened. Then the impossibly heavy thief just raised a fist and drove it down between Sloane’s shoulder blades. Her shields took the hit but not the force. Sloane stumbled back before she kissed the hangar floor.

“Damn, you’re big,” she gasped. She swiped a hand over her sweaty chin. “The hell do you do?”

“Cargo.” The woman rolled her wide shoulders, thick lips peeled back in a wide, toothy smile. “Seven years.” The name on her uniform read Graves.

Sloane sighed. Guess it isn’t all hydraulic lifters and easy pay.

“You need some help, boss?” Talini asked wryly.

She didn’t need help or sass. Keeping a wary eye on her beef-bound opponent, she tipped her head slightly. “Get those hostages out and lock down the ship.”

“Joining Kandros,” Talini replied, but that thread of humor lingered.

“Got four holed up on the ramp,” Kandros added.

“Roger.”

“Now,” Sloane said, her attention centered squarely back on Graves. “Your team’s getting dismantled as we speak.” If her words came out with a little bit more effort than menace, well, she’d ignore it and hope the woman didn’t notice.

Her opponent didn’t even glance around her. Instead she clenched her fists. “We’re not staying on this death trap,” Graves replied. “And you can’t stop us from leaving.”

“Got news for you, lady.” Sloane jerked a thumb back toward the sound of more firepower, and more yelling. “We need these shuttles. We need people who know what they’re doing, too, and you should have been one of them.”

The woman set her not insubstantial jaw.

“But since you aren’t going to help make this future…” Sloane tilted her head side to side, heard her neck pop. Easing up on her stance, she shifted just enough to gain the edge she needed.

“Up you go!” Talini cried from across the room. Graves flinched and stepped back as two screaming uniformed thieves sailed over her wide head in a tangle of flailing limbs.

Sloane lunged, throwing her shoulder into the brute’s exposed midsection. The two spilled onto a crate just as Sloane dropped and rolled into Graves’s ankles. The woman had braced, but in the wrong place. She tried to twist out of the way, too late and off-balance.

The accidental knee Sloane received to her gut drove the breath out of her. The less accidental collision of Graves with the two tangled thieves did its job. She landed on both of Talini’s victims, smashing them to the floor and pinning them there.

Sloane rolled to one side and lay on her back for a moment, her shoulder numb. The sound of the fight continued around her.

“Last one’s down,” Kandros announced in her comm. “Two bogeys dead,” he added grimly. Over her head, something sparked.

More work for maintenance.

It could have been worse. Sloane lifted a hand to her face, squinting at her omni-tool display. “Sloane to Addison.”

The woman responded instantly. “Did you get them?”

Taking a breath made Sloane want to expel it on a stream of curses. She deferred to a gritted, “Yup,” instead.

“Any casualties?” Addison asked, her voice strained.

Sloane thought about it for a second.

“Nope,” she said, and cut the connection.

She really could use a drink. At this point, caffeinated or alcoholic would do.

“This is a disaster,” Tann said, pacing the section of the common room reserved for officers. “A total disaster. How could you let this happen?”

“It wasn’t Sloane’s fault,” Foster Addison cut in sharply. She stood by the bulkhead window, watching the salarian pace while Sloane leaned back in one of the padded chairs likely appropriated from a conference room.

The tough security director didn’t look too much worse for wear, if you ignored the nasty bruise around her neck and a cold gelpack draped over one shoulder. Addison knew from watching the footage how those bruises had been earned. Not something she ever wanted to experience herself.

Security had resolved the crisis like the well-trained force they were. Addison couldn’t find anything wrong with how they had handled it, which meant Tann was overreacting. Again.

For her part, Sloane said nothing, as if she needed the time to take in air rather than let fly with whatever she wanted to say to the salarian.

He turned his glower on Addison instead. “Two more bodies in cold storage. Eight more locked up in…” He hesitated. “Where did we put them?”

Sloane grunted behind her gelpack. “Up your—”

“A temporary cell,” Addison cut in hastily. She shot Sloane a look that was meant to be hard, but probably came across more exasperated. The woman wrinkled her nose in silent acknowledgement. “It will suffice. They’re well away from any communication terminals, sans omni-tools, and with plenty of room to rest until we decide what to do with them.”

“Space ’em,” Sloane muttered. “They’re traitors.”

Addison ignored that. The security director might be joking, but there was a very real possibility the hotheaded woman wasn’t. She didn’t want to press anybody’s luck.

“A trial, then,” Tann said, returning to his pacing. “A proper one, in full view of everyone so they know—”

“This isn’t a circus,” Addison said, her eyes widening. She took a step away from the window, hands automatically going to her hips. “Handle it quietly. You’re going to start stirring bad blood if you try to make a show of this. The people down there in that cell aren’t the only ones to come to Andromeda fleeing checkered pasts.”

“Bad blood,” Tann repeated, rolling his large eyes. His thin nostrils flared as he gestured vaguely toward the door—and ultimately, the quarters where the would-be thieves waited. “They tried to steal our shuttles. Hold hostages! We cannot be seen to go lightly on them, it will only encourage the behavior.”

Sloane said nothing. She held the gelpack to her injury.

Addison squared on Tann. “So will crashing down on them. The morale around here is piss poor already. I’m not saying that we pardon them or anything. Just that maybe a kangaroo court isn’t how we need to deal with our first security breach.”

Tann stared at her for a moment. Then his face cleared. “Ah, a nearly extinct Earth species. I wasn’t aware they held courts.”

Addison bit back a sigh. “It’s an expression, Tann.”

“A very odd one.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sloane muttered.

Tann glared at her. “Director Sloane, if you please—”

The woman threw down the gelpack, revealing the livid bruise beneath the torn shoulder of her uniform. She sat forward, elbows on her knees, fingers laced ever so pointedly, and drilled them both with a painfully hard stare.

“Look. All I know is that we can’t afford to pretend like everyone on this station is happy and shiny anymore. Innocent people could have died. Two of my team are in medical right now. Addison’s right about one thing. There’s a decent chunk of the Nexus crew that have, shall we say, colorful pasts. Garson believed in second chances.”

“She also believed in a large and well-funded security team,” Tann noted.

“Yes, a team which resolved the situation. We did our job. Now do yours. Space these criminals before—”

“Isn’t it your job to prevent this sort of thing?” Tann asked coolly.

“If you’d get out of the way and let me lead—”

“That is not going to happen in my… in any lifetime,” Tann shot back. Addison’s heart rate spiked into something she didn’t want to call anger, but she was running out of options.

Okay, fine. So she’d handled it badly—the whole loss of Jien, Tann’s appointment to take her place, and destruction of the station. She hadn’t even mourned, not yet. She couldn’t. Not until the station, Jien’s legacy and the hope of thousands, was operational again.

Not until the Pathfinders arrived.

So she clenched her hands and pitched her voice an octave into shut up. “The point here,” she said loudly, “is that we have to decide what to do with the criminals and then how to proceed. We are not spacing them,” she added, glaring at Sloane.

The woman shrugged, saying nothing.

“So let’s return them to cryostasis,” Addison suggested.

Sloane shook her head in pure disbelief.

“Hmm,” Tann breathed. “Defer judgment until a more appropriate time. Wise. That might work. It implies a lack of authority on our part, but perhaps refraining from executing people would be good for morale.” This last he pointedly threw at Sloane Kelly.

“They attacked Nexus security,” Sloane said, her tone thin. Practically a knife. “You’ll only encourage more of that, put more of my people on the line.”

“Isn’t that your job, Security Director Sloane?”

Her teeth bared. “At least it is my job, Acting Director Tann.”

“Enough.” Addison all but leapt between them, arms spread. “This isn’t helping anything!”

Tann’s eyes narrowed, but at least he withheld any comebacks. Addison had no doubt there’d be more to spare later. With patience and absolute finality he said, “I’ve made my decision. Make the arrangements to return the prisoners to stasis until such a time as a proper court can be established.” He waited for Sloane to argue, but the security director finally, mercifully, backed down. Tann went on. “Document everything, as you would any case, so that it can be addressed fairly and properly when the time comes.”

Sloane sneered. “If you think I’d do anything less—”

“I didn’t say that,” Tann said, “I just want to make sure we’re all clear.”

“Clear,” Addison said. She glanced at Sloane.

“Yeah, okay,” Sloane said. “Clear.”

Addison took another breath. “The real question is how we prevent this from happening again.”

Sloane, head hanging, nevertheless moved on from the conflict with surprising speed. “Re-code access, before someone else we haven’t vetted finds their way into a mission-critical space.”

“I agree,” Addison said. “As for the hangar, set Kesh’s team to repair and reinforce it.”

Tann’s long, spindly fingers began to tap together as he mentally worked out the calculations. “We can spare workers, but it’s going to require time and equipment. Two things that remain in short supply.”

“Equipment we can find,” Addison pointed out. “Kesh will know where.”

Sloane sat back in the chair, draping an arm over the back. “I’ll have my people start stepping up patrols. We’ve been too complacent,” she added, a thin thread away from accusation as she glanced at Tann. “We need to stop assuming everyone here is still a hundred percent on board with putting the mission before themselves. The assholes who tried to take our ships, for example.” Her displeasure was obvious. Hard to tell, though, if it was directed at herself or the situation. “Their approach wasn’t detected, not quick enough. It should have been.”

The salarian frowned, but he didn’t disagree.

“If there are any more…” Sloane paused, choosing the word carefully. “…unsatisfied people on this station, they’ll need to be dealt with. The trick is spotting them.”

“With tact, I hope,” Tann said pointedly. “Should you lack the means—”

“Sounds great,” Addison said, again too loud. When they both looked at her, she made sure there was steel in her smile. “We know what to do. Let’s get on it.”

Maybe that did it. Maybe, she figured, it was enough to remind them what was at stake.

“Meeting adjourned.” Tann turned toward the door. “Let us not lose sight of the ultimate goal here.”

“Yes,” Sloane repeated, watching him walk out. “Let’s not.”

Addison barely managed to bite off a curse.

Or maybe she was just surrounded by people so thick-headed, they gave the krogan a run for the gold star.