Mass Effect: Andromeda — Nexus Uprising

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A pin drop would have boomed like thunder in the still room.

Foster Addison stood at the main console, behind two technicians seated in front of the only two monitoring stations that worked. Behind her, Tann paced. Sloane Kelly stood off to one side, leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest. Addison could feel the pressure building inside the security director, like a balloon being flooded with air, flirting with that moment when the whole thing would burst.

Otherwise the modest control room within Colonial Affairs had been cleared of personnel. For security reasons. Addison studied the screen on the console, trying to temper her hopes as well as the growing ball of dread that lurked in her gut.

Six of the eight expeditions had returned, all empty-handed. The worlds they’d visited were in ruins, apparently ravaged by the same energy tendrils that had nearly destroyed the Nexus. What Tann had dubbed the Scourge.

Two of the returning ships had been heavily damaged, limping back to the station by the slimmest of margins. In one of those ships a reactor had failed as they rode the sudden wrath of a Scourge tendril. The entire crew remained in the infirmary, near death due to radiation poisoning.

The other ship had attempted to reach a promising moon in the local star system, Zheng He, only to find that one of the Scourge’s larger tendril bands enveloped the entire rock, like a snake wrapped about its prey. Sensors were unable to penetrate the mysterious blanket, and the shuttle’s captain had decided a landing would be too dangerous.

Four more vessels simply had met with similar results. Worlds seemingly once verdant were toxic wastelands, unable to provide anything useful.

Addison chewed on her lip. Not only had they failed to find a source for supplies or, barring that, a place to evacuate the Nexus, they’d also burned through a significant quantity of their rations in the process. Every returning ship was nearly empty, and their stores would have to be refilled if they were to fly again. Two of those were out of commission for repairs that might not even be possible to make with the parts on hand.

It had come to this—the last two. Addison couldn’t look at Sloane Kelly. Her officer, Kandros, was on one of those ships. Addison had been partly responsible for sending him. Caught up in the excitement that her beloved idea was finally being taken seriously.

It wasn’t her fault Sloane had been away, out of comm range, when the plan had been hatched. And few could argue Kandros’s credentials. He was the perfect candidate to lead one of the missions.

Few could argue, yet it only took one. The security director hadn’t taken the news well. In hindsight, Addison could see why.

“Hmm,” one of the techs said. An older man named Sascha, human, gray at the temples with a calm way of going about his tasks. He hadn’t been out of this room in more than a week—not since the reports started coming in—and he hadn’t complained about it once. Same for the asari who was seated to his left. Both had been sworn to secrecy, an oath that would be taken very seriously since the arrest of Irida Fadeer.

Despite all the precautions, though, rumors had already begun to spread.

Doesn’t much matter, Addison thought. It’s only a matter of time before we have to make an announcement. The question was, would there be a celebration, or something decidedly less upbeat.

“Hrmm…”

“What is it, Sascha?” she asked.

“A blip.”

“A blip?” Sloane repeated.

Sascha leaned in closer to his screen, pointing at an indicator. Addison had memorized these displays by now. Spent hours staring, hoping. The entire console had been rigged up from whatever parts people could scrounge, and part of her wished she didn’t know the kind of kludges and scraps of code that were holding it all together.

In this case, a sensor used to inform the station’s cleaning staff of a need for laundry service had been repurposed to listen for the transponder frequencies of the scout vessels. For a split second there, it had heard something. Then it had gone dark. Sascha leaned back, and let out the tiniest of sighs in impatient exhaustion.

“This is a waste of time,” Sloane said. “Sensors can barely detect our own hull in this mess. We’d be better off with binoculars.”

The light blinked again.

“There,” Sascha said.

“I’ve got them now, too,” the asari beside him said. Her name was Apriia, and while she lacked the calm demeanor of her counterpart, she more than made up for it in her attention to detail. The instant her screens noted the presence of the scout ship, the asari’s hands began flying over the interface.

“Which one is it?” Sloane asked. “Get a reading before it vanishes.”

Addison winced. She could see it already, but couldn’t bring herself to answer. It felt like a betrayal, a weakness, to make Apriia say it, but she just couldn’t.

“It’s S7,” the asari said. “Marco’s ship. Mission target was a planet called… Eos.”

Sloane gave no reaction. It wasn’t Kandros, which meant they’d hear from him last.

“Try to establish a link,” Addison said. “Quickly!”

“Already on it,” Sascha replied.

Tann stopped his pacing and stood at Addison’s side. They were in this together. He’d reminded her of this fact the first time an alert had gone out that one of the scouts had returned. Back then, though, Addison suspected his reminder had more to do with sharing in the glory. The fact that he still stood by her now—after six failures—said something about his character, at least. He could have distanced himself. Could have said she’d pressured him into allowing the scouts to go out, which wouldn’t have been too far from the truth.

No, Tann had stood firm. They’d agreed to this, effectively cut Sloane out of the decision, and so its consequences were theirs to share, good or bad.

A loud pop sent Addison reeling, hands thrown up to protect her face as hot sparks showered her. Sascha went over in his chair. Apriia flew to her feet, backing away as flames began to flicker out from a gaping black hole that appeared on one of the borrowed bits of gear strewn about the workspace.

Addison blinked, turned to cry out in alarm, only to be elbowed aside by Sloane. The security director stepped in and sprayed the flame with an extinguisher she must have pulled from thin air. Fire out, she tossed the used-up device aside and was already kneeling beside Sascha when Addison’s wits finally caught up.

With a shaking finger she tapped a message out on her omni-tool, sent directly to Nakmor Kesh with the highest of urgency. Sec-cleared tech repair team needed in CA immediately. Most urgent.

The reply came just seconds later. Incoming.

“Repair crew on the way,” Addison announced to the others. “Will we need a med team?” This last directed at Sloane. The security director shook her head, and helped Sascha back into his chair.

Minutes later a team of four krogan arrived. Addison watched Sloane check each of them against a list Kesh had provided. Everything proved to be in order, and they filed in.

“Here,” Sascha said, pointing. He needn’t have bothered, though, since smoke still curled from the fried equipment. Two of the technicians laid heavy bags on the floor nearby and splayed them open, a pile of random parts and wires in one, various banged-up tools in the other. It all looked like so much junk.

This is never going to work. Her mind raced. There had to be another way to make contact—but of course there wasn’t.

Tann sidled up to her. “Even without this latest… glitch, sensors aren’t good enough. It’s possible they’ll arrive before we can make contact,” he said. “We should prep a hangar, an empty one, and have a team waiting with food and water.”

A burly krogan—burly by their standards—gently but forcefully pushed Addison and Tann away from the console, making room. The tech crawled underneath and began yanking controller boards and who-knows-what-else from the bottom of the system.

“There was no damage down there,” Tann snapped.

“It’s all connected,” the krogan shot right back.

Tann leaned forward. “Even so, this is an emergency. We only need it to work for ten minutes, not a lifetime.”

“Let them do their job,” Sloane said. She had moved back to her spot by the door, but her voice carried no less authority for it.

“Their job is what we say it is,” Tann shot back. An uncharacteristic outburst. He smoothed the front of his uniform. “Forgive me,” he said to Sloane. “We’re all on edge here, so let’s just try to remain calm.”

Sloane looked at the ceiling and shook her head.

Tann pulled Addison aside. “We need to discuss what will happen if neither of these last two scouts return with good news.” His voice was low, but Addison glanced toward Sloane nonetheless. She gave no indication of hearing.

“One of them will,” Addison said. “They have to.”

“Wishful thinking is not an effective way to govern.”

“Well,” she said, “I guess that’s why you’re in charge.”

Tann stared at her, digesting her words. In that moment Foster Addison wanted nothing more than to be alone. In a sense she already was. She turned away from the salarian and moved to stand near the console again, ignoring the krogan’s feet that almost touched her own. Tann was right, of course. They did need a backup plan. The problem was that every option Addison could think of ultimately led to the same result—abandoning the Nexus. Ending the mission. Walking away from all the sacrifice and hope.

Hell, we might as well turn around and go—

“Got it,” the krogan said. He pushed himself out from under the desk and was standing in front of Addison by the time his words registered.

“Got it?” she asked, numbly. “It’s fixed?”

“I think so. Try it out.”

Before she could say anything Sascha and Apriia were back in their chairs, hands gliding over the interface screens. The group of krogan gathered a few meters away, their tools already packed, waiting to see if the fix had worked so they could get back to whatever they’d been doing.

A crackle erupted from the speakers, then a loud hiss of static masking urgent words.

“…injuries. Require… at docking...”

“Repeat, Scout 7,” Sascha said. “The Scourge is effecting your transmission. Repeat.”

“Good to hear your voice, Nexus,” the ship’s comm officer replied. Her words were still garbled, but clear enough to discern now.

“We need to know what you found out there,” Addison said. “Please report.”

“Nothing good I’m afraid,” the woman replied. Addison had to strain to make out the words. “Marco’s been badly injured. Hope the other… fared better.”

“Please,” Addison said, “the details.”

“Copy that. Eos is a no go. Affected by Scourge. Atmosphere highly radiated… unsafe. No signs of life.”

Addison stopped listening. She’d heard it before. Six times. The same damn thing. The comm officer relayed various statistics and readings, oblivious to the fact that every scout returning before her had met the same result.

There was only one left, now. Only one…

The krogan gathered their equipment and began to file out of the room, accompanied by Sloane.

“…permission to resupply and head back in search of the Boundless.”

“Wait,” she said, barely in control of her own voice. “Repeat?”

“Boundless,” the woman repeated. “Scout 8. Requesting permission to go after them.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sascha and Apriia were both staring at her, their faces pinched in dread or concern or both. Addison ignored them. She’d missed something, and there was no escaping it now.

“…were behind us,” the woman replied impatiently. “Kandros reported… uninhabitable. And then they sent a distress call. We lost them a few seconds later.”

Sloane was there. She shoved Addison aside. “Repeat that?”

“Boundless reported an anomaly and then… vanished. We’d like to return to look for them.”

“Why the hell didn’t you do that when it happened?” Sloane bellowed into the mic. Despite that, the voice on the speaker did not waver.

“We did,” the woman said. “Circled back immediately, at great risk to everyone aboard. Searched for as long as we could. But Marco’s… critical. We’re out of food. We did everything possible. There was no trace. I’m sorry. We all agreed, though, we’d like to go back—”

“We understand, Scout 7,” Tann said.

“Bullshit we do,” Sloane hissed at him. Once again Addison felt trapped between them. This time as two unbearable truths registered at once.

She and Tann might have sent Sloane’s best officer to his death, and every scout ship had failed.

There would be no resupply, no haven to colonize. Nowhere to go if the Nexus went critical.

Addison slumped back against the wall.

The mission was doomed.