Standard stasis pods weren’t huge, by necessity. Big enough to comfortably fit the species their design called for. The outlier to the design came when they’d suddenly had to deal with a complement of Nakmor krogan. Such pods were understandably larger.
Much, much larger.
While Spender had no illusions about the objective size of krogan warriors, Nakmor Morda’s reputation cast a long shadow. As he waited for the only available technicians to get her through medical, he found his leg bouncing in uncontrollable nerves.
Nakmor Morda.
The profile he’d devoured on the way to the guarded communications room painted a bleak picture. A female clan leader, which said a lot about her capabilities. The Tuchanka Urdnot leader, Wrex, hadn’t been a krogan who suffered fools, and Spender knew from diplomatic association that anyone who could impress him was bound to scare anyone else.
By all accounts, Nakmor wasn’t a soft clan—they were brutish, impatient, and aggressive. All traits the krogan valued, all reasons William Spender wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.
It was pretty much a given that she would be angry. She’d probably also stink like a—
Abruptly voices were raised in warning. They echoed the heavy, dangerous tread of a krogan on the warpath. Spender braced himself as much as he could before the door flung wide. It cracked into the back paneling and boomed out a metallic, dissonant gong. Just what the Nakmor clan leader needed to mark her entrance.
As if Morda wasn’t imposing enough.
Maybe more so than rumor suggested, and rumor had suggested quite a damn lot. Her eyes burned with a righteous fury as her gaze landed on Spender.
“Where the hell is my clan?” she boomed in a voice shredded by glass and granite.
“Safe,” Spender said hastily, before remembering safe wasn’t exactly in krogan vernacular. “Er, waiting for your orders!”
Morda moved like a tank. Strength and muscle forged a piledriver that pushed everything in its path out of her way. Spender’s spine went rigid as she strode up to him without slowing, barely keeping from mowing him down.
He couldn’t help himself. He flinched.
Half a second later he still found himself breathing, and cracked open an eye to find Morda’s broad, flat krogan face mere millimeters from his. She filled his vision.
Dominated it.
“Who are you?” she growled. “Where is Kesh? Or Garson? If I am not talking to Kesh, the only other I should have to suffer is Jien Garson.”
All the rigidity in Spender’s spine threatened to wilt. He forced his legs straight, made himself look her in the eye.
“My name is William Spender, chief of staff to the Nexus leadership.” Well, he would be, if she agreed. And if she didn’t agree it wouldn’t matter anyway. “Jien Garson is dead. Long story,” he added when her broad nostrils flared.
She inched that much closer. “There is only one human in this universe I consider a friend, and that is Jien Garson. So tell it. Now.”
He did. He told a shortened, much faster version. She simply stared at him, unblinking. Saying nothing. When he wound down…
She still said nothing. The silence stretched, filling the minimal space between them until Spender was positive he heard it ringing in his eardrums.
“Kesh and the council decided to awaken certain individuals,” he said, breaking the silence, “setting priority to those who could rebuild.”
The krogan’s gaze narrowed dangerously. Then, on an inhaled breath, she took one step back to give her large body room to break into graveled, guttural laughter. She thumped her uniformed chest with a knobby hand.
“Rebuild,” she snorted, the laughter fading. “Rebuild! And now look at you.” She half-turned, flinging that hand back toward the busted doors and the obvious signs of battle visible beyond.
Spender saw her point.
“How goes your rebuilding now, human?”
Rhetorical, Spender supposed. He sighed. “Yes, mistakes were made—”
More raucous laughter cut him off, and he took another deep breath before he did something he’d regret.
Like get himself killed.
When her gusty guffaws eased, he tried again.
“Clan leader, we’re asking for your help in putting down the mutiny before it gets any more out of hand.”
Her laughter, all trace of humor, abruptly vanished.
“Why isn’t your security taking them in?” she asked bluntly.
He didn’t want to tell her that even Sloane’s force was too small. That no alternative existed. Then again, he didn’t know how else to put it.
She read the truth on his face.
“So,” she said slowly, “your pitiful forces can’t handle it.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off with a shrewd stare and a pointed question. “Or is it that you won’t send them against your own?”
A valid, incredibly insightful question.
Spender thought fast. “We want to end this as quickly as possible. The fact is, by sending krogan forces—your krogan force,” he amended hastily, “we’re more likely to avoid a prolonged conflict, not to mention massive loss of life.”
“So you want to throw tough krogan meat at these rebels, frightening them into submission without a fight? Do you mean to forbid combat?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Not at all. Bloodshed is, of course, to be avoided if at all possible, but should the situation warrant it, you would be given full leave to do as you see fit. Whatever it takes to secure the mission.”
Morda folded her arms over her broad chest, looking down at Spender from a distance that suddenly didn’t seem all that much better than her close proximity earlier.
She’d crush his head in a heartbeat.
Or rather, that’s what he was meant to think.
It was working.
Clearing his throat, Spender backed away under pretense of organizing the data he’d collected for this diplomatic mission. Putting a conference table between him and Nakmor Morda might not actually help, but it made him feel better.
“In short,” he finished, “this uprising is a major threat to the well-being of this station and the mission—including,” he added when she looked less than impressed, “the continued flourishing of the Nakmor clan.” That earned him a gritted-teeth growl and her full attention.
“To be clear,” she said in that bullish way he didn’t think she knew how to change, “you kept me ignorant and asleep so you could use my people as you would, and now that your people are misbehaving, you want my help? My clan’s blood?”
Spender felt himself pale. She hadn’t moved, not a step, but the imminent fury carved into her tough krogan hide wasn’t difficult to translate.
“We… we are, ah…” He wiped his sweaty hands on his thighs, hoping no one would notice. “We are prepared to compensate the Nakmor clan.”
She leaned forward. “How.”
It wasn’t so much a question as a demand.
“I—that is, we,” he corrected quickly, “are willing to formally recognize the Nakmor clan’s services in public acknowledgement, up to and including the addition of krogan statuary—”
“Screw your statues,” Morda snarled. Her fist came down on the table, causing the neat pile of his data to fan like a deck of cards. He barely kept from jumping, but his stomach didn’t get the memo. It sloshed all the way up into his throat. Then down into a petrified pit.
“Every krogan knows this story,” she continued angrily. “You so-called civilized species get in over your head and beg us for help. We shed our blood, you thank us with one hand and sanction us with the other. Do you think we do not learn?”
Spender’s mouth dropped open. “I… W-Well that was—”
“A pile of shit.” Morda leaned in so close, all he could think was that her large mouth—and larger teeth—loomed close enough to take his face off, if the krogan clan leader wanted to. And she looked very much like she wanted to. “The Rachni War
s taught us a lesson we will never forget,” she snarled, low and menacing. “You raise us up when you’re all dying and when we save your collective asses, you respond by mutilating our people. Murdering our children! And give us what? A fucking statue.” She braced enough of her weight on the table that it creaked. Alarmingly. “Different times, different wars. But we learn.” Her teeth gleamed as she stressed the words. “Do. Better.”
Spencer skipped the preambles. He’d way overstepped what little authority Tann had granted him, but results were what mattered. Results were what led to power, to recognition. He’d rolled the dice a bit with Calix, he could certainly double-down now.
“We are prepared to offer the Nakmor clan a seat at the council.” The words came out with surprising ease, and Jien Garson’s legendary confidence. He couldn’t have said it better had he practiced it a hundred times.
“The krogan have been denied a seat at the council for generations,” she said slowly. Suspiciously. She looked down at him from dangerously slitted eyes. “Don’t mess with the Nakmor, little man. We will eat you.”
It was so close to what Kesh had said that Spender almost laughed. Almost. The mood in the room changed palpably, then. He breathed out deliberately.
“The offer is legitimate.” Or, anyway, it would be once he talked Tann into it.
Once the krogan stomped this bloody mutiny to dust, Spender had little doubt in his ability to convince the salarian to allow it.
Morda glowered at him. “Is the entire clan awake?”
“Only the workers,” Spender said.
“I shall have my warriors at my side for this, to share in the glory. Wake them.”
“Naturally. I’ll see to it.”
“As for your offer,” she said, steamy breath in his face, “there must be witnesses.”
“Of course.”
“Yours and mine.”
“Certainly,” he said amicably. He pulled up his omni-tool communications, connected the short-range frequency to his nearest staff.
* * *
As an uneasy silence settled over the room, the stomp of boots once more preceded entry of five more bodies. Two krogan, two humans plucked from wherever they’d been found, and a third krogan trailing up the back.
Spender didn’t recognize any of them. Not by face—at least in the case of the humans—and not by designation as Morda met the first krogan by grabbing him by the front of his armor.
“Wratch,” she growled.
Whatever he may have said was lost as Morda yanked the krogan forward and delivered a solid headbutt. The sound of bone cracking bone ricocheted through the room, freezing all the non-krogan in place.
Wratch cursed as he clapped both hands to his head.
“I am your clan leader,” Morda all but roared.
Spender flinched inwardly, but held still.
The krogan didn’t let a little reeling stop him. “Yes, clan leader,” he bellowed back. The others joined in. She rounded on them, with eyes wide and lips twisted into a feral snarl.
“ I lead the clan in all battles.”
“Yes, clan leader!”
“Remember that,” she growled. “We stride into a bloody field, Nakmor. Let’s remember why we are here.” She made a fist in front of her face, tightened until the sound of popping knuckles peppered the silence. “And what we have come to do.”
Spender watched, both repulsed and fascinated as Nakmor Morda cowed her krogan into unfailing obedience. All without lessening them in any way. They all beat on their chests in some kind of primitive salute—hell if Spender knew—before falling silent behind Morda. She rounded on the human witnesses.
He was aware of one, a bookish-looking man, taking a solid two steps back.
“We will fight your battle,” Morda declared. “We will end this mutiny by tearing off its head. And when we are victorious,” she added, her voice dangerously level, “you will make good on your promise.” She prodded him with one thick finger.
Spender nodded. “Then it’s agreed—”
Morda’s fist pounded into her other hand. It cracked like bone. “Say it.”
Spender tried to find that Garson-esque confidence again, and only managed some. “If you end this mutiny, you will land your species a seat on the council, Nakmor Morda.”
One of the staff behind him gasped.
Spender didn’t turn. Morda pinned her gaze on his, holding it until the ache in his tight spine became a screaming pinch and his eyes were watering.
Behind their leader, the krogan grumbled what probably passed for victory cheers and bumped knuckles. Even the one who was nursing a squint under the dent Morda put in his forehead.
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.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
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 ev
ents 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—”
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