Jason M. Hough - Mass Effect - Andromeda: Nexus Uprising

NEXUS UPRISING

FORTHCOMING FROM TITAN BOOKS

MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA

Annihilation
by Catherynne M. Valente

Initiation
by N. K. Jemisin

NEXUS UPRISING

JASON M. HOUGH AND K. C. ALEXANDER

TITAN BOOKS

MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA: NEXUS UPRISING
Print edition ISBN: 9781785651564
E-book edition ISBN: 9781785651571

Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: March 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Editorial Consultants: Chris Bain, Mac Walters, John Dombrow

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

2017 Electronic Arts Inc. EA, the EA logo, Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare and the BioWare logo are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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NEXUS UPRISING

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

Thawing from stasis was meant to take time. A gentle process. Warmth gradually applied to cells dormant for centuries, neurons carefully coaxed back into firing.

Synthetic fluids mixed with precise amounts of the sleepers blood, a ratio changing by the smallest of fractions over several days until, finally, the body crossed a threshold, becoming whole again. Vitals checked, and then, only then, would the final mixture of drugs be injected under expert supervision.

Or something like that. Sloane Kelly didnt really remember the specifics. How much time, when the process was supposed to beginthese were things left up to the techs who built the stasis pods. They knew better.

At least they were supposed to.

Whatever the instructions had been, Sloane was damn sure that abruptly launching from deep stasis into six shades of hell wasnt how it was supposed to work.

Alarms.

Lights.

Everything heaved. A deafening noise, an aggressive shriek like rending metal, assaulted her ears, physically squeezed her entire body.

She opened her eyes.

Disjointed wires cast sparks over the pods view-port, forcing her eyelids closed again as her spinning brain popped aftershocks across them. Everything crashed together in a disjointed cacophony of light and thunder and motion and adrenaline. The small pod whirled around her, momentum shifted side to nauseating side as she flattened both hands on the pane, elbowed out in reflex and hit solid metal.

Pain ricocheted up her arm and helped jerk her foggy brain back into alignment. Out. She needed out. Her pod was failing. Torn free of its moorings maybe, rolling around in the chamber. Had to be. The air stung her nose and lungs, the wrong mixture and far too warm. It stank of chemicals and old sweat.

She slammed a tingling foot against the front of the stasis pod.

Failsafe, she shouted into the cramped space, as if the word might crawl back in time and remind the engineers of this stupid metal coffin to include an eject latch.

As if on cue, a calm mechanized tone sounded, at odds with the world into which shed awoken. The pane sealing her within protective transport unlocked with a hiss of air almost as loud as the klaxons that shrieked through the open seam. She felt the breath being sucked from her lungs, replaced by the cold bite and stale taste of the outside.

Then a new smell. Ash.

Double vision slowly gelled into horrifying truth: smoke. That was smoke pouring in from the outside. Fire flickered somewhere to her left.

Shit. Its not just me. Which means

Slam-dropped out of stasis meant the rest of her body needed time to remember how to function. Her brain couldnt process it all. Every cell screamed to fight, to respond to the skull-rattling alarms of the Nexus under fire, but the adrenaline surge to her limbs only made her twitch violently as feeling came back into them.

Sloane gasped for breath, pounded at the viewport. Red lights flashed.

The Nexus is under attack. No other explanation made sense. The thought finally pushed through her overwhelmed mind. Served to focus her.

That was the only reason shed be woken up in this manner from the centuries-spanning sleep the Nexus had been programmed to take. Or maybe it had only been a few years. Hell, it could have been hours. No way to know, not yet.

As head of security for thousands of pioneers, Security Director of the goddamn Nexus itself, she needed to pull herself together and find out.

Her body got the message. It just didnt react very well to the command. Sloane fell out of the stasis pod before it had completely opened, her limbs a twitching mass of hypersensitive pins and needles. Her lungs expanded, took in air laced with sparks and smoke.

It seared all the way down.

Sloane coughed. Her eyes burned, streaming already from ash and the acrid sting of burning chemicals, but she didnt have the time to waste choking on it. She staggered to her feet, forced her leaden body to move.

It may have felt claustrophobic in the small pod, but it was a thousand times worse out here. Half of the room remained hidden in shadow, dimly lit up by emergency lights that winked and flickered. Emergency lights arent supposed to do that.

Fire and smoke roiled amid shattered debris.

Sloane cursed, half staggering toward and half falling against the stasis chamber beside hers. The interior was miraculously clear, which left plenty of room for a hardened turian fist to pound against it in mirrored panic. Kandros, one of her best officers.

Hang on! Sloane shouted, her voice guttural from smoke. She slapped the viewing pane twice, and furious pounding from inside ceased. A muted voice barely broke through the barrier, but she got enough to catch the drift.

Hurry up.

Possibly with more profanity.

These pods were supposed to be opened by timer, not manually. At least not by her. Sloane didnt have the first clue about how to operate this tech, but she didnt have much choice here. The closest terminal lay somewhere beyond the shower of sparks, and based on the backlit wreckage, she didnt think itd be much help, anyhow.

She didnt have her omni-tool, either. Shed stored it, as per procedure. Personal belongings werent supposed to be returned to their owners until revival had been certified and theyd been briefed by their supervisors.