Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,109

enough to verify that the team was, in fact, still there, and then hauled ass down the route Shay supplied. I noted that it did, eventually, intersect with the path that Sarah had plotted, but not until a detour through what looked like a machine shop.

I took a turn and found myself sliding to a halt at a closed hatch. Shay was there in a heartbeat, slapping some sort of device to the bulkhead beside the hatch, where the electronics were likely to be. There was a moment of silence, as Shay interfaced with the device. Then, with an almost indignant slowness, the hatch whirred open. “I might not be able to get control of the ship,” she said triumphantly, “but damned if that bitch is going to keep me from opening a door.”

I couldn’t help a slight chuckle. “Okay,” I agreed. “Now what?”

“Come on.” I followed her into the room beyond. We found ourselves in a chamber tightly packed with conduit and piping in various gauges. Warning signs abounded, including more than one that read, “Explosive” or “Flammable.”

“Not the best place to make a stand, Shay,” I said, simultaneously querying Sarah for a status update on the Genetechnic team.

The Genetechnic security forces are still fighting a retreat. At the current rate, the survivors should reach this location in approximately two minutes.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Survivors” meant that they’d taken casualties; two minutes meant that the orderly retreat was rapidly becoming a rout.

“Don’t worry,” Shay said, assuming the expletive was for the path she’d chosen. “I’m not planning on having a gunfight in here.” She had moved to one bulkhead where she’d opened an access panel. A fiber-optic cable now ran from her tablet and clamped onto one of the myriad wires nestled behind the panel. “Do me a favor—tap those two pipes, enough so that we get a slow leak.” A ping sounded in my helmet as Sarah accepted input from Bit and two of the conduits began to glow in my vision.

“We have about a minute thirty,” I said.

“Then you better work fast,” she replied.

I snorted. Whatever her plan, I knew there was no arguing with it. Better to move as quickly as possible so that we could be ready to run if the Genetechnic security team broke. I had no idea what was in the pipes marked and didn’t bother to query Sarah to look it up. I trusted Shay to know what she was doing. I had any number of tools in my salvage gear capable of cutting through the piping, but given Shay’s specifications, I decided to go the old-fashioned way. I pulled a titanium punch and a hammer from my kit. A few quick taps and both pipes started spewing gas. I couldn’t hear the leaks, of course, and I could only see them by the slight shimmer in the air when my suit lights passed over them.

It had only taken me about ten seconds to punch the holes. I could feel time slipping away as the Genetechnic team—and the Bliss-infected—moved steadily closer. “Done,” I said.

“Twenty seconds,” Shay replied. I glanced at my HUD. That would leave us under a minute to get clear. I didn’t say anything. Instead, I took the time to check my weapons. I hadn’t fired a shot since the initial entry, and everything was locked, loaded, and ready to go.

“Done,” Shay said. “We’re going to need to move back a bit.”

“What are we doing, Shay?” I asked. But I moved through the room to the hatch at the other end as I did so. This one opened even more quickly to Shay’s commands than the previous one. It occurred to me that having her along on actual salvages back in the days of the Persephone might have saved me a lot of time and a lot of cutting. Well, on the ships that still had power, anyway.

Genetechnic security will arrive in approximately ten seconds, Sarah informed me.

“Never mind,” I said to Shay. “Just get ready.” Then I keyed the comm over to the channel I’d set up with Korben. “Shay’s cooked something up. We’ve got a… hell, I don’t know. A trap of some sort at the hatch I’ve indicated.” Shay and I were moving as I talked, going into the corridors beyond the conduit room. After about ten meters, we came to a stop.

“Understood.” I heard the strain in the terse reply. “One turn to go.”

“Korben,” Shay cut in to the channel. “This is Chan. Stop