Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,119

agent overlaid a schematic on my HUD, highlighting the applicable systems. I studied them for a moment, then nodded. “Over there,” I said, pointing to a heavy-duty blower system. “That’s our best bet. Are you sure this is going to work? Every one of these assholes has been suited.”

“Their suits are irrelevant, Mr. Langston,” the assassin replied, producing a cloth from one of his suit’s pockets. It was already dark with blood and worse from our long trek through the ship. With a small frown of disgust, he let it drop to the deck, bending down with—even more so in my current state—enviable grace to clean his blades on one of the bodies before sheathing them again. “The seek-and-destroy nanites are programmed to infiltrate the suits. We simply need a way to get them everywhere simultaneously so that Bliss has no chance of escape.” He threw a glance at the door, where the sparks continued to fly as what I recognized as a plasma torch was applied to the hatch. “How long do we have?” he asked.

I shrugged. “A few minutes. Getting through doors is a hell of a lot easier than bulkheads.” I knew, as did Korben and Shay, that once that door fell, we were well and truly done. There was nothing the three of us could do against the horde that awaited us. We could fight. We would fight. But we would also lose.

“Then we’d better get started.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Shay, can you help get me over there?”

She nodded, taking a moment to scoop up both of our discarded pistols. We both dropped them into our respective holsters. Then she hooked one arm around my waist and made sure I had a good grip with the arm draped around her shoulders. “At least this ridiculous coil is good for something,” she muttered. “Ready?”

We made our way in a sort of awkward three-legged-race fashion to the indicated equipment. “I can get into the mechanical systems,” I said, “but everything’s shut down. Shay, think you can get around the lockouts and get it up and running?”

She nodded. “Already working on it. Maybe no one ever truly expected an AI takeover, but Life Support’s got all kinds of back doors to get it running in the event of computer failures or other mishaps. No way that bitch is keeping me out. You do your part, Carter, and I guarantee you I can get the air flowing before they reach us.”

I nodded as we reached the machine, confident that if Shay said she could do it, then it was as good as done. I did wonder if Genetechnic had planned for Shay all along, or if, among the dead, they had their own shit-hot hacker. They may have needed my EVA skills to get here in the first place, but we would have failed two or three times over if not for Shay.

I still had my tools and the entire place had been designed for immediate access and emergency repair. Getting the necessary panels off was easy enough. “Do you have the nanites?” I asked, acutely aware of the stately progress of the plasma torch at the end of the compartment. Sarah?

Two minutes at the current rate, came the immediate reply.

Korben produced a canister roughly the size of my forearm. It looked for all the world like an emergency oxygen tank, including the standardized threaded connection. I took it from him, reaching into the guts of the machinery. It took only a moment to find the emergency connection hose, designed to be used with much larger canisters, but the universal sizing made things simple. A few quick twists and a green indicator and my part was done.

“Ready,” I said.

“Ready here,” Shay replied. “I can’t guarantee that Bliss won’t be able to kill the system eventually, but as soon as I hit the switch, the air’s going to start flowing. We’ve also still got control of the external doors, so there’s no easy way for Bliss to open the ship to vacuum to vent the nanites.”

“The hunter-killer nanites need a certain concentration to be effective,” Korben said. “Given the size of this ship, we’re going to have to empty the container to ensure sufficient parts per million to do the job. If they manage to tear the canister away before it’s emptied, I cannot guarantee that the nanites dispersed will be sufficient.”

I hadn’t even considered that, though I should have. How long to empty the nanite tank, Sarah? I asked.

One minute, fifty-eight