Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,96

moment, until the image in my head switched from me standing on the “wall” of the ship at a ninety-degree angle to me looking down at my handiwork, like looking down on a manhole cover. The mental gymnastics was an old spacer trick—we’d been operating in micro and zero gravity for a long time, but as a species, we’d spent a hell of a lot longer at the bottom of a gravity well. The body still responded better when it had the proper frame of reference. Now, all I had to do was a little bit of a deadlift, control the acceleration of the mass, and then put the plug back in place and tack it down.

“Ready,” I said.

Korben retrieved something from a pocket, a device that looked suspiciously like a grenade. I thought briefly of warning him against its use, but I doubted that his vaunted plan would be something so simple. I wasn’t given the time to question anyway as he depressed a button and said, “Now.”

I didn’t heave. Heaving in zero gravity was a sure way to make certain that I wouldn’t be able to reverse the acceleration of the plug and that trying to do so might well pull me free of the deck. Instead, I applied steady upward—relative to my mindset, anyway—pressure. For a moment, the cut-off section of hull didn’t budge, but I was expecting that. I increased the pressure slowly, bringing the powerful muscles of the coil to bear. My ankles and knees shot little warning flares of alarm, reminding me that nanites or not, the damage I’d taken on making it to the ship hadn’t fully healed, but the pain was bearable. After about fifteen seconds of carefully ratcheting up the force, the hull section began to move.

It would continue on its own, of course, but speed was of the essence, so I kept accelerating it for another inch. Then, when it was maybe three inches clear of the hull, I started to reverse the process, pushing back down, but slowly, evenly, trying to bring the plate to rest. If the enemy gathered within wanted, they could make a hash of the plan, but they seemed content to wait for us to come to them.

The second he had clearance, Korben slipped the oblong object that I was still fervently hoping wasn’t a grenade through the opening. “Close it,” he directed, voice as calm and still as deep space. He needn’t have bothered. I was already shoving down, hard. I used as much force as my boots could withstand and the plate made contact far more quickly than it had risen. Then I was pulling the adhesive from my belt and spraying it liberally along the cut. It hardened rapidly and I had no worries about using too much. I never carried an adhesive for which there wasn’t an equally effective solvent and I could get the glue off just as fast as I applied it.

Task done, I stared for a moment at the resealed door. Then I turned to Korben, who had gone back to a state of almost preternatural stillness. “Do you mind telling me what the hell we just did?” I asked, trying hard to make it a question and not a demand.

“Targeted nano-virus,” he said, still not moving and not offering any more information.

“Shay?” I asked.

There was a brief silence on the comm and I could clearly see Shay’s thoughtful frown, if only in my mind’s eye. “Genetechnic created a hunter-killer nano-virus to seek out people infected with the Bliss virus and eliminate those nanites,” she said at last. “Or, at least that’s what I think he’s saying. It raises some questions, though.”

“Like if you have a targeted nano-virus, what the hell are we doing here?” I asked, glaring at the assassin. He wouldn’t be able to see it through my own polarization, but it felt good anyway. “Why not just launch the damn virus into the ship and call it a day?”

“Three reasons,” the killer replied, and this time he went so far as to turn his head in my direction.

“Which are?” I asked.

“One: Genetechnic was unable to manufacture the nanites in sufficient quantity to be certain of the destruction of the… infection. Two: the efficacy of the nano-virus could not be verified. Which means had we done as you suggested, there would be no guarantees of success.” He stopped, and I had to give Genetechnic at least a little bit of credit. Those did seem like good