Free The Lazarus Particle by Logan Thomas Snyder Page B

to buy me time to break into the ship’s armory and retrieve my mare’s leg.”
    The advocate woman looked nonplused by the statement, as if she knew the words but couldn’t place them in context based on their proper meaning.
    “My carbine,” Xenecia clarified. “A kind of shortened rifle, but modified. It is very valuable to me, as well as entirely necessary to ensuring our safety.”
    “Oh.” Roon’s mouth twisted around itself thoughtfully. “What about a fire?”
    “Not big enough. Shipboard suppression systems would take care of it.”
    “Oh. Hmm…” Fixing her hip, Roon glared down at the deck beneath her feet.
    “It needs to be something that will clear a large portion of the ship without provoking a large-scale physical response,” Xenecia explained further. “We will need the corridors as clear as possible if we are to properly manage this. We can minimize contact by means of a strategically plotted route, but the odds of going unchallenged, especially after we rescue your Fenton, are exceptionally slim. Small engagements will not present a problem, but if the entire crew becomes alert to our intent, there is virtually no chance of succeeding.”
    All at once, the answer leapt up at Roon from the floor she was so thoroughly bullying with that punishing stare. “Quarantine!”
    A serpentine grin slithered across Xenecia’s lips. “Quarantine. Yes. That should do nicely. Expected response time?”
    “They’ll start with the command decks, then work their way through the rest one by one. Depending on what kind of threat is detected and how disciplined the hazmat team is, it could take anywhere from two minutes to twenty. The average is something like twelve minutes for a station this size.”
    “Good. More than manageable. Quarantine it is, then.” After all, the hazmat team would have to cover each deck section by section, room by room. Roon and Xenecia would use that protocol to their advantage, making a predetermined beeline from the station’s armory to its interrogation facility. There, they would take custody of Fenton and proceed immediately to the flight deck. The only question that remained was, “How do you intend to induce such a quarantine?”
    “Do you know what this is?” Roon produced a slim, vacuum-black tablet device from within the clutch she carried with her.
    “Of course, I do. It is a flexpad.”
    “Do you know what’s inside it?”
    Xenecia shook her head. She was a huntrex, not an engineer. Her tools were her instincts and the modified mare’s leg carbine she intended to liberate from the station’sarmory.
    “Never mind,” Roon finally said. “Technically I don’t either. I went on a couple dates with this Free Planetary Pilgrims guy a few years ago. He went on and on about all the toxic chemicals used in mass-produced data devices, among other things. He used to work at one of the major producers until he ‘saw the light’ and ‘broke through his own paradigm.’” Roon made a curdled-milk face, as well as the appropriate air quotation marks where necessary. “Anyway, apropos of nothing. The point is, if we shred this thing into as many pieces as possible and introduce it into the ventilation, it should trip the atmospheric integrity alarm, right? Then everyone—literally, everyone—has to scramble to their preassigned posts, help each other into their suits, double check that there are no exposed seams… hell, we’ll get twelve minutes easy, if not more.” Roon met Xenecia’s deadpan stare with wild-eyed intensity for one beat. Two. Three. Then her face crumpled under a mask of uncertainty. “Right?”
    “I have gone along with worse plans,” Xenecia allowed with a frightening smile. “Give me the device.”
    Before Roon could object, Xenecia took possession of the flexpad. She considered it for all of a moment before shredding through its ruggedized alloy casing as if it were nothing more than tissue paper. From within the casing the