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Behind hiain, pinning his ar the

“We’re in!” Larson yelled Holden began backing up toward the elevator shaft, eazine as he went Half a dozen oo; then he was in the shaft and Larson shoved the doors shut

“Up one level,” Larson said, panting with fear and exertion He pushed off the bulkhead and floated up to the next set of doors, then levered theun Directly across from the elevator was a heavily armored hatch with cic stenciled in white on thehis suit transmit the override code Behind hi of the zombies echoed up the elevator shaft

“We should hurry,” Holden said, hitting the button to open the CIC and bulling his way in before the hatch had finished cycling open Larson floated through after hile man still in the CIC: a squat, powerfully built Asian e-caliber pistol in one shaky hand

“Stay where you are,” the uyen!” Larson blurted out “You’re alive!”

Nguyen ignored him “You’re here for the bioweapon launch vehicle remote codes I have thee for a ride off of this ship”

“He’s taking us,” Larson said, pointing at Holden “He said he’d take me too”

“No fking way,” Holden said to Nguyen “Not a chance Either give me those codes because there’s a scrap of huive theive a shit either way You decide”

Nguyen looked back and forth fro the hand terhtly that his knuckles hite “No! You have to—”

Holden shot him in the throat Somewhere in his brain ste on an alternate route back to my ship,” Holden said to Larson as he walked across the roouyen’s corpse It took hi’s self-destruct switch hidden behind a locked panel Souther’s override code gave him access to that too

“Sorry,” Holden said quietly to Naoreed not to do that anymore But I didn’t have time to—”

“No,” Naomi said, her voice sad “That bastard deserved to die And I know you’ll feel like shit about it later That’s good enough for me”

The panel opened, and a simple button lay on the other side It wasn’t even red, just a plain industrial white “This is what blows the ship?”

“No ti fail-safe If someone opens this panel and presses this button, it’s because the ship is lost They don’t want it on a ti proble, and she was trying to get an answer out before he could say it “We can solve this”