***ANAD is en route to your location…estimated time is twenty-two minutes***
Mendez tried examining the source of the leak, where the inner pressure hull had been stove in. It was scalding hot with swirling steam and air and he couldn’t get any closer.
“Hurry, ANAD…this break is getting bigger by the minute.”
The ANAD swarm eventually arrived at the site of the breach and promptly went to work. Configuring itself as a tightly interlinked mesh, ANAD sought out the pressure hull penetrations and quickly formed a nanoscale patch over the holes with its trillions of replicants. Gradually, the whistling subsided, then stopped altogether.
“I’m reading air pressure stabilizing in all compartments,” Robles reported from the command deck. “The patch seems to be working.”
Oscar Mendez breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the cool oxygen of the geoplane’s emergency flasks wash over his face. “ANAD, you’re a lifesaver.”
Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone Page 16
