Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,118

and I felt two powerful hands close around my throat.

Thank God that Bliss, no matter how many petabytes of information it had consumed on humanity, was in some ways an idiot. The choke the coil was applying could be effective, I supposed, but it took around ten seconds to do anything, and that was if it closed off blood flow. Just blocking the airway gave me plenty of time… not to mention leaving both my arms free. Had the infected battered me into unconsciousness in that instant, I would have been done. Instead, I reached down to one of the thigh pockets of my suit and drew the microwave emitter.

I jammed the business end into the coil’s ribs and pressed the firing stud. The coil immediately went rigid and then began to convulse as it was, effectively, boiled from within. Its hands came free from my throat and then, after a final shudder, it stilled. I managed to get a forearm between me and the dead weight and shoved, levering the coil off of me. I turned to see Shay on the ground, two coils atop her, battering away at her upraised arms. She seemed listless, barely able to keep her guard up, and I knew it would only be a matter of seconds before she lost consciousness. Death would follow soon after.

My hip was still screaming, but I braced my good leg under me and shoved, propelling myself along the deck. I crashed into the pile of bodies, the microwave emitter once again finding purchase in the flesh of one of the infected. Shay came out of her defensive stance and grabbed at the remaining coil, holding it just long enough for me to take a final shot. We worked together to shove the body off of us and she got shakily to her feet, casting about for her pistol. There was no need. It was over.

Korben stood alone in the center of an abattoir. Bliss had hedged its bets, not relying on the infected outside of Life Support to get the job done. There must have been two dozen bodies on the ground, not including those of the Genetechnic security folks. Korben hadn’t moved to check any of those. I assumed that meant they were down permanently.

“Help me up,” I said to Shay, reaching an arm in her direction.

“You sure?” she asked, eyes locked on my bloodstained suit.

In response, I grabbed her arm. She nodded, then heaved. My coil was big, but hers was strong, surprisingly so. Much stronger than her previous one had been. And she clearly still hadn’t adjusted to that fact, as she used more force than was, strictly speaking, necessary. I found myself not just assisted, but practically hurled to my feet. Or foot, rather, as I still couldn’t put any weight on my left leg.

For a moment, we were all silent. Shay and I leaned on each other, as much for emotional support as physical. We were both battered and bloodied and the wound on my hip was going to stop me from doing anything in a hurry. Korben just stood there for that moment, seeming no worse for wear, covered in the blood of his enemies. Then, as if coming out of some gruesome meditation, he visibly shook himself. I realized the analogy was more than apt as I remembered him giving his motor controls over to his agent. There was some irony in there, somewhere, coming as it did on the heels of Bliss’ accusations, but I was too damn tired and too damned hurt to care.

“Did we do it?” Shay asked. “Did we win?”

A shower of sparks from the hatch behind us was all the answer we needed.

“We need to find the main air supply,” Korben’s words cut through the silence. “And then introduce the seek-and-destroy nanites. Mr. Langston, I assume you can assist with that.”

“Yeah, sure,” I muttered. I could barely stand, though the pain was at least starting to fall toward manageable levels as the nanites did their job. I still felt light-headed—no matter how good they were at repair work, I’d lost a lot of blood. Still, it certainly wasn’t my first time in the environmental section of a ship. This one was built to a scale that outstripped any of the salvage the Persephone—or any of my other previous ships for that matter—had undertaken, but my agent had been cataloging vessels as a matter of course, ever since I got into the business. Sarah? I asked.

My