Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,44
minute.”
Christ. By rights, we should have been dead already. The only thing keeping us alive was the fact that I could lay down enough suppression fire to keep the assassin on his guard. But the next exchange would empty the Gauss pistol. I still had the microwave emitter, but that was short-range at best. The shooter could fill me full of holes long before I ever got close enough for the emitter to work. “Yeah,” I said aloud. “Sure. No problem.”
There had been no movement from the bedroom. I had an idea of where the assassin had been. Would he still be there? The Gauss pistol was designed to fire a lower-velocity round, so as not to punch through the hulls of ships, but it still had enough power to penetrate the interior wall of an apartment building… provided the round didn’t hit a structural support, anyway. I took aim at the wall, just to my right of the door, and depressed the trigger. I fired four quick, but controlled, shots, resulting in a nice tight grouping.
The dapperly dressed killer leaned out in response—from the other side of the door. A tongue of flame sprung into existence from the end of his pistol and I threw myself backward, away from the door, away from that barrage of death. An explosion of pain blossomed in my left arm, and another in my leg, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I hit the ground hard, taking the brunt of the impact high on my back. I managed to keep my grip on the Gauss pistol, and instinctively started squeezing the trigger once more, sending a hail of bullets into the apartment. That lasted for about four seconds, when, instead of hearing the healthy snap of the pistol, I got a faintly apologetic beep as the magazine emptied.
The camera feeds were still live in the apartment’s living room. That gave me an excellent view of the suited shooter walking calmly from the bedroom, stopping to check on the body in the center of the room, and continuing on toward the main door. Reloading as he went. Again. I dropped the Gauss pistol and fumbled at the pouches attached to my VaccTech. I was distantly aware of a burning pain coursing through my left arm but had no time to think about it. The assassin was halfway to the door.
My hand closed over the microwave emitter’s angled grips and I tore it from the pouch. “Got it!” Chan exclaimed, her voice fierce with exultation. And in that instant, sirens began to sound.
The sirens seemed to be coming from all around us, low at first, but growing steadily louder, as if converging on the apartment building. I heard a muttered curse from the living room. “Well, Mr. Langston. It seems we will not be able to finish our conversation after all. You will have to excuse me.” There was a moment’s pause, and the assassin’s voice dropped into a much lower, colder register. “Know that I look forward to continuing our conversation at a later time.”
And with that, the suited man turned back toward the bedroom again, ignoring the fact that I was, for all intents and purposes, helpless before him. I didn’t have much time to dwell on that, because almost immediately I heard another burst of gunfire. I flinched instinctively, but this time, the deadly fusillade was not coming my way. Instead, it was followed by the sound of one of the plastic windows cracking, and then a crash as the man, presumably, went right through it and into the dropping veil of the Martian evening.
“Are you okay?” Chan was at my side. “My God! You’re bleeding.”
I grunted. “Get me to my feet.” Heads had started to poke out of doors, and people were glancing at us long enough to record. Great. “We may want to get out of here before the HabSec arrives.”
She grinned. “We’ve got time.” I looked at her in confusion, but even as she said it, the sirens started to wink out, one by one. “I hacked the apartments around us. Grabbed a siren sound from the Net and started playing it through any sound system I could get my hands on. Worked a little magic with the soundscape and volume to make it seem like they were getting closer, too.” She reached a hand down to me and I grabbed it.
Her old coil wouldn’t have been able to pull me up, particularly not in the