Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,7
the hell is Persephone?
My agent’s voice echoed in my mind. The Persephone’s Net has gone offline. Insufficient signal strength to ascertain any additional information.
What?
The Persephone’s Net has…
I interrupted the agent with a quick Cancel query. I managed to reorient myself back toward the front of the cabin, using the chairs to pull myself back down to the floor. The... coil… was still flailing up near the overhead, its movements too jerky and spasmodic for microgravity. Which was alarming in and of itself—the blow to the back would have incapacitated a normal person. Of course, so would being suitless in vacuum. Normal had gone right out the airlock.
To further complicate things, the force of our acceleration was now a noticeable pull toward the aft of the cabin, like being on an incline in normal G. The struggling corpse began to slide along the overhead, drifting toward me. Whatever was driving it, it seemed to have at least some degree of rudimentary intelligence, because it stopped its flailing and curled into a gently spinning ball. It rotated with enough speed that it would have made me motion sick, but it also all but guaranteed another opportunity to grab at me as it drifted past, unless I took action.
I was cut off from my ship, alone in a derelict vessel, accelerating into the sun, with what should have been a corpse trying to grab hold of me for what, I could only assume, were nefarious purposes. Taking action sounded like a damn fine idea.
I’d been holding the knife and laser cutter, but I let them drop. Scavenging could be a dangerous business, and the smart play was to be prepared for the certain unpleasantness that came up from time to time. Which was why, in addition to the various tools and equipment, a small Gauss pistol hung from my harness.
I tore the weapon from its holster, pulling it up along the center of my body and pushing out from there to minimize the reactive force. My heart thudded against my ribs, and my breathing came in short, staccato bursts as I brought the sights to bear on the tumbling corpse. As they intersected the drifting shape, I squeezed the trigger.
The pistol made no noise, though I felt the vibration as it fired, and the force of the heavy ferrous bearings leaving the barrel drove my arms up with recoil. Only my suit boots, still struggling against the pull of acceleration, kept the additional force imparted by the weapon discharge from moving me backward.
The projectiles that flew from the barrel moved more slowly than pulsors or other military-grade weapons and were much more massive, more in line with an ancient bullet, though without all the smoke of a chemical propellant. The relative slow speed and high mass kept the Gauss pistol safe to use in the confines of a ship, with a very small chance of the burst breaching the hull. It wouldn’t have mattered much aboard the already derelict vessel, but not all our salvage operations took place on airless hulks.
The three rounds that belched from the barrel may not have been able to penetrate a ship hull, but against an unarmored, unsuited coil, they worked just fine. The first round only grazed the monstrosity tumbling toward me, opening a narrow line along its shoulder. The second struck more solidly, tracing a deep furrow down the back of the tightly curled body. The third punched through the torso, eliciting a sudden series of spasmodic jerks that disrupted the graceful roll and turned it into a macabre puppet dance. The corpse—once more behaving as expected for a corpse—flashed past me, hitting the rear bulkhead and staying there, pinned by the thrust of the engines.
That thrust was rapidly becoming a problem for me. Sarah, estimate current acceleration.
Passing 0.4 G, Langston.
The boots wouldn’t hold past half a G or so. In fact, if I uncoupled one to take a step, they would probably fail. “Persephone?”
Still no answer.
Shit.
I shoved the pistol back into its holster and turned to the nearest acceleration chair. The coil in it was middle-aged, graying, but fit, distinguished-looking. An “elder statesman” kind of look. Or had been, before I’d used the cutter to pull out his core. I braced one arm on the couch and, making sure my boots were secure, used the other arm to pull the body from the chair. We were nearing half gravity, and the coil probably weighed close to eighty kilograms. I grunted, and heaved, keeping my feet