Re-Coil - J.T. Nicholas Page 0,92

in the helmet lights. No. Not his hands. In each fist he clenched a long, forward-bending knife maybe eighteen inches from hilt to tip. He exploded into motion, kukris blurring and everywhere he struck a limb or head separated from a body. It was like watching the galaxy’s goriest ballet—and watch was all that I could do. I knew how to run the submachine gun and with Sarah’s help, I was a better than decent shot. There was still no way in hell that I was good enough to send rounds into the center of that maddened melee without a risk of hitting Korben.

Besides, it didn’t look like he needed my help. He moved with the precision of someone in an Earth-standard gravity well, something I would have considered all but impossible if I wasn’t watching it unfold before my stunned eyes. And yet, he still took advantage of the fact that he wasn’t in that gravity well, using the action-reaction realities of vacuum to imbue himself with a deadly and flowing grace that was as beautiful to watch as it was horrifying.

Freed momentarily from concern for my own ass, I checked the numbers. I’d guessed a half-dozen, but there had, in fact, been eight remaining. The closest had been within a few meters of me—and would have been closer if not for my bouncing journey along the hull. The farthest, no more than ten meters. Korben landed in a knot of three or four and had them down in a matter of seconds. He moved so fast I had difficulty understanding what was happening, but in those first few seconds, two of the four lost their heads entirely and the other pair suffered wounds sufficient to leave them pinned by their magboots to the deck, the only motion imparted from the movement of the ship itself.

That had been the opening seconds and the coil that had been lurching toward me was only partway into its turn to address the new—and clearly bigger—threat when Korben hit him. He mirrored the maneuver the AI had tried on me, launching himself smoothly from the deck, body straightening out behind him, blades extended. Only, where the cyber-zombies had been dumb-fired missiles, Korben was a shark. And that shark had teeth. He didn’t so much hit the coil as he overflew it, and as he did so, his blades went to work. As he passed the creature, his thrusters fired, spinning him into the air and turning him through a smooth flip that brought his boots firmly back in contact with the deck.

Behind him, the pressurized blood from another decapitated corpse fountained into space.

My comm buzzed to life. Korben’s urbane voice said, “If you wouldn’t mind dealing with the other three…”

I snapped from my reverie, looking past the assassin who had dropped to the hull like some dark avenging angel. Three more coils, these now a half-dozen meters out, were still closing in, the artificial intelligence behind them either failing to live up to the latter part of its name or with more than enough resources at hand to throw a few away in a low-percentage attempt at stopping us. I brought my weapon back in line and Sarah obligingly returned the aiming reticule to my vision. Half a dozen rounds later, it was done.

“Fuck,” I said succinctly, but with passion.

“I suppose we should have anticipated that as a likely response,” Korben agreed.

“You think?” I hurt pretty much all over, but my legs, or more specifically, my knees and ankles, were screaming. The nanites in my bloodstream were at work, doing what they could to repair the damage and deaden the pain. Without them and without the, let’s call it, ruggedness of my present coil, I doubted I’d be able to stand, much less walk. I silently hoped that the AI had disengaged the artificial gravity shipboard. If we had to fight more, and who was I kidding, we would have to fight more, it would complicate things. But I wasn’t sure my limbs were up to taking the full weight of my coil.

“You okay over there?” It was Shay, breaking into the channel.

I grunted. “We’re fine. Cavalry showed up just in time. Still have to make our way to the bridge, though.” I shook my head as I directed Sarah to route Korben into the channel. “How the hell are we going to deal with the fact that it’s going to take me a few hours to cut through the hull? The damn