Iola down

The first hellgun round to hit Iola shattered her right fibula, dumping her down onto the stair-case wall. Her las-pistol skittered away, out of reach as the second shot lodged in her lower ribs, the plasma so hot it ignited her flesh. Strips of skin melted away, exposing raw flesh and scalded nerves. Limbs thrashing, Iola's potentia coil overheated and her implant systems shutdown in a rapid cascade. Had her organic brain not been utterly suffused in pain, she would have perhaps recalled that most common of Mechanicum credos: "The flesh is weak; there is never certainty in flesh, only inconstancy and death." The maxim, for all its validity, could not have snuffed out the searing agony which engulfed her consciousness . . .