J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“We’ll hit it.” She looked at the lieutenant. “Signal the others. Tell ’em we’re gonna run a Deneen Gambit. Reinhold’s our best shot, he can do the distraction. You and Sparks are on point for the Portal. We get one go at this, don’t mess it up.”

The lieutenant nodded grimly, turned and started flashing instructions to the pirates on the other hill. The others who were with them started gearing up to move. Two of them set down the big crate as they did, and Mira looked at it.

“What’s in that thing anyway?” she asked.

“Something the White Helix wants, and that’s all you need to know,” Ravan replied, loading shells into a shotgun. When she spoke next it was in a low whisper, meant for Mira’s ears alone. “But if you want something to worry about, then worry about this: If I get in that courthouse and find that you’ve misled me in any way, Solid or no Solid, I’ll kill you myself.”

Ravan smiled pleasantly—then started gathering her things, making ready to move. Mira didn’t doubt the girl’s sincerity.

ZOEY WOKE FROM A DEEP DREAM where planets circled huge red suns and giant moons sank along impossible, purple horizons. Alien worlds… or just her imagination? She wasn’t sure. Her back hurt from how she’d fallen asleep against the old wall, and she grimaced when she sat up.

Two of the Hunters stood guard over her. The Royal was across the room, powered down, its machine body dark and still. Zoey stared at it warily, regardless.

Her feelings for the aliens were complicated now. Before, there had been only fear. There was still that, but now it was mixed with different things. She didn’t like it, but what was forming between her and the Hunters was some kind of twisted closeness.

The Royal had kidnapped her, threatened her friends, but at the same time it seemed to know her in a way no one else did. It had hurt her, but it had also taken her pain away. It was interested in her powers, but unlike many people, including Holt and Mira, who had witnessed what she could do, its instinctual response wasn’t to recoil in fear or confusion. Instead, it had been pleased. It had encouraged her, and it had praised her when she succeeded.

It wasn’t Holt. She didn’t care for it like she did him. But there was something oddly comforting about her interactions with it the last few days. It made no sense, those “lessons” had been laced with fear and pain, but it was there nonetheless.

From the distance came a loud, shuddering sound.

An explosion. A big one. From the north, just past the edge of the small town, probably. At the sound, the walkers inside the courthouse trumpeted to one another, a series of sounds that conveyed both confusion and alarm.

The Royal shook as it powered back up, lights flashing to life all over its body. It instantly broke into a run, its cloaking field enveloping it as it leaped outside and disappeared into the sunlight.

Two guards remained behind, moving back and forth agitatedly, staring after their leader. Zoey felt their frustration. The explosion might mean action, battle. It took a great deal of self-control for them to remain behind.

“Zoey,” a voice whispered above her.

She looked up and saw Holt. He was awake, staring at her with that look he had when he’d decided to do something dangerous and altogether not smart.

Zoey could guess what it was, now that only two walkers were left in the courthouse. She shook her head at him, trying to tell him no, but, she knew, once Holt decided something, he carried through with it.

“Be ready,” he said. She watched him take a deep breath and look up at the rafters. Whatever he was about to do, it was going to cause big problems.

From nowhere, something landed in the center of the old courthouse, tossed in from outside, through the broken roof.

It was too far away for Zoey to make out what it was, but she saw the two remaining Hunters turn, their triangular laser sights streaming toward the object, moving over the ground where it landed.

Zoey gasped as the thing pulsed in a powerful burst of illumination.

The walkers trumpeted as a hole of light—that was the only way Zoey could describe it—ripped the air apart, forming into a perfect, bright, hovering circle.

Zoey watched, stunned, as kids began pouring out of the hole into the courthouse, as though it were some kind of gateway. One, two, three, four, they just kept coming—and they were all carrying shotguns.

The Hunters reacted with surprised, distorted sounds, their plasma cannons spraying yellow bolts outward in a stream. Zoey felt lustful joy erupt from the machines. This was battle, this was action, and it had found them after all.

One of the kids took a plasma bolt in the chest, spun and fell.

The rest of them, whoever they were, returned fire, their shotguns thundered to life, the shells exploded in sparks as they hit the Hunters. Zoey cringed in terror at the loud, jarring sounds, covering her ears.

Above her, Holt jerked his whole body downward. The rafter above him groaned, but it didn’t break.

Zoey watched him jerk again. Again. The rafter weakened with each impact, spraying rotted splinters until it finally came apart.

Holt slammed onto the hard floor with a grunt.

The two remaining walkers didn’t notice. They stood protectively between Zoey and the strange gateway, firing at the kids that continued to leap out of it, one after the other.

“Holt!” Zoey rushed toward him, tried untying the strange, fibrous bonds that held his feet and hands together, but they were too tight. She couldn’t get them to untangle.

“My knife,” Holt said. “On my belt.”

Zoey reached for his belt, found the red Swiss Army Knife.

Nearby, more kids poured through the gateway. By now they outnumbered the two green-and-orange walkers ten to one, but the Hunters were significantly more powerful. Raw numbers were no advantage here.

The tripods waded eagerly into the kids, lashing out with their powerful legs. One kid went flying. He crashed to the ground, rolled, but didn’t move.

A plasma blast blew another one across what was left of the courthouse. His body almost instantly exploded in flames.

“Smoke!” a voice yelled. A girl’s voice, commanding and forceful.

A hissing, as three metallic cylinders hit the ground, rolling toward the Assembly walkers. As they did, they sprayed out clouds of colored smoke that quickly flooded the large building.

The walkers trumpeted in alarm. Zoey felt their sudden trepidation.

They couldn’t see now, they were blind. Instinctively, they started firing erratically, spraying yellow bolts of heated death that sparked all around Holt and Zoey—on the walls, the floor and the rafters above. Zoey screamed as two bolts burned past their heads.

“Hurry, kiddo,” Holt yelled. She looked back down to the knife. The thing had so many pieces, she wasn’t sure which one to open. She looked at Holt desperately. “The blade! The big blade! ”

Plasma fire streaked everywhere, lighting the smoke like yellow lightning while shotgun blasts shook the building. They were running out of time.

Zoey began to pry the knife open… and then stopped as the sensations overtook her.

They were weaker, farther away, but she recognized them. It was the Royal.

Scion. We return.

In the distance, Zoey heard the electronic cries of the missing Hunters. The explosion was a trick to draw them away, while these kids attacked through that strange gateway. It hadn’t fooled them long. The Royal was on its way back, rushing as fast as it could. Zoey could feel its emotions. Anger at the humans who dared attack it, shame for falling for their simple ruse, fear of the possibility of losing its prize.