J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

The Royal trumpeted with disdain—and then leaped into the air and angled its razor-pointed legs toward Ambassador’s fuselage. There was a violent shudder. Sparks. Its sensors died, its vision went dark, and without its connection to the Whole, it was utterly, ultimately alone.

* * *

HOLT AND MAX RAN after Ravan, and what was left of the Menagerie, toward the nearest building, trying desperately to avoid the guided artillery that was falling everywhere.

“You really think a building’s the best place to be?” he shouted after them.

“What do you wanna do?” Ravan yelled back as she ran. “Stay out here in the rain?”

To his right, he saw the last silver Mantises explode and crumble. The huge Spider was ahead of them, blasting everything, but the gunships were focused on it now, concentrating their fire, and its armor sparked and buckled.

And everywhere the Hunters poured into the city. It was the worst battle Holt had ever been in, and it was only getting worse. He just hoped he could buy Mira enough—

A Hunter landed just to the left of Holt and Max, plasma cannons screaming. The bolts caught and spun him to the ground in burning pain. The pirates kept running, unaware.

Holt fired the last three shells from his Ithaca, but it wasn’t enough. The walker advanced on him, its plasma cannon priming…

…and then something leaped onto it, snarling, jaws sinking into the hoses jutting from its actuators. It was Max. He was defending his master. Holt reached for his Glock, ripped it free, aimed…

“Max, let go!”

It was too late. The machine whirled and twisted, shook the dog off and sent it crashing to the ground. Holt, eyes wide, desperately fired every round he had, trying to distract the thing from Max if nothing else, but the bullets just sparked off the walker’s armor uselessly.

Max yelped horribly as the tripod impaled him with one razor-sharp leg.

Holt screamed in anguish, frantically started to rise and—

An artillery explosion rocked the ground, sending him flying away… and the world morphed into an unreal, slow-motion haze.

He didn’t hear anything anymore, could barely see through the blood. There were blurs of movement that could have been walkers or explosions or White Helix. He didn’t know.

The world shifted. He thought he heard someone yelling, and then he was being dragged, pulled into a strange white place with broken tables and counters that used to be shiny. An old ice-cream parlor, Holt’s mind barely put together.

His vision focused a little. His body was searing pain. He wondered absently if he was dying.

He saw Menagerie firing frantically out the windows of the old shop, saw them take hits and fall. Ravan appeared, hands on his face, yelling something he couldn’t make out. She pulled him close and kissed him. He wished he could feel her, he really wished he—

A stream of plasma bolts threw Ravan violently away. Holt weakly turned, saw her lying still, blackened and bent. Still he felt nothing but pain, and even that was fading, mercifully.

Past the door of the shop, in the streets, there was chaos, death, and destruction, but it all seemed like a dream. Just vague, blurry images. Hunters in the streets like ants. White Helix leaping and striking in colorful movements, then falling to the ground. The giant Spider walker overwhelmed, burning, collapsing downward, right toward him, in a strange, slow-motion fall he wasn’t sure would ever reach him.

“Mira…” Holt breathed, though he couldn’t hear his voice. He saw her one last time—around a campfire in some forgotten forest, dancing with him. Smiling.

The Spider crashed. The world went white. The pain ended.

* * *

AVRIL CLUNG ONTO THE water tower at the top of the building, overlooking the destruction below. Dane was barely conscious, and she held him in place so he wouldn’t slip away.

They were the last left. She had watched the rest of her Arc fall one at a time, their deaths burned into her memory. It hurt more than plasma burns ever could.

Below her the Hunters advanced into the city. She saw the Spider fall in flames and crash. She watched the five-legged walker, the one who had come with the Prime, valiantly charge into the swarm. It took on eight Hunters by itself before they overwhelmed it.

It was all very heroic, and in the end all very futile—but that’s how it was always going to be. She only hoped the Freebooter had gotten the Prime to the Tower. In the distance she saw it, looming over the city, and Avril stared at it with hatred. She would tear the thing down if she could.

“Avril…”

Dane’s eyes were open. He was still handsome, she thought, still strong. She could hear the roar of approaching engines.

“Go,” he said. The bulk of the Assembly were past them now, headed north, unimpeded, toward the Tower. She could escape, but she knew she wouldn’t. “ Go. ”

“Ssshhh…” she told him, stroking the hair out of his eyes. “Quiet now.”

She pulled Dane close as the gunships rose into the air around them, and his familiar shape and warmth was comforting, even then.

“We grow stronger,” she whispered into his ear. The plasma bolts unleashed from all directions, searing heat overtook everything, and they were falling, falling into nothing…

* * *

MIRA STARED THROUGH THE pain up at Ben. He looked worse than he had at Polestar. His face was ashen, his eyes dark and hollow. He clutched two things, one in each hand. A glowing cylinder of plutonium, and the Chance Generator.

“Ben…” she said weakly. He made no move toward her.

“Are you… real?” he asked, his voice haunted. “I’m… seeing things now.”

“It’s me, Ben,” she assured him. Even now, being close to him had its comforts. He was a missing piece of her in this place. “I almost made it,” she said with guilt, feeling Zoey’s fading warmth against her.

Something about the statement seemed to get through to him. Ben’s eyes focused, and he looked to the side. “No. You did make it.”

The Vortex swirled around them, but Mira noticed it was weaker now. Ben was standing easily, not having to fight so he wouldn’t be swept away. Looking closer, she could see why. A few feet away the Anomaly ended. There was nothing beyond it but a bright field of white, almost bright enough to block out the sight of the Tower, hulking directly above her now, so close.

The realization hit her, and flooded her with something like happiness. She had made it, after all. By herself. As Holt told her she could.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s everything,” Ben replied.

Mira set her plutonium on the ground next to her, and then, with her good arm, started slowly untying Zoey, trying to do it as carefully as possible.

“When I saw the Tower, for the first time,” Ben said, “it… felt wrong. I always thought you would be there.”

“If I had, I would be dead now, wouldn’t I, Ben?” Mira asked. The Chance Generator seemed to waver with heat in his hand. “Like the ones who followed you?” Mira kept untying Zoey, loosening her legs from the straps, pulling her free.

Ben looked back to her, confused but blank, as if he hadn’t heard. “You should have been there. I… promised you…”

“You can still keep that promise, Ben,” she told him, and she meant it. “You don’t have to do this. You can help get me back. You can help Zoey get into the Tower.” She finished untying the little girl.

“You don’t understand,” he told her, and she saw the strange, foreign flash of anger in his eyes. “After everything that’s happened, you still don’t understand. I’m supposed to do this!”

Mira shook her head sadly. “No, Ben. You’re not, but someone is.”