J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Holt and Emily both nodded, held each other tighter. Their dad smiled.

He looked at Holt, studied him in a new way, like he was seeing different parts of him he’d never recognized before… or at least never needed to until now. After a moment, his father nodded, pulled something from a pocket, and handed it to Holt.

It was going to be for his birthday next week, Holt’s father said. But he’d decided he was ready for it now.

Holt stared at the object, a glittering, new red Swiss Army knife, full of different tools and blades. Holt smiled. His dad ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately. When he got back, his dad said, he’d show him how to use it. Then he hugged them tightly, Holt and Emily at the same time.

His father stood up. His mother’s eyes glistened. The sounds of explosions from the city were growing louder. Holt’s father pulled her close, kissed her… then he was gone, running down the street with the rest of the soldiers.

Holt gripped the knife in his hand as he stared after his father. He watched until he faded into the distance, until he lost sight of him on the darkened street.

It was the last time Holt ever saw him.

EXPLOSIONS RIPPED THE AIR above the camp and yanked Holt from his dream.

“What was that?” Mira asked in alarm, still tied, but awake and alert.

There it was again, the high-pitched rapid-fire booms of heavy plasma cannons. Holt recognized them instantly.

So did Mira. “Raptors…,” she said. “We need to get out of here.”

She probably wasn’t wrong. Holt leapt from his sleeping bag, scanned what little of the sky he could see through the treetops. It was still night: the half moon had risen high above them, raining silver light downward on everything.

He heard it again. Above and to the west, coming fast. More cannon fire. With a grimace, he reached behind him and yanked the SIG from his back. Max was next to him, whining slightly, sniffing the air suspiciously. Holt reached out to pet the dog…

…and a blue and white Raptor gunship screamed by overhead, visible for half a second through the canopy. Two of its engines were burning, trailing smoke behind its signature crescent-shaped wings. Max barked angrily up at it, but Holt just stared in awe. He had never seen a wounded Raptor, not even during the invasion when the military had mounted its brief, lackluster defense. What could have done that?

A second later, he had his answer.

Two more Raptors roared by above, plasma cannons flashing, firing after the first gunship. They were gone in a second, but there was something different about them, and Holt knew what it was immediately. Every Assembly aircraft or walker he’d ever seen had one thing in common: They were all painted blue and white. The patterns differed sometimes, but the colors never did.

But the two Raptors that just whipped by had not been blue and white at all.

They were a solid red.

Holt listened to the sound of the cannons as they became fainter, and then heard the rolling boom of another crash several miles away. The damaged Raptor must have finally gone down.

He clutched the rifle tightly, breathing heavy, thinking.

“Did you see them? They were red!” Mira yelled down at him from the tree on the incline. Holt frowned. She almost sounded excited. “ Red! What’s going on?”

“Good question,” he answered. “Heard rumors of different-colored Assembly down south, but I never put much stock in it. And I definitely never heard about Assembly firing on each other. ”

The sounds didn’t return. All was silent in the woods and in the night air. Maybe that was the last of—

A flaming, spherical Assembly ship exploded through the trees right above them.

Holt rolled, scrambled, and leapt clear before the thing hit, pulling Max with him. When it hit, it hit hard, plowing through the middle of the forest, tossing aside trees and foliage and leaving a gully sixty or seventy feet long. The impact sprayed debris and flame in a vicious sphere. Mira screamed from her tree, unable to move as debris flashed through the air all around her.

When it was over, Holt stayed motionless a long time, staring at the smoking crash site and the large round ship, its metal surface painted blue and white, as he was used to.

But while the color was familiar, nothing else was. He’d never seen a ship like this, a huge metallic ball. Flames burned lightly around it, starting to consume the nearby trees, but the vessel itself was no longer burning. It was, however, cracked completely open. Smoke poured out of its shell, blocking his view of the inside.

“You still alive, Hawkins?” Mira shouted through the thick clouds of dust and smoke. He couldn’t see her through it, but he could hear her coughing.

“Yeah!” he shouted back. “Sure you’re relieved.”

The crashed sphere nearby groaned as something inside shifted. Holt’s gaze snapped to it. Max growled low at the sound, the hair on his back standing straight up.

Something there was moving. Something inside was still alive.

Holt stood still, thoughts racing in his head. He’d never seen one of the Assembly. As far as he knew, no one had. They had always stayed locked up tight inside their armored walkers and ships.

Holt forced himself to be calm, to think. The red Assembly craft might be headed back. Or worse, they could have walkers moving in on his position. At the very least, the blue and whites had reinforcements headed this way. The prudent thing seemed to be to leave. What good was investigating an Assembly ship if he got carried away by a Vulture?

Then again, Assembly technology, regardless of what state it was in, was invaluable in trade. Two or three plasma weapons alone could feed you for a whole year. Who knew what lay inside the wrecked ship? And if he didn’t loot the thing, someone else surely would.

Holt calmed himself and listened. A few sounds, but nothing threatening. Just the wind in the trees, the crackle of flames. No Raptor engines, no cannon fire, no metallic stomping of Spider walker legs. Still, he waited, listening, making sure.

The spherical craft listed again. There were more sounds of movement from inside.

That decided it for him. Holt sprang to his feet, moved for the craft, keeping low. He shoved the SIG back into its slot, yanked loose his shotgun. Better for the close quarters inside. Max moved beside him, his eyes focused on the shadows inside the craft.

“What are you doing?” Mira yelled down at him. “Please tell me you’re not actually thinking about going in there?”

Holt ignored her as he moved for the ship.

“Hey! What am I supposed to do when you get killed?” she demanded. “I’ll never get these ropes off.”

Still, he ignored her. A few more steps and he was at the ship’s hull, cracked open like an egg. Wires and tubing spilled out of it like guts. Sparks popped and fizzed everywhere. There was a weird whirring sound that was winding down, going lower and lower in pitch. Something mechanical dying, most likely.

Holt raised the shotgun cautiously, peering around the edge of the hull. The smoke was thick inside, pouring out in great plumes. He couldn’t see anything, had no idea what was in there. To find out, he’d have to move in.

“ Hey !” Mira yelled in anger behind him.

Holt tuned her out, took a deep breath, then he and Max pushed quickly through the smoke, into the strange ship’s interior.

MIRA WATCHED IN ANNOYANCE as Holt and the dog disappeared inside the strange craft. Idiots. Going inside a crashed Assembly ship had to be the heavyweight champion of bad ideas. It was a miracle they’d survived this long.