J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Spiders were the larger of the Assembly’s two main walkers (though the green and orange tripods they had encountered in the Drowning Plains suggested there might be other types). Spiders were thirty feet tall and wider than a city street. Agile, fast, powerful, and carrying enough firepower to decimate anything that challenged them. They got their name from the eight large, mechanized legs that held their huge fuselages far above the ground. The combination granted them superior mobility and made them the most feared sight on the planet.

And here were two….

The traders and boat crews stared in stunned silence, and Holt knew that look well. He’d had it just a few days ago. These kids had never seen red Assembly before.

“What. In. Hell…,” Stephanie, the Trade Master, whispered in awe next to him. Her eyes, like everyone else’s, were glued in place on the red Spiders.

When the huge walkers saw the trading post, they sounded their awful moans again, one time each… and opened fire.

Their plasma cannons whirred to life, screaming as they flung a thick cloud of yellow bolts toward the trading post. The plasma fire burned the air all around them, slamming into everything, spraying sparks and flame and debris.

A boat at the far end of the post exploded in a shower of fire, and Holt saw the kids on its deck thrown like rag dolls into the sky by the blast.

Screams ripped the air, and the crowd that had surrounded Holt before broke apart in panic, running every direction at once.

“Get to your boats!” Stephanie yelled as more plasma fire shredded the air around them. “Dissolve the post, man your defenses!”

Holt looked for Max, saw him a dozen feet away. He whistled two short notes, and Max barked, lunging forward through the crowd, heading back the way they had come.

Holt quickly ran after him.

Behind them, the Spider walkers bellowed as they fired, stepped into the river, and moved toward the conglomeration of boats, their footfalls rocking the ground like thunder. More concussions shook the water.

Holt pushed through the seething crowd as fast as he could. In its own way, it was even harder than before. It was chaos, with kids running everywhere, slamming into him from different directions all at once. It would have been hard enough to balance without Zoey holding on tightly to his neck.

Ahead of him, blending in and out of the crowd, he saw Mira, only a few people ahead. She was having the same problems he was.

“Mira!” he shouted, trying to yell over the plasma fire, explosions, and screams. She heard him and spun, wide eyed, finding him with her gaze.

And then the boat next to him detonated hard, spraying metallic debris and fire in a wicked arc all around him. It blew him to the deck of the barge he was trying to cross.

Holt grabbed Zoey, held her head down as more plasma fire burned past, sizzling as it slapped into three traders above them, blowing them into the water.

Holt peered over the edge of the barge. The Spider walkers were about to reach the trading post, and he could see panels sliding down on either side of their bodies, watched as missile batteries glistening with silver warheads protruded out. Apparently, these reds meant business.

“I’m a lot of trouble, aren’t I?” Zoey asked under him.

Holt looked down at her. “Kid, trouble ain’t the word.”

THE RED WALKERS WERE ALMOST on top of the trading post, their huge cannon firing as they advanced. Another boat exploded, launching upward into the air as its fuel ignited.

Mira ran through the panicked crowd, leaping from boat to boat, trying to get to where she’d last seen Holt and Zoey before the blast. Behind her, she caught a glimpse of a gray blue blur. Max had found her and was following.

Half the traders and boat crews rushed to separate the trading post into its different vessels. The other half was readying their defenses. Some boats had guns, others prepped water cannons repurposed from firefighting ships, and a few even had primitive cannons that fired large, welded-together pieces of scrap metal. Most of it, Mira knew, wouldn’t do much of anything against the massive red assault walkers. The traders were used to fighting Mantises or warding off Vultures, not engaging in open combat with Spiders.

Mira leapt onto the barge where she’d last seen Holt and Zoey… and barely avoided landing on them where they’d taken cover on a spool of thick rope. A few seconds later, so did Max, barking wildly.

With alarm, Mira ducked down and looked to where Zoey rested underneath Holt.

“Is she okay?” she asked with concern.

“ We’re fine,” he said pointedly. She gave him an annoyed look.

Another explosion, more plasma bolts burning through the air. At the other end of the trading post, the boats had begun to detach from one another. The entire structure started to list as the current caught it.

“I think I brought them,” Zoey said. Holt and Mira looked at her, heard the shakiness in her voice. “I think they found me when I… did what I did.” She looked up at them both with genuine fear.

“Well. Okay,” Holt said, peering over the edge of the barge. They watched one of the boats fire a cannonful of rusted scrap metal at the nearest walker. The projectile bounced off the red Spider’s armor without making a dent. “I’d say that’s an important realization, wouldn’t you? Kind of a ‘note to self’ type thing. Right?”

“Right.” Zoey nodded.

Another blast, a plume of fire shot into the sky. More bellowing from the walkers.

“We’ll figure it out later,” Mira said, taking Zoey’s hand. “Right now, we need to make ourselves scarce.”

Holt got to his feet and surveyed what was left of the trading post.

More and more boats were detaching, gunning their engines, and retreating downstream as fast as they could. Good for them, not so good for Mira and Holt. The remainder of the post was starting to spin, no longer connected to the riverbanks, and the current was carrying it away. If they didn’t get off quick, they’d have to swim for it.

A rapid-fire hissing as one of the walkers launched a volley of missiles. They whizzed through the air, homing in on two of the retreating boats, and slammed home. More concussions as the vessels ignited, careened out of control, and crashed into each other.

They didn’t waste any more time.

Mira pulled Zoey after them, and they all leapt from boat to boat as fast as they could, trying to make it to dry land. But they had a long way to go. More plasma fire ripped the air; trader kids ran everywhere in a panic, hurriedly undoing the ropes and clasps that kept their individual boats tethered to one another.

But it was too late.

The huge walkers reached what remained of the trading post at the same time. One of them raised its front two legs, emitted a deafening, angry sound that rent the air and stabbed downward. The powerful legs impaled straight through the old tugboat like it was made of paper. A pillar of flame shot upward; the hull of the metal ship split in half, spraying metal and bolts everywhere. Mira watched its crew leap off it as it burned, barely making it into the river before a secondary explosion consumed what was left of the ship.

The other boats were beginning to break off from the rest now, including the modified fishing boat they were on.

“Hurry!” Holt yelled, double-timing it for the edge of the last craft. He leapt off onto the solid ground, and the others followed, one at a time, hurriedly trying to—

One of the red Spiders bellowed in distorted fury. Holt and Mira spun around, looked back to where the walkers were, and saw one of them was staring with its huge three-optic eye right at them. Or, more specifically… right at Zoey.