J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Landship crews represented a subculture focused on trade and commerce. To them, everything was done as part of a bargain, and the only honorable trade was one where both sides profited. If Mira had nothing to offer the handsome Captain above, she likely wouldn’t be getting on board. Fortunately for her, she did, and she had had enough dealings with Landship traders to know how the process worked.

“We’re bargaining,” Mira replied. “Simple trade, no conditions. I use my own artifacts to get your Chinook running. In return, you give us safe passage the hell out of here.”

An errant blast of plasma bolts burned through the air right above them. The ship’s crew flinched. The Captain did not; he just stared down at Mira, thinking. “It’s a binding merchandise trade,” he announced. “Any artifacts you use for our Chinook, you don’t get them back.”

“Fine!” Mira shouted, “just let us up!”

The Captain smiled. “My name’s Dresden. Welcome aboard the Wind Shear. ”

Dresden disappeared and started yelling orders. On the side of the ship, a giant gangplank arched downward from the top deck and slammed onto the ground.

Mira turned to Holt, smiling with relief. But then she saw the frustrated look in his eye. “What?” she asked, even though she knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“My guns,” he said in frustration, turning around and heading back toward the chaos and the fire engulfing everything along the river. “I can’t leave them.”

“You have to be joking!” Mira exclaimed. “You can get more guns!”

“Not like these!” he yelled back. “Get Zoey on board. And hold that ship!”

Mira watched as Holt and Max tore back the way they’d come, toward the missiles and the flying plasma bolts. She could see his guns, lying in a heap near the line of trees that flanked the river, where he’d left them earlier. It was about a hundred yards away—he was going to have to be fast.

Mira shook her head, grabbed Zoey, and ran up the gangplank. Dresden met her, and together they rushed toward the ship’s central platform, where its huge wheel sat. “Can’t hold the ship for your friend, darling,” he told Mira. “Either he’s back on when we leave, or he gets left.”

“He’ll be back,” Zoey said. “Holt always comes back.”

Mira hoped she was right.

“Everyone to your posts!” the captain ordered as they moved. “You know what to do. Seal the ship—when our guest here gets the Chinook running, I want full sail in minimum time, hop to it.”

There was a flurry of movement as the crew, more than two dozen, leapt to action, running everywhere around the deck. Ropes were untied, and giant metal plates slammed down over the Landship’s windows and openings, sealing the weak spots.

The kids rushed to their stations on the deck, below deck, climbing the masts and sails toward the various crow’s nests a hundred feet above the deck.

Mira and Dresden stopped in front of the wheel, where two boys were frantically sorting through a pile of all kinds of nails, screws, pins, bolts, looking for something specific. One of them was hurriedly touching the end of an artifact combination to each one, one Mira recognized: a small Recognizer, a combination that detected other artifacts. If one of these pieces on the deck were a genuinely active Strange Lands artifact, it would react to them. So far, it wasn’t doing anything.

“Try the sheet metal screws!” the kid without the Recognizer shouted.

“I did already!” the other one yelled back. “They’re dead, they’re common. Those Rats sold us a bag of normal pieces of junk!”

“What do you need?” Mira asked them as more explosions flared up over the side of the ship.

The two boys looked up at her. “Who the hell are you ?” the kid with the Recognizer asked.

“The one who’s gonna save your asses from my foot,” Dresden replied hotly. “She’s a Freebooter—start listening and answer her questions.”

“It’s for the Chinook. It’s an artifact that—”

“I know what it does, I’ve made them before,” Mira interrupted. “What do you need ?”

The kids looked up at her and said at the same time, “The Focuser for the fourth tier.”

Mira nodded, unslung her pack. She knew what they needed, and she was pretty sure she had it. “I have a railroad tie. It’s bigger than you’re probably used to, but it’ll work in a pinch. What are you binding it with?”

“Short-gauge chain,” one of the kids answered.

“Get it!”

They rushed off toward their gear as Mira began digging through her pack.

The ship shook as more blasts rocked the ground, and she saw a second red Spider crash into the river in flames. When the Assembly were done with one another, they’d turn their attention back to finding Zoey… and then they were all screwed.

“And it started off such a nice day,” Dresden said, leaning against the ship’s wheel and watching the battle unfold.

“Tell me about it, I was having cupcakes earlier,” Mira replied. Where the hell was Holt?

HOLT ALMOST FELL FACE-FIRST into the grass as he skidded to a stop in front of his guns. They were right where he’d left them, and with the explosions and fireballs just a few feet away, the sight of his old friends gave him peace of mind, if only a little.

He grabbed the weapons and quickly shoved each of them into their holsters. Now all he had to do was double-time it back to the ship and its stupid Captain. What was up with that guy, with his hair and his boots? “Beautiful and industrious”? He’d show him industri—

Holt heard a growl next to him. He turned and saw Max staring intently at the tree line ahead, his hackles raised, lips parted to show his fangs. The dog didn’t like something there.

Holt looked up at the trees, but couldn’t see anything. The battle was in the other direction. What could have gotten the dog so riled up?

The air shimmered as the cloaking fields dropped from more Assembly machines, small, agile ones painted green and orange. Holt’s eyes widened in horrible recognition.

Only four of them had survived the Drowning Plains, and they stood in the trees like mechanical ghosts, their armor scratched and dented and soiled. Their three-optic eyes whirred as they focused on Holt.

“Son of a…,” Holt said as he got to his feet. “Max, let’s go!”

The dog tore himself away from the tripods and they both ran as hard as they could back for the ship. Behind them, Holt heard the frightening, electronic trumpetings and the furious stomping of tripod legs.

Yellow plasma bolts flashed past and shredded the ground all around him. Max howled as they ran; he didn’t seem to be enjoying himself now.

Ahead of him, the Landship stood where they’d left it. Holt could make it. All he had to do was keep running, and he could—

The ship’s giant sails suddenly plumed outward like great eagle’s wings.

Landship sails were beautiful, Holt had always thought, patchworks of colors and patterns, made from all kinds of fabric, and these were no exception. Orange and purple and yellow, they looked like huge pieces of art fluttering in the wind, but because Holt knew what it meant, he didn’t feel the desire to stop and enjoy the view.

Mira must have fixed whatever the ship’s problem was, and now it was leaving.

Without him.

“Hey!” Holt yelled, running even harder. “Hey!”

The gangplank that had been lowered to the ground arced back up to the top deck, and the ship groaned as its giant wheels began to slowly turn, crunching over the top of the rocky ground, gaining speed and momentum.

More plasma bolts burned the air. The stomping and trumpeting were almost on him. Along the river, two blue and white Raptors crashed in fireballs into their own ground forces, incinerating them where they stood. The Landship was his only ride out of this insanity.