Excerpt: Spartan

The Spiders scuttled forwards on their six gleaming legs in what seemed at first to be an unbroken wall. It was only as you watched them come that you realised the line was in constant flux, with individual Spiders falling back as they stopped to investigate whatever came to their attention. They advanced in fits and spurts, stopping at every variation in the road. Regardless of what the obstacle was, be it car, bin or lamppost, they crawled all over it, cutting tools quickly tearing it into more manageable chunks. He winced as they swarmed over a Mini, evidently left there by an evacuee who prized safety more than their car. Within seconds it had vanished beneath a wave of silvery metal as dozens of the robots crawled all over it. They all winced as a dull whomp signalled the fuel tank's ignition. The Spiders didn't care, working one despite the flames licking at them. Alec pulled his attention from the hypnotic sight with a wrench, his training automatically filling his mind with the appropriate orders.