Goliath

"Another close one, but they missed!" Deryn cried down to the rook men, but as she turned back to the window, her eyes went wide.

One of the sputtering tendrils was reaching up from the center of the explosion, climbing straight toward the rookery!

At the last moment the bright ember veered away, drawn toward the ventral engine pod by its whirling propeller. Fire struck metal, and a sheet of sparks shot out from the pod. The engine ground to a halt, spilling a cloud of smoke into the ship's wake.

The Clanker airship was losing altitude quickly now, its shredded gasbag fluttering in the breeze. The other zeppelin was much farther back, hovering over the Kaiserin Elizabeth and raining metal darts onto the frenzied kappa.

The Leviathan was safe from the two zeppelins, but the ventral engine was still spitting smoke and flame. Deryn spun about and called to Newkirk, "We're hit! I'm headed aft. But keep those birds coming!"

Not waiting for an answer, she hoisted opened the window and looked down. A stabilizing boom connected the gondola to the engine pod, wide enough to walk on in a pinch. But it was a good ten yards below the rookery, and Deryn didn't fancy jumping. If she missed the boom, nothing would stop her fall but the open sea.

Luckily Mr. Rigby had made her draw the ship in profile a hundred times, and she remembered a steel cable connecting the rookery to the boom. It was anchored just overhead, almost close enough to reach. . . .

Almost, but not quite.

Deryn swore. With smoke still pouring from the ventral engine pod, this was no time for caution. Crawling out the window, she saw a set of handholds leading up to her goal - some poor blighter had done this trick beforeard v height="0em">

Deryn grabbed the nearest hold and swung off into the air. She pulled herself hand over hand up to the cable and threw out her legs to wrap them around it. Then she was sliding down fast, the steel cable as hot as a teakettle in her gloves. Half a mile below, the plummeting zeppelin fired again, but the rocket burst uselessly low, sending a dozen sizzling threads into the sea.

Her boots landed with a clang against the boom.

Ahead of Deryn the hatches and windows of the engine pod were all thrown open, and smoke was gushing out and spilling back into the Leviathan's wake. She entered through the nearest hatch, her eyes stinging.

"It's Middy Sharp. Report!"

An engineer appeared from the smoke, wearing goggles and an ember-tattered flight suit. "It's bad, sir - we've called for a Herculean. Grab on to something!"

"You called for a . . . ," Deryn began, her voice fading. A rushing sound was building overhead. She stared up at the belly of the airbeast, and saw the ballast lines swelling.

She'd never seen a Herculean inundation before. They were called only when the ship was in serious danger of burning, because they were barking dangerous themselves.

"FIREFIGHT IN THE AIR."

"It's coming!" Deryn cried, pushing into the pod to look for a handhold.

The engineer turned and stepped through the thick smoke to a rack of gears and parts, where another man with engineering patches stood. Deryn knelt behind the main turbine, taking hold as the first spume of water exploded into the engine pod. The inundation came straight from the gut, briny and fouled with the clart of a hundred species. The torrent grew, the burning engine spitting white steam to mingle with the smoke and brackish water.

The inundation lifted Deryn from her feet for a moment, trying to sweep her out the open hatch and into the void. The water filled her boots, churning up to force itself into her nose and eyes. But she held fast until the last sparks in the engine sputtered out and the flood finally began to slacken. The briny water slowly drained from the engine pod, dropping below her waist, then her knees.

One of the engineers let out a sigh of relief, letting go to take a step toward the blackened mass of gears.

"Keep hold, man!" Deryn said. "We've lost our rear ballast!"

He grabbed the rack again just as the ship began to tilt. With thousands of gallons of ballast gone from its stern, the Leviathan was out of balance, tipping the airship into a steep dive.

"A HERCULEAN INUNDATION."

The remaining water coiled past Deryn's feet, pouring out the forward hatch. She heard the creak of the ratlines overhead as the airbeast strained, bending its nose upward against the dive. But out the nearest porthole she saw the glittering sea rushing toward them.

Then Deryn heard a growl like a pair of hungry fighting bears - the Clanker engines shifting into reverse. The whole ship shuddered, its descent slowing to a crawl. The Leviathan hovered aslant in the air for a moment, until the ballast lines began to swell again with water pumping toward the tail. Gradually the floor of the engine pod leveled off.

A lizard popped its head from a message tube and spoke with the captain's voice. "Ventral engine pod, help is on the way. Please report your status."

The two engineers looked at Deryn, perhaps a bit nervous that they'd just sent the whole ship plummeting toward the sea.

She cleared her throat. "Middy Sharp, sir, just arrived here from the rookery. The pod was set aflame, so the engineers called for a Herculean. The fire's out, but by the looks of things, we won't be giving you any power for a while. End message."

The lizard blinked, then scampered away. Deryn turned to the men. This was her station for the rest of the battle, it seemed.

"Don't look so sheepish," she said. "You may have saved the ship. But if you want to be proper heroes, let's get this engine running again!"

Chapter Sixteen

"Hard to starboard," the captain said, and the pilot sent the master wheel spinning.

As the Leviathan turned, the deck shifted beneath Alek's feet, but it was nothing like the sickening dive of a moment before. The ocean had filled the front windows of the bridge, and he and Mr. Tesla had skidded forward on their dress shoes. Not for the first time Alek was envious of the crew's rubber-soled boots. Bovril was still clinging tight to his shoulder, scared into silence.

The zeppelin that had fired at the Leviathan swung into view below, still falling. A swarm of strafing hawks had spilled its hydrogen from a thousand cuts, and the German airship settled on the ocean like a feather on a pond. As the Leviathan's shadow passed across it, a pair of canvas lifeboats emerged from beneath the billowing membrane.

An awful thought occurred to Alek. "Will the kappa attack those lifeboats as well?"

Dr. Barlow shook her head. "Not unless the submarine sends out another fighting pulse."

"And we're close enough to shore," Dr. Busk added. "Those chaps should be fine, as long as they don't mind a bit of rowing!"

"A bit of rowing," repeated Dr. Barlow's loris from the ceiling, and had a chuckle. Bovril looked up and joined in, relaxing its grip on Alek's shoulder a little.

"The others aren't so lucky," Mr. Tesla said, staring at the Kaiserin Elizabeth in the distance. She looked like a haunted ship. Her decks were awash with blood and were glittering with spikes, and kappa roamed freely across them, searching for prey. If any crew had survived, they must have hidden belowdecks behind metal hatches.

The second zeppelin hovered over the warship, sending a last shower of darts down onto the kappa. But the first strafing hawks were arriving, hacking at the zeppelin's fragile skin. Its engines soon fired up, and the German airship began to pull away.

"We won't pursue them, will we?" Alek asked.

"I doubt we shall bother." Dr. Busk nodded to Tesla. "Getting you to Japan is more important than this sideshow."

Alek let out a quiet sigh. As Count Volger had suspected, this long voyage had all been for show. The Admiralty wanted to prove that British air power was global, and that the Great War was a contest among European powers, not upstart empires in Asia.

But at least now that the Union Jack had been waved, the Leviathan could turn around and head for Tokyo - and then America, if the Admiralty allowed it.

"I don't suppose those creatures recognize the white flag," Tesla said.

"The submarine will call them off," Dr. Barlow replied. "Exactly how is known only to the Japanese, for obvious reasons."

"Wouldn't want the enemy figuring out how to turn your beasties peaceable, would you?" Dr. Busk scanned the ocean's surface through a telescope. "Some sort of sound would be my guess. One that humans can't hear, a bit like a dog whistle."

"Quite a vicious dog," Mr. Tesla said.

"Vicious," Bovril repeated gravely.

Alek found himself nodding. He'd seen plenty of Darwinist creatures in battle before, but nothing as horrifying as these kappa. The beasts had sprung from the water so quickly, like something from a nightmare.

But in a way it was a relief, seeing Mr. Tesla so unsettled. If he was appalled to see Austrian sailors slaughtered like this, surely he would think twice before unleashing his weapon on a defenseless city.

"And yet the ship is undamaged," Dr. Busk said. "She'll join the Japanese navy now, like the Russian fleet did ten years ago. A most efficient form of victory."

Alek frowned. "The Japanese can operate a Clanker warship?"

"They are adept with both technologies," Dr. Barlow said. "An American named Commodore Perry introduced Japan to mechaniks some sixty years ago. Almost made Clankers of them."

"Lucky we put a stop to that, eh?" Dr. Busk said. "Wouldn't want these fellows on the other side."

Mr. Tesla looked as though he were about to say something impolitic, but instead cleared his throat. "Your damaged engine, is it eectrikal?"

"All the Leviathan's engines are," Dr. Busk said, then bowed to Alek. "Except for the two that His Highness kindly lent us."

"So you aren't entirely against the machine," said the inventor. "Perhaps I could be of assistance."

"Allow me," Alek said. In his two days of sulking, he had explored all of the ship's engine pods. "It's a bit tricky, but I know the way."

"Thank you, Prince," said Dr. Busk, bowing. "You'll be pleased to see that we use your alternating current design, Mr. Tesla. A truly ingenious concept."

"You are too kind." Mr. Tesla bowed to the two boffins, and Alek led him from the bridge, heading for the aft end of the gondola.

As they walked, Bovril shifted nervously on Alek's shoulder.

"A bit tricky," it whispered into his ear.

Even in the heat of battle, the boom that ran from gondola to ventral engine pod was unmanned. It was cramped inside, designed more to stabilize the ship than as a passageway, and the leggy Mr. Tesla had to stoop as he walked.

"That was a ghastly business," Alek said once they were alone.

"War is always ghastly, whether conducted with machines or animals." Tesla paused in his stride, watching a message lizard scuttle past overhead. "Though at least machines feel no pain."

Alek nodded. "Even the great airbeast itself has feelings, which can be a good thing. It retreated from one of your Tesla cannons when the Leviathan's officers would not."

"Useful, I suppose." Tesla shook his head. "But the slaughter of animals is destructive to human morals."

Alek remembered an argument Deryn had made in Istanbul. "But don't you eat meat, Mr. Tesla?"

"A personal weakness. One day I shall give up that barbaric practice."

"But you sacrificed your airbeast back in Siberia!"

"Not without my reasons," Tesla said, tapping his walking stick against the floor. "I couldn't endure those bears starving to death, so I simply let nature take its course."

Bovril shifted on Alek's shoulder, murmuring. The loris was always quiet around Tesla, as if cowed by the man. Or perhaps it was listening carefully.

Alek didn't know what to make of the inventor's words. Perhaps it made sense, sacrificing one creature to save many. But what if Tesla applied that same logic to stopping the war?