Leviathan

THIRTY-TWO

“You’re white as a ghost!” Dr. Barlow said.

“It’s only flour.” Deryn pulled herself the rest of the way into the pilot’s cabin with a groan. Her hands ached from clinging to the flailing ladder, and the muscles in her arms were howling. Her heart still beat like a hammer.

“Flour?” Dr. Barlow said. “How odd.”

“Well done, Dylan!” Alek was twisting at the controls. “I’ve never seen anyone come aboard a walker that way!”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.” She plonked down on the lurching cabin floor, panting hard. Tazza crept over to nuzzle her hand, then sneezed out a snootful of flour.

Within moments Deryn felt dizzy from the walker’s motion. The trip out to the castle had been bad enough— the screech of metal against metal, the smell of oil and exhaust, and the endless, murderous noise of the engines. But at full trot, riding in the walker was like being shaken in a tin snuffbox. No wonder the Clankers wore those silly helmets; it was all Deryn could do to keep her head from banging against a wall.

Klopp, who was peering out the viewport through field glasses, said something in German to Alek.

“I thought he wasn’t helping,” Deryn muttered.

“That was when we could hide,” Dr. Barlow said. “Now that the Germans have certainly seen us, he’s changed his tune. If we don’t shoot both of those zeppelins down, they’ll report about our Austrian friends.”

“Well, he might have made up his mind a bit faster.” Deryn looked down at her aching hands. “I could’ve used some help cutting that chain.”

Dr. Barlow patted her shoulder. “You did well, Mr. Sharp.”

Deryn shrugged off the compliment and stood up. She’d had enough of being bounced about blindly. Grabbing on to two hand straps that hung from the ceiling, she pulled herself up and out the top hatch.

The cold hit her full in the face. It was like being on the spine of the airship in a storm, the horizon lurching around her with every step.

Deryn squinted into the eyeball-freezing wind. The zeppelins were skimming low, dragging ropes along the ground. Men slid down them, landing in the snow with guns and equipment on their backs.

But why bother? If they wanted to destroy the Leviathan, they could stay up high and use phosphorous bombs.

She dropped back inside. “They’re putting men down.”

“Those are Kondor Z-50s,” Alek said. “They carry commandoes instead of heavy weapons.”

“It seems their objective is to capture our ship,” Dr. Barlow said.

“Blisters!” Deryn swore. A live hydrogen breather in the Clankers’ hands would be a disaster; they’d learn everything there was to know about the great ship’s weaknesses. “But aren’t they afraid of us?”

“They’ll have anti-walker guns aboard,” Alek said grimly. “They can’t fire them from the air. But from the ground, they’ll give us a fight.”

Deryn swallowed. It was bad enough, riding in this contraption. But the thought of being broiled alive by some armor-piercing shell made her ill.

“We need your help again, Dylan.”

She stared at Alek. “Do you want me to drive this barking contraption now?”

“No,” he said. “But tell me, do you know how to fire a Spandau machine gun?”

Deryn knew no such thing, but she’d fired an air gun plenty of times.

This was quite different, of course. Like everything else made by Clankers, it was ten times louder, shakier, and more cantankerous than it looked. When she gave the trigger a test squeeze, it rattled like a piston in her hands. Bullet casings spewed from its side, bouncing from the cabin wall in a hot metal hail.

“Cripes!” she swore. “How do you hit anything with this?”

“Simply point it in the general direction,” Dr. Barlow said. “What the Clankers lack in finesse they make up for with blanket ruination.”

Deryn leaned forward, squinting out the tiny peephole. All she could see was snow and sky bouncing along. She felt claustrophobic and half blind. It was the opposite of watching from the Leviathan’s spine, with the battle spread out below like the pieces on a chessboard.

She glanced over at Klopp, who was manning the other machine gun. Instead of looking out, he was waiting for Alek to tell him when to fire.

“Stuff this. I’ll be back in a squick,” Deryn said, pulling herself up through the hatch again.

Both Kondors had dropped commandoes now. One group was storming toward the Leviathan, their zeppelin supporting them with machine-gun fire. The other bunch was assembling some sort of artillery, a long-barreled field gun that was pointed straight at the Stormwalker.

“Oh, blisters,” she said.

“DIE ANTI-WANDERPANZER TRUPPEN.”

The Clankers worked swiftly, and a moment later the gun’s muzzle erupted with flame. The walker twisted beneath her, throwing her hard against the side of the hatch. She barely kept from falling back through, her feet flailing below.

For a moment Deryn thought they’d been hit. But then she felt the shell whiz by, her ears popping as its passed. The Stormwalker staggered into a long turn, finally regaining its balance on the snow.

Alek was either barking brilliant at the controls, or he was completely mad. They were headed straight for the anti-walker gun, lurching back and forth across its sights while the crew desperately reloaded.

Deryn dropped back inside and took her machine gun, aiming it low. She reckoned they’d be among the Germans in another five seconds, if they hadn’t already been blown to blazes.

“Get ready!” Alek shouted.

Deryn didn’t wait, and squeezed the trigger. The gun jumped and rattled in her hands, spewing death in all directions. A few dark shapes slipped past her peephole, but she had no idea whether they were men or rocks or the anti-walker gun.

A metal clank shook the cabin, and suddenly the world was staggering to port. Deryn was thrown from her gun, her feet slipping on spent casings rolling across the floor. She landed on something soft, which turned out to be Dr. Barlow and Tazza huddled in the corner.

“Sorry, ma’am!” she cried.

“Not to worry,” the lady boffin said. “You really are quite insubstantial.”

“I think we hit it!” Alek said, still twisting at the controls.

Deryn scrambled to her feet and pulled herself up and out the hatch again. Behind them the anti-walker gun lay wrecked in their giant footprints—overturned, the barrel bent. Its crew were scattered, a few motionless, the white snow about them flecked with vivid red.

“You stomped it, Alek!” she shouted down, her voice hoarse.

She spun around to face forward. The Stormwalker was headed for the other group of commandoes now. They were hunkered down in the snow, an aerie of strafing hawks skimming over them, razor talons glimmering in the sun.

A few of the commandoes turned and saw the walker coming at them, and Deryn wondered if she should drop down to fire her murderous weapon again. But then the Stormwalker shook beneath her. A cloud of smoke spewed from its belly, billowing over Deryn and filling her mouth with an acrid taste.

Her eyes stung, but she forced them open as the shell hit. It exploded among the commandoes, throwing men in all directions.

“Barking spiders,” she murmured.

When the smoke and snow flurries subsided, nothing moved except a few strafing hawks flapping back toward the Leviathan. Deryn glanced back at the field gun. The remaining crew were running away, a Kondor coming down to skim them from the ice.

The Clankers were in retreat!

But where was that other zeppelin?

She scanned the horizon—nothing. Then a shadow flickered on the snow, due west, and Deryn looked straight up. The airship was directly overhead, its bomb racks bristling. A cloud of fléchette bats swirled farther up, and she saw a concussion shell arcing its way from the Leviathan, its big harmless boom about to scare the clart right out of them.

She grabbed the hatch handle and dropped, pulling it shut behind her.

“Bombs coming!” she cried. “And barking fléchettes as well!”

“Vision to quarter,” Alek said calmly, and Klopp started turning a crank over at his side of the cabin. Deryn saw an identical one beside her, and wondered which way it was meant to go.

As her hand reached out for it, the world exploded… .

A blinding flash lit the cabin, followed by a peal of thunder that threw Deryn off her feet again. The floor was tipping, everything sliding to starboard. The shriek of gears and Tazza howling filtered into her half-deafened ears, and her shoulder struck metal as the whole cabin lurched once—hard.

Then an avalanche of snow was pouring in through the viewport, a rush of cold and sudden silence burying her …