Behemoth (3 page)

The stream of fire tore through the swarm, scattering bats in all directions. Seconds later the cloud had disappeared, like a black dandelion in a puff of wind.

The gyrothopter tried to veer away, but was caught
beneath a wave of fleeing bats. Alek could see fléchettes falling, glittering in the searchlights, and the gyrothopter began to shudder in midair. The blades of its rotors tore and crumpled, their remaining energy twisting the delicate frame into wreckage.

Alek watched as the flying machine tumbled from the sky, disappearing in a small white splash on the ocean’s dark surface. He wondered if its unlucky pilot had survived the fléchettes long enough to feel the water’s cold.

The
Leviathan
’s searchlights

still swept across the sky, but the swarm was too scattered to resume the attack. Small fluttering shapes were already streaming back toward the airship.

Klopp lowered his glasses. “The Germans have some new tricks, it seems.”

“They always do,” Alek managed, staring at the ripples
spreading out from where the gyrothopter had crashed.

“Orders coming in,” Mr. Hirst said, pointing at the signal patch. It had turned blue, the sign to slow the engine. Klopp adjusted the controls, giving Alek a questioning look.

“Are we giving up the attack?” Alek asked in English.

“Of course not,” Mr. Hirst said. “Just changing course. I reckon we’ll ignore the
Breslau
for now and go after the big one. Just to make sure that other gyrothopter doesn’t trouble us with those sparklers.”

Alek listened to the thrum of the ship for a moment. The starboard engine was still running high, pushing the
Leviathan
into a slow turn toward the
Goeben
. The battle wasn’t over yet. More men would die tonight.

He looked back at the whirling gears of the engine. Klopp could halt them in a dozen subtle ways. One word from Alek would be enough to stop this battle.

But he’d promised Dylan to fight loyally. And after throwing away his hiding place, his Stormwalker, and his father’s gold to make these Darwinists allies, it seemed absurd to betray them now.

He knew Count Volger would agree. As heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Alek had a duty to survive. And survival in an enemy camp didn’t start with mutiny.

“What happens next?” he asked Hirst.

The chief engineer took the field glasses from Klopp.
“We won’t waste any more time tearing up their signal flags, that’s for certain. We’ll probably go straight in with aerial bombs. A gyrothopter can’t stop those.”

“We’re going to bomb them,” Alek translated for Klopp. “They’re defenseless.”

The man just nodded, adjusting the controls. The signal patch was turning red again. The
Leviathan
had found her course.

It took long minutes to close the final distance to the
Goeben
.

The ship’s big guns boomed once, spilling fire and smoke into the night sky. But Mr. Hirst was right—the shells flew well beneath the
Leviathan
, erupting into white columns of water kilometers away.

As the
Leviathan
drew closer, Alek watched the German ship through the field glasses. Men scrambled across the ironclad’s decks, hiding her small guns under what looked like heavy black tarps. The coverings shone dully in the last flickers of sunset, like plastic or leather. Alek wondered if they were made of some new material strong enough to stop fléchettes.

But no plastic could stop high explosives.

The men on the ironclad hardly seemed worried, though. No lifeboats were readied, and the second gyrothopter
stayed on its catapult, the rotors strapped down against the wind. Soon it too was veiled with a glossy black covering.

“Young master,” Klopp said, “what’s happening on her aft deck?”

Alek swung the field glasses, and saw lights flickering atop the ironclad’s strange metal tower.

He squinted harder. There were men working at the tower’s base, dressed in uniforms made from the same shiny black that covered the deck guns. They moved slowly, as if encased in a fresh layer of tar.

Alek frowned. “Take a look, Master Klopp. Quickly, please.”

As the old man took the field glasses, the flickering lights grew brighter—Alek could see them with his naked eyes now. Shimmers slid along the struts of the tower, like nervous snakes made of lightning.…

“Rubber,” Alek said softly. “They’re protecting everything with rubber. That whole tower must be charged with electriks.”

Klopp swore. “I should have realized. But they only showed us toys and demonstration models, never one that huge!”

“Models of
what
?”

The old man lowered the glasses. “It’s a Tesla cannon. A real one.”

Alek shook his head. “As in Mr. Tesla, the man who invented wireless? You mean that’s a transmitting tower?”

“The same Mr. Tesla, young master, but it’s not a transmitter.” Klopp’s face was pale. “It’s a weapon, a lightning generator.”

Alek stared in horror at the shimmering tower. As Dylan often said, lightning was an airship’s natural enemy. If raw electriks flowed across the airship’s skin, even the tiniest hydrogen leak could burst into flame.

“Are we in range yet?”

“The ones I’ve seen could hardly shoot across a room,” Klopp said. “They only tickled your fingers or made your hair stand on end. But that one’s
huge
, and it’s got the boilers of a dreadnought to power it!”

Alek turned to Mr. Hirst, who was watching their conversation with an air of disinterest, and said in English, “We have to come about! That tower on the aft deck is some kind of … lightning cannon.”

Mr. Hirst raised an eyebrow. “A lightning cannon?”

“Yes! Klopp has worked with the German land forces. He’s seen these things before.” Alek sighed. “Well, toy ones, anyway.”

The chief engineer peered down at the
Goeben
. The electriks were sparkling brighter now, unfolding into spidery forms that danced along the tower’s struts.

“Can’t you see?” Alek cried.

“It is rather odd.” Mr. Hirst smiled. “But lightning? I doubt your Clanker friends have mastered the forces of nature just yet.”

“You have to tell the bridge!”

“I’m sure the bridge can see it well enough.” Hirst pulled a command whistle from his pocket and blew a short tune. “But I shall inform them of your theory.”

“My
theory
?” Alek shouted. “We don’t have time for a debate! We have to turn around!”

“What we’ll do is wait for orders,” Mr. Hirst said, dropping the whistle into his pocket.

Alek swallowed a groan of frustration, then turned back to Klopp.

“How long do we have?” he said in German.

“Everyone’s cleared the deck, except for those men in protective suits. So it could be any moment.” Klopp lowered the glasses. “Full reverse on this engine will turn us around fastest.”

“Full reverse from full ahead?” Alek shook his head. “You’ll never make that look like an accident.”

“No, but I can make it look like my own idea,” Klopp said, then grabbed Alek by the collar and shoved him hard to the floor. As Alek’s head cracked against the metal deck of the engine pod, the world went starry for a moment.

“Klopp! What in blazes are you—”

The shriek of gears drowned out Alek’s words, the whole pod shuddering in its frame around him. The air suddenly stilled as the propeller sputtered to a halt.

“What’s the meaning of this!” cried Hirst.

Alek’s vision cleared, and he saw Klopp brandishing a wrench at the chief engineer. With his free hand the old man deftly shifted the engine into reverse, then pushed the foot pedal down.

The propeller sputtered back to life, drawing air backward across the pod.

“Klopp, wait!” Alek began. He tried to stand, but his head spun, and he fell back to one knee.

Blazes! The man had actually
hurt
him!

Hirst was blowing on his whistle again—a high-pitched squeak—and Alek heard a hydrogen sniffer howling in response. Soon a pack of the ugly creatures would be thundering down upon them.

Alek pulled himself up, reaching out for the wrench. “Klopp, what are you
doing
?”

The man swung at him, yelling, “Got to make this convincing!”

The wrench whistled over Alek’s head. He ducked and fell back onto one knee again, cursing. Had Klopp gone
mad?

Mr. Hirst reached into a pocket and pulled out a compressed air pistol.

“No!” Alek cried, leaping for the gun. As his fingers wrapped around Hirst’s wrist, the pistol exploded with a deafening
crack
. The shot missed Klopp, but the bullet rang like an alarm bell as it ricocheted around the engine pod.

Something kicked Alek in the ribs, hard, and searing pain blossomed in his side.

He fell backward, his fingers slipping from Hirst’s wrist, but the man didn’t raise the gun again. Hirst and Klopp both gaped, dumbstruck, at the
Leviathan
’s flank.

Alek blinked away pain and followed their stares. The cilia were in furious motion, rippling like leaves in a storm. The airbeast’s vast length was bending, twisting harder than he’d ever seen. The great harness groaned around them as it stretched, joined by the
pop
of ropes snapping in the ratlines.

“The beast knows it’s in danger,” Klopp said.

Alek watched in wonder as the airship seemed to curl around them in the air. The stars spun overhead, and soon the huge animal had turned itself entirely around.

“Back to full …,” Alek began, but it hurt too much to speak. Every word was another kick in the ribs. He looked down at his hand pressed against his left side, and saw blood between the fingers.

Klopp was already working, reversing the engine once more. Mr. Hirst clutched his pistol tight, still staring in wonder at the airbeast’s flank.

“Get out of the pod, young master,” Klopp yelled as the propeller’s gears caught again. “It’s metal. The lightning will jump to it.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Klopp turned. “What … ?”

“I’m shot.”

The old man dropped the controls and bent beside him, eyes wide. “I’ll lift you.”

“Mind your engine, man!” Alek managed.

“Young master—,” Klopp began, but his words were drowned out by a crackling in the air.

With a painful heave Alek pulled himself up to look backward. The
Goeben
was falling behind them, but the Tesla cannon was blindingly bright. It flickered like a welding lamp, sending jittering shadows across the dark sea.

Beside him the airship’s cilia still seethed and billowed, pushing at the air like a million tiny oars.

Faster,
Alek prayed to the giant airbeast.

A great fireball formed at the tower’s base, then swiftly rose, dancing and shimmering as it climbed. When it reached the top, a thunderous
boom
rang out.

Fingers of lightning, jagged and colossal, shot up from the Tesla cannon. They stretched across the whole sky at first, a tree of white fire, then leapt toward the
Leviathan
as if drawn by scent. The lightning spread a fiery web across
the airbeast’s skin, a dazzling wave that surged down its length. In an instant the electricity flowed three hundred meters from tail to head, leaping eagerly across the metal struts that supported the engine pod.

The whole pod began to crackle, the gears and pistons flinging out radiant spokes of fire. Alek was seized by an invisible force; every muscle in his body tightened. For a long moment the lightning squeezed the breath from him. Finally its power wilted, and he slipped back to the metal deck.

The engine sputtered to a halt again.

Alek smelled smoke, and felt an awful pounding in his chest. His ribs ached with every heartbeat.

“Young master? Can you hear me?”

Alek forced his eyes open. “I’m all right, Klopp.”

“No, you aren’t,” the man said. “I’ll get you to the gondola.”

Klopp wrapped one big arm around Alek and pulled him up, sending a wave of fresh agony through him.

“God’s wounds, man! That
hurts
!”

Alek wavered on his feet, dumbstruck by the pain. Mr. Hirst didn’t lend a hand, his nervous eyes scanning the length of the
Leviathan
beside them.