Goliath

Deryn leaned out over the handrail, wondering how the man could tell so much from mere bubbles. The water was as black as pitch, and the trails looked like scattered diamonds in the light of the rising half-moon, too delicate to be exhaust from huge Clanker engines.

The ruckus of battle stations filled the air, shouts and squawks and the roar of engines, and Deryn clenched the rail. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, her whole body outraged to be here on the bridge instead of topside.

“Our faith in you has been rewarded, Mr. Sharp,” the lady boffin said from just behind her. “But do stop jittering.”

“Like a barking monkey,” her loris said.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Deryn settled herself. If they sent her back to her cabin, she might well explode.

“Less than a hundred feet deep here,” the navigator spoke up. Charts were spread out before him on the decoding table. “This is the shallowest water for miles, sir.”

The captain nodded. “Then, let us begin our attack. Slow to one quarter, Pilot. Let the wind carry us over.”

The thrum of the engines softened, and the airship began to drift to starboard. The trails of bubbles were just reaching a narrow channel among the islands at the entrance to Long Island Sound.

“Those bubbles must be drifting as they rise,” the captain said. “How fast is that current?”

The pilot lowered his field glasses. “About five knots, sir.”

“And how long does it take for bubbles to rise a hundred feet?”

No answer came, and everyone looked at the lady boffin.

“That depends on their size,” she explained. “Champagne-size bubbles, as we’ve all seen, can take several seconds to travel an inch.”

A moment of bemused silence stretched out, until Deryn spoke up. “These aren’t champagne bubbles, ma’am. They’re exhaust from barking great diesel engines. The size of cricket balls at least!”

“Ah, of course.” Dr. Barlow stared down a Let thlack water. “Perhaps ten feet a second, then.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” the captain said. “Bombs away on my mark. Three . . . two . . .”

The deck shuddered a bit as the weight of the aerial bomb fell away, sending a twinge through Deryn’s knee. She leaned out over the tilted windows, trying to see directly beneath the ship.

For a moment there was nothing but the dark, flat ocean, but then a column of water shot into the air as the bomb went in. The detonation followed seconds later, a silvery flower opening in the moonlight. Finally the gasses released by the explosion reached the surface, rising up in a frothing white dome. Ripples tumbled out across the water, full-blown waves cresting and storming as they rolled across the shallows.

“Bring us about,” the captain ordered.

The Leviathan spun slowly in place until the bridge windows faced the channel again. The surface had stilled, and Deryn peered down, searching for exhaust trails.

One of the machines was in trouble—its stream of bubbles was swelling, filled with pops and splashes. And then another giant dome of water rose up, white and boiling.

“Secondary explosion,” the first officer announced. “That’s one of the escorts crushed by the shock wave.”

“Fish in a barrel,” said the captain.

Deryn tried to imagine the men inside the water-walker, fighting their hopeless battle to keep the ocean from gushing in. Now the other escort was failing, its exhaust stream sputtering in fits and starts. This one died with a whimper, though, its scattering of bubbles fading out to nothing.

“That’s both the little ones, sir,” the first officer said.

Deryn shuddered. It would be dark down there as lights and engines failed, and the water would be icy cold.

She’d never seen combat from the serene vantage of the Leviathan’s bridge before. Running about topside, the horror of battle was lost in a swirl of excitement and danger. This felt inhuman, watching men die when she felt no fear herself.

Not that her squeamishness made any difference to the sailors below.

“The frigate’s made of sterner stuff, Captain.” The first officer turned from the windows. “Shall we make another run?”

Captain Hobbes shook his head. “Stand by, but stay at battle stations.”

Deryn turned to Dr. Barlow and asked softly, “Why aren’t we finishing them off, ma’am?”

“BOMBS AWAY.”

“Because they’re underwater, Mr. Sharp. A German warship that can’t be seen is of no use to us.”

“No use, ma’am?”

“This is a Clanker attack upon sovereign territory of the United States. We can hardly let it go unnoticed.”

Deryn looked down at Long Island Sound, her eyes widening. The exhaust trail of the surviving walker was still moving, following the coastline toward Tesla’s machine.

“But we can’t just . . .” Deryn’s cry faded as she saw the eyes of the officers upon her. She dropped her eyes and said softly, “Alek’s down there.”

“Indeed.” Dr. Barlow cleared her throat. “Captain, perhaps we should send a warning to His Highness.”

Captain Hobbes thought a moment, then nodded. “If you would, Mr. Sharp.”

Deryn snatched up a piece of paper from the decoding table and began to scribble. “It’ll take an hour for an eagle to get there!”

“Steady, Mr. Sharp,” the lady boffin said. “That walker’s barely making fifteen miles an hour. Half the speed of an eagle at night.”

“But Alek thinks we’re protecting him, ma’am. He doesn’t know we’ll wait till that contraption’s on his doorstep!”

The woman sighed. “It is unfortunate, but these are orders from Lord Churchill himself.”

Deryn froze, making a fist around the writing pen. So this had been the plan all along, to destroy the last walker only after it emerged onto land. The Admiralty, of course, wanted a German war machine sitting on American soil for all the world to see, not some wreck lying beneath a hundred feet of water.

This was all about dragging the United States into the war.

But Goliath stood only half a mile from shore. The Leviathan would barely have time for one bomb run. If they missed, the water-walker would destroy Tesla’s weapon and everyone within.

Alek was down there among the scattered lights of Long Island, without Deryn Sharp to protect him.

Dinner was unspeakably tedious. The turtle soup had led to saddle of lamb in sauce bearnaise, and that in turn to breast of hazel grouse. Now that the cheeses were done, dessert was “black cow”—ice cream floating in something called root beer, a concoction that had sparked a childish glee in Mr. Tesla and Master Klopp.

“A fencing lesson tomorrow, I should think,” said Count Volger, leaning back from the table and loosening the lower buttons of his jacket.

“An excellent idea.” Alek stared at his unfinished dessert, his ice cream melting into slurry. He’d been too impatient to eat much, but his reflexes were growing rusty from parties and dinners. He needed the feel of a sword in his hand.

Adela Rogers seemed to be in her element, though. She was holding forth at Tesla’s right hand, telling the host’s end of the table how Hearst had managed to wrangle his new movie deal with the famous Pancho Villa. She didn’t seem bothered that she was the only woman in the room. Indeed, she seemed to thrive on it. She was describing Hearst’s flattery and bribes of Villa as if it were a romantic adventure, giving her female viewpoint incontestable authority.

Alek tried to imagine Deryn using the same strategy, if she were ever stuffed back into skirts. Could her swagger ever translate into the sort of flair and charm that Miss Rogers deployed?