Goliath

thudded in the distance.

“It’s got a deck gun!” the first officer announced. “Captain?”

“Flechette bats,” came the answer. “We’ll sweep them off the topside!”

Deryn’s fingers curled into two fists. The airship was gaining on the walker, and the searchlights swung out to find it in the darkness. She heard the pop of an air gun overhead, and saw the first cloud of flechette bats streaking away.

But as her eyes drifted past the German walker, Deryn’s breath caught.

The outer towers of Mr. Tesla’s weapon were glowing brighter now, covered with nervous snakes made of fire and lightning. The tall central tower, Goliath itself, had begun to softly glow in the darkness, like the envelope of a hot-air balloon with its burner turned to full.

Deryn tasted acid in the back of her throat, and felt the awful, paralyzing fear of her nightmares. She remembered how the Goeben’s Tesla cannon had almost burned them all to a cinder. But Goliath was much more powerful, mighty enough to set the sky aflame thousands of miles away.

And the Leviathan was headed straight for it.

FORTY

The first shell landed at the edge of the compound, sending a length of barbed wire fence flailing and coiling in the air. A cloud of dust rolled outward from the explosion, and Alek heard pieces of torn metal hitting the rooftops around him.

He cupped his hands against the glass as the dust cleared, and saw the attacker striding through the trees —a smaller walker, a four-legged corvette. Two searchlights bore down from the Leviathan, revealing the deck gun on the machine’s back, its barrel spilling smoke.

“Mr. Tesla,” Alek called. “Perhaps we should evacuate.”

“Your British friends may have deserted us, but I shall not abandon my life’s work.”

Alek turned. Tesla’s hands were on the levers on the central bank of controls, his hair sticking out in all directions. Sparks flew about the room, and Alek felt the air humming with power.

“You haven’t been abandoned, sir!” He pointed at the window. “The Leviathan’s still here.”

“Can’t you see they’re too late? I have no choice but to fire.”

Alek opened his mouth to argue, but another boom sounded in the distance, and the shriek of the incoming shell sent him into a crouch. This one landed inside the compound, throwing dirt and debris against the control room windows.

Suddenly the night turned red outside, the Leviathan’s searchlights changing color, and then glimmers of metal were streaking from the sky. The men on the deck of the walker twisted and fell as the flechettes struck home. A moment later the gun was unmanned, rolling from side to side with the machine’s gait.

The metal rain swept closer and closer, slicing through trees and sending up clods of dirt. As the torrent dwindled, one last flechette hit the window with a smack. A crack slithered across the glass, and Alek scrambled a few steps backward, but the attack had ended.

He cleared his throat, willing his voice to stay firm. “The Leviathan has silenced that German gun, sir. We can stand down.”

“But the walker is still coming, isn’t it?”

Alek took a wary step closer to the window. The spikes had done nothing to the corvette’s metal armor, of course. But in the sky above, the Leviathan was still closing in, its bomb bay doors already open.

Then he remembered what Tesla had said about firing Goliath in earnest—any aircraft within ten kilometers would be in danger. The Leviathan was no more than a kilometer distant, and Deryn was still aboard, thanks to Alek and his deal with Eddie Malone.

This madness had to stop.

Alek turned and strode to the main bank of controls, taking Tesla by the arm. “Sir, I can’t let you do this. It’s too horrific.”

Tesla looked up. “Don’t you think I know that? To destroy a whole city… It’s the most horrible thing any human could conceive.”

“Then, why are you doing it?”

Tesla closed his eyes. “It will take a year to rebuild this tower, Alek. And in that year, how many more will die in battle? Hundreds of thousands? A million?”

“Perhaps. But you’re talking about Berlin… two million people.”

Tesla stared down at his controls. “I can dampen the effect, I think.”

“You think?”

“I won’t destroy the whole city, just enough to prove my theories. Otherwise Goliath will be lost forever! No one will invest money in a smoking crater.” He looked out the window at the walker scrambling across the dunes. “And the Germans will only grow bolder. If they aren’t stopped now, do you think their assassins will let either of us live out the year?”

Alek took a step closer. “I know what it is to be hunted, sir. I have been hounded since the night my parents died. But proving your invention isn’t worth this!”

A clamor of gunfire came from behind Alek, and he spun about. In the red glare of the Leviathan’s searchlights, the Pinkerton walker was venturing out to meet the German machine. A Gatling gun had popped up on its back and was chattering away.

But bullets were useless against steel armor, and the Pinkerton was far too small to stop the water-walker with brute force. It could only buy them time.

The Leviathan’s vast shape had slowed to a halt and was starting to reverse course. The corvette was inside the compound walls now—too close to Goliath for Leviathan to drop an aerial bomb. The airship’s officers had to know that Tesla’s weapon would be deadly to anything in the sky.

But there wasn’t time to fly ten kilometers away. The air in the control room had begun to crackle, and Alek felt his hair standing on end. The buttons of his jacket softly glowed as the electrikal lights faded around them.

The weapon would be ready to fire soon.

Alek turned to Tesla. “The people of Berlin haven’t had fair warning! You said we’d give them a chance to evacuate!”

The man pulled on a pair of thick black rubber gloves. “That chance has been stolen, but by their own kaiser, not by me. Please go back down to the dining room, Your Highness.”

“Mr. Tesla, I insist that you stop this!”

Without looking up from his controls, Tesla waved a gloved hand at his men. “Show His Highness back to the dining room, please.”

Alek reached for his sword, but he hadn’t worn it tonight. The two men approaching were much larger than him, and there were another dozen that Tesla could call upon in the control room.

“Mr. Tesla, please…”

The inventor shook his head. “I’ve dreaded this moment for years, but fate has taken control.”

The men took Alek firmly by the arms and led him to the stairs.

Most of the guests had fled the dining room, but Klopp was still there, a cigar in one hand, his cane in the other. Miss Rogers sat with him, scribbling madly.

“Sounds like quite a battle up there,” she said.