A/N: Greetings my fellow Darwinists, Clankers, and all those who (like me) are somewhere in between. Before I actually start with the crossovers, I'd like to do a little explanation.
I will admit that I'm not the first person to do a crossover drabble pack involving Leviathan (I believe the story 10Tens beat me too it, twice, though the author seems to have deleted that chapter for some reason) but I figured it was too good an idea to just let die. That, and 1) I wanted to do crossovers with series that I enjoy, and 2) Its good practice for writing. I am going to be writing more for the Leviathan section. I may even write some Deryn/Alek smut at some point (because, so far, no one seems to have written any good Dalek lemons).
Additionally, the term "drabble" may not be 100 percent appropriate. Some of these stories will probably longer than the standard length of a drabble, but I'm not sure what else to call them. If anyone knows, please let me know.
Anyway, enough explaining; here's the actual stories. Hope you all enjoy these three crossovers.
Crossover Drabbles: Leviathan
Crossover Number 1:
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
"So, what about that one?"
"Where? On the right?"
"Yes. Just above the starboard docking clamp."
"Andromeda. Easy."
"Impressive."
Deryn snorted in response to the compliment, face pulling into a smile. Her companion in the airship Aurora's forward crows nest, Cabin Boy Matthew Cruse, returned it. The two had been playing a spotting game with the constellations spread above them. Both were keeping a tie score, a fact that raised Deryn's already high impression of the boy. All things considered, they were surprisingly similar; both fatherless due to flying accidents. Both with mothers hesitant to let them in the air again. And both willing to do whatever it took to stay in the air.
In fact, the only real differences between them were that Matt was a civilian airman, was a Cabin Boy to Deryn's Midshipman, and Deryn had diddies.
Not that he knew that, of course.
"Alright, your turn Mr. Cruse", Deryn said.
"Whenever your ready, Mr. Sharp."
Deryn cracked another smile and leaned closer to the glass bubble that they stood under, scanning the sky for a good target to spring on Matt. Her search took her back towards the stern of the Aurora. As she turned, she spotted something that was not a constellation, but of no less interest. Mainly, the airships' moving midship dorsal hatch hatch.
"Blisters, what's that?" She asked, pointing. Matt turned to follow her hand, and his eyes narrowed as he spied the unknown object.
"That would be my girlfriend Kate." He said, voice low. "Looks like she wants to take some pictures of the stars."
Sure enough, when Deryn looked again, she could see the girl was hauling a rather large camera and tripod out of the hatch with her.
"On the back of the barking ship?" Deryn gasped. "At this altitude? Is she daft?"
"Probably." Matt reached under his possition and grabbed a safety line from the storage drawer there.
"Should we...go get her?"
"Certainly. Though you don't have to come..."
"I'd rather, if it's all the same to you. I like going dorsal."
"Then lets go get her."
Crossover Number 2:
The Mortal Engines Quartet by Phillip Reeve
"I would assume your enjoying yourself here," Dylan told Alek. "Clanker tech everywhere and not a single barking beasite."
Alek, sitting in the window seat of the private airship he and Dylan had chartered, didn't immediately reply. Honestly, he did like it here; the moving cities, the airships, the fact that he was just a commoner like Dylan due to the fact that Austria-Hungary had been effectively vaporised centuries ago by a conflict the locals called the Sixty Minute War and that same war made swords a common weapon...
"I would think you would be happy as well." He replied. "After all, these cities are like like your godless beasts, are they not? Didn't that disfigured girl say something about them eating each other?"
"Aye." Dylan joined him at the window, looking out quietly. "She called it "Municipal Darwinism, I think."
"Survival of the fittest city," Alek muttered, easily translating the pseudo-Latin term.
Dylan simply grunted and leaned back in his seat.
From behind Dylan's seat came footstep. Moments later, the girl Alek had just been discussing appeared from the direction of the cockpit.
When they had first boarded their ship (Alek suddenly found himself remembering the name of it to be the Jenny Haniver) she had introduced himself as "Hester". It wasn't very hard to remember who she was, considering the massive scar that crossed her face. It looked (to Alek) like a fencing scar gone wrong.
"You two might want to get in here." She said, jabbing his thumb back towards the cockpit he had obvious just come through. "We're coming up on Airhaven. Tom said don't wanna miss this."
Tom was the airship's pilot, ironically an Englishman like Dylan. Alek had expected them to hit it off immediately...but they hadn't. Instead, Alek found himself connecting better with him, while Dylan seemed more at ease with Hester. Perhaps it was the scarred girl's dislike of these...traction cities.
Lacking anything else to do, Alek stood. As he passed Dylan, he glanced at his friend.
The boy looked like he was sulking, crushing himself into the seat of his chair. With a sigh, he decided to let Dylan's anger burn itself out, and turned to follow Hester into the cockpit.
Crossover Number 3:
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
So far, Deryn decided, her visit to the city of Seattle was NOT going as she had hoped. Though, ironically, she actually preferred this new twist on her trip to the original plans.
When Dr. Barlow had set her up for this, the idea had been for her to do a simple tour of the city and do a speech about her experiences aboard the Leviathan. See if she could get some of Seattle's large population of "modern women" to think about joining the fight against the Clankers. That was part of the deal she'd struck with the good Doctor when her secret had been outed; she could stay in the Air Service, but she couldn't be on the front lines. She was, basically, a recruitment tool.
So she'd gone to Seattle to start "readying the meat for the grinder", she had darkly titled it. But when she arrived, things had almost instantly gone downhill. Instead of the small hydrogen breather she'd been given a lift in dropping straight into the middle of city to massive fanfare, they were diverted by American Army Air Force aeroplanes to a dry landing field just outside the city limits. Apparently, several weeks ago some barking mad Clanker had tried to do something similar to what she was doing, and had managed to tear a good chunk of downtown Seattle with his massive tunneling machine. As if the property damage and small loss of life wasn't bad enough, the "Boneshaker", as the locals had named it, had released some kind of volcanic gas that was under the city. Anyone who breathed it died. And those that were REALLY unlucky died...and got right back up again.
The locals called them "rotters". Slowly, they were seeping into every corner of Seattle, killing everything in their path.
And currently, there was a large group heading towards them.
"Oi, Swankhammer, anytime you want to get that door open, now would be barking great!" Deryn shouted back over he shoulder. Behind her, one of the locals she had banded together with, Jeremiah Swankhammer, was currently trying to ram open a barred door. And it was working; every time Swankhammer threw his impressive bulk against it, the door would give a loud groan and wood dust would fly everywhere. Deryn couldn't help but think that somewhere in his life chains, Swankhammer had a bit of elephantine in him.
He wasn't the only local in the group; arranged around her were Briar Wilkes, the local sheriff, her son, Ezekiel, better known as Zeke, and a local boy about her age who had introduced himself only as "Chris".
It was Chris who she was currently kneeling next too. Her job currently was to keep feeding the Lewis machine gun he was holding ammunition, which it consumed at a rather alarming rate.
As if to prove her thoughts true, the Lewis ran empty, a loud click emanating from the firing chamber.
"Shit, make it fast!" Chris barked. "We've got more rotters on the way!"
"Blisters!" Deryn swore. With fumbling fingers, she extracted another long belt of ammunition and managed to shove it into the gun.
Just in time; around the corner of the street they were on came a motley group of shambling forms, once alive, but now dead, yet still moving. They paused at the curb, as if waiting for something to pass by, then spotted the group of locals and Deryn. With inhuman groans and screams, they charged.
"Let 'em have it!" Chris howled, yanking the machine gun up off the ground quick enough for Deryn's fingers to get friction burns from the ammo belt. She had only a couple seconds to get down and cover her ears before the Lewis opened up again.
Now that she thought about it, Chris probably had some fabricated life chains in him too; how else would he be able to fire a barking machine gun by himself?
Around her, the two Wilkes's joined in, Briar firing a large repeating rifle and Zeke a small but obviously powerful magnum revolver. The rotters stopped dead as if they'd hit a brick wall. In twos and threes they fell, losing random body parts and spraying a greenish puss-like substance that smelled horrible everywhere.
Behind Deryn, there was a loud crash. Apparently , Swankhammer had managed to get the door open.
"Door's open, Miss Sharp." He said. Deryn couldn't help but smile. Even in the middle of battle, Swankhammer was still a courteous as ever.
"Fall back inside!" Chris ordered. "I've got this bastards locked down!"
Deryn didn't answer; she just ran. In seconds, she covered the distance between Chris and the door and threw herself inside. The rest of the group followed. First Zeke, then Briar, and finally Chris, still firing his Lewis at the approaching horde. The moment he was inside, Swankhammer slammed the door back into place and sealed it with a large couch. With a groan, Deryn sank down onto that same couch to catch her breath.
Yes, her trip to Seattle was NOT what she expected.
