Sorry, Not Scott
A string of curses escaped Deryn Sharp's mouth as the first gun shots cascaded through midair, cutting through anything and everything unlucky enough to be topside on the Leviathan. Hydrogen sniffers searched frantically for any sign of a leak on the surface, and there was an air of suspense, though chaos was mightily present. One shrill howl and it would all be over, just like that. The spine was an absolute disaster, with fellow officers and petty laborers alike plummeting off the side of the great air beast. Deryn held tight to the ratlines as thousands of tiny shards of metal tore through flesh and ended the lives of countless Darwinists. A lifeless body hung just below Deryn, probably just some poor fellow attempting to escape the deathly shower originating from the Clanker forces. She forced herself not to look, though secretly she feared that if she did look, it would be a friend. Someone had released the strafing hawks, but they only shredded one air machine before the Germans released a mechanical net of sorts that draped over the birds of prey and pulled them down towards the earth where so many bodies lay already.
All this absorbed in a fraction of a second, Midshipman Sharp placed upon herself the coldhearted clarity required by a soldier in war. Or at least that's what she had read in the training manual. Even now she felt her composer slip, and she stiffened, or as much as one could when scaling the ratline. After all, she had her duty to perform.