Darwin's Fist

Chapter 1

"This blows." Bovril muttered.

"Aye, beastie. It does." Deryn couldn't help but agree with the loris. This situation did blow. Though she probably wouldn't have referred to it in such Yank terms.

When she'd agreed to work for Dr. Barlow's mysterious Zoological Society, she'd expected to leave the war behind. After all (in no small part due to the work of herself, Alek, and the Leviathan) it had seemed that the Clankers were on the ropes and the war would be over quickly.

But, instead, her first real job for the lady boffin, three weeks after America joined the war and she left the Leviathan, was to accompany her to a supposed peace talk between the Darwinist nations and what remained of Germany in some barking abandoned mansion in the no-mans-land between Germany and France. Alek had come with them, of course. Who better to talk to the Clanker nations about peace than the boy who might have steered them into it?

Not that Deryn particularly minded why Alek came. All that mattered was that he did.

And, until about an hour ago, everything had been going swell. Accords were agreed upon, payments finalized, and it looked like peace was finally in their grasp.

Then what seemed like every walker in the barking German military showed up and began turning the land around them into the surface of the sodding moon. And, judging from the reports they'd heard over the mansion's wireless set before the antenna was destroyed, this was just part of a series of attacks on all combat fronts. The Russians were reeling, the Ottomans had been surprised by water-walkers rising from their own harbor, Paris was under attack by a new model of walker, and (though Deryn hoped with all her heart it wasn't true) it seemed a flight of German zeppelins was currently raining bombs on London.

The shelling they were enduring was what Bovril had been complaining about. The almost constant rumble of shells demolishing anything and everything in their path. When the bombardment had first started, the loris had been having a grand time mimicking the noises of the shells and the walker's engines. But by three-quarters of an hour in, it had gotten bored with that and was now mostly silent, only occasionally muttering some new phrase it had learned from the Americans (or "Yanks", as the papers had titled them).

And, for some reason Deryn couldn't explain, it was currently sitting on her head.

She glanced at her surroundings, feeling the loris shift as she turned, claws digging into her scalp.

Like her, the rest of the delegation was currently under whatever cover they could find in the room. Under desks, behind couches, inside fallen wardrobes. Anything that could provide some amount of safety from the German shells falling all around them. The Germans who had come to the meeting were nowhere to be seen. They'd probably run the moment their countrymen opened fire. Good riddance to bad clart, Deryn figured.

But, all things considered, it could be a lot worse. Deryn's only complains so far were that Clanker gunners really did not know when to stop firing, and that Alek wasn't with her. He was currently on the other side of the room, sharing a large, tipped-over bookcase with one of the Yank boffins, one Dr. Church.

She would have liked to be near him. In all the commotion, she figured, it wouldn't be too hard to slip her hand into his without anyone noticing…

But there were a couple yards of open space separating them, and right now being in open space was paramount to a death sentence.

As if to prove her thoughts right, Bovril started to make a low whining noise. Deryn recognized it; an incoming shell.

There was a soft tinkle as the shell passed through one of the large, elegant windows providing light to the room before going right out the one opposite in a spray of glass.

The shell's passage elicited a couple soft moans of horror from its occupants; mainly the Yanks Deryn was pleased to notice. They obviously weren't used to combat.

She found herself suddenly glad that Alek was on the other side of the room. If he'd been next to her when the shell passed through, she might have gone and done something barking stupid. And, as she had no idea where Dr. Barlow was, she wasn't sure the boffin wouldn't notice. She'd made comments to them before about their relationship.

Another shell approached, but this one missed the window and impacted the side of the mansion.

Marble, glass and wood flew in all directions, and Bovril lost its balance on Deryn's head. It slid off her hair and fell, grabbing the front of her shirt to stop itself.

Across the room, Alek muttered something in Clanker talk. Then, in English, he added; "God's wounds, that was close."

"Too close." Bovril agreed from the front of Deryn's shirt. Hurriedly, Deryn placed the loris on her shoulder, lest its weight reveal anything. She'd recently found it necessary to wear larger shirts than normal, as her diddies had finally started to show up. And having her diddies be noticed was not something she needed now, playing Dylan Sharp as she was.

"Indeed." Dr. Church spoke from Alek's side. "It seems those Germans have finally figured out how gravity works."

His voice was calm, despite what had just happened. They way he spoke made what he was saying sound like he was discussing the weather. Deryn noticed a sort of twang in it, which Dr. Barlow had informed was the accent usually associated with the state of Texas, where Dr. Church was originally from.

He certainly looked calm as well. While the other ambassadors were huddled as far under or into their cover as they could manage, Dr. Church was sitting quite comfortably under the higher part of the bookcase. He was even reading one of the books that had fallen from the case when it had tipped over, a barking thick volume with attic-twisting Clanker writing in it.

"Sir, you might want to scoot back a squick." Deryn suggested. Dr. Church looked up from the book and gave her a surprisingly kindly smile, adjusting the large spectacles he wore.

"Thank you for your concern, Agent Sharp," He said, using Deryn's recently gained title. "But I highly doubt we will need to hide for much longer. I'd rather not make myself uncomfortable unless I need to."

"What makes you so sure of that?" Alek asked. Deryn noticed the question seemed slightly interrogative.

If Church noticed it, he didn't react. He simply smiled again and stretched out his right leg. It shook slightly as he did, and Deryn remembered Dr. Barlow mentioning something about him being attacked by a fab at a young age.

"We are going to be rescued, of course." Church's voice was still pleasant, something Deryn found strangely unnerving. "We-well, I, anyway- did plan for this contingency. An extraction force has been in position since these talks began, and I have no doubt they are now on their way to retrieve us."

"And you didn't tell us before now?" Deryn asked. Typical overconfident Yanks, letting her and the rest of the boffins stew in their own clart when they barking knew rescue was coming!

"It wasn't important till now." Church replied. "And, I suspect, that telling people it was there would have indicated we were expecting trouble and accelerated this little altercation."

"Barking Yanks." Bovril commented.

"As long as they actually save us…" Alek muttered. Dr. Church went back to reading.

Deryn risked moving far enough out of cover to look up at the skylight over them, hoping to see the rescue Dr. Church had described. Perhaps an airship or airbeast, raining fire down upon the Germans all around them. Or a squadron of American aeroplanes strafing the area. Maybe even some of those Huxley troopers she'd heard about. They seemed barking crazy enough to try this. You had to be cracked in your attic to willingly jump out of a perfectly good airship and into combat with only a Huxley on your back to slow you down. Deryn knew first hand how that could go wrong…

But there wasn't anything. The skylight was empty, showing nothing but the brilliant, cloudless sky above them.

Deryn found herself disappointed twice; first by the lack of any apparent rescue operation, and second by the fact that she was stuck here, on the ground, and not up in the beautiful sky.

Her disappointment was eliminated a moment later when something small, damp, and slightly soft collided with her face.

On instinct, Deryn grabbed whatever had hit her and tossed away into a corner. She wiped her face to clear away the dampness the thing had left behind.

"Ah, that would be them." Dr. Church said as Deryn wiped her face on her shirt.

When she dropped her shirt, Deryn could see Church holding something in his hand. At first, she thought it was a rat, or some other rodent. But then she noticed the rubbery skin, the fins, and the small, black eyes.

The thing that had hit her was a fabricated dolphin of some kind, a little squick of a thing. Though why a fabricated dolphin would fall onto her face Deryn didn't know.

The dolphin made a soft squeaking noise that morphed into a very human sounding cough.

"Dr. Church, do you read?" It asked. The voice it spoke with had an American accent, similar to the ones Deryn had heard at the party she and Alek had attended up in Seattle a week ago. The same party, she realized, that she'd seen a fab similar to this one.

A shiver went down her spine. She suddenly had a very good idea of who their rescuers might be.

"Go ahead, Harkness." Church replied, speaking to the dolphin.

"We're in position, sir." Harkness continued, apparently speaking through the dolphin.

Now that was barking interesting. Could these dolphins provide real-time communications, like a Clanker wireless set?

"Status?"

"Ready to commence on your order."

"Do it." Church's voice lost its cheerfulness for a second.

"Copy. We're coming in from the roof. Watch your heads."

The dolphin made a soft click, and Church placed it in the pocket of his coat.

"Everyone, back away from the skylight!" he shouted. "Our rescue has arrived!"

His call was greeted with mumbles of confusion from around the room. The confusion died down a moment later as the air was suddenly rent with a low, repeating wump noise, like someone dust-beating a rug over and over. A black shape appeared over the skylight, massive and blocky, with a pair of spinning blades on its wings like a gyrothoper. A second later, the skylight blew out, every pane of glass in it falling like a glittering, sharp rain.

Boffins and ambassadors screamed in multiple languages, and those that had ventured out from the safety of their cover hurled themselves back under it as glass shards exploded on the ground.

The glass rain stopped, but something followed it. Four thick black ropes uncoiled through the skylight like snakes. For a moment, Deryn thought they actually were snakes, a theory helped along by the sudden hissing that came from the ropes as they fell.

But a glance up confirmed that the hissing wasn't coming from the ropes themselves. It was the combined sound of four soldiers sliding down the ropes on friction harnesses, their metal clamps rasping against the hemp of the rope.

Deryn recognized them. Or rather, the gear they were wearing. She'd seen their uniform before, the one that made it look like they were wearing foliage.

A glance at the left shoulder of the nearest soldier confirmed her guess. It bore a patch depicting a large fist clutching a life chain.

"Crushers of Clankers, defenders of Darwinism." Bovril quoted from Deryn's shoulder.

"Aye." She mumbled. "It's barking Darwin's Fist."

Deryn had learned more about the mysterious unit since she and Alek had first encountered them at the party a week ago. The day after it, as the airbeast Dr. Barlow had bought them all passage on readied to head east from Seattle back to Britain, she'd picked up an evening edition of a local paper that included an "exclusive interview" with none other than the boy she'd met at the party. By Miss Adela Rodgers, of all people.

She hadn't learned very much from the article, but she now knew their name, that they were the best of the best, their training seemed inhumanly harsh, they seemed exceedingly loyal to Darwinism, and they were headed out into the Western Front of Europe.

It had also confirmed the feeling she'd had when she was talking to Leftenant of the group.

There was defiantly something not right with them.

The realization of who her rescuers were brought up another question; what was America's elite doing here? Surely they had more important things to deal with than rescuing a bunch of trapped negotiators. Like, perhaps, stopping the German counter-assault?

The four soldiers hit solid ground one after another, boots crunching against the remains of the skylight. They took up combat positions the moment they landed, readying the rifles they'd carried on their backs. Deryn, who'd been studying American weaponry as part of her job, recognized them as M1903 Springfields, the .30 caliber rifle of choice for most American troops. On holsters at their sides, she noticed, they carried M1911 pistols.

After a moment during which no German soldiers rushed to fight them, they relaxed a bit. The soldier who had hit the ground first strode forward into the empty space directly under the skylight, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. Deryn caught a Sergeant's insignia pinned to his collar before he turned.

"Alright, listen up!" He called authoritatively. "We don't have much time, so I'm only going to say this once. I'm Sergeant Harkness, and I'll be you're rescue today."

"Harkness." Bovril muttered, rolling the word around in the way loris's tended to do when they learned new words.

So this was the boy Dr. Church had been talking with.

"Right now, we've got a gunship pinning the Clankers down, but they can't do it forever. I need anyone who isn't wounded or dead to get on your feet and head for that door." Harkness pointed to the main door to the mansion, which was miraculously still on it's hinges. His tone of voice made it clear he wasn't making a request.

Slowly, the delegation removed themselves from their cover. Deryn joined them, grunting as her knee tingled. It still wasn't completely healed, and it gave her trouble some times. As the crowd began to mill around the door, she managed to reach Alek's side. Even before she could, he slipped his hand into hers.

"That insignia..." He whispered, leaning in close to her ear.

"Aye." She replied. "It's them. The Yanks we saw at the party."

Around them, the boffins and ambassadors hurried quickly for the door, obviously glad of the chance of rescue.

"So what are they doing here?" Alek wondered aloud, pressing himself closer to Deryn to avoid being caught in the sudden rush of slightly-panicking people. The main doors of the mansion were being swung open by half the Darwin's Fist contingent, and on the other side Deryn could see what had to be the largest, ugliest gyrothoper ever. Which alone was surprising. The gyrothopers she remembered were small, fragile things, only good for scouting. This one was large enough to have a good-sized cargo bay, which the boffins and ambassadors were being ushered into.

It was the same type of contraption that had dropped the soldier's through the roof, though a different one. The original was still overhead, ropes hanging taught from it.

"Plotters." Bovril chimed in, climbing happily from Deryn's shoulder to Alek's.

"Plotters indeed." Alek muttered. "I don't like this."

"Aye, me neither. But whatever is going on, we better shift our bums or we'll be stuck here." Deryn said, reluctantly releasing her hold on Alek. "I'd rather not be here when those Clanker's start firing again."

Alek quickly fell into step beside her. But as they neared the door, one of the soldier's called out.

"Hey, you Agent's Sharp and Ferdinand?" He asked.

Deryn turned, Alek behind her.

The soldier who spoke sounded young, possibly even younger than they both were. His features were hard to pick out through the large pair of flight goggles he wore and the face paint he'd adorned himself with. It made it look like his face was part of his uniform.

"I'm Sharp." Deryn replied. "He's Ferdinand."

"Ma'am. Sir." The soldier saluted them. As he did, Deryn got a good look at his collar. The twin bars of a corporal glinted in the light.

Something struck Deryn.

Had he just called her ma'am?

Before she had time to really think about it, the Corporal was speaking again.

"I got orders that say you and your boss need to come with us." he said.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Glancing in the indicated direction, Deryn could see one of the other Fist soldier's helping Dr. Barlow rise from the shattered door she'd been using as cover. The third was ushering the last of the delegates from the room and into the gyrothoper, and the final one (Harkness, she realized) was currently helping Dr. Church with something. As he did, he saluted the boffin.

So that was why there were here; Dr. Church was part of Darwin's Fist!

There was a sound like a pistol firing as Dr. Barlow hurried over to Deryn's side, the heels of her dress boots clicking on the marble floor.

"Dr. Church." She said, voice sounding colder than Deryn had ever heard it. "May I kindly ask what's going on?"

"Certainly, Nora." Dr. Church replied, calmly as ever. He handed the large book he'd been reading to Sergeant Harkness and leaned forward on the fabricated-wood cane the soldier handed him in return. "But may I ask what exactly you mean?"

"What I mean is the fact that these soldiers received orders saying that I and my assistants are supposed to come with you." Dr. Barlow practically spat the words out. Dr. Church seemed unaffected.

"Can't say I know myself. This is the first I've heard of it." He turned to Sergeant Harkness. "Sergeant, perhaps you could provide some illumination on this subject?"

"Yes sir!" Harkness replied. "We just got it on the way down here. Came straight from Dr. H herself."

"Of course. Miranda and her last-minute changes." Dr. Church made a coughing noise that Deryn realized was a laugh. She glanced over at Dr. Barlow. To her surprise, the lady boffin looked almost angry. She rounded on Harkness, who flinched visibly when she looked at him.

"This 'Doctor H' you speak of." She asked, voice cold enough to send shivers up Deryn's spine. "That letter wouldn't happen to stand for 'Halsey', would it?"

"Uh..." Harkness blinked, and glanced over at Dr. Church. The American boffin simply gave him a small nod. "Yeah, that's her." Harkness finished, swallowing quietly.

"As I thought." Barlow muttered. She straightened, then turned and faced Alek and Deryn. "Well, gentlemen, it seems we have new assignment."

"Ready to leave when you are, Doctor." Alek said, snapping to attention. Deryn followed shortly after, slowed only by Bovril's sudden leap from Alek to her.

Dr. Barlow nodded grimly, then engaged Dr. Church in some deep boffin talk. Harkness signaled to the rest of his group, and they cut the ropes from the gyrothoper overhead and directed it into the position that the other one had held at the doors moments before. The two boffins headed for it, still deep in conversation. Deryn and Alek followed, Deryn slipping her hand again into Alek's. Harkness and his group followed.

Behind her, Harkness paused, tilting his head to the side. A look of horror filled his face.

"Son of a fab! Incoming!" He bellowed, breaking into a mad sprint from a dead-stop.

"What? What's going on?" Alek asked, looking around in confusion. Deryn felt the same thought fill her own attic.

"Shit!" The Corporal swore and suddenly grabbed Deryn's arm in one hand and Alek's in the other. "The Clanker's just opened up again! We have to get the hell out of here now!"

The two soldier's cries of fear spurned the group on. Even the two boffins managed to make good time to the gyrothoper, fancy boots and bad leg notwithstanding.

Alek and Deryn, practically being dragged by the Corporal, were the first ones inside. Deryn had enough time to look around and get a quick view of thin metal walls with small portholes and a pair of long benches running the length of the bay before the Corporal practically threw her onto one of them. Following closely behind them were the two boffins and the remaining three Darwin's Fist operatives. One by one, they clambered aboard and took their seats.

Sergeant Harkness was the last one aboard, screaming at the pilot to "fracking go!" before jumping into the still-open back of the gyrothoper as it started to pull away. He clambered into the seat opposite Deryn.

Harkness breathed a sigh of relief and took of his combat helmet. Underneath was a red night-watch style cap.

He glanced up, directly at Deryn.

"Hey, you're Deryn Sharp." It was a statement, not a question.

"Aye, that's me." Deryn replied slowly, not sure what to think of the boy's knowledge of her secret. Harkness seemed to notice this and smiled slightly.

"The el-tee and Sarge Marasco filled us in on you after the party." He said, glancing down to inspect something on his helmet. "Glad to actually meet you."

"Aye." Deryn replied shifting in her seat. It wasn't the most comfortable thing ever, and it made her bum ache slightly. She glanced out back of the gyrothoper, which was still open.

Through it, she could see what she'd been blind to hiding inside the mansion; several rather nasty looking walkers, each bearing the flag of Germany, unloading round after round into the building. One seemed to notice them, and turned to engage, but the gyrothoper was now too high to be hit by anything the walker carried. The door closed itself, sealed by a mechanikal mechanism of some form. The gyrothoper climbed faster, an acceleration Deryn could feel in her stomach.

"Gotta say, MacPherson's going to be happy to see you again," Harkness spoke suddenly. Deryn turned back to him.

"Oh?" She asked.

"Yeah. She's been singing your praises for a while now. She does like her 'warrior women' or whatever." Harkness shrugged again. A sudden smile played across his lips. "Not so sure Marasco's going to be too happy about his though."

"Is he here?" Deryn asked, glancing down along the bench for any sign of the Sergeant. Harkness shook his head.

"Nah. The lucky Sierra Oscar Bravo got himself a 'special mission' in Paris. Ess-and-are."

"Search and rescue." Deryn muttered, recognizing the acronym.

"Yeah." Harkness looked like he wanted to say more, but he was distracted by the pilot calling out something. He left his seat long enough to listen, then returned. He crossed his arms behind his head.

"Settle in, ladies." He said with a grin. "We got a couple hours till we RV with the Dreadnought."

Deryn was about to ask what a "Dreadnought" was (other than the ocean going ship, obviously), but Harkness had closed his eyes and seemed to be asleep. She settled for leaning against Alek's shoulder and looking out the porthole opposite her.

One way or another, she figured, she was about to find out more about Darwin's Fist than she'd hoped.