Author's Notes:

Here's the new chapter. I enjoyed making up new technologies and describing them, so it's a little long :)

Alek will debut next chapter.


The Polaris Division's training base was nothing Matt had anticipated. He had expected an extensive, icy mountain fortress, carved out of the rock, but in fact it was a small Alpine village in a beautiful little valley, with weapon ranges and airship hangars cut into the side. There were, of course, bunker-type fortifications in the cliffs of the valley, but the main compounds were all in the flatlands disguised as typical Germanic village houses, almost adorably fairy-tale like in atmosphere. Matt had to hand it to the Division; they'd certainly chose a great spot, where the air was so fresh you felt it could lift you right out of bed each morning.

But his good opinion of the place ended here.

Upon his arrival two weeks ago, he'd been introduced to a burly man named Isaac Hemmingfeld, who was, in fact, Eirish. But if Matt had expected anything out of their shared lineage, he was sorely mistaken. Hemmingfeld was born to stomp on people; he had an air of constant irritation, insufferable arrogance, and fists to back him up when insults went askew. And, since the man had the rank of Lieutenant, and was a squadron leader, he was that much better than all of the others in the Division — which meant he looked down on Matt with every atom of his being.

"I had hoped they were joking when they said they got you to represent us." he had remarked upon their first meeting while ignoring Matt's extended hand. "Sadly, I appear to have been mistaken. Please try your best not to die during these two weeks — I do hate paperwork."

Needless to say, in the subsequent time Hemmingfeld seemed dead set on making Matt as miserable as possible — and he'd succeeded disturbingly well. He'd assigned extra loads, extra miles, extra reps, and extra hours. He'd cut shower times, situated Matt's room as far as possible from the lavatories, and during one particularly horrible night, had even cut the power and heating to Matt's isolated unit. He'd oversaw the training personally, and only loosened up a little bit during times of filming. For the first seven days, Matt had ended his days exhausted, in pain, and drenched in sweat. Had he not gone through the Starclimber trainings last year, he would have probably died. It didn't help that his fellow trainees (who were all older than him and about ten times as muscular) steered clear of him altogether; excluding him at tables, talks, training sessions, and basically everything else.

The inconvenience of communication made the whole ordeal even worse. Courier peregrines visited only every two weeks, bringing delayed news and telegrams meant for the members in training. Before he left Paris, Matt had managed to postmark a letter telling Kate his new address, and since then had only received one last letter, which had seemed very hurried. In it she explained that she'd been called on for a diplomatic mission to Constantinople all of a sudden, and that she had successfully replicated the aerozoan's system, but assured him that she will still be back in time for their trip later in August. There were also small mentions of Ellie's first word, but overall she seemed to have been caught off guard and been busy preparing.

Constantinople wasn't far, as the airship flies, but still Matt wondered why a diplomatic mission needed to be sent there now of all times, when every country in Europa was on the brink of war. Kate had told him she'd be perfectly safe, and he had no choice but to believe her. According to her, the ship would get there before the war started, and plus, they were diplomats, and nobody attacked diplomats. Or so he hoped.

Fortunately, after the first week, things started improving a little. Routine physical stuff was still on the schedule, but now there started to be rope climbing, rock climbing, balance training, parawing drops, agility trials, and strafing glider simulations. These, Matt could do (and do damned well), so at least that was something. But at the same time there was combat training — knives, fists, air-guns, actual guns, and even explosives. He wore body armor, like all the trainees, but for someone who wasn't violent by nature and who'd never had the need for self defense, the bewildering array of techniques and weapons gave him constant headaches. Matt worked through everything with a dogged persistence, determined to show Hemmingfeld wrong and prove that he could handle the work, but the Lieutenant never really acknowledged any of his progress. Such endless disapproval was more than enough for anyone to feel despaired. You chose a civilian life, he imagined the Lieutenant say with every single stare. You're a disgrace no matter what you do.

And of course there were the cameras. The camera crew were mostly silent, but they were ubiquitous, present at every single training event, following him everywhere from breakfast to bedtime. There were also interviews, in which he had to speak very loudly to a recording parrot, answering questions like, 'How do you feel about serving in the war?' And the worst part was, none of the answers were his own. He would be handed small sheets of paper with pre-designed answers written on them, so all he really did was read along, full of patriotic bravado and bloodthirsty masculinity. It made him feel like a filthy liar.

"Are you ready, Cruse?" came Hemmingfeld's voice from the door, interrupting his thoughts. Matt sat up on his bunk. His muscles were still in agony from the brutal 6 AM training routines, but after a brief lunch and quick shower, there was a bigger challenge to face in the afternoon.

"Yes," he said, trying to sound confident. The Lieutenant strode in without knocking.

"The much-lauded sky sailor, I've always heard. We'll see how you really measure up soon enough."

Hemmingfeld gave a cursory look around the bare cabin and beckoned him to follow. Shivering a little, Matt got up and out of his room, grabbing his coat along the way. It was bound to be freezing up high despite the sun.

Today was the first time he'd be allowed onboard a Polaris airship, just to learn the ropes. Somewhere in the nearby mountains, a mock of an enemy fortification had been erected, and his task was to find and destroy it, or show that he could and knew what to do. He followed the Lieutenant in silence towards a hidden hangar cut into a cliff, chilled drafts of wind burrowing its way through all the crevices in his jacket and cut at his thin sweater and shirt beneath. He didn't really expect anything from this flight — there weren't even cameras, and the ship would be running on a skeleton crew, armed only in recon mode. He supposed it was all part of the plan, so that in the official, filmed flight this evening, he wouldn't make too big of a fool of himself. He trudged on grimly into the hangar, feeling cold and lonely and miserable. The bright world outside dimmed.

"Well," said Hemmingfeld, gruffly, as he flicked a switch. Harsh electric light flooded the cavern. "I don't understand why they're letting you use her, but here she is, our vessel for today and this evening."

And Matt stopped right in his tracks.

She was a petite airship, not completely organic like the Leviathan, but only partially so. She was perhaps three hundred feet from head to stern, and the front third of her was designed with a sharp cleave, enabling extremes of aerodynamic speed. Glossy black hull plates of fabricated chitin covered her entire length, reinforced by alumiron sheets around the engines and the bow. She had three built-in electrical biomotors on each flank and one Aruba fueled traditional engine on its back, each so well designed that they were no more than bumps along her length. A few fins jutted out from her sleek black surface, fitted with flaps and hydraulics. The bridge was a platform set slightly higher on the bow than most airship designs, with wraparound windows coated with sheet gold and alumiron, for light reflection and lightning protection. Wires were inlaid in the hull in spaces between the armor plates, providing further lightning protection and rapid cooling. And then there were the weapons. Two machine gun posts at the front, two at the back, and two next to the crow's nest at the ridge. There was what appeared to be the bomb bay doors on her belly, and along the midline at both sides, there were entire rows of turrets and swiveling anti-air and anti-ground guns, all stowed flat against the curvature of her form so as to decrease drag. She must look a proper porcupine when engaged in full offensive.

Dark gold letters swirled on a plaque mounted in the hull near the bridge: HMS Valkyrie.

Matt felt like when he first saw the Saga, the involuntary admiration threatening to overwhelm him — this was a fierce ship of grace and utility, all muscle and no wasted space. Seven engines, seven, it must give her the strength of Zephyr himself, and she was already aerodynamic perfection; her top speed would be exhilarating. The flaps were all protected and reinforced and delicate, meaning she would be as supple and yielding as a living pegasus, and by God, what a glorious thing it would be to pilot her! Valkyrie indeed!

Hemmingfeld smiled at him, and for the first time since Matt's known the man, the expression was genuine. No sky sailor, Polaris or not, could fail to love an airship like this. "Not too shabby, huh?"

"She's… she's incredible," Matt said, truthfully.

"You're damn right she is. Eighty-two crew members, fully manned. She's equipped with the newest dolphinesque echolocators, and can hold five strafing gliders. She's also got plenty of firepower. Anti-air guns shoot organic acid pellets and canvas-corroding bacteria; anti-ground ones shoot drills tipped with specialized aqua regia — it'll eat through any Clanker walker as long as they're not too thick. Lots of different aerial bombs as well — mustard gas, tear gas, biolumin flares, smoke bombs, squid ink, slug glue, anything you can think of."

"— slug glue?" Matt asked. "There's something called a slug glue bomb?"

"Ah. We haven't actually tested that one out, but yes. It's a bomb made out of fabricated slug slime made to harden fast. Theoretically, you drop that on a road, and any walker stepping in it will get stuck. Or you drop it on joints and they stick solid. You see, whenever the boffins come up with new things, we get equipped first, as a test run. Most of them do their job properly, but we report back to the boffins so they can make improvements."

Matt wondered if one of Kate's colleagues had come up with the slug glue, and smiled. He bet if he mentioned this to her, she'd start fabricating even more peculiar types of bombs in no time.

"Anyway, enough about the ship," Hemmingfeld said, and his face became an impassive mask once more; the short Valkyrie show-and-tell was done. "As I told you, you'll be flying her until we find the enemy base, just to see if you can to it. Then we'll come back here and wait until the official flight in the evening. Whether or not you — or anyone else — can get some rest between now and then all depends on your ability."

Matt frowned. "What do you mean, anyone else?"

Hemmingfeld raised an eyebrow. "You didn't honestly think we were going to fly this, just the two of us, did you?" He saluted out of nowhere, and Matt realized that people must already be on the bridge, waiting — the sheet gold covering the glass made it so that outsiders could not peer in. Matt felt his face grow hot; of course such a sophisticated airship could never have been manned by just two. This wasn't the Aurora, this was something designed for war.

As if responding to the salute, the Vakyrie's front lights flickered on. Her bomb bay door opened like a gangway extending down, until it was just a foot off the ground.

"Wait, are there no ground crew?" Matt asked.

"No. The Valkyrie's designed for battlefield landings and take-offs; we don't need a ground crew."

"Then how —"

"Please kindly get on board first; the others can tell you about the ship as we fly. The mock is two hours away; I would like to have supper before we do the official one."

ooo

The bridge of the Valkyrie was typical for a Darwinist airship — inlaid with fabricated wood panels sporting intricate patterns, all the equipment melting into the interface as if they were just part of a living creature. Matt spotted several complex dials and levers, seven throttles for the engines, the main wheel, speaking tubes to machine gun posts, and altogether a dazzling array of other equipment. There was what he thought must be an altimeter, and the incredibly fiddly looking echolocation display. A peculiar piece of what looked alarmingly like skin was also mounted on the paneling; it was pure green with with occasional red and blue dots that flicker on and off at what seemed like random locations.

The man in charge of the bridge was another Lieutenant, but far more mild-mannered. Introducing himself as Trenton, he looked to be in his early thirties with a shadow of a beard, and though he may not have been friendly exactly, he was civil and took a bit of time to explain how everything worked.

"That's our electric and heat sensor," Trenton told him, pointing at the mounted skin. "Modified from sharks. The display here is fabricated cuttlefish tissue; changes color according to where things are. Red means heat, blue means electricity. Think of it as a top-down map, with us at the center, though unfortunately it's not too sensitive."

"What do you need it for?"

"Electric imbalances in the air that we can avoid, for one, like a building thunderstorm. That, and most Clanker technology produces a lot of heat; this gives us some warning."

Matt nodded.

"Trenton, we'll explain along the way," interjected Hemmingfeld. "Cruse wants to know how our docking system works, so just tell him about that, and up ship."

Trenton blinked. "Right. Well, since we don't usually have a ground crew, we use harpoon guns that shoot out fabricated spider silk. The shot end can be highly adhesive, but along the length of the line is a neuron that allows us to control when. We harpoon the main line to a mooring spot we want, send the axon signal, and it will turn sticky and attach to the surface of whatever it is we're mooring on. Then we cast out supporting lines in the same fashion and pull ourselves down by winches. The silk is constantly regenerating, so it's disposable, and we can just cut it off from our side if we want to get up and away. Right now we are secured by a main line and twenty other supporting lines, which can all be cast off here on the bridge. Make sure we're aerostatic before you do it, so we don't go shooting up."

It was a marvelously simple strategy, and the winches meant that the airship can get back on air in an instant if danger approached. Suitable for quick drop missions and fast equipment deployment. He could only imagine the cost as being prohibitively high, or every Darwinist airship would have long started using this efficient docking system.

"Well, now you know, what are you waiting for?" Hemmingfeld said impatiently. "Up ship. And please don't wreck it, or the General will probably have us all hanged."

Matt took a deep breath and looked across at the control panels. Almost instantly he identified the ballast board and the gas cells, and after a second figured out how to read the strain percentage on the mooring lines. All Service airships used hydrogen instead of hydrium, but fortunately so did many of the poorer airliners and cargo ships, so the Academy had drilled it into his head the relative lift ratios of the two gases, and he had an intuitive sense of how much he needed to vent. He did so now, and saw that the tension decreased dramatically.

He double checked all the figures, before nodding back at Trenton, who flicked a series of switches on his side. Green light lit up one by one on the status of each winch, indicating they've successfully detached the silk landing lines. Matt then passed the signal to the already rumbling engines, engaging two at each side to all ahead dead slow.

Gently, the airship inched forward, like a cat testing the waters. The hangar entrance was wide, so Matt had no fear on this account. He angled some of the fins according to the wind he had felt back when he was entering the place, so the ship would exit as calmly as possible. Swift and smooth like a eel slipping out of its burrow, they emerged into the open air. The sunlight was filtered through the protective casing of the bridge, and seemed much softer.

"Huh," said Hemmingfeld. "Not as disastrous as I thought it might be."

"Have some faith in me, Lieutenant," said Matt, feeling pleased with himself. There was something about being at the helm of an airship — it calmed him down and made him more confident. He would never talk to Hemmingfeld like that had he not been piloting.

The officer too, seemed a little surprised. "Then earn it," he said after a moment. "Show me. Prove it."

Matt dumped ballast, and gloried in the sudden heaviness in his heels that signified the rise. He ordered all the engines engaged and throttled them to half power. The Valkyrie's sleek form gave an eager lurch forward, before the steady pitch took over and she gradually increased her speed. At half power, the ship was already faster than many older airships at full speed, which Matt had to admit was quite something indeed.

"Elevators up three degrees," he said into the speaking tubes, and registered the slight shift with his body. Then he turned to Hemmingfeld and grinned, feeling the power of the skies at his back. "Mark my words, sir. By the end of this mission, I will have earned your faith."

ooo

Riding the Valkyrie at full speed reminded Matt of riding the Saga, except the Valkyrie was even faster. Swaths of snowy peaks and silent forests passed by beneath them in a blur, almost too swiftly to be properly seen. He felt that if ever Santa Claus had a sleigh, this must be what it was like — on top of a storm gale, seeming almost still and yet with the raw force of nature behind you.

The ship was supple and yielding, gentle adjustments enough to bring swift and remarkably stable changes in direction or height. She was quiet as well, all but part of the background, a whistling nimbus shooting past. As they flew, Trenton dutifully outlined all the rest of the ship's arsenal of fire and explained each post so Matt would know what part of the ship was currently manned. Ordinarily, the Valkyrie had a combat crew of forty-seven: twenty-two gunners, five bomb bay operators, five strafing glider pilots, and fifteen melee boarding repellers who also functioned as paratroopers. However, being flown by a skeletal crew in recon mode, none of the ship's weapons were currently engaged. Most manpower went instead to the engines: there were fourteen engineers onboard, plus two lookouts, a recon specialist, and the three officers on the bridge. Three sailmakers were here as well, out of the usual five, which marked a grand total of twenty-three men out of the possible eighty-two — not even a third of the ship's full might. The evening's flight would be the real deal, the cameras depicting the Valkyrie at the height of her power, but at the moment the airship was a husk. Not that they were in any danger of an aerial attack — they were in southern Switzerland, far from the aquatic German airbase at Lake Constance, and plus they weren't even at war yet. Most people at base expected the declaration to come in a few days, but for now the Germans were technically peaceful.

Suddenly a voice came through from the crow's nest speaking tube.

"Sir! I see something!" said the aft crow's nest lookout.

Matt thought it was perhaps not protocol to respond to a 'sir' since he certainly didn't outrank the lookout and wasn't even a soldier, so he let Hemmingfeld answer.

"What is it?" the Lieutenant asked. "What did you see?"

"It's — circling around the — oh Lord it's heading towards the bridge."

"Not helpful. What is it?"

"I don't know, sir, but it's not a threat. A bird of some kind. Approaching due port."

All three of them looked out towards the left, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. Moments later, Matt was the first one to spot it; a dark spot weaving in and out of the clouds, very nimble, and fast.

"There!" he pointed. As if recognizing the ship, the dot suddenly dashed straight over to them, and in a second it had grown large enough to identify — it was a dark blue messenger peregrine, the fastest avianesque ever fabricated. Even as they watched, it flew circles around the bridge and then doubled back, screeching. Given that the Valkyrie was at full speed, it was a very impressive maneuver.

"Unexpected," said Hemmingfeld, walking towards the window. He unlatched it and leaned his weight against the frame, which swung out easily.

"Cruse, throttle back," said Trenton.

"Right," Matt said, and gave the signal to the engine crew. He set the wheel at a gentle turn, so they would keep circling in the air, then turned back.

The large bird shot inside once the gap was wide enough for its regal 6 feet wingspan to fit through. After a cursory glance, it went to perch on Hemmingfeld's shoulders, and seemed to shrink to half its size as it closed its wings and nestled its head into its feathers. The Lieutenant checked the origin tag on its neck.

"From the Leviathan," he announced, striding back to his post.

"Unexpected alright," Trenton said. "Let's hear what they have to tell us." He took out a small wax-like cube and let the bird smell it. These cubes were the Darwinist's way to make sure that intervessel communication remained secure. It contained certain pheromones that unlocked the messenger animal's memories, allowing it to deliver. "Relay message," Trenton commanded after waiting for a few seconds for the pheromone to do its job.

The bird opened its beaks, and the three of them held their breath expectantly.

"Greetings," the peregrine said in an authoritative, gravelly voice. "This is Captain Hobbes of the Leviathan, originally en route to Constantinople. Last night, we were attacked by ten German aircraft and a zeppelin, all eliminated, but we've been badly hit and have forced a landing on a glacier, at coordinates 46.81 degrees North and 8.85 degrees East. Our situation is dire: we have seven crewmen dead and five lost last night, our engines are heavily damaged, and though we are airtight after patching, we lost twenty percent of our hydrogen, and do not have enough stored supplies to get airborne once more. We are also carrying two important scientists and their cargoes of paramount urgency, which must not fall into enemy hands. To any friendly vessels in nearby airspace: we will be in German air assault range, we will be completely defenseless, and we are requesting immediate assistance. End message."

The bird closed its beaks and its head drooped. Hemmingfeld put it on a perch, and it closed its eyes, no doubt exhausted. No one spoke for some time.

Then Matt slammed the seven throttles all the way down, a signal for full speed ahead. He grabbed the wheel and set their heading towards coordinates, feeling the engines start up once more.

"Stop, Cruse! We must go back for reinforcements —" said Trenton.

"Cruse, what in the blazes are you —" said Hemmingfeld. "We have to go back."

"No," Matt said. "We go now."

"What? Look, I know you want to go help them, but the Valkyrie is not equipped for combat right now."

"We have to try," Matt said.

"We will. But what we will do first, is follow protocol and go back to resupply ourselves. It'll only be an hour and a half going back."

"And it will take six more hours to get there from base." Matt said. "Only four from here."

"Listen: they were shot down, so the Germans must have declared war. We have to at least get word back to the base and —"

"Send a bird," Matt said tersely. His knuckles were white on the wheel.

"We'll do that too," said Trenton. "But we need to get more men, and lots of supplies." He exchanged a look with Hemmingfeld. "Also, the General has explicitly forbidden us to let you into any situation where you might be in danger."

"Right. Now the war's really started, lad, we've got to keep you safe at base. Leave it to the professionals."

"I do not answer to your General," Matt said. "I do not care about your General. We go now."

Trenton rubbed his forehead, at a loss. His colleague spat out a "bloody hell," and stepped forward to reach out for the wheel himself.

Matt looked over his shoulders at the man. He felt dizzy, and his heart was thumping like a beast trapped in his ribcage. With a quick twist and an elbow blow he knocked Hemmingfeld away from the controls, and for once, the Lieutenant looked stunned.

"You assaulted a ranking officer," he said after he regained his composure. "Stop now or you will be committing mutiny and treason, and I will be forced to subdue you. Step aside or face the consequences."

"No," Matt said, quietly. "You stand down, sir, or you might as well kill me now."

"What? Are you mad? You're acting the fool trying to be a hero! Who are you doing it for? The cameras aren't even —"

"Damn the cameras to hell — damn everything — My wife is on that ship."


Author's Notes:

In case anyone was wondering, the coordinates point to the Hüfi glacier in Switzerland; a sizable glacier close to the Austrian border and around 6500-8000 ft. in height, which I thought fits the bill quite nicely.