Author's Notes:

Almost the end of the Leviathan arc. Bear with me! I really enjoyed this chapter because it was the first major Clanker-perspective chapter I got to write without any canonical influence. Please review, as always, and thank you to all who encouraged me last chapter.


Alek couldn't believe what he'd heard.

Faking a surrender?

The mere thought of the treacherous act left a bad taste in his mouth. Perfidy was virtually unheard-of in civilized warfare, and forbidden by International Law besides. The United Kingdom, with her Empire behind her, was one of the primary signatories of the Hague Convention a mere seven years ago. He remembered his father leading the Austro-Hungarian delegation, and describing it to him afterwards.

"Do we have to follow these rules, even when we're fighting Darwinists?" a young Alek had asked, sitting on his father's lap, after the man had finished explaining to him the articles of the Convention.

"Mein Gott, what a warlike little prince you are," his father had said. "Papa is working very hard to make sure we don't ever have to fight the Darwinists."

"But we'll beat them!" young Alek had exclaimed, waving a toy Stormwalker in his hand. He'd just received a full battalion of them as present, and had been quite fond of decimating fields of such Darwinist abominations as pebbles, pinecones, and balls of grass with his invincible mechanikal army.

"Maybe so, Alek." Franz Ferdinand had said, smiling with a gentle twinkle. "But that doesn't mean we have to."

"Herr Volger said a fencer had to strike and gain advantage over every possible weakness in the enemy."

"And Herr Volger is right. But War is not fencing, my son. War is not a sport. You'll learn this in time."

"But Papa! How can anyone remember to follow those rules when they are trying to cleanse the Darwinists' ungodly creations from God's good earth?"

"Oh, Alek," his father had said, suddenly far away. "The monsters may be ungodly, but the men are still men."

Alek hadn't quite understood what his father had meant, at that time, and had quite forgotten about it during dinner. But later that night before bed, the Archduke had gone to his son's bedroom, and sat down on a bed too large and luxurious for any eight-year-old.

"I want you to remember something, my son," the man had said, his mustache casting a dancing shadow in the candlelight. "No matter our differences with the Darwinists, we must abide by the rules of war and of civilization. Do you understand?"

"Oh, not this again, Papa! I thought you were here to tell me something more interesting!"

Franz Ferdinand had just ruffled his son's hair, a childish gesture Alek had begun to resent back then. How he wished his father's hand could ruffle his hair now, just one more time.

"Alek, you may not think it's important," the Archduke had said before blowing out the lights, "but those rules make the only difference between war and savagery."

It was a moment with his father that he'd never quite forgotten, the kinds of memories that didn't particularly stand out from the sea of other ones, but could always be easily recalled. And as he grew older, and learned about war and history like any prince was required to, he appreciated the moment more and more.

His father had been part of the making of those rules. He had signed in the name of Austria-Hungary, promising that the Convention was as good as law in the lands of Hapsburg.

And now, the British ship was about to violate those very rules.

His father's memory.

"You mustn't!" the words were out of his mouth before he knew it, hurtled into the speaking tube.

"Cruse, give the order," said Hemmingfeld, again.

"Wait, perhaps Alek does have a point," said the young sky sailor. "Shouldn't we —"

"Give the order, or I'll do it myself."

"Ruthless," Volger said beside him, in German. The wildcount had a glint in his eyes that Alek couldn't quite place. "And clever, if unsavory."

"Sir, this is a breach of International Protocol!" Alek tried again, this time choosing his words more carefully. He couldn't risk angering the man, so he decided he could use a subtle threat. "Would the Admiralty allow it?"

"The Admiralty wouldn't know," Hemmingfeld said nonchalantly. "And neither will the Luftstreitkräfte. Crow's nest, do you read?"

He couldn't do this, Alek thought. He mustn't. It was a blatant disregard for any human decency, and insubordination besides.

"Young master!" Klopp said. He gestured at the makeshift device he and Hoffman had been tinkering on. They had brought it to the cargo bay in hopes of getting a better reception. "Listen!"

It crackled a bit, faint voices audible, and then Klopp turned the dial a fraction of a degree, and a man's voice was barking in German.

[—repeat; if target does not begin descent in five minutes, authorized to fire again aiming at bridge…]

Their very own radio. 'Clanker secret'.

It had been tough work building one. Where machinery was concerned, Darwinists often had an odd notion of what's right and what's not. Their machinists kept the trivial tools and parts well stocked, yet squandered the most useful. Hoffman and Klopp had to improvise heavily for the radio's speakers to even function. The result was crude, static-ridden, and limited to a short range, but functional, and doing its job beautifully well nonetheless.

Of course, none of it would've mattered but for Volger's knowledge of the German military transmission frequencies, acquired during his stint as a cavalry instructor for their mounted corps. Clankers generally considered it impossible for Darwinists to build, and let alone operate, radios for communication, so they rarely bothered with encryption or frequency shuffling.

"Well, that's that," said Volger. "Aleksandar, stop trying, it's clear they aren't going to listen to you."

Alek ignored his mentor. "Sir, we can communicate with the Germans!" he said into the speaking tube urgently, one more time.

"Get back to the central machine room," Hemmingfeld scoffed with simple disdain. "It is under our grace that you remain a guest, not a prisoner. Better keep that in mind."

"I told you," said Volger with a shrug.

Alek wanted to gnash his teeth. For a moment, he considered telling the man who he really was. It mattered little; the two scientists had more or less guessed, or at least they suspected, and if they hadn't already shared the information with the Leviathan, they must soon report to their superiors or whoever was in charge of them; though Alek had to admit that it was very difficult imagining someone being in charge of Dr. Barlow.

But wait. The scientists! The Vermillion Charter!

Alek remembered the little snippet of information he'd overheard in the Darwinists' meeting. That Barlow woman had the power to commandeer the ship if she so chooses! She could override Hemmingfeld's folly!

"I'm going back to the machine room!" he announced, already letting his feet move him.

"What in God's name for?" Volger called after him.

"To stop this! Perfidy is a disgrace!"

"You will do no such thing," the Count said. It wasn't exactly loud, but there was enough of the old fencing master in him that Alek stopped.

"Count?" he asked, frowning.

"Are we to contact them anyway, without the Darwinists' permission?" asked Klopp, pointing at the radio.

"Yes," said Volger. "We should commence with our plan."

Alek protested. "But if we don't stop the Darwinists —"

"We go along with them," Volger said. "We help them achieve their goal."

Alek felt himself gape. He stared at the man, who met him straight on with a steely gaze. He couldn't believe it. Volger, his father's closest friend and confidante. The man who'd tolerated him for his father's sake. Surely, Volger would know what this meant to him; to his father; to them all. He waited for the wildcount to take back what he'd said.

"You are not a child anymore, Aleksandar," Volger told him wearily. "And we did not come so far, to be stopped here. Haven't you wondered what I was planning when I asked Klopp to build the radio?"

Mutely, Alek shook his head.

"And yet you went along with it, without question. You are far too trusting, Alek."

"And what would you have me do?" Alek asked, his voice rising slightly. He clamped down on his anger. "I trust, have trusted, everyone in this room with my life."

"I would have you be cautious. You are among friends, but beyond this room nothing is certain." He gave a little snort, almost a laugh. "I planned to radio the Germans to tell them you had escaped."

"What?"

"I would pretend like we had a falling-out with the Darwinists. We were captured and escorted in their ship. Only you and a man named Volger escaped in a smaller walker we'd stowed away before —"

"We don't have a smaller walker stowed away!" Alek spluttered.

"And the Germans would know that how?"

"Well, fine, but you can't impersonate someone else while talking about yourself! They'll —"

"They'll what?" the Count eyed him steadily.

Alek hung his head. "…And then?"

"And then I would tell them we managed to make a bomb on board the airship." Volger's mustache twitched upwards in a slight smirk. "Finally, I would tell them, if their Himmelbrecher fires on the ship one more time, we detonate the bomb, and the Leviathan detonates theirs. We would never be taken alive, and they would lose us and both the Darwinist airships, without gaining a clue as to where you went. I would force them to offer us terms, and work it out from there."

Alek stared at his fencing instructor, trying to cover his shock and put as much of… sternness, into his eyes as possible. "It's a very thorough plan," he said, trying to make himself appear in command, "for such a short notice."

It was actually barking ridiculous (as Dylan would've put it).

The battle had not even been adjoined for five minutes, before Hoffman was asked to start assembly on the radio, as if they'd discussed this before. And an hour later, Volger had already come up with a plan to wriggle a ceasefire from the Germans, barely after the Himmelbrecher revealed itself? Was nothing out of his calculations?

"I had a long time to think," Volger answered calmly. "I like to be prepared — a trait you did not seem to have inherited from your father. Has it ever occurred to you what our position would've been like, if the Darwinists lost this engagement?"

Alek opened his mouth. Closed it again. He could hear the Crow's Nest giving the affirmative for the white flag. Hemmingfeld saying something about starting descent. The perfidy was being put into action.

[Can confirm white flag on ship! Cease fire, cease fire! Await further command…] the radio sputtered.

Volger sighed. "It was always both your strongest and weakest spot, compassion. It is what will make you a great Emperor. But here, Aleksandar, it is only going to get you killed. I know what the Hague Convention means to you, Alek. And don't look so absurdly surprised; your father was the one to suggest several of the additions, you know. He considered it one of his finest diplomatic moments, along with the Geneva Convention the year prior. He would doubtless have boasted of it to you."

For a moment, the man's calm eyes flickered in sorrow, but it was so fleeting Alek thought he might have been mistaken.

"But then… if you knew…"

"Alek!" the man said, loud enough to jolt him. His eyes were steel-hard. "What have the Germans done to us?"

Alek stammered. "Just… just because they —"

"They have tried to kill us on their land, without fair trial. They have violated Swiss neutrality by sending forces here. They have assaulted a vessel immediately after a declaration of war, knowing it would have been a surprise. They have murdered your parents." Volger took a breath. "And you still think they deserve honor?"

"I — no — the Convention isn't —"

"Alek, men have died — will gladly die — for you. Your father has died for you. If Franz really had to choose, his son's life would've been above any Convention. Do not throw it away so lightly."

Alek felt the truth behind those words. He'd never, ever missed his father as much as he missed him that moment, and it took everything he had to keep the tears behind his eyes.

"So what will you do now?" he asked hoarsely. He eyed his crew. His family. Klopp averted his eyes. Bauer nodded tersely. Hoffman bowed his head. Had they all known? Did they all have a part in this… plot? Perhaps he was too naive to lead them, or to ensure their safety. He had put all his eggs in the basket that the Valkyrie would win. Or if not, that they would at least escape, and live. Nobody had counted on the Himmelbrecher being installed, but wasn't this the exact sort of thing a leader should've anticipated, and planned for? Volger certainly had.

"Now," the wildcount said, "since our Darwinist friends had been a deal more competent than I'd imagined, and seem quite ready to break some rules themselves… our story changes a little."

"How, Count?"

Volger growled suddenly. "First, perhaps you might ask if the good Doctor would be so kind to join us?"

And Dr. Barlow's slim shadowy figure stepped primly through the partially ruined entrance. Alek stared at her, dumbfounded. Since when was she there?

"Pardon my intrusion, gentlemen," she said airily, with near-perfect German. "We meet again, Count Volger."

"Indeed, Doctor," said Volger, drily. There was no point in denying or playing pretend. "Might I inquire as to your business here?"

She ignored him and smiled at Alek. "And very nice to see you here, Aleksandar… von Hohenberg, I presume?"

Volger's jaw hardened. Alek felt a dryness in his mouth. He looked at the diabolical woman, her bowler hat perched impeccably on her tall head, peering at him so confidently he was suddenly quite tired of it all. He could only say, "At your service, madame," before the confession seemed to drain him of all his strength.

"As I am at yours." She nodded, and a flicker of surprise passed in her face, as if she couldn't quite believe he'd admitted it, just like that. "I am truly, terribly sorry about your parents, Alek," she added softly, ignoring the homicidal glances from Volger and bending down a little to look him level in the eye. "That must have been dreadful."

The worst thing was, he supposed, that the regret seemed genuine. "Thank you, Doctor," Alek said. He couldn't face the clear depth of her eyes. His voice was very tight.

"If I may ask, do the other Darwinists know?" Volger snapped. "The Captain? The other girl fabricator?"

"I have not told the Captain," Dr. Barlow answered diplomatically. "Nor Dr. Busk. My colleague, however, does suspect. And before you say anything else, Count, I plan for the situation to remain this way."

Volger glared at the woman, as if gauging the veracity of her words. She looked at him, unperturbed.

"You have our thanks," he said after a few seconds.

"Not at all. It is beneficial to both of us that Alek's identity remain hidden. Now… I believe I heard something sounding remarkably close to a radio?"

[Target has dropped one hundred meters!] cried the said device. [Continue to hold fire!]

"Ah," said Dr. Barlow. "I wondered what all of you were building back there, in the machine room, and thought it might've been exactly this. Might I ask your plan, Count?"

"If you haven't already heard it yourself."

"Please, I arrived only minutes ago, after all of you slipped out one by one on some flimsy excuse, and took the device besides."

"Doctor," Alek said, "do you know the ship is about to engage in perfidy?"

Volger sighed. "Aleksandar," he warned.

"I do," Dr. Barlow answered. "And I know what you're thinking. Not honorable. Not legal. But we will deal with the international backlash when we come out of this ordeal, alive."

"You would do nothing to stop it, then?"

"Correct. But a direct radio link with them can be very useful. Count, I believe you might want to explain?"

Volger gritted his teeth and didn't answer. Instead he said, "Hoffman, switch to transmission mode."

Hoffman eyed Dr. Barlow somewhat uncertainly, but nodded and cranked up some knobs. Though the device had been built too hastily for indicator lights to be added, the way the speaker static changed indicated that it was now in transmission mode. "There," the master engineer said, gesturing at a button. "Press that when talking, it should work."

"Wait, the antenna!" Bauer said, adjusting a thin metal tendril to point out of the gaping hole in the cargo bay floor. "Now it is ready, sir."

Volger cleared his throat. "It is alright, Hans?"

Bauer gave him a quick nod. "My honor, sir."

"Good man."

"Count?" Dr. Barlow said again. "I am still waiting for you to enlighten me."

Volger shot her a glance, pressed the button on the radio, and started to speak.

"Hello? Can anyone read me? Can anyone read me?"

His voice had changed; not as gravelly, not as hoarse. It was silky and deep but seemed tight with energy or panic. Alek could not take his eyes off his fencing instructor, mesmerized. Even when they had been unsure of their survival, there was never panic in Volger's voice. To hear the man now… it was jarring, to say the very least. Even Dr. Barlow blinked.

The response was near immediate.

[Wer ist das? Identify yourself!]

"Thank God!" Volger exclaimed dramatically. The tone was so out of his usual calculating calmness that despite the situation, Alek had to suppress a smile. "This is Hans Bauer of the Hapsburg Guard!"

There was a moment of silence, and then swearing. [The deserters with the Prinz! You are working with that Darwinist ship!? Traitors, traitors to God, all of you!]

"Are Clankers always this dramatic?" Dr. Barlow whispered in English. Alek held his tongue.

"We did not work with them!" Volger shouted. "We were detained against our will!"

[Your Sturmwanderer has killed an entire squadron! You have the blood of innocents upon your hands! The blood of your brethren!]

It was something ironic in those words. As if you don't, Alek thought, suddenly furious.

He'd seen the white cloths in the snow next to the Leviathan. He'd seen the way they shot at him while he was on the run. He'd seen — imagined — his parents' bodies lying in state at the chapel of Hofburg, and their silent passage through the streets of Vienna, before finally disappearing beneath the crypts of Artstetten. As if you don't.

But then he thought about the cannon he'd ordered fired. The men he'd shot at with the walker's Spandau. The men he'd helped the Darwinists kill.

As if anyone doesn't.

Volger responded vehemently, dragging Alek back to the present. "Our Prinz was their hostage, we had no choice!"

[Silence, traitorous swine!] barked the operator. [You and your Darwinist friends will meet your maker soon enough.]

"Nein! We have been betrayed!" Volger said, with equal parts indignation and fear. "We have been promised freedom once we helped the Darwinists, but instead we had no choice but to build a radio for them!"

Alek was beginning to think it a great pity the man hadn't pursued a career in acting.

[I knew it! You gave the technology to the Darwinists!]

"No, you don't understand, they have killed him!" Volger said. "Killed him and Count Volger, too! Our Prinz! Our poor Prinz!"

"Oh," said Alek. Beside him, Bauer went into a fit of coughing.

"Apparently we killed you, my dear," said Dr. Barlow.

[What?] said the radio operator. [The Prinz has died? Is this certain?]

"Yes! Have the Darwinists offered truce yet?"

[Did you have something to do with that?] exclaimed the radio operator.

"We forced them to! We planted a bomb. We have forced the Darwinists to surrender, otherwise we would detonate."

[You what? Bauer, say that again? You what?]

"We planted a bomb."

The operator spluttered. [Aber Wie?]

"It doesn't matter! We are tired of running. We want our freedom!"

[You will surrender together with the Darwinists] said the operator. [Do not detonate that bomb! I repeat, do not detonate!]

"Never!" seethed Volger. "We have been prisoners too long! Never again!" He turned his head to the side, so he wouldn't be speaking directly into the radio. "Herr Klopp, there is no hope. Do it!"

[Nein! Nein! Tue das nicht!] cried the operator. [You and your comrades can go free! When the airship lands!]

"We do not trust your words. We will detonate when the ship falls below five hundred meters."

[Nein—]

And then there was a bit of shuffling around from the radio. When it next sounded, a different voice spoke.

[This is Air Colonel Gustaf Engel of the Bodensee Luftstützpunkt,] he said. His voice was very deep, resonating almost, and Alek imagined a barrel-chested gentleman officer with a cigar in his hand. [I will be brief: we desire the Darwinist ship intact. Speak your terms, Hans Bauer.]

Volger exchanged a look with Dr. Barlow.

"We want to be able to go free after the airship lands! You will not pursue us, nor fire on us!"

[You have my word,] Engel said. [We desire only the ship, now that the Prinz is dead.]

"Tell them to aim the Skycrusher away," Dr. Barlow said in English, very quietly, her voice almost inaudible in the roaring of the engines.

"Aim the Himmelbrecher away from us!" Volger added. "We will not suffer another betrayal!"

[We will when your ship has fallen below seven hundred meters.] Engel responded calmly. [And you must tell the Darwinists to stow their turrets, allow our ships to come close to you, and not melt it with acid.]

"Tell them the truth," Dr. Barlow said in English. "That we have none left."

Volger raised his eyebrows. "We have conveyed your terms," he said to the radio. "And the Darwinists do not have acid bombs anymore; they used it all up!"

[Very well.] said Engel. [Then we will have two ships escort you to the ground, the rest will watch from afar, to assure you of our good intentions. You will allow our men to do an inspection among your party to see if the Prinz is hiding amongst you.]

"He is dead!" roared Volger. "Killed as much by you as by the Darwinists!"

[Don't be foolish.] Engel said. [We only wished to treat the Prinz with respect and civility before returning him to Seine Majestät Franz Josef, and it is a great regret such a young life was ended so soon by Darwinist brutality. I see they have stowed their turrets; have they agreed to our terms?]

Volger looked over to Dr. Barlow in a silent question.

"Can the gun fire straight up?" the fabricator whispered to Klopp in German.

"Nein," said the old mechanik. "Eighty degrees."

"I see," she said, switching to English. She gave Volger a short nod. "We can take the risk. Hemmingfeld plans to bomb the gun; if we make it directly over them before they refocus the barrel on us, we will cripple it despite two other ships tailing us."

"They accept," said Volger into the radio.

[Very good,] said Engel. [I see that your ship continues to drop; we will turn the gun away once you drop below seven hundred meters.]

"If you do not, we will detonate," said Volger. "Remember that, Colonel."

[You have my word, Hans Bauer.] said the man with a gravelly chuckle. [And Gustaf Engel is a man of his words.]

Volger lifted his finger from the radio button, and the device stopped its constant crackle of static.

"I have done all I can," he said to Dr. Barlow, in near-perfect English. "It is up to you to utilize this window."

"Worry not, my dear Count," the scientist responded. She walked over to the cargo bay speaking tube. "Lieutenant Hemmingfeld? This is Dr. Barlow. I believe we have some welcome news for you."


Author's Note (Really long, sorry!)

1. Perfidy in war explicitly means to raise a false surrender or truce, with the intention of breaking it. When not used in the context of war, it's synonymous with treachery.

2. The Hague Conventions (1899, 1907) are two international treaties dealing with the rule of war and the waging of humane war. The Geneva Protocol is a treaty in 1925, following the Hague Conventions, which limits the use of chemical weapons due to international outcry against mustard gas and other gases in WWI. It's often confused with the Geneva Convention below.

3. The Geneva Conventions are a series of international treaties concerning humanitarian rules and treatment of personnels in war. There have been four Conventions (1864, 1906, 1929, 1949). In this fic, the 1906 Convention is the one being referenced.

4. Franz Ferdinand never really took much of a role in international politics; the Archduke had his hands full with domestic affairs. So the part about him leading the delegation is pure fiction. The historical Franz Ferdinand was said to be lacking in both charisma and social aptitude, with a quick temper besides, so perhaps not the greatest diplomat.

5. The Archduke and duchess were buried at Artstetten castle, a property of Franz Ferdinand, due to his wishes to be buried alongside Sophie, and her interment not being allowed in the Hapsburg Imperial Crypt. Their funeral march passed, sadly, without much mourning by the Viennese public, and cruelly their three children were forbidden to attend the funeral at the Hofburg Imperial Palace chapel.

6. Lake Constance is called the Bodensee in German.

7. German titles are confusing. Alek's title might have been either Fürst or Prinz, I couldn't find the exact difference between those two. The English translation for either would be Prince.