Chapter 5
A/N: I hope the OC's are a nice treat. In this chapter we find out that Alek, contrary to popular belief, and epitome of randomness, is not a ninny. By the way, is my writing too ornate? Just wondering.
The siren howled from around the ship, followed by gunshots. Jaspert seemed to understand the insistent noise as some call to action, and, with several other soldiers, made a beeline to the top of the ship. Alek followed, bewilderedly wondering why someone was attacking two airships at the same time. Jaspert had other worries, though.
"How did anyone get close enough to the Leviathan and the Minotaur? Aren't there any spotters on duty?"
The pair raced to the gut, then began to climb an inner ladder to the spine. Alek was still trying to figure out why someone would try to engage both ships when they couldn't possibly win, when a horrifying thought struck him.
"What if the spotters saw them and just didn't report them. What if the spotters knew the attack was coming?"
Jaspert cast a glance over his shoulder, looking down on Alek. "I don't think so. You'd have to be crazy to try that in the middle of hostile territory." Climbing faster, jasper and Alek reached the spine. Around them, soldiers scrambled to position, trying to get a bead on the attacker. High above a Huxley ascender peered down on the airbeast. Jaspert pointed at it. "See, they had to have reported the attack."
Alek almost told jasper how flawed that argument was when he saw the aero plane. The aircraft was missile shaped, the front bulging out, than tapering along the end to a stream of white smoke. A pair of green ethereal wings jutted from the sides, flickering and fluctuating as though they were made of fire.
Turning to see what Alek was staring at, Jaspert's mouth dropped open at the sight of the aero plane. But before either could react, or even alert someone else to it, the plane vanished.
Alek mentally retraced the path of the plane, trying to figure out what he had just seen. How could it just… vanish into thin air? Dread slowly crept back into his stomach. If it could disappear like that, it was little wonder as to how it had managed to get so close. Seconds passed in agonizing slowness, as though the whole world was waiting for the attack to recommence. A low whine filled Alek's ears, his heart thundering against his ribs. Jaspert looked back at Alek, trying to put the impossible sight into words. Soldiers sprinted across the spine, searching the air franticly for the invisible attacker.
The whine Alek had heard started to grow. Before he could ask Jaspert if he heard the noise as well, a sharp wind blew over the back of the whale. Turning to the source of the gust Alek could only stare, dumbfounded for the second time in so many minutes, as the aero plane reappeared, hovering over the Leviathans spine.
And descending.
The half-dozen anti-air batteries on the Leviathan turned to aim at the craft. Anyone with an air gun dropped to a knee and took the range of the craft. Alek stumbled back from the aero plane, Jaspert keeping pace. The Aero plane touched down mid-spine, slowly humming. The flaming wings extinguished themselves, revealing a latticework of cables. Taken as a whole, there wasn't much strangeness to the aero plane as the other weapons that Alek had seen. But then again there wasn't all that much to be strange with. So it did rather odd that the aero plane had landed on the Leviathan, having appeared out of nowhere, vanished, then appeared again, without some much as a warning.
The aero plane sat there for several moments, inert, almost acting as though it had done nothing beyond the norm of the times. Soldiers surrounded the plane. If anything happened, then it would be so much scrap metal in seconds. But somehow, Alek had the feeling that the ship would make it out intact and whole, looking no less as if it had taken a morning stroll. Then the ship did something astounding.
It opened.
The nose of the ship opened, to be precise. The inside was somewhat unadorned, with the exception of two seats, both occupied with what could only be described as a pair of costumed party-goers. The pair, a man and women, descended from the aero plane and stood in the center of the ragged circle of officers that had formed around their craft.
The man stood slightly taller than Alek, and nearly as tall and as old as Jaspert. A long red jacket, embroidered with gold inlay, cut not unlike that of buccaneers, covered his shoulders and reached mid-calf. Similarly red trousers and boots covered the rest of him, save for his head and hands obviously. These were covered with black gloves, and a three pronged hat. Similarly black hair masked most of his features, save for one eye and his mouth. The other eye seemed simply hidden under his hair until Alek noticed the solidarity of the shadow under his eye. This man was missing his left eye.
The women stood to his side, nearly a foot shorter. She wore a garb no less eccentric, and somewhat less conservative. Baggy blue and gray trousers with large gray boots covered her lower half. A mass of fabric surrounded her waist, an oversized bow just slightly above the cloth attached to her back. An almost indecently tight blue and white shirt swathed over her shoulders, reaching down her arms and covering her hands. A green scarf wound its way over most of her face; preventing the men from seeing much of it. A pair of clear, golden eyes stared at the soldiers around her and her companion, scanning the crowd before reaching Alek. Alek felt himself go cold, irrational fear welling inside of him. Then the girl was looking at the other soldiers and Alek relaxed a little.
The man stepped forward and turned to the most official looking man he could see. "We request a meeting with the captain." The man silenced for a moment before adding "And may you have your men lower their guns. They're rather frightening as they are."
The officer started a little before waving his hands in the lower weapons signal, pulling out his whistle to call for a message lizard. The guns went down grudgingly, but they went down all the same. The pair of new comers visibly relaxed with the guns safely pointed away from them.
As the message lizard made its way to the bridge, the man busied himself with talking to the other crewmembers. It was a very one sided conversation for the time it took the captain to arrive. When he did arrive, the man bowed politely. The women did not copy the gesture, but instead took a knee. The man straightened smoothly and spoke;
"Ah Captain, I hoped we could make a more civilized entry on your ship then we did from the air, so it would be best to start with names. I am Jules and this is my companion, Verne. We require asylum on your ship."
Captain Hobbes looked from one to the other before slowly nodding. "And my I asked why you have chosen to visit my ship, especially in the middle of a war?" The subtle threat seemed lost on the newcomer, Gats, who simply waved his hand dismissively and replied;
"You may if you wish, but this is hardly the center of a war. It would seem to be on the right of one though. May you show us to our rooms though?" A look of exhaustion crossed his face. For a moment he seemed aged beyond his time, as though he had come from a distant land and felt the pangs of homesickness. But the look passed a moment later, to be replaced with a sly smile. "You wouldn't happen to have any food, would you?"
The captain assessed the Jules and Verne, trying to find some hidden motive, before saying, "We have as much food as you want. If you would like to, if would bring our doctor to dine with us."
Verne suddenly spoke, a foreign tongue that even Alek couldn't understand. Jules turned to her, then back to the captain. "We would be grateful to except your offer. May I also invite some of your crew to dine with us?"
Captain Hobbes stared at Jules inquisitively, before nodding again. Jules pointed at imperiously at Alek.
"Those two, if you can spare them."
Where Hobbes had been gracious, Jaspert was indignant. "I'm not eating with someone who tried to attack my ship."
Jules smiled a cold, hard smile that had the same effect as Verne's eyes. "We didn't attack. We just decided to make our presence known. It's so boring on our side, so some fun was in order." Another dismissive wave rolled off his arm. "Let's go."
…
Deryn woke with pain throbbing in her arm. This didn't surprise her as much as it would have. She hadn't meant to dislocate her arm, but at least she had managed to kick the sodding clanker that was trying to interrogate her. So it was a net win, insomuch that she had done it.
"You awake?" Deryn propped herself up on her good arm and saw the largest man she had ever seen. Even the room seemed smaller with him in it. "That was an impressive move, dislocating your arm to try and attack my friend." His voice was oddly soft for a man his size. Deryn tried not to think of what could happen to her if he got it in his mind to attack her, instead focusing on talking a way out of him.
"I really would like to help you, but I have an airship to catch. And if they catch you, then they're attack you, with me aboard this ship or not." Deryn was assuming they were on an airship, having not seen any structures nearby when her Huxley went down. The giant didn't seem too worried about this though.
"The airship you were on isn't coming to your rescue, soldier. There wasn't an airship before we arrived, and there certainly isn't one now. So it would be better if you simply told us what you know." The man cut across Deryn's attempt to swear at him with; "We aren't your enemies. We only want answers."
Deryn thought about this for a moment. He definitely didn't sound like a clanker, even if his friend did. He actually sounded a little French, if only a little bit. Deryn sighed. There really was no way out, besides giving up what she knew. "What do you want?"
The giant leaned forward intently. "First, why is Charles Darwin on a medal of honor?" That was an odd question, but it couldn't hurt to tell him.
"Because Darwin was the one who first learned to mix life threads and fabricate beasties." Deryn watched the man's face intently, who stared back placidly.
"Life threads?"
"You know, life threads, the thing in your cells that tell you to grow and age and develop."
"Oh you mean DNA. Yes that makes sense."
"Well yeah, well DNA's boffin speak for life threads, but yeah you can call them that."
"Okay, you said something about fabricated animals. What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you know, we made them." Explaining this to the man was getting hard. He seemed less to be asking for military secrets then a full primer on the last fifty years of scientific history. But at least could understand her terminology a little.
"You made them. You mean you genetically engineered them for your own purposes." The man silenced into deep thought for a moment, leaving Deryn to wonder why this was news to him. If he was French then he would know all of this. Suddenly Deryn wasn't sure if he was French. The man's head perked up suddenly. "You said Darwin was the first to do this right?"
"Umm, yeah." Wasn't this man listening to her?
"What year is it?" The question came so far out of left field that Deryn couldn't answer it civilly.
"It's 1914, bumrag. Where have you been all your life?" This man couldn't be French. He couldn't be.
The man stood. "I have one more question. You mentioned the Germans and Austrians as the 'Clankers'. What do they use, if you use animals?"
"Walkers, what else."
And with that the man left. Deryn lay back on the bed. That had to have been the strangest conversation she had ever had. But it also seemed to be as awkward for the man. And if he wasn't French, what was he then? Why had he asked for the date to?
"I have to get out of here" she murmured. Getting to her feet Deryn tried the door. It seemed a worthless gesture for her to try to get out of a room where she was being held captive simply because a door had been left unlocked. Though, astonishingly enough, it was open. "Now where?" The hallway to her left seemed to lead somewhere. Deryn walked down, it turned a corner and found herself in a small meeting space, with the boy who had tried to interrogate her talking with the man who had questioned her.
But something else caught Deryn's eye. A door was open across the room, leading out to what look like the forest. She couldn't help wondering if her luck could hold long enough for her to cross the room. So she causally walked the length of the room, acting as though she always left an enemy vessel without any resistance. Before she knew it, Deryn was standing on terra firma again. "Well at least it's better than a barking Clanker airship."
"I would imagine so."
Deryn tensed, then slowly turned to the voice. The boy who had interrogated her and the man were standing in front of… nothing. Deryn tried to make the image make sense. She had just stepped off of a large airship, and now the air behind her was completely empty. The boy seemed to take her reaction in stride. "You are probably wondering how anything you are seeing is possible. Quite frankly, the answer is simple. You, Dylan Sharp, have stumbled into a parallel universe, and we have found you."
Deryn kept staring. A what? The boy continued.
"Everything around you is a product of fate simply taking another course. A point of divergence exists around 1860, where Charles Darwin learned how to genetically engineer species to his advantage. Our reality did not learn how to do this for nearly another century, so it would seem that everything here is a little off. And before you ask, the date is December 16, 2010." The boy stopped talking, patiently waiting for Deryn's answer. Deryn, a course, didn't have one. What would you say if you were told you had been transported to a parallel universe in the future?
The world around her exploded.
…
Alek stumbled into his room, half drunk and distinctly unhappy. The guests had insisted that he and Jaspert accompany them to dinner. Long conversations followed, then drinks for some reason, then a bet that Volger could drink Jules under the table, then more drinking, then a dismissal (Of Alek and Jaspert and only Alek and Jaspert), then… then now. Alek had the distinct impression that the real purpose of the dinner party had been to try to learn something about Jules and Verne, but if that had been his intention, then the Captain had failed miserably. All Alek remembered hearing as far as any credible information was the fact that Verne (And he doubted that this was even her name, who names a girl Verne?) was from Mexico.
Plopping down on his bed, Alek tried to sleep. It didn't seem right that Jules could simply waltz on to the Leviathan. But that wasn't what kept him awake. It was the underlying feeling of wrongness that had pervaded the ship since Dylan had disappeared. He couldn't have just vanished into the sky, could he? He couldn't have disappeared into an inferno like his father. Alek sat up in his bed, trying to figure out how it all went wrong.
"Mister Sharp?" A quiet and inquisitive, or rather perspicuous, voice came from the dark. Alek looked at his nightstand, with Bovril perched on it.
"Yes Bovril, Mister Sharp." Alek rested his head on his palm. "My only friend, the one person I could relate to, and now he might be dead. Just like my parents." It was actually easier to deal with his parents deaths. At least he had known that they were dead. He hadn't needed to eagerly watch search party after search party return empty handed, have his hopes dashed with each arrival. He hadn't the time to grieve quietly while running from a fairly large part of the German land armada. The prospect he may see their bodies again hadn't crossed his mind until several weeks into the mad dash for Switzerland. Here though, there wasn't those comforts to be had. Only the murky depths of terrible possibility and cruel fate.
"Do you wonder Bovril, will we ever see him again."
"Mister Sharp?"
"Well, I will, maybe you will to."
"Mister Sharp."
"Yes, I guess Volger would like to see him as well."
"Mister Sharp."
Alek tilted his head. "Yes, Mister Sharp."
"Mister Sharp."
Alek looked at Bovril, confusion coloring his face. It was obviously Mister Sharp. Why did Bovril need to keep repeating that? A thought crossed his mind, one so absurd that he tried to banish it immediately. The thought persisted, clinging to his mind, directing query after query at Alek. Why hadn't Dylan bathed at the castle in Switzerland, when water was so plentiful on the Leviathan? Why had he been horrified of the idea of him and Lilit together in Istanbul, when Alek would have jumped at the chance in Dylan's place? Why couldn't Dylan be hung if they found out he had betrayed his oath to King George? What could Volger possibly use on Dylan Sharp to try to control him, when all Dylan feared was fire? What had Volger said on the spine? The answer seemed patently obvious when you thought about it, but so insane as to be beyond consideration. But Dylan had said that all the women in his family were crazy.
Alek leaned over the Loris and said two words;
"Miss Sharp."
…
Deryn opened her eyes. The world around her shook with thunder and hail before and behind, to left and right, above and (somehow) below her floating feet. She was in the heart of a storm. And looking into a twisted mirror.
"Well, this is barking strange." It was like she was in a dream, but she was aware she was in it, so it didn't feel like one. Then Deryn got a shock that nearly stopped her heart. The mirror image began to speak.
"You know this isn't so bad. Yeah I could get used to this." Deryn speechlessly recoiled from the mirror as the image left the frame, walking out to her. "So you're Deryn, ea. I've heard of you." The mirror smiled malevolently. "But you're such a girl. Hard to believe it, even if it's true."
Deryn found her voice suddenly. "Who are you?"
The mirror smiled again and leered over Deryn, somehow a few inches taller than her. "Well, I'm you. The you that's a boy, anyway. You can call me Dylan."
Deryn took a step back; ignoring the fact she was floating and thus really couldn't move. "Well, it been nice meeting you Dylan, but I have some Clankers to run from."
The malevolent smile again and the rolling of eyes. "You really believe that the people who captured you are Clankers? Where have you been for the last five minutes?"
"I need to leave." Deryn twisted on her heel, but Dylan was standing behind her as well.
"You know, I'm not like you all that much."
"Oh, you sure look a lot like me."
"HA, I couldn't be more different. I am real boy, not some girl in trousers like you." Dylan pointed at his sternum. "You know, none of these." Then down. "And one of these." Then matter-of-factly at Deryn. "And I certainly dress the part better then you."
Deryn inhaled sharply, and then found she almost couldn't. Looking down at herself, she realized that her middy uniform had been replaced with a skirt and corset. She looked like a girl again, stuffed into skirts! Dylan coldly chuckled at her obvious distress.
Deryn ignored Dylan's laughter, cutting over it. "Let me out."
"Ah well, that's not quite some-"
SMACK.
Dylan collapsed though the invisible floor, caught off guard by Deryn's right hook.
"Now try to stop me." Deryn grabbed at her jaw suddenly. It felt like she had been hit, not the other way around. Painfully looking for a way out, she felt something thud against her back.
"It would be my pleasure." Dylan twirled Deryn around, gripping her shoulder and outstretched arm, beginning an absurd waltz in the storm. "You shouldn't have done that." Anger flavored Dylan's words. His hand shifted from Deryn's shoulder to her hip. "You know, I could make you a real boy, like me."
Deryn twisted her head back, trying to meet Dylan's hateful eyes, her own widening in apprehension. "What do you mean by that?"
"Just get back through the portal. Let me do the steering. Then we're out and back on the Leviathan and no one will be the wiser. That letter you left for Alek won't mean anything because he could never prove it. They'd never need to hang you, because you wouldn't be a girl. Volger couldn't control you. And you could fly forever, without fear of discovery." Dylan's malicious smile filtered through his words. "You could let Aleksandar have his country, and never need to look back. It would be perfect."
Deryn waited until he had lifted a foot into the air, and then swung her weight in the opposite direction, freeing herself from Dylan's clutches. A look of hate danced over her face, mirrored by Dylan's subdued rage. "You'd have to barking kill me first."
Dylan tittered, an almost cheerful noise that didn't reach his blazing eyes. "Always so standoffish, aren't you Deryn? Oh well you harlot, then it looks like it's time for you to die." Dylan flew at Deryn, vanishing into her.
Deryn gasped awake, half stunned by the suddenness of her return to consciousness. The ground around her was scarred, as though some mighty battle had just been waged. The air thrummed with heat. Deryn pulled herself up, just in time for something blue to fly out of the trees, striking the ground in front of her and showering her with earth. A stone found its way onto her forehead. The world blacked out again and no dreams disturbed her this time.
A/N: So Deryn's developing Atlantis complex, Alek is not a ninny, and a pair of mysterious strangers have arrived on the Leviathan. What could I have planned for the next thrilling installment? What are you asking me for, I just narrate? Nearly 4000 words in one chapter and I'm just hitting my stride. By the way, is harlot still profane? It means whore and it's definitely old fashioned, but I'm not sure it's insulting now-a-days. Anyway, this is going up on the crossover page.