Chapter 15
Return to the Breach
A/N: I'm still getting some traffic for this story, so I'll bring this to head. No I will not be updating How'd you Know. It is not a one-shot collection, just a one-shot. I know how hard that is for people, but it's true. I will write and release another one-shot eventually, but it will be an Artemis Fowl one-shot. Sorry for the interlude, just wanted to say that.
And last week I said that I don't get a lot of reviews. While this is true in theory, I think it created a misconception among readers. It's not a lack of reader empathy that leads to low numbers, but a lack of readers period that does this. To be brutally honest, I estimate that around 15 people read the story at best. I don't mean to flame anyone, it's just like I said: "This is a special delivery story." Not a big audience.
On with the show.
Dylan opened one eye experimentally, than the other when he was sure no one was looking. He was greeted with the sight of a ceiling with an ornate wooden pattern, almost in the grain of it, and the continuous scratching of pen on parchment. Tilting the head of Jaspert Sharp, Dylan Sharp began to look around.
The walls had the same wood woven pattern in them, so he was in a Darwinian ship. Several desks were occupied by jars of leech's and medical tape. A few men lay around him, some unconscious by the slow rise and fall of their chests, others that couldn't be bothered with by the lack of slow rises and falls of their chests. These all taken together, Dylan concluded he was in the medical bay of the Leviathan, surround by the men of the Minotaur. The scratching of pen and paper stopped.
"Well Mister Sharp, it's a pleasure to see that you are among the living again. Your cousin would have been heart-broken if you passed away after being found in the wreckage." Dylan propped himself up on Jaspert's arms, and saw that the speaker was the striking Dr. Barlow. She smiled and stood, stepped over the men, and started taking his pulse. "You'll be alright in a few minutes, when our doctor returns. He's currently preoccupied with our ship, but will return soon. Can you feel this?" Barlow took a small hammer and rapped it against Jasperts knee. Dylan twitched, and Jasperts leg kicked forward.
"Yes, I do feel that." Dylan sighed, almost content. Even a few minutes of sensation trumped the hours of incorporeal floating in the ether. But he had a job to do. Dylan twisted Jasperts arm, and planted his curled fist into Dr. Barlow's face. The women collapsed, unconscious like Dylan had been moments before. Dylan rubbed his hand, then stood all the way.
The medical bay was typical Darwinian fashion. A mixture of medical tools and biological agents riddled the desks, along with several sharp knives. Dylan took one and slipped it into his pocket, then picked up Barlow. He decided to place her back on her chair, so if anyone entered, they would think she had just dozed off. Dropping her into her chair, Dylan stepped back and weighed the consequences of his next step.
He could just fight through the men of the Leviathan and Minotaur, but that would put him far behind. Instead he could slip out quietly and track down Deryn, using her sisterly trust to trick her and kill her. Slipping carefully out of the medical bay, Dylan turned left and started for the ladders to the spine. If he was going to find Deryn anywhere, that would be where.
…
Alek moved back onto the starboard engine for the first time in days. The night sky hinted at sunrise in under an hour, but was otherwise black as pitch. The engine had been idling unattended for several hours to keep it warm, so Alek only needed to take the saunter in hand and wait for the signal.
Bauer and Klopp scrambled out of the tube behind him. They had been ordered to the starboard engine, and would be working with him. But that didn't mean they were happy with being woken up at 3 in the morning.
"Only the Germans would be dastardly enough to attack us when we're all supposed to be asleep. How'd they think we'd take that?" Bauer said as one of the German planes fell past them. "They'd better be ready to reap the rewards for that."
"Exactly. That why we're awake at 3. They need a lesson taught to them." Klopp's bad leg obviously was still troubling him. Alek wasn't sure that it would ever heal properly, but that was beside the point. He had a ship to pilot.
The patch of skin next to the engine pod turned blue, the signal for quarter power. Alek pushed the saunter forward, engaging the numerous gears and the engine in total. The Leviathan began a slow turn west, bringing them parallel with the Kahn. Alek watched as the enormous German airship pushed by through the air. Suddenly, black flocks swarmed around it, and the Kahn drifted back past them, descending on torn gasbags. The men scrambled to the bow, trying to slow their fall. Then, with a yell, one hurled himself over the railing and onto the Leviathan.
Alek braced himself against the engine sidewall as the German soldier crashed into the membrane. His whoop of triumph turned to a shout of fear as, having planted his feet into the side of the enormous flying whale and not his hands, he began to fall. His body tilted back, arms flailing for purchase in the air. His body then disconnected entirely from the Leviathan, and after a prolonged silence, it crashed into the engine pod. The gears gave a shriek and the whole motor shut down. Alek starred at the body for a long moment, and then turned back to the saunter. He had killed a man once, but that was one too many times for him to be faced with death.
The other German soldiers on the Kahn hadn't gotten that particular memo though. A collection of fighters had all lined up on the railing, and a few now gripped the edge experimentally. Alek shared on horrified look with Bauer. They really were going to jump.
"Nicht springen, nicht direkt. Ihr Freund ist tot!" Klopp cupped his hands and yelled the warning across the gap. A moment later, Alek and Bauer had joined in, lending their youthful voices to Klopps failing one. The Clanker soldiers leaned over the rails, a few just catching themselves after trying to jump. Several looked to the still body of their comrade, waiting for him to move and confirm that they should jump. Finally the Kahn floated past, the soldiers watching the engine mournfully. A few took off their helmets.
Bauer shifted the body as Alek ripped the covering of the engine. Several gears had come loose and hit others, stripping them. All hopes of restarting the engine before the fight ended was tossed aside. Even if they had had a full kit of spares and weren't in the middle of heated battle, the engine was simply too damaged to run.
Bauer leaned against the small wall of the engine pod. "Is that it? We're just going to sit here and wait for the Germans to flee or the Darwinians to crash?" Alek couldn't think of anything else they could do, besides get inside. The German carrier was still launching wave upon wave of planes, and the Herkules was only slightly way laid. The Leviathan was crippled, and nothing they could do would change that fact. Alek had never been more depressed.
For a minute, silence was the only thing that answered Bauer. Their thoughts occupied them. Klopp worried for his prince, who he had spent months fighting for. Bauer wondered if he would ever escape the life he had set out to leave when he left his parents' home. Alek wondered about the men on the ship, and the people in Austria, and all the Clanker nations, which, for one fleeting second, he could have saved, if only he hadn't been so selfish, and thought of Dylan.
A green blur materialized out of the corner of Alek's eye. Alek craned his neck, Bauer and Klopp turning to see what had interested him. A missile-like shape was approaching the engine pod. Green flames covered latticework wings. The Endeavor was approaching the Leviathan.
The strange ship slowed, it's wings turning more nearly blue, then a shape detached itself from the side. Jules fell only a short distance, surviving the drop that had taken the life of the unfortunate German. He stood quickly, and smiled nonchalantly at Alek. "What I miss, your highness?"
Not for the first time, Alek was seized by the urge to throw away all pretense and give Jules a good shake, and make him make sense for once. Calming jumping from a moving plane in the middle of a war was not something you just do. Surprisingly, it was Bauer who did it.
"Who. Are. You?" Hans Bauer bit each word off menacingly. "I have been told that fairies are on this ship and you just happen to be around at the same time. The Germans attack and you reappear. Who are you?" Bauer looked murderous, possibly because his precious engine had been damaged. Jules just raised his hands defensively. Alek looked from Jules to Bauer. He wanted answers as much as his friend, but he knew that Jules wouldn't give them. He was polite to a fault, and as smart as the next guy, but he was as cryptic as god. They wouldn't be getting a clear answer from him.
Just then the entire Leviathan shook. Alek looked up to see a blue star blooming above them, rushing to engulf the Leviathan. The Gesamt, Kahn and Herkules were ascending with them. Jules nodded once, and settled down onto the engine. "A chance… just one chance, please God, I only need one chance to send the traveler. Please, for my children. For me," Jules murmured, only Alek hearing him. He had pegged Jules as a Darwinian, but it was refreshing to see one that still believed in a higher power.
The blue storm enveloped the Leviathan and, for the first time, Alek saw the inside of the breach. The world was shrouded in a blue storm. Cobalt comets streaked past the ships, some close enough to touch. The Clanker and Darwinist ships were silent, save for the roar of the tunnel. Alek realized that if he wasn't seeing this with company, he could have considered himself insane. Countless ships and crafts of all designs swooped past. Alek watched be die and live, people at war and peace. It was astounding.
Jules leaned over the edge of the engine pod, waiting for something. Alek wanted to question him here and now, but decided against it. Artemis had given him the condensed version, how Dylan had gotten through the tunnel, and he had found him and how the whole thing apparently had something to do with a sheet of paper and a pair of pixies named Opal Koboi. When he had described them, Alek had immediately thought of Verne, but put it out of his head. If she was a megalomaniac pixie, she would have killed them all. And she would be shorter, too.
Jules watched the cosmic blurs, than pointed to one. Alek leaned over with him. A particularly bright comet was streaking through the tunnel, ancient symbols wreathing it like the headlamp of the orient express. This, Alek decided, contained the Opal Koboi's. Alek was second from commenting, when a long shout came over them. The four men occupying the nonfunctioning engine pod looked up to see two others descending from the spine. As they shot past the pod, Alek recognized one out from the pair. Jaspert Sharp was dragging someone in a red and tarnished suit into the tunnel.
"You have to do something!" Alek shouted at Jules. Jules flicked his hands, but nothing happened. He shook them again, and a pair of what looked like wings blossomed out of his back before fading. Alek stared as Jules sworn. A second yell echoed over the flank, and Alek looked up. It was Dylan, falling after his brother. Jules roared in terror, and jumped after him. Alek didn't dare follow him.
But he did hope. He hoped for Jaspert, for the boy that was falling with him, and for Dylan. He also hoped that he'd survive the Leviathan crashing
...
Deryn was still in a Huxley ascender when the Clankers attacked. She had decided to stay below and tend to some of the wounded while Jaspert was taken to the Leviathan. But Jules had assured her that he was alright, and while Deryn wasn't particularly in agreement with that line of reasoning, she had trusted him. Now she was regretting that decision.
"Of all the things that could wrong, and now my Huxley has a barking leak. Oi, you daft beastie, take me up already." But the Jellyfish amalgam she hung from was content to hover approximately one thousand feet above the ground, and ten feet from the bottom of the Leviathan's hanger bay. Two crewmen were trying to coax the ascender up without using anything sharp. It wasn't working. Well, Deryn thought, there's always plan B.
Plan B was scramble over the Huxley and free climb the rope to the two men, corporal Peters and coxswain Gareth, which were above her. Getting over the Huxley and onto the rope was easy. Climbing it was a piece of cake. And the corporal and coxswain grabbed her by the arms and pulled her up before she needed to even ask. But the real problem was when she left the room. She nearly collided head on with Artemis.
"Oi, watch it bumrag." Deryn glared at Artemis, but was a little surprised when she did get a good look at him. Artemis's normally clean and orderly suit was torn and dirty and unbuttoned. His hair was tasseled and streaked with the same red dust that was on his shirt and pants. His blue and hazel eyes were alight with excitement though.
"I was going up to the spine to observe N`1. He's going to be conversing with the Leviathan. I'm not currently needed in the infirmary, so I deemed it more productive to learn. Would you care to join me?" Artemis said this in the matter of fact tone that one would if they were discussing organic muffins. Deryn pulled herself to her feet, than helped up Artemis. She had no orders to the contrary, so she might as well.
The two started down the hall, but they were stopped again in twenty paces. A confrontation was occurring. On one side, toward the two, stood the man Alek had said was called Vlad. On the other were Theo Black and the boffin Bergheim. Theo had his hand behind his back, but Vlad was pointing an air pistol at them. Vlad was speaking.
"You thought you could hide your gift from the world, didn't you. You're rewriting the rules of everything we know and are now trying to flee. You and your little assistant aren't going anywhere." Vlad held the pistol in both hands, keeping it still. Deryn drew out her rigging knife.
Theo whipped his arm out from behind him. "Lumosolem" A soundless explosion of light filled the corridor, but it didn't drown out the series of bangs that came from Vlad pulling the trigger. Deryn felt the entire Leviathan shake, then heard shouts from in front of her, followed by a cry and a prolonged "No." Silence came as swift as a blow. Deryn opened her eyes, having unknowingly covered them with her hand. The hallway was empty, but the windows were smashed, illuminated by the blue glow of the tunnel.
Artemis looked outward, slightly disoriented if his expression was anything to go off of. But Deryn had heard of him in control of far crazier situations. He shared one look with her, then started towards the bow ladders.
The spine of the Leviathan swept around them, seeming to go on forever. The storm clouds and shapes went farther. Deryn watched a capital class freighter cruise by in the opposite direction. A ship of the line passed high above them. Standing with other people, the images didn't make her think she was going crazy. But there was one image she would have rather not seen.
"Holly!" Artemis broke into a flat footed run, but Deryn outstripped him. The diminutive elf was slumped into a hollow in the Leviathans skin, the last of the magical sparks winking out. Artemis's voice stirred her, and she sat up groggily, struggling to breath. Deryn reached around her back, steadying her comrade in arms, and started to pull the auto-armor off. Artemis came to a stop panting, the thirty meter run having really taken it out of him, and kneeled in front of her. "Are you alright Holly? Is anything broken?"
"I'm … fine … Artemis." Holly answered slowly. Then, without warning, she leaned forward and kissed him. Artemis locked up, and then leaned into the kiss. Deryn couldn't know this, but Artemis was definitely enjoying this kiss better than the one he had gotten from Verne. A slow clap could be heard over the roar of the wind.
"Well, what a touching reunion… who are these people Deryn?" Deryn whirled at the sound of her brother voice. Jaspert was moving slowly towards the three. "Well, I can't say that this honestly surprises me. My own sister, fraternizing with an Elf and a fugitive. Tsk, tsk Deryn, didn't our mother teach us anything about staring." Jaspert looked at Deryn expectantly, as though she would try and justify it. She tried.
"Well, we were looking for her and she only just became conscious and -", Deryn stopped, then looked at her brother. "How did you know she was an elf?"
Jaspert face palmed. "I should have just done this first." He pin wheeled his arm, a flash of silver appearing from his sleeve. There was a dull thunk, and Deryn and Artemis looked down at Holly to see the grip of a knife firmly embedded in her chest. Then she slowly reeled back.
With a roar, Artemis slammed into Jaspert, carrying him off his feet. The soldier and genius hurtled down the flank of the Leviathan, vanishing from Deryn's sight as her mind spun madly. Her brother, Artemis, Holly, Jaspert. How did this all happen. It couldn't be possible. She had gone mad in the tunnel, it was the only explanation. She had to be dreaming, she was dreaming, she was dreaming, she was dreaming, she was-.
'Get a grip' some unsleeping soldiering part of her mind yelled at her. 'Remember what father taught you, that everything has a reason, that just ten seconds of observation can save your life.' Deryn staggered back to the reality, or as much any existed here. Artemis and Jaspert were gone, N`1 was up front, she didn't know where Alek was, Holly was digging the knife out of her - Holly!
Holly Short had sat back up and was trying remove the knife in her ribs. The knife came out with a wet schlock, and blood poured from it before it eased up under the assault of blue sparks. She was breathing heavily, but seemed alright, if out of it. But it only took one look at her to tell she wasn't going to be flying anytime soon. Which just left…
"Give me your wings." Deryn didn't ask, she told.
"What." Holly looked at her incredulously, then understood. She started tearing the wing pack off, and then handed it to Deryn. "Arms out to engage, up to fly. Steer by shifting your weight, dive by going straight.
Deryn nodded once, then turned and sprinted to the edge of the spine, jumping at the narrow point when dorsal turned to flank, and flying at full speed into the abyss.
…
It happened so fast, it happened so slow. It took years, it took minutes, it took days. No two persons record could be reliably compared, but some people knew what happened in the tunnel.
Deryn hurtled down through the blue void, weaving between azure clouds and sapphire rockets. The air was rent with the screams and shouts of frighten men and women. But she only focused on finding her brother.
There. A small dot in the distance expanded to show two boys locked in struggle. The pair seemed to be moving towards a particular comet, one that shown unnaturally bright. She could just make out some oblong shape, looking like a large person being carried by a fairy. 'Opal Koboi and Opal Koboi, I presume'.
Deryn entered a steep dive, but before she could even try to close the gap, Jaspert and Artemis spiraled off in different directions, one flailing into abyss, he other smashing straight into the comet. Artemis vanished into the blue mist as one of him half went deeper into the tunnel, while the other flipped through space. It took Deryn a moment to process this. Artemis had been split in two. What just happened?
"I'll get the boy," came a shout from behind her. Deryn looked back to see Jules, on wings of light, racing up to her. "You get Jaspert." He said this more than thought it, but the tunnel was pretty inconsistent, so Deryn didn't question it. She turned and fell after her brother.
Fifty feet.
Deryn raced through the inky blueness, cloud shrouding her and Jaspert.
Forty feet.
The clouds began to close in. A comet raced between them.
Thirty feet.
They were in a tunnel of clouds. Lightening flashed, but thunder never came.
Twenty feet.
Was that a glint of metal, and the flash of searing green light?
Ten Feet.
Deryn was almost there. Almost there. Jaspert flipped over in the tunnel of clouds, hazel eyes reaching out to her. 'No'.
Impact.
Deryn found herself standing in the middle of what looked like a field of gray clouds. Dylan stood on the other side of the gulf that separated them. "You could never let me live, could you?" Dylan tilted his head sympathetically. "I'm always the villain here, aren't I? I only wanted to live, to breath, and you denied me that. Could you have done any less?"
"You kidnapped my brother," Deryn countered. Dylan looked unfazed, but then she had only ever seen him angry or dead. It was a weird look on his face. Dylan held up a hand, and then suddenly, it ignited. Deryn gasped at the fire on his hand, which he seemed to take in stride. Dylan gestured to the burning hand.
"Fear. Anger. Lust. I am an embodiment of your failings, and your shames. You try to see yourself as safe in your little world. But underneath the surface you are a maelstrom of emotions and pain. Your loss of our father, your love of Alek, your terror of fire. Everything you have never wanted is not just in me," Dylan slammed his flaming fist into his chest, his eyes shining. "It is me. I am you, through the twisted mirror. And I tried so hard to break that mirror, to be free of everything you were, to learn from you."
Tears were running down his face now, but his tone didn't change. "I have tried to be what you wanted, want you could never have. But all I had was your faults, and none of your redemption. I wanted to live, but I was stopped by the mere memory of you. I only wanted to live."
Deryn looked at him, then said, "Your out of your barking tree. You haven't tried to be me better. You just did whatever you wanted. You're not redeeming yourself, you're just mad. You didn't learn from me, you bloody kidnapped me!" Deryn really hadn't seen someone so blatantly crazy before, and that was saying something. Dylan seemed to at a loss for a moment, and then looked at her.
"Can you blame me? Besides, all of this won't matter in a minute, because I'm going to kill you." Dylan and the field of clouds broke down, then reformed. Deryn was falling through the tunnel again. Dylan loomed over her, hand still alight, while Jaspert tumbled helplessly beneath them. "So poetic, that one should die in fire. Perhaps I'll see you again, and then kill you with ice. Robert frost would be pleased."
Deryn wasn't listening. Something had just fallen past her, on her left. Jaspert reached out and plucked it from the air. It was Artemis's sword.
With one, desperate heave, Jaspert threw it to Deryn. Time seemed to freeze as Deryn wrapped her hand around the wrist of the arm that half-made the sword. Then she drove it into Dylan's chest.
Dylan looked at the blade in his chest for several seconds, incredulous. "I thought dying would hurt more." Then he took one straight look at Deryn and screamed. "God damn it."
Then he slammed his flaming palm into Deryn's face.
Deryn watched as the whole world dissolved. Her father was looking down on her, the flaming wreck of the balloon basket framing his distraught features. He held one burning hand down to his daughter.
'Deryn'.
Deryn reached up and seized the hand. She was dead now, died in the ballooning accident with her father.
"Deryn."
It was all insane, really. How could she have met a prince in the middle of a war? How could she have pretended to be a boy in the air-force? How could she have ended up in a different universe with fairies? It was all a dream.
"Deryn."
She was gone, and nothing could change that. She had burned to death in the balloon accident. She had never fallen to earth, had never been found by Roger. She had passed away with her father, and now she was getting her heavenly reward.
"DERYN!"
Her father took her by the wrist, and on wings of light, they ascended.
A/N: Oh, spooky. Tune in next week folks for the exciting conclusion of… what happened to Artemis when he was cut in two. Yep, I'm not going to tell you whether or not Deryn was dead, you're just going to have to figure it out yourselves.
Chao.