Scott Westerfeld - Leviathan

“Get stuffed, Mr. Sharp,” he muttered, hoisting his feed bag. “Come on. Rigby’s right behind us now.”

Deryn groaned. Her aching muscles could’ve done with another minute’s rest. But she’d laughed at Newkirk, so the endless competition was on again. She hoisted her feed bag and followed him toward the bow.

Barking hard work, being a boy.

As Deryn and Newkirk neared the bow, the bats grew louder, their echolocation chirps rattling like hail on a tin roof.

The other middies were just behind, Mr. Rigby in their midst, urging them to hurry. The bats’ feeding had to be timed precisely with the fléchette strike.

Suddenly a shrieking mass of havoc swept out of the darkness—an aerie of strafing hawks, aeroplane nets glimmering in the dark. Newkirk let out a startled cry, his feet tangling together. He tumbled down the slope of the air-beast’s flank, his rubber soles squeaking along the membrane. Finally he came to a halt.

Deryn dropped her bag and scuttled after him.

“Barking spiders!” Newkirk cried, his necktie more askew than usual. “Those godless birds attacked us!”

“They did no such thing,” Deryn said, offering him a hand up.

“Trouble keeping your feet, gentlemen?” Mr. Rigby called down from the spine. “Perhaps some light on the subject.”

He pulled out his command whistle and piped out a few notes, high and raw. As the sound trembled through the membrane, glowworms woke up underfoot. They snaked along just beneath the airbeast’s skin, giving off enough pale green light for the crew to see their footing, but not so much that enemy aircraft could spot the Leviathan in the sky.

Still, combat drills were supposed to be conducted in darkness. It was a bit embarrassing to need the worms just to walk .

Newkirk looked down, shuddering a little. “Don’t like those beasties either.”

“You don’t like any beasties,” Deryn said.

“Aye, but the crawly ones are the worst.”

Deryn and Newkirk climbed back up, now behind the other middies. But the bow was within sight, the bats covering it like iron filings on a magnet. The chirping came from all directions.

“They sound hungry, gentlemen,” Mr. Rigby warned. “Be sure they don’t take a bite of you!”

Newkirk made a nervous face, and Deryn elbowed him. “Don’t be daft. Fléchette bats only eat insects and fruit.”

“Aye, and metal spikes ,” he muttered. “That’s barking unnatural.”

“Only what they’re designed to do, Newkirk,” Mr. Rigby called. Though human life chains were off-limits for fabrication, the middies often conjectured that the bosun’s ears were fabricated. He could hear a discontented murmur in a Force 10 gale.

The bats grew noisier at the sight of the feed bags, jostling for position on the sloping half sphere of the bow. The middies clipped their safety lines together and spread out across the swell of the ship, feed bags at the ready.

“Let’s get started, gentlemen,” Mr. Rigby shouted. “Throw hard and spread it out!”

Deryn opened her bag and plunged a hand in. Her fingers closed on dried figs, each with a small metal fléchette driven through the center. As she threw, a wave of bats lifted, wings fluttering as fights broke out over the food.

“Don’t like these birds,” Newkirk muttered.

“They ain’t birds, you ninny,” Deryn said.

“What else would they be?”

Deryn groaned. “Bats are mammals. Like horses, or you and me.”

“Flying mammals!” Newkirk shook his head. “What’ll those boffins think of next?”

Deryn rolled her eyes and tossed another handful of food. Newkirk had a habit of sleeping through natural philosophy lectures.

Still, she had to admit it was barking strange, seeing the bats eat those cruel metal fléchettes. But it never seemed to hurt them.

“Make sure they all get some!” Mr. Rigby shouted.

“Aye, it’s just like feeding ducks when I was wee,” Deryn muttered. “Could never get any bread to the little ones.”

She threw harder, but no matter where the figs fell, the bullies always had their way. Survival of the meanest was one thing the boffins couldn’t breed out of their creations.

“That’s enough!” Mr. Rigby finally shouted. “Over-stuffed bats are no good to us!” He turned to face the midshipmen. “And now I’ve got a little surprise for you sods. Anyone object to staying dorsal?”

The middies let out a cheer. Usually they climbed back down to the gondolas for combat drills. But nothing beat seeing a fléchette strike from topside.

The H.M.S. Gorgon was within range now, pulling a target ship behind. The target was an aging schooner that carried no lights, but her sails were a white flutter against the dark sea. The Gorgon cut her loose and steamed to safety a mile away. Then sent up a signal flare to show that she was ready to start.

“Out of my way, lads,” came a voice from behind them. It was Dr. Busk, the Leviathan ’s surgeon and head boffin. In his hand was a compressed air pistol, the only sidearm allowed on a hydrogen breather. He waded in among the bats, their black forms skittering away from his boots.

“Come on!” Deryn grabbed Newkirk’s arm and scuttled down the slope of the airbeast’s flank for a better view.

“Try not to fall off, gentlemen,” Mr. Rigby called.

Deryn ignored him, heading all the way down into the ratlines. It was the bosun’s job to take care of middies, but Rigby seemed to think he was their mum.

A message lizard scrambled past Deryn and presented itself to the head boffin.

“You may begin your attack, Dr. Busk,” it said in the captain’s voice.

Busk nodded—like people always did to message lizards, though it was pointless—and raised his gun.

Deryn hooked an elbow through the ratlines. “Cover your ears, Mr. Newkirk.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

The pistol exploded with a crack —the membrane shuddering beside Deryn—and the startled bats rose into the air like a vast black sheet rippling in the wind. They swirled madly, a storm of wings and bright eyes. Newkirk cowered beside her, pulling himself closer to the flank.

“Don’t be a ninny,” she said. “They’re not ready to loose those spikes yet.”

“Well, I’d hope not!”

A moment later a searchlight beneath the main gondola flicked on, its beam lancing out across the darkness. The bats headed straight into the light, the blended life threads of moth and mosquito guiding them as true as a compass.

The searchlight filled with their small fluttering forms, like a shaft of sun swirling with dust. Then the beam began to swing from side to side, the horde of bats faithfully tracking it across the sky. They spilled out along its length, closer and closer to the target fluttering on the waves.

The swing of the searchlight was perfectly timed, bringing the great swarm of bats directly over the schooner …

… and suddenly the light turned blood red.

Deryn heard the shrieks of the bats, the sound reaching her ears above the engines and war cries of the Leviathan ’s crew. Fléchette bats were mortally afraid of the color red— it scared the deadly clart right out of them.

As the spikes fell, the horde began to scatter, exploding into a dozen smaller clouds, the bats swarming back toward their nests aboard the Leviathan . At the same time the searchlight dipped toward the target.

The fléchettes were still falling. In their thousands, they shimmered like a metal rain in the crimson spotlight, cutting the schooner’s sails to ribbons. Even at this distance Deryn could see the wood of the deck splintering, the masts leaning as their stays and shrouds were sliced through.