He also practices fencing and walker piloting. Over the next two weeks, Alek learns how to do lots of things he has never done before, like washing clothes, cooking, and cleaning the machine guns. Alek aids the men to escape from the dreadnaught by loading a Spandau machine gun. Alek does not believe him until a German land dreadnaught begins shooting at them. He tells Alek that they must flee to Switzerland. Volger explains how Franz Ferdinand and Princess Sophie were poisoned by the Germans, that the murders were blamed on Serbia in order to start a war, and that the Germans plan to kill Alek as well. She is eventually picked up by the Leviathan.Īlek wakes up and meets Corporal Bauer.

When a storm strikes during her flight, Deryn untethers the Huxley and is left to float freely. Deryn and Jaspert take a bus to the Air Proving Ground, where Deryn and the other candidates are tested for fear of fabrications with two tigeresques.They are then given the opportunity to fly attached to a Huxley, and Deryn is the first to do so. Deryn is not worried about her flying skills, because her father taught her them years ago.

She and her brother, Jaspert, discuss how she will disguise herself as a boy in order to enter the Air Service as a midshipman.

Deryn has fallen asleep studying her aeronautics manual. The story of the other main character, Deryn Sharp, begins in London. Alek is knocked out with a chemical by Volger and hears Volger tell him that his parents have been murdered just before he blacks out. After Klopp and Volger explain that Alek's father has ordered them to take him away from home, Alek shouts that they are lying and tries to pull the Stormwalker's distress whistle cord. Excited, Alek does not question the unusual timing of the lesson until his tutors' insistance on speed and secrecy becomes too suspicious. He is interrupted by two of his tutors, Count Volger and Otto Klopp, who tell him that it is time for him to practice piloting walkers, namely the Cyklop Stormwalker waiting outside.

Fifteen-year-old Alek is in his room late at night, staging a battle with toy soldiers, Clanker Austria-Hungary against Darwinist Britain and France. The novel begins at Konopiště castle, the home of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his family.

Goliath book scott westerfeld