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Zaven knelt beside Alek "The ed to us We use these five to train, so that a Kurd kno to pilot a olf, and an Arab an iron goleether properly," Alek said

"Indeed My own daughter hasa walker? How utterly - " Alek saw Lilit’s expression, and cleared his throat "How exceptional"

"Fah! Not so strange as you think," Zaven said, raising a fist "Once the revolution cos!"

Alek stifled a laugh More of the family madness, it seemed, or perhaps the influence of the iron-willed Nene on her son

"How does that Tesla cannon work?" Lilit asked

"My enerator" Alek cast his mind back to Klopp’s explanation a few days after the battle with the Goeben "Mr Tesla is an American, but the Ger on this cannon for some time How do you know about it?"

"Never mind that," Nene said "Can it stop our walkers?"

"I doubt it The Tesla cannon is designed to be used against hydrogen breathers But the Goeben still has its big guns, and walkers like these are the perfect targets" Alek looked to the southeast, where smoke plumes rose fro as the German warships waited there, the palace was safe from a walker attack "That’s the real reason those German ironclads are here, isn’t it? To keep the sultan in power"

"And to starve the Russians" Nene shrugged "A hammer can pound , it seems"

"More than a bit, when it cohtened his shoulders "Give me the trickiest one you have, and I’ll prove it"

Nene nodded, a slow shter Take hi over the controls

The instruments were labeled with symbols rather than words, but the purposes of es, fuel - nothing he hadn’t seen in his Stormwalker

But the saunters were a different matter entirely They rose up frorips looked like the arht

"How am I meant to ith these?" he asked

"You aren’t The saunters control the arms" Lilit pointed at the floor "You use the pedals to walk, ninny"

"Ninny," the creature repeated, then chuckled

"Your pet knows you quite well, doesn’t it," Lilit said, stroking the creature’s fur "What’s its name?"

"Nareat airships, of course"

"Well, this one needs a naht for a moment, then frowned "The Leviathan’s creays said ’it’ when speaking of beasts Perhaps they’re neither"

"Then where do they coed "As far as I know, the boffins pull them out of their bowler hats"

Lilit looked more closely at the beast while Alek stared at the saunters He’d never piloted a walker with arht be trickier than he’d thought

But if a girl could pilot the monstrosity, it couldn’t be too difficult

"How do I knohat the ar? I can’t even see them from in here"?

"You just knohere they are, as if they were part of your own body But since this is your first time " Lilit spun a crank, and the top half of the pilot’s cabin began towith pneumatics "You can try it in parade mode"

"Parade mode?"

"For when &350;ahious festivals"

"Ah, that sort of parade," Alek said "This is a very odd country All the walkers seem to be symbols as well as oddess"

"A goddess Of course," Alek muttered "There certainly are a lot of females in this revolution"

Lilit rolled her eyes as she pulled the engine starter The machine ruine noise, then clie of the control panel

"Will your pet be all right?" Lilit asked

"It has an excellent head for heights," Alek said "When we escaped the Leviathan, we cliher than this"

"But why did you steal it?" she asked "To prove that you’d been aboard the airship?"

"I didn’t steal anything," Alek said, placing his boots carefully on the foot pedals "It insisted on co"