Ron Does Stuff

At the end of the previous episode, Aleksander’s Stormwalker has been hit by a bomb. Are they going to get out of it unscathed? Let’s see!

Fortunately for Aleksander and the gang, the missile that hit them didn’t seem like it hit them directly. The Stormwalker is on its side on the ground, but at least the four of them are still alive. But the Zeppelin is making its way back to them and this time around it might make sure to kill all of them. Thankfully, Aleksander and Deryn work together to successfully hit the Zepellin with one of their own charges.

Unfortunately, the Stormwalker is now out of commission and Volger is now pissed because there’s no way of defending themselves against the Germans now, since they’re definitely going to return to the site of where one of their Zeppelins was shot down by an Austro-Hungarian Stormwalker.

Thankfully, a solution presents itself when Deryn tells Aleksander that the Leviathan still uses an engine, despite being a Darwinist creation. Aleksander offers the out of commission Stormwalkers engines to power the Leviathan in exchange for booking passage to the Ottoman Empire, which unfortunately doesn’t survive for long after the First World War. But this is an alternative history retelling so you never know!

As the Leviathan starts to get back in shape, Deryn unintentionally offends Aleksander when she remarks that it’s the ordinary soldiers that really suffer during the war and not the nobility, like the archduke and his wife that got assassinated and started the war. Deryn doesn’t know that Aleksander is their son in the same way that Aleksander doesn’t know Deryn is actually a girl.

The next day, it’s not the Zeppelin that comes back for them, but the giant Clanker machine that was waiting on the Stormwalker at the border between Austria and Switzerland. However, the Leviathan can’t immediately lift off because the night before, Volger brought with him all the gold that had been set aside for Aleksander to fund his future empire. Since nobody else knows about it, the Darwinists instead offload 15 soldiers who volunteer for the task so that the Leviathan can start to lift off.

Of course, the discovery angers Aleksander and Deryn, who overhears the conversation. But for once, Aleksander has a rejoinder to Volger’s insistence that the future of the Empire should come first — even without the gold, they have a chance to start an alliance with England and the other Darwinist powers if they play their cards right.

Aleksander and Deryn get rid of the gold bars, allowing the Leviathan to finally take flight. They’re alive and safe, but Volger is not happy about the “immaturity” Aleksander has displayed by making an impulsive decision rather than thinking of his country. Klopp is of a differnet opinion, though, saying that Aleksander is becoming more and more like his father.

But now that they’ve escaped, Aleksander and Deryn finally make up after their little fight. Now that the truth is out about who he is, at least to Deryn, Aleksander says that he’s happy there’s no more lies between them and he can now tell him everything, such as his full name. And of course, Aleksander asks Deryn’s full name…and she says it’s Dylan. Oh baby, here’s the To the Beautiful You storyline I loved from the books.

Elsewhere in Europe, a Darwinist force is inspecting the site of an explosion. It’s a man-made explosion, and the Darwinist scientist with them thinks that whatever it was that made it could save humanity or end it.