Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Stubs Soon!

I stepped out of the wrecked warehouse. The smoke was starting to sting my eyes. I couldn't see any nearby mechs needing assistance. The gunfire had died away. Up the street, I could see a couple of burning wrecks. Eva’s mech was stomping on them, its triumphant roar echoing off the buildings around me.

A car screeched around the corner and drew up in front of me, Alexander at the wheel. There were a bunch of strangers in uniform with him. The one in the passenger seat stood and pointed. "No, no, this way, that building over there!" Alexander waved to me as he drove over to that building.

I trotted after them, arriving as the crowd was climbing out of the phaeton. The men in uniform immediately swarmed the door, arguing in Hungarian. My golem knowledge didn’t cover the language, but it was pretty clear they were looking for a key they didn’t have.

"Clear away!" I said as I stomped over. It took me three massive kicks before the door started to splinter, and two more before the crowd of men could rush forward and start dismantling it with gusto. I stepped back and stood next to Alexander. “What’s all this?”

“They said they know where the guns were stored!"

"Good call."

The men swarmed into the warehouse. Alexander and I followed them. I couldn't see much in the dark.

Somebody snapped open a cigarette lighter. The feeble flame lit up the area immediately around us.

Racks and racks of cannons of all sorts filled the room. I reached down and hefted a massive autocannon. The weapon was similar to the ones the Poles used, a derivative of a Maxim gun, scaled up to be what they call the one-pounder. The gun was a bulky, short-barreled affair with a heavy water jacket in the front and a boxy action taking up the rear half. The ammo itself was in a heavy box on the side.

I carried the gun outside of the warehouse, and as there was no mech standing by to take it, I set it in the back seat of the Phaeton before going back in for another one. One of the men started following me around pointing me to which gun I should take next. He was too excited to remember any Polish or German, but some things don’t need translating.

The rest of the men, including Alexander, swarmed in and out of the building with boxy magazines of ammunition. By my second trip, a Hungarian mech was waiting to take the gun, and we soon had it loaded with weapon and ammunition. It stomped away as I went to get another.

I came out again and a line was starting to form. As mechs crawled out of the wrecked hangar across the street, they joined the line.

I marveled at both the strength of this body and also its endurance. The first gun I had lifted felt like it was at the limit of my strength, but after I had schlepped six of them outside, I was getting my second wind and they were feeling lighter all the time.

The first handful of mechs we armed marched away in ones and twos, mostly without riders accompanying them. After that, a group of riders in ballgowns showed up and started to fuss over their mechs before leading them away. Finally, a herd of old men in medal-festooned uniforms arrived, bickering and arguing the whole way. They stood round, loudly arguing in Hungarian while Alexander ignored them. Anytime someone shouted an incomprehensible order I’d just nod and throw a couple "yes sirs" before going back to doing whatever I had been. Standard sergeant behavior around brass that doesn’t know what they’re talking about, which is most of the time anyway.

A truck half-full of enlisted men in various states of dress arrived, followed by a phaeton overloaded with more. An overbearing officer ordered them around and generally got underfoot. Finally, I suggested to him that the generals needed his advice on armaments and that their discussion was confusing my men. The officer frowned at this, maybe having trouble understanding my Polish, but then went away to join the heated debate. After that, the soldiers were much more relaxed and started getting the job done. Nothing like a flustered officer trying to exert control over a situation to completely muck it up.

I picked one of the more competent corporals and suggested, supplementing with lots of gestures, that he start bringing out a wider variety of weapons. There were enough men now that I didn't see the need to go into the warehouse myself. Sergeants are for ordering around privates, after all, not for doing the work themselves. Instead, I oversaw which weapons went on which mechs and organized work teams to bring out the guns and ammo. By now, instead of wandering off, the freshly armed mechs were being formed up in a line by far too many officers with far too much brass on their chest.

It was about then that the world exploded. Whistling shells screamed in and blasted the ballroom hangar into pieces. The explosion blasted the wooden doors off. Fire licked at the seams of the building before the whole thing started coming down.

Oh shit! Were the girls still in there? I hesitated, trying to decide if I should race over and look for survivors or keep doing what I was doing.

As I watched, more shells fell in and around the mech hangar, obliterating the last remnants of the party. All around, Hungarian soldiers scrambled for cover. The shells were coming from the other side of the weapons bunker, somewhere off towards where the airfield was.

The Hungarian brass were hurrying past, running for cover. I grabbed the one nearest me. His eyes were wild, and he seemed to be in a state of panic.

“Sir, let’s rally the men and counter-attack.”

The man’s eyes focused on me, and his brow wrinkled in confusion.

“They’re flanking us, sergeant.” At least he spoke Polish.

I gave him the tiniest of shakes, my huge fists wrapped around his lapels.

“Then we’ll flank them back, sir. We can do it. You have to help me rally the men.”

“The men?” The man’s eyes gained focus, and his brow unfurled. “The men, yes… yes! Flank them. We need cars and guns. We can flank them with cannons. Those Russian bastards will never know what hit them. Yes, yes, of course. To me, to me!” He turned and shouted orders to the men.

The open-topped Hungarian car Alexander arrived in earlier still stood parked nearby, as did a military truck the Hungarians had brought. As he called, men who had been scrambling for cover turned and started to move back towards us. Not everyone, but enough.

I grabbed the first two that came within arm's reach.

"You two, go find more cars. Now! Bring them quickly." I pointed at the cars for emphasis.

"What? Where find?" They stared up at me, eyes wide.

I pointed across the line of buildings through which they could arrive at the parking lot.

"Go that way. Find anything you can. Bring it here quickly."

The men took off at a run, perhaps to follow orders, or perhaps just to get away from the enemy fire.

"You,” I pointed to one of the remaining men. “Get something that can mount on that Jeep."

"I what?" He clearly didn’t understand me.

"That car." I jabbed a finger at the military truck standing nearby. Even if he spoke fluent Polish, it was decades too early for them to know the term 'Jeep.' “Find me a weapon.” I mimed shooting.

"Yes, yes!" They scrambled to obey, and I let them go.

"What's your plan, Sergeant?"

I turned. The elderly general was looking at me now, eyes clear and narrow. I snapped up a salute.

"Sir, the Russians are attacking the hangar," I pointed to the burning building up the street. "I'm going to take these vehicles down the block and cut through the warehouses and hit them on the flank."

He was nodding. "They're probably mechs. That’ll be very dangerous.”

“Yes, sir!”

He returned my salute at last. “Very well, Sergeant, but I’m coming.”

The old man headed towards the Phaeton and started to climb into the passenger seat. I opened my mouth to protest, but I had more important worries at the moment. I went back to yelling at the troops. Tone of voice matters a lot more than actual words in this sort of situation.

As we worked, Hungarian mechs began deploying around the side of the warehouse. They were out of sight, but I could hear them firing and somebody farther away returning fire. A mech staggered back around the corner and came crashing down, holed through the chest. Some of my men scrambled to help its fallen rider. The other Hungarian mechs were falling back, still shooting. I saw another one get hit before I returned my focus to loading up our vehicles.

We already had autocannons in the back seat of the Phaeton. I had men pile in more of the bulky magazines. Four men came staggering out of the weapons bunker with a howitzer, and I rushed to help them lever it onto the back of the army truck. Those sons of bitches actually managed to get it attached to the pedestal mount as two more men were hauling ammo out for it.

Someone came running around the corner of the bunker. "They're coming, they're coming!" I translated his frantic words and arm waves pretty easily.

"Let's go!" I shouted, and we all piled into the vehicles. Alexander was there getting into the driver’s seat of the big luxury car. I got in the back seat and hefted the autocannon. It was a stubby unit made for a mech, only around 30 caliber and five feet long. It couldn't have weighed more than 80 pounds. There was no where to mount it but I didn't have much problem picking it up and pointing it. The recoil was going to be a bitch, though.

The car leaped into motion, and I sat down hard. Our crazy old general was shouting orders to Alexander and pointed down the street away from the burning hangar. Behind, I heard the thud of mech footsteps. I looked back, but nothing appeared before the driver swung us wildly around the corner between two warehouses.

We drove out from between the buildings, and there they were. Ten Russian mechs spread out in front of us, advancing towards our right.

"Holy shit!" somebody yelled, or words to that effect.

"Step on it!" I shouted. "To the left! Go around them!"

Alexander gunned the engine. Three of the mechs were already turning towards us and raising their weapons. This was about to suck.