Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Stubs Soon!

Natasha looked over her mechs as they crossed the Hungarian airfield. The airship hangars loomed ahead. The hangars themselves were the normal half-cylinder shape of a large zeppelin hangar.

She had brought two wings, a full squadron, to destroy the Hungarian hangars and hopefully their airships as well. Her squadron was designated Second Squadron for this assault.

A typical wing was made up of a point, two flankers, a shielder and a support mech. Her first wing was almost a standard loadout, sheilder just a massive slab of metal, two flankers with autocannons one of which was was Natasha herself, and a heavy weapons mech carrying a howitzer. The point mech also carried a howitzer instead of an obsolete sword. Natasha had insisted on that. The second wing was heavy on fire support, with all but one flanker carrying howitzers.

Natasha didn't like how limited their tactical options were. If the mission went well, they wouldn't need them. They would get in, destroy the hangars, and fall back to rendezvous with the first detachment, which had gone after the Hungarian mechs and pilots. But when did anything go according to the plan?

As they approached the hangars, she moved her mech up between the wings and addressed her troops. "Flankers, target vehicles and equipment. Everyone else, light up the hangar. We'll start with the first one on the line and work our way down. No more than three rounds per gun per building. Aim for the center. We're trying to get the airships inside. The structure itself is irrelevant."

There was a chorus of "Yes, ma'am" and "Yes, major."

"Open fire!"

On her command, everyone spread out and opened fire. Natasha herself was carrying a howitzer, but she also had a heavy machine gun slung in reserve. It made her mech heavier, but she didn't like her options being limited.

Howitzers roared. The first round of shots flew out, smashing through the windows on the big arched hangar building.

The first rounds of shots hit the door halfway up and passed right through. Explosions in the interior blew out many of the windows. It wasn't yet as spectacular as she wanted.

When the second round of shells hit home on an airship’s gas bag, the structure detonated, blowing panels in all directions. The concussion wave nearly knocked several of her riders off their mechs. A couple of them fired off a third volley wastefully before she got them rallied.

"Cease fire, cease fire, we're moving out. Second hangar, double time."

Natasha took off at a trot, headed down the airfield to get past the burning ruin for a clear shot at the next hangar in line.

Natasha opened the navigation compartment on the side of her mech's head. Inside were alcoves for small equipment like binoculars and a map. A built-in compass popped out and lit up as the hatch opened. She pulled out her folded tactical map. At the same time, she reached down and lifted the magic cube from where she had hidden it under the map. As she pretended to check her map, she channeled magic into the cube. It responded, glowing faintly and giving her a sensation of a direction. Northwest. Straight at the Hungarian Hussars' ball. When they had entered the base, the cube had been indicating southwest. The triangulation of the two directions was right at the hangar where the ball had been.

The girl was here, or at least the fire soul was. She probably had it with her. Natasha felt a thrill. Her quarry was so close at hand.

"Major, there's flares from across the runway."

Natasha turned and swore. A flare was rising across the airfield in the direction of the Hungarian mech hangars and support buildings. First Squadron was in trouble and calling for help. Natasha said a few more choice swear words under her breath.

"Hold up, hold up!" she yelled again before everyone came to a stop. "Three volleys into the second hangar from here, rapid fire."

Somebody started to ask a question. She overrode with a shout. "Open fire!"

The cannons opened up piecemeal, ripping off shot after shot. Soon everyone had made all three. Natasha herself slammed each shot home and reloaded with mechanical precision, then turned and took off running before the others had finished. She set a good pace, but not the fastest her mech would do, trying to give time for the others to catch up.

Before they were halfway across the airfield, three of the mechs were jogging alongside her. She glanced back and swore again. The standard of training in the Royal Russian Hussar Regiments had grown badly lax. The rest of her unit was strung out over 200 yards behind her. She slowed up even further, hoping to get some unit cohesion before they contacted the enemy. This is what happens when you put every half-trained bastard daughter of the Tzar’s lackeys on a mech and give them a commission. Sloppy! Then as soon as they’re any good, they lose their powers and get put out to pasture. Not me. It won’t happen to me.

Ahead, several fires were burning. The flare was still drifting down on its paracute but starting to fade. It was well off to the northeast of the hangar, their target, which seemed to still be intact. Several fires were burning in front of it.

When Natasha was able to see what was on fire, she swore even louder. Trucks. It was almost certainly the detachment of ground troops the Russians had sent. They were supposed to arrive almost simultaneously with the Mech assault, but it appeared they had arrived early. Not surprising, since the mechs had taken longer than expected to go up the river valley to the north. When they got back she was going to put every one of these girls through a refresher course they would not quickly forget.

In the firelight, she could see mechs moving, far from where the flare had gone up. The Hungarians had been able to deploy.

"Major, what should we do?" her second wing leader asked, voice filled with doubt and a revolting amount of fear.

"We can focus on the mission," she snapped. Her mind raced. The primary objective was the mech hangar, but if things had gone this poorly and the Hungarians were already deploying their mechs, there was little chance that destroying that building would kill off as many pilots as mission planning had assumed. Their best option at this point was to get to First Squadron and extract together, salvaging as much as they could.

"Form up. Two volleys into the last Hungarian hangar, and then we're moving to support First Squadron." She pointed towards the flare. "Clear?"

"Yes, Major," came back the chorus of replies.

The mechs behind them were still catching up, so she had little hope that the stragglers would have heard, but she didn't have time to re-brief. They were hopelessly exposed here in the middle of a Hungarian airfield.

"Range?" she shouted.

The reply came back hesitant. Natasha ground her teeth. Her wing second-in-command was supposed to be on duty with the spotting scope, but the woman was clearly flustered.

"Uh, 400 yards?"

It wasn't supposed to be a question, but she didn't have time to make an example of the idiot.

She called out to the rest of the squadron. "Range 400 yards. Howitzers, two volleys. Open fire.”

She lifted her own weapon, checked the action, and fired. The range had looked short to her, and she adjusted high. Sure enough, her own round plunged into the structure with a satisfying whomp that blew out windows all around. The volley of shots from the rest of her wings was poor. Two hit the hangar in different locations, the rest either fell short or badly wide. Hadn't those idiots been paying attention in the brief? Didn't they know which hangar was the correct one?

Again, she didn't have time to make an example of any of them. She had to move and get them out of this exposed position. She worked the action on her howitzer and slid another round in. Boom! This time she didn't wait to see where it landed, but took off at a trot towards the warehouses to the right of the hangars.

There were some flashes from the corner of the nearest building. Someone had spotted them and was opening fire. She swore again and slowed up her pace. She had to get her unit back together so that her single shielder could be effective. She turned to yell back, "Form up! Form up!"

The stragglers were still firing at the hangar. Natasha steadied herself and fought down panic. Everything was turning to shit. They would have to push past the warehouses to get to where Squadron One's flare had gone up. She could abandon them and cut her losses, or she could fight through to them, maybe taking out as many Hungarian units as they could. Protecting her own force was only a secondary objective. Damaging the Hungarians' Hussar forces and dealing them a crippling blow was why they were here. The howitzers were poor weapons for close quarters combat, and they had already burned through most of their ammunition. "Form a line! Form a line! Assault formation! Two rows! First wing, standard wedge formation! Move, people!"

Her squadron formed up with agonizing slowness, but she got them moving. They were taking fire now. Shots sprang off armor or else were being deflected by their shielder’s efforts. The mech riders started to shoot back.

“Aimed fire only!” she snapped. “Everyone with a Howitzer, save your rounds! We're going to need them at close range."

She couldn't afford them to waste their ammunition now. They only had a few shots left and they would have to make every one of them count.

Initially, they had aimed for the dark line of warehouses to the east of the big hangar. This put some of the buildings between the assembling Hussar forces and themselves. As they got close to the buildings, they turned and moved along them, directly towards the Hussar forces and the hangar that had been their primary target. They should be able to take the forces at close range by coming around the end of the line of warehouses.

"Ammunition status!" she yelled.

The reports poured back in. The howitzers were as empty as she had feared, but it was the flankers and their autocannons that made her swear twice as loudly. She hadn't been paying attention to those mechs specifically, and their riders had burned a lot more ammunition than she had expected.

The change of plans had her troops befuddled, and she had to continually shout orders and then repeat them to get them into the formations she wanted. They reached the end of the line of warehouses with the shielder at the fore, supported by one flanker and a howitzer-armed mech from the second wing. Natasha rode in the center of the outfit, the second wing bringing up the rear.

They came around the corner of the warehouses and upon half a dozen Hungarian units. Two of them immediately opened fire, but the others were taken by surprise. Autocannon rounds bounced off the Russian shield magic. The wing one’s heavy weapons mech moved up to get a clear shot. Her howitzer roared and one of the Hungarian mechs exploded. A glowing blue cloud of desh indicated a direct hit on the mech's core.

"Yeah!" But even as the Russian gunner cheered, the five remaining Hungarian women focused their fire. A stream of autocannon rounds momentarily disrupted the Russian shielder’s magic and ripped into wing one’s heavy, shredding girl and mech alike.

The autocannon-armed flanker charged forward, trying to engage the Hungarians at close range as the rest of Natasha's forces moved in and added their firepower. The Hungarians didn't have a shielder with them. They went down one after another in rapid succession.

The last one was ripped apart by a howitzer, but not before Natasha's flanker had taken heavy damage. She started falling back, her destroyed autocannon dangling in one mech fist, but two more Hungarian units popped around the corner of the warehouse and lit her up with their own cannons before she could get to the Russian shield.

"Fall back!" Natasha yelled as the mech was destroyed. She looked for an opening in the line of warehouses behind them. If they could move through quickly and flank, they could still deal damage to the Hungarians. The warehouses themselves were huge brick and steel three-story affairs. Natasha wasn't sure what the roof materials were or she would have considered going over the top, but now wasn't the time to fall into a strange warehouse surrounded by enemies.

She spotted an opening, an alley between warehouses just big enough for a mech to get through. "In here!" she shouted, pointing. Two of her mech riders responded immediately and ducked into the alley. Some of the others looked around in confusion. The alley was little more than a black slit between two dark buildings, easy to overlook.

There was a roar of engines. Two ground cars filled with troops shot out from between the warehouses from farther down the line of buildings. Both of them started firing at the Russians. Poorly aimed cannon fire washed over the Russians, but every round struck home in their tightly packed formation, with the shielder on the wrong side.

Natasha swore. She should have unslung her machine gun earlier. Her howitzer roared and sent up a fountain of dirt in front of the second vehicle, then she dropped the weapon and brought up the heavy machine gun.

The Hungarian military truck slammed into the crater left by her howitzer round as the dirt was still raining down. The vehicle bucked, spilling troops off, and came to a shuddering stop. The gun in the back still fired into the packed Russians.

Natasha hosed down the disabled truck with machine gun fire. Heavy machine guns were only marginally useful against armored mechs, but were devastating against infantry and unarmored vehicles. Bodies flew and the truck erupted in a ball of flame.

The other car had swung wide into the dark. She could still see its flashing muzzle as it rained shot after well-placed shot into the Russians. Whoever their gunner was, he was using each round carefully.

"Get through the buildings, go, go!" she yelled as she took up a careful firing stance. The vehicle's headlights were off and it was hard to get the range on it in the dark by its muzzle flash alone. Natasha opened fire with her machine gun, sweeping her shots where she thought the vehicle would be. It kept moving and returning fire. She kept pouring on the lead. At last, she was rewarded with a ball of fire.

She turned to follow the last of her troops into the alley, but from the corner of her eye, she saw another muzzle flash.

Wham! Her mech staggered forward. She felt pain blossom in her back and side as a cannon round struck home. But the Venom was more armored than the average mech, and the shot had not been well centered. The damage, while painful, was not disabling.

Natasha ducked into the alley and followed her troops. Ahead, through the buildings, came explosions and gunfire. Another shot from behind her missed wide and showered bricks from the surrounding warehouse across her and her mech. Her shield protected her from the brunt of it, but the glancing blows still hurt.

Natasha stepped out of the far end of the alley into hell.

Russian and Hungarian mechs littered the streets between the buildings, some down in pieces, others fighting hand to hand with cannon and howitzer at point-blank range. The Hungarians had been able to get far more of their mechs armed and into action than she had expected. Two were coming up the street carrying nothing but swords, but most of the rest were armed with autocannons, although one was using it as a club to bludgeon her second-wing leader about the head and shoulders. Even as Natasha saw this, the woman fell from her mech and was stomped by her attacker.

Natasha hosed the Hungarian mech with heavy machine gun fire, aiming for the head and the rider. Rider and mech went over backwards to fall in a heap. Before they landed, Natasha was already moving. She dashed across the street, yelling herself hoarse for her group to disengage. Now she was mad.

A Hungarian mech came from her left, cannon raising, and Natasha reached out with one metal gauntlet and snatched its rider straight off its shoulder. The woman's squeal was cut short as the metal fist crushed her body. Natasha fired at another, but her machine gun ran dry. She snatched the autocannon away from the mech whose rider she had just killed, even before the machine fell to the ground. With one hand she grabbed the disabled Hungarian mech by the head and lifted it, holding it out as a giant metal shield. She turned slowly and used carefully aimed autocannon fire to clear the street. Boom, boom, boom. One shot per Hungarian mech. The riders were weak, confused, and engaged in close combat with the Russians, so most of them didn't even see it coming. In seconds, the fight was ended.

A lot of the Hungarians further up the street had turned and started to run. Natasha sent one more round in their direction before her cannon was dry. The Russian mechs left standing and the few that could still climb to their feet gathered around her.

"Standard formation!" she growled through clenched teeth. "East, double time!"

"What about First Squadron?" somebody yelled.

"Damn First Squadron to the fires of hell!" Natasha yelled as her mech took off down the street. She scooped up another enemy autocannon from a wrecked Hungarian as her mech hit its stride. Behind her, she could hear the clatter and clang of her own troops falling in. With a great effort of will, she slowed her pace. Some of her forces were damaged, and she had to give them the chance to keep up.

"But what about our mission?" her infuriating subordinate continued to whine.

"Our mission is over."