Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Stubs Soon!

I breathed a sigh of relief as the army ambulance disappeared down the street. I had done all I could for the prisoner. I limped back toward the remains of the ball in a daze. I didn’t hear any gun fire. The Russians were apparently gone.

Well, now what? I couldn’t go back to my own barracks, not when there was work to do and no one waiting for me back there. I didn’t want to stop moving and start thinking about what I had just done.

I fell in alongside a bunch of shell-shocked Hungarian grunts to start clearing up the mess. I dove right into lifting heavy beams and objects that would take a crew of men to move. I very quickly regretted it. My left hand was starting to swell up and I had ribs grating on both sides. I had been damned stupid.

Twice, a junior enlisted man tried to give me orders but I put them in their place. "Sergeant Golem, to you private!” The third time it happened, three corporals and a private grabbed the man bodily and hauled him away. I saw them in the distance, giving him a stern lecture. After that, I didn't have any more trouble. We worked far into the night, clearing debris and putting out fires.

Apparently, word got around not to get in the way of the big and helpful golem. I knew about heavy demolition and debris clearing even before I had been programmed for machinery operations in this world. Everyone around me seemed to catch onto that, following my pointing and grunted directions. I had a de facto work group under me, and we did three times our share of the cleanup. A Hungarian sergeant started taking orders from me. Off in the distance somewhere I spotted a junior lieutenant wringing his hands. I realized this must have been his platoon, but he never got in my way.

After my first mistakes at using brute force. I sent out men to find heavy equipment, cranes, bulldozers, anything. The power of many hands is nice and all, but it's hard to beat a big diesel engine. Of course, in this case it was steam, but same thing.

When they finally brought me a machine, it was an excavator that looked like it should be named Mary-Anne. I initially stared at it in disbelief, wondering how the hell I was going to get any use out of that. I was just turning to ask my crew if anyone had experience with steam shovels when the realization hit me. I almost smacked myself in the forehead. This was standard equipment around here. I almost certainly already had the skills programmed in. And sure enough, as soon as I settled into the seat and laid my hands on the control levers, everything fell into place.

Some of the men seemed to think I was crazy, pointing and jabbering as I got into the driver’s seat and started the digger up. Nobody had thought to use an excavator to clear the debris. Which was understandable since it didn't have the jaws on its bucket that would let it pick up beams like a claw. But I had confidence in my skills and soon I was flipping beams out of the way with deft ease.

Unfortunately the vibration of the machine sent agony into my broke ribs. I wanted to stop and lay down but even thinking of that made me start thinking of Alexander. As soon as I pushed his image away, all I could see was the crumpled form of the fallen Russian girl I had shot in the back.

I couldn’t stop right now. I had to DO something.

I kept my crew close to the old warehouse that had been packed with mechs. Other people were putting out the fires in the hangar where the ball had been held, and I thought what they needed most was to get their mech forces back online. I focused my attentions there. Plus, I really didn't want to be recovering bodies, and I knew for a fact the warehouse had been empty except for me and a bunch of mechs when it went up.

It was around 2 a.m., and we were well into the hangar, heaping piles of debris and unearthing mechs when the colonel showed up. Mazur hopped right up on the side of the cab and hung on, seemingly ignoring his dust-covered finery. He had a streak of dried blood trickling over his left eye and his hair was ruffled, but it didn’t touch his fine manner.

"Good morning, Sergeant," Colonel Mazur said over the chugging engine. "How long do you think it will take for them to get this cleaned up?"

I continued running the shovel as I talked. "Weeks for sure, but the initial cleanup is well underway. We'll have most of the mechs freed by later today." I tried not to let him see how done in I was. My left hand was so swollen I was having difficulty working the levers.

"Ah, excellent. How do they look?"

"What, the mechs?" I asked. The beam I was shifting with the steamshovel was almost clear.

"Yes. How many do you think will be operational by the time you're done?"

"It's hard to say, but less than half the building came down. The mechs were so close packed, a lot of the beams are just sitting on top of them. I think even the ones under the collapsed bit should be repairable. I'd say 80, 90 percent."

He swore in appreciation. "That many. Good, good. How are you holding up?"

"Never mind me. How are the girls?" I asked as I lowered the bucket again

"They're all right. Sounded like they all had some close scares. You're going to have your work cut out for you getting their mechs in shape. But they're all fine."

I heard something in his voice and asked, "Is that all? Is everybody fine?"

"There was another girl, a Hungarian, who was at the party with Captain Lewis. Contessa Veronica. She took our team shopping yesterday. They only found her a little while ago. Seems like she chased the Russians down and tried to stop them from escaping.”

“Is she all right?”

I resisted the urge to glance at his expression as I carefully lifted a heavy beam with the tines of the bucket. Operating heavy machinery while having a conversation is considerably harder than talking while driving a car.

“They took her away in an ambulance. I don’t know if she’s all right or not.”

I made a concerned noise and shifted the bucket again. I almost had this one, and I didn’t want to drop it. Several Hungarian mechs lay curled up under where it had been sitting. And if I dropped it on them again, they might get damaged even further. So far, they looked intact.

“You got any orders, sir?” I felt like I had to ask, but if he insisted I stop what I was doing, I was definitely going to give him an earful, the careful, super polite earful that only a senior non-comm can pull off. A respectful ass-chewing was an art form.

This time, it wasn't necessary. "No, you keep doing what you're doing. This is the best goodwill we could possibly get. But try to keep it moving. We can’t have you on cleanup duty for days."

I wasn't doing this for the goodwill. I was doing this because it needed done. And because it kept me from thinking about Alexander. And somewhere deep down, part of me was terrified that there might be someone still trapped under this building. I knew there wasn’t. I had been in here when the explosion went off, and it had been empty.

"We’re working as quick as we can. What’s the hurry?" I asked.

"The Russians rolled across the Romanian border last night. They're coming up three of the passes with who knows how many divisions."

I swore under my breath. And then swore again as the beam started to shift. I tipped the bucket a little more and got it back under control. "So, they're gonna need every giant robot they can get."

"Yes, every Hussar they can muster. It looks like most of their airships survived.”

"How were the casualties? Mechs aren’t much good without riders."

"It was pretty bad. But those young ladies are a tough bunch. I don't have numbers, but I think if you do your job here, they should be able to field a pretty effective fighting force. Perhaps enough to turn the tide."

There was something I had been wondering about mechs in general. "Are these Hussars really that good, Colonel? They're impressive and all, big walking metal men, but to turn an entire battle or warfront... There's only what? 80, 90 here? Can they really outfight a division or three?”

I was thinking about tanks. In my world, they started to see use in the latter half of World War 1 and became more and more effective over the next few years. I wasn’t sure a WW1-era tank could defeat a mech but I was damn sure a Sherman could.

"It's not really about their raw power, Sergeant. They can get in places that are difficult for other troops. And they have a shock value. When they hit a battle line it simply melts companies. With good tactics, yes, they can turn the tide of battle. Especially in the kind of mountainous terrain we’re talking about."

"Oh yeah, in Romania?" I wasn't really familiar with the geography. All the maps I had seen so far had very different borders than in my day.

"The border between Romania and Transylvania is all big mountains and narrow passes."

I could see what he meant. Metal men that could walk up and down steep slopes were like moving pillboxes in perfect defensive terrain. I could see why he was so interested in getting these things operational.

He patted me on the shoulder. Pain shot through my broken ribs and I suppressed a wince.

"But get yourself some rest and a sandwich or something."

"I will. Kind of surprised how far I’ve been able to push on minimal rations here. This body’s a wonder.”

He chuckled as he climbed down off the excavator. "Good, just don't wear it out. That's Polish army property," he said over his shoulder as he walked away.

"Ha!" I didn't think he was serious. I hoped not. I had no intention of leaving the Poles out to dry, but... This was my new lease on life, and I didn't intend to be anyone's slave.

I turned my attention back to the steam shovel and heaved the beam the rest of the way clear. Then I started yelling for my work crew to get some ropes around it and haul it out of there. It was gonna be a long night.

As dawn broke, an army of troops descended on us to help with the cleanup. Apparently, it had been a leave weekend, and most of the base had emptied into town on passes. Soon, everywhere I turned, other work groups were moving in and taking over cleanup. Even before the building was completely excavated they were starting to repair mechs and load equipment. The weapons and ammo bunkers were emptied onto the streets into massive piles, and swarms of men were hauling crates to and fro. It was a full-scale mobilization.

Thanks to the colonel's visit, I knew why. They were putting together combat-ready mech wings as quick as they could. Two of the big mech haulers arrived, styled different than our Polish one, but with the same basic plan, big engine pulling a huge hauler. Fleets of trucks started rolling in and load up with mechs.

Around noon, they pulled a train up a siding along the airfield. They started filling it with equipment, ammunition, and mechs as well. By then, I was completely done in. It was time to leave things to the Hungarians.

I managed to get directions to a mess hall on the other side of the base and I limped that way. The place was bustling with activity, but when I collected my full tray, I found I was not the only bone-weary soldier staring listlessly into my food with eyes haunted by the horrors of the night.

The partygoers were nowhere to be seen. Members of the upper crust, they had been whisked off to the best medicine Budapest had to offer. A number of barracks buildings had been shattered, and there were a considerable number of casualties in the lower ranks.

Fortunately, much of the base had been on leave, with only essential personnel remaining, those who had been working at the party or managing traffic. But one didn't have to be directly in combat to be scarred by its horrors. I’d seen it when I was in the US Army. I’d not been in an active firefight, but I had spent many hours cleaning up the results of roadside bombs and other terrorism, even before my own accident. The horrors of war scarred those who served in support roles, too.

My own pain was fresh and poignant, but I couldn't do nothing when I saw that blank horror mirrored on the faces of the Hungarians. I sat down next to a group of junior enlisted men who were sitting near a sergeant I recognized from the cleanup, the one who’d helped relay my orders into Hungarian. He was young for his rank and stared into his goulash with dried tear tracks on his dusty cheeks. Several of the younger men made a space for me, and I sat down. I started talking in low tones as I poked at my food, just to nonsense at first, about the weather, about how I found Hungary, and eventually about how good a job the men had done, and how important cleanup and recovery was so that the Army could get back to the job at hand, about how our efforts here today would let us strike a great blow against the bastards who had done this. It was rambling, meaningless talk, but slowly the men around me perked up as the sergeant translated what I said into Hungarian.

For a long time, I talked and ate, and they listened. Tired though they were, the men started opening up. Soon, we were swapping anecdotes of the usual "no shit, there I was" army stories. I was in the middle of a tale where some of my platoon had taken unexploded ordinance that they had found back to the barracks and were in the process of trying to dismantle it, until I discovered them and called in the EOD, when my friend the general appeared.

“Sergeant?”

“General?”

I stood carefully so as not to upset the table, while the Hungarian troops all sprang to their feet.

“I’d like to talk to you about something, Sergeant. Would you come with me?"