Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Stubs Soon!

Angelica studied the city out of the windshield of the captured Russian gunship. There was an awful lot of smoke rising from the skyline.

Frank glanced up from his controls for a moment, peering through the window. "Do you think they burn dirty coal here?"

"No," Angelica said. "I don't think that's coming from chimneys. There would be more plumes, smaller ones."

"Look over there," Frank pointed off to the west. A large trail of smoke was rising, and she could make out people scurrying about on the ground.

"Fighting? But we're nowhere near the rendezvous site."

"Yeah," Frank drawled, "but somebody's having a scuffle with someone. Look, they've set that building on fire."

Angelica sat back in her seat. She was occupying the co-pilot's position because they were so short-handed. Frank could get along without a co-pilot, but having one made his job easier. Besides, it gave her something to do other than worry about her soldiers, out there following orders while she stayed behind.

"What do you think, Captain? The plan didn't include the city being on fire."

She shook her head. "No. But we stick to it. Get in, get our people, and get out." Angelica was not used to being deferred to by a male officer of his rank, or any rank at all for that matter. But Frank stuck to flying and scrupulously deferred to the Hussars on anything to do with ground fighting or mission objectives. "I'm just the stage driver," he had once said to her.

"What in the name of all that's..." Frank trailed off, leaving his blasphemy unsaid as they both stared into the distance. Something was moving on the horizon. The smoke shifted and Angelica realized it was two somethings, huge shapes moving against the sky.

"What are they?" she wondered aloud.

"I think the one on the left is Admiral Karpov's gunboat," Frank's voice was full of wonder. "But I have no idea what that other thing is. Look, they're firing!"

Angelica had seen what Frank had. A gout of flame and billow of smoke had just jetted out of what looked like a house or small castle covered in naval turrets.

The shot struck Karpov's ship, which was already trailing smoke from several points. As they watched, it returned fire.

"I don't think we want to get any closer.” Frank’s voice had an edge to it.

"Agreed.” She looked around them at the city below, trying to regain her bearings. "How close are we to the rendezvous?"

"A couple of miles. It's over there." He pointed. "I'm going to swing west and come in low, if you don't mind.”

She sat back in her seat, nodding. "Sounds good to me, Captain. Take us in.”

They swung west, as agreed, and then dropped down to roof height, before skimming up the river. The rendezvous site was an open plaza along the banks of the Neva River.

Angelica had hoped to keep her mechs on board. Neither hers nor Eva's looked anything like Russian machines. The gunship could pass for Russian until they deployed. Everything seemed clear as they came in, but as they touched down she noticed a squad of soldiers moving up the street. They were armed, with bayonets fixed and rifles at the ready.

They weren't intercepting the gunship, but continued on down the street. Another squad nearby was eyeing the gunship as they touched down.

Angelica frowned. "We'll have to go out and secure the area." She didn't like it, but she didn't see a choice. If those soldiers decided to come investigate, it would be difficult to defend themselves from inside the gunship. Better to throw a perimeter around the area and keep anybody fighting well away from the air machine. Despite its armor and guns, it wasn't meant to be parked in the middle of a firefight on the ground. It was designed to stay above the action and fire down into it, not to confront it eye to eye.

She went back and found Eva, who leapt up to join her. “Come. We need to clear the area for our friends.”

Angelica didn't like launching a sudden surprise attack in the middle of an enemy city so far from the front, much like what the Russians themselves had done in Budapest. But they needed their landing zone secure, and they had planned for this possibility. Her mech was armed with two machine guns mounted side by side. They had large bins of ammunition and had been attached to the forearm.

Eva's mech required the girl’s full focus to make it use its large cannon properly. When she just gave it general directions to attack, it would ignore the weapon or worse, use it as a club. The antique machine would be a liability if it wasn't so ferocious. Eva’s face was focused and drawn as she prepared for the operation.

They opened the hatch facing towards the river and away from the nearby troops. Angelica stood next to the gunship, holding a rifle as she deployed her mech, and remained there while commanding it down to the edge of the river and then along the banks. There was a walkway there that was lower than the street level, and she was able to send her mech south before swinging it around to engage the Russians. That way, shots at the mech would not miss and hit the gunship itself. It was armored, but there were plenty of vulnerable places like the engine pods where a stray bullet might get lucky.

As her mech moved down the riverbank, Angelica poked her head around the end of the gunship. The Russian soldiers at the nearest intersection were looking their way. A moment later, they started moving across the street. Her mech was already 50 meters down the river.

As the Russians reached the near edge of the street, her mech scrambled up the bank, passed through the park in two strides, and stepped out on the street. The Russians turned and shouted an alarm. Their rifles came up. They fired just as her mech opened up with its machine guns. Two of them broke and ran, but the whole squad was cut down in moments. The crack of rifle fire still came from further down the street, and through her link, she felt shots bouncing off her mech's armor.

She crouched down beside the gunship and focused on her bond, deepening the connection. Now she was seeing through her mech's eyes. There was the other squad, a block to the north. Some stood in the street firing, the rest of them were running for cover. Angelica turned and gave them a burst of machine gun fire. She thought she hit two of them before the rest took cover.

For a moment, there was quiet. One body lay in the street where the squad had disappeared. There was a squeak of hinges as the hatch on the other side of the gunship swung open. Eva was deploying her mech. Still focused on her bond, Angelica surveyed the area. There was no one visible on the street to the south, and only the dead bodies of the first squad nearby. As she watched, one twitched. She looked again. One of the Russians from the first squad was struggling to rise. She raised the mech’s machine gun but hesitated. She didn't relish the idea of gunning down the wounded. The mech's vision wasn't perfect, like a person in need of glasses; some of the detail was lost, but something seemed wrong about the rising man.

"Shoot! Shoot!" Eva shouted from the other side of the gunship. "That one's dead!"

"No, he's not! He's alive!" she called back.

Eva came running around the side of the ship. Angelica let her bond fade slightly as she focused on her compatriot. Eva's eyes were wide. "He was dead! But now he's alive again!"

Then it dawned. Zombies. "Are you sure?"

Eva nodded vigorously, eyes still wide. She turned to look over her shoulder. In the distance, her mech roared, and they both felt and heard the thud of its footsteps as it advanced.

"Then I guess we better make them dead again," Angelica said. She dropped into her bond more deeply, and her mech lifted its machine gun. The hail of bullets quickly finished off the first squad for a second time. Eva's mech stomped off down the street to the north in search of more prey. Angelica and Eva closed the riverside cargo hatch and retreated back inside, nervously peering out with their rifles at the ready.

This spot had felt like it had good, clear fields of fire. That was before they expected zombies to pop up from anywhere. Now every tree, park bench, and alleyway seemed menacing. Screams and gunfire from their north told them Eva's mech had found the other group. They both kept glancing in that direction. Unless the antique mech did its job very thoroughly, soon they could expect company in the form of the undead.

The whole street was on fire. A barricade of furniture had been turned into a bonfire. Dead civilians lay scattered about, and armed soldiers patrolled. They looked relieved when my tank came around the corner, but that changed to alarm as Wysocki's tank with the red and white flag rounded the corner behind me. I commanded the gunner to fire the howitzer. For a change, I stuffed my fingers in my ear and opened my mouth before the muzzle blast concussed the world. It wasn't an effective weapon against scattered troops, but it sure put the fear of death into them. The muzzle blast blew out windows all along the street. The explosive shell ripped into the pile of burning debris and sent it scattering in all directions.

Oops, I thought as raining burning debris fell on the buildings for a block in every direction. I may have just burned down St. Petersburg.

We moved the tank to the side and let Wysocki's pass us. With its enclosed turret, it was better to have them take point against infantry. There was a couple of shots from a building to the right, but after a burst of machine gun fire, things were quiet. They were either laying low or still running.

I hadn't watched where all the Russians soldiers had disappeared, into buildings and down alleyways I supposed. A few lay sprawled in the street as we rolled forward. The burning pile was more scattered now, and there was space to get by it without scorching our paint too badly.

As we rolled past, one of the bodies lunged up and grabbed for the side of the tank. It was just below me, and I got a good look at its slathering mouth and vacant eyes.

"Ah, hell. More zombies."

My loader cried out in alarm, calling on heaven to aid us.

"Stay focused!" I yelled to him, and shouted for the driver to speed up. I kicked the zombie in the face, and it tumbled away.

"Grab your sidearm and be ready!" I snapped at the quaking man beside me.

Before we cleared the barricade, the tank got hung up on a fire hydrant and light pole that were close together near a concrete utility box. Further down the road ahead, I saw another barricade. This one wasn't burning, but it looked more substantial. How have they built these so quickly? The rebels must have been planning this for a while. We’d messed up Petrov’s little demonstration even better than they could have hoped. Too bad they couldn’t show us some gratitude here.

I signaled Wysocki to back off and get us turned around. As we got the tanks turned around, I hopped down. "Give me a minute, I gotta check something," I called. I don't know if my crew heard me over the sound of the engine, but they yelled something back as I bent to check the fallen zombie. The creature still groaned, but it was having trouble moving. Something had broken inside, possibly its spine, and it was having a hard time standing up again. Probably my kick to the face had broken its neck, but it wasn't dead—or should I say re-dead? Dead-er? I never had learned the correct term for killing something that was already dead. De-animated? Undead creatures broke all laws of reality, including those of the English language. Er, Polish language. Damn it. I’d never been good with grammar and now I had contradictory rules for six different languages in my head and right now what I really needed was to focus on the zombies anyway.

I kicked the creature's head until it rolled completely free of the body in a pulverized mess and completed my examination. The soldier had one of those amulets around his neck. It glowed with a faint green light, almost impossible to see in the daylight. I saw no bite marks or wounds on his exposed skin or uniform other than the recent bullet holes and the head trauma I had delivered. All indications were that this thing had died a natural shooty death and been reanimated by that amulet.

That might be a good sign. Corporal Sienkiewicz had been bitten by a zombie and shown no signs of turning. Hopefully, the source of the transformation was these amulets and not infectious bites. That would prevent this outbreak of undead from becoming a full-on zombie apocalypse. Good news for St. Petersburg, I supposed, but I still wanted to get out of the city as quickly as possible.