Iron Angel Volume One, Part Two

A Christmas Evening Vigil

OR

Crystal Without a Chime

Leigh Abrams was trapped in a nightmare. She was alone in the dark, her life flashing before her eyes.

It hadn’t been much of a life. Her mother had been a picture in the hall and an angry grimace on her father’s scarred face. Her father had been a taskmaster, visiting only to savage her efforts to please him. The Sisters of Saint Francis had been solicitous, but by that age she had retreated within her own mind, convinced no one cared.

When she returned to her father’s manor after her military training, she had been a pawn in another of his endless political games. To General March she was an irritation. To Lieutenant Sebastian Cole, she had been a curiosity, a fellow officer who wasn’t a fellow at all, but unmistakably female. Her mind, drifting in the dark, latched onto the image of Sebastian grabbing her, pulling her out of the line of fire, risking himself to make sure she lived.

As an act of caring, it hadn’t been much, but there had been little enough caring of any kind in her life. The image of Sebastian standing firm against the hordes of Blitzmen and daVincis, placing himself between her and machines bent on killing her, settled firmly into place somewhere in her breast. She clung to that thought as the lightless metal tomb enclosing her rocked to the sounds of fire and death.

***

Lieutenant Painter watched General Robert Shaw stare across the field of battle. A grim smile decorated the general’s lips. Lieutenant Painter was no coward. He didn’t fear the height of Shaw’s rickety wooden observation tower. He ignored enemy snipers as beneath consideration. He still shuddered at Shaw’s smile. Anyone might. Shaw’s face was thin, cheeks and eyes sunken. His lips pulled back to expose shining white teeth even when he wasn’t smiling. Two wounds, faded with age but never healed, exposed the cheekbone and jaw on the left side of his face.

Shaw’s voice matched his face; echoes of a handsome man overlain with horror. “The Hun and his machines are retreating. We lost a few of our Franklins, but the forges and machine shops will have most of those up and running before dawn.”

Painter had no desire beyond delivering his message and leaving the vast section of The Line held by the 54th, but he felt obligated to respond to Shaw, “What cost to your men, sir?”

Shaw’s smile twisted. He lifted a pair of field glasses to his eyes with his left hand. His right never set down his heavy pistol, never even moved to holster it. After a few moments spent examining the trenches, the General spoke. “Your question does you credit, Lieutenant, but your concern is misplaced. I saw no incendiaries on the field this day.”

The answer confused Painter, but he stamped down hard on his curiosity. Questions might produce answers, and answers took time. Instead, he extended his message to Shaw without a word. Glancing away from his field glasses at the sound of paper rustling, the General shrugged and returned to his review. “Read it to me. My eyes aren’t what they once were.”

“Yes, sir.” Disobeying a direct order from General Shaw didn’t even occur to Painter, no matter how trivial the command. A few moments with his trench knife and the envelope yielded up its contents, a simple document bearing the signature of the American Expeditionary Force Commander, General March. Painter read dutifully through the salutations, watching General Shaw’s expression grow more and more impatient behind the glasses. He hurried to the meat of the missive.

“Brigadier Shaw, my Headquarters Company has come under assault by Central Mechanicals in at least Battalion strength. Your lines have been penetrated. I will deal with the incursion; find and seal the breach. Signed, General Peyton March.”

If Shaw was surprised or upset by the news, he hid it well. His voice was dead as he dictated his reply. “Take a message back to March, Painter. Tell him my boys just beat off a Hun attack, and were stretched thin before that. We’ll find his breach, we’ll seal it, but he needs to find us proper reinforcement, or…” Shaw broke off, a snarl contorting his face.

“Take the message, boy. I was wrong about our losses. We’re going to lose at least one, and we’ve only gained half a dozen to show for it. Take the message, and pray March can scrape up some reinforcement.” With tstairshe General was gone, leaving his field glasses behind to climb down the steep stair, still never dropping or holstering his pistol.

Curiosity overcame Painter. Before he left, he picked up the field glasses and peered in the direction Shaw had been looking. Three squads wended their way back toward Shaw’s command post. One guarded a single AEF soldier, his antique blue uniform covered in gore. The other two bracketed a short squad of soldiers in Prussian uniforms. After a moment, Painter felt his gorge begin to rise. Killing enemies was bad enough. What the 54th did was something different, something to turn a man’s bowels to water.

Every one of the Central Power’s soldiers bore what looked to be mortal wounds, but still they walked. Painter did not count himself a coward, but no sane man could stand and face a nightmare.

***

Capricious Jones dreamed.

Deep within her armored belly she felt her daughter resting, heard Kay’s restless muttering. Kay’s panic had ebbed enough that she slept, but Cap kept up a soothing string of murmurs culled from her own waking dreams. It might help when Kay was rested enough to awaken, it might not. The important thing for now was that Kay was safe, so Cap dreamed.

She dreamed of a time when she was still flesh and bone and blood. She dreamed of a time before she was a mother, before she was an Engineer. She dreamed of a time after her parents went away, when Gramma Jones was her only family.

***

Gramma Jones’ voice was a soothing singsong that tried to lull Cap to sleep. She fought it; the old woman’s willow switch was merciless, and the lulling quality of her voice was no excuse for failing to hear her words. Her accent, a strange mix of the places she’d been sold over the better part of a century, was hard enough to follow when Cap was awake.

“Now, everah part o ta world, tay got tay own knowlash.”

The heat from the great cast iron pot didn’t help. Cap was supposed to be washing the potatoes she’d found growing out in the woods, but her hands kept slowing as Gramma’s voice washed over her. The willow switched twhipped across the space between them, and Cap’s knuckles burned as she recited.

“Every part of the world has its own knowledge.”

“Tat’s bettah. You learn ta way ta educated talk. Tat’s good.”

“I suppose. I still don’t see why I got… I must learn to talk like a White.”

Thwip. “Look wit yowah eyes, gull. Teh Man in teh shack, what he?”

Confusion twisted Cap’s face, “He’s the overseer.” The switch twitched, and she scrambled to connect the dusky skinned man to the day’s lesson. “He’s White?”

Thwip. “He Spaniard, gull. Spanish?”

“The Spanish know metals, steel most of all. Gramma, I don’t understand.”

“What you not knowin’, gull?”

“You told me the Somalis had the knowledge of metals.” Gramma ignored her, tossing more herbs in the pot. Cap scrubbed at the potato, careful not to damage the skin. Dirt in the food was bad; wasted food was worse. “Did you tell me the Guineas had the knowledge of metals?”

Whip, whip, whip the switch twitched. “Did ah?”

Cap went silent, concentrating on the next potato in the sack. Nothing could set Gramma Jones on a tear like telling her you weren’t sure. Certainty to her was the saints and apostles all rolled into one. Not knowing was bad, but being uncertain was unforgivable. Cap wrestled with her memories, prodding at them, confirming her suspicion.

“You did! You told me the Guineas had knowledge of metals, but you told me the Somalis had the knowledge of metals.”

“You know tat, gull?”

“Yes.”

“So you know what ah know?”

“I know some of what you know.” Cap temporized.

Gramma’s cackle was a thing of endless fascination and terror for Cap. Fascination, wondering what would set it off and how such a loud sound came from such a small, wizened old woman. Terror, because when she laughed she seemed to lose all control of her hands, which waved any which way. With one of them holding a ladle dripping steaming stew and the other still holding the switch, Gramma’s cackles were dangerous to be around.

When she wheezed to a stop she wiped her eyes with a knuckle. “You quick, tat true. How can you know if I know?”

“Gramma, two people can know the same thing.”

Whip, whip, whip. “Can tey?”

Cap focused on the potato. It was the last one in the sack. Paying attention to her work was an excuse Gramma would take. Once the potatoes were gone, she would get no reprieve; her answers would need to fire back as fast as Gramma could ask the questions.

“It’s like words. Two people can know the same words, but they come out different when they say them. Like you and I. So yes, two people can know the same thing, but the people make the knowledge different.” She paused just a moment, a question percolating to the top of her mind, popping out before she could think about it too clearly, “Does the knowledge make the people similar?”

“Tat be a puzzle, gull. Tat be a grand puzzle.”

***

To say that Capricious dreamed was not to say she slept. She had slept years, waiting for her daughter. Now her flywheel spun, her pilot light burned bright, and her Engines were never far from ready. In the back wall of the Garage she’d found the feed line for her fuel. Now she sipped at the witch’s brew of refined naphtha and jellied alcohol, which kept her bunkers topped off at all times despite the occasional burn to keep her flywheel spinning.

In the aftermath of battle, she ignored her surroundings to concentrate on her daughter. Now that Kay slept, Capricious became slowly aware of the remains of hundreds of Mechanical Men that lay littered across the floor of the Garage and Courtyard beyond. Only a bare hundred had been her work. The remainder was Men who had fallen defending her daughter and the Men they had protected her from.

Scattered in amongst the metal wreckage were the still forms of mortal men, the mechanics who had worked in the Garage prior to Kay’s arrival. Before Cap realized who Kay was, she saw them obey her, assist her, and even fall defending her. Cap wished she could do something for them, but while her control of her weapons was incredible, they were still weapons. Her hands were fully articulated, but their size made them clumsy working on a human scale.

As she pondered the problem, she increased the gain on her outer stereophones. The sounds of battle in the distance, fierce since she awoke, had died down to a steady, occasional rumble of artillery fire. The battle had a winner. Idly Cap wondered whether it had been her daughter’s defenders or those who sought to kill her. If it was the former, she could get her daughter medical attention. If the latter, she would deal with them as she had dealt with the others. Her gun, Ipapa, twitched at the thought, yearning to be used. As she calmed the cannon, she recited Gramma’s lists of peoples and proficiencies to her daughter. When David Abrams had killed her, Cap had feared she would never be able to pass those on to little Kay. Now, though, she could and did.

Voices in the courtyard ended Cap’s dreaming. A moment later she saw two men round the corner. One was an older gentleman in a uniform. Stars adorned his shoulders; he was likely had authority here. She did not know him. The other she recognized. It took all her will to keep Ipapa from firing. David Abrams, her murderer, had that effect on her.

***

“As you can see, General March, my Masterpiece has exceeded all expectations. It destroyed the enemy’s attacking forces while taking almost no damage.”

General Peyton March remained silent. He’d been silent from the moment he returned to his command post and seen the awful carnage wrought by the Central Forces Mechanicals. Most of his staff had escaped by hiding in concealed basements. His quartermaster and a few orderlies had died horribly at the hands of one of the enemy’s DaVinci reproductions.

Now March looked about the scene of the heaviest fighting and his stomach clenched. He’d long since become inured to the scent of burned gunpowder and oil, and even the smells of death were an old companion. The sheer savagery here was enough to shock even a battle-hardened old soldier like March. He looked down at David. The Engineer’s blind eyes let him rest serenely in his wheeled chair, and for the thousandth time today March nearly lost control of his temper.

It wasn’t Abrams’ fault the Central Powers commander had lured him away from the depot. It wasn’t Abrams’ fault the few young men in this garage had been forced to put up a defense worthy of Leonidas. That fault rested squarely on General Peyton March’s shoulders, and he would carry it until the day he died.

David’s supercilious voice interrupted March’s grief. “My nurse tells me there is a terrible mess here. Shall I get my service Mechanicals to clean it up? I’m afraid most of it will wind up in the dump if I do. They’re still quite indiscriminate.”

March snapped. His voice was heated as he leaned down into David’s face, hoping the man could feel his anger, since David’s eyes had been lost long ago to his ‘Masterpiece’. “You insufferable, pompous little ass! You will not speak of my fallen men as so much garbage to be thrown in the rubbish heap. They will be accorded full military honors. You are not invited to the funeral, and I will have you ejected if you try to attend.”

David replied, but March didn’t hear any of it. Someone in the Garage was responding to the sound of his raised voice. A pained whisper susurrated through the garage, but he could neither see the whisperer nor make out the words. Waving the troops escorting him forward, he dashed in, heedless of danger from unexploded ordnance.

In a matter of seconds, he found the source of the whispers. Lying twisted, half under the wreckage of one of the Mechanicals he had commanded, young Sebastian Cole, commander of the defense of the Garage, struggled to rise. March called his bodyguards over, had them lift the Mechanical chassis off the young Lieutenant. When they did, March stifled a gasp. A jagged piece of steel shrapnel stuck out of his back. It had likely severed his spine. Cole didn’t realize; he kept trying to turn himself over, trying to rise.

March knelt next to him, pitching his voice so the young man could hear over his obvious pain and disorientation, “Cole! Don’t get up, you’re injured. The corpsman will be here soon. “

“We held as long as we could, sir,” the boy erupted in a fit of coughing. The blood soaking Cole’s uniform and hands made it hard to see that he was coughing up more. “We held…”

“You certainly did, son. Quiet now, the corpsman will be here soon. Corporal!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Run, do not walk, back to my Command Mechanical and bring the Corpsman back. If you see one sooner, you bring them instead.”

“Yes, sir!” The soldier was holstering his seventy-five caliber Smith & Wesson rifle as he ran. The big guns were hell to fire, but they would knock down most line Mechanicals.

When Abrams opened his mouth again, Peyton nearly shot him. For an endless moment, he stared at the silent cripple. It was only when he realized his gun was out of the holster, cocked, that he knew he’d best get away from the doctor, and quickly.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Peyton’s own thought careened back into him like an Australian boomerang. Sudden hope flaring, he looked up to the crippled old man. “Doctor Abrams! I know most of your research has been into Engineering, but don’t I recall you had a medical degree?”

David’s voice was aloof, “I do. What of it?”

“This boy needs medical attention immediately!”

“Even were I so inclined, I am incapable.” In explanation, Abrams held up the carved wooden prostheses that ended his arms.

“Dammit, man, I’ll be your hands. We could save this boy. My corpsman might not make it in time!”

“You would probably kill him at any rate. We should leave. The unexploded ordnance alone makes this a poor choice of dallying places. Nurse?”

Abram’s nurse, a dark, busty woman with a face perpetually concealed by a broad hat and veil, stepped from the Courtyard to guide David’s chair from the wreckage. Before she reached him, March heard something from deep within the Garage. He watched with fascination as the huge Mechanical walked toward him. The gleam of steel showed where Central weapons had violated armor of flat jet, but the thing still moved with the oily grace of an Arabian Raqs Sharqi dancer.

He was so mesmerized by its sinuous sway that he didn’t register the thing’s huge spear as a weapon until he was well within its reach. When the spear pulled back, he threw himself protectively over young Cole, shouting his men to cover as he did. He heard the spear whistling through the air, heard its impact with flesh and metal. He glanced up to see David Abrams, chair and all, flung into the wall of the garage by the flat of the spear’s blade.

The thing came to a halt then, its feet still in the area of the garage not covered in carnage, its spear tip sinking at least a foot into the cement floor. The huge Mechanical sank down to its haunches, a thick hatch sliding out from its belly as it did so. When the hatch was no more than six feet above the floor, it flew open, forming a ramp from the belly of the machine to the floor. A female body in the tattered remains of a Women’s Army Corp uniform slid out, shedding a thick coating of jelly. By the time the woman stood, the jelly had sloughed off enough for March to identify the woman.

“Lieutenant Abrams! Come here, I’ve a wounded man!”

The young female Lieutenant stood. Her movements were ever so slightly off, like a woman walking in a daze. As March had noticed, her uniform was in tatters. What he hadn’t noticed was the strange headset that covered both ears. He would ask about it later; if she saved the young man who had given so much to follow March’s orders, he didn’t care if she put her corsets on her head and called herself the queen of garters.

Without speaking, she knelt beside Cole’s still form, her hands swift and sure as they moved across him. At one point, she rolled the boy half over, and March was relieved by Cole’s hiss of pain, horrified by the girl’s lack of reaction. After a few moments, she met March’s gaze. Her eyes were dead, her voice flat when she spoke, “No conventional procedures will save this soldier. Do I have permission to experiment?”

“Can you save him?”

“I do not know. That is why it’s called an experiment. His next of kin is unavailable. Do I have your permission?”

“If there is a chance to save this young man, you have my permission to do whatever you need to.”

The faintest hint of a smile flashed across her lips, and her hands blurred as they emptied her supply belt onto a clear space on the floor beside Cole. Her voice distracted when she spoke, it took March a moment to realize she was issuing orders in a rapid-fire monotone, assuming someone would follow them.

“Bring me five gallons of water, as close to boiling as you can make it; as many clean towels as you can find; a camp stove; a welding apparatus, the one in here will do if you can find it; one gallon of Mechanical diesel; one cup of pectin, one gallon rubbing alcohol.” While she spoke, her hands were still moving. One was alternating between working a compact hand pump she had attached to his mouth and pressing on his chest. The other was rapidly divesting him of his clothes. When she realized no one was moving, she looked back at March. Her expression was still muted, but her expectation was still clear.

“You men heard the Doctor! Move!”

“It would help if someone could work the breathing pump, Sir.” Lieutenant Abrams’ voice bordered on insolence; if she saved the young hero under his command, March would find a temporary loss of dignity a small price to pay, especially since no one else was around to hear.

“Just show me what to do.”

***

Leigh looked across the desk at General March. Her father’s desk, just to her left, remained conspicuously empty. The general reviewed records, filling out some paperwork as he did so. The reading glasses he wore while working made him look grandfatherly. Secretly she hoped the impression wasn’t false, but life had taught her to put little faith in hopes. Her legs itched with the unfamiliar feel of trousers. Physical discomfort was an old friend to her; she bore it without comment or movement.

Nearly an hour after she had arrived, March looked up with a start. He put the paperwork down with painstaking precision, returning his attention to her only once his desk was returned to the precise organization he preferred.

“Young lady… No. Lieutenant, have you been sitting there this entire time?”

As happened so very often, Leigh was uncertain what she’d done wrong. “Yes, Sir.”

“I am unaccustomed to young officers that can make themselves as unobtrusive as you can. I would make you my personal aide, but for the fact that I cannot spare an officer for that task. Until we receive reinforcements, I am forced to do without much staff at all. If only Charles had been able to make the bunker in time.”

“Charles, sir?”

“Our former Quartermaster. You wouldn’t have known him.”

“I met him, sir. He seemed quite a nice older gentleman.”

A harsh bark of laughter forced its way from March before he swallowed it. “Nice old man? I’m sure Charles would have been pleased to hear you say that. He’d cut quite a swath through the local girls. He’s been doing that for as long as I’ve known him, and I met him when he was forty years old and already the bane of the young women of Washington. Still, he was a good man in a fight, and a better man with a requisition. I’ll miss him.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to know him, sir.”

“Lieutenant, I just informed you that someone had designs on you, and you suggest you would have liked him. Am I going to have the same problem with you that I did with him?”

Leigh’s blush was worse than ever, burning its way from her breast up to her face in record time. “No, sir! I meant that your description makes him seem a very capable officer. I know how many faults I have in that area and could use a good example.”

Leigh was increasingly disconcerted by March’s gaze. It locked on her eyes, never wavering downward the way men’s gazes inevitably did. She knew he couldn’t be fascinated by her eyes, a plain light brown a shade lighter than her skin. When he spoke, he sounded amused. “I’ve been reading the debriefings of the men you saved from the Garage.”

“I didn’t save them, sir. Sebastian did.”

“I am not accustomed to being interrupted or contradicted, Lieutenant. Still, that latter is likely a bad thing. You feel you were not instrumental in the defense of the Garage, or in the rescue of the soldiers that fought there?”

“I don’t believe so, sir. I just carried ammunition and fuel.”

March’s voice dry, his lips curved into a patient smile. “So you did. Despite being totally untrained for combat operations, you carried supplies and performed repairs under direct enemy fire. Before the battle, you repaired no less than sixty Mechanicals in under an hour. I still wonder how you did that; my former Chief Engineer assured me half required unavailable parts and half were suitable only for scrap.”

“He’s probably right, sir.”

“The results of the battle give you the lie.”

“Oh. Well, I wasn’t trying to get them to full function. Seb… Lieutenant Cole told me they needed to stand and fight but didn’t need to move very much. I took short cuts.”

“Young lady, this is the first battle in this war where we took fewer casualties than the enemy. If taking short cuts is what you did, taking short cuts is what my Engineers need to do.”

Something the general had said piqued her curiosity. Frowning, she inquired, “Sir, you mentioned a former Chief Engineer. Was he killed in the battle?”

“No. He was in my Command Mechanical the entire time. I lost two Mechanicals while mopping up after you and Cole effectively gutted the Central troops. I lost another five to equipment failure. Major Johnson is now overseeing the construction of our new rail spur to The Line. When that is complete, I intend him to liaise with our French allies. They’re short on Engineers; perhaps he can serve as cadre to train some up.”

Leigh was careful, diffident. She had been chastised for disagreement, but couldn’t keep herself from speaking. “Wouldn’t I be the better choice for that, sir? The French have no proper facilities, and I seem to be the better at improvising.”

March blinked, frowned, and Leigh was certain she was going to be up on charges in an instant. Then the general shook his head with a self-deprecating chuckle. “See? This is what I mean. Johnson would never have disagreed with me, even if he had a good reason. I’m definitely doing the right thing here.” He tapped one of the papers on his desk.

“Sir?”

“Stand up, Lieutenant.”

Still confused, Leigh stood. March came around the desk, pulling something from a drawer as he did so. His single barked word, “Attention!” pulled her upright, squaring her shoulders as she’d been taught. Eyes fixed forward, she felt him pull something from the epaulets of her uniform. Her Lieutenant’s bar. This was it then. Her cowardice had been too much for him to bear. He paused, standing motionless a moment.

“Abrams, is there a reason you’re in trousers?”

“Yes, Sir. My luggage was destroyed in the attack, and the uniform skirt I was wearing is beyond repair. It’s listed as an acceptable alternative uniform for Lady Officers required to work on Command Mechanicals.” She paused. When March didn’t reply immediately, she continued her explanation. “The climbing, Sir.”

“I don’t like it, Abrams. You’ll want to get proper skirts as soon as possible. You can wear those things for climbing, but naught else. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Well, then. Congratulations, Abrams. For valor under fire and for your sundry actions in the defense of the Garage at the Abrams Manor, Headquarters of the AEF, I am proud to inform you you’ve been promoted to the rank of Captain.”

Leigh stood, stunned, her eyes fixed to the wall by habit and training, her mouth dropping open slightly in shock. When the general returned to his desk, she saw amusement foremost in his eyes.

“At ease, Captain. Be seated even. You’ll have time to be shocked later. Much later, if I’m any judge of the situation. Captain, are you in good health?”

Leigh dropped into her chair like a puppet with cut strings. Her slight frame didn’t even make the chair shift, the squeak she heard came from her own mouth. After taking a moment to clear her throat, she spoke, emotion threatening to steal her voice once more. “Sir! Yes, Sir! Just surprised, sir.”

“You ought not be. In your first battle, you and Cole did more damage to the enemy than any other pair of officers I can think of.”

“I froze, sir!”

“Young lady, do you know how many young men freeze in their first battle?”

“No, sir.”

“Most of them. Unlike more than I’d care to think about, you didn’t freeze until after you were out of the line of fire, and you ran right back into that fire when your fellows needed you. You have earned that promotion, Captain. Don’t ever think you didn’t. When we both have a free moment, I’d love to treat you to a congratulatory drink.” March lifted his arm and looked at his watch, the gesture theatrically overdone. “By my guess, that would be some time in December.”

“Sir? It’s barely July.”

“Yes. You do have a sense of humor still, don’t you? Or was that shot off in the battle?”

“I’m sorry sir. We’ve a lot to do then?”

“Rather.”

Leigh squared her shoulders, meeting March’s gaze with all the resolve she could muster. “Tell me what you need me to do, sir.”

“First, you’ll be taking over as my Chief Engineer. I want you to get Rogers and Patterson back on their feet and trained to do what you did. In addition, I’ll need you to sign off on the requisitions Charles’ replacement is writing up as we speak. Make sure they’re at least twice what you think we need. If they’re missing something, tell young Smithers. Your job is making things work, his job is getting you what you need to do so. You’re too busy to do paperwork, and Charles taught him well.” March paused, as if remembering something. “Make sure he includes women’s uniforms in a variety of sizes. I expect you’re not the only Lady Officer we’ll be seeing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll also need to put together the plans for your father’s Mechanical. I’m not sure quite what to…”

The whispers in Leigh’s ear rose above audibility for a single sentence. Without thinking, she conveyed that one tidbit to the general. “It’s not my father’s, sir.”

“Pardon? If it’s not his, why is it in his garage?”

“It’s my mother.” At March’s look of confusion, she coughed to cover her prevarication and tried again. “It’s my mother’s, sir. When she passed, she left everything to me. While he was involved in construction, and has maintained it for me, it’s properly mine.”

“Well. That is happy news. The plans?”

“I’m not certain, sir. If I can’t find them, I’m certain I could draw up new ones.”

“Would it mean taking the one we have out of commission?” The general’s frown showed what he thought of that idea.

“No, sir. I might need to take some internal measurements, but those can be taken while I’m repairing the current damage.”

“Excellent. Prepare the plans. I’ll be sending copies back to the States under the heaviest guard we can spare. Detroit needs to stop sending me inferior junk by the lowest bidder and start sending me something to put the fear of God into the Hun for once.” General March didn’t pound the table the way another man might, but Leigh saw his fist clench, saw him bare his teeth in something other than a grin.

If he wanted better weapons, she would give him better weapons, “Sir?”

“Yes, Abrams?”

“I had some ideas regarding the models we’ve been working with. I could show Rogers and Patterson how to retrofit the ones we have, but purpose built would be better.”

A satisfied smile banished the grimness from March’s face for a moment. “I knew I’d made the right decision about Johnson. Write your suggestions up, they’ll go to Washington with the plans.

“So, as Chief Engineer I’ll need you to retrain Rogers and Patterson to do routine maintenance and repairs, assist them on anything they can’t handle, write up the plans and recommendations for Washington, and lead the repairs on your Mechanical. That brings us to your next posting.”

“Sir?”

“Your father led me to believe the thing was uncontrollable and murderous. While I can’t dispute the latter, it is intended to be a combat machine. Can you control it?”

“I believe so.”

“Yes or no, Abrams. This is your first lesson from me about officering. Hemming and hawing is fine for a scientist in a laboratory, but an officer must be decisive. Can you control it?”

Leigh drew a deep breath, thought of Sebastian, and squared her shoulders in unconscious imitation of his mannerisms. “Sir! Yes, sir, I can!”

“Excellent. I’m not going to use it very much until there are more on the way, but with it here I can free up some of my headquarters unit to reinforce The Line. I may also use you as a fast reserve. That thing can travel faster walking than my Command Mechanical can at flank speed. Combined with the power it showed in that battle, it could turn the tide if I employ it right.”

Again the whispers in her ear rose to coherence for a moment. “Sir, there is something you should know. While there is an extensive supply bunkered beneath the Garage, the fuel for my mother… mother’s mechanical is difficult to produce, and she goes through it at a prodigious rate.”

March frowned, his lips and eyes moving as if he were doing complex math in his head. “How far can she go?”

“I’d say no more than eight hours at a walk. At a sprint or in combat, no more than half that. She’s got a maximum range of around two hundred fifty miles until she needs refueling, and fighting at the end of that two hundred fifty is right out unless there is a fuel source handy.”

“Damn. Well, better to know now. I’ll let you know if we need to use you. Can you think of ways to improve that in the production models?”

“I’ll try, sir.”

“Do so. You’re now officially the driver of… We need a name for that thing. It’s not even properly a Command Mechanical, is it now? No room for the banks of crystal devices or support staff.”

“She’d like Capricious, I think.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So be it. Her creation saved my command, far be it for me to begrudge her being the namesake of that creation. You’re now officially the commander of the Assault Mechanical Capricious. Draw a crystal device from stores, make sure the communications room has the mate to it. If I need you, I’ll need you fast.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Last, but most certainly not least, our only other qualified Surgeon fell ill when he saw what you’d done with Cole. He’s requested a transfer back to the States for health reasons.”

“Oh, dear. I hope he’s not in mortal danger? I’ll go see to him now.”

“Wait a moment, Abrams. Will Cole and the others live?”

“Cole is still chancy, sir. The others certainly will. Patterson ought to be up and about in a day or so.”

“That settles it. He goes. You stay. With him gone and your signature on the right forms, I can get two more to take his place. Two who aren’t appalled by someone who does whatever it takes to save a man’s life.”

“I’m sure he has good reason, sir.”

The general’s expression mixed curiosity and amusement in equal measure. “Can you tell me what it is?”

“Concern that I’m reckless, perhaps?”

“Abrams, the American Expeditionary Force is close to done for. Had the Central Powers not made that infamous ‘unconditional surrender’ speech, Washington would have approached them to parley months ago. Reckless actions are most certainly called for. Your victory has given me the opportunity to call for reinforcements without it seeming I’m throwing soldiers at a forlorn hope. I need you and the others to prepare for them. When they get here, they need to find us ready for them. Can I count on you?”

Leigh leapt to her feet, fervor stirring her for the first time she could remember. “Sir, yes sir!”

“Be about it, then!”

***

Leigh looked down on Sebastian’s sleeping face. The bruising was going down. After the battle, his broken nose made him look like a Pekinese dog. She’d set that to rights once he stabilized, rebuilding it to the aquiline grace she remembered, but it had taken weeks for the swelling to recede. Those weeks hadn’t been safe for him, either. She’d been forced to operate three more times before she was certain he would live. After the second surgery she implanted a crystal device next to his spine. Since then, the continuous low thumping of his heart had been her constant companion, a counterpoint to her mother’s recited dialogue.

Now Leigh watched over him as he slept. Mother’s voice remained a quiet murmur in her ear, conveyed through the crystal device that connected her to Capricious. Sebastian’s pulse, once thready and weak, was strong and vital once more. His face, once chalky from blood loss, was a light pink against the dusky skin of her hands. Seeing the colors set against one another fascinated her. She paused for a moment, lost in the sensation of his forehead beneath her fingertips.

She’d never met a man like Sebastian. She’d never known a hero before. She’d certainly never known a hero who looked on her as someone worth saving. Now she’d known him more thoroughly than any other woman was ever likely to. She’d held his heart in her hands, forced it to keep beating when it tried to stop. That was the third time she’d had him on her operating table, the time he’d come closest to dying.

Leigh blinked at her own wandering thoughts. A quick check of the clock above the door told her the reason for her lack of focus. It had been at least two days since she’d slept. New surgeons were due to arrive any day, but until they did, she was the only qualified surgeon at the AEF headquarters. General March had jokingly called her his thin red line standing between injured men and a meeting with their creator.

She slid her fingers along the line of Sebastian’s jaw to check his carotid pulse. Her fingertips rubbed against a thin gold chain as she did so. The locket dangling from that chain saved his life that day at the garage. After the first surgery Leigh removed the shrapnel from the cover, hoping to save the trinket Cole thought important enough to wear under his uniform. The outer cover was destroyed, but the picture within still looked as pristine and perfect as the day it had been taken. The picture was of a beautiful blonde, her features thin and aristocratic; her hair hanging long and straight around her face. Her name, ‘Sarah’, was etched under her portrait. Leigh looked at it again now. The transparent metal cover Leigh made protected it far better than the flimsy gold had ever done. Deep within she knew despair; there was no way in this lifetime she could ever compete with that face, that hair, the look of self-assured confidence that practically glowed through the picture.

Sebastian’s skin was warm under her fingers, his pulse remained strong. He would live. Leigh had come to Europe knowing how to be an Engineer and Surgeon, but with no idea how to be an Officer. Sebastian showed her that on the day he saved her life. He showed her by standing and facing fire and death and mayhem, never backing down though it might cost him his life. She had failed that day, but she was a quick study.

Her proper tasks here were done. She had to leave, had to return to her quarters and get some sleep. Mother’s herbal concoctions kept her awake, but herbs could only forestall Morpheus, not banish him forever. Before she lifted her hand from Sebastian, she leaned over him and brushed her lips across his forehead.

“Thank you.” He couldn’t hear, might not know what he had done for her, but she did, and would remember.