Eva, Hannah, and I got the scout car off the back of the hauler and loaded up to go looking for Eva’s mech. As we drove, I sounded her out about weapons handling with her mech.

"No, I haven't tried anything like that. I didn't think to ask at the fortress if they would let me try a gun. I don't even know if they had any mech guns."

“I see.” This was what I expected.

"We did do a bit with knives and axes though,” she added.

That took me by surprise. "What?"

"Oh yes, I went on a wood chopping expedition, and I had my mech cut up some trees."

Hannah leaned forward from the back seat. "With an axe?”

"Well, first I was using the big spiky spear-axe thing that it had when I found it."

"Do you mean a halberd?" Hannah asked.

"Does that have a spike on the end and an axe on one side, but it's on a long pole?"

“Usually,” Hannah said.

“That was it was, then. A halberd. But it broke after a few trees. So, I borrowed an axe from one of the soldiers."

"You had your mech cutting trees with a human-sized axe?" Hannah sounded incredulous.

"Yeah, it was tricky to keep a good grip on it because it was so small in those big mech hands." Eva held up her own palms and mimed trying to grab something very tiny. "But eventually, we got the hang of it."

I glanced back to judge Hannah’s reaction. She seemed surprised and impressed by Eva’s story. I decided to push a little further.

"Did you have to control it directly to get the fingers to do what you wanted them to do?" I held up a hand and wiggled mine.

"Oh yes, I had to burn a lot of istota to get our link strong enough for that. But that wasn't even anywhere near as hard as weaving."

"Weaving?" Hannah asked.

"Yeah, a couple of times I had it make a wall out of saplings. You can weave skinny trees together." Eva mimed an intricate action with her fingers. “If you do it with dogwoods branches in bloom, it makes a really beautiful screen."

Hannah's mouth was hanging open. Apparently, this was a really impressive bit of machine dexterity. "I don't think she would have any problem working a cannon."

I shook my head. "No, probably not. We should walk her through an autocannon and a howitzer when we get a chance."

We stopped along the road, inside the north gate. The gatehouse still had cannon holes in it, and the gate was broken. A barricade had been set up, and a dozen armed men waited around. We hopped out and I asked for their officer. My newly implanted Hungarian language skills were coming in handy already.

A portly sergeant with a red face puffed out of the shack. Eventually, I was able to explain we were looking for salvage in the woods nearby. He detailed two soldiers to go with us.

"Can they keep calm? If we run into an operational mech, they need to relax and leave it to us. I don't want any shooting."

They looked nervous, grabbing their rifles tighter. I swore internally. I did not need a couple trigger-happy pilots around my mech or my pilots.

"He's this way," Eva said and led us off down the road 20 yards, before turning into the woods to the west. The underbrush was thick with new growth from a damp spring, and we couldn't see far in front of us. Eva stopped in a clearing 50 yards from the road.

"He has to be around here somewhere. I can feel him."

She broke off as a massive form rose in front of us, lifting straight out of the waist-high brush. It took me an instant to recognize the form of Eva's mech. It was covered with mud and sticks, making it look more like a forest monster than a mechanical machine. As I realized what it was, I spun around. Both the soldiers were lifting their rifles to aim. I snatched their weapons right out of their shocked hands. They gaped at me then turned and bolted. I swore and trotted after them. "I'll be right back!" I shouted over my shoulder. Hopefully, Eva could get that thing under control. I had a bit of damage control of my own to do.

As I came out of the woods, there was a lot of yelling from the guard shack. I held both rifles by the barrel in one hand and raised my right palm outward, empty.

"It's alright! It's alright! Everything's fine! Take it easy!"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

It took several minutes of calm, slow talk to get the red-faced sergeant and his fearful men to relax. I kept my anger in tight check and didn't react to the guns they waved in my face. Eventually, the sergeant talked them down, and the men went back to proper muzzle discipline. Which was a good thing too because I was about ready to lay them all cold.

In calm, slow sentences, I explained that we had found one of our mechs and that it was going to be coming out of the woods soon and that it was definitely Polish, and it was going to look very scary, and that they needed to not do anything brash. I don’t know how good the Hungarian language program was the doctors loaded into my head, because I was on my third attempt at explanation when the men gasped and looked behind me.

Fortunately, only two of them raised their rifles, and their sergeant quickly yelled them down. I glanced over my shoulder. Eva and Hannah were coming out of the woods with Eva’s massive mech, covered in mud and twigs, following behind.

I realized then that the mech had deliberately camouflaged itself. It had gone full commando and covered itself in mud and twigs. And Eva hadn't ordered this? What was this thing?

We took it slow through the base, working our way to the barracks, driving the car slowly as the mech shuffled along behind. We didn't want to cause a panic. A big, strange-looking, mud-covered mech walking through the base, a day and a half after the attack, could easily cause all kinds of fuss. Keeping it slow and easy, waving and smiling to everyone we passed, we managed to get to the barracks without incident.

I only breathed a sigh of relief when we had Eva's mech secured aboard the hauler. Then, for me, the real work began. Airships didn't carry a full maintenance bay, and we needed to get as much service and check out done on our mechs as we could before we departed. I was short-handed and short on time, so I buckled down and got to work.

It was already late afternoon, and we were scheduled to load onto the captured Russian airship before dawn. The first thing to do was to schedule with the ladies when we would do maintenance on each of their mechs.

Our Hungarian newcomer, Veronica, was keen to check out her mech right away, so we started there.

I had my usual two corporals helping me, mostly just to hand me the wrenches I need. "No, I said 14 millimeter.” “That's not a box end, you blithering idiot."

Frank Lewis was also hanging around. At first, I thought his chatter with Veronica was an annoyance, but then I realized it was doing to keep her attention off the mech repairs. Ever since discovering that little fact about how links worked, I was very self-conscious when performing maintenance. Frank’s presence helped settle us all down. Besides, he had a couple good pilot anecdotes I enjoyed hearing as we worked.

Veronica’s mech had taken a beating. Armor panels were dented, joints were out of calibration. At least it had been well maintained prior to last night. That sped up things considerably.

We were deep into the operation when a Hungarian crew stopped by with a couple of crates of armor plating. Apparently, Colonel Mazur had arranged for the delivery. Rather than try to pound dents out of hardened armor steel, we simply swapped any pieces that had taken hits and sent the damaged plates back with the Hungarian crew. We finished with Veronica's mech around dinner time, and I went with a group of the others to the Hungarian mess for big plates of goulash and thick crusty bread, washed down with some really good beer. At least Dr. Frankenstein hadn’t skimped on the tastebuds when developing golem technology. It would have been sucked to be reincarnated into a body that couldn’t appreciate beer.

After dinner, we got back to work, going through each of the mechs carefully into the wee hours of the night. Angelica and Hannah had not seen as much action as the others, and their mechs required very little servicing. I still gave them a thorough going-over. We’d be seeing combat again soon. I wanted to know my mechs were in their best shape. Alexander was counting on me.

Tamara’s mech had taken a big armor hit. We had to scrounge through various spare parts to find something that would do. In the end, I just welded a patch across the torso dent. She wasn't happy about that. Apparently, welding torches were rather painful.

Eva's mech was strange; none of my implanted knowledge extended that far back, so I was making some semi-educated guesses. It hadn't taken any real damage, but I wasn't familiar with procedures for its routine maintenance. All I could really do was brush the dirt off the joints and grease up any fittings I could find.

"Are you done, Sergeant?"

I turned. Angelica had come in as I was finishing up with Eva's mech.

"Yes, sir. Captain?" I smiled at her.

She gave me a weary smile in return.

"You should get some sleep. We're due to load up in just a few hours."

I nodded.

“Did she really sleep through your maintenance?" Angelica gestured to where Eva was sleeping in the corner. "How?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, she conked out about halfway through. It seems like her bond isn't as... intense.” Thank Frankenstein, this body didn't seem able to blush, despite my deep embarrassment at the topic. "It doesn't seem to affect her as much as the others."

Angelica nodded. "Yes, I'd noticed that. Her bond has all the hallmarks of a really intense link, where the rider burns istota to keep tight control and make her mech do complicated things. But she acts as if she's paying no attention to it at all. Like she's not even linked to it."

“She said it tickled when we greased the elbow joints.” Again, I felt like my ears should be burning, but there was nothing.

The topic didn't seem to bother Angelica as much as it did me. She’d had years to come to terms with the idea, I suppose. Just like certain kinds of doctor’s exams, there were things you just had to turn off your embarrassment for and take them as they came.

“Thanks for all this, Sergeant.”

“Just doing my job, Captain.”

“I mean it. We’re going to have to lean on you more heavily now that Alex,” she broke off, and I saw her jaw tighten. She swallowed twice. “Now that we’re understaffed, we will need all the help we can get.”

I nodded but couldn't think of anything else to say. I stood, stretched, and wiped my hands on a clean rag. Even though Eva was sleeping, I lowered my voice. "How are you holding up, sir?"

Her tired smile came back. "I'm doing all right. It's just a lot."

"Nothing you weren't already doing, sir."

She shrugged. "I suppose, but somehow the new stars make it feel different. Or maybe I just didn't have time to think about it before. The trip up the mountains…" she trailed off.

I nodded. "Yes, it was a mad rush. If it helps at all, I feel the same way. I barely had time to think about my new..." I waved to indicate my whole golem body situation. "Sometimes life, or death, throws things at you faster than you can handle. It's best to just take them one at a time. And sometimes it's best to just stay busy and not think about them too hard."

"Thanks, Sergeant. And get some rest," she said as she turned to go.