The armored train was an engine and five cars, all sheathed in metal. The first and last cars had turrets mounted on their roofs. Our escort led us to the second car in line. This one had large windows down the length of it, with metal shutters that could be pulled closed. A door stood open in the center. Natasha stepped up into the car, and the rest of us followed.

The inside of the car was a cross between a fancy wood-paneled office and a mad scientist's laboratory. The floor was covered with a thick woven rug, a bright blue design picked out on a yellow background. The walls were covered in windows and heavy bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes and a few knickknacks like an astrolabe and a skull with rubies in the eyesockets. A huge mahogany desk dominated one end of the room. At the other end, a luxurious pair of leather couches was accompanied by a well-stocked bar.

The General himself was a portly man about five and a half feet tall. He rose from his desk and greeted us with a wide smile. "Welcome, welcome! So good to have you here." From his demeanor, you would think we were old friends and not deadly enemies. "Come, sit. Would you like a drink?" He motioned us over to the couches.

Around the room were the strangest array of devices. They must have seemed high-tech to anyone of this era. Electrical panels full of gauges and wires made up a strange apparatus along one wall of the room.

Something about the tableau of scientific equipment struck me as odd. As our host was pouring drinks, I realized what it was. Everything was too neat for a proper mad scientist's lair. These were trophies and displays to be admired and not used. The general likely thought of himself as a man of science and knowledge, much the same way a big game hunter thought of himself as a biologist.

There was a globe of the earth made of glass and filled with multicolored lights next to a rifle made of gleaming stainless chrome that I suspected was air-powered. In one corner, there loomed what I could only describe as a stuffed Yeti.

Angelica and Natasha perched themselves awkwardly on the overstuffed couch. I remained standing. The General distributed tumblers of brown liquid on the coffee table in front of us and then sank into an armchair.

"I understand I have you to thank for my most recent string of setbacks." The general arched an eyebrow at Angelica, who shifted uncomfortably.

"Yes, sir?" She made it into a question.

"You've now defeated my wraith troopers on several occasions. I'm beginning to wonder if the design was flawed or if the men I sent were merely incompetent." He glanced significantly at Mikhail, who swallowed visibly.

"The design does have one or two drawbacks." I broke the awkward silence.

"Oh, the interesting golem I've heard so much about. It is rather talkative, isn't it?" When I didn't immediately respond, he said, "Come, come, tell me about my wraith troopers. What's wrong with the design? In your humble opinion?"

I resisted the urge to swallow. "It's their weakness to iron."

The General frowned. "That seems only a small drawback. Most militaries don't issue iron bullets."

"Yes,” I agreed, “but it isn't exactly hard to acquire iron shot, is it? Besides, swords and knives already contain plenty of iron."

The General shot a concerned look at Mikhail. "But those are steel, aren't they? Surely they aren’t pure enough iron."

Mikhail coughed uncomfortably. "Certain alloys of steel still trigger the susceptibility."

“As far as I've seen, most alloys used in weapons disrupt the magic," I elaborated. “In fact, I haven’t seen anything with iron fail to defeat it.

The General's facial expression was dark as he looked between me and Mikhail. "You know this from fighting my wraith troopers?"

I smiled. "And from using the cloak myself."

The General's eyes widened. His expression brightened with interest. "Really? You must tell me more."

"Begging your pardon, General," Natasha interjected.

The General waved a hand at her. "Yes, yes, we'll get down to business. My major tells me you want my help to assault Frankenstein's fortress."

Natasha was nodding.

It was the first time I had heard anyone call it a fortress. That was concerning.

The General snapped his fingers, and an orderly, who had been standing so quietly in the corner that I hadn't noticed him, leapt forward. He had a rolled-up tube in one hand. The General slapped it on the table and unrolled it. It was a map of a mountain valley, so covered in symbols it was difficult to make sense of.

"They tell me it can't be done. Anti-aircraft batteries all along this ridge here." He indicated the eastern side of the valley. "The only ways in, on the ground, are the passes to the north and south, both of which are narrow and extremely well defended. None of the spies that I've sent inside the valley have ever returned. So yes, I'm interested in Frankenstein's fortress, but,” he shrugged and spread his hands wide. "My planners say it can't be done."

And then he grinned, a wicked grin. "At least until my army finishes securing Transylvania." He leaned forward and fixed Natasha with a stern look. "So tell me, what makes you think you can assault this place, and why should I help?"

“The why is simple,” Natasha spoke for the first time since we'd arrived. "Frankenstein recently acquired an item of great power."

"The so-called fire soul. I've heard about it," the General said dismissively.

Natasha glanced at Mikhail before continuing. "He's been searching for this item for some time, and I believe he has the means to make use of it.”

The General waved his left hand as if none of this mattered to him, but I saw his right hand was clenched into a fist. He was putting on a front for us. "None of this is surprising. I have been planning to assault him for some time. What you aren’t saying is why I should involve you and your ‘friends’.” He eyed Angelica. "I was astounded that some of my most capable foes would deliver themselves into my hands like this. I must admit, I'm tempted to clap you in irons and parade you about as trophies, but..."

"But," Angelica interrupted, "we are far too valuable a resource for a mere propaganda coup."

The General's smile was tight and didn't reach his eyes. "You underestimate the power of reputation in Mother Russia."

Angelica inclined her head. "Perhaps. That is not something I know much about. What I do know is that you're a man who believes in technological superiority. My team can give you Frankenstein."

The General scoffed. "What makes you think I need the help of my enemies? Frankenstein’ secrets are all but within my grasp."

"Yet you have not taken them. Even now his golems are throwing you back across the entire front." The General's face clouded over. His eyes narrowed.

She knew she was on dangerous ground now, but she went on.

"General, I know you have plans to assault him. I know you have many incredible weapons. I have fought against several of your attacks, and while my team and I have been victorious, we have been impressed by the innovative tactics and technologies you've thrown at us. I know you must have a plan for assaulting Frankenstein that takes advantage of those strengths.”

The General's glare faded slightly. Even Russian assholes are susceptible to praise from beautiful, talented young women, after all. "Perhaps."

"We can be an asset to those plans. I command a crack wing of Hussars, as you know. With our prowess and your resources, we can crack open his defenses like the shell of an oyster, revealing the pearl inside."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The man glared at her for a long moment, his eyes cold and calculating. Finally, he cracked a wide grin. "Damn it, woman, but you have balls."

The General motioned to his orderly, who handed him another rolled up paper. "You're right. I do have plans to attack Frankenstein. Quite a few of them. I have been considering and rejecting plans to assault his fortress for months. Years, really."

The General unrolled a map across the table. "This battle plan is based on our latest intelligence.” He indicted the eastern wall of the valley, where the line of anti-aircraft emplacements was marked. “We send in a wraith squad here, to neutralize the guns and open the way for the airships to drop mechs in the valley itself.”

Angelica leaned closer. "Why not drop them closer to the fortress?"

"There are too many gun emplacements on the fortress itself. The airships are vulnerable. The quicker they get in and drop their payload, the better. While all this is happening, an air attack will target the power plant here." He pointed to a structure north of the fortress, along the west side of the valley. “At least, that was my original plan. Air assaults are unreliable. Now that you're here, that opens up a new possibility. We can use heavy aircraft to insert your mechs directly over the power plant and ensure its destruction on the ground."

Angelica studied the area indicated. I craned my neck for a better view. "Why didn’t you plan to do that with your own mech forces?"

The Widow snorted, "Because he doesn't trust the flying contraptions, and he doesn't want to risk his own forces."

The general shot her a glare, but then his mask cracked and he smiled. "Yes. Partially. But mostly, I want to guarantee this generator's destruction. If I can't trust the insertion aircraft, and I can't trust an air strike, then I'd have to do both at the same time. That commits too many resources to one objective. Instead, we will use my pursuit air resources to strike at the defenses atop the castle itself."

"Castle?" Angelica asked.

The general nodded. "The fortress was originally a castle. Frankenstein has done so much to it, it's pretty much unrecognizable at this point."

"This seems pretty straightforward," Angelica said as she studied the map. "I still don't see why you haven't attempted it already. It's not like Russians are shy about casualties."

"Casualties I don't mind," the general said. "Failure, I do. Manpower is cheap, but this assault requires a number of expensive units. Mechs and airships are not so cheap to replace. Now that you're here volunteering to be the point of the spear, the chance of failure is lower, and the cost of that failure is negligible." His smile was not at all nice.

The meeting with the General devolved into a detailed planning session, mostly concerned with logistics and assault tactics. I didn't have a lot to contribute.

I asked Angelica if I could go look in on our mechs. I didn't like the idea of Russians pawing over them unsupervised. Heck, I didn't like Russians getting their hands on them, no matter what. The General was fine with it. He summoned a lieutenant to escort me.

My escort seemed confused by the task, and I decided to take advantage of this. As soon as we left the train car and were out of earshot of anyone else, I leaned over him and dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The General doesn't want anyone else to know my capabilities. So, let's just pretend I'm an ordinary golem, okay? We won't talk about my actual rank, and anything I suggest, you should make it seem like it was your idea." I leaned closer, as if to be conspiratorial, but because of our height difference, it doubled as an intimidation strategy. "The General would take it amiss if anyone else learned who I really was. He’s counting on your discretion."

The lieutenant's mouth opened and closed twice before he clamped it shut. He nodded. "Uh, yes sir." He hadn't been around when we had arrived. I had learned already that my loaded languages had perfect accents, like I was an educated native speaker. In my plain uniform, he would have no idea as to my rank or station. That suited me just fine.

We caught a ride over to the maintenance hangars where my unit's mechs were being refitted. It was easy for me to blend in with the Russian forces. They had a few golems around. I gave them a wide berth just in case Frankenstein was spying through their eyes.

Our mechs were in a large tent, reminiscent of a circus big top, only in drab khaki and olive. The place served as a portable maintenance hangar. It was an impressive arrangement.

There were a number of trucks around the tent whose back halves unfolded into portable mech repair frames. I saw at least two of the huge haulers similar to the one I’d left behind in Budapest, and had a surprising pang of nostalgia.

Our mechs were all together in one corner of the maintenance facility. They were being serviced by a group of technicians, who looked like they were doing a proper job of it. However, there were also several scientists and engineers mixed in alongside the maintainers. There was particular attention on Veronica's Hungarian mech and both of the Polish units. “Introduce me as an expert in Polish and Hungarian equipment,” I muttered to the lieutenant. It was true, after all, and it would avoid some awkward questions.

When we arrived, several of the scientists and maintainers looked up. The lieutenant cleared his throat. "General Mazorov sent us... I mean me, to observe. This golem is programed with Polish and Hungarian mech information.” They nodded and went back to their task.

A senior enlisted man asked us about Tamara's mech. With surprise I realized I could read Russian insignia. Apparently, this man was a kundoktor, whatever the hell that was. "It's a standard flight model from the Cossack regiments, but the flight system's been disabled. Does the General want us to restore it?"

The Lieutenant glanced at me, and I gave him the tiniest of nods. "Yes, yes, those are the General's orders," my pet Lieutenant said. The konduktor saluted and went back to the task. He shouted to a couple of his fellow maintainers, who scurried off to find the parts they would need. I suppressed a grin. I wonder what Tamara would say when she found out I had gotten her wings back.

I took a few moments to watch what they were doing and tried to remember what the parts we had removed from the flight system had looked like. There was a frame that attached to the back of the mech. It housed steering vanes and propulsion engines of a compact and ingenious design.

Meanwhile, the mechanics had stalled out in their maintenance of the Hungarian and Polish mechs. They were taking more notes than actually repairing them. At first, I thought they were trying to get intelligence about foreign weapon technology. That was clearly partially true, but I realized it was also because their maintainers weren’t familiar with the foreign systems and were trying to figure out what parts did what tasks.

No one was working on Eva’s mech until eventually an older enlisted man showed up. He was surprised at her machine and gushed about its antique fittings for a while, but he seemed familiar with how they should be serviced. He wasn't happy with how I had installed the desh engine and insisted several of the fittings should be rerouted. When he taught the younger mechanics the proper procedure for servicing Eva's mech's joints, I paid careful attention. Nothing in my knowledge base included how to service such an old machine. There were a couple of odd techniques used to pry the joint bearings apart, but once I had seen that done, the rest of the servicing was straightforward.

At the same time, I kept an eye on how Tamara's mech was being serviced. They rolled out a fascinating contraption I recognized as a flying frame. Alexander and I had removed the remains of a similar unit from her machine, what felt like a lifetime ago. When I stepped in for a closer look, one of the maintainers was happy to show off how the compact luff engine worked. The backpack unit had fold-out wings. The propellers seemed to be manipulated by adjusting the Luff engine lift up and down. This would drive the mech through the air almost in a porpoise-like fashion. It made me seasick just as the thought. I wanted to see how this would fly, but had absolutely no interest in riding it. As far as I could tell, it would be like riding a rodeo bull hundreds of feet in the air. Perhaps it wouldn't pitch up and down quite as violently as that, but it still looked like an insane way to travel.

One of the techs mentioned that newer frames used propellers and internal combustion engines, but those were bigger and heavier. Tradeoffs. Always tradeoffs.

Soon the mech maintenance was all but complete. The maintainers asked my lieutenant about armament. With grunts and furtive hand gestures, I was able to select an array of Russian-issue weaponry to equip.

This ridiculous routine got some suspicious looks, but by then I didn’t care. Not as long as my girls were properly armed when we had to go into battle. I remembered the long-barreled anti-mech rifle Tamara had had when I first met her. It was something that looked like it should be used by a squad of humans instead of a giant robot. She had said it was useful for sniping and air-to-air combat. The Russians had the same model in inventory, and I got two of them for her.

For the others, I selected autocannons. At first, I thought the Maxim Corporation was supplying autocannons to both sides of the war, but when I looked closer, I realized these were Spanish and Russian knockoffs. Hopefully, they were decent copies.

At last, maintenance complete, the mechanics put the mechs back together. Whatever the brass decided, we’d be ready for it.

Which made me realize I didn’t know what my role was going to be in this assault. Wait. They weren’t planning on leaving me here, were they?

That wouldn’t stand.

Major Mikhail turned to face the general as the door to the train car closed behind the last of the Polish forces. The Red Widow had left with them.

"Do you think you can trust her?" He did not quite reveal his own guilty knowledge. Mikhail was a survivor. He had outlasted generals and politicians alike, by reading the oracles and knowing which way the wind was blowing. Natasha might yet be his salvation. He would not give her up without reason.

"Of course not," the general responded. "I don't trust anyone’s words. I only trust their motives. And she was not forthcoming about her own. This item she said she wanted from Frankenstein. Do you know what it does? What is it really?"

Mikhail considered his words as quickly as he could. This was a powerful secret that he didn’t want to give away without compensation. Now that the general had asked him point-blank, he knew even a moment's hesitation would result in the man not trusting him.

"Yes, I think I do. I'm not certain. One of the Polish mechs is an antique, a relic of their revolution. The girl who was taken by Frankenstein is bonded to it. I believe that she had this item, and it was something she found in the mountains. The fire soul, Natasha called it."

The general leaned forward, his eyes bright. "In the mountains? Do you mean..."

Mikhail nodded. "Yes, we think it was something that belongs to Baba Yaga."

The general waved his hand in panic. "Don't say the name here!"

For a long moment, the general just glared at Mikhail, then he leaned back and stroked his chin. “I must have this thing for myself.”