General Morozov shifted in his seat, peering out the forward windows at the pastoral landscape slipping past. There was nothing to see yet as they were miles from Frankenstien’s fortified alpine valley. This waiting was intolerable. Why couldn't Zeppelins fly faster? He would have to look into that. Surely his engineers could come up with something.
He should have ridden in one of the new super gunships, not that he would be able to use their considerable speed if he wanted to stay with the main assault force. Though he really needed to have one modified with a flag bridge if he wanted to command the fleet from one of them.
His command airship, Radiance of the Tsar, was the only airship he knew of that had a proper flag bridge. It just wouldn’t do for the commanding officer to be distracted by all the mundane hustle and bustle of an airship bridge, not when he needed to be thinking about the overall battle strategies. The flag bridge was situated slightly forward and directly below the main bridge. Even so, he could hear the murmur of muffled voices above him.
"Standby to trim for climb."
"Engines all green."
"Cleared for 3,000 feet climb."
Below, the plains rolled by. A few miles ahead, the mountains reared up, their slopes covered in swathes of green, and upper most rocky ridges almost free of snow. In the center of that wall was the valley they were making for, a narrow slot in the rocks, little more than a canyon. The initial assault force had not wanted to use that canyon. Morozov's intelligence reports clearly indicated it was well-defended, and they had not wanted to risk it. But that was because Morozov had not revealed his super gunships. With their firepower, they would be able to suppress any defenses in the wide alpine valley where Frankenstien’s fortress sat. This riskier route would enabled his final assault force to carry a heavy load since they would not have climb up over the mountain range itself..
He craned his neck to find one of the gunships. One was keeping pace, above and to their left. He admired its sleek lines. He rarely was able to get a view of them since their construction had been completed. He had kept all five in hangars made out to look like barns at the edge of the base, so he was rarely able to get a look at them. His heart swelled with pride. They were his masterpiece. Well, among his many masterpieces. Yes, as soon as this operation was completed, he would order a flag bridge installed on one of the new gunships. It would not do to travel on an outdated piece of technology like this, not when he had not one but five new marvels to command.
There were four engine nacelles along the side closest to him, providing it much more speed than the older model gunships. The wings were monocoque and stiff, able to sustain that speed. With its gun turrets fore and aft and the hatches on the side where flying mechs were nestled, it was a bristling machine of death.
General Morozov turned to his aide. "Major Usenko, order the new gunships to deploy their air mechs."
"Sir?" the man asked in a questioning tone.
It was a slight change to the plans, but Morozov had his reasons. "I want maximum firepower for the valley's defenses."
It was a good reason, he told himself, though he knew a lot of his reasoning was just wanting to see the deployment in action. It was such a fiendishly clever gadget that he had insisted they installed. Another one of his masterpieces. Frankenstein had a decades-long reputation for cleverness, but the old golem-monger had met his match today. Morozov allowed himself to dream of what secrets he would find in Frankenstein’s fortress. He would not keep them hidden away in a Hungarian backwater, he would use them to bring Mother Russian such glory…
Commands were relayed, and moments later, the hatches on the side of the super-gunship rolled open. The deployment mechanism shoved the folded-up air mech out into the slipstream. Its folded wings and engine pods made it look like someone had taken a tin soldier and a toy airplane and crushed them into a ball. The wings and the nacelles folded outward, one above and one below, as the mech remained gripped by the deployment mechanism.
A moment later, they locked into place. The machine dropped off the side of the super-gunship. It fell a dozen meters and then bobbed back up slightly. The wings rolled level, and the engines spun up, and the machine was flying free.
From the far side of the gunship, another air mech dropped off. The general nodded in satisfaction.
The other gunships were above and behind them, out of sight above the Radiance’s gasbag.
"Have all the mechs deployed?" he asked. It was not an idle question. There was always the expectation that a machine or two might have mechanical difficulties, but he expected that enough would launch to accomplish their part in this assault.
"Gunship 5 reports its deployment mechanisms are not operational," came the response a moment later.
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"What?" The general's head snapped around. "All of them? That is inexcusable." He glowered. "Who's in charge of the maintenance for Gunship 5?"
The subordinates stood there, looking wide-eyed, clearly not knowing the answer but being afraid to admit to their failings.
"We're entering the valley," Major Usenko said, and the general, still seething, turned back to the forward windows. The walls of the valley spread around them. A hundred meters below, a small river would down the center. A road snaked along beside it, nothing unusual for the countryside. There were no gun turrets or barbed wire barriers.
General Morozov leaned forward, studying the landscape in front of him. Where were the emplacements? He tried to remember the briefing. Had they been halfway down the valley? Or more? He couldn’t remember.
“Major, bring me the map of the valley’s defenses.
He had expected to see the defenses by now. Instead there was only simple stone fences and the occasional farm house. Why did that bother him?
He shook it off as pre-operation nerves. He was too much of an old campaigner to have pre-battle jitters. He leaned back in his chair and smiled. Soon, soon all of Frankenstein's secrets would be his.
---
The massive golem hands wrapped around Hannah's upper arms and dug into her bicep painfully. The hick fingers wrapped completely around her arm. She tugged against them, knowing it was futile. Anger seethed inside her. Its strength surprised her. She had always had an easy time keeping an even temper. Things that went wrong were more likely to cause her sadness or despair, not this—not blinding rage. And yet, she felt herself refusing to succumb to the inevitable.
How dare they do this to her? She glared across at Frankenstein. What gave him the right? She imagined ripping free of the golem's hands and leaping across the room at him. The feel of her hands around his throat, of his blood hot under her...
No, no! What was she thinking? It wasn’t even Frankenstein who had her prisoner. It was Baba Yaggi in Eva’s body. Hanna shook her head, trying to clear it. Her emotions had been so out of control lately. Ever since the battle in the mountains, ever since she had woken up with the festering wound on her arm.
Hannah frowned. She didn't feel the wound's throbbing ache. It had been bandaged several times but still showed no sign of healing. Now she realized she didn't feel it at all.
Her arms had moved freely earlier, and the hand grasping her right arm should have dug into the wound painfully. While it hurt, the grip of the golem's hand felt no different than the one on her left arm. It was uncomfortable but far less painful than it should have been.
Now if she could just yank her arm free of the golem's grasp, she would pull it clear and then slash at its throat with her claws, ripping --
No! Her fingers weren't claws. Why had she even thought that? Lashing out with an open hand would do nothing against the hulking muscular form of the golem. She tried to focus. Frankenstein was talking again. She wished he would shut up. That man sure did like to hear the sound of his own voice.
Suddenly, the golems on either side of Dr. Frankenstein stiffened. Their hands dropped away from his arms, and they toppled over. The doctor’s face was triumphant.
“You think you can use my creations against me?” he roared. He lifted a finger to stab accusingly at Eva. “Unleash the vault of failures!” he commanded.
“Yes, master!” his lab assistants cried in unison.
Eva lunged forward. “No! Stop them!” she croaked in a harsh voice.
Frankenstein dodged behind the bank of controls. As Eva's ensorcelled golems surged forward, the hunchbacked lab assistants scattered in all directions. One tried to slip through the doorway behind Hannah and the others, but one of the hulking guard golems swatted it aside. Its body slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch.
A golem dashed behind the control panel after Frankenstein, with Eva hot on its heels. She disappeared but then returned a moment later, her face seething.
"Gone! The little cretin has escaped through a tunnel." Eva's glare met Hannah and Angelica. Her expression softened only slightly, from furious to merely stern. Her voice was still the gravelly rasp of Baba Yaga. She held up the red stone still clutched in her hand. “And this is mine once more. I won’t let anyone else take it.”
"You left it in our care for weeks," Angelica snapped. She did not sound intimidated by the old witch or the golems that held her tightly. "So why stop trusting us now?"
"Trust?" The old woman in the young girl's body frowned. "You were hardly trusted. More like predicted."
Angelica opened her mouth to protest, but she was drowned out by an alarm.
"Containment failure," an emotionless voice announced.
"We are not safe here,” Angelica said, trying to reason with the possessed girl. Hannah shook her head, trying to focus. The alarm whined irritatingly. Hannah wanted it to stop.
A dull boom echoed from the hallways beyond the laboratory, like a massive door slamming closed or open.
"Containment failure." The voice cut off, drowned out by a crazed inhuman screech, which itself was cut off as the PA speaker fell silent.
Something deeper in the dungeon wailed, a long cry of terror, despair, and anger.
The howl should have been terrifying, but something welled up inside Hannah. She overflowed with the overwhelming urge to go after it, to find it, to hunt it down. She pushed away the intruding emotion. That was insane. She had to get out of here.
She turned to Angelica, whose eyes were large. The normally stoic officer looked terrified. Eva merely frowned.
"What has that deranged blowhard done now?" she muttered. Rather than command the golems, Eva raised the stone, which flashed with a red light. The golems holding Angelica and Hannah let go and turned away, moving in unison.
"I suppose I can trust you for the moment," Eva rasped. "Don't try anything that you'll regret."
"Now if you'll excuse me, I must see what he..."
She was interrupted by another wail. This voice sounded different, deeper, harsher, and filled with rage and anger. Eva frowned, and this time she looked worried. The golems, which had been moving towards the door of the laboratory, turned and rushed for the rack of weapons. Eva herself started backing away from the door. Down the hall, something skittered, claws against bare stone.
Hannah felt the hair on the back of her neck start to rise. A growl started, low in her throat. She took a step forward, crouching, and prepared to meet whatever was coming.