"You're late." The German scientist behind the desk glared at Hannah.

She allowed herself to blush as she met his gaze. "I'm sorry, but I..."

"Excuses are irrelevant!" His voice was sharp, and she jumped as he spoke. She told herself to settle down, that he wasn’t a threat, that she didn’t need to bite his throat out. "I ought to have you dismissed immediately! Thrown out on your ear!" He slapped the papers down on the desk and glared at them before returning his gaze to her. "However, the other candidates from the first round of testing were sent home and since then there have been some unfortunately incidents. Hence I find myself short-handed and I am simply out of time. Because of this, I'm willing to give you a chance to bond with one of my creations."

He paused to glare at her while tapping a finger on his desk for a moment.

Hannah gave him a curt nod.

He stabbed a finger in her direction. "You will assume all the risks associated with this bonding. It will not be on my head. If you do not agree to these terms, there is the door."

"I'll do it,” she said without hesitation. This was why she’d come, after all. This chance to take on her foes, stealing their own weapons and using it against them. She’d been cooped up on the gunship too long, listening to one overly-cautious plan after another. It was time to act.

Dimly, she wondered when she’d lost the fear which had been her constant companion since she first bonded a mech. She’d become a shielder out of a desire to protect herself and her teammates.

Now she saw how flimsy shields were, compared to cannons. It was time to stop hiding and start fighting.

"Very well." He snatched up the pile of papers from his desk and crammed them into a file folder, then stuffed it roughly into the drawer beside him. "You understand I would not give you even this opportunity if you did not come so highly recommended." He glanced at Anastasia, who was standing by the door. "Hopefully what she says is true." He waggled his finger at Hannah again. "You will be given the opportunity to bond, but if your technique proves substandard and if your control of the machine is not up to my exacting standards, I will not allow you to proceed with the demonstration."

"I understand," Hannah said. "I won't let you down."

His expression softened only minutely. "I doubt that very much, but in this case, I hope to be proven wrong."

An hour later, Doctor Franz was leading Hannah and a motley group of mech pilot candidates down a dingy industrial hallway which opened up onto a bustling with factory floor. Hannah looked around with interest. The facility itself, the building and its many rooms, was clearly old and in poor repair. The factory floor had piles of archaic equipment. All of those had been pushed to the edges of the cavernous space, and what took their place was breathtaking.

It was a dazzling array of military hardware. Mechs, large and small, though mostly much larger than she was used to, dominated the near area. Beyond the group of mechs, she could see rows of armored cars and some type of tracked machine with bristling turrets that looked like a tiny version of a mobile fortress. She had seen similar machines in Frankenstein's valley, but the Polish and Hungarian forces tended to prefer mechs and smaller armored cars, so she didn't know much about them.

"This mech will wield a sword composed of the finest steel made by the Krupp foundries." Doctor Franz had stopped in front of a large, impressive mech with bright white, blue, and red stripes on its chassis. All the mechs here had similar bright color schemes. They would be impractical in a real battle, but for a demonstration, Hannah could see the appeal. The Germans had apparently tried to use the colors of the Russian flag.

One of the older girls in the crowd around Hannah raised her hand. "Excuse me, wouldn't it make more sense for that mech to wield a heavier melee weapon, such as an axe?"

Dr. Franz spoke with clear indignation. "The sword is the pinnacle of melee weaponry. So, this mech wields a sword."

Hannah disagreed, but she let his prejudice pass. Her goal was to bond a mech, not to make a point. The girl lowered her hand, and he moved on to the next mech. “This mech will wield a compact axe that stows on its side. It will also carry an assortment of long-range weaponry. It is equipped with light machine guns mounted on the head, arm-mounted heavy machine guns, and is designed to carry a medium-weight autocannon. Good for long and short-range engagements.”

The younger girls were still staring about wide-eyed. The older three were all looking at this mech intently.

“This mech is my favorite. It represents the best balance of long and short-range capability.” Hannah had to agree he had a point, though the sheer number of guns was ludicrous. The greatest weapon a mech could carry was its rider, after all.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"This next mech is an evolution of the previous one's design concept. It's built on a slightly heavier chassis and is intended to carry a shoulder-mounted howitzer weapon. This cannon provides devastating fire support capability. In addition, it has secondary armaments consistent with the previous design: light and heavy machine guns, axe, and autocannon."

"Finally, we come to the least conventional of my designs." All of the girls were eyeing this mech with certain amounts of awe. Hannah felt a pang of almost hunger as she looked it over. Dr. Franz saw their looks and smiled. He was clearly eager to see what capable operators could do with his designs.

Just let him wait. She would give him a show, all right.

"Finally, we come to the least conventional of my designs."

Hannah stared.

The mech had four legs. It did not resemble a horse or a dog, instead having a lopsided and ungainly look. Its head, which was similar to the standard design of the other mechs the doctor had already shown off, looked much too small for the four-legged body. It bristled with an awesome array of weaponry, including two autocannon turrets, four machine gun mounts, and a cannon platform on the top with a long-barreled heavy cannon.

"You will note this machine carries an impressive array of weaponry, far more than would usually be mounted on such a machine. This is made possible by carrying additional support crew to load and fire some of the weapons. You will also note its non-standard configuration. This will require difficulty in bonding, and is the reason we have chosen to include two inexperienced pilots to this pool."

Hannah immediately wrote that one off. She needed a mech she could pilot on her own – and she’d already made her choice, anyway. The German scientist was looking pointedly at the younger two girls, who had drawn close together, whispering in clear discomfort. "In the case of bonding such a non-standard design, inexperience will be an asset."

Hannah was pretty sure he was full of shit. Bonding to something that did not look like a human was exceedingly difficult. He was hoping to trick a couple of fresh faces into doing something that might get them killed, or burn the istota out of them.

"Both of you together will undertake bonding to this machine and will operate it in tandem." The young pair gaped at him and took a half step back and closer to each other. Their looks of fear turned into terror. Hannah ought to sympathize, but all she felt was scorn. Yes, they would probably die, but if they succeeded, what a mech! Almost she regretted not bringing Veronica along. Where was Veronica, anyway? Angelica had been worried about her.

Hannah banished her stray thoughts as she watched the reactions of the other girls. The older pilots looked skeptical but did not speak up. The experienced-looking woman with captain’s insignia eyed the young girls with what could only be described as pity.

Perhaps they knew of the dangers of bonding multiple girls to the same machine. It had been tried in the past in order to field larger and more complicated designs, but had never proven its long-term viability. Doctor Franz was likely on to something, though. A pair of inexperienced girls, who might never have bonded anything but a training mech, would have fewer inhibitions to overcome.

Hannah focused her attention on the mechs themselves. They were larger than Eva's mech or the Red Widow's mech, which were the largest she had previously seen. These looked to be half again as big as her old Hungarian Hussar mech. The design was clean and unadorned, and had an air of German utilitarian efficiency about it.

An army of technicians was going over these machines, and Hannah was surprised to see several golems among them. It made sense. Golem technology had originally come out of Germany after all, where Frankenstein had been from. She took a second look to be sure none were Sam. Yes, she’d left him behind this morning, but he had the strangest way of turning up where he wasn’t expected. They weren’t; they all resembled his old body style, not the new model he’d stolen from Frankenstein.

"Now" Dr. Franz was saying, "we will begin the process of selecting..."

Hannah realized where he was going with this, and her mind raced ahead. She couldn't risk them choosing a mech for her. She needed one that could go into combat immediately with great effect, so she had to have one that suited her well. Her specialization had been shielding magic, but her training had given her a good all-around foundation. She wasn't a brawler or a sniper, but she knew the skills for pretty much any other role.

She looked over the German mechs with new eyes, trying to gauge what they were best optimized for. The big, ungainly quadruped that Franz had described in the classroom was obviously out. Not the mech with the large sword and thick extra armor plates around its head and shoulders, either.

The closest mech to the group was more what she wanted. While it was massive compared to mechs she was used to, it looked lithe compared to the heavy brawler and the quadruped. It would do well enough. It had been painted in a white-and-blue scheme, not as gaudy as the red brawler, either.

Hannah shifted to the edge of the group. When she was as close to it as she could get casually, she turned and took two unhurried steps over and placed her hand on the side of the machine. She reached out, feeling for its core. It was there, seething with potential and desh.

Since severing her bond to her old charger, there had been a hungering hole inside her. Now that empty space reached out for the mech's core. Its magic and her own pulled at each other. With a curious sensation she'd only ever felt once before, they started to merge.

"What are you doing?" Dr. Franz was beside her. He reached for her hand but stopped short. "You were not supposed to begin the bonding process... yet."

She faced him but didn't take her hand off the mech as the bond progressed. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought we were supposed to do that now."

He glared at her. "Not yet."

"I'm sorry, doctor, your machine, it's just so... impressive," she said breathlessly. "I couldn't help myself."

She almost smirked at the way his stern expression melted. "Of course, of course, recruit, we were going to get to it soon anyway. Just," he hesitated, "just carry on with the process while I get the others started."

He seemed flustered as he moved away. Was he blushing? Hannah repressed a snicker as she bonded her powerful new mech.

Time to see what German engineering could really do.