We had four of the tanks prepped, all we had crew for. I pulled one of the heavy machine guns out of a leftover tank and jerry-rigged a mount on top of the tank with the howitzer. With its open top turret that was the only one that I could realistically ride on. The others were much too cramped. Standing atop an armored fighting machine struck me as silly, even if that's how the Hussars did it. After all, I didn't have any shielding magic to keep me safe. At least on this tank I could duck behind the turret shield.
Sergeant Wysocki came over. "Something's happened." He nodded towards the nearby motor pool of Russian-built tanks. The Russian workers were now rolling out crates of ammunition. Live ammunition, I noted. They were arming their tanks for war.
"Now's our chance," I said. "Nobody will notice if we start loading up live rounds now. Get everyone moving."
We had been wondering how we might put real rounds into our machines without the Russians taking notice. I had thought we were being sneaky, but then I saw even the Italians were loading their armored cars with ammunition. A Russian lieutenant was moving down the line shouting at everyone to hurry up.
"Get your asses moving! It's an emergency!"
The French looked at each other in confusion.
"We did not sign up for this," the nearest one said.
"No," I told him, “but we did. Just get the ammunition aboard and then clear out."
They looked at me like I had grown another head. After a moment, they scrambled to obey. Most people were happy to stay busy if it meant someone else would go into the line of fire. Wysocki had made a pass down our line of tanks, giving everyone orders, before coming back to me. "What do you think's going on?"
I opened my mouth to declare I didn't know when the whole building shook. The lights dangling from the ceiling danced and threw crazy shadows between armored vehicles.
"Do you think that’s our doing?"
I shook my head slowly. "I don't see how. That was too big." I trailed off as the room shook again. There was a crash, and daylight poured into the far corner of the cavernous space. Something big passed in front of it, blocking the light for a moment and then moving away.
"I think we need to get moving," Sergeant Wysocki said, sounding a little dazed.
"Yeah, everyone get aboard," I yelled. "We're rolling out."
The air grew thick with choking smoke as more and more of the fighting vehicles chugged to life and belched their black exhaust into the room. The cacophony of engines and shouting grew and grew until it was deafening. Russian soldiers moved through the smoke and yelled orders. They were directing everyone that was rolling towards open doors on the side of the factory.
I climbed up on top of my chosen tank and stood with one hand positioned behind the turret on the upper deck. There wasn't much room to stand, and I held on to the armored shield for balance. The turret, with its open top and back, was almost completely filled with the howitzer. Corporal Jędrzejewski was crammed in next to it in the tank commander's seat. In such a small machine, he served the dual role as the gunner. Private Jerblonski was crouched next to me, serving as loader, while I rode on top of the thing like Slim Pickens, serving as not much more than a mascot.
The other tanks, with their closed turrets, were properly crewed in a conventional fashion with two men in each one: the combination commander/loader/gunner in the turret, and the driver below and in front of him. The guns on these advanced French tanks were derived from mech auto cannons and used a five-round magazine. It took extra time to load after every five shots. I vaguely remembered that the French had not learned from this inefficient configuration, and at the opening of World War II, their tanks had lost even though they had thicker armor and bigger guns. It was simply too difficult to do all of those roles in a one-man turret. That, and lack of onboard radios, meant the French tanks, which had been excellent in World War I, were doomed to failure during the Blitzkrieg. Hopefully, we wouldn't have that problem today.
The throng of vehicles became a traffic jam as they all attempted to pour through the same exit. Further down the wall, another door was thrown open, and I redirected our column that way. We made it there just as two speedier Italian armored cars zoomed ahead of us. In their rush to get to the door, they collided and wedged fast in the opening. I didn't have time for this shit; too much was at stake. I yelled at them to get clear and called down to the driver to gun it. There was a mad scramble of bodies as the Italians dove out of the way. I'm pretty sure they all made it before our tank smashed into their vehicles.
The thinner armor of their cars crumpled under our treads, and the spindly tires broke into kindling as we crushed on through. I ignored the irate screams of the Italians from behind as the rest of our column finished flattening their machines.
We broke out into a wide alley beside the building. Further down the alley, the other vehicles were pouring from the other doorway. I told my driver to turn right. We had to find where the expo was being held. A dark shadow passed briefly across the alley. I spun around and caught sight of something vast disappearing out of sight beyond the roof of the factory.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"What the hell was that?" I said aloud. "Did you see it?" I asked the loader. He shook his head furiously and stayed crouched in his tiny seat next to the howitzer. Something distant, but not that distant, boomed. The sound echoed down the concrete and brick canyon we were in. Dust rattled off the walls next to us. "We have to get out of this tight space. Forward!" I yelled.
We were nearly at top speed, so it was a pointless order as my little column of tanks roared down the alley. At the end, where it opened out onto a main street, we smashed through a police barricade. The parade was long gone, but evidently, some of the traffic direction barriers still remained.
I was looking one way down the road, trying to decide if that was the right direction when the loader breathed a curse and pointed behind me. "Mother of God, what is that?" Something huge moved in the distance. Momentarily, my brain didn't know what to make of it, insisting what it saw was impossible. Then I began to comprehend. It was a metal fortress with the turrets of a battleship, and it bobbed through the city like someone invisible was carrying it.
No, it had legs at the bottom. I could just see down an alley as it continued moving. Was this a new Russian weapon? It didn't look anything like Admiral Karpov's walking ship, though it was of similar size.
"What is it, Sergeant?"
“I have no...," I started to say, then cut myself off. It finally reached the street directly in front of us and moved across the opening, and I got a look at its legs. I had seen legs like that before, though they had been spindly and not covered in plates of armor. "Baba fucking Yaga. Holy crap," I said. "It's Baba Yaga's house."
"No way," the gunner said, shaking his head vigorously. "No freaking way."
"It has to be. What the heck else would that thing be?"
"What now, Sergeant?" Wysocki had pulled his tank up alongside ours and stuck his head out of the turret. The rest of our small force pulled up behind us. "Do we go after it?"
We looked dubiously towards the walking fortress, which was now moving off. The buildings around us shook as one of its cannons fired. The shell whistled off into the distance, and I couldn't tell what it was aimed at.
"No way, man. We leave that thing alone." I was picturing Mazur 's maps. Unfortunately, we did need to go in that direction. "But we have to get to the arena. Follow me. Go right!" I yelled to the driver.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he yelled back.
"Do it. We have to get to the arena." The roar of the engine and the grinding of the gears drowned out the string of curses from our driver as he got us in motion.
The walking fortress had moved off the main road, which gave me some relief as we roared in its general direction. That relief vanished when another monstrosity stomped into view. This one was familiar; Admiral Karpov’s walking gunboat. Its main battery belched, and shells whistled past. I heard a clang of something on metal and suspected the fortress had been dealt a glancing blow. There was no explosion, so I assumed it wasn't a direct hit. But what the hell did I know about walking ship gunnery?
I was briefly put in mind of a giant monster movie I’d seen where two huge dinosaur-like beasts fought in a city while the humans ran around trying not to get stepped on. Getting squashed by Baba Yaga’s house was not on my agenda for the day.
Ahead of us, armored vehicles poured onto the main street, having come around the other side of the factory. An Italian armored car went roaring past our column, the driver and the gunner having a yelling match over the scream of the engine. Apparently, the driver wasn't much interested in going towards the Battle of Titans. I couldn't blame him.
A trio of Russian tanks rumbled out to the street directly in front of us, forcing us to dodge between them. My tank made it through the gap, but then two more emerged and made it a traffic jam. Two Russian commanders were screaming at each other and us. Our three other tanks were briefly blocked from getting through the intersection. Wysocki took his up onto the far curb, crushing fire hydrants and knocking down a light pole to get around the blockade. The other two followed him, and we gunned it up the road.
From memory, I directed us right at the next intersection and then through the maze of factories and warehouses that made up the industrial district. Here and there, sections of pavement were pulverized or walls were knocked over where the walking fortress had stomped past.
Finally, we made one more turn, and ahead I could see the red brick walls of the exhibition site, just as Mazur had described. Was Hannah still in there, surrounded by German mechs? With all hell breaking loose, I figured the plan was shot, and we just needed to get out of there. I only wanted to find Hannah and then leave. We had to get to the rendezvous site before the gunship arrived, or we would miss our ride out of here.
We came to the wall in a T-intersection and I quickly checked both ways. To the left, a large group of Russian troops guarded a wooden door, but it was hard to why. I got us moving that way. As we approached, the Russians yelled at me to stop, and one tried to bar our path. He dove out of the way at the last moment, and we turned and smashed our tank full tilt into a wooden door on the side of the brick ruin. I ducked below behind the armor plate as splintered beams bounced past, and then we were through.
I was in the back of the tank. My tank shuddered to a halt, confronted by a wall of mechs. For a long moment, we all stared at each other. The mechs looked old, shot to hell and missing limbs or big chunks of their armor. The girls clinging to them stared at me from filthy, frightened faces. I couldn't make sense of it, until I realized the mechs were all Hungarian designs. The women piloting them had the universal hollow-faced look of prisoners. Then one of them stood up on the shoulder of a mech. She pointed to us and shouted, "It's Princess Veronica's crew!"
Hungarian prisoners, and Veronica had been here. I didn't know what to make of this, but I knew an opportunity when I saw one. In front of me, beyond the mechs, was another wooden door leading deeper into the arena. Somewhere through there would be Hannah and maybe Veronica as well. I shoved the last fragment of beam off the top of my mech and stood to my full height.
Wysocki had pulled his tank in just behind mine. The other two were still outside the open door, and I could hear them having a yelling match with the Russian troops outside. Wysocki was fumbling with something, and I thought I knew what it was.
I pointed towards the intact wooden door ahead of me and yelled, "For Hungary and Poland!"
My driver took the cue and slammed on the gas. We roared forward and slammed into the wooden gate at speed. It shattered. Right behind us, Sergeant Wysocki's tank came through. On a pole rigged to the back, he had raised a flag that he had gotten from the Frenchman. Wysocki had taken the French tricolor and cut off the blue stripe. Now, though the wrong shape, the red and white banner of Poland flew behind his tank. Behind him came a horde of Hungarian mechs and screaming girls as we poured into the arena.