Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Books 2 & 3

Somewhere between Kyev and St. Petersburg, we landed the gunship a mile outside of a moderate-sized village and went into town to do a little shopping.

By shopping, I mean acquiring transportation.

By acquiring transportation, I mean stealing cars.

We snatched a large Phaeton sedan, a common configuration in this era, as well as a truck everyone else insisted on calling a lorry. With some care and a couple of ramps, we secured both vehicles in the main cargo compartment of the gunship. By dawn, we had landed 50 miles farther north.

The following day, we launched Tamara and Anastasia on an air scouting mission to the north with orders to find a suitable landing site for our gunship. Both their mechs were passable from a distance as Russian machines – especially Anastasia’s, since it hadn’t been modified since we stole it -- and hopefully wouldn't attract undue attention. The officers had coordinated over a map on a target zone. The girls would set down and light a signal fire in a likely spot.

Somewhat to my surprise, the plan went smoothly. By taking off at dusk, we were able to make it to the St. Petersburg vicinity just as first light was breaking. Between the landmarks we could barely see in the early dawn and the bonfire the girls had lit, we were able to set the gunship down in a secluded grove several miles from St. Petersburg proper.

By mid-morning, we had the vehicles unloaded. The crews were still in the process of camouflaging the gunship but a group of us was heading into town to reconnoiter. Anastasia, Piotr, the colonel, and the tsar were going into town to meet their contact. Frank and I were following in the truck. Our plan was for a bit of shopping.

Frank didn't tell me how he knew the location of the St. Petersburg branch of Van Helsing & Sons, but he took us straight there. It was located in a warehouse district bordered by overgrown old estates whose houses had seen better days. Overall, the neighborhood was quite reminiscent of the one we had visited in Budapest.

We parked our truck outside of the decaying old manor and went around to the servants’ entrance. The small sign by the door simply read “On Duty.” We let ourselves in.

The floor-to-ceiling shelves, covered in dusty odds and ends, felt much the same as Budapest. Even the smell was the same. Most surprisingly, the wizened old man who greeted us appeared as identical as I could make out from memory. Was he some sort of weird mass-produced golem too? Who would bother making tiny old man golems?

I cut to the chase quickly this time and snagged myself a replacement 1911. They only had one, and it was an engraved and gold-inlaid piece meant for some nobleman who had never picked up his order. I splurged on magazines and specialty ammunition. They had hollow points stuffed with wood. They had silver rounds, and even had tiny vials filled with holy water. He offered me two other kinds of anti-monster rounds, but I wasn't sure just what they were. I was told they would be effective against undead and some types of spirits. After all the weird stuff I had seen lately, I wasn't taking any chances about being prepared, so I bought out the lot.

I thought the proprietor smirked when I added a pair of silver-inlaid brass knuckles to my order. He seemed to be dubious about their usefulness. But even if the silver wasn't useful, a little extra punching power always was. I was lucky to find a pair that would fit my massive hands.

After that, I went shopping for bladed weapons. Van Helsing and Sons’ selection was impressive. I didn't need a full-sized sword, but some of the knives they offered were nearly that long. I was tempted by some heavy bladed knives, including authentic Kukris from the subcontinent, but I finally settled on a Bowie knife. It was the original style from the 1800s, with a blade big enough to be a short sword. Most people only know the style as a quirky American invention, but back in its day, the Bowie knife had been considered such a devastating dueling weapon that they had been explicitly banned in many states and countries. The Bowie knife's blade design made it efficient for slashing and chopping while still being effective for stabbing. This one had a nice sheath that looked very concealable, which is what drew me to it. I set the big knife on the counter in preparation for checking out.

"Will that be all?" the shriveled proprietor asked.

I opened my mouth to say ‘yes’ when a familiar voice interjected, "This as well!"

Hiroshi was standing there holding a straight-bladed ninja sword, sheathed. He set it on the counter next to my purchases.

"Ah, is he with you?"

Hiroshi was dressed in a smart, well-fitting business suit of western cut. His features looked only faintly golem derived and not at all Asian but he still had the faintest trace of an accent.

Frank was staring at the ninja in surprise. "No," he started to say.

"Yes!" I interrupted.

Frank looked at me sharply.

"I didn't expect to see you here," I told Hiroshi. "You're dressed differently."

"A master of disguise is useless if he's not able to change his clothing when it's appropriate," Hiroshi said, favoring me with an arched eyebrow.

"Ah, a very good choice," the proprietor said, eyeing the blade Hiroshi had set on the counter. "An authentic Japanese ninjato. I believe this sword is called-"

Hiroshi held a hand up, "No, do not speak its name. It has already told me what it is to be called."

The proprietor seemed startled only for the briefest instant, then he gave a short nod of a bow. "Very well, sir."

"Don't you already have a sword?" I asked.

Hiroshi smiled. "A true shadow warrior needs two swords."

That night, we all met back at the gunship. The colonel and the tsar's party had failed to find the contact they had been looking for but had left word with some of his supporters for a meeting the following day. The officers and NCOs gathered again to discuss the plan. Piotr and Mazur agreed, and their united arguments swayed the tsar to agree.

Was I invited? Nope. Didn’t need to be. A good sergeant always know what the officers are up to.

"Your Highness," Piotr had warned, "we don't want to give the impression that we are desperate for their support. We need their support, but if they sense we have no other choice, they will make us pay dearly for it."

"Is there a price too high to see Russia onto sound footing?" The tsar sounded genuinely regal at that, but I didn’t like where this was going. Still, nobody asked my opinion.

Mazur spoke smoothly. “Your majesty does not need to meet with lesser men. We shall ensure that the one we’re here to speak with is present, and then bring you.”

“Very well,” the Tsar said grumpily. I think he was getting tired of the gunship’s spartan quarters.

Piotr and I went with the Colonel in the phaeton. The meeting point was in the industrial side of town. Towering grey factories loomed over us, and in the distance, spires of brick belched smoke into the air. The distant ringing of metal on metal pervaded the district, and everywhere was a choking smog. Clusters of men with surly expressions stood on many of the street corners. They might be the laboring class, but these chaps weren't laboring at the moment. I didn’t like seeing able-bodied men standing around doing nothing. Too much potential for mischief. But I held my tongue and let my superiors do the thinking, for now.

We made contact in a smaller abandoned warehouse deep in the district. The windows were boarded up, but the number of men standing around put a lie to its abandoned looks. The men looked strong and well-fed, unlike other vagrants we had seen elsewhere in St. Petersburg.

A man with a lopsided, toothy smile met us at the door. "Ah, you come as agreed?" He looked over our group, frowning. "I don't see the one we were told was coming."

Piotr put up a strong front. "I wish to establish good faith before he arrives. I'm sure you can understand."

"What I understand is a lack of trust. And this," the man gestured to me, his smile twisting with anger, "you bring such an abomination before the assembled might of Russia's workers? His very presence demonstrates bad faith. Golems are nothing but an abomination to destroy the working class. They represent the ultimate humiliation."

The man broke off as I stepped forward. I wore my hat with fake hair under it and a reasonably convincing false mustache. Hiroshi wasn’t the only one who could work a disguise. It’s mostly about attitude, anyway. "I dare you to call me that again," I growled. "Go ahead. I've been beating down little pipsqueaks like you since I was in short pants. If you even try to imply my mother had relations with a golem, I'll break your scrawny neck. Just because I'm bigger than you, and no doubt stronger than you," I straightened up and folded my massive arms one over the other, "and could outwork any three of you doesn't mean I'm not a real man who works hard for a real day's wage."

The one I loomed over, took a step back, so I leaned in. "You want injustice?" I unfolded my arms and stabbed a thick finger in his direction. "I've worked my whole life building tractors in Sevastopol." I just guessed at a name, hoping there was a tractor factory there. "And do you think I get paid twice times what scrawny men get paid? No. I get the same wage as the rest of you even when I do three times as much work. And a tenth the wage of the foreman, even though he does no work at all."

There was a mutter around the room, and I could tell it had their attention. Dissatisfaction with the status quo was the universal bonding agent. I looked around, meeting the eyes of a few of them. "Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. You!" I pointed to one of the beefier men. "I bet you can lift twice as much as most of those layabouts standing on the street corners." The man straightened up. He curled a meaty bicep and gave me a gap-toothed grin. "Maybe four times as much. Wanna try me?"

I smiled. "Maybe later." I turned back to the man who had been stalling us. "Now you've got a chance to talk to the only nobleman who will give our kind a listen. So why don't you get out of our way... and take us to your boss."

I had had him up to the word "boss," but with that he bristled. "He's not our boss. He is the first among equals."

The alarm bells were going off in the back of my mind now as I put it all together. Just because I had a head full of downloaded smarts didn't make me the quickest study in the book, and I had never really had much for history... except a bit of military history here and there. But all their talk of inequality and workers was slowly getting through my thick skull.

"I'll take you to the boss. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking he's better than the rest of us. He's a great man, and he'll be the first to tell you he is a worker just like us. We call him the first comrade."

Ah, shit.

He turned and led us down a brick hallway. I let the major and Piotr go first, and then followed with a sinking feeling in my gut. The big guy led us to a windowless room. There was a dozen men here, but my eyes only fell on one. His chiseled looks and distinctive facial hair didn't match up to the many statues I had seen, mostly in movies depicting post-Cold War Russia. Or newsreels portraying those same statues being toppled by angry crowds.

"Welcome, welcome," he said, stepping forward with a smile. "I am Vladimir Lenin." He looked over our group. "I see the Tsar is not with you?"

Piotr glanced around the assembled men. There was a murmur amongst them. The plan had been to meet the Tsar himself, and Piotr was uncomfortable with the idea of disappointing them. These were rough men, and there were quite a few weapons in the room. Pistols tucked in waistbands, bolt-action rifles leaned against the wall, and I saw a few knives and brass knuckles as well.

"It was a shame he was not willing to come in person. The bourgeois is ever distrustful of the proletariat."

This was Lenin himself, one of the biggest two or three names in Communist history, and the one who would take a little-known dead-end philosophy by a Bavarian thinker and turn it into a genocidal war, then turned it into a soul-crushing monstrosity. He put me on edge, and I found my tongue getting away with myself.

"Well, you don't exactly go out of your way to exude trustworthiness." I waved a hand at the band of cutthroats around us.

Lenin's smile grew cold as he eyed me. "You bring a monstrosity to us, and a disrespectful one at that? What is this?" His lieutenant, who had shown us in, was wringing his hands. "He says he only looks like a golem, and he takes offense at the implication."

"Really?" Lenin's eyes narrowed as he studied me.

"Nah, I was lying," I said. "I'm a golem."

The men in the room jerked up straight, and several of them reached for weapons, whether at the revelation or at my flippantly disrespectful tone.

"Sergeant, this isn't the time," Colonel Mazur’s voice carried a warning behind mild words.

But I was getting angry now, angry with having to work with a man who had been responsible for millions of deaths, all in the name of people like me. Workers. I’d worked every day of my life – both my lives -- and I was proud of it, but I didn’t pretend that it made me some noble soul ready to be uplifted.

“No, wait,” Lenin said, holding up a hand. He considered me with some amazement. “A golem who can think and speak? What is this – no! I see now! This is what I have been warning you about!” He turned to harangue his men. “See what the bourgeoise are trying to do? Now that we of the working class have begun to demand our rights, they are increasing their plans to replace us all with these abominations. Now they would have it speak and act like a man! Not merely content to replace us at our tasks, now they will take our wives and children as well! See the future that we must fight to replace?”

“Hey,” I said, “I don’t want your wife, not with the diseases you’ve given her.”

Two of the men with Lenin laughed before clapping hands over their mouths. He whirled on me, a vein throbbing in his temple. “Silence, dog of the proletariat!”

“I’m not a dog, I’m a sergeant.”

“And you’re out of line!” Piotr said angrily.

Ah hell. I was going to get in so much trouble for this, but how often does a guy get a chance like that?

I punched Lenin right in the schnoz.