Silence had spread across the fields. The TRV had just finished climbing a hill, believing that whatever fighting had been going on was over after she hadn't heard shots for a while. She was wrong.

She blinked at the two tanks, a mere four hundred meters away. Being someone who saw a lot of death on an almost daily basis, it wasn't shocking to her that one of them had just shot the other. What made her freeze was the fact that the survivor's cannon was now pointed at her instead.

It was unlikely that the heavy tank could see her clearly - which in this situation, was a disadvantage. Tanks that weren't sure what they were seeing tended to shoot indiscriminately, in case it was an enemy; denying a hostile tank the first shot was often the key to survival. A team mate would always make sure to radio their comrade to announce their approaching beforehand and avoid accidentally becoming a target. Without that means of communication, approaching a team still was relatively safe for a TRV. A scout would notice and identify her without trouble, long before she'd have even seen it. Catching a heavy tank off guard however was an entirely different matter.

Luckily for the TRV, the other tank was reloading right then. She shook off her surprise and backed up as quickly as she could, pushing the cart behind her backward as well. She managed to disappear from the heavy's line of sight, but knew that it wouldn't just ignore her. However, she - probably - wasn't in grave danger anymore. Tanks usually didn't kill TRVs. And if she just stood here in plain sight, the heavy would not confuse her for a hostile tank once it got close enough to spot her again.

She just waited patiently. As she had expected, a turret appeared from behind the hill crest before her a couple of minutes later. The T29's cannon wasn't pointed at her this time, instead aiming slightly above her as the other tank obviously couldn't depress it as far as it wanted to. But that wasn't necessary right then. It lingered for a moment, then the rest of the tank appeared.

"It's a mechanic," the heavy tank said. He was speaking to someone else, but addressed the TRV next. "Are you alone?" he asked.

"As per usual," the TRV replied. She was always travelling alone, since she couldn't afford guards like some other TRVs. But despite her deadpan attitude, she understood the other tank's concerns. In a tank's mind, everything could be a trap. It was a worry that came true often enough for it to be justified.

The T29's frown deepened for a moment, but then he finally seemed to recognize who was standing before him.

"How did you find us?" he asked, but sounded much less wary now.

The TRV shrugged.

"This is one of the bases I used to frequent. I haven't been here in a long time, but since I'm going south and it's on the way, I figured I'd drop by," she explained. She tilted her whole hull as she went on. "Did I pick an inconvenient time?" Maybe the kill she had seen had concluded the battle that must have been going on. Maybe it hadn't.

Before the other tank could answer, a second tank appeared on the hill ridge. The TRV blinked. It was the tank that the heavy had shot. By all means, the low tier artillery should be dead after taking a hit at point-blank range from a T29. But instead of a shell hole, there was just a big dent on the Sturmpanzer's already beaten up looking gun shields. The TRV recognized her as one of the T29's low tier team mates that she had already seen during her last visits.

"We are training," the T29 said, pretty much at the same time as the answer to the mystery occurred to the TRV. She nodded. It looked like a pretty rough training session, but that was none of her business.

"Do you require my services?" she asked.

"Urgently," the T29 said.

The three tanks started making their way towards the base, driving by each other's side. Eject was driving between Arty and the TRV, who noticed after a moment that he was looking at her, then at her cart with a concerned expression. Clearly, he must have noticed the drastic decrease in spare parts she was carrying. He spoke up a moment later.

"I take it no one's left," he said dryly.

The TRV shrugged.

"Not a single team," she replied. With a shudder, she added, "I only barely managed to slip through myself."

"How can a team be this powerful?" Eject asked.

"Oh, it's not just one team," the TRV said.

"But you said —" Eject said but trailed off as the TRV shook her turret.

"It seems to be a whole clan, or something. I observed them for a while, and it was definitely multiple teams."

Eject's engine rumbled with discontent. The TRV went on.

"They're on their way," she said plainly.

###

Eohelm had been wondering if he was going to be included in the planning that was going on currently. With Sky as the leader, he had always been part of the discussions. Rill and Eject however had only called him just now, despite the fact that they had been putting their turrets together since the takeover, trying to think of solutions for their predicament. The Tanking League was stuck in the middle of nowhere with their fuel slowly running out and no idea where to go next. For two experienced leaders, that situation wasn't too hard to get out of.

But whatever news this TRV had brought must have revealed the problem to be more complicated than they had thought. And apparently that meant the new leaders had decided that a little help from their strategist wouldn't hurt, after all. Therefore, Eohelm was strolling through the base to go join the deliberation. He passed the TRV that had returned with Eject and Arty and was working on his team mates in the middle of the base now — she was trying her best to help despite a very limited supply of spare parts. Eohelm would visit her too after he would have fulfilled his consultant duty. There wasn't any serious damage to be repaired on his part, but he figured it wouldn't hurt (figuratively speaking, at least) to have some of his minor injuries from the last battle looked at.

He eventually reached the secluded spot between the buildings that Rill and Eject had called him to. The heavies turned towards him when they noticed him approaching from their side, and paused their conversation until he had driven up to them.

"You called?" he said as they just looked at him silently.

"Things are worse than they seemed," Eject said straightforwardly.

Before Eohelm could reply anything, Rill spoke up.

"We're not dealing with a team, but an advancing clan," the KV-4 said. "We were thinking about fighting back, but a free team who fights a clan is a stupid team."

"I don't get it," Eject said. "What could a clan want here? These lands are useless as provinces, there's nothing here." He sounded slightly agitated, which was far more agitated than Eohelm had seen him in a long time. A troubling observation. Eohelm lowered his optics, straining to think about the whole issue. If this was indeed the same tanks they had met months ago, he had a suspicion what they could actually be after. And that didn't make it any better.

"They may not be looking for lands …" he said eventually. The confused looks he got prompted him to go on. "Remember the scavenger team in Ruinberg? Remember what they told us when we asked them about the dead tanks in their basement?"

"I wasn't there," Rill said. "Get to the point."

Eject turned to the KV-4, answering instead of Eohelm.

"They said they hid them there, because their fallen comrades were 'converted' by the ghosts. They came back as ghosts themselves," he explained. His expression suddenly turned startled. "The South …" he said. "It must be completely overrun with teams by now."

He fell silent, the shock remaining on his features. Rill was apparently hit by the realization as well and continued the thought.

"If they reach them, and convert them all …" he said slowly. His optics darted to Eohelm, who returned the look with a deeply worried expression.

"When that happens," the Centurion said, "we'll better be very far away."

Eject growled.

"We won't be. We'll be right in the middle of it," he said gravely. He shook his turret. "We have to do something. For my part, I won't just keep running until we're either killed or driven into the sea. Because that's what's going to happen. They won't stop hunting us until they did."

"I fully agree with you," Eohelm said. "But," he went on, "our team in its current shape can't survive another battle, let alone win. It would be different if we were at full strength … But even then … I wouldn't be confident that we can stop a whole clan."

"We might be able to if we find strong allies. We can't be the only ones who want to fight back," Eject argued.

"I wouldn't rely on that," Rill rumbled. "I wonder if we're too far south or if it would still be possibly to evade to the West …"

Eject looked at him with a puzzled frown.

"You think they won't be waiting there too?" he asked.

Rill remained silent for a moment. It seemed like he was going to reply something, but then changed his mind and scrunched up his cannon before turning to Eohelm instead.

"Your help isn't needed anymore right now," he said to the Centurion.

Eohelm blinked at being kicked from the meeting so suddenly and soon, but left with a quick bow.

'He doesn't know either,' he thought as he left the two heavies behind him. A look back told him that they continued their discussion without him immediately. With a sigh, he drove back into the base, where the TRV was still busy.

She was working on Rex right then, who was being a difficult patient. Eohelm slowed down as he approached the little makeshift workshop that the TRV had set up. Rex was standing in the middle of it and frowning.

"What's broken?" the TRV asked him.

"I don't know," Rex replied, but then waved his cannon about vaguely. "The gun, …"

Eohelm halted nearby, next to Arty, who was waiting for her turn.

"Does it hurt?" the TRV continued her evaluation.

"Yes," Rex said.

"What exactly hurts?"

"I don't know."

There was no obvious damage, at least none that Eohelm could see. If he hadn't been told, he wouldn't have guessed that Rex' cannon was broken. But that only made it harder for the TRV to fix him, because she had to find out what was wrong by interpreting his cryptic answers. Eohelm watched the exchange for a moment longer, but then turned to Arty.

"How was training?" he asked the Sturmpanzer. She gave him a defensive-looking shrug.

"Didn't go so well …" she said.

"Oh?" Eohelm asked. The previous time that Eject had trained Arty had been a while ago, but she had sounded more enthusiastic about it back then. But then again, those previous times she hadn't been punished for failing. Eohelm had been pretty baffled to see her far more damaged than usual when she had returned from the latest session. Training ammo usually wasn't dangerous, but it could leave nasty bruises nevertheless in certain circumstances.

"He said … I panic too much," Arty mumbled with her optics averted. "But I don't know what to do about it …"

"You'll get better at it eventually," Eohelm said.

"If only."

Eohelm wondered about the strange pessimism. Arty wasn't this negative normally. On the other hand, if he hadn't known her, he wouldn't have assumed anything else from her current appearance. While he acknowledged the necessity and urgency of training her, he didn't approve of the way Eject went about it now. The T29 was demanding too much. He seemed to seriously expect that Arty would outperform herself by far very soon, and was obviously willing to force it.

"It's a matter of experience. It takes time," Eohelm thought out loud.

Arty looked at him again with a frown.

"We don't have time," she replied.

"Well," Eohelm said, tilting his cannon. "One thing he sure taught you already is how to sound like him."

There was a sudden outcry, and Eohelm looked to Rex again, whose turret's hatches were open now as the TRV was working inside it. It seemed like she had found the broken parts by poking around.

"It's the recoil mechanism," she said. "Your recoil cylinders ruptured and all the hydraulic fluid got out."

"What? What does that mean?" Rex asked.

"Gun slide barrels broke," the TRV replied deadpan.

Rex frowned indignantly, but then winced again as the TRV pulled a warped piece of metal out of his turret, with a gesture not unlike that of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.

Eohelm cringed. As the TRV reached into Rex' turret again — most likely with the intention of pulling another part —, the Centurion decided that he'd come back later. He turned around and drove off, a yelp behind him.

Just as he had settled down to rest, Pepper's voice could be heard on the radios.

«Tanks approaching the base,» he reported. «Three, to be exact.»

«Who?» Eject asked.

«Guess,» Pepper replied.

Eohelm's cannon perked up. He set himself into motion and hurried to the border of the base, strained to see anyone appearing. Beside him, Barfly stopped with screeching brakes after sprinting to the same spot.

«We will receive them,» Eject announced.

Four silhouettes became visible in the distance only a few moments later; Pepper was escorting the newcomers. Eohelm sat down on his suspension and waited next to the jittery Barfly as the silhouettes slowly approached.

The minutes passed in silence, until the four tanks finally reached the base's borders. They drove towards Eohelm and Barfly. None of them said anything as they passed the two medium tanks, but the Jumbo among them left their side to stop next to Barfly. The two Shermans looked at each other silently, then both of them looked after Pepper, Sky, and Awol, who hadn't stopped and were driving further into the camp. Eohelm waited until they had passed him, then followed them.

Arty was still sitting near Rex and the TRV; the TRV had stopped working and the three of them watched wordlessly as the returnees drove past them without looking at them. Eohelm saw Fox appear to their left to watch the procession as well. As he looked ahead again, Pepper was slowing down and halting. Sky and Awol followed suit. Rill and Eject were standing in front of them; the heavies' expressions were stern.

The following seconds passed in silence, until Sky spoke up with a firm, but quiet voice.

"We have returned."

"I can see that," Rill said.

If Sky was irritated by his attitude, she didn't show it. Her tone was unchanged as she went on.

"My brother and I wish to rejoin this team."

"Rill and I are the new leaders," Eject said.

Sky looked at him with an unreadable expression.

"So I've been told," she said matter-of-factly.

"Do you accept this?" Eject asked.

For a moment, Sky remained silent. Eohelm watched her closely, hoping that she would act right. Eject shifted on his tracks a little, his optics wandering to Rill, who kept looking at Sky.

Finally, the Pershing bowed her cannon.

"I accept it," she said.

"In that case," Rill said, "you are allowed to stay."

Sky's gaze remained lowered.

"Thank you."