Hell On Tracks
Part 21
Kay sent out a text to all of the Tankery team during classes, saying that first order of the day was cleaning the tanks, and to bring a change of clothes and/or something that you weren't afraid to get a little damp. It probably meant that there were going to be a number of girls running around the Tankery garage in swimsuits. I was suddenly somewhat glad that Tankery was a women-only sport over here in Japan, because guys leering at a bunch of girls doing manual labor in swimsuits or otherwise damp clothes did not sound very comfortable.
The delay that was involved in me having to stop back at my dorm and put on some less nice clothes meant that Kay was waiting for me at our usual spot. She was enjoying a bit of ice cream in her jeep, and waved as I walked over.
"Hey Tali!"
"Hiya, Kay! And for the millionth time, it's Tally. With two 'Ls' and a 'Y."
Kay laughed, and I climbed into the seat next to her, putting my bag with my Tankery uniform in the back. "How was your day, then?"
"It was pretty good. We're doing ballistics in my physics class right now."
"Oh, I remember that class! It's a fascinating subject. Things go up, things go down!" Kay said, laughing at her joke. I joined in the laughing.
"Yeah. We actually were calculating distance from launch to landing using the ballistics of a Sherman's 105 howitzer. No idea if the numbers were the real deal, but that was the example."
"Ooh, fun!" Kay said, before hitting the gas.
"It was, and I think the example of stuff blowing up helped get a number of people on track. It was pretty simple stuff, really. An M4 Sherman armed with a 105mm howitzer fires a shell at an upwards angle of 18 degrees. Assuming the muzzle velocity is X, and disregarding air resistance, how far away does the shell impact?"
"Very nice!" Kay gave a thumbs up before shifting and bringing us around a corner at high speed.
"What about you? How was your day?"
"It was good! I was given a writing assignment for my English class, and the Chief contacted me about progress on the Hellcat front."
"Oh?" I asked, excited. "What's the news?"
"We have the list of necessary modifications that we need to make for the Hellcat. The armor needs to be increased slightly to better support and protect the carbon protective layer, and we need to find a roof for the turret."
"Increase the armor? But that'll slow it down a lot. Hellcat's engine isn't the most powerful."
Kay nodded. "The Chief is looking for a workaround in his free time. He thinks we may be able to get an improved engine to keep the Hellcat within historical parameters despite the League mandated modifications."
"Hmm. Well, a cobbled together Hellcat is still a Hellcat. Any idea how long that'll take?"
"You would have to ask the Chief or one of the mechanics, but it won't be ready for use until around the final rounds in the tournament."
"Dibs."
"Huh?" Kay asked, giving me a confused look as she pulled up to a stop sign.
"Dibs. I am calling dibs on the M18 when we make it that far into the tournament."
"You can't just call dibs on a tank like that!"
"Sure I can. I just did. And besides, she's a tank destroyer."
"Tali, no. Just, no." Kay shook her head. I pouted, and gave my best puppy eyes when she looked over at me. "Fine. If you do well, and make the tournament combat team, and we make it that far, I will see what I can do about getting you into the Hellcat."
"Haha, tank destroyers! I have dibs!" I cheered, pumping my fist into the air. Kay just shook her head and hit the gas.
We spent the rest of the drive chatting about nothing in particular, and anything that caught our interests. A completely different type of inane conversation than what I would have back home with Rach and the others, but still fairly loose.
All of the M4s were sitting out in the parking lot when we arrived, and Kay had to circle around the lot a couple times to find somewhere to park the jeep that wouldn't immediately get it soaked when we inevitably began messing around while cleaning the tanks. A few girls were milling about the tanks, but most of the usual early crew were in the garage. They were gathering and preparing cleaning supplies, by the looks of things.
Most of the M4s weren't actually all that dirty. It was mostly dirt and mud in the tracks and bogies, as well as scorch marks where shells had impacted. A couple had scratches along the armor due to rocks or large trees, or in the case of one particular tank, a rough slide down a very steep slope.
I took a moment to inspect the bow of my tank, marveling at the dings and scratches that had been put into it by the match and drives there and back. They gave the vehicle some character, even if they were very quickly going to be buffed out and painted over. I kinda liked that it had character. Like the tank in *Fury,* the tank was its own thing. It had a personality that was probably more defined by the Bandits' laziness and group brand of crazy than anything I had done for it, but it still had some sort of personality.
People filing out of the garage with cleaning supplies caught my attention, and I openly gawked. A vast majority of the Tankery team (or at least those who were currently present), were in bikinis or crop tops with shorts. Some people pulled the look off better than others, and I swear I wasn't the only one staring as Kay sauntered past in an American flag patterned bikini top and short jean shorts.
I only let myself be distracted by the hotness for a moment before I turned back to my tank. Buckets of soapy water were being passed around, and hoses had been run out of the garage. All of which meant that it was time to start cleaning my tank without the presence of the Bandits. Because of course they wouldn't show up early when we were obviously going to be cleaning stuff.
A flash of sunlight reflected off a suddenly very wet tank blinded me momentarily, and I decided to see if there was a pair of sunglasses in the Lost and Found bin in the tank. After a quick rummage, I found two pairs. Well, it was really only one pair, and a pair of American flag patterned shutter shades. I took the generic plastic sunglasses, and then got to cleaning my tank. Alone, because I am an overachiever who can't sit still while there are things I could be working on.
Darned lazy teammates.
It took the Bandits long enough to show up that I'd scrubbed down the hull proper, and was working my way through the muddy track links. I just grumbled at them when they arrived and told them to get to work on the other track. They complied without arguing for once, and we worked in relative quiet.
We weren't even close to the first group done with cleaning and touching up paint, but we also weren't even close to the last group. We were solidly somewhere in the middle, and pretty quickly transitioned from cleaning to maintaining. The tracks were tensioned, gas topped off, and a few other nicks and knacks were fixed up to some standard of well maintained.
Kay called the general assembly after all of the tanks had been cleaned, and most of them maintained. Class today was actually going to be a paper and theory day, rather than a hands-on practice day. That meant TCs were going to one classroom, gunners to another, drivers to a third, and loaders were off to the practice range. The few dedicated radio operators on the team were stuffed in with the TCs.
Arisa was leading the TC class, with the Chieftain alongside to assist her (and reign her in, I would assume). Kay was off with the drivers, Naomi with the gunners, and Arisa's loader, whom I learned was named Hannah, was off with the loaders. The lesson for the TCs was one of tactical planning, reading terrain, and predicting where reported tanks would be and when they would be there.
I was pretty good at the tactical planning part of the class, though my distance-time predictions were kinda poor. A few hypothetical skirmishes were lost because of those poor predictions, though I started compensating by making my plans more defensive. That alleviated my timing problems, but had other issues.
After the hypotheticals were out of the way, the TCs and radio ops piled into the back of one of Saunders' deuce-and-a-halfs to take a tour of the on-ship training field and inspect the various terrain features it had. That was another portion of the lesson where I excelled, because apparently I had a really good read of terrain and what positions were good for being defensive, what ones were good for aggression, and which ones were, well, bad.
Arisa seemed impressed with me, and I hoped that was a good sign of things to come.
