The Negishi Bay Docks
Yukari had never successfully made it onto the St. Gloriana school ship before. It was a totally new environment for her, totally different from her native Zuikaku. The lorries had stopped by the water's edge at the Gloriana docks on Negishi Bay before being loaded onto special transport ships which ferried them out to the side of the waiting supercarrier.
This close to the water, Yukari was able to humanize the scale of the MEXT school ship program vividly. Up on the top deck, people went around their daily business hundreds of feet above the ocean, blissfully unaware that underneath them were the largest moving objects on the planet. The gentle swell of the ocean was enough to cause the transport ship to rock in the waters of Negishi Bay, but the sheer bulk of the Ark Royal bent the force of the water to its will and stayed perfectly stationary. As Yukari stared, the docking port came into view, the crane already reaching out to pluck the container from the lorry.
She felt the gentle tug of the boat's maneuvering engines engage as it steadily slipped closer to the starkly lit mouth of the Ark Royal's loading dock on the starboard side. This close to the ship, her vision was reduced to just the matte steel of the ship's side, the lapping waves underneath her, and if she craned her neck up high enough, a few dim stars in the night sky. The structures on the vessel's upper deck were eclipsed from her view by the sheer size of the ship itself, though she knew that somewhere up there was the Gloriana seafaring campus, and deep within that was the secretive Tea Garden, GI6 headquarters, and the Sensha-Do facilities themselves.
Hydraulics sprung into action as the arm of the waiting JCB crane lowered a large yellow hook onto the container she was in. Metallic clunks told her the locks were engaged, and soon she felt the deck of the transport ship fall away underneath her as the container was effortlessly hoisted across eight meters of water between the transport ship and the cargo hold of the Ark Royal before the crane operator placed the container firmly down on the floor, causing Yukari to crash down onto the steel of the container's inside. She froze, expecting the loadmaster or some other deckhand to throw open the door and find her there.
"What was that?" Muffled footsteps drew closer to the container as Yukari squeezed her eyes shut and tried to telepathically make herself invisible.
"Forget it, Takumi. Probably a crate shifting inside there. Let the logistics people sort it out themselves. It's not our job to care about these things…" A different voice reached her ears and she sighed in relief as the footsteps grew quieter and quieter before they were no longer audible to her ears.
"Alright, that's the last shipment! Close her up!"
The horn of the transport ship sounded, its klazon roar cutting through the stale air inside the cargo hold. Marine diesels engaged and the MEXT ship slowly drew away from the massive Ark Royal as the JCB crane slowly telescoped its boom back inside the hold. That being done, the huge steel doors connecting the hold to the outside world rolled shut on their enormous tracks before closing with a finality.
One by one, the deckhands left the cargo hold, shutting off more and more lights in the vast space as they did so. The last to leave must have been the yardmaster judging by the sound of his voice, and he flipped the master switch, cutting almost all the remaining lights in the space, leaving only dim emergency bulbs left. The door to the rest of the ship clicked shut, and then Yukari was alone in the MEXT container, alone in the cargo hold of HMS Ark Royal, and not a soul on the planet knew where she was. Well, at least not yet, anyway.
Her pupils slowly dilated to match the much dimmer light inside the hold now, and she grinned as she saw what she was looking for.
After several incidents of workers and students alike being locked inside or trapped inside MEXT shipping containers, resulting in very expensive and annoying lawsuits against the schools and MEXT, every container had to be fitted with an interior emergency escape release handle. This handle was glow-in-the-dark and allowed an occupant inside the container to exit it safely, but there was an issue with using it. The handle was electronically linked to the control systems of the cargo management computer, so the moment the handle was activated and Yukari left the container, the cargo hold workers would be notified that one of the containers had been opened from the inside.
Yukari waited a long twenty minutes before she pulled the release handle. The locks clunked and then the door was open. A soft beeping emanated from the exterior door display. Soon it would become an ear-splitting wail, impossible to ignore and then St. Gloriana would know that someone had snuck aboard their floating fortress.
As she put distance between the container and herself, she considered her options. The elevators were out of the question. The students and faculty elevators required an authentic St. Gloriana ID card to access, and she didn't have an ID card. The cargo elevator didn't have this restriction, but the size of the lift meant that it was likely the team tasked with responding to the alarm would use it to reach the hold. If Yukari used it, the lift would more than likely carry her right up to the waiting arms of the St Gloriana paramedics, where she would be found out.
That left the stairs. But not the interior stairs, which were alarmed too. The exterior stairs, little more than a set of metal rungs on the exterior of the ship itself, leading from the cargo hold up to the lowest student-accessible deck. The sound of the container's alarm shook Yukari from her thoughts and she broke into a sprint towards the access door, built into the main exit gate itself.
It took her forty long seconds to reach the access door, slam it open, pass through and shut it behind her. Not five more seconds had passed before the cargo elevator dinged and vomited out its load of St Gloriana personnel, paramedics, and beefeaters. But she wasn't out of danger just yet, as the access door left her only a small ledge to stand on on the outside of the loading dock's main gate. She could already feel her legs start to burn as she balanced on her tiptoes, watching through the little plexiglass window as the crew reached the container she'd escaped from.
"Report. What's going on down there?" Assam spoke into the walkie-talkie, looking at the red light on her control panel in GI6 headquarters on the top deck of the Ark Royal.
"Container #114 tripped its escape hatch. Investigating as per protocol…"
Yukari watched through the little window as they closed and re-armed her container, before the crew turned away from it to check another container. This one was bright red in color with an explosives warning on the side. Yukari recognized it immediately as a container carrying Sensha-Do ammunition; as the Zuikaku got similar containers for their team as well…..but there was something different about this one. The metal was flawless, hell, it seemed like the paint had barely dried on this container, compared to the other containers which were scraped and banged up from years of loading and unloading. The container was also nearly twice the size of the ammunition containers she was used to.
Have to find out what that's about, she thought as the last of the crew returned into the cargo elevator and she turned to face the exterior service/emergency ladder. She sighed. A long climb awaited her.
St. Gloriana Tea Garden , Ark Royal School Ship
"Assam, what happened down there?" Darjeeling quipped, stirring a cup of tea.
"Container tripped an escape alert. Crew went down to investigate in the hold and didn't find anything except an open container." Assam responded while typing on a laptop, but stopped upon hearing Darjeeling set down her teacup firmly.
"Assam, those containers don't just open on their own. MEXT tested them with every single possibility in mind so they didn't get sued again. Unless you can tell me with certainty that the cargo inside somehow fell over and tripped the escape lever, there's the possibility that someone managed to sneak onboard. Whether its for spying or terrorism, I don't know. But I want to know for sure who it is."
Yukari emerged on the lowest of the student-accessible decks winded. She gasped and sucked in huge breaths of salty sea air, regretting her decision to try Hana's idea of a "diet." The climb up the side of the ship had been long and arduous, all the time she was paranoid that the Yokohama harbor pilot or someone onboard the ship with a spotlight would spot her, or that she would lose her grip on the steel rungs and plummet to the ocean surface hundreds of feet below her, never to be found again. But luckily her strength training as a loader had paid off, and her arms and legs hadn't let her down. Now she stood on the lowest of the Gloriana student decks, having exited the emergency stair shaft, which led into the underside of one of the Ark Royal's overhangs. A few students shot her puzzled looks before continuing down the corridor, chatting aimlessly with their friends. One conversation in particular caught Yukari's ear.
"I can't wait for the new tanks to show Kuromorimine the true power of St Glo! And in Hawaii too! You know, I heard that our course roughly matches Yamamoto's in 1941….."
New tanks, she thought. So the rumors were true; St. Gloriana had made some new acquisitions ever since the announcement. Now, she just had to find out what exactly they had gotten. Taking care to mimic the walking styles of the other Gloriana students as best she could, she boarded a lift to the top deck, being sure to enter after a real student had used their ID to authorize use of the lift. Pulling out her phone, she checked to make sure that her normally wild and frizzy hair was still in check before the doors dinged and she stepped out onto the deck of the Gloriana supercarrier.
The atmosphere was electric up here. Cars and trucks trundled down winding narrow streets modeled after English villages and larger towns. The sidewalks were absolutely choked with students and faculty alike, buzzing around. The sudden call for the Ark Royal to return to port, resupply and head for Hawaii was the main topic of discussion. The live broadcast of the selections from Tokyo meant that the sudden bombshell Chono had dropped on an unexpecting audience had traveled around the ship's population like wildfire.
Some students looked out east into the vast darkness of the Pacific Ocean, where somewhere in the faraway distance lay the Hawaiian archipelago. Others looked back at the city of Yokohama and Tokyo in the distance, where the exceptionally clear weather meant that the spectacular 12,400 foot cone of Mt Fuji was illuminated by the setting sun, visible more than seventy miles away from the Ark Royal.
Yukari threaded her way slowly through the heavy foot and vehicle traffic towards the Gloriana campus proper, and just as the last rays of the sun dipped below Fuji's peak she caught sight of the High Gloriana estates. The Sensha-Do field was the first thing she passed, along with throngs of students clinging to the fence, hoping to catch a glimpse of some of their new vehicles. To their dismay, only the "Old Guard," as they were now dubbed, was being used. Several Matildas and Crusaders were parked in formation on the other side of the fence, the crews taking a well-deserved break after a day of practice before returning to the garage. But Yukari had expected this. With all the media hullabaloo surrounding this tournament, and the hype surrounding even this first match, Darjeeling was keeping the new tanks out of the limelight, knowing that someone like Yukari or even a loose-lipped student would spill the beans and throw a wrench in her carefully calculated plans. She kept moving, towards the GI6 building.
"Rukuriri, don't forget to lock and arm the archive door behind you when you leave, okay?" Assam quipped as she strode past, heading to her office.
"Of course, Assam-sama!" Rukuriri turned to close the door firmly before a text on her phone distracted her from the door.
"Good luck on your first match, Ruki-san!" It was from Noriko, the commander of the Ooarai duck team, who'd been a thorn in Rukiriri's side ever since the first time they'd met in that exhibition match. She didn't know why she agreed to give her the number, but she had and now this was happening. Her face reddened from embarrassment and she stormed down the hallway away from the archive, the door forgotten and slightly ajar in her flustered state. Entering the elevator, she went down to the lobby and abruptly left the building, her face still beet-red.
Assam sat in her office, scanning through documents and calculating match outcomes. Her computer idled in front of her desk, a cup of pleasantly warm tea on a coaster Rosehip had made for her. If Rosehip found out she used her coaster every day, Assam'd never hear the end of it.
The Super Conqueror should be impervious to everything the Kuro girls can throw at it, but only in a hull-down position. Even their Panthers can easily take it out through the bottom plate. In a hull-down position though, even the Jagdtiger and Maus can't do anything against us.
If their mediums push the flanks, we need TDs to support our mediums. Sorry, Earl Gray, your Cromwell may be used as bait to lure them into a killzone for the Charioteer and FV4005….
Her eyes flicked over to the door controls, noting that the archive door was still ajar. Hearing footsteps going down the hall didn't raise any mental alarm bells in her head. Ruki's probably going to the ladies' room, she thought, returning to her documents.
The door to the GI6 building opened with little more than a soft hiss, owing to the impeccable maintenance that St Gloriana supplied to their infrastructure. The security guard was fast asleep behind his desk. If she was quiet enough, the only proof that she was ever here would be the cameras. But if she could pull it off, it could go down as the most audacious act of spying in Sensha-Do history.
Moving as quietly as possible, she slipped the video camera out of her pocket, placing it on the table next to the metal detector before gliding through in a fashion that would even impress the elegant Hana. Having made it through, she peeked back at the guard's desk. Still asleep. Picking up the camera from the table, she headed up the stairs to the higher levels of the building. No more security scanners from here to the archive room, which was where the information would likely be. The expectation was that the guard would authorize anyone passing through the lobby, reducing unnecessary expense and complexity in the building. But now, she was using Gloriana's elegance and impeccable maintenance to her advantage by bolstering her stealth. She ducked around the corner and headed for the elevators, seeing an employee list on the wall across from the two sets of stainless steel doors. Quickly scanning it, Yukari saw that the place was almost completely deserted at this time; the only ones left were Assam and the still-snoozing security guard. Satisfied by this, she hit the elevator button.
Upstairs in the archive floor the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Out came Yukari, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Only a few doors lay between her and the Gloriana archives, where their deepest secrets were stored. She strolled at what seemed to her like a normal speed past the offices, which to her reassurance were all dark and empty, except for one which was still illuminated, casting a rectangle of light into the hallway from its window. Deducing it was Assam's, she kept moving.
Footsteps came and went past Assam's office. Ah, there goes Ruki now. Should check up on her in a bit, see when she's going to leave.
And then she was there, the St Gloriana Sensha-Do archives. To her great surprise, the door was slightly ajar, allowing her unrestricted access inside. Rows and rows of shelves stuffed with files lined the room, wall-to-wall. She scanned through the files, making sure to have the camera record as much as she could. As much as Yukari wanted to rip out the files from the Earl Gray days and relish in the glory of the Devil in a Cromwell's performances, she was here for a reason, not just to fan-girl over past achievements. She scanned quickly through the files, before hitting the jackpot.
Bovington Acquisitions, the file read. Immediately Yukari knew that this was something truly special, after all. The Bovington tank museum in England was one of the world's great collections of armored vehicles, and for the file to confirm that St Gloriana had gotten vehicles from there meant that the armor they could have gotten was beyond anything seen in the sport before. She slipped the file out of its place on the shelf and leafed through the papers quickly. With each page her eyes grew wider. The second to last page was headlined by a picture of the supersized ammunition container down in the cargo hold, alongside its manifest…..which was 183mm high explosive shells. Her jaw dropped. Only one vehicle used ammunition of that caliber and type that was legal under the new rules. Her turning to the next page confirmed her suspicions. St. Gloriana had a FV4005 in their new arsenal. Not just a FV4005, the FV4005. There was only one in the world, after all.
As her brain struggled to comprehend the information it had been tasked with absorbing, the doorknob to the archive room began to turn…..