Monday, September 2nd 2013

Catalina's School Carrier

Atlantic Ocean

With another victory secured, the Mojave Rose tankery were made their departure from Europe, leaving the Port of Hamburg behind them. Their destination, of as now, was unknown as the location of their next match has yet to be determined. So, the school ship charted a course to sail around the Atlantic till such news were to arrive.

It was the crack of dawn and Valarie was awoken not by the alarm on her phone but by the cries of the seagulls perched on the railing of the balcony. She rose from bed and went to the balcony, with the act of her opening the sliding doors enough to shoo away the birds. Valarie remained out there a moment to gaze out to the open ocean. Though she adored the desert views back home with every ounce of her being, the majesty of the ocean was a close second.

A wind chill compelled her to go back inside where she then went to the bathroom to check herself. She rolled up the sleeve on her left arm and unwrapped her bandage, it stained with dried blood. Using the mirror, she analyzed her wound. It was in the early stages of healing, though the bleeding has stopped. Her injury looked like she received a slash from a knife. A slight touch from her finger made her wince in pain.

"Heh, a little souvenir from Germany." she joked to herself.

A clean bandage was applied and once it was snug she left the bathroom. She found Emma awake and on her phone.

"Good morning." she said without looking up from her device.

"Morning," Valarie replied. She got back in bed next to her. "Sleep well?"

"When you recently win a match, that tends to make people sleep like a baby."

"...And?" Valarie said grinning.

Emma leaned in to kiss her on the lips. "Sleeping next to a lovely girl is pretty magical if I do say so myself."

The two rested and lounged on the bed together, their hands held tight. For Valarie, she reflected on the recent match. On one part in particular. Thinking about it caused the smile on her face to smile and her mood to shift to something more serious.

"Can I tell you something, Emma?"

"Yes, always. What's up?"

"Before our match, during that captain's meetup, Port Chalmers knew about the Cromwell having the rockets, the Jumbo and its new gun, and our new Type 97."

"How? How do they know all that?" Emma questioned with concern. "Our match against them should've been the first time Port Chalmers would've learned of them."

"They saw pictures of them before hand."

"Pictures? But who took them and where were they shared?"

"Hmm," Valarie hummed. "I've got a hunch..."

She got out her laptop and immediately went online. The first place she went to was a massive web forum that was solely dedicated to tankery that all tankery athletes were privy too as it was immensely popular. Out of the plethora of topics being simultaneously discussed by hundreds of users, one was about the internationals. Unsurprisingly, this thread has received an obscene amount of attention from tankery fans all over the world. Valarie started her search on the most recent page of discussion and worked backwards steadily reading older and older content. It didn't take long for her to come across pictures of very familiar machines.

"There it is," Valarie remarked. "Whoever took the photos shared them here on this website. The place is so popular that at least someone from Port Chalmers was bound to come across it sooner or later."

Emma took a moment to study the photos closely, then gasped.

"Valarie! These were taken inside the garage!"

Valarie too took a closer and rubbed her temple.

"I don't like this at all."

"How do we figure out who took these photos?" Emma questioned

"Since they were taken from within the garage, we have our suspects."

Emma stared at her for a moment.

"You're not implying that someone from the team would do this? To take photos of our new equipment and tank to leak them online?"

Valarie got out of bed and proceeded to get dressed for school.

"We're going to get to the bottom of this." she declared.

Emma and Valarie got dressed in their school uniforms, got their bags together, and headed off to campus. As the two now had the identical schedule, they never spent a moment apart from each other much to their intense delight. Yet, in the back of their minds the photo situation lingered. So, when the lunch break arrived the two messaged Heather and Ashley to join them. Heather, having the same lunch period, came no problem. Ashley, however, did not. She decided to skip class to come here. That wasn't an issue for her. She's done it before. All four girls met at a palm tree and Valarie explained the situation. Heather was the first to react. Quite emotionally at that.

"I know who took them!" she nearly screamed. "That girl from our Montana match! I saw her on that day the princess came, she's the the one who did it! Fucking bitch broke in to our garage!"

Ashley hugged Heather from behind and whispered into her ear,

"Calm down, babe, calm down."

Heather took several long, deep breaths as her eyes were closed.

"...Okay. I'm calm."

"Alright, she's a suspect," Valarie said. "But we need more evidence to conclusively, one hundred percent, find out who did it."

Ashley pondered for a bit, then snapped her fingers.

"Oh! Check the metadata!"

"Check the...what?" Valarie questioned.

"All digital photos contain metadata that contain all sorts of information. It'll have the stuff we'll need to pin down the person who did this."

"Nice. How do we get this data?"

"With a program. Send those photos to me and I'll get 'em."

The bell rang that signaled the end of lunch.

"That's one class fully skipped," Ashley remarked. "Thought I wouldn't do that anymore in a new school. Oh well. Old habits die hard. I'll have the data ready at the meeting later."

Later

The school day has concluded but the business of the day has not. The Mojave Rose tankery team were hard at work to get their machines back in a presentable, and for some, functional order. Those of the team that got knocked out had repairs to do. At the Cromwell, Sage and her crew were inspecting the impact that ended the match for them. A nasty hit from a 90mm gun.

"At least we only got hit once." remarked Andrea, the loader.

"Yeah, and what a hit," Sage said. "This'll take some time to patch up. We'll make it fun. Try to, anyway."

Parked elsewhere, Ray and his crew were lounging around at the IS-3. Work for them was light with it only entailing simple cleaning, maintenance, and resupply. On their helmets was something new; the flag of New Zealand. Another flag adored on their helmet to represent their victory. To say that they felt proud would be an understatement. The boys sat on their tank once their work was done.

"You know something guys," Ryan then asked his friends. "We are the only tank on the team who hasn't been knocked out. Every other tank on this team has been eliminated at some point, even the new girls in the Type 97. Us? Bounce city, man. Armor so thick nothing can hurt us."

"Now, we did have some close calls," Jeremy reminded. "Like at the nationals where that Jagdpanther took a shot and nearly got us, and way back in our Montana match were we got all that attention from girls who totally wanted to date us."

"Never getting eliminated in the nationals is one thing. But never getting eliminated in both the nationals and the internationals? That's gotta be a achievement and it has our names on it." Cesar boasted.

Ray stood before his friends, hands at his hips, and gave them all looks.

"You guys know what you just did?" he said to them. "You jinxed us. Now in our next match for sure we're gonna get eliminated. And I bet we'll be the first one out too."

"Yeah right!" Ryan said with a laugh. "We're not incompetent. We're not gonna make some dumb move that'll get us knocked out."

"It's not about incompetency. Sometimes it all just boils down to bad luck."

"We'll just have to keep being lucky then. Kinda like how you got lucky with Natalie, eh?" Ryan said with a wink.

"God," Ray said as he broke into a blush and his friends laughed. "You guys are just gonna keep using that against me, huh?"

"Oh, just for fun. To see ya squirm," Cesar said. He then caught sight of an approaching figure in his periphery. A person they were just talking about. "Wow, we must've summoned her or something."

Natalie arrived and immediately locked arms with Ray.

"I'm just going to borrow him for a sec." she told them.

Natalie led Ray to behind to IS-3 so the two could have some privacy. They held hands as they gazed at each other with loving smiles.

"This Wednesday has something special attached to it," Natalie said softly. "I wonder what it is."

"I think I do," Ray replied. "My garum will be ready. You know, that fish sauce? This Wednesday will mark one month since I set it up. Man, I hope it's good."

Natalie looked at him for a second, then nodded.

"Uh-huh," she uttered. "Also...that day is you're birthday."

"Right!" Ray exclaimed. "Geez, how could I forget my own birthday?"

"And what a milestone you're about to achieve. Turning eighteen."

"Wow. Eighteen." Ray remarked with some awe. "A legal adult. That opens some doors."

"Yeah! You could watch R-rated movies."

"Nothing stopped me before."

"Hmm. True. Well, now you could check out those adult sites."

"Again. Nothing has stopped me before."

Natalie blushed faintly and chuckled.

"I learn more about you everyday. Anywho, got any plans for your birthday?"

"That garum for one. Gonna make some Roman-style bread to go along with it."

"Hmm, that's a start," Natalie pondered. "We might as well go full speed with the Roman stuff. Have your birthday dinner foods the Romans would eat."

Ray had an expression of pure excitement.

"Oh my god, that would be perfect!" he said gleefully. "A Roman-style dinner. I've got some related recipes. Though I'd need help to make them all."

"I'll pitch in. I can cook. Kinda."

"And I bet I can make my friends help too."

Elsewhere in the garage, a tank crew were going through a different set of emotions. At the T-44, the girls were around Ashley as she fiddled with her laptop. A few keystrokes and on the screen appeared a list of data that only Ashley could make sense of.

"What are we looking at?" Valarie inquired. "Looks like computer code."

"The metadata of those photos," Ashley explained. "Thanks to this info, it'll go a long way in figuring out who took those photos. One, it reports the model of the device that took the photo. In our case, it's showing a phone model. The same phone was used for the photos so one person took them all."

"What else can we learn from this?"

"GPS coordinates if the device that took the photo has its GPS feature enabled. The metadata here has coordinates, but it doesn't do us much good as we already know where the photos were taken."

"Anything else?"

"Date and time the images were created. There were all made the same day, Friday August 23rd. Earliest photo created at 10:37 AM."

"It was her!" Heather blurted out. "It has to be!"

"Hold on now," Valarie said. "Before we do anything else, we need to rule out if anyone on the team were behind this. Ashley, you said this data says what kind of phone took the photos?"

Ashley nodded.

"Yep. An iPhone 5C. The thirty-two gig one."

"Alright. All of you spread out and gather the team. Tell them to meet here."

Her crew quickly left to spread the news. Valarie climbed up her tank to stand upon the turret. Within half a minute, the team had congregated at the T-44, all curious over what Valarie was going to say. Her arms were behind her back and the look on her face was serious. Once everyone settled down, Valarie addressed them

"I'll just get right to it. Photos of our new equipment and tank were taken and leaked online where Port Chalmers saw them."

Surprised and concerned faces existed among the team upon hearing the news. Their minds raced over who could've committed this atrocity.

"We have a suspect," Valarie continued. "But I first need to make sure that it wasn't anyone in this garage. If someone on this team took those photos...God help you."

Everyone felt incredibly intimidated. Such a serious tone of voice along with a threat from a girl normally so kind shook them to their very cores.

"Was anyone in this garage in Friday August 23rd at around 10:37 AM? Step forward if you have. Now."

From the crowd, Haley and Heidi meekly stepped forward. They felt intensely uncomfortable with all the glaring eyes of the team on them.

"Um," Haley began but choked on her anxiety. "We were here around that time."

Heidi nodded in confirmation.

Valarie look down upon them from the T-44's turret. Like a authoritative monarch who was contemplating what would be the appropriate, and harsh, punishment to administer. But more things needed to be known.

"Why were you in here?" Valarie asked in a calm manner. Though her calmness only served to further intimidate them.

"O-on that day," Heidi stuttered out. "We learned that our new gun came in so we rushed over to see it because we got so excited."

"Yeah!" Haley exclaimed. "And if you remember the meeting that day, you may have noticed that the crate the gun came in was already open."

Valarie slowly nodded.

"I do remember that," she told them, to their relief. "I was one of the first people to arrive at the garage that day and saw the crate already pried open."

"So, we didn't take those photos," Haley went on. "We'd never do such a thing."

Valarie climbed off her tank to meet the pair at eye level.

"One more thing," Valarie said. "I'd like to see your phones, please."

Wanting to clear their names, Haley and Heidi presented their devices without hesitation. Valarie took them and gestured Ashley over.

"What models are these phones?"

Ashley took a glance at them.

"All you need to know is that these are android phones. Not iPhones. They're clean." Ashley explained.

Satisfied and relieved, Valarie returned the phones.

"You two are innocent," she said in a loud enough voice to ensure all of the team heard. "Everyone, back to your tanks. Mister and Missus Redwood will not know of this. I will handle the situation myself."

The team dispersed and the routine resumed. Heather approached Valarie eagerly.

"Oh! What are we gonna do?" she asked, her body language telling Valarie she was ready for a fight.

"Nothing."

Valarie's answer stunned her whole crew.

"What. Do. You. Mean. NOTHING?!" Heather angrily asked.

Valarie was unphased.

"We all now know that girl from our Montana match was the perpetrator. But what can she do now? We're in the middle of the ocean."

"But once our next match location is determined she'll know then and maybe make her way over there." Ashley said.

"I get that this girl doesn't like us, but does she hate us enough to do that? I doubt it."

"How is she getting around?" Emma wondered. "Planes? Maybe she's on a school ship too."

"I can believe that. A school ship." Heather added.

"Guys..." Valarie said with an exasperated sigh. "That girl's appearance here was just a coincidence. A moment of opportunity for her. She saw that we were close enough and made a move. What's the next chance of us being close to her? I wouldn't bet on that. And even if she is on a school ship, what is that ship gonna do? Follow us?


Same Day

Golden Gate's School Ship

Atlantic Ocean

The school day was over, yet, the entirety of Golden Gate's student body was still on campus. All of them were in the school's grand auditorium that resembled something like a stadium. The auditorium was jam packed with over 3000 students who were there. They were all excited as they were there to receive some news that they've have been looking forward to hearing all day. What was it exactly? The outcome of a vote.

In their seats at the highest level Dakota, Gracie, and Fiona were incredibly eager to learn what won the vote.

"Oh man! I love it when this day comes! Fiona exclaimed. "One of the few good things about this school. That and the NASA observatories and those SETI radio telescopes."

"The first Monday of September is always a good day," remarked Dakota. "My goodness, can you feel the electricity in the air? I think this year is the most energizing the school has been in a while."

"So, what did you guys vote for?" Gracie asked them.

"Duh, what do you think?" Fiona said near mockingly. "I can't believe that was an option this year."

"I know, right?" Dakota said. "Makes sense though. It's very popular."

"Just hope enough people voted for it," Gracie hoped, her fingers crossed. "It'll be otherworldly cool if it won.

"Me too," Dakota said. "Did a prayer earlier to help our chances."

"Let's hope the big man upstairs is taking calls." Fiona said with a chuckle.

The girls held hands as they waited, along with the rest of the students, for the result to be announced. What the students of Golden Gate have voted for was the course their ship would follow for the remainder of the school year. A choice normally reserved for the school's administration staff, at Gold Gate it was tradition that the students themselves choose where their ship sails. Throughout the school day on the first Monday of September, students were handed their ballots where they then marked their choice and cast their ballot. It was a point of pride for a student to vote as not every school ship allowed its students to have this much influence over a ship's navigation.

Voting day was always treated like a holiday with students acting like there were partaking in some sort of festival. In the middle of the auditorium was an impressive stage. A student walked onto it and prepped the microphone.

"There's Juliana," Fiona said while pointing. "The only time in the year I want to hear what this bit-ah, um, fine lady has to say."

Dakota gave her a approving smile.

"Thank you, Fiona."

Back on the stage, Juliana tapped on the microphone, the sound echoing throughout the huge building. All the chatter died down quickly after.

"Students of Golden Gate Institute of Technology! Another period of voting has come and gone and I am most pleased to announce that we have been very efficient with the process, in both of casting the ballot and counting them all. Better than last year by a mile. Each and every one of you here has voted to determine our ship's course. Not any of the teachers, any of the school staff, or even the people that actually operate this ship, but you. The students. The next generation of doctors, engineers, scientists, and other professions that make this world turn."

At the top row, Fiona let out a frustrated sigh.

"Oh, get on with it already!"

She was shushed by nearby students.

"Come on! I'm just saying what you're all thinking! I know I'm right!"

Juliana on the stage got out a piece of folded paper from her pocket and opened it. She cleared her throat.

"Now! The results! The students of Golden Gate, by an ASTOUNDING margin of eighty-seven percent of the vote, have chosen to follow the world tankery tournament!"

The auditorium erupted into cheers and applause that was utterly deafening. At the center of it all, Juliana savored it. It was her absolute favorite thing to do as student council president. She turned in place to look at the crowd, all their excited, eager faces.

"I love democracy."

Cassandra, who was standing nearby, joined Juliana on the stage. Amid the deafening noise of the crowd, she leaned close to her to that she could hear what she had to say.

"You have to tell me. What did you do to rig the vote?"

Juliana looked at with a grin.

"Easy to see why you think the vote would've been rigged. I am the one responsible in overseeing counting the ballots. But I didn't have to do a damn thing. All day I I heard students excitedly talking about the world tournament and hoping that the ship following it would win. Though I am glad it won, I do find it strange this school, that does not operate a tankery team, seems to be so invested in the sport."

"It's because of that championship drought. The last American team to win the internationals was in 1975. The current, heretical, American team has recently won its second match so a lot of people are hyped."

"I understand your strong desire to see Mojave Rose go down in defeat. I'm in the same camp. You've explained it to me quite well why tankery ought to remain exclusively for women. Us girls need to have our own spaces after all."

"Exactly! The more Mojave Rose succeeds in the tournament, the more damage they cause to the sport. And if they win it all...then I fear the damage will be irreparable. That can't allowed to happen. It can't."

"And it won't," Juliana said confidently. "We're on Mojave Rose's trail now. No matter where in the world they'll go, they'll find no safe harbor."

Tuesday

Catalina's School Carrier

One of the perks of being a student at Catalina was that when the lunch period rolled around, students were permitted to leave campus during the allotted period to either eat off campus or go home if it was close enough. Since arriving at Catalina, Paige has had this routine whenever she had lunch. She would leave campus and walk to a nearby park. It wasn't the massive Inspiration Park that the team used for their practices. This one was much smaller though Paige loved it all the same. It had a charm to it.

Today, like on other days, Paige was wandering at the park. What she liked most about it was that it had a pond that was surrounded by some trees and thick bushes. An ideal place to get away from it all and enjoy nature. And enjoy she will in her own way as she won't be lounging by the pound but, instead, foraging.

Paige collects plants.

It's a true passion. In her apartment, she has this thick book of pressed plants, all the fruits of her foraging activities over the past several years. Being from Barstow, it's not surprising to see that her entire collection consists of desert plants. Though she does enjoy them greatly, especially the flowers that bloom from cacti, she wants some diversity and now with the team going around the world she's got it. During the prolonged lulls in the team's Spanish and German matches, Paige had got out of her tank and foraged around the area. In both matches, she had gotten lucky by finding and snagging some specimens of the local flora, which are now proudly pressed and stored in her book.

At this park, Paige slowly walked around the pond, her eyes scanning the ground to find anything worthy for her collection. Her past times at this park has served her well as she found wild tulips, carnations, lavender, and appropriately enough, roses. The day was nice and cool, a soft breeze coming and going periodically that made all the leaves of the bushes and trees dance like graceful ballet dancers. There was a faint buzzing in the air from the bees that kept the plants blooming and thriving. She walked a few more steps then stopped to knell down. At the base of one of the bushes she saw something that she definitely did not have in her collection. It looked like a weed that had blooming flowers. Covered on this plant was a multitude of hairs.

"Oooh, this will be an interesting one for sure!"

She reached out to collected it but the moment she touched it, her hand immediately recoiled in pain. It was intense and where she felt the pain was also and itchiness.

"Damn it!"

She went to the pond and cleaned her hands with the water that only slightly did something for the pain. On her right hand was a redness, a rash. She then decided to take out a plant reference book she brought and flipped through it until she saw a picture of the plant she just attempted to collect. It stated,

Tread-Softly ( Cnidoscolus stimulosus )

Description: Herb that has stinging hairs on both plant and flower. Irritant compounds from these hairs will cause intense stinging and itching. Symptoms last less than an hour, but as a general rule, don't touch plants with hairs!

"Nice Paige," she said to herself. "Learning what plants hurt to touch the hard way. Never change."

A peak at the time told her that lunch was about to end. She got up from the pond and made her way back to campus, itching the whole time. Who knew that lunch time could provide one hell of a learning experience.

Later

The initial days that follow a match left Aurora with a mixture of emotions. One, of course, was the satisfying sensation of victory but that was somewhat muddled by the fact that with how the tournament was structured, matches were only a monthly affair. Aurora wanted more action. The shooting the team does every week during their practices were fun to a point. She didn't want the only opportunity to shoot at other tanks only be once a month. Aurora wanted her Puma on the prowl more often, to hear the crack of the 50mm cannon, and to feel the heat from the escaping gasses once the shell was ejected from its breech.

And it looks like she might just get that opportunity.

Last night, she was browsing the internet and came across something that captured her full attention. She spent that night reading as much as she can about what she found and printed out the material. During the meeting, Aurora gathered her crew and presented them with her findings.

"Tankathlon?" Riley said with curiosity. She was reading the material Aurora brought. "What is that?"

"A form of tankery that has way less rules. One in fact. All tanks must be ten tons or less." Aurora explained.

"Ten tons?" Avery repeated? "The Puma is nearing twelve tons."

"That's fully loaded," Aurora said. "With some weight shedding like we did for that race, I bet we can bring it under ten tons."

"Hmm, maybe. This all sounds fun."

"Yeah, but something like this is better with company. There is only one other tank on this team that qualifies."

Aurora gestured for her crew to follow and the three girls went to the AMR. There, Cassidy and Nathan were tending to the engine. When the Puma crew arrived, they took notice.

"Yo," Cassidy greeted. "You girls here to learn from us and how to be a proper scout tank?"

Aurora chuckled.

"Another time, maybe," she told them. "I'm here with a proposition."

Cassidy approached her.

"Oh? I'm listening."

Aurora gave her the material and proceeded to explain tankathlon and its one rule. She noticed that Cassidy was smiling during all of this.

"Oh hell yeah, I really like the sound of this different type of tankery." Cassidy remarked.

"I thought you might. I'm going to ask Valarie what she thinks and-"

Cassidy brought an arm around Aurora and brought her closer to the AMR.

"Hey,hey,hey. How about we not do that?" she said.

"What? What do you mean?"

"From the material you just gave me, tankathlon seems to be like this underground version of tankery. Things that are underground tend not to be super tolerated, if you know what I mean."

"I do. Tankathlon is very much so an unofficial sport. All tankery governing bodies around the world has denounced it in some shape or form, with the Japanese organization the one who is very vocally opposed to it."

"Now, think about what we saw yesterday when Valarie was on the hunt for that person who took the photos of our new stuff. She was on the freaking warpath man."

"Yeah...she was quite scary."

"Do you think she'd the person who approve of us doing an unofficial sport that maybe could get us in trouble if caught?"

Aurora thought for a moment.

"No, not at all," she concluded.

"Exactly," Cassidy said as she brought her hands together. "So. Let's do it and not tell her or Ray. Or anyone else really."

"Just keep it all a secret?"

"Yep. It has to be that way. I'm sure people who do tankathlon has to keep it under wraps too."

"Hmm. I can see that."

The crews of the Puma and AMR huddled together and entered into a secretive pact. They committed themselves to do tankathlon. The fact they they would have to keep this a secret added an thrilling element that they all enjoyed, a thrill piled on top the inherent exciting nature of tankery.

"When is our tanka-thing match?" Nathan questioned.

"Slow down there, Nathaniel," Cassidy said, purposely using his longer name to get a rise out of him. "We first need to know where the hell this ship is going. Once we do, we'll start looking if they are any tankathlon matches happening. We'll sign up and do what we do."

With plans made, the Puma and AMR crews returned to their respective vehicles. The month of September had just barely begun and already was it looking like it'll be a time filled with more action than normal. Yet, no matter what plans the team makes, their match will always be their main focus and where they will devote all of their energies. For their next match will give them adversity, a crisis, and all the salt the team could want.