It was after the match as the students were discussing about the events that went down. Erika didn't like what had happened as she was the one who was knocked out.
"Olivia and her friends weren't able to support us as we fell back, they stood their ground but we got knocked out in the end." Erika submitted the complaint as Olivia wasn't there to back her up. Olivia decided to defend herself.
"I wanted to make sure you fell back and regrouped while I held Pravda off. What I wasn't expecting was for Katyusha and her friends to bypass us and continue their pursuit after you without eliminating us first. Pravda did come around to try to attack us as I went down to let the rest of my team escape intact plus we lost radio connection for a good chunk of the trip so Pomorie was leading us." Olivia told Erika that the plan didn't work as it was unexpected for Katyusha to simply drive right past her.
"Olivia's correct on that one." Maho added in as they had radio trouble.
"Plus Maho made Pomorie leader as she was the only one with a strong enough signal to get radio messages, the pocket didn't get a strong enough signal until we were close to her position." Olivia decided to add as her leadership role was changed to someone who was able to connect with Maho. Maho nodded as this was also correct so Erika decided to shift her focus to Pomorie.
"So group leader, why weren't you there when we got taken out?" Erika asked Pomorie as she wanted to figure out why she wasn't there when her tank was ravaged by Pravda earlier today. Pomorie gulped as she was being questioned by Erika as Erika wanted to figure out about what exactly happened during the match.
"Well I too was in the bubble with Olivia and the only tank with a strong signal. I think my tank was the only one in touch with Maho and I didn't want to risk a head on with Pravda so she told us to fight our way out to the west so we did and we managed to get ourselves back only losing two tanks in the process and before we can redeploy, the match was over." Pomorie recalled about what exactly happened when the match was occurring. Maho was listening as she knew.
"Pomorie was correct, I think we should get the signaling equipment and the radios in our tanks updated to have a stronger reception if we are to be able to communicate with each other better." Maho gave her suggestion. Erika began to think as the issue of communication needed to be addressed and maybe a solution to this would be okay.
"All right but the matches will have to be pushed back another day while we get the tanks updated with better radios." Erika responded. Pomorie sighed, even though they were losing against Pravda, this was a much needed break as Yogurt can do other stuff as well. More time to prepare, but Pravda had the time to perfect their plans to devastating effects.
The next morning, Pomorie was visiting the tank storehouse with Rila and Varna as a group of students were around them. Popovo and Sima were busy modifying her tank.
"Well we should be done." Sima told Popovo as both students got out. Pomorie was curious.
"Well what do you think in the world is going on?" Pomorie asked as she was curious about what they were doing to her tank.
"This is for all of the tanks as we think we need to bring the safety of them up a few if we are to make sure that accidents don't happen and it is to ensure that we can all get out safely." Sima told Pomorie as she was ready to give a lecture. She walked off as she began to speak to the students of the group." Now you're wondering why I brought you all here? I wish to tell you something very important as it will be a major help to us in the future matches when emergencies like this arise. Now I might need to tell you this, does anyone know what a fire drill is?"
"Ehh a bit?" Pomorie answered as she wasn't too sure about if her answer was true or not.
"Not sure? I can help you with that." Sima told her as she was ready to give her a lecture. "In the sport of Sensha-Do it is important that safety is the utmost number one priority to the participants. And when it comes to fire, we need to prepare ourselves for such an occasion. Now when a fire is spotted in the tank, what is the first thing all students should do?" A question like this should be simple and straightforward.
"Take the fire extinguisher and put out the fire?" Beli asked as she wondered if that was the right answer.
"You're on the right track but before that." Sima told Beli as Kamchia raised her and Sima pointed to her.
"Tell everyone to bail from the tank?" Kamchia decided to give her guess as Sima nodded.
"That is correct. We need to make sure that the participants get out of the tank before grabbing the fire extinguisher and putting out the fire?" Kamchia gave her input. Sima nodded as she knew that was the correct answer.
"Good now we know what to do in a fire but we must ask, what do we do when the fire gets on us?" Sima asked as she wanted to make sure that the students knew exactly what to do in a situation when this happens.
"Stop what you're doing, drop to the ground and roll around." Ticha gave her input on what to do with a fire.
"Good, hopefully that will put out the fire but remember to do it one soft ground as it has a high chance of putting out the fire and not in dry overgrown vegetation, that will start a brush fire and we don't want that." Sima was impressed with how fast these students were learning. "Remember there are three different fires that we should go over. The first one is the most common, it comes from burning of a solid like wood, paper, and so on, you can just spray water over those and the fire will go out. A second type of fire is one that comes from oil or gas like inside of your tanks, while not as common, it's more dangerous than the latter as water and oil don't mix, spray foam or kick dirt onto the fire as it will prevent oxygen from mixing into the flammable oil. The fire extinguishers I installed in your tanks are loaded with foam for such an occasion and the last fire is an electric fire. This fire is caused by the name suggests, probably from overheating of electrical wires. Simple way to put it out is to pull out the plug feeding the electric and spray foam on it."
"Interesting so what happens if our tank catches fire?" Mandra asked as she was curious about what would be the steps that would be needed to do something like this.
"Okay so the first step is to bail the tank safely as the ammunition has a chance of cooking and going off and taking the fire extinguisher with you as it will be useful for putting the fire out." Sima told Mandra what to do if a fire was encountered.
"Okay that's a good thing so did you install anything else into the tanks to help alert us?" Mandra asked if there was anything else inside of the tanks.
"Yes the new smoke alarms, if smoke gets inside of the tank, it will trigger the alarm but I will ask for Pomorie, Rila and Varna to get in their tank so I can give a demonstration." Sima told Pug team to get in their tank to test out the new alarms. Pomorie, Rila and Varna got into the vickers as Sima began to give them directions. "Just hold in there tight, I want to make sure the new alarms will work." Sima told them as she decided to have all the hatches shut.
"Okay so let's see this test." Varna told Sima to get on with it.
"Now the demonstration will begin. Now let's say that Koprinka has decided to finish smoking and decided to throw her cigarette into a pile of scrap paper." Sima decided to begin the demonstration. Koprinka tossed the cigarette but into the waste pile of paper unaware that the cigarette was still partially lit. This was what Sima wanted however as the waste paper pile caught on fire. Smoke began rising as Shiroka and Malko tossed old hay into it as the smoke was white. Mandra activated a fan as the smoke was now blowing into Pug team's Vickers. "Okay girls, any smoke getting into the tank?" Sima asked as she wanted to see if smoke was entering the tank. Pomorie looked around as white smoke began to leak into the tank. This was enough to set off the alarm. The alarm began ringing as it was loud. Pomorie, Rila and Varna covered their ears as it was probably louder than the tank's shots firing.
"Fire!" The alarm sounded. It continued to ring as Pomorie knew the smoke detector was getting on her nerves.
"Okay the alarm has done its job, now get the ringing out of my ears." Pomorie was annoyed as the alarm wasn't something that she was used to. Sima nodded as she walked over with a hose.
"I think the experiment was successful." Sima came to the conclusion. Ticha sprayed water with a garden hose as the water put out the fire. "The reason the alarm was so loud was that I forgot to turn the volume down. Now in a situation like this say a brush fire. Do not bail from the tank, give your position to a nearby tank and they'll tell you to work your way to them. The fire won't harm the tank though so you're safe but be advised that the best course of action is to drive away from the fire. Also use your sights and whatever glass opening you find to keep a lookout for a fire." Pomorie and her friends nodded as the smoke dissipated.
"I think we should be good for this lesson right?" Pomorie asked as she got out of the tank's turret. Rila followed out while Varna went out of the escape hatch for the driver's seat.
"Pretty much, I should lower the volume on the alarm to make sure that you don't go deaf." Sima looked at them as she went over to their tank and began work. Pomorie looked at the ten or so friends that were there. Srebarna was still the only one absent.
"We should be ready for tomorrow's match right with these new alarms?" Pomorie asked her team if they were ready to keep going. She stuck her hand out as the others placed their hands in the circle.
"Yeah!" They all said in unison before raising their hands up high. The only member missing from the group was Srebarna. Pomorie was getting worried, why was she being absent in so many of these meetings? She didn't want to question her at this moment as Srebarna would just shoo her away. Now the time to focus would be on the match ahead.
The match that was going to happen tomorrow morning would be on familiar ground, very familiar ground. Pomorie and her team were making up a second line of defense as everyone had been spread out taking up different positions to intercept wherever a breakthrough would occur. Erika was holding out on a narrow area at one of the two entrances of the peninsula. She was with Emi and Geshiko from their new tanks.
"How does it feel to be back in your Jagdpanther in a week from now?" Erika asked Emi.
"I certainly do miss the purring of the kitty. Hopefully Pravda would think twice before attacking us." Emi responded as she nodded. Geshiko was relaxing in her Panther as she was looking in the sky.
"I bet the Herman Gorring show will teach us about aircraft. Speaking of which, we have a tank team and not an aircraft team, why is that?" Geshiko asked as she continued to lounge around.
"Probably because Planes and tanks are two different beasts. With them it would be difficult to determine whether or not they can participate together or be on separate teams. If they did, it would be unfair for the tanks as they don't have any proper means to counter aircraft." Emi responded as was waiting for Erika's signalled for them to wait as she noticed something strange was going on.
"Pravda will just use skip bombing if you know what I mean, torpedoes are expensive but bombs are cheap." Geshiko made her response. She got out of her Panther as she grabbed a flat pebble. She tossed it across the pond as the pebble skipped across. Emi knew exactly what she meant by skipping now.
"Oh okay." Emi responded as she was waiting for the match to begin. The students heard the squealing of tanks as it was clear Pravda was coming, just like they had planned.
"Everyone' they're here!" Erika called them from their fields as they rushed to man their tanks. Several slopping pieces of metal appeared as Erika knew full well about this. The Pravda students began to scream as they were charging across the field with their tanks. "Fire!" Erika called out for the tanks to fire as much as they could and as fast as they could. The tanks did so as their shells either bounced off of the armor or penetrated leaving large dense. They continued to fire unaware they were just firing on dummies. The real tanks were being held back as they were going to use them once Kuromorimine used up much of their ammunition. Nina and Alina that were called to lead this group to battle, they were busy observing as they were getting the coordinates to their SU-152's and SU-122's.
"See those muzzle flashes? Erika has taken our bait. Now let's be prepared to fire back." Nina told the group as they were leading this group with their Kv-2. "Okay coordinate brick one-forty. Fire." Nina read out the coordinates as their tanks began firing. Erika looked up as Pravda was firing back onto them. Shells landed all over but their fire from a distance wasn't effective. Erika still had her tanks on the dummies. The tanks in the group continued firing as she was unaware that she had on the dummies. By Erika's firing, the dummies were cut to ribbons but they had served their job. The students withdrew the damaged dummies and got ready for the real offensive. Erika was stunned.
"What?! That wasn't them?" Erika asked as she was shocked. They had been shooting at the wrong target. "How much ammunition do we have left?" Erika asked if they had enough ammunition to at least resist Pravda for a little while.
"Only thirteen shots remain." Her loader told Erika as she slapped her face. That wasn't enough to last even an hour. Erika knew she needed to do something fast or face complete Annihilation. The Pravda tanks began rolling forward as their tanks were going to attack head on. Some being led by the feared OT-34, Erika was getting nervous. The OT-34 began spraying orange water and orange soda in the hopes that the sticky liquid would cause brush to get stuck on the gears of the tanks and cause them to break down or have the tanks marked for the cannons to finish them off. One of these tanks was spraying the orange soda everywhere as the liquid got onto the tanks. Nina and Alina who were rolling forth to support this assault in their SU-152's began to observe the effects. Erika's tank was sprayed by the liquid as she began to panic and wanted to make a withdrawal.
"Maho, Pravda's got feared OT-34 tanks and we're getting sprayed, calling for a retreat from this area?" Erika asked as she wanted to get out, she was running short on ammunition and didn't know how long the resistance would last.
"Scratch that Erika, Olivia's getting reports from Solti that Katyusha is fisting her way through the eastern tip. Mizuki reported that Brook recaptured Feodosiya and the front was rapidly falling apart. Tell everyone to withdraw to the city and we'll make plans there." Maho told Erika that their best plan lay in evacuation to a strong point.
"Okay. All tanks in my group fall back!" Erika gave the order to begin evacuation. The tanks turned and began withdrawing away from the front. A combination of low ammunition and breakthroughs in other areas had prompted the entire school to fall back to the major city.
Pomorie and her group were on a major road junction as they were getting ready to intercept Pravda and their tanks as well as aid any retreating tanks by providing them with cover. Pomorie and the group were relaxing around enjoying the spring air as she spotted Erika's tanks pulling out from the area. She had strict orders for Pomorie.
"Erika, where were you and why is your group half strength?" Pomorie asked as she wanted to figure out what exactly was going on. Erika was panting as she decided to speak.
"We were ambushed by Pravda, they had dummies up and we wasted most of our ammunition on the dummies and when the real charge began, we were short of ammunition and some of our tanks broke down due to the OT-34's spraying some kind of sticky substance all over the gears of the tank causing some of us to break down or get stuck which lead to Pravda picking us off while we couldn't drive away so watch out for that. Follow me if you want to fall back." Erika gave the suggestion to begin the evacuation to a new defense. The Tiger 2 growled as it began to move back further as Erika looked at Pomorie, it was a signal to follow.
"Okay everyone we're falling back to the city, Erika gave us the signal that we should pull ourselves back if we will stand a chance. This was a rapid evacuation as the tanks pulled back. The vickers tank turned as the others began falling back as well.
Maho was looking at her map as all the schools within the immediate area were falling back. Even those that haven't engaged in combat at all were withdrawing to the big city as well. She knew full well that the retreat was in full effect. It was only a matter of time when they were going to arrive. The tanks began trickling back as Koume decided to count up how many tanks were in her group. Some groups were intact like Pomorie's as she hadn't engaged any of the Pravda tanks as of yet. Yet groups like Erika's were completely shattered as they had lost half of their strength or more. Maho decided to take count.
"Okay based on the reports so far, out of one hundred and twenty-five tanks, thirty six have been knocked out of this match, Fifteen have yet to be accounted for so we're waiting on Kaya-San's status on whether or not she will make it back safely so we only have about seventy four tanks left at this current moment." Maho told the group about what exactly went down, Solti seemed nervous as her group had taken a beating.
"We retreated and fought our way back. Myself, Lazca, and Kokai are the only ones left of our school." Solti responded as she had a bloodbath of trying to retreat.
"Ouch, well we need to prepare ourselves for when Pravda comes along. So any student who can pick a shovel or pickaxe up, begin digging up defensive positions. I want to hold onto this area for many matches, much like Pravda has done before when we tried taking this land." Maho gave the order to dig up defensive lines. Pomorie got out as she took the shovel from the tank and looked for an area to dig up defensive positions. She drove the spade into the ground as she began digging. Rila walked over and began digging as well.
"Maho surely want's to be prepared." Rila told her as she knew that they needed to dig in and defend themselves. Pomorie nodded but something else was on her mind.
"I know but I'm worried for someone as she hasn't been accounted for." Pomorie responded as she wanted to make sure everyone returned back safely. Rila placed a hand on Pomorie's shoulder as she was curious about who needed to return back.
"Who is that?" Rila asked Pomorie as she helped her dig in.. Pomorie knew who she was thinking about as she and her tanks had still yet to be accounted for.
"Olivia, I hope she gets back." Pomorie knew that she was still out there but with their vickers. Mounting a search and rescue was going to be tricky for Pug team.
"If she goes down, she goes down fighting for us again." Rila told Pomorie as she kept digging the rumbling of a nearby tank was heard as someone was coming. Pomorie spotted a lone Tiger 1 approaching them, it was already bearing signs of paint as it had been engaged before. Maho knew who it was.
"Well Olivia's group is back but why is it just her?" Koume asked as she was curious, did something happen to her is the question. Maho knew she needed to ask.
"Olivia, what happened to you? How come it's just you?" Maho asked as she was worried for her apprentice and seeing the tank having been battered before as it was wounded that the beast was bearing.
"We got ambushed by Katyusha and Nonna with their OT-34's and we got sprayed. A couple tanks were taken out from combat and the rest broke down as we couldn't hold the line and were forced to retreat." Olivia gave Maho the news. The situation was worse than what she believed.
"Oh goodness, Pravda is going to come at any moment and we just unpacked our spades. Get some digging done Olivia so we can dig into our positions, harassing Pravda will be suicidal so it's best to keep ourselves in one position." Maho told Olivia as Erika groaned.
"Maho! The turret is stuck, whatever it was when we got sprayed by Nina earlier is stuck like glue, we can't traverse the turret." Erika gave the news to Maho as they couldn't do much. Maho sighed as this match was falling apart for her.
"The situation is dire, repair the tanks that we have and dig yourselves in, I would like to hold to the last tank otherwise we might need to try finding our way out of here." Maho told the group that Pravda was coming and they would need to work fast or get inviscorated. The tank tracks were heard, it wasn't good. Pravda had just arrived.
"That fast?! We haven't even dug a foot down." Pomorie was alarmed by the speed that Pravda was able to arrive.
"I called everyone back when they were breaking through, I thought it would take them time for them to settle the area down." Maho was surprised that their defenses had barely taken shape. "Everyone to their stations!" Pomorrie and Rila dropped their tools as they hurried back to their tanks. Erika had barely a moment to fix her tank as the turret was still glued tight together. Might as well be a form of tank destroyer for the time being. As the students settled into their tanks, the SPG's fired first as they were going to provide cover for the advancing T-34's. Many massive shells landed all around them as Maho waited for the moment to fire. "Now!" She shouted.
All the tanks guns and machine guns opened fire as they wanted to keep Pravda at bay. Many of the shots from the smaller tanks only ricocheted off of the bigger T-34's. Only Kuromorimines's tanks were able to take out the advancing T-34's. Three such tanks had been taken out in the chaos but much of Kuromorimine had limited ammo from earlier engagements as their position they knew they couldn't hold onto for any long especially with the OT-34's advancing that had caused so much chaos in the match so far.
"Everyone fall back to the city!" Maho gave the order to begin the evacuation. The tanks turned and began to make their retreat into the city. First the heavier tanks withdrew as Erika's tank fired to cover them. Her loader however found that there was nothing left to fire. She decided to give the news to Maho.
"Maho, Erika's tank has used up all of its ammunition." Her loader told Maho. Maho shrugged as it was nothing new at this point. The Tiger 2 began to make a withdrawal despite most of its ammunition being used up in the process. An IS-2 made its appearance as one of the girls was working the trigger.
"I'm not afraid of death like a little girl anymore. It's a part of life you can't have one without the other. And that's good." Brook was muttering it to herself from her IS-2. She pulled the trigger as the heavy tank's gun fired, The Tiger 2 Erika was controlling, had been struck smack in the rear, a white flag popped out as that tank was now finished. The IS-2 commander nodded as her loader loaded up another shot. The heavy tank continued its advance. More tanks were being taken out as they were simply too slow to keep up with the advance. It turned into a massacre for the survivors as they were pushed deep into the city.
The surviving tanks decided to regroup and count their losses. Olivia, Solti, Pomorie, Maho, Stefanik, El and Mizuki were the only students representing their respective groups as they began to count.
"We know that Erika was taken out along with most of the other schools that either ran out of ammunition or were too weak to hold Pravda back so from seventy-four tanks, we're down to just nineteen." Maho made her conclusions as the situation before them looked bleak.
"Nineteen? We can't hold Pravda back with just nineteen." Pomorie responded as the others were trying to think of a solution to the problem while they heard the noise of tank tracks, it wasn't good, it was Pravda.
"My god they aren't letting us take a moment to breathe and reorganize!" Mizuki shouted. The tanks began driving in many different directions as Olivia Kaya's Tiger 1 fired as it was destined to hold its ground. An OT-34 was knocked out but the tanks just kept on coming.
"Fire!" Olivia shouted to her gunner to keep firing to give her friends a moment to organize. The next shell slammed into a SU-122 as that SPG was gone but with many Pravda tanks coming in to flank them, it was clear they were going to be overrun. More T-34's came from the side as the tanks approached. They fired at their guns from all around the angles as Olivia could only fire in one direction. The Tiger 1 was rattled from the shots and the big beast came silent. A white flag popped from the tank as the remaining Pravda tanks went to look for the others.
The other tanks continued to search for the remaining tanks as they continued to feel more isolated and surrounded. The surviving tanks tried to remake perimeters but one by one, they were torn apart. Pomorie was getting nervous as she knew her small vickers stood no chance against the T-34's.
"What are we going to do?" Pomorie asked Maho if she had an idea what to do. Mizuki and Stefanik hopped out of their tanks as they began gathering wood.
"We need to build some rafts if we are going to sail ourselves away from this mess." Mizuki called out as she was desperate for a way out. Stefanik decided to keep a look out as Maho counted up the tanks.
"Oh my goodness there's just five of us left." Maho responded as their time was running out of time. She looked over to Mizuki and their crew as they were trying to build rafts. "Cut that out, we have nowhere to run so we might as well make our final stand here. You'll never be able to complete that in time." Mizuki looked up as she didn't know what she was talking about but that answer was going to come very soon. Pravda's tanks had already arrived as the Kv-2 was leading the fight with an IS-2 and two SU-152's. Nina was going to finish them off.
"Kv-tan focus on the Panzer 38T's, IS-2-san, focus on the Vickers, we'll take the tigers out." Nina told them on who to focus on who. Maho knew it was game over. She gulped as she bowed her head down and closed her eyes. The tanks all fired off simultaneously as the remaining tanks were knocked out. All of Kuromorimine's remaining tanks had been knocked out. Pravda was the winner. The crowd cheered as they had witnessed a spectacular show.
Back on Pravda, they were celebrating their victory as they were discussing their secret with this victory.
"Well we didn't know that the dummies would come in handy, I wouldn't know that Erika was going to take the bait." Katyusha was confident about their recent success especially with their OT-34's.
"I know whatever that OT-34 sprayed onto those tanks had jammed them rock solid, what was the chemical cocktail that caused them to stick together like glue?" Nonna asked as she was trying to figure out what the formula was. Alina was walking beside Nonna as she was ready to give her secrets up.
"It was meticulous and tedious in the planning of such an adhesive glue so I was up all night on the weekends trying to research chemicals that help things stick together." Alina responded as she was remembering what she put in the cocktail to help it stick. "Soda of any type, corn syrup, chewing gum and glue. I had that all boiled down and mixed together and it was very sticky so don't get it on your fingers as it dries very fast but not only should it be fast drying and binds stuff together but it should also be easily removable and water mixed with vinegar was capable of removing it from the fingers since I got two of my fingers stuck together while testing it."
"Some cocktail, it probably see why you were up all night on the weekends to get this stuff together, it must've been tons of research and experimentation to find the right blend. I got the note from your chemistry teachers that you were working on this for a while and you managed to succeed."
"Good thing I caught Lenny in time or he would have fallen into the mix." Nina told Alina as she was gently stroking her pet field mouse. "Who's a good mouse, you want some crackers when I get you back in your cage?" Nina asked as the field mouse squeaked. She opened the door as she placed Lenny back in with George and handed them both a cracker to share.
"You take good care of your pets. I'm surprised they made it this long so far, I'm impressed." Katyusha told Nina about this. Nonna sets Katyusha down as she had her own things to tend to.
"I'm going to go see Klara about a couple of things and she's learning Japanese though she still remains shy to speak to you Katyusha." Nonna told Katyusha that she was off. Katyusha waved to Nonnaa as she walked off. Alina turned as well as Nina as they both walked away with Nina carrying her pet mice.
"Maybe some things take time, I don't know." Katyusha smirked as she walked off herself. She was happy that Pravda had got its act together and was now leaping through Kuromorimine in offensive after offensive. Now the big operation was to be decided.
[A/N]: Maybe I relaxed a little two long but I felt like I got the Echelon's song stuck in my head as it was hindering my progress but now it's finished for all of you to read.
Also for the OT-34 I was originally going to have it shoot fire which that was what the tank was designed for so I had a fire drill lesson at the very beginning of the chapter to teach the students what to do in a situation like this if they encountered on but fire on taking out tanks is impractical and extremely dangerous for both the target and the user so I decided to get creative with what the OT-34 could shoot so might as well make it glue that dries quickly. That would surely slow enemy tanks down.
We sadly didn't hit our spring goals but we got a favorite and a follower to compensate for this and the views are coming in. People really do like reading this. Hopefully we can make our goals bigger so tell people to give this story a shot. Next couple chapters will be a few small things as the other schools are now getting in on the action as the front continues to move westward. Katyusha needs to do some major planning so the reason that these next couple chapters wouldn't focus on the ongoing sensha-do matches between Kuromorimine and Pravda. See you in the next chapter, goodbye.