Within the space of twenty four seconds, Kay. Standing in her TC hatch with a M2 Browning at her back and Alisa's Easy8 behind experienced two things.
The first was that she just lost one of only two Achilles in her squad of five, now four tanks. Leaving just one Tank Destroyer to take out the Pershing perched somewhere out of range for her (but she was most definitely in range of it if the obliterated and burning wreck of the Achilles had anything to say about). The second? She'd managed to avoid an incoming shot to the side by one of the T20s, in just the nick of time Kay had screamed at her driver to HALT and the results was that a 90mm shell ricocheted off the front hull instead of penetrating the much thinner side. She had Miho to thank for that, the adorably terrifying leader of Orahi's teachings about gaining a sixth sense when it came to being shot had evidently rubbed off on Kay.
Thirty seconds into the contact and a thick layer of smoke enveloped the area surrounding her squad, she couldn't see Alsia's tank behind her, or the dense thicket of trees, and now she was coughing too.
"Darj, Darj, can you hear me? Darj this is Kay, can you hear me?" Kay frantically spoke into her mouthpiece trying to raise the commander of her team, nothing but static.
She then tried Alisia, just a tanks length behind if the still roaring engine had anything to do with it. Nothing from her end either, Kay even tried insulting her second in command, just static.
Last hope, Kay attempted to contact her driver. "Erika, you with me? Erika? Dammit!"
Forty seconds and radio communications went silent, long range? Dead, short range? Gone, intertank coms with the mouth? Basically zero.
And then the other Achilles exploded, not shaken this time by the weight of a massive shell but instead just calmly rocked, a simulated ammunition rack detonation in all its orange and red fury, white flag and the addition of a second TD silhouette to the "tanks destroyed leaderboard".
Not even a minute in, fuck.
Miho would have been great at this, suddenly cast adrift into the middle of a jungle with a third of the squad down already, no communications, thick smoke that was blinding and making everyone choke with a sniper downrange that could see through smoke and trees and some kind of spotter that might aswell have been invisible, the small thing constantly darted inbetween the tree lines and hard cover, occasionally taking potshots that so far hadn't killed off her last three tanks, all E8's but it was only a matter time, death by sniper or death by spotter. Blind, deaf and mute.
What would Miho do?
No time to think right now, she needed a plan, a quick one. The Americans loved their chaotic plans and she was fighting actual Americans right now.
She kicked her gunner in the shoulder, not hard enough to hurt but with enough force to get them to listen, Kay looked down to see Beth's face staring up. "Gas masks, we got any?"
"Yeah, old though" Beth cough, fumbling around in the turret as a round from the spotter bounced off the mantle and decapitated the top of a random tree.
"Don't matter, hand them out. We got a megaphone too?"
"Yeah, you planning to scream at em or we gonna go for smoke signals too'?"
"Not them, us. Need a plan"
Thanking Beth with a thumbs up and then securing the gas mask, as itchy and uncomfortable as it was Kay baulked at the slightly cowebby megaphone she was handed. How was she supposed to use this with a gasmask? Was there like a mouth piece of something.
She turned around, flicked a red important looking button a few times for good measure and hoped for the best.
"Listen up!" Nothing happened and she came out as muffled and possibly comedic.
Ah right, theblue button.
"Listen up! Gas Masks on and follow me! We can't see shit but we need to move and git' out of here, keep a pace of three metres apart and stand by!" For a announcement she hoped that it'd get them all moving rather than be sitting ducks.
"Erika, steady , third, 15 kilometres"
"Got a plan Kay?" Beth asked again.
"Maybe?"
Five minutes in and they still couldn't see anything , everyone was finding it hard to breathe since today had turned into stuffy gas mask day while being compounded by the smoke and that they were in a jungle with the sheer humidity alone producing water droplets out of everything. Radios were still down so probably jammed, at least they knew what the radio packs on the T20s were and the suspiciously long barreled Pershings were of the Super variety, Kay had to go through her long unopened mental notebook to figure out what the weirdly armoured Pershing's the other team had.
Slow, stupid amount of machinery to hold up the massive cannon and all the armor at the front, made sense why the two Super Pershings were on a top of a hill. In order to get to them they'd have to climb the hill while under fireand blind from the smoke, somehow get around the side and survive the crossfire from the other Pershing and the T30.
First things first though, the T20 with its radio jammer and constantly darting in and out, firing randomly at pissing her off, that needs to go.
But how?
Kay leans back in her hatch and thinks.
She cant call for backup, Darj has probably got her hands full and she'd need Noami to take on the T30, as much as she wanted her firefly gunner who ranked in the top twenty worldwide Darj would need Noami more than she would. Rosehips squad? Too far away and the completely open middle firing lane was between them.
She needed a plan, even a bad one would be more fruitful than sitting around in a trap.
What would Miho do? Find some crazy way to improvise? Somehow rig all the trees into some kind of battering ram and launch the T30 into space? No she'd need something more local to get through this.
She looked around, Alishas E8 still glued to the back of her own E8s ass, the commanders .50 pointed away ,safe and secure.
"Yeah, you planning to scream at em or we gonna go for smoke signals too'?"
Smoke signals, .50 cal, Miho, crazy.
Huh.
Then it hit her.
"Beth do we have a flare gun?"
The T20 had to be near , the radio jamming, crackling and interference kept jumping in volume and intensity, presumably it was equipped with powerful but short range jammers, probably cramped a already cramped tank.
Forty five seconds later.
With the pintle mounted .50 armed in one hand and a megaphone in the other, flaregun clipped on her jacket, Kay made her counterattack.
"Listen up! Spray and pray guys! Get on the machine guns and spray everything down, if it ricochets on something metal and aint ours, flare it!"
Miho would be proud. Three E8s with four machine guns each fired liberally into the surrounding area, the hull machine gun, coaxial and the loaders/commanders guns all covering a different sector as they ripped open the sections of foliage piece by piece, if the T20 was still hovering around they'd find it eventually.
The rat-at-tats of the .30cals echo'd in the jungle while Kay's thump-thump of her .50 chopped a tree in half. The sheer vibration feedback would probably give her a medical review afterwards.
And then she found it, or well Alisha did. The dull "thunk" of a stream of heavy machine bullets ricochet off something tank like and her second in command launched a flare at it, the sheer brightness briefly beating the claustrophobic smoke screen and Kay with the third E8 commander launched thiers too, two of the flares stickied onto the hull of the T20 and the hunter was ambushed.
"Beth! Forty five degrees, AP, fire!" Kay called out instantly and kept firing at the T20, hoping the tracer rounds would guide her gunner in. Beth fired, the turret rocking in feedback and Kay watched in frustration as the 76mm AP shell bounced clean off the T20s circle turret, but someone else dialed in correctly and they were roaded as a simulated ammunition fire gripped the T20, flames sparking out of the turret ring. One kill for two TDs but they still outnumbered the other school three-one.
"Target down, now for the Pershing" Kay reported.
"No it isn't" Someone else's voice crackled through her earpiece.
Kay watched in utter disbelief as the white flag that was supposed to denote a tank being knocked out failed to appear, instead the ammo rack fire was extinguished and it started moving again, turret toward extremely slowly and it fired again.
"Aw come on!"
The T20 disappeared again ,Kay smacking the turret hatch in disbelief.
"Darj, you read me?" Kay pinged the radio in hope that it'd be working.
"Kay?" To her surprise Darj replied, voice slowly going from barely hearable to crystal clear, presumably that meant that the T20s radio jammer was either gone or destroyed. "That you, I've been trying to reach you for the past five minutes"
"Both of my Achilles are down, the T20 took a hit but it's somehow still up and I have zero clue where the Superpershing is, you?"
"Naomi has the T30 pinned down, take care of the T20 and we'll cross fire your Superpershing, then we'll do the same for Roseship, copy?"
"Copy"
Well at least Darj had a plan, was she charging across a open field in Churchills? Jesus she knew that St Gloriana was bold but not that bold.
Actually she should probably still talk to Darj.
"Hey D, uh. You alright?" Darj was probably up to her neck in shit right now, while Kay tended to be externalise her worries and then them into something, usually improvisation as Miho taught. Darj came from the "stiff upper lip" school and would act completely fine under she exploded. Kay'd dealt with people like that before and she counted Darj as a friend.
"To be honest with you, stressed. I am. I was hoping to not lose so many of our tanks this early and that T30 uh, Washington? She seemed like the type that'd pick a fight with Maho and the like rather than us" Darj's voice came through, at first the confident and leader type and then just, well her true feelings. Sombre, anxious.
Kay nodded grimly before remembering something.
"Hey!, I'm here for you alright? Whether or not we win or lose this match, it doesn't matter to me. I guess having fun does really"
"Fun eh? Well. Adversity and loss make a man wise"
"You and your proverbs"
"Aye"
"Alishia, you read me?" Kay then opened a channel to her second.
"Here, you see that bastard get hit and then shrug it off?"
"Yeah yeah, listen you still got that balloon?"
"Uh yesssss, gimmie a sec Kay I just got comms back"
"Nothing?"
"Nothing, they're not talking to each other and have not since the start of the match"
"Hold on"
An angry transmission, once laced with seething rage and enough volume to cause eardrum damage barreled in through the speakers until it became a more normal level, Alishias doing probably.
"Washington? The fuck? I've lost Nevada. Where the fuck are you?" Presumably the Superpershing on Saunders side of the field was beating an angry war drum at the leader, the T30 "Washington".
A voice more relaxed, seemingly uncaring and arrogantly unafraid filtered in back. "Texas, you'll be fine. Anything else?"
"Are you fucking serious? I need support over here, "
"Request denied Texas, continue the plan and take out the targets on your side"
" .cunt"
With wide eyes and a shocked expression Kay turned around to see her co-commander look back with the same gesture.
It was clear to the both of them that not all was well in the "enemy" camp.
Suddenly the third E8 in their squad fired into nearby foliage, the sheer blast rattling Kay's unprepared mouth as her number three scored a second hit into the T20. She spun round just in time to witness the bastard tank finally stop moving, it's engine caught on fire and the wreck burned for a couple of seconds before fire extinguishers kicked it and smothered the flames. Kay ordered her crew to swing the tank around and prepare to fire at the stricken T20 with no chances taken this time.
A slow twenty seconds went by.
And a white flag shot out of the turret.
It was down, two hits. Even heavies normally took one.
Kay breathed a sigh of relief and motion to continue on. "Alishia, Stephanie, move up on me and take the clear pass to the left".
Unfortunately Stephanie's E8, the T20 killer never got a metre before the reverberation of a much larger cannon echo'd from in front, Kay ducked in her seat as the shell burst through at least four trees and snapped a smaller one in half as it descended from on high and leisurely smashed through the third Shermans applique reinforced front plate, detonating to give anyone without ear protection tinnitus and adding the first Sherman and the third of Kay's vehicle to the kill board.
It's probably going to take longer than three chapters but hey! An update :)