Hell On Tracks
Part 53
I woke up slowly, gradually coming to my senses with the rising sun. Which was currently shining through the window directly onto my face. That's one of the disadvantages of having an abovedecks room on a schoolship. If you have windows, you will have the sun wake you up. The view and natural light is worth it, but it makes for the occasional grumpy morning.
But I was awake, so there wasn't any use complaining about it. I stretched as I rolled out of bed, still stiff from last night's Sensha-do practice. Hannah had enlisted my help during practice, introducing loaders to the non-75mm ammo they might have to load at one point or another. We had an old AT gun to practice with the 37mm, but handling anything larger necessitated actually climbing into turrets. Handling 17-pdr ammo sucks in Firefly's turret.
I didn't bother doing my hair up in its usual braid as I moved over to my desk to check emails. One was from Mom and Dad, worrying over me after Wednesday's match, which I replied to saying that I hadn't been seriously hurt and that I was no longer with that crew. Another was from Eclair, saying she would accept the three Locusts and an M4A2, though she wasn't sure if they'd keep the Sherman or not. I'd have to let Kay know when I next saw her, probably tomorrow when we hear who we're up against next.
With emails handled, I went and got myself cleaned up and ready for the day. It was still early, and on a weekend, so the showers and cafeteria were both nearly empty. I managed a quiet and quick breakfast and returned to my room to get to today's project; cleaning and laundry.
Saturdays when we didn't have Sensha-do were less common than I'd prefer, but that just meant I had to devote the free ones to taking care of whatever I hadn't been able to handle during the week. The first step was stripping my bed of its sheets and adding them to the pile of laundry. I reconfigured the futon frame so it'd be a couch, and shoved it against the wall so I'd have a little more room to work.
American style futons for the win.
Running the laundry took most of the morning, and I chatted a little bit with Hannah in the laundromat when she showed up with the exact same idea. Saturday mornings were great for laundry if you got in early enough, but if you were slow, the place rapidly filled up.
When it was done, I waved goodbye to Hannah and hauled my two baskets of laundry back to my room.
"Oh hey Tally!" Kay called, waving wildly as I entered the hallway that my room was situated on. I paused and blinked. She was leaning against the wall opposite my door, fiddling with a pair of earmuffs, the hearing protection kind. "I was wondering where you'd gone."
My pause was only momentary, and I resumed my pace towards the room. "Laundry. Needs to be done every now and then."
Kay laughed. "Well, the range is open today, and I thought going out and shooting targets would be fun!"
"Shooting targets? Don't we do that during practice?" I asked, passing my laundry bins to her while I unlocked my door and slipped inside. Kay followed me in, and set the baskets down where I indicated.
"Rifle range, not tanks."
"Oh." I oh'd. "I didn't know we had one here."
"We have a competition team, co-ed." Kay said with a nod. "Their captain, Riley, is a good friend of mine."
I nodded to her as I started pulling clothing out of the baskets to begin folding. School uniforms went in a separate pile to be ironed later, but it sounded like that was going to be after our trip to the range.
"Have you ever shot a rifle before?" Kay asked, joining the clothes folding.
"A few times. There's a range reasonably close to where I live back home, and Dad has taken me and my sisters a few times."
"Nice!" Kay gave me a thumbs up and a big smile.
Saunders' range was nothing at all like I had expected. I'd expected something small and indoors, maybe a few stalls and a line of targets. What I wasn't expecting was a fairly massive outdoor complex, more than a dozen firing lanes exclusively for rifles, and a separate range for shooting trap.
"Wow…" I exhaled, taking in the place. Kay grinned and hopped out of the Jeep's driver's seat, and I followed, not really knowing where to go.
A redhead with really rather amazing hips approached us with a grin on her face. A boom echoed out from the range, far louder than anything I'd heard back home. It sounded more like a tank cannon than a rifle.
"Hi Riley!" Kay shouted with a wave.
"Hiya Kay!" Riley answered, coming to a stop with a mesmerizing sway before I averted my eyes from her hips. "Your stalls are all set up. This your friend?"
"Tally Evans." I said with a nod. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too, Tally! Riley Sharpe, competitive shooting team captain. Any experience with firearms beyond Tankery?"
"I've been to the range once or twice."
"Good!" Riley cheered. "Our range is probably a little different, since we have to keep all of the guns here. But most of the rules should be more or less the same. Ear and eye pro on while the range is hot, don't step beyond the firing line for any reason while it's hot, no handling of firearms while the range is cold. Safe directions are downrange and up. We've got targets out to three hundred yards, and rifles up to fifty cal."
I let out a low whistle. "That's quite the impressive setup you've got."
"Thank you!" Riley smiled, spun on her heel, and jogged back to the main range building. I was entranced by the sway of her hips for a moment before Kay elbowed me softly and coughed.
"Sorry."
"Let's go." Kay said, leading me into the building. Protective gear went on, and we slipped inside. Kay almost immediately made a beeline to the left, where two bays had been reserved. The case behind the bays held a few rifles, most of which had the distinctive design of being early 20th century firearms. "I had Riley prep a pair of Garands for us, plus a few others that I thought you might like."
"Ooooh, I've never shot a Garand before." I said eagerly. Kay unlocked the case, and pulled out the two rifles. She ran me through the basics of the weapon, handed me a clip, and told me to go for it.
There were targets laid out at 50 and 100 yards, and I elected to aim for the further one. I may not have been up to Naomi's standards for tank gunnery, but after my first clip, I had tight groupings and was reasonably accurate.
My third clip ejected with a ping, and I took a moment to look over at Kay. Where I had been pacing my shots, Kay was hammering away as fast as she could fire accurately. It was jawdropping; both her sustained rate of fire, and the mechanical precision that she had when aiming and reloading. I couldn't help but stare at her in awe.
Finally, Kay fired her last clip and set the rifle down on the bench. She had a big happy grin on her face, and I couldn't help but echo it with a smile of my own.
"Like what you see?" Kay asked with a teasing tone. I immediately flushed and turned back towards my own bench and the rifle I'd set down. Kay laughed. "It's fine, really! I've had a lot more practice on the Garand than most, and everyone is impressed when they watch me go."
"You were very pretty." I mumbled under my breath. I couldn't believe the words were actually escaping my lips, even at such a low tone that I could barely make sense of them.
"What was that?"
"I said you were pretty good."
"Thanks!" Kay flashed me a thumbs up. "You weren't half bad yourself! For your first time with a Garand, that's impressive accuracy. If you weren't so dedicated to Sensha-do, I'd almost recommend you join the rifle team. They're always looking for new marksmen."
"Thanks but no thanks." I said quietly. "I'll stick with the tanks."
Another massive boom echoed out from a few stalls down, and I craned my head to see what exactly was being fired. I didn't recognize the gun, but it was far larger than the Garand on the bench in front of me. Heck, it was longer than the person firing it was tall, though the shooter's identity was concealed by a large cowboy hat.
"What's that?" I asked Kay in a low tone, gesturing over to the massive gun.
"Solothurn 20mm AT rifle. Anzio equips them to their CV33s for Tankathlon season. I didn't know we had any here."
"Why only during Tankathlon?" I asked. I knew a little bit about the light tank only intramural sport, and intended to try and get on our team this year with the Stuart, but that didn't help me understand why Anzio would have those big guns for Tankathlon only.
"Budget, mostly. The ammo is expensive, and it's not that much more effective against proper armor than the 8mm machine guns are. In Tankathlon, there's a lot less armor rolling around, so the gun's punchiness is more effective." Kay answered. "At least, that's my best guess."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense."
"Yup!" Kay grinned. "If you're done with the Garand, I've got a few more cool guns to show off."
"What'cha got?"
"A couple of WWI guns; bolt action Mauser, Lee-Enfield, and Springfield rifles. An M14 with limited permission to fire it full auto. A couple of modern assault rifles that we aren't allowed to full auto, and a fifty caliber Barrett." Kay answered, pointing out each rifle in the case.
"Oh wow. You really pulled out all of the stops on this." I said, taking in all of the options. "Let's start with the fifty."
"One Barrett fifty cal, coming right up!" Kay said, pulling the large rifle out of the case. She passed it to me, and I nearly tumbled under the unexpected weight of the gun. I'd thought the three-inch ammo in the M6 was bad, but this weighed twice as much!
Kay just grinned at me as I dropped the heavy rifle onto the bench. She picked up the Garands and stowed them back in the case before sitting down next to me. It took a bit of finagling to get the rifle up to a comfortable firing position, but Kay's guiding touch helped me through it. It was almost weird, having someone this close to me, nearly hugging me as she guided me into the proper firing position, her hands over mine.
The roar of the fifty caliber and the recoil slamming into my shoulder drained away all of my worries, and I grinned like a madwoman as I lined up the second shot.
We spent most of the day at the range. Kay ran me through each of the guns on her list, and alongside shooting them, she walked me through field stripping all of the more modern guns. Nothing ended up being quite as fun as the fifty cal, but that did nothing to ruin my overall enjoyment of the day.
"Hey girls." Riley said as she approached our stalls. I'd just finished up another clip of Garand, and Kay set down her M14 and turned to face the rifle team's captain. She had put a Saunders Competitive Rifles cap on since the last time we'd chatted with her over M4 maintenance, but a smile still graced her face.
"Hey Riles." Kay said. "What's up?"
"Practice is starting soon, so I'm gonna need you two to pack up. Team's big enough that we need the whole range, you know how it goes." Riley explained.
"Of course!" Kay smiled at the rifle captain. "I think we were about done anyway. Thanks for helping me set this up."
"It was no problem. You're always welcome to drop by." Riley pivoted slightly to face me. "Did you have a good time, Tally?"
"It was great! Thank you so much for having me." I answered. Riley grinned.
"I'm gonna set the range to cold in just a minute so you can get your targets back and police your brass. I'll let you finish that mag, though, Kay."
Kay flashed her a thumbs up, and turned back to her rifle. Riley nodded and made her way back to the range's control room, and I had to force myself to not be utterly entranced by the sway of her hips. I instead locked my eyes onto Kay until Riley was out of line of sight.
It was a good choice, because mere moments later, Kay brought the M14 up to her shoulder and fired off a fully automatic stream until the gun clicked empty. I'd managed one burst on the M14 before I decided it was too much recoil to control and settled for semi-auto only, and here Kay was going fully automatic and handling it incredibly well.
I let out a low whistle as Riley announced the range going cold. "That was very impressive."
"Thanks!" Kay grinned as she removed the empty magazine from her rifle.
Cleanup went quickly, and we left the range with a wave to Riley as members of the rifle team began filing in. There was a casual but quiet air between Kay and I as we piled into her Jeep, and we began chatting as she pulled away from the range.
We'd made it part of the way back to my dorm when Kay took an unexpected turn, pulling us into a parking lot near one of Saunders' larger parks. I looked over at her in confusion, but she was taking a moment to shut down the car, though making no move to get out.
"Kay?" I asked, letting my confusion shine through.
"There's something I wanted to bring up with you, but I didn't feel like the range was a very good place to mention it." Kay began, and for a moment I thought she was just as nervous as I was. It was incredibly strange to see Kay almost dancing in her seat as she tried to find the right words.
"What is it?" I asked. I could feel her nerves, and they were making me more antsy in turn. I didn't like this.
"Saunders' prom is coming up. It's a little over a month away, but that just means plenty of time to figure out who you're going with and what you're wearing." Kay explained.
"Oh." I oh'd. That wasn't at all what I had been expecting. "You know I'm not a party girl, like you are."
"It won't be like the Tankery team's parties. Prom is classy. Suits for the boys, pretty dresses for the girls, dinner dates, that sort of thing. I think you should come, since it's likely your only opportunity to actually come to this sort of thing."
I hummed noncommittally. One big question that bounced around my mind was who would I go with, if I did decide I wanted to go? A gut feeling tells me Jane and April wouldn't be interested, Arisa's always pining after that Takashi guy, Naomi has her own group of friends, and Kay is Kay. Rach might be interested, but that would almost certainly require coordinating not only our schedules, which were indeterminate with the tournament, but also transport between schoolships.
A small part of me wanted to just ask Kay right now. She was incredibly hot and my best friend here at Saunders, but asking right now would probably just strain our friendship. We were friends, teammates, not romantically involved at all.
We didn't have to go together romantically, just as friends. Romance was firmly off the table. Completely unnecessary. All it would take was a few words, and the worst she could say is no. I just needed to find the will to say it.
"Well, if you do find yourself interested let me know." Kay said, snapping me away from my thoughts.
"Oh, uh, sure!" I said, stumbling over my words for a moment. And like that, any will I could have gathered to try and ask dissipated. "Do you have a date yet?"
Kay shook her head. "Not yet. I have someone in mind, but it's hard to tell if she's actually interested or not."
"I can feel that." I said with a nod.
We sat there in an awkward silence for a minute. My mind wandered, wondering who Kay had in mind. That same small part of me hoped beyond hope that the girl she was looking to actually ask to prom was me, but it was quickly silenced. It was a dream, not anywhere close to reality.
Kay snapped me out of my thoughts by wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me in as close as she could with our seating arrangement. I looked over at her in confusion, but she silenced me with a finger to the lips.
"Tally, you're the one I want to ask to prom." Kay said, breaking the silence. She squeezed the awkward sidehug we were in, a soft smile on her face.
"M-me?" I stuttered.
"It's about time!" Someone cheered from nearby. Almost instantly, Kay broke the hug and we both shifted to face the newcomer. Arisa rose from one of the nearby bushes, a sheepish smile on her face. For some reason, she had seemingly decided that a ghillie suit was a good outfit to wear.
"Arisa?" I gaped. The mood had been broken by her outburst, let alone that fact that she was even here.
"What are you doing here?" Kay asked, almost demanded of our teammate.
"Well, I- I just wanted to keep an eye on things. Make sure you were both happy, and, and having a good time!" Arisa explained in a rush, nearly tripping over her own words.
"I was unhappy with you for your spying during the Ooarai match, and now you're spying on me and Tally. What on earth made you think that this was anything close to a good idea?" Kay asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"I… well…" Arisa didn't have an answer for her.
"We are going to have a serious talk about your intelligence gathering. Until then, kindly get out of here, and never pull this kind of stunt on me again. Am I understood?" Kay said in a low tone.
"Yes ma'am!" Arisa barked off nervously.
"Good." Kay said, before raising her voice so that it could carry further. "Hannah, make sure she keeps to that promise!"
"Yes ma'am!" Came Hannah's much more relaxed reply from the bush where Arisa had been hiding.
"Now get out of here, both of you." Kay ordered. Arisa scrambled back to her bush to gather whatever materials she and Hannah had been using, as well as helping her loader out of the bush.
Kay and I waited in silence until they had left.
"Well, that kind of ruined the moment." I deadpanned once Arisa was out of earshot.
Kay just shook her head. "She means well, but she's too obsessive about this kind of thing."
I let out a long breath, trying to let the tensions that had built up with Arisa's interruption flow out.
"Tally, what am I to you?" Kay asked.
"What do you mean? You're my best friend here at Saunders." I answered, more than a little confused.
"Is that all?" Kay asked, pressing the subject. "We've been on three dates now. Well, two depending on how you look at the trip to the bazaar, but we've been on multiple dates, and you haven't made a single romantic advance at all in that time."
"I…" Words escaped me, and I took the moment to think about how to answer her question. "It never really occurred to me that these were proper dates. I thought we were just friends, going out and doing things as friends. I had no idea you were interested in girls, let alone me."
Kay nodded. "Well, I'm interested. So, Tally, would you like to be my girlfriend, and would you like to go to prom with me?"
"I- I must be dreaming." I said, more to myself than to Kay. "There's no way this can be real."
"Tally?" Kay asked, gently grabbing my shoulder.
"I'm fine." I answered. "I just… I just need some time to think this over."
Kay nodded. "That's alright. Take all the time you need."
"Thanks. I'm sorry, but this is just all happening so fast that I need to sit down and let it all sink in, you know?" The words began tumbling out of my mouth. "And it's not like I don't like you, because I do, it's just that this morning I had no idea prom was even a thing here, let alone that we had a date scheduled today, and now we're out here after a wonderful day at the range and you're asking me to go to prom with you, and I just… can't. I need to think things over."
"Hey, hey, it's fine." Kay said, giving me a pat. "Take whatever time you need. I can wait."
"Thank you." I whispered, as all my nervous energy disappeared, leaving me tired. "Can we just go back to the dorms now?"
"Of course." Kay answered in a similarly quiet tone. She pulled me into a quick sidehug before starting the car back up, and we were on our way soon enough. We spent the short drive in a relative silence, and before I really knew it, we were back at my dorm.
"Thank you for an amazing day, Kay." I said with a smile as I got out of the Jeep.
"Thank you for coming!" Kay cheered right back at me.
My smile didn't fade as I walked up to my dorm room, though it faltered momentarily when I saw Arisa and Hannah lurking not far from my room. As soon as they noticed me, they started heading my way, but I ignored them and slipped into my room before they could get to me, slamming the door shut behind me.
I collapsed onto my futon and drew my Hellcat plushy close, hugging it tightly. I just sat there for a moment before an idea came to mind, and I drew my phone out. Rach was going to be overjoyed by the news.