HMS Ark Royal, the colossal school ship of St. Gloriana Girls' College, had slowed nearly to a stop in the waters of the northern Pacific as a container ship pulled up alongside it. The MEXT supply ship system ran like clockwork, delivering whatever schools needed to sustain their populations. This was the eight o'clock Sunday shipment of food and other essentials to St. Gloriana, one of the top customers of the supply fleet.
The MEXT captain grew a little nervous as his ship slid into the shadow of the Ark Royal, a shadow accentuated by the sun setting on the horizon. On the side of the school ship that faced west, the sun was at that unpleasant angle that makes it nearly impossible to see the path ahead. On the other side, the crew of the container ship could barely even see the features of their objective, a loading bay built into the hull with a heavy-duty cargo crane already protruding expectantly from the huge black wall.
After much fiddling with the variable-direction propellers that the ship used to fine-tune its position when docking, there was a light thump that reverberated through the steel of the hull. The two ships had made contact. Several smaller hatches built into the side of the Ark Royal opened up, revealing waiting mooring posts.
There was a popping noise, and mooring cables shot out of the larger ship's side from the open hatches. They landed neatly on the deck of the container ship, and the MEXT crew worked furiously to secure them. The unloading of supplies could now begin.
As a buzzer sounded in the loading bay and the crane began to lower its hook towards the containers, the supply ship's bridge also sounded with a similar hum. One of the wings of the bridge extended, continuing outwards until it mated nicely with a locking system above a hatch that opened before it. Then two girls, students at St. Gloriana and at the highest levels of the famed "Tea Garden" clique, stepped out onto the bridge. They met the captain halfway across.
"Good evening, sir," one of them said, the one with her blonde hair in a French braid. "My name is Darjeeling. This here," she said, indicating the girl beside her with her long blonde hair tied up with a black ribbon, "is Assam-san. We will be managing the shipment this evening." The two girls bowed.
The captain bowed in turn. "Right this way," he said, escorting them to the shelter of the wheelhouse. "My supply clerk will be with you in a moment." He pressed a button on the wall and took his leave to see to the ship's functionality.
A young man with glasses entered after a few moments, carrying a tablet and a stylus pen. "You're here to sign for the shipment, correct?" he said hurriedly.
In response Darjeeling and Assam bowed as slowly and deliberately as they possibly could. The effect was instantaneous. The young supply clerk's forehead broke out in a sweat, embarrassed at being the one in a rush.
"M-my apologies," he stuttered. Then he quickly bowed and handed them the tablet and stylus.
Darjeeling smiled, then suddenly looked befuddled as she checked the details of the order. "Only fifty containers? What about the other ten we usually get?"
The clerk raised an eyebrow. "You usually get sixty?"
"Yes. It appears you are ten containers short on food, bedding, and ammunition. Do you know how many people depend on having enough of those things?"
"Well, I'm sorry," the clerk mumbled. "I'll take it up with—"
"No need, no need," Darjeeling said. She glanced out the windows at the containers in the hull. "Would you happen to have extra containers onboard with the supplies we so desperately need?"
"I could probably scare up some extras," the clerk said. "But that's against company policy and other schools need them."
"Still, don't you suppose you could make an exception to 'company policy,' as you call it? We really need those supplies!"
"I can't just give it to you. It's all headed for the Shamrock School for Girls. They have needs too."
Darjeeling looked dismayed. Then suddenly she perked up. "All right, we'll pay double for them."
"Darjeeling-sama!" Assam protested.
"Let me finish, Assam-san!" Darjeeling admonished. "MEXT will still get their money, so what do they care? You and your crew can have the rest."
The clerk weighed his options. On one hand, if he gave in to their demands, the entire crew could lose their jobs and Shamrock would be short on supplies for a little while. On the other hand, he knew how to cook the books and make Shamrock seem like liars if they complained, or at least make it look like an honest mistake. And the value of ten full shipping containers, divided among the relatively small crew, would be quite a substantial bonus that they could live off of for a time while they looked for new employment.
The prospect was too tempting. St. Gloriana would have no trouble paying up anyway. He sighed and began filling out the forms to sign over the last ten containers to St. Gloriana Girls' College.
When he had finished, Darjeeling took the tablet and signed for the extra shipment. Then Assam handed Darjeeling a phone, and she used it to make two money transfers—one to MEXT from St. Gloriana, and the other to a collective account for the crew, with the information given up by the cash-strapped clerk.
As soon as the two girls were heading back to the Ark Royal, Assam turned to Darjeeling angrily.
"What was that?!" she exclaimed incredulously. "That wasn't you on that bridge! Besides, we only get fifty containers each time and you know it!"
"But he doesn't," Darjeeling replied with a grin. "I figured our girls could use a little extra luxury just this once. Do you know this saying? 'When money talks, bullshit walks.'"
"Language, Darjeeling-san. And what about Shamrock? They're not going to be happy about this." Assam was shaking her head in annoyance.
"Don't worry about them. They'll be fine. They'll manage like they always do. Just watch them."
Assam rolled her eyes as they got back aboard the Ark Royal. "You just wanted some extra meals, didn't you?"
Darjeeling's faraway gaze and the buzzer in the loading bay declined to either confirm or deny the accusation.
"Fire!"
The 6-pounder cannon of the Shamrock School for Girls Vickers Mark D puffed out a cloud of thin smoke and sent a dummy warhead downrange. It struck the target to the right of the bullseye, sending it spinning off to the left.
Laune, the girl manning the powerful gun, looked at the swirling dust around the target and then up at Shannon, her commander and the overall leader of the Shamrock Sensha-dō team. "Well...at least I hit the target."
"It only took you five minutes to line up that shot," a voice from inside the hull complained. "We're all sitting here going bloody insane, and you can't even hit it squarely."
"Oh, shut it, Fane," Laune said. "I'll hit it next time."
"That's exactly what you said last time," Fane shot back through gritted teeth. "Can I just drive this thing or do you insist on making me wait?"
"Shut up, the lot of you!" Shannon shouted. All eyes widened and turned to her. With the noise problem resolved, she resumed talking. "They say that pressure improves your performance to a point. Hopefully this will fix itself in battle."
"Here's hoping," Fane muttered spitefully, but Shannon didn't hear her.
Just then, they all glanced up towards the side hatch as someone pounded on it. "Shannon-san! Open up!" The voice belonged to Erne, the commander of one of Shamrock's two Landsverk L-60 light tanks. Her little sister Annalee was a fiddler and the gunner in Erne's tank.
Shannon reached down and opened the hatch. "What is it?"
"Those bastards at St. Gloriana stole our supply shipment."
"Did they now?" Shannon said. "How'd that happen?"
"Well," Erne responded, "if what I'm hearing is true, they bribed the crew of the supply ship. The nerve of them! And why would they need to do that?"
"Now, now," Shannon said with a wave of her hand, "I'm sure it's all just a big misunderstanding."
"Right. A misunderstanding." Erne bit her lip. "Tell that to the girls when our food runs out."
"Our food runs out? So we're all going to die?" Laune asked, only half listening.
"Don't be ridiculous," Shannon laughed. "We have more than enough. I'll give Darjeeling-san a call, see what happened. Besides, we can always turn the tables on them if we have to!"
"And just how do you plan to do that?" Erne grumbled.
"I don't know yet, but that's the great thing about it! We'll see how we have to do it when we get there!"
Erne stepped back so the top of the hatchway obscured her face from Shannon's view as her eyes rolled. Then she stormed back to her own tank, still shaking her head in anger.
"What's the matter, Erne-san?" Clare, the other L-60's commander, called to her as she passed. "Something wrong?"
"I'll tell you what's wrong," Erne seethed. "Those posh, snooty bastards at St. Gloriana Girls' College took our supply shipment!"
"Well, what did Shannon-san have to say about it?"
"Not enough," hissed Erne. "You two just think they're the bee's knees, don't you? Those upper-class twit highway robbers!"
"Hey, hey," Clare said, dismounting from her tank and jumping down to the ground. "You know as well as I do that they are our only hope for getting any new tanks that we might need to have any hope in Sensha-dō. Besides, having a powerful ally like them would be of immense value to us."
"And what's in it for them? For all they care we're just some little kindergarten on the mainland!"
"Careful," Clare warned. "We depend on them. And really, they haven't even done anything wrong. All you heard was speculation—ow!"
Clare yelled in pain as Erne caught her in the face with her open palm. She staggered backwards, gingerly touching the growing red spot on her face. She wore a shocked expression. Erne was a hothead, but it seldom escalated this far.
Inside Erne's L-60, Annalee heard Clare's cry and quickly got out to see what was the matter. She found Erne standing outside, shouting at Clare.
"We have problems here, and all you can do is yak about how we need St. Gloriana's tanks? Are you for real? And in how many ways have they been any use to us? Can you at least tell me that? Oh, that's right, you can't."
Annalee ran up to her sister's side as girls from the team gathered around. The tension was in the air. The faction opposed to St. Gloriana Girls' College had issued a challenge in the form of a slap. There were some in support of the British-themed powerhouse school who wished to answer it.
"Onee-san..." Annalee pleaded. "Now isn't the time to start a fight."
Erne was not interested in her sister's peacekeeping efforts. "You know as well as I do that all St. Gloriana has done is screw us over, time and time again!"
"That's the least of my worries. Please, just back down."
"I'm not backing down until they see things my way!" Erne shouted as she strode towards Clare. Before she could reach her objective, though, one of the pro-St. Gloriana girls tackled her to the ground.
Within seconds, a knock-down, drag-out fight had erupted. Girls piled on top of each other, kicking and punching, in a vicious free-for-all that left Shannon, Annalee, and Fane watching in horror.
After a minute of this, Fane finally shook her head. "I'm going in. We need to break this up. Shannon-san, you coming?"
"Right behind you!"
The two girls began the slow process of prying the combatants apart, while Annalee simply walked away. The whole fight was perfectly normal, except for one thing—today's was rooted in a much deeper resentment than most. It was a matter of pride and class conflict, and it always hurt Shamrock's fiddler to see her sister lead the charge in useless fighting.
Her fiddle was back at The Harp, the center of Shamrock life. She would get it out and play a little music. It helped her calm down. They could have their fight; she was content to make music instead while they sorted it out.