The next day, however, was Monday, and that meant school. Resigned to suffering through the day in order to get to practice, Mariah got ready for school and headed out. At least she had her daily lunch meetings with her crew. Luckily, they didn't seem to mind eating in the library or her laying down on one of the couches and relaxing for that period.
"Soo, boss lady, what's the plan for today?" Sydney said, sitting across from her, having decided to lean on Matt today. Mariah for her part was content to let her invade someone else's personal space today, so long as Matt didn't complain.
"Umm.. Debriefing on last weekend's match, then where we go from here. I already have a couple of events set up after all. After that, it's practice as usual." Mariah responded.
"Okay, but what about the new tank? Are you saving it for later?"
That made Mariah perk up. "What new tank? I haven't heard of it."
"That hunk of scrap in the parking lot? You haven't noticed?" Andrea added to the conversation.
"Err… No? I only go to that parking lot during practice unless I have a reason to. And I didn't think I did today" Mariah said, putting down her lunchbox and standing up.
"Huh? Where are you going? We still have 15 minutes." Matt said, confused.
"To see the tank. That parking lot should be open after all."
"Err.. Okay. Wait, if you didn't buy the tank, who did?" Matt asked as the team stood up to follow their commander.
"I may have an idea. But I'll need to check it out first!" Mariah said, powerwalking towards the side parking lot. "I don't know how they got the money to afford it though!" She continued, wondering if her hunch was correct.
"What? What's going on?" Lyn said, catching up to Mariah and walking beside her.
"I'll explain when we get there." Mariah said, shoving the door open, clearly in a hurry.
Knowing it was just a few feet away, the rest of the crew decided to just go along with it for now. They'd get their answers soon enough.
"Ahh! I was right!" Mariah said enthusiastically, spotting the twin gunned heavy tank. "It's a KV-7. The same one Col Smith commanded when she was a tanker!"
"What… How do you know that? I don't think she ever told us." Andrea said, the only one of the group who was in ROTC like Mariah.
"I ran into the Colonel at the convention yesterday. They were selling it there. Small world huh? The real question is how she afforded this thing on a teacher's salary."
"I dunno, maybe she has a lot of money saved from the army? Colonel is a pretty high rank, so they have to make a lot." Andrea speculated.
"Maybe…" Mariah said, skeptically. "Either way though, new tank assuming we can get this thing working!"
"Think we can?"
"I mean if Colonel Smith thinks we can, I trust her, she said she has experience with things like this when I saw her at the convention."
"Oh, well that's good then." Matt chimed in. "Should we head back? I left all my stuff in the library."
"Oh, me too! We should go get it before the bell rings." Mariah said
After this, the rest of the school day was as slow as usual, but eventually it finally ended. After Mariah excitedly made her way to the club room to announce the presence of the new tank to the team. Unfortunately for her, someone beat her to it. The girl who just a while ago had been denied a position on the team was happily explaining the specs of the KV-7 to her new crew. Mariah approached the girl nervously, hoping there was no bad blood.
"Err… Hey. Sorry about before." Mariah said nervously.
"It's fine. Relax. I get to be the commander though, okay? I'm Abigail." She responded, trying to avoid showing anything resembling resentment as well.
"Err, right. That's between you and the rest of your crew." Mariah said, glad that there wasn't any overt hostility at least. With that taken care of, Mariah decided to go talk to Miss Weaver.
"You do think we can restore that tank right?" Mariah asked quietly.
"Yeah. Some replacement parts, scrape off the rust and it will be good to go. Hardest part will be replacing the transmission. That thing's shot."
"Alright… We're definitely gonna be needing some help though." Mariah said, nervously. "I don't have any knowledge about repair stuff."
"Sure! Just follow my instructions and you'll be good. We even got the new transmission for y'all, so don't worry about breaking the bank"
"Thanks. How did you afford this by the way? I know a teacher's salary doesn't make much these days."
"Well, Smith and I know someone in the ATA. Normally, getting tanks is a bit beyond them, but here all we needed was a bit of cash and a subtle nudge to let us buy now rather than go through the auction process."
Purchase right away? How high up is this lady's contact? Mariah thought. "Err… Great. Well, as long as we have it." She said, poorly hiding her questions. After all, they were already 5 minutes late to start the meeting. With this, Mariah took her position at the front of the room. "There's been a slight change of plans today! As you may or may not have seen, we have a new tank. As you also may have seen though, it's not exactly in a functional condition. I don't know anything about restoring tanks from this condition, so I will be deferring to Miss Weaver's expertise on the subject." Mariah said, stepping to the side, giving her teacher the floor.
"Okay, I know none of you know the first thing about fixing up tanks. Just follow my instructions and you'll all be okay, alright!? Now up and at em! The best way for y'all to learn is to get your hands dirty!"
"She really is a totally different person when it comes to tankery" Mariah thought as the students filed out of the room, some eager, others nervous towards the parking lot. Mariah was the last out of the room, worried about getting trampled. Following everyone out, Mariah was one of the last of the girls to see the hoses and buckets that surrounded the tank for them to use. Miss Weaver seemed eager, standing behind the crowd.
"Okay, first things first, we need to scrub the rust off!" Pay special attention to the moving parts! I'm fairly certain they haven't rusted together, but it pays to be sure! Try to get those parts moving. If anything is rusted together, we'll need to replace it!"
The team piled onto the tank, scrubbing it down eagerly. Luckily, no one had worn anything particularly expensive today, as the team was soon covered in oil and grime. With so many hands at work, cleaning the tank went relatively quickly. The moving parts, as Miss Weaver had predicted, just needed some cleaning. Unfortunately, that was just the easy part. The KV-1 had a terrible transmission which was taken from an agricultural tractor, but on the bright side, it was relatively cheap. With the advent of tankery, the original company that produced the old tractor diversified into producing equipment for the sport for dirt cheap prices.
That said, installing it was pain in the ass. Luckily, Ms. Weaver, or possibly her "contact" had rented out a crane for the day, but it was still a very difficult task. The team stripped out the necessary parts and used the crane to lower the transmission into place. After that, they needed to put everything back in place manually, then finally closed the damn thing up.
"I better never have to do that shit again!" Mariah said. "Next time, I'm making someone else do it!" Everyone else who had to participate was similarly exhausted, some sprawled out on the ground dramatically.
"Now now, Mariah, a commander should take the lead in all things." Miss Weaver said with a joking tone. "Anyway, give her a full tank and she's good to go!" she continued. The crew of the teams new tank did just that and took their positions inside the tank,
"So, now what?" Abigail asked. She finally had a spot on the team, she'd even "volunteered" her friends into joining her. But it was only now that she realized she was as clueless when it came to commanding a tank as the rest of the team had been a week ago.
"Well, I think you tell us what to do and we do it." Miranda, her gunner, said.
"Err. Do you know how to do what I'm gonna tell you to do?" Abigail asked skeptically.
"No, but how hard can it be if they figured it out?"
The conversation continued on like that until radio crackled to life, ordering all tanks to the firing range. The crew of the KV-7 figured out how to move their tank relatively easily with instructions from the T-34 crew, having the advantage of people who at least vaguely knew what they were doing instructing them. Soon after, they fell into line behind the rest of the team, driving to the firing range.
"Alright, you're up… Err.. New girls" The team heard from Mariah over the radio who had apparently just now realized she hadn't given the KV-7 a callsign. The two loaders hefted the shells up, shoving them into the breech, the gunner aiming in on the target and firing. The shells skewered the target, hitting once on each side. Clearly, getting two guns on target was much more difficult than one. Again and again they fired, though skewering the target perfectly was the closest they could get to a bullseye, Mariah saw that as a win though, sending her encouragement through the radio.
"Don't worry! Real tanks are bigger than the target here! Those would be direct hits if you shot anything bigger than a tankette."
After the KV-7 took their turn, the rest of the practice went on like normal. Mariah figured she'd brief the team about the next tournament tomorrow but she'd let her instructor know first.
"Hey, Miss Weaver! I was gonna tell the whole team earlier, but there's something I wanna run by you!"
"Sure!" She replied casually.
"I signed the team up for the Ironwoman tournament that's going on over spring break. I know I probably should have asked you first but-"
"You needed to fight the other commanders to the death yesterday morning just to be able to sign up for anything and didn't have time?" Miss Weaver interrupted. "Believe me, I can relate!"
"So, you're okay with it?" Mariah said, relieved.
"Yeah, let's do it!"
"Thank you." Mariah said, excitedly. "I was a bit worried! There is one more thing though. Well, two things actually. First, I signed us up to appear on some TV show!"
"Power Tankers? Sure! I'm a huge fan, that sounds amazing! Think they'll wanna interview me?" Her teacher said, posing.
"Err.. Sure." Mariah said. "Anyway, what was the callsign for the KV-7 back when you were in the sport?"
"Oh, right! You don't have one for it yet. It was "Sturgeon." But that doesn't really fit in with the theme you have going."
"I mean, people eat Sturgeon. I think. Let's just go with it."
"Alright, your decision."
"Right. I'm heading out I guess" Mariah said, "thanks for your help"
"It's what I'm here for! Seeya!"
The next day at the team meeting, Mariah got up in front of the classroom, presentation ready.
"Hello, team, after the match last weekend, you're probably wondering where the team is going to go from here. Well, there's a round robin tournament going on up in Lubbock. This means that, win or lose, we're going to have Seven matches that week! It's also operating on what they call an Iron Woman format. That means that after each match, we only have until the beginning of the next match- That is, less than a day, to repair our tanks. That means if we want a decent amount of sleep, it will be best to win quickly. Any questions so far?"
"How are we going to get our tanks up there? It's not right nearby like before!"
"Good question, Kaylee. We'll load them up onto a train, the Association will deal with the rest! Anyone else?"
"How will we get up there?"
"Same way teams get everywhere. We'll rent a bus or two."
With no more questions after this, Mariah decided to continue her explanation. "In addition, the format of this tournament will be a series of flag matched. That means that whoever knocks out the other teams flag tank will win. This, combined with the ironwoman format rewards making an aggressive push for the flag tank to end the match quickly.
"So that's what we'll be doing?"
"No, Leslie. I'm going to guess that's what the other teams are going to do. We'll take a defensive position to intercept their attack in a defensive position. Our scouts will ensure we set up at the right location by keeping an eye on the opponent's movements. This will help offset the numerical advantage. If they have the same idea, we'll improvise in the moment. Understood?"
"Wait, what numerical advantage?" Mariah heard from the back.
"The maximum number of tanks allowed in this tournament per team is 20. We only have 11 at the moment. Still, this hasn't stopped other teams in the past from powering through and winning, especially in flag battles. Understood?"
The team gave various forms of affirmation that they understood the plan. With this, Mariah announced the callsign for the KV-7 and called the team out to practice.