Chapter 16:
Saori looked up from her radio. "We were just notified by the judges, Miho. One minute until the match begins."
"Arigatou. Please confirm that the other Red team commanders are ready for action, Saori."
"Hai. Contacting them now."
Miho giggled as she watched her loader raise her bugle to her lips, the curly-haired girl grinning wickedly. "You're really going to do it, Yukari?"
"Hai!" she nodded. "It's time for Mako's wake-up call, Nishizumi-dono! I always keep my promises!"
. . . . .
In Luna team's Panzer, Usagi pressed her headphones tightly to her head with both hands, listening intently to the alert from Red team's lead tank, when a sudden deafening musical refrain blared from the speakers covering her ears. "One minute to go, Mako-ch- Ahhh! That noise!"
After the bugle's strident melodic call had died away, she heard the radio operator in Katyusha's T34 yell, "What the hell was that?"
"Mako-chan, I just heard something really loud on my radio that sounded a lot like a trumpet or a bugle!" Usagi exclaimed. "Ohh! My poor ears are still ringing!" She quickly changed frequencies to the channel used by the Sensha-do judges and patched it through her Panzer's intercom so Makoto could hear them directly.
"A bugle? Yukari must be at it again" the tall brunette chuckled from her position above the turret. "It's nearly showtime, minna. Follow Erwin's lead when she starts rolling, Minako-chan. Keep a gap of about four tank-lengths between our Panzer and her STuG at first, and close to two lengths when we reach the town. But no closer than that, ok?"
"Got it, Mako-chan!" the excited blonde replied. Minako began gunning her tank's engine. "Come on! Let's get the match started! I've been waiting for this day since forever!"
"Not much longer, Minako-chan. Be patient."
"I'm trying to. It's nearly time for Panzer driver extrordinaire Aino Minako to give our audience, and Anglerfish team's boyfriends, just the kind of exciting action they've been waiting for! And maybe even more!"
"More? Are you going to hit two trees this time?" Rei laughed. "Why not make it three today?"
"Of course I won't, silly! There aren't any trees in the town I'll be driving us into." The blonde giggled, "At least I hope there aren't!"
Riko turned around and gave Makoto a confident thumbs-up from her STuG, grinning when the tall brunette smiled back and raised her right arm to briskly salute her. The girl wearing the Field Marshall's cap returned the salute, ducked inside her tank and pulled the hatch closed, settling herself behind her periscope's binocular eyepieces.
"Ami-chan, when we reach the town, start turning the turret until your gun faces backwards" Makoto ordered, deciding to remain exposed above her cupola as long as she safely could. "I don't intend for us or Erwin's tank to become sitting ducks if Kuromorimine tries to pull a fast one."
"Hai" the blue-haired girl nodded. "I've got my left hand on the turret control and my right index finger beside the trigger, Mako-chan."
A female voice crackled over the radio of every tank on the battlefield, as well as through speakers at the spectator grandstands and the television sets of Sensha-do fans watching at home, bringing the competition abruptly into thundering life.
"Match start!"
. . . . .
At Makoto's house, Yuji leaned further forward with his attention unwaveringly fixed on the tv screen, the boy gulping down a mouthful of popcorn as the first Pravda tank began charging ahead. He watched Katyusha gesture wildly for her other tanks to follow her lead. "Minna, here they go! Good luck, Mako honey! Win big today, Miho! We know you can do it!"
"Hai! Beat your evil sister, Miho!" Taro blurted at the television, totally caught up in the action. A rapidly-shifting image from one of many stationary drones hovering high above the battlefield briefly displayed the tanks of teams Luna and Hippo begin rumbling towards the still-unoccupied town. "Don't hold anything back, Minako my love!"
"I think in your fiancee's case, holding back won't be a problem, Taro-chan" Mamoru chuckled from the center of the sofa. "Not if she drives her Panzer the same way she drives her car!" He crossed his fingers, murmuring, "My every thought is with you, Usako. As they always are. Whatever happens today, win or lose, I know you and the other girls will have done your very best."
"My! Everyone is certainly getting into the spirit of the match!" Michiru smiled at the boys. "I must admit that not having previously viewed the anime, I find it all the more exciting to witness this live."
"It'll get even more exciting soon, Michi-chan" Haruka grinned. "Twenty huge, heavily-armed battle tanks on each side, every one of them crewed by a bunch of trigger-happy teenage girls all gunning for their high school's fame and glory. Hai, it's bound to get a lot more exciting any minute now!" She gestured with her empty bowl toward a gigantic bag of popcorn sitting out of the blonde's reach at the opposite end of the sofa. "Yuuichirou-chan, would you mind topping me up, please? I seem to have run out already."
. . . . .
Leaving the town for Miho's teams to navigate their way through, Pravda's squadron of a dozen T34's instead thundered south in echelon across a long expance of flat grassland to the east of the artificial village. "Onward to victory, comrades!" Katyusha urged her crews over the radio above the clatter of tracks and the roar of twelve powerful diesel engines. "Today we will crush Saunders in a firefight that will long be remembered in Sensha-do history! And then, we shall aid Ooarai in ridding the battlefield of any Kuramorimine tanks foolish enough to dare cross our path!"
Nonna radioed the Pravda commander from the tank nearest hers, "I am spotting enemy activity south of us, Katyusha-san. An unknown number of tanks are approaching us at high speed. Line abreast formation."
"Kay wishes to come out and play? Otlichnyy! We will close to the maximum range of our guns, then slow our tanks for the most accurate aim. The outnumbered Shermans will blunder forward to their impending doom! Understood?"
"Hai!" eleven teenage tank commanders echoed back.
. . . . .
Kay spoke to her commanders through her microphone, "Just as Maho and I expected, Katyusha is committing all of her tanks in a single big rush, that crazy girl! Initiate Envelopment Plan A on my mark... Now!"
Unknown to Katyusha, the two Kuramorimine Panthers had been separated from Maho's Tigers and added to Saunders' arsenal. The Shermans quickly separated into two groups of five tanks each, with a Panther accompanying each group, and they angled east and west of the still-charging horde of T34's. "We'll give Pravda a rude awakening they won't soon forget!" Kay laughed. "All tanks, maximum speed! Pour it on!" She asked the commander of the western group, "Still missing your Firefly, Naomi?"
"This Sherman will get the job done" Naomi confidently replied from beneath the closed hatch of her American machine's cupola. She blew a bubble from the gum she was vigorously chewing. "There's no chance Katyusha will recover from your pincer movement before losing at least few tanks, Kay."
"More than a few!" Saunders' overall commander insisted. "We'll swing behind them to close our trap and finish them all off!"
. . . . .
Katyusha was only partially caught off-guard at Saunders' sudden tactical move. "Miho was wise to warn me about this possibility!" she exclaimed. "If Kay thinks she can trick Pravda with such amateur tactics, she is badly mistaken!" She yelled a new command into her microphone, "Echelon split!"
Mirroring Saunders' move, six T34's pivoted east and six more west of their original path, racing head-on towards the advancing Blue team's two groups of tanks.
Nonna's calm voice crackled in the headsets of Pravda's commanders as the tanks of both sides entered their guns' maximum firing range. "Warning. There are two Panthers mixed in with the Shermans."
"Nani? Maho is playing dirty!" Katyusha blurted angrily. "All tanks, immediately attack your nearest enemy head-on! Destroy them all!"
"This is going to get ugly!" Kay chuckled, spotting a bright muzzle flash from one of the T34's. She dropped into her turret. "Minna, fire at will!"
The battlefield soon resonated with the thunder of two dozen guns as the schools engaged in what quickly collapsed into a confusing melee of swerving steel and flying munitions.
. . . . .
"Something's happening east of us" Makoto spoke to her crew, hearing the muted booms of uncountable high-velocity rounds blazing from gun barrels echo off the walls of the town her Panzer had just entered. "Something really big. Usagi-chan, report!"
"There's way too many radio calls to follow everything, Mako-chan!" Usagi yelled back. "But Pravda and Saunders are really going at it! Wait..." The blonde paused for a moment, then spoke rapidly into her tank's intercom, "I think maybe two or three tanks are out of action so far... no, five! Five tanks, Mako-chan!"
"Whose tanks?" Makoto pressed, frowning at the lack of information.
"I'm not sure! Everything is going crazy over there!" Usagi heard a shout of victory from the radio operator of one of the T34's, followed a second later by the unmistakable sharp clang of a shell striking her tank's hull. Communications from the ex-Soviet tank abruptly ceased. "There go two more, I think! Hai, one on each side!"
"Not good" the brunette grumbled. "At this rate, we won't know if Maho is able to reinforce her Tigers with any leftover Shermans until it's too late. If she can, Ooarai is in big trouble. Any word from Miho?"
"Nothing yet, Mako-chan. Wherever she is, her Panzer's radio is dead silent."
"It's the dead part that worries me" Ami murmured, her face pressed snugly against the leather-covered padding surrounding her gun's scope.
. . . . .
The teens at Makoto's house observed the ongoing carnage in the large open field play out on their tv screen, as seen from a hovering drone's wide-angle camera lens. "They're dropping like flies on both sides!" Taro exclaimed. "Look at all the white flags and black smoke! What a mess!"
"Hai, this is what I'd call a real barroom brawl, Taro-chan" Haruka chuckled. "At this rate of attrition, another few minutes and only Ooarai and Kuromorimine will be left in the game." She watched as a T34/85 and one of the Panthers crossed paths, both swivelling their turrets and firing at each other from point-blank range. "There go another pair."
"I assumed Katyusha and Kay would've been a lot more subtle with their initial attacks" Ryo spoke in awe. "But this... this is brutal!"
"War is hell, or so they say, Ryo-chan" Yuuichirou grinned above the intense noise of roaring engines and firing guns blasting from the television's speaker. "And Sensha-do is too! Minna, I think the best outcome we can possibly hope for is that everything evens out between Saunders and Pravda, so Ooarai doesn't end up outnumbered when the dust from this bloodbath finally settles."
"Hai" Yuji murmured, the boy clenching his hands together in concern for the safety of his bride-to-be. "I hope my Mako and her Panzer won't face anything this insane when they engage Maho's huge Tigers."
"Me too, Yuji-chan" Ryo nodded. "And speaking of Maho and her tanks... I wonder where they are?"
. . . . .