-14-
Mausefalle
A nurse helped Kay sit up in her hospital bed in the Kuromorimine infirmary. Kay groaned, her bones creaking every angle on the way up. With one of her two freshly bandaged hands, Kay held up a handheld mirror. The mirror reflected the fact that bandages were wrapped around her head and over her left eye. Blood from the cuts were beginning to seep through, sullying the pristine whiteness. Kay curiously tugged at the bandages with strength comparable to picking up gold foil without making it wrinkled. A light touch on her left eye caused her to wince. Swelling around her left eye made it painful to open. According to the nurse, Kay was probably hit by a bullet that ricocheted off another surface before hitting her. Whatever it was, Kay was lucky to not lose her eye. Although, she will be half blind for the time being.
The nurse had brought Kay…breakfast? Dinner? Whatever the time of day was, it was something to eat. Out of all the patients in the infirmary – all considered to be mildly injured, or stubborn enough to refuse to leave – Kay was the only one eating. One Kuromorimine girl was sleeping, another was on her phone. Erika had kept stealing quick glances at Kay, and Maya, who was sitting next to Erika, was tense and ready in case Kay decided to pounce. Kay blinked. She weakly raised a hand in Erika's direction as a gesture of "hello" and "everything is all right; I won't attack you" but the second part probably didn't translate. Kay continued eating her food.
When Kay finished, a nurse took the tray away. There was a uniform set aside for her. Kay slid the hospital gown off of her body, raising the curtain and displaying the black-blue bruises lining up and down her body. Kay picked up the red button shirt, its silk tentatively gliding over Kay's skin and swollen welts, and slowly slipped each button through its respective eyelet. She bent over, pulled the red miniskirt over her legs, and snapped the button on the adjustable waist so it was close enough to her desired fitment. Kay put on the pair of knee-high black stockings and stuck them into her regular boots, which someone was kind enough to do a rudimentary cleaning. With the rest of her Saunders uniform slogged with rain and mud, the fresh clothes she was given will have to do.
WHAM!
"Kay!"
The sleeping Kuromorime bolted upright, the one on her phone lost her grip on her phone and urgently hugged it before it could fall on the floor, and everyone whipped their heads around to find Maho in the doorway.
"I need your radio frequencies," Maho said.
"Wha-. Why?" Kay said. "Just use the ones you have."
"We can't. The Black Knights got our Maus and they have our frequencies. I can't coordinate a counter attack if they hear everything we say."
"You have my frequencies, don't you?" Kay asked bewildered, thinking back to the ambush near the start of the tournament that put Amy in the hospital.
"No, we don't!"
Kay had her arm up, ready to defend herself because of Maho's flash of frustration. Kay blinked.
Rotten luck. I walked right into that ambush.
"Okay," Kay said. She stood up and started limping towards the door. "Where's your radio room?"
Maho put one of Kay's arm around her to help the Saunders captain hobble quicker.
"Wait," Erika said hoarsely as she tried to get up.
"No, you're staying here," Maya ordered. Then she addressed the other two Kuromorimine girls and the doctors and nurses. "All of you stay here!"
Maya ran out the door and helped Maho help Kay along. The trio walked out of the building to head to the war room. Several tanks were burning, ammunition piles were knocked over, and there were smoking craters.
Kay and Maya, wide-eyed, at the tank staging area.
"What the hell happened?"
"Black Knights," was all Maho said.
"Why couldn't we hear any of this?" Kay's voice wavered.
"We…had the infirmary soundproofed…" Maya said.
BANG! BANG BANG BANG!
They flinched and snapped their eyes in the direction of the gunshots just in time to see a single person in a Kuromorimine uniform, running away from a group of other Kuromorimine uniforms, slam into the ground.
"That…!" Maya started.
"Was a Black Knight," Maho interrupted. "They had our uniforms."
Shocked at what she had witnessed, Kay was dragged the rest of the way to the war room. There was a map table in the center of it, and there were tables with radios lined up on two walls. Kay was sat down at one of the radios and began tuning it to her frequency while telling Maho and Maya to tune the other radios to the most important Saunders frequencies. Some Kuromorimine girls in the room stared disbelievingly as they saw the Kuromorimine-uniform-wearing Saunders captain ordering their commander around
"Can I borrow someone's phone?" Kay asked.
"Why?" a girl asked.
"I need to tell my team you are using our frequencies."
Maho selected the latest number on the recent conversations screen on her phone and handed it to Kay.
"Get all the commanders and get them in here," Maho ordered. Her subordinates (except Maya) stared at their commander like statues that want to say something.
"Now!" she ordered.
Two Kuromorimine girls were snapped out of their stupor and ran out of the door.
"Tess, it's Kay."
"WHAT?!"
The vehicle staging area erupted when the Saunders tankers rioted. Tess – who had her own resentments – had told the Tankery team Kuromorimine's plan to use Saunders's frequencies to communicate as they go after the Maus, and Maho requested help from Saunders if at all possible. Arguments flew back and forth in chaotic debates on whether to help or not. Popular talking points were why Saunders should risk getting killed for Kuromorimine's own incompetence, and what the Black Knights would do with a super heavy tank if they were left unchallenged.
"Why don't Ooarai just do what they did before!" one voice said above the rest.
A chorus of agreement spread throughout the crowd.
Tess tried to get a word in and past the lump that clogged her throat.
"Everyone, shut it!" Naomi boomed from atop a wooden crate.
And they did. Naomi coughed and cleared her throat, then stuck a strip of gum in her mouth.
"Everyone knows what Ooarai did," Naomi said. "Everyone saw it. If these mercs have the slightest bit of self-preservation, they'll avoid any low, sloped tanks. Now, Maho's come up with a plan to disable the Maus."
Naomi told them the plan.
"If you don't want to participate, get on my left," Naomi said. "If you do, on the right."
An organized stampede went to the left. There were some girls looking right and left, deliberating what to do. Some girls were dragged to the left. Some girls changed sides, although most of them went from right to left. The rest filtered out on their own. Alisa got down from the crate and walked to the left. From the total number of girls present, there was only a comparative handful on the right.
Naomi was about to jump down only to realize Tess hadn't moved. Tess was hunched over, her thousand-yard stare staring three yards into the ground.
"Tess?" Naomi asked.
"Ah!" startled Tess. She looked left and right, then to Naomi. "Sorry," she whispered. Like a child who found herself in a high place, she gently lowered herself until her feet touched the ground, before finally walking left into the arms of her crew.
"All right," Naomi finalized. "You guys get to your tanks. Everyone else: fortify the base."
And fortify they did. The Saunders girls ransacked the equipment room. Crates of spare M1919s and M2s were smashed opened and quickly assembled and loaded. Wrecked tanks that were in the boneyard were pulled out to be used as temporary bunkers and pill boxes. The outgoing tankers also grabbed some extra machine guns. Every vehicle – except the Locusts – now sported at least one machine gun on the turret.
A column of 27 armored vehicles – Naomi in the Firefly, Esther in "Cap's Shield" (a Jumbo with a 76mm gun), 12 75mm-armed Shermans, three Hellcats, five Chaffees from Item Squad, and five Locusts – drove out of the gate.
On one of the hills overlooking the city of where the Maus should be, Maho looked through her binoculars from the cover of the trees. She mulled over the message Kay told her.
27 tanks. And that's only from those that wanted to help. There was no way we could have won.
Besides Maho and her Tiger I, there were only 13 tanks with her. Four Panthers, the Jagdtiger, the Jagdpanther, and two Jagdpanzer IV/70s. There were also Miho in Tiger 217, the Hetzer, the IV/70 on loan to Hippo Team, the Type 89, the Porsche Tiger, and Type 3 Chi-Nu from Ooarai. The Ferdinand had broken down, and Maho left her only two Panther IIs and the handful of Panzer IIs at the base for protection, along with Ooarai's Char B1 and M3 Lee. Actually, some of Rabbit Team wanted to come with, but ultimately declined when their crew put it to a vote.
"My team sees you," Kay said over the radio. "To the north."
Maho shifted her attention to the north, at her 2 o'clock. Sure enough, a mud-covered Firefly sat on the crest of the hill.
"Alright, let's go," Maho said.
The Locusts and the Jumbo went ahead of the Firefly as Saunders descended single-file towards the city. Kuromorimine-Ooarai followed suite. Kay watched the markers on the map as Item Squad and six Shermans broke from the main group and followed a pair of railroad tracks to an iron trestle bridge overpassing a road. Item Squad and the Shermans stopped and the crews got out, unloading their supply of high-explosive shells – which consisted of half of their total ammunition supply. Kuromorimine's tank destroyers and Tiger 217 crouched in the terrain with a clear line of sight on one side of the railroad trestle. On the other side, Naomi's lone Firefly took aim at the trestle.
Kay nervously tapped her heel.
"Where's the SDF?" she asked.
Maya called Ami Chouno yet again. Kay's heel pounded the floor.
"Same answer as last time," Maya said. "They're still deploying."
Kay buried her face in her hands and groaned.
Once the crew of the six Shermans and Item Squad left their entire stock of high-explosive ammunition against the trestle supports, they bugged out of the immediate vicinity like bats out of hell.
The map markers converged on the train yard, with Saunders reaching it first. Tanks broke up into groups of twos and threes as they combed the maze of train cars and yard equipment and buildings.
ShooOOO-BOOM!
A shell slammed into the right side of the Sherman in front Esther.
"Forward, forward!" Esther shouted. "Push them!"
The Jumbo's driver rammed the Sherman and started pushing it into the next lane. The Jumbo turned its turret to the right just for the gun mantlet to catch a 75mm round. Esther briefly saw smoke before railroad carriages obscured her vision.
"The Maus is in the sheds!" she informed.
The Jumbo continued pushing the Sherman straight into parked railroad cars, derailing them, before stopping. Esther got out of the Jumbo and jumped onto the Sherman, noting the white flag had popped up. She opened the hatch.
"You girls okay?" Esther asked.
All five of the crew gave some sort of affirmation.
Kay watched markers on the map swarm the railroad yard. Item Squad and two Locusts closed in first.
"Shoot the rear tank!" Jennifer, Item Squad Leader, ordered.
A Chaffee busted through the brick wall in the shed. "Got it!" its commander said.
Another Chaffee skidded in front of the super heavy.
"Kora, are you alright?!" Jennifer shouted.
"Just a scratch!" Kora said. "We're still in this!"
"Snipers, stay where you are!" Maho ordered. "Everyone else, force the Maus to the bridge!"
"It's moving!" Jennifer said.
"Gunner, get it's attention!" Esther said. "Come on. Take the bait, take the bait. They took the bait! Ha! That's right! Keep shooting that 75 at me!"
"Mal's hit!" Brooke screamed.
"How the fuck did 'e know we're here?!" Mal exclaimed. "They hit us through two cars and a signal box!"
"Derail those cars! Block its path!" Jennifer said.
"Got it, Jen," Ruby said, ramming the passenger carriages. "Rain's been hit!"
"Rain! Anybody there?!" Jennifer cried.
"They're dead…" Ruby said as she witnessed flames erupted out of the flagless Sherman's hatches.
"We need it to go right," Maho said. "Take down the water tower!"
"Roger!" Geshiko said. "Tower is down!"
"It's aiming at us, nya!" Nekonyaa exclaimed.
"Pull back!" Maho managed. "Kagami, bring the Jagdtiger over here."
"Roger!" Kagami replied, and she ordered her behemoth to move away from her position at the bridge.
"No, no, no!" Esther witnessed the Maus take a hard-left turn over and through several train carriages and head towards the city. "They've wisened up to our plan! They're heading into the city!"
"I got an idea!" Jennifer trembled. "Fast movers on me! Look for a bar or restaurant!"
"Closest restaurants are across from the train station and in the station," Maya said over the radio.
Item Squad tore down the streets of the city, racing towards the train station. Three Locusts slotted in behind them.
"There!" Jennifer shouted. "There's a bar on the left!"
The Chaffees gouged scars in the street as they shuddered to a stop. The Locusts slid past them before stopping. Jennifer hopped out of her Chaffee. There was an attempt to bust open the door, but it wouldn't budge. She signaled to one of the Locusts, pointing at the door and then rammed her fist into her palm. The Locust revved its engine and shattered the glass storefront. The Locust slowly reversed back onto the sidewalk.
"Come on!" Jennifer swiped her arm through the air.
Many of the Saunders tankers jumped out of their tanks while some stayed in their tanks to keep an eye out. Jennifer was already behind the bar and grabbing bottles of alcohol. With a "crick-crack!" she opened the bottles and started pouring the liquid contents down the drain. Some of her fellow tankers did the same.
"You," Jennifer addressed the tankers near the entrance. "Get the gas cans."
Realization hit everyone.
The tankers began scouring the bar for napkins, towels, anything that could soak up liquid and burn. After emptying around 50 glass bottles of their alcohol contents, they were filled with gas and diesel before being stuffed with napkins and towels. The bottles were briefly tipped over to soak the rags.
Duck Team pulled up in their Type 89 and unbuttoned their hatches.
"What's the plan?" Noriko called out.
A Saunders tanker handed Shinobu and Taeko an armful of molotov cocktails and a barbecue lighter.
Three more Shermans were lost to the Maus, and two of them did respond to radio transmissions. Saunders and Maho's group ricocheted every shot they had off the armor of the advancing super heavy. Kagami finally got in a position on the crest of a hill with a clear shot at the rear of the Maus as the super heavy tank rolled down a street. The Jagdtiger fired. The 128mm shell punched through the outer edge of the Maus's right track. The Maus continued on with a horrific scraping and snapping of metal.
"The Maus is still mobile!" the Jagdtiger gunner said.
"Hit it again!" Kagami ordered.
As the loaders pulled a shell off the rack and began loading it into the breach, the Maus stopped and its turret began to turn the 180 degrees towards the Jagdtiger.
"Load, goddamn it!" Kagami cried.
The barrel of the Maus's gun yawned a bottomless black hole ready to swallow the Jagtdiger. A brief flash of the 75mm was followed by a ricochet off of the Jagdtiger's front hull.
"Load, for fuck's sake!" Kagami screamed.
"Clear!" the loaders wailed.
The gunner fired and hit right track again. Another piece of the track was blown off.
"Reverse!" Kagami shrieked.
The initial jolt of the heavy tank destroyer was immediately followed by the impact of the Maus's 128mm shell penetrating the hull. The distinctive sound of the white flag popped out of the Jagdtiger's roof.
The Maus hadn't moved, but its barrel still faced the Jagdtiger. A brown-haired head popped out of the Maus's commander's hatch. Then Kagami's phone began to ring. The Jagdtiger commander answered it.
"Hello?"
"Why are you shooting me?!" Mauko spat with venom in her voice.
Kagami's eyes widened.
"And why is none of Kuromorimine answering the radio?!"
Before Kagami could respond, the Jagdtiger erupted. The roof blasted into the air, and the sides ripped from the hull. Although with its face still intact, Jagdtiger's gun broke off its mount and drooped, burying its nose in the mud.
"Rockets?!" Mauko exclaimed. "Who's shooting rockets?!"
Mauko traced the smoke trail.
"Driver, turn right and get us down that street!"
The Maus executed a sharp turn and crawled forward again, sheering metal with every advancement. The flaming Jagdtiger and smoke trail slowly disappeared behind the buildings. One block ahead of the Maus, two Locusts came around the corner. Face-to-face with an adversary that weighs more than twelve times the weight of the both of them combined, the light tanks screeched to a halt and fired their guns. One missed and the other didn't even scratch the paint. The Locusts reversed, tripping over each other. One of the Locusts began a three-point turn and rammed its rear into the side of the other Locust. The Maus fired at the Locust that completed the three-point turn. The impact of the shell beneath the airborne light tank launched it into the second story of a building. The crew scrambled out and disappeared deeper into the building. The Locust left on the street ate a 75mm shell and was white-flagged. The Locust crew stayed in their tank as the super heavy rumbled and scraped past them. The commander reported the Maus's position and that it was mobile. The Maus attempted to turn left at the intersection, but with a loud snap, the right track broke. The Locust commander reported the update, and she and her crew ran after their comrades of the other Locust.
Mauko tried to use her phone to call her teammates she had in her contact list.
"Come on. Pick up!"
Call after call, Mauko was redirected to voicemail. She tried to call Maho for the eighth time in two minutes.
"Chaffees!" one of her gunners shouted.
Peeping out of her hatch, Mauko caught sight of several of Saunders's Chaffees and Locusts several blocks away charging towards them. Two of the Chaffees fired smoke rounds. One smokescreen was deployed a block short of the Maus, the other sailed passed and deployed down the street. Tracers flew through the smoke, hitting the Maus and everything around it. Mauko ducked back into the turret. She felt the turret start to turn right and heard the light tanks' engines rush past, but neither of her gunners shot. The Saunders machine guns fell silent, so Mauko poked her head out of the turret again.
The Maus was on fire!
Flames stuck to the right-side armor of the hull and turret. Some puddles of flame were dotted around on the street and sidewalk.
Mauko's question to where the flames came from burst out of the smokescreen in front of the Maus. A Chaffee barreled towards them. Mauko saw Jennifer stand out of the Chaffee's commander's hatch with a flaming cocktail in her hand and hard wrinkles of anger on her face. Jennifer reached back to charge up her throw, ready to unleash fury when she got close enough. The Chaffee just passed the slope of the Maus's front armor, close enough for the opposing commanders to see the whites of their eyes.
Then they made eye contact.
Mauko saw the wrinkles on Jennifer's face disappeared, her skin smoothing, her lips slightly parted. Jennifer's eyes softened as she recognized the Kuromorimine super heavy tank commander. Soft eyes that quickly burned with terror when bullet went straight through her neck, blood splattering out one side. Mauko reflected Jennifer's terror and slammed her hatch shut when she witnessed Jennifer fall into the Chaffee's turret.
The Chaffee sped by the Maus and eventually stopped when it succumbed to the thick smoke of the molotov that was dropped onto the engine grate, raising the white flag. Jennifer crumpled to the turret floor and held one side of her wound – the entry wound. Blood spurted out the coin-sized hole in the side of her neck, a hole her gunner and loader desperately tried to plug. Bloodied breaths escaped through Jennifer's mouth. The entire interior was stained with the wet stench of iron.
"They shot Jen!" Kora shouted. Her tank rounded the corner to come at the Maus from the front. The Maus's turret tracked the swarming Locusts and Chaffees but never fired, even when a clear shot presented itself. With its turret near the 3 o'clock position, the Maus's engine deck was exposed, Noriko spiked a lit cocktail onto the deck. Burning liquid and black smoke engulfed the engine, choking it. The burning super heavy became motionless.
Kora passed the Type 89. She ordered her driver to stop next to the Maus. She jumped onto the Maus, lit a molotov using the engine fire, and threw the bottle down the driver's hatch. Shrieks pierced through the thick armor hull. A heavy clang came from beneath the tank, and the flaming form of the driver crawled out and flailed. The assistant driver tore off her skirt and let it burn on the ground, then took off her jacket to attempt to smother the fire of the driver. Kora jumped off the Maus and kicked the assistant driver in the face. Before Kora could attack again, Mauko and the rest of her crew had evacuated their tank, dropped themselves from the super heavy's barrel, and restrained Kora. Kora's crew got out of their Chaffee and pulled the Kuromorimine girls off of their commander. Fists, kicks, punches, and blows were exchanged, and blood was drawn. More girls from Saunders jumped out of their vehicles and joined the brawl, outnumbering the Kuromorimine girls three to one.
Duck Team rolled up on the brawl, and Noriko caught a quick glimpse of Mauko's face.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Noriko roared. "Those are Kuromorimine girls you're fighting!"
Most of the Saunders girls disengaged, but Kora and the girls from Jennifer's tank had to be pulled apart by a squad of men in Self-Defense Force BDUs.
Maho, followed by her four Panthers, Ooarai's Type 3 Chi-Nu, and Porsche Tiger rolled up from behind the Maus while Ruby and two Hellcats approached from the front.
"Mauko?" Maho said, wide-eyed. "It's you!"
"Yes, it's me!" Mauko spat. "Why are you shooting at us?! Why wasn't anyone answering the radio?! Or their phones?! Why was there a rocket that blew up Kagami?!"
"Kagami…?" Maho choked. She swallowed the jagged rock in her throat. "It's because of the Black Knights."
"And they are?"
Maho began explaining the long list of events as concisely as she could.
Meanwhile, Sangou was on the radio with Kay and Maya.
"The Maus is out of action. Akane is heavily injured. She will be taken into the SDF's custody for treatment," the bespectacled commander reported.
"SDF custody?" Maya asked.
She and Kay shot panicked glances at each other.
"Sangou!" Maya shouted.
"Those aren't SDF soldiers!" Kay said.
"They aren't here yet!" Maya added.
Sangou ducked back inside the turret and pushed up her glasses
"Machine gun those soldiers!" Sangou ordered her gunner and radio operator. "Short bursts, watch your fire!"
On the other side of the Maus, Ruby jumped out of her turret and racked the M2 on her Hellcat. Laser green tracers ripped through the air and were answered by the glowing red golf balls of the .50 caliber. All the girls hit the street, and the Maus assistant driver used her body to cover the Maus driver, who screamed in pain. The squad that made up the SDF littered the ground.
"Sangou!" Maho shouted.
"They weren't Defense Forces! They were Black-!"
Gunshots and bullets striking her Panther interrupted Sangou and she slammed the commander's hatch behind her. Automatic fire rained down on the tankers. Asphalt and concrete erupted with broken chunks. Screams challenged the gunshots for supremacy as girls were struck, blood splattering and flowing from ripped flesh and bone.
Ruby, on her Hellcat on the sidewalk on the right side of the street, turned her M2 onto the second story of the multistory building across the street. Sangou's Panther fired two high-explosive rounds into the building, which were quickly followed up by the Porsche Tiger's 88mm. Part of the wall crumbled onto the street. Ruby did not stop until the box ran dry.
Finally, Maho's orders could be heard.
"-the injured into the building! Grab the guns to defend yourself!"
The wounded were dragged and carried into the fashion store on the ground floor, leaving the bodies of the Kora and eight other Saunders tankers of Item Squad and two of the Maus's crew on the street.
A/N: One year, eight drafts, one chapter ... this was a difficult chapter to write. As always, please leave a comment or review. Take care everyone. Stay healthy, stay safe, and I'll see you in the next chapter.