Getting to the border was just a matter of time. There wasn't much of anything in their way, and anything they did encounter was on their side. Maho had explained to them all that once they got to the border they would have to find a way across without any allies knowing. That would be the hard part, but Maho had a plan. The Panzer IV moved ahead to the front of the platoon, so that when they reached the border Maho would be the first to talk.

She'd been given access to all of Kuromorimine's tank placements, and was now about to abuse that knowledge. As the five Ooarai tanks rolled up to the border, the lone Tiger tank's top hatch opened up. Erika stood up, looking over Ooarai's tanks with disdain. Her face barely changed when Maho appeared in the Panzer IV's top hatch.

"What's going on?"

Maho nodded to her former subordinate. "You haven't headed out yet. Probably best you waited until we arrived."

Erika narrowed her eyes at Maho. "We just got here. What are you talking about?"

Putting on a pretty convincing no-nonsense look, Maho gave the lie the colonel had permitted her to use. "You must have missed it then. No worries, I'll pass your new orders along. You are to reposition ten clicks North in response to elevated activity. Ooarai will be filling in the gap down here, just in case." As if to prove her point, Leopon Team and Hippo Team started spreading out further South, and Turtle Team looked like it was getting quite cozy behind some thick shrubbery.

Erika didn't look impressed. It wasn't that she didn't trust Maho. It was that she didn't trust Ooarai's tanks. "Fine." She ducked back into her Tiger. "Move us ten clicks North. Security needs to be thicker there, apparently."

Once the Tiger was turned around and headed back along the road, Maho dropped back into her seat. "She looks almost as upset as that time Miho fell asleep and drooled on her uniform."

Mako looked over her shoulder. "We gonna skip the border, boss?" The silly voice she said it in didn't help.

Maho sighed. She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair. "We wait a bit longer. Don't want her looking back and seeing us abandoning the position."

"We've been on the move for several hours already." Yukari leaned back against the hull. "I don't think I've ever been in a tank so long without actually doing anything."

Saori, who had been given the map when Maho determined it was better off in her hands, traced her finger along the road Erika would be taking to her false position. "We've got about forty-five minutes before she gets back. Less if she calls in to confirm those orders. More if she gets there and doesn't figure it out for a while. It's not even eleven yet, so it's too early for lunch…"

Hana laughed. "Saori?"

"Huh?"

"We haven't had breakfast yet."

"Ah! You're right! That's why I'm so hungry!" Saori stood up and pushed her hatch open. "I'll break open the supplies."

Maho shook her head. "Erika should be out of range now. We'll wait for noon to eat. It's time to move."

Disappointed, Saori sat back down. She fiddled with the radio a bit and called the rest of the platoon. "Lieutenant Nishizumi says we're not stopping for lunch break. Move ahead."

"We should leave the Hetzer at the border, just in case." Maho pointed to Hana. "We're headed into enemy territory now. Be ready for anything." She turned to Yukari. "Ready the first shell, but don't load it just yet."

Four Ooarai tanks moved to the border into Turkey, leaving Turtle Team's Hetzer sitting in the bushes.

Maho was surprised to find there didn't seem to be any Turkish forces on the other side of the border. At least not yet. Regardless, she stuck to the plan. Better to leave the road now than to wait for hostile forces to appear. They stopped momentarily, with Maho running out ahead to open up the gate. It seemed strange that there was no one there to guard it at all.

When Maho returned to the tank, Saori voiced similar concerns. "I've been flipping through all channels. There's no chatter at all. I'll keep searching, but this can't be normal."

Maho took a deep breath. This was a highly unsettling situation. "We just have to hope it's a gift from the Turkish government and not a trap. They claim they don't want to start a conflict over this. Let's hope that's true."

Off road driving wasn't as easy as they'd hoped, but Mako and Tsuchiya managed quite well. The others had to rely on the path being crushed down for them, making it easier to traverse. Maho still didn't like how open most of the landscape was here. They had nowhere to hide except behind hills. Hills that another tank could easily scale. She longed for trees right now.

It was around half-past noon when they stopped for lunch. The sixteen girls climbed out of their tanks and unfolded the tarps they had packed with them, covering their tanks. It wasn't perfect, and anyone looking for tanks would find them, but someone who wasn't looking could easily overlook what appeared as a few strange rocks.

They couldn't risk starting a fire, but that wasn't a problem. They didn't need the warmth, as it was Summer, and they had special gear just for cooking. Saori got out a packet of food, tearing it open and pouring the powder into a pot while Yukari boiled some water on the heat pad. They poured the boiled water into the pot, and Saori stirred the mixture until it was thick enough.

"Mashed potatoes! I'd prefer to mash them myself, but at least they were actually potatoes at some point." She divided it into four equal shares that she put in their tins. "It says four servings, so someone's going to have to share with Mallard Team."

Mako took the empty tin, stood up, and hobbled over to the other team, who had prepared their own meal. Saori shrugged, passing a tin over to Yukari. She passed the next one over to Hana, and the last one to Maho.

Their commander accepted her lunch and leaned back against the Panzer IV's side paneling. She let out a sigh. "We're in hostile territory. If we get caught, not only will we be shot, it will cause all out war."

"Geez." Yukari stopped shoveling food into her mouth for a second. "Way to put more pressure on us."

Maho sat up again. "You should feel like there's pressure on us. It's our lives on the line here, but more than that, there's a lot of other lives at stake. All out war would cost even more lives."

Hana looked thoughtful. "So, if they were drafting girls from Tankery teams because the war was making them desperate, then why are we here? I mean, I get that we're here so they can move the forces that would normally be here to a place where they're more needed, but where is that? We're in the Middle East. There's never been a bigger hotbed for conflict. If we're here, where are all the troops we're replacing?"

"I mean, we're in the Caucuses." Yukari started cleaning her tin. She smiled up at Hana. "There's a lot South of here and East of here that could be where the main fight is going on."

Saori set her dishes in front of Yukari. "First person done cleans."

"Wha-"

Maho added hers as well. "Agreed."

"Bu-"

Mako appeared and, staring Yukari right in the eye, dropped her tin on the pile. "Three to two, motion carried."

Saori unfolded the map and looked it over. "I'm surprised you didn't notice, Maho. The active war zones are indicated on the map."

"Oh, I noticed. I just didn't think it was relevant to our mission." She hadn't actually noticed, but they didn't need to know that. "And you'll refer to me as Lieutenant or Ma'am. Right, Private?"

"Still being a prick? Alright."

Maho turned on Mako. "Excuse me? What did you just say, Private Slug?"

Mako straightened up, but only a little. "Sorry, Lieutenant. I said, you're still being a prick, Ma'am."

Saori interrupted, sensing that this wasn't going to go well. "Mako, stop it. While that would certainly work for Sergeant Dodger, I think Maho… er, Lieutenant Nishizumi, takes issue with being called… that."

"So anyway." Hana handed Yukari her dishes as well. "Saori, where is the active war zone?"

Saori sighed as she looked over the map again. "At the time this was published, pretty much all of Northern Africa, most of the Middle East, all the way over to Western China, South-East Asia… oh, it does go down through most of Africa. And pretty much all of Eastern Europe."

"I don't get it." Maho leaned in closer. "That sounds like just all the places that are pretty much always warring. It sounded more like it was one big war. Unless you're going to tell me that the Somalis are in league with North Korea."

"Uh, no. Western China. The place bordering Pakistan and all that." Saori turned the map around, pointing her finger at the spot so everyone could see. "North Korea is staying neutral to all this for now, thank God. That's the last thing we need."

Yukari looked up. "So who are our allies, then?"

"Less talking, more cleaning." Mako snapped her fingers, pointing Yukari back to her work.

Saori looked over the map again. "Allies, huh? Um… Armenia. China, India, Russia are all fighting the same foe, but I don't think we're supposed to rely on them. Israel, that's usually a good choice. The map doesn't actually say, and I haven't gotten enough time to look over everything yet. I don't know too much about the war at large because we're not fighting in the war at large. We're in hostile Turkey, taking out stuff Turkey wants taken out."

"Speaking of which, we still can't afford to get caught. Reizei, come with me. We're checking out the road." She got up and led Mako towards the road. It was over several hills, but when she reached the top of the last one, she laid down and pulled out a small telescope. "This is good. I can see for miles in both directions."

"So why am I here?"

She turned to Mako, who was just standing there next to her. She reached up and pulled her down. "Get down. Someone will see you."

"Standing gives you a better view. A view with which I could see that there isn't anyone but us out here."

"Shut up. You don't know where they might be hiding." Looking through the telescope in both directions, she confirmed her suspicions. "There is someone watching us. About a mile down the road, back towards the border, they're hiding on top of the hill."

Mako took the telescope when it was handed to her. "Oh, just like us, huh?" She looked around the area Maho had indicated. "I don't see… wait." There, on top of the hill, she thought for a second she saw the sun reflecting off something. "Shit. I think it's a sniper."

The moment that word left Mako's mouth, Maho grabbed her by the collar and dragged her down from the hill. "Back to the tank. Everyone in. We're leaving immediately. If we're being tailed by a sniper, we need armor and distance between us as soon as possible."

On the hilltop they had been observing, the sniper jotted down notes in her book. Her superior would want a full report. Not only a report on the Ooarai armored platoon, but on the enemy they would be facing. Lieutenant Tachibana closed the book and climbed down the hill. Colonel Victoria suspected there was more to this rogue artillery unit than it seemed, but she needed Tachibana to confirm it. This was her specialty, after all. The Ooarai girls would never need to know it was her.