Chapter 11
In Which the Battle and the Story are Ended
"Enemy ahead!" called Ayako.
Hayley turned to her, face pale. "Now what, skipper, do we pull back?"
Ayako stared at the Jagdtiger with resolve. "No retreat. We're where we need to be and it's time to settle this. Gunner, get their attention!"
"D'accord! At last you ask me to shoot!"
Justine fired and the six pounder shell struck sparks off the Jagdtiger's armour.
"Driver, head into the cornfield!"
They dodged to the right as a shot from the Jagdtiger sliced by and hit a large oak which, shorn through at the base, toppled over dramatically. Then they were in the midst of the cornstalks, ploughing a path through them.
The Jagdtiger followed them. Looking to the rear, Ayako could see the heads of the corn being scythed down in front of it.
"Driver, we need to stay just ahead of them and lure them on. Zig zag and use the corn for cover!"
Now they would have to be careful and turn at just the right moment.
Justine rotated the turret and sent a shot back at their pursuer. Despite the turmoil of collapsing crops blocking her line of sight, they heard the flat clang of a hit. The Jagdtiger became briefly visible again as it crossed their trail, then they swung left and it was hidden again.
A swath of corn was suddenly blown flat as the Jagdtiger fired, but the round went wide.
They jolted back to the right and suddenly the Jagdtiger smashed through a line of stalks and was right on their tail. Ayako turned to face forwards. She could just see over the corn tassels ahead. Just a few rows left.
"Get ready!"
They burst out into the open. There was an interval of mud and weeds that terminated in an insubstantial wire fence overlooking the cut.
"Now, driver! Turn, turn, turn!"
Liza yanked the steering levers. They drifted sideways, tracks clawing up the soggy ground. The side of the Ram brushed the fence, snapping two of the posts. The treads bit, and they curved away from the abyss. Liza slammed on the brakes and spun them back around to halt facing the cut. Ayako cried out in frustration. The Jagdtiger had somehow stopped in time.
"It didn't work! They didn't go over the edge!"
"Jeez, that stuff only works in the movies," Hayley complained.
The Jagdtiger's tracks ground into life and it turned towards them. The tip of the128 mm gun lowered.
"Driver, reverse!" yelled Ayako. Liza put her foot down and they rattled backwards just as the Jagdtiger fired. The explosion was right in front of them, a tidal wave of flame and brown dirt.
"Blech!" Liza had received a face full of mud through her open viewing port.
Ayako was watching the Jagdtiger's tracks. "Driver, I want you to move perpendicular to them and make it hard for them to aim at us."
"Yes, b'y!"
Liza engaged the gears with a clash and accelerated forwards. The Jagdtiger remained in place, dragging itself around to aim at them. The drive train squealed and groaned as it fought to keep them in its sights. Suddenly, there was a scream of shearing metal and the overburdened right track on the Jagdtiger snapped. It lurched to a halt, the loose segments flopping uselessly over the suspension.
The Ram eased to a standstill, safely out of the line of fire.
"We've immobilized them, eh?" said Hayley. "They can't get out to fix the track with us here."
Ayako's adrenaline was surging. Stalemate, she thought. They can't kill us and we can't kill them.
Unless…
Time for us to be Killdozer.
"Driver! Push them into the cut!"
"What, b'y?"
"Use our tank to shove them in!"
"The transmission'll blow, b'y!"
Ayako looked around at her crew. "Does anyone have a better plan?" No one spoke until Hayley smiled and said "Your idea works for me, skipper."
"Let's do it, boss!" said Justine.
"OK," said Liza. "Here goes." She drove them up to the side of the Jagdtiger. In low gear, the Ram butted against it with a crunch of metal on metal. The Jagdtiger did not budge.
"Give it all you've got, driver!"
The pitch of the Ram's engine rose as Liza put her foot down. The ground beneath the two tanks was churned up into a mess of muddy turf. Ever so slowly, the Jagdtiger began to slide sideways. The Ram's tracks alternately slipped and gripped as it labored to move the behemoth. Inch by inch they pushed forwards. The Continental R-975 roared. The air around them became thick with blue-grey exhaust smoke. An acrid burning smell began to pervade the air.
"She can't take much more, b'y!"
"Keep going!"
If they burned out their transmission, they were done. Ayako repeated the mantra over and over: keep going, keep going, keep going-
She heard a twanging sound as the fence wire snapped. The nose of the Jagdtiger rose up in the air as it slipped diagonally over the precipice and skidded backwards down the rough side of the cut. There was a sickening crunch as the back of the tank destroyer impacted on the train rails and it came to rest with its gun pointing impotently into the sky.
Ayako released her white-knuckle grip on the hatch combing. The Ram's engine slowed to an idle and the smoke cloud gradually dissipated.
A few moments later, the white flag finally deployed.
Ayako keyed the microphone for the last time. "We did it. Good job, everybody."
It had been a long day. They sprawled or sat on the ground next to the Ram, looking more like casualties than the victors of a battle. Both the tank and their once immaculate uniforms were now splattered liberally with mud.
"I told you she's a good tank," said Hayley, patting one of the Ram's wheels fondly.
"The best," smiled Ayako. She was bone-weary. All she wanted to do now was put her head down and sleep.
The contingent from Kuromorimine walked over, Maho leading them. They bowed as Ayako, Hayley, Justine and Liza came to their feet as quickly as they could.
"Congratulations," said Maho. "You fought skillfully and won against the odds."
"Thank you, Nishizumi-san," said Ayako, a song in her heart. "It is because of your inspiration that my friends and I were able to achieve victory." She bowed low.
Maho seemed amused. "Thank you, although I wonder if perhaps your victory was inspired more by my sister than myself."
Ayako was dumbfounded and could only gape as they walked away.
Liza clambered back into the driver's compartment and called to them after a moment. "I's lookin' at the transmission, b'ys. She's not good. I don't think it'll get us home."
"Dang it, I don't want to spend the night in a field!" Hayley wailed.
Erika, trailing along at the back of Kuromorimine's group, stopped and turned. She looked at them for a long moment.
"Come with me," she sighed. "You can ride in the Kübelwagen. We'll take care of your tank later."
She dropped them off at the port and they thanked her profusely. She brushed this off. "Just try not to humiliate your old school any more, OK?"
They slept all the way back to the academy ship and had to be carried aboard.
A week later, Ayako, Justine and Liza were sitting in the hangar watching Hayley zip around on her rollerblades. After the battle, they had received congratulatory messages from Saunders, Continuance and Pravda, which Ayako had printed and mounted on the hangar wall. The Ram was back where it belonged, retrieved courtesy of Kuromorimine, but the transmission was still in dire straits.
Maybe this is it, thought Ayako. In a few more months I'll be graduating. We won against Kuromorimine, so anything else would be downhill from here, right? I've made new friends, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. It's a pity that this is probably the end of True North's sensha-dō club, though…
A knock on the hangar door made everyone's head turn.
Outside were three first year students. One of them stepped forwards, looking nervously at them through large glasses.
"Hi, I'm Laura and this is Kim and Roberta. We watched your battle with Kuromorimine last week, and uh, we wondered if we could maybe join your club, eh?"
Ayako looked at the others. One by one, they nodded. "Welcome aboard," she said, smiling. "Liza, do you think your family will let us use their boat again?"
Maybe she wouldn't stop riding tanks quite yet.
The End
Author's Notes:
I ended the story on a hopeful note, with some new members to at least carry on the club, but it will take a lot of money and new members to make them a viable force in sensha-dō.
Many, many thanks for the reviews. This story still has flaws, but I feel that it has improved significantly from the draft I started with thanks to your feedback. Theralion, if I get around to a rewrite I'll address the issues you brought up, especially the pacing and developing the opposing teams. I think that tying the POV exclusively to Ayako didn't do me any favours regarding the latter. For now, I'll do a final cleanup before I mark this fic completed.