Azumanga und Panzer!
Chapter 08
by Technomad
"Well," said Miho, when all the girls had gathered in the room set aside for the Tankery team at Oorai High School, "our last match for this year is coming up. We're up against Saunders High School."
At this news, a soft sigh came from the experienced girls, those who had faced Saunders last time. The girls of Cat and Anteater, who hadn't been with the team at that time, were puzzled.
"Uh, ma'am?" Osaka put her hand up diffidently. "Not all of us'ns were with you-all at that game. Can you fill us in on what we can expect?"
Miho smiled. She was glad to go over this again, not just for the girls of Leopon, Cat and Anteater, but for the benefit of her team in general. One thing she had absorbed early from her mother was that there was no such thing as too much preparation for a Tankery match.
"Saunders High started as a school for the children of American expats, and still has a good few of them, but these days, they have girls from all sorts of places. The American influence is predominant, though, and that includes their Tankery team. They have Shermans…lots and lots of Shermans. They're a rich school, and willing to spend money to ensure that their girls get good tanks."
At this, all the girls sighed in envy. Even with the glory of their last year's dark-horse victory in the Tankery championships, Oorai didn't have much money to spare for their team. The addition of Kitty Cat to their lineup had been extremely welcome, not least because the funds to purchase the SU-100 had originated in Azu, not Oorai. They could never have afforded it otherwise.
"Is their team still run by the same person as it was last year?" asked Yukari.
"Yes, Kay is still their team captain. She's a believer in fair play, unlike some others I could name." Everybody knew who Miho was talking about, but out of politeness, nobody mentioned Kuromorimine. "We can get her to limit the number of tanks she brings to the field to the same number we have. She believes that Tankery is a sport, not a war, and that skill should decide the winner."
"That doesn't mean that she won't do all within her power to win. It does mean that she hates underhanded tactics, even if they aren't strictly against the rules."
"You say they use Shermans. From what I read in Tankery Through the Ages, there were quite a few varieties of Sherman fielded. Do they use more than one kind of Sherman?" asked Sakaki. As usual, she acted as spokeswoman for the Azu contingent.
Miho smiled. "Yes, they do. They've got at least one Sherman 'Firefly,' which mounts a 76-mm gun instead of the more usual 75-mm gun. That gives it extra punch."
That got Osaka's attention. "How much extra punch has they got? Can Ah still outrange'em with mah 100-mm gun?"
"Yes, Osaka, you should still outrange them handily. Unless the venue they choose for the match is heavily wooded, you'll be able to snipe them to your heart's content." Osaka smiled, and so did the other girls. The other girls' smiles weren't very nice. They had all been very impressed with Osaka's marksmanship, and, combined with the long-range gun the SU-100 mounted, her ability to reach out and touch opponents at ranges they couldn't fire back effectively from. By then, the rest of Oorai's Tankery team saw Kitty Cat, and Osaka, as their ace-in-the-hole. Except for Kuromorimine's Maus, Kitty Cat had what was probably the longest-ranged gun in use in high-school-level Tankery in all Japan.
And they wouldn't be facing Kuromorimine. Saunders had managed to just barely eke out a victory against Miho's old school. It had been the talk of the Tankery world, and there was already a lot of controversy over whether the "Nishizumi style" was as good as it had been cracked-up to be. Articles were flying back and forth in the press, and experts were opining on talk-shows. Miho had been asked for her opinion, but had refused to comment, saying that she had not been in command on that field, and that she was sure that both Kay and her sister had fought as hard as they could. Privately, she had told her team that it'd been a very, very close-run thing, and that victory could have easily gone to Kuromorimine, but for a couple of runs of bad luck.
Captain Chono was eager for the match. "You girls beat Saunders once before, and you can do it again! Kay plays hard, but plays fair. That said, she won't be happy about anything she sees as 'underhanded play.' Just keep it clean, do what Nishizumi-san tells you to do, and you should be able to beat those girls!"
Chiyo-chan hadn't been able to repeat her triumph of infiltration against Saunders; the Saunders school ship was off-limits to non-residents. "I'm sorry, Miho, Sakaki," she said, her downcast eyes filling with tears. "I really did try!"
Sakaki reached out and patted her little friend on the shoulder. "Don't feel bad, Chiyo," she said. "You did really well last time, and you can't expect perfection every time you do something."
"I can't?"
"No, dear. None of us think the less of you for not being able to get in. Maybe Saunders heard about what you did. Or there might be another reason that we don't know about. Put it out of your mind."
Chiyo-chan bounced up and down, beaming and hugging Sakaki around the chest before running off at top speed. Sakaki stared after her. I once had all that energy…where did it go? There were times that, even at age sixteen, Sakaki felt rather old.
The day of the match dawned, clear and sunny. Miho looked over the map of the area they would be competing in. "The match field is divided by these hills," she said, pointing to the map, "and the only route through is at this pass. If I know Kay, and I think I do, she'll be driving through that pass with everything she's got. We need to get into position, and arrange a warm Oorai welcome for her and her girls!"
Sakaki nodded. She looked carefully at the map, and at the satellite and aerial photos of the field, and made up her mind about where she could go. The others were doing likewise, with much consultation about who should go where. As one of the hardest-hitting units on the Oorai team, Kitty Cat got handed a prime spot, on top of a knoll overlooking the mouth of the pass, with trees as cover. Sakaki figured that with Osaka's marksmanship, Kitty Cat could keep the other side from getting through almost all by itself.
"One last thing, girls," said Miho. "Remember, last year Saunders used a balloon to intercept radio communications. I don't know if they will do it again, but just in case, for real communication use your cells and text. Ignore what you hear on the radio." Sakaki's eyes went wide. Oh, if only I had thought to do that before! She had to admit, while she might have been smarter overall than Miho, that Miho knew Tankery very well indeed.
Once they were allowed onto the field, Sakaki set a course directly for the knoll they had been given as their station. Yomi poured on the power, and Kitty Cat leaped forward, its treads clanking as they ate up the kilometers to their assigned post.
Once they were in position, Sakaki got out her cell. She texted: Kitty Cat in position and ready. Kagura pouted, and Sakaki gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry, Kagura, but they may be listening in on our radio. You'll have your part to play later." Kagura cheered up, and Sakaki looked out through her periscope. "No sign of them, yet."
Kay was wondering where the other side was. She and her girls had been driving toward the pass all-out, making sure to keep a good formation; close enough to support each other if they got into trouble, but not so close as to bunch up and make easy targets for enemy gunners. As they approached the pass, she was getting more and more uneasy. She knew Miho Nishizumi; she had followed Oorai's surprising string of victories, and she knew that Miho had a talent for pulling unexpected surprises.
Her Sherman Firefly was near the middle of the Saunders formation. That way, it would be less easy to spot. She had given the Firefly's crew a specific task. "If at all possible, you're to take out that damned SU-100!" she had said sternly. "That thing's a menace! They've got some sort of genius gunner on it, and she can knock out just about anything we've got with one hit! If we don't take out that machine, we're in trouble!"
Tanaka, the Firefly's commander, nodded. "Yes, ma'am!" They exchanged salutes, and both mounted their machines.
While Kay did not believe in underhanded play, and considered interception of the other side's communication to be underhanded, she was not above a certain level of deception. She knew that the other side would be looking for the Firefly, so she had equipped half of her tanks with long shrouds to go over their main guns' barrels, to make them look, at least at a distance, enough like the Firefly to confuse the Oorai gunners.
She had expected resistance to this on the parts of the crews she had assigned to decoy duty, but much to her surprise, the others had raised complaints. "What's the matter?"
"We want to do it, too! It's not fair that they get extra danger! Why not us? Aren't we good enough?" Kay had never expected that, and she was very touched. Gently, she explained that they couldn't all be decoys without Oorai catching on faster than they would otherwise.
"I don't expect this trick to work forever. However, I do want to catch them off guard long enough for Tanaka to take out that SU-100. Without that sharpshooting gunner on their side, we've got a lot better chance." Everybody nodded ruefully. They had seen videos and TV specials about the Oorai team, and they all had learned a very healthy respect for Kitty Cat.
Kay was worried. She figured she knew Miho Nishizumi by now, and she knew that the Oorai team captain was nobody to underestimate. She had expected to be jumped while passing through the pass, and couldn't figure out why she hadn't been.
Once through, she peered around suspiciously through binoculars. Like the terrain on the other side, it was rolling hills, with patches of bush and trees. She couldn't see a sign of the Oorai panzers, but she knew all too well that that meant nothing. "Oh-kay…forward!" she snapped into her radio. Her tanks moved forward, spreading out to cover more ground.
Up in Kitty Cat, Sakaki rubbed her eyes before staring through the periscope again. It looked like almost half of the Saunders forces were Fireflies, instead of them just fielding the one. She pulled out her cell and texted: Kitty Cat to Anglerfish. Appears Saunders has more than one Firefly. Orders?
The answer came in a few minutes: Take out as many as you can. Leopon and Hippo will assist. Sakaki nodded, and tapped Osaka on the shoulder. The gunner seemed to snap out of a daydream. "Uh, yes, ma'am?"
"You can see the Saunders tanks. Take as many of them as you can. Concentrate on the ones with the longer gun barrels on their turrets. Those are the dangerous ones." Osaka nodded, leaning forward to look through her gunsight. Her hands danced over the controls, making minute adjustments to the gun's aim.
"Yomi, dear, could you bring us just a tad to the left?" Yomi nodded and began pivoting the tank destroyer, letting the right tread do the work. "Ah…that's just perfect, darlin'! Tomo! Load! Armor-piercing!" Tomo slapped the shell into the breech and shut the breech in one smooth, practiced motion. Osaka triggered the gun. "Hit! Ah hit it!" Everybody gave a subdued cheer. "Now, Yomi, bring us a bit more to the left!" Off to their sides, Sakaki could hear Hippo and Leopon as they added their bit to the ambush. She saw, through her periscope, that the attack had thrown Saunders into some disarray.
Kay was annoyed. She had expected something, but not this! She couldn't see any hiding places near enough to their column that would hide tanks, but one of her Shermans had been hit very squarely and two other shells had come closer to her tanks than she cared for. One had landed close enough to her own machine to throw dirt and debris over it, which did not improve her mood.
She looked around for where the shelling had to be coming from. Her eyes narrowed as she saw a knoll with a good view of the exit side of the pass they had gone through, with a copse of trees on the top of it. As she watched it, she saw a thin plume of smoke, for all the world like the smoke from a just-fired tank gun, rising from it.
"Tanaka!" she barked into her radio. "You see that hill off to our right?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Get on over there and investigate it! It might be where they've got that damn tank destroyer! The rest of you, scatter!" As Kay spoke, another of her tanks was hit, and slewed off to one side, spewing smoke as the white flag signifying surrender went up. Kay gritted her teeth. If the SU-100 was there, the Firefly…the real Firefly, that is…had the best chance of all her tanks to take it out!
Sakaki nodded to herself as she saw the Saunders formation scatter like quail. She had thought that would happen, and so had Miho. As individual tanks, without the support of companions, the Shermans would be easier to take down. The Sherman was a good design, but not up to one-on-one combat with Oorai's better units, like Anglerfish, or Leopon, or Kitty Cat, for that matter.
Of course, if they had fewer units, life would be easier. "Osaka! Keep firing as long as they're in range!" Osaka nodded, traversing and lowering the main gun. Tomo stood ready to load a shell the second Osaka told her to. Sakaki knew she could trust Osaka implicitly. A target-rich environment such as this was just her cup of tea.
Just then, Kitty Cat rocked as a shell exploded against the casemate. To her shock, Sakaki heard the sound of their white flag popping out of the top of the casemate. That meant that they couldn't fire their guns or move any more, until the match was over.
"What the hell?" She looked out of the view port on the right, and gasped. A Sherman, with the long-barrelled gun that proclaimed it to be a "Firefly," had rolled up on them unexpectedly and taken a shot. "Damn it!" She whipped out her phone, texting: Kitty Cat to all Oorai units. We were just taken down by a Firefly. Watch out!
Aboard Anglerfish, Miho's eyes went wide. She had come to count on Kitty Cat as an ace-in-the-hole, and knowing it had been taken out was disheartening. She had noticed that the "Fireflies" that had been taken out were decoys. She texted back: Anglerfish to Cat. Are you sure this was a Firefly? When she got the answer, Dead certain, she began to think quickly.
"Kay's trying to bamboozle us," she decided. "Very well. We now have the real Firefly pinpointed. The others are mocked up to look like it. Sneaky!" She texted: All units, converge on square E-11. The Firefly is there. Following her own orders, she told Mako: "Fire us up and get us over to E-11!" Anglerfish lurched into motion.
Leopon and Hippo were both not far away from where Kitty Cat had been. Thinking that the danger was gone once Kitty Cat was neutralized, the Firefly came rumbling out of cover, heading toward the main Saunders formation, which had spread out in a search pattern, looking for more Oorai tanks. Erwin's eyes opened wide. Quickly, she texted: Nakajima, this is Erwin. Can you get a good shot at them? The Firefly was just out of effective range of the STG III's main gun, but Erwin thought that the longer-ranged 88-mm gun on Leopon could do the job.
Aboard Leopon, Nakajima snapped: "Hoshino! Take that Sherman out!" Hoshino nodded, aiming her gun; it had been loaded since just after the last time she'd fired. Hoshino made minute adjustments to her aim, then triggered the big gun. The 88 roared, and the Firefly, hit square amidships, sputtered to a stop, the white flag of surrender going up over it. Nakajima texted: Firefly down.
After that, it was a straight-up slugfest. While Duck Team was taken out quickly, what with them having the least sturdy machine on the Oorai team, and Rabbit had a lot of trouble after being ambushed by two Shermans, the outcome was all but a foregone conclusion. When Hippo and Anglerfish took out the Saunders flag tank, the announcement of Oorai's victory rang across the field.
Afterwards, Kay was introduced to the Oorai team members she hadn't met. When she was introduced to Osaka, she grinned and said "I've heard about your shooting! Any time you want to switch schools, you come talk to me, and I'll get you into Saunders!" Osaka stared at her wide-eyed, and Kay nudged her in the ribs. "And your friends from Azu would also be very welcome!" Osaka smiled.
A few days later, Miho got a letter. When she had finished reading it, she had to sit down. The letter said: "Oorai High School's Tankery team has been selected to represent Japan in the upcoming Olympic match. Please notify your teammates of this selection."
END