The town of St Gloriana held itself to the same principles of elegance and decorum as the school and that meant that they chose to ignore the sound of vehicles rumbling and girls shouting in the night. They had been forewarned of the storm that was coming to the school and that was why it had been quiet when Continuation High's raiding party had arrived. The polite suggestion had been that they stay indoors tonight and in true British style, the suggestion was in fact a direct order. So they stayed indoors and pretended they didn't feel the tremors of a twenty ton tank pursuing a three ton troop transport.
Mikko had had no intention of being politely escorted off the ship following some chastising lecture from Darjeeling but beyond commandeering the Universal Carrier, she didn't actually have an escape plan. They could not climb back down to the Jehu, not without St Gloriana simply pulling them back up like hooked fish. But leading a chase of six other UCs and a Crusader tank was better than simply being doused in flour and meekly surrendering. Much better driving wildly and being shot at with yet more paint.
Behind her Rosehip was having the time of her life. Never could she have hoped to tear around the ship in normal circumstances, instead being forced to trundle at a dignified and monotonous pace whenever they paraded or were leaving or returning to the ship. But now she was released. Sure, she was strictly forbidden from using her armaments but the thrill of the chase more than made up for it. Her favourite part of the previous tournament had been watching Oarai chasing Saunders flag tank while themselves pursued and wishing she could have been a part of it. So often she was tied to the lumbering infantry tanks and their steady measured advances, waiting impatiently for when she could finally use her speed. Now she could.
Assam was giving the Crusader a wide berth. At the best of times Rosehip seemed like an overly excited dog and now the hound had a rabbit to chase and only a fool would get between the two. Where the Keizoku girls thought they were going, she didn't know. Perhaps they just planned to drive until they ran out of fuel and she was honour bound to pursue them until they did.
Mikko took a hard left, drifting around the corner in a single smooth motion and Rosehip followed with equal precision, the Crusader staying perfectly in control. She then took a hard right and the two Keizoku girls held on tight, wondering if they had made a mistake running with Mikko. As if in answer, the Crusader drifted around the corner to the completely undisguised glee of Rosehip who was perched in her cupola with her pink hair blowing wild in the wind.
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Freydis had begun to tire, meaning she was only struggling with four St Gloriana students now rather than eight. Darjeeling had tried to speak with her but had given up after three minutes of Nordic themed threats and insults. Freydis could wait. In the meantime, everyone else was being hosed off and given a warm blanket and cup of tea to recover. Keizoku, St Gloriana and Viking girls mingled freely, relating their experience of the evening to each other and speculating where the Pravda girls had gone, the Viking girls showing off their battle axes and admiring the suits of armour that decorated St Gloriana.
Two girls were missing and while Darjeeling wanted to believe that Orange Pekoe had taken her sister to her room to clean off, she could not get herself there. There had been too many surprises this night. Assam had warned that there had been stirrings at Pravda but certainly not that they would be coming here in force, and she had known nothing about Viking. But then, she hadn't given any thought to Viking. No one had. Once again they had ignored a minor school and now they had egg on their faces. Well, paint and flour but close enough.
"I think Freydis is starting to relax." Rukuriri appeared and planted a cup and saucer into Darjeeling's hands which immediately put her at ease.
"When people have but little property, they take good care of it."
"Captain?"
"Keizoku has always gone to Pravda because they can take the losses. So could we. But Viking? Perhaps they would have thought their spares had just gone missing if it hadn't been for the mishap with the dog." Darjeeling sipped the tea. "Perhaps we should get a dog."
"Captain?" Rukuriri was starting to be concerned.
"Gather some of our clean team. Discreetly." She took another sip. "All is not well."
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There were many things in life that amused Mika and the illusion of choice was one of them. So often people thought they were making a decision freely without realising it had been made for them. She had thought that attending Keizoku was a choice but once she was there she had understood it was the only place she could ever be. She was always going to be a Continuation High girl.
Everyone had thought they were acting on their own volition. That they were responding to intelligence they had gathered themselves. It was the simplest thing to plant a whisper here and for it to be passed along the chain until no one could have traced the source if they tried and suddenly Pravda and Viking had both known when to make their way to St Gloriana, just as St Gloriana had known to prepare a reception.
She hadn't known exactly what would happen when all the parties were gathered but that hadn't mattered. She had known though that there would be some measure of chaos in which she could slip away and conduct the real operation. She had intended for Aki and Mikko to be here with her but it seemed fate had decided otherwise. She was alone as she crept across the parade ground, ignoring the main hanger where St Gloriana kept their primary tanks, the vehicles they almost always took into their matches and instead headed for one of the secondary depots. These tanks were used for training or special occasions and therefore weren't precious to St Gloriana's students. Mika had no desire to cause these girls any pain for her transgressions, were anything to happen to her BT-42 she would be distraught though obviously she would never allow anyone to know it.
For all Assam's security measures, the locks for the hangers remained padlocks. Big hefty padlocks but still mechanical locks. Against a hacksaw or cutting torch, they would have put up long and stubborn resistance but against deft fingers with a lockpick, it was David and Goliath. The lock dropped to the ground and Mika carefully opened the hanger.
Light Tanks Mark I through to VI, Mark VII Tetrachs that looked like a medium tank had shrunk in the wash and Vickers Mark Es whose descendants the T-26 and 7TP could clearly be seen. The Cruiser series, Covenanters whose overheating engines could render their crew unconscious and Crusaders Is and IIs with their two-pounder guns. Mika looked past these to a tank that she had seen at Pravda, occasionally used for training and mostly kept as a historical in-joke. It was not a famous machine but then, unglamorous workhorses rarely were.
The Valentine.
There were other tanks for the taking. Bigger, stronger, more powerful, but she had come for a Valentine. Possessing a lone model of any tank produced logistical difficulties, especially for the more pernickety machines whose battle prowess overshadowed their tendency to breakdown. Keizoku performed these missions to make up for their lack of supply and so claiming a tank that would require frequent maintenance and expensive replacement parts would have been foolish. The Valentine however had a solid reputation for reliability, the best of British, while being superior to the T-26s that were the mainstay of Keizoku's fleet. It was a good prize and one that could be useful rather than gathering dust in a hanger as nothing more than a decorative trophy.
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Aki had recovered her strength as they tore across the grounds, leaving a fine white mist in their wake as some of the flour left them. They still looked like B-movie monsters however. Aki didn't even think about what it meant having her sister with her, not until they saw Mika standing before one of the hangers.
"Why did no one shoot her?" Aki asked, acknowledging that Mika was completely untouched by any of the night's events.
"Well, she's clearly insane." Pekoe replied. "It probably didn't seem necessary."
Aki was forced to agree. Everything that had happened so far did not seem to be the product of a rational mind. "What about now?"
"Now?" Pekoe realised what she meant. "Even if I had brought my gun, would she care? What could I do?"
"You're not going to stop her?"
"It's out of my hands now."
Aki gazed at her steadily. "Just like that?"
"Do you want me to try and stop her, so you can stop me and we can fight?" Pekoe asked and then giggled. "I probably should try… But then she'll turn out to be a ninja and I'll be found strung up by my ankles from a Covenanter gun…"
"You could be right." Aki couldn't pretend it wasn't a possibility. "Then you could let your hair down."
Absently, as Mika drove the Valentine out into the open, Pekoe untied her hair so that it fell down stickily. When Mika looked out and saw the two girls watching her, she was hard-pressed to identify which one was her friend. She followed her instinct and decided it was the messier one and after making that choice, she was able to detect Aki's usual exasperation. It was not at all unwarranted on this occasion.
Pekoe meanwhile asked the necessary question. "What now?"
"Trust her." Aki replied. Mika had kept everything from everybody but she knew better than to have doubts.
"But how?" Pekoe insisted.
Mika had the answer. "On a broomstick." She closed her eyes and beamed at them. Pekoe felt a chill while Aki understood.
Rukuriri and Darjeeling had only managed to bring together a dozen St Gloriana students who weren't in a frightful mess and their traditions meant they could not show undignified haste. They did however subtly pick up the pace as their ears detected the sound of a rising thrumming.
With everything that had happened over the course of the evening, Orange Pekoe could not say that a transport helicopter dropping out of the sky like a bird of prey was a shock. The real question was how Mika had contacted her but that seemed trivial as flour and lumps of paint were blown off her by the downwash of the rotors. Pekoe couldn't help but smile at the fact the helicopter bore a Saunders logo, partially obscured by a layer of paint. In the cockpit, Aki saw the cold, impassive face of Jouko and understood the broomstick comment. Her conspicuous absence now made sense.
Mika moved with unusual haste, scrambling like a frantic monkey to attach the hanging chains of the aircraft to the Valentine in a way that wouldn't tear it into scraps when they tried to lift it while Pekoe looked on, torn between amusement and anxiety. "I'm going to get an earful about this."
"From Darjeeling?" Aki asked.
"From Assam. Darjeeling…" Pekoe smiled to herself. "She'll sip her tea and dictate a letter of congratulations."
"She will?"
"Grace in defeat." Pekoe explained. "I think it's time for you to go." Mika was looking on now, silent but expectant.
"You're not going to get in trouble for this, are you?"
Orange Pekoe shrugged. "We're all going to be in trouble for this."
Aki considered the truth of these words. This heist, this mission to make a good story, had involved four schools and now it was about to succeed, Pravda and Viking had not got the satisfaction of thwarting them. Freydis and Katyusha would not be satisfied, though it was not as if relations between Keizoku and Pravda had been cordial before. This story would be more than an amusing anecdote to be shared, it would make all the other schools assess their security and the safety of their assets. Mika must have known this, which meant she wanted things to be more difficult in the future. She wanted them all to be vigilant. She wanted a challenge. That may have been what she wanted but Aki was pretty sure the rest of the club would not appreciate the spike in difficulty acquiring something as simple as motor oil. Or perhaps, they would all feel better if things were harder, no longer like petty sneak thieves. She heard an odd noise and realised her sister was giggling at her. "What?"
"Watching you trying to think, while covered in gloop." Pekoe answered. "Go."
Aki scrambled onto the Valentine and felt ridiculous taking her place, even before it lifted into the air, leaving her stomach behind. Leaving her sister behind.
The dozen St Gloriana students stopped in their tracks as the Valentine soared over them, the most unlikely rabbit in the talons of an even unlikelier bird.
"On any other day, that might seem strange." Rukuriri remarked, trying to cover her amusement.
"Every beginning is hard, said the thief, when he began by stealing an anvil." Darjeeling replied. "I wonder if Kay knows she's missing a helicopter." The identity of the helicopter had not escaped her and she couldn't help but admire the audacity of using one stolen vehicle to steal another. Darjeeling was however thinking this meant that a fifth school was now involved. An already awkward night was threatening to become a true embarrassment. "Orange Pekoe."
Pekoe's eyes had been glued to the Valentine, now heading over the sea, and Darjeeling's voice startled her back to the here and now. Darjeeling had had the chance to clean up while she was a complete mess. Darjeeling was backed by a dozen prim and proper students while she was alone having just been witnessed waving off the raiders.
Haru felt very small.
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The other two Universal Carriers had abandoned the chase. They had not been designed for high speed pursuits and their lack of safety belts coupled with the white-knuckle ride Mikko had taken them on meant the St Gloriana girls had decided that any prestige they might gain from catching her was not worth it. It infuriated Assam no end but even she was forced to conclude the chase was unsafe and simply not worth the risks. The two Keizoku girls accompanying Mikko meanwhile had come to the conclusion that Aki and Mika must have had iron stomachs to not be constantly filling their BT-42 with vomit with Mikko at the controls.
Rosehip and her crew had both the nerve and the stomach for the chase, not to mention revelling in the opportunity to tear around their schoolship in a way that would never have been possible before. Rosehip hadn't been sure of their identity until the first breakneck turn and then she was certain she was pursuing Mikko. She knew the identity of every master driver in Sensha-do and knew it couldn't be anyone else.
They raced through the town once more and then into the imitation green fields of England, passing a windmill that in true English style had had its sails removed. Mikko knew her pursuer and knew anyone else would have called it a day at this point. If she was honest, anyone else in her position would have given up too. There was no way of escaping a ship by driving around and it was merely pride that meant she was conducting this pointless if exhilarating exercise.
The Carrier entered the grounds of a country house that resembled a town hall in size and stature and the two tracked vehicles slowed as they dug into the gravel drive. Mikko's two passengers took the opportunity to abandon ship and one went so far as to kiss the stones in relief at finally being back on solid ground. The two vehicles dug a path through the gravel as they circled the house twice, watched by the two Keizoku girls who wondered if Mikko had even noticed they had gone and then sped back onto the main road and back toward town.
"I love this girl!" Rosehip purred and her crew agreed. This chase was much better than firing a flour round into a crowd.
Mikko's return to the town coincided with Jouko extracting the Valentine. The sight of a tank flying through the air almost made the Crusader drive into the back of the Universal Carrier and Mikko was similarly distracted, seeing the goal had been achieved; in the most chaotic and insane manner possible. But that was their style. No one could ever accuse Continuation High of being predictable.
Mika at least had gotten away clean. Mikko guessed the rest would be cleaned up and politely put on a boat. She didn't want to be put on a boat, she would rather creep onto it and leave of her own volition. But that meant losing St Gloriana's Speedster who was like a bloodhound on amphetamines. An unfortunate comparison, she realised, as she thought about Viking's dog…
She made another savage turn, drifting the UC around a blind bend with the Crusader following less gracefully but still close. On familiar ground, she would have had the edge and lost them long ago. The Crusader crew knew the town but had never driven it before and were handicapped by the worry of destroying the place without the benefit of Sensha-do insurance to cover the damage. Mikko made another sharp turn, passing by car close enough to set off the alarm and heard Rosehip's whoop even through the hull of her tank.
Mikko threw the vehicle to the left and then to the right, feeling the Crusader responding in kind and then executed a turn that threatened to flip the machine. She skidded around the corner on one track and turned back on herself in a manoeuvre that would have made Anzio proud, shooting forward as Rosehip came around the corner, almost clipping the rear of the Crusader. She pulled off the move so fast that Rosehip didn't quite register the blur on her peripheral, staring into the empty street for a precious few seconds before it clicked.
"Hard about!"
Her driver slewed the Crusader around but the tank was moving too fast and kept its forward momentum as the tracks ground on the road, seeking purchase on the asphalt and finding none. It slid along, like a dog scrabbling on ice, with the crew yipping with anxiety until it finally stopped. Mikko was long gone.
Roseship looked vainly for her lost prey. "Shimatta…"
Mikko left the town and sped into the country once more, leaving the road to take to the woods. When she stopped, she was surprised to find she was alone and hoped her passengers had jumped off rather than been thrown.
Twenty of them had come to St Gloriana and now she was by herself in a forest that made her briefly wonder Robin Hood and his Merry Men would appear to greet a fellow outlaw. Mika was away on the wind and Aki was probably receiving an awkward cup of tea from her sister while here she was in the woods with a motorised shipping crate while sporting a coat of flour and paint. She could honestly say that there had been training sessions where she had been worse off than she was now.
"Dobryy vecher."
Or not.