Chapter 7: Dinner is ready!
19:30
The Volkswagen Kübelwagen with Sheska, Kay and El on board had just stopped in front of a checkpoint manned by 8 SS girls armed with Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles and a Panzer IV Ausf. F / G holding her at gunpoint with his 7, 5 mm gun.
What kind of security measures do they take here?
Kay wondered worried.
One of the policewomen came up and said:
"You are violating our fuhrer's private property. Only the authorized persons can continue. " She said, giving the newcomers an icy look.
"Don't you recognize me, Irene?" Sheska asked, giving her a friendly smile.
"I know you, Sheska, but not your friends."
"They are the saviors of Eva."
"Ah, so that would be them?"
"Exact. Hilda herself invited them to dinner. "
"A moment…"
Having said that, the girl named Irene walked away, put her hand to her smartphone, and fumbled with it.
"Why such an array of forces?" El asked.
"Security measures." Was Sheska's reply.
"Caramba, what measures! SS armed and even a Panzer IV! "
"Caution is never too much."
Kay snorted, looking around they were crossing a paved road that ran along a huge lawn, located on the left side of the ship, a short distance from the city, whose lights they could see in the distance.
"This place looks like some kind of countryside." She stated she.
"It's our training ground, here we train with our Panzers." Sheska answered.
"And Hilda has a villa here?"
"It's her private residence. That's where she spends her time when she's not in school or when she's not training. You sometimes use it for lunches and dinners with guests (like other commanders) or family members, especially during the holiday period (from December 25th to January 7th). "
"But didn't she invite us by seven o'clock?" El asked, perplexed.
"There have been some setbacks."
Kay was increasingly worried. The feeling that she and her girlfriend were going straight into the trap increased as the minutes passed.
"Anyway, what do you think of our school?"
"Very big." She just said Kay.
Maho was right to compare it to the Graf Zeppelin… They are almost identical.
"And it contains many attractions." El said.
After eating at the Sheska restaurant she had been their guide, listing the various points of interest of the training ship; in addition to those they remembered, there were also shops, shopping centers, cinemas, fast food restaurants and even an industrial area.
"As you well know, the carrier schools not only host female students, but also their families and various staff. The Black Sun has about 100,000 inhabitants, so it is as big as cities like Salzgitter, Hildesheim or Siegen. " She explained the driver to them.
"Never heard of it." Kay said.
"Well, it doesn't surprise me ... They are not famous cities like Berlin, Nuremberg or Hamburg."
After a quarter of an hour the car came to the life of a three-storey house with yellow walls.
"Would that be it? She is quite small. " El stated.
"What did you expect? The palace of Versailles? " Sheska replied.
Arriving in front of the building, the car stopped. The three girls noticed Eva standing in front of the door, guarded by a pair of SS men, whom they recognized as Ingrid and Rebecca. All three wore an impassive expression on their faces. When they got out of the vehicle the dark-haired girl caught up with them and said:
"Hilda awaits you in the dining room. Follow me. Sheska, you wait here. "
"Ok."
Eva escorted them to their destination, a room with a dark wooden table in the center, which had 12 chairs around it. Behind it stood a cupboard containing plates and glasses; on the back side a sofa, two armchairs and, hanging on the wall, depicting a naval battle, even if the two girls could not understand the context. On the left side stood a television (turned off at that moment) and a French door leading to a swimming pool, now illuminated by the moonlight. Hilda, in the company of Himmler and Göring (to her right and left respectively), was sitting at the table.
"Take a seat. You too, Eva. " She invited them.
The three girls sat across from their peers.
"Am I wrong or did you invite us to a dinner?" Kay asked, noting that although the table was set there were no food items.
"My chefs are preparing it. In the meantime, we'll have a chat. " Hilda replied.
"About what?"
"Here we ask the questions!" Göring retorted, threateningly, making the two time shipwrecks shiver inside.
"Don't be so hard ..." Himmler scolded her.
Kay was growing more and more afraid. She felt as if she had just put her head in a guillotine, ready to behead her at any moment. and she couldn't escape. There were certainly other SS in the area, and in any case the ship was sailing in the Black Sea. There was no way to escape. She exchanged a fleeting glance with El about her, who was as scared as she was.
"While you were walking around the school I did some research. And I discovered a couple of things… "Hilda said.
"Which?" El asked.
"First: there is no Roncesvalles school. Second, I contacted Boudicca, commander of El Alamein, and she told me that there is no Scarlett Johnson aboard her school and they are not absent among the students. "
She paused.
"This means that you have me ... Indeed, you lied to us."
"And if there is one thing in the world that we cannot tolerate, it is that someone lies to us." Himmler added.
"Right, Himmler. But there is a third discovery ... "
New break.
Kay and El had turned pale, and had begun to sweat cold.
"You two are identical to Kay, commander of the Panzerfharen team at Saunders University, and to El of her, her equal in the Blue Division Academy."
"So what?" Kay asked.
"And so you owe us some explanations… And sincere, this time. We will not accept silences or lies. If you don't tell us the truth we will have to rely on the SS or the Gestapo. " Eva warned them.
That sentence froze the blood in their veins. It was now clear that they had been discovered, and that keeping quiet would make their situation worse.
"What do you want to know?"
"First your names ... the real ones."
"I am Neru Miyamoto, AKA Kay, I am from the city of Sasebo, Nagasaki prefecture."
"I'm Midori Yasuda, AKA El, from the city of Kinokawa, Wakayama prefecture."
"Another lie ... Kay and El are still in their respective schools, you two can't be them." Was Himmler's comment.
"Why them… We…" El tried to explain, not knowing how to do it.
"We are still them, but we come from the future. More precisely in the future in a year. " Kay said.
In response, Göring stood up and grabbed her by the collar of her uniform.
"Don't take the piss!" She told her.
"You asked me for the truth, and I told you." She replied, keeping her calm.
"She is sincere!" El backed her.
"Time travel is science fiction." Himmler said.
"We believed it too, until today ... We were wrong." Was Kay's reply.
"Goring, let go and sit down." Hilda ordered her.
Although she reluctantly, the girl obeyed.
For a while, Hilda looked Kay straight in the eye, looking for signs of nervousness or insecurity, things that were easily noticed in those who lied. But she saw no trace of it, her interlocutor was sincere and convinced of her words.
"Let's assume what you say is true ... What made you travel to the past?" She asked.
"We happened upon each other by chance, after I inserted a crescent-shaped stone into a stone slab covered with strange symbols."
"Have you inserted the lunar soul in the stone of time?" Himmler asked.
"Exact. We found ourselves here ... And we saved Eve. "
"Lunar soul? Time stone? But what are you talking about? " Göring understood very little, and she was not alone. Eva was also perplexed.
"They are ancient artifacts, coming from Manchuria. They date back to the third millennium BC "
"More precisely to 2333 BC, during phase 4 of the Jeulmun pottery of Korean prehistory."
"Wait a minute ... You said the stone comes from Manchuria!"
"The Koreans claim that Manchuria is their homeland, but I don't know much about that."
"Okay but ... What is special about these two finds?"
"According to Professor Toru Imamura of the Todai University of Tokyo, the stone of time was a sacrificial altar, on which the ancient Koreans practiced animal sacrifices, and the lunar soul was the knife they used in those rites."
She snorted.
"But I saw that rock… It is not suitable as a knife. And above all, those two objects were part of my private collection, jealously guarded inside the school. How did you get hold of it? "
"Saunders, my school, bought it after your school closed."
That news was a bolt from the blue for Hilda and her deputies.
"Our school… Closed? Why?" Eva asked.
"What happened in your future?" Himmler supported her.
Kay told everything: about Eva's death and how this tragedy had pushed Hilda and the others into madness; how they had tortured and killed a dozen girls; of their trip to Japan and what they had done in Arisa and Yukari; how the Japanese sensha-do schools joined forces for the second time and challenged the Black Sun to a match of annihilation, defeating it; the arrest of Hilda and the others, the escape of the SS and the crimes they committed. When she finished her narration Kay looked at the faces of Hilda and her deputies. Eva was flabbergasted, like Goring and Himmler. Hilda, on her side, looked impassive.
"So ... So I should have died today, run over by spies?"
"Exactly, Eva. And your death would have triggered a very long trail of blood. But now we have saved you, and consequently the future I have told you will never see the light. "
"And ... Can't you go back to your time?"
"We don't even know how we got here, imagine if we know how to get back."
"Wouldn't it be enough to repeat the gesture? I mean, insert the lunar soul into the stone of time again? " Göring proposed.
The answer was Himmler:
"The problem is, we don't know if that's the right method, assuming the story is true. We are not talking about an elevator, and there is no way to know if they will return to their time or will end up in another era. They could find themselves catapulted into prehistoric Asia, at worst, in the period when the stone of time was carved. "
"You are right. Whether they like it or not they are stuck here. " Hilda supported her.
"So you believe it?" El asked them.
"So on the spot it's impossible." Was Göring's reply.
"You must provide us with proof." Himmler said.
"But we don't have any!" Kay protested.
"Sheska said you mentioned the Japanese sensha-do tournament at the restaurant. it happens that the three of us have been following him for some time, thanks to the Youtube live-streams broadcast by the channel of the Japanese sports federation. Last year, for example, we saw the final between Kuromorimine and Pravda. " Hilda stated.
"Don't remind me… Pravda won incorrectly, taking advantage of the fact that Kuromorimine's flag tank was unattended. It was a cowardly action! I hope Katyusha has taken action against the guilty ones. " Göring exclaimed, annoyed.
"She was the one who ordered the shooting at the defenseless Panzer." Kay revealed to her.
That news astonished the three Germans.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Göring. There was also a controversy. The fans took it out on Pravda, because Miho, at the time deputy commander of Kuro, abandoned the flag tank to save the crew of a Panzer III that was sinking into a river. "
Furious, the deputy commander of the Black Sun clenched her right hand into a fist.
"If I happen to shoot, I'll take her head off her neck!" She stated.
"I take note… But tell us about the Ooarai. What school is it? " Hilda asked.
"A minor school. In this period she is not yet famous, she will become famous by winning the upcoming 63rd national tournament. "
"And have you experienced sensha-do?"
"The course was abolished twenty years ago." Himmler informed her, who had been looking for information about her smart about her.
"It was reintroduced this year." Kay said.
"And how did a newborn team manage to beat the strongest teams? How could he have defeated giants like Saunders, Pravda and the almost unbeaten Kuromorimine? "
"Some of them got lucky, some of it is thanks to Miho, their commander."
"You faced it, right?"
"In the first round of the tournament."
"Tell me the details."
"Shortly before the match, we thwarted an attempt at espionage by Yukari Akiyama, a student of Ooarai who infiltrated our school. The day of the match has arrived. we had ten tanks: eight Sherman M4s, one M4A1 (76) and one Firefly. The Ooarai had five tanks: a Panzer IV ausf. D, a Stug III Ausf. F, A Type 89B, a Panzer 38 (t) and an M3 Lee. "
"And then?"
"Initially we were ahead. But then I discovered that Arisa, one of my deputies, was playing dirty. In fact, she intercepted the radio communications of the opposing team, but they discovered it and started communicating via cell phones, using the radio to mislead us. "
Hilda became perplexed.
"How did you lose? You had double the tanks. " She asked.
"I decided to take on the Ooarai with the same number of tanks."
"How stupid! You could have won easily if you had lined up all of them! " Göring scolded her.
"I prefer a defeat after having fought fairly, than a victory obtained by deception."
Hilda smiled.
"Whoever plays fair deserves my esteem." She stated.
"You will be excellent students, and I hope you will also be excellent tank drivers." She added.
"Are you sure, mein führer?" Himmler asked her.
"Honestly speaking, I'm still skeptical about the history of time travel… But they seem like people to me, and they saved Eva. So they are welcome, from wherever they come. " Was the answer.
At that moment a tall, slender man with pale skin, parted black hair and brown eyes entered. He wore a black tuxedo.
"Dinner is ready, Fräulein." He announced the latter, sporting a friendly smile.
"Let it be served, then."
The man, who was certainly a butler, blew a whistle and after a few seconds seven waitresses entered carrying trolleys with various dishes on them, which they placed on the table. All the girls, especially Kay and El, had their mouthwatering: in front of them were trays and plates containing potato pie, sauerkraut, lobster, shrimp soup, Klöße (giant potato dumplings), ravioli soup, eggs fries, cheeses, hams, even cakes and sweets (such as Baumkuchen).
"Is this everything to us?" El asked.
"You bet ... Ah, Himmler!"
"Say, mein führer."
"Write to Sheska, and tell her to join us. It is unfair to leave her out waiting while we feast laudably. "
"Immediately!"
She took her cell phone and wrote a message.
"Sure, you don't miss food ..." Kay said.
"It is one of the advantages of being the daughter of a deputy and the niece of the current chancellor. I don't lack money. "
A few minutes passed, then Sheska ran through the front door.
"Here I am, mein führer!" She said, evidently eager to feast.
"Now we are all really there." Hilda said, satisfied.
After dismissing the servants and making Sheska sit down she exclaimed:
"Guten Appetit!"
And she began to eat, imitated by her guests.