Chapter 12
Miho quickly changed out of her corps uniform before leaving the trailer alongside Annelien to the main building just as the morning bell rang. They promptly split off after entering since their first classes were on opposite sides of the school. Writing and Composition was a pretty straightforward class, the only important point was at the beginning when the students had to make a "daily journal" entry; usually the topic would be displayed on the board but sometimes it was just freestyle. Home ec, was pretty interesting at least from Miho's perspective, there was a lot that she didn't know but was eager to learn; the instructor decided to go around the class and have each of the students explain why they chose the class and if they already have some knowledge about some of the material that they would be taught. Most of the students either fell into the just because I needed a elective or because their parents made them take this class, but there were to special and interesting cases: three guys said they wanted to get out their parents' houses as fast as possible, two girls and one guy said they hoped to gain skills to help them pursue their goals of starting families, a girl and a guy were hoping to get into culinary school and hoped to gain cooking and baking experience from this class, and finally there was Miho who said that due to some bad experiences she wanted to learn how to take care of herself if something similar happened in the future. Aside from learning about how to cook for herself, Miho also learned that topics like personal finance and taxes, childcare and caring for elderly family members, and household cleaning and maintenance.
After arriving at homeroom, she quickly spotted her two friends, "so how were your first two classes girls?"
"Well, history was pretty uneventful," Saori said. "But, I think interpersonal studies may indeed fulfill my hopes of finding a boyfriend after all." Noticing her friends' questioning looks, she further explains, "I know you already said that interpersonal studies primarily focuses on the effects of relationships, they also briefly talk about how said relationships are established and maintained."
Now it was Hana's turn, "well I'd have to say out of my first two classes, chemistry was pretty much to more interesting one, I'm even thinking of maybe combining what I learned with my flower arrangement."
"Wow, that's so cool," Saori said.
"Now I'm even more excited to see your flower arrangement than before," Miho added.
Before any of them knew it, homeroom had already come to an end and now they had to make the long trip to the armored corps classroom. As usual they ran into Yukari and actually managed to make it with a minute to spare before the bell rang. As soon as class started, they started with the "daily briefing," where plans for both the day and week, news about corps and school events and functions; and at the very end there would be a current event that would be mentioned and discussed. Before said plans could be acted upon Commander Slavic walked into the room.
After everyone went to attention or at least their best interpretation of it Slavic spoke, "I'm sure you all already know that we're gonna enter the 63rd Japanese Tankery tournament, correct?" Everyone nodded, having just been informed during the daily briefing. "As it would seem, a representative from the tankery federation will be arriving in a few days to inspect and analyze us, I expect a demonstration of our discipline and prestige by then, understood."
"Yes sir," they all said in unison.
"Carry on," he said before turning and leaving the classroom.
"Is this because we're a newcomer to this tankery stuff?" Saori asked.
"No, it's standard procedure at the beginning of each tournament." Miho answered, "they always send someone to each competing school to get a feel of each team and also to make sure their records are up to date." She further explained.
After that side conversation, they immediately started playing the instructional videos detailing each of the jobs the students would be doing. First was the loader position, and despite how simple it seems, it's actually the most challenging of the three non leading positions. Firstly the loading procedure for each tank was considerably different: the predator was the simplest with the standard grab the shell, push it in through the back of the gun barrel and close the firing mechanism; the scorpion though required the shell be placed under the barrel, pulling a lever to lift the shell into the barrel, before reaching up to pull down a second lever to prime the firing mechanism; the mammoth tank, since its main gun was double barreled, it required the loader to load the first shell in the tray before the right barrerl, then by placing the second shell on the same position the first shell wound be pushed over to the tray before the left barrel and pulling a handle that pushed both shells into the barrels and closed the firing mechanism; finally the stealth tank has the second easiest loading, the loader grabs a hexagonal shaped bundle of five rockets, opens a drop down loading bay under one of the two launchers, after inserting the new rockets in, they push up on the bottom to close the bay and complete the loading for that launcher, the process is repeated again for the second launcher.
Next was the gunner section; for the most part, it was similar for each tank; the only exceptions were that the stealth tank had a double handle control, almost like the control stick on the passenger jet, and the mammoth tank had a double trigger set up to accommodate the double barrel setup; there was also a configuration on top of the control stick to aim and fire the missiles on the sides of the turret.
