Flower of Oarai

8 Wild Hunt

    A T-50 was an infantry tank officially but it seemed a strange designation for a tank that was historically rated as having a top speed of over forty miles per hour and only an average of 40mm of armour. British infantry tanks had an average of 60mm, and crawled along. If anything, the Soviet tank was closer to French cavalry tanks which also possessed an average of 40mm of armour, except that the T-50 was twice as fast and could actually be said to resemble a cavalry horse charging.

It came at a price though. They had an engine that had never worked properly and making use of their great speed made an already likely breakdown a guaranteed certainty. So Erika had insisted on falling out of formation and finding a quiet concealed spot their little green tank could blend into and then giving it a damn good thrashing with a convenient branch before letting her mechanic do her work. Nakajima Rera had not approved of the beating because she regarded their tank much like a sibling, a little brother who needed her help finding his way. Erika thought that being called Wolf team was appropriate because dogs were tamed creatures doing human bidding while wolves were still wild animals that might choose to ignore humans; or eat them. Their tank was more of a hybrid of the two; a wolfdog perfectly capable of following commands one moment and then mauling someone's Golden Retriever the next.

Unfortunately, she was the Golden Retriever.

"What's it saying to you, Jumpsuit?" She asked the mechanic.

"That I should be concerned about my commander's eyesight because she calls me Jumpsuit when I'm not wearing one." Nakajima replied, grinning to herself.

She had a point, perhaps, although she wasn't sure what else to call her. Yukari after all had claim on the 'Fluffy' title, even though Nakajima's own short hair was distinctly fluffy in appearance. "Do you want to be Grease Monkey?"

"Jumpsuit is fine."

"So what's the verdict?"

"It's just what I thought; a fuel line clog. Just give me a minute." This diagnosis clearly bored her but it satisfied Erika. Such a thing could happen to any tank and was easily fixed. It wasn't a crippling issue that would require the whole thing being removed and the entire Automotive Club's combined efforts which had happened far too many times with the old engine and a couple of times with the new one.

Fluffy meanwhile had gone to keep watch with her binoculars with her usual enthusiasm and she returned with leaves in her hair which Erika didn't feel like mentioning. There was a good possibility she had placed them there herself as camouflage and if not, it would be interesting to see how long it took her to notice. If ever. It was a mean thought, a Kuromorimine-Erika thought and she was ashamed of herself.

"All quiet out there." Yukari reported with one of her crack salutes. "Nishizumi-dono sent them the wrong way."

"Hopefully they don't figure it out yet."

"Will they?" Nakajima asked with her head still down.

"Depends." Erika mused. "Depends how much of a bunch of amateurs they think we are." So far that seemed to have worked out very well for them. Two Shermans completely out of it and a third toothless. Now though Kay at least would not underestimate them and if that meant Saunders became just a little more cautious, they would lose one of their chief advantages. "Which depends how arrogant they are. We ambushed two of their tanks; they'll either respect that or dismiss it as beginner's luck."

She reflected sadly that she would have done the latter had it been two Kuromorimine tanks eliminated by a no-name school. She would have been so confident in Kuromorimine's total superiority that she would have refused to accept that skill had anything to do with it and considered it mere luck, despite the fact she didn't believe in luck and fate that way. She would have lied to herself rather that acknowledge another school's talent. It had taken her face being introduced to a sharp rock to knock that supremacist mentality out of her.