Dust Devils - A Girls Und Panzer Story

Chapter 64

Monday August 26th, 2013

Port of Hamburg

France. Britain. Spain. Italy. Martin and Gabrielle has toured them all, seen and done what those countries had to offer. It was all the touristy stuff, of course, but they loved it all the same as when would they have another opportunity like this again? They had spent the previous week honeymooning in Europe and now it was time to return to the ship and back to the team. The couple were driving for hours all the way from the southern most part of Italy back to the Port of Hamburg. It was the crack of dawn when they finally returned. Though, instead of heading straight home, Gabrielle was insistent on checking on the garage first. While Martin would love nothing more than to plop onto a bed and dive into sleeping, he knew it was futile to sway Gabrielle otherwise on this. The moment the car came to a stop in front of the large front mechanical doors of the garage, Gabrielle got out of the vehicle and walked straight toward one of the side doors.

"Gabby," Martin said to her. "What's the rush here?"

"I want to know what they did in the past week." she explained.

"Don't you trust them?"

"Depends on what I find."

Gabrielle reached into her pocket, got out a key, and opened the door. She walked in and promptly began her inspection. What she immediately noticed was the neat parking of the team's vehicles. They didn't slack on that just because the adults weren't there. That pleased her. She continued her walk around the garage floor. Gabrielle came across the Stuart that caused her to stop in her tracks.

"Huh. That's new, smoke mortars."

A turn of her head and her eyes laid upon the Jagdpanzer IV.

"Side skirts," she remarked. "Looks like you kids did some shopping."

Martin caught up with her moments later. He looked around then smiled.

"They took good care of the place. Hell, I think it looks better than ever."

Gabrielle remained silent as she brought a hand to her chin.

"The Jumbo has a new 76mm gun, there is a surplus of IR kits on those shelves over there, several crates of sabot rounds, a few heavy duty hydraulic jacks, and most likely some over things I'm not seeing right now."

"Are you...upset?"

She turned to face him, revealing a grin. "No, why would I be? These are all wise purchases. They have proven to me that they can operate all aspects of the team by themselves."

"That's great to here. I suppose we can truly sleep easy."

"Well, you can," Gabrielle said as she patted her stomach. "It's not getting easier for me to have a good night's sleep."

"Oh? Why's that?"

Gabrielle tilted her head to the side, the expression on her face one of puzzlement.

"It could be because I have two people growing inside me. I'm just guessing though..."

Martin turned red. "Right. So, how about we head home now and get some sleep before the meeting later today?"

"Sure," Gabrielle replied. The couple moved toward the exit as she took one more glace at the place. "Man, the place is so clean. It makes you think if anything really happened in here."

It was noon. Valarie and Emma were enjoying their lunch break underneath the familiar palm tree. Well, as much enjoyment teenagers can have reading a textbook. Thankfully, the contents of said book captured their interests. It wasn't about algebra, calculus, physics, or god forbid chemistry. It was a meteorology textbook. Valarie liked the material well enough, though Emma was completely enamored with it.