Dust Devils - A Girls Und Panzer Story

Chapter 87

Friday, October 4th 2013

Catalina's Carrier - At Sea

The ship sailed gray seas. Roaring waves slammed against the steel of Catalina's ship, though its massive size made their impacts negligible. Catalina was currently sailing up along the coast of South America as they made their war toward the Panama Canal to bring them to the waters of the Atlantic. During this trek, the vessel sailed into the midst of a storm that brought fierce wind and heavy rain. All of this was no concern for the people on board. Ships like these were built to withstand even the strongest hurricanes mother nature could hurl at them.

While the storm may be ignored by most, definitely among those who live on school ships and so see so many storms every year, one person gave this storm their undivided attention. In their student apartment, in the early morning hours, Emma was awoken by a noise that might as well have been music to her ears, the sound of rain hitting a nearby window. She walked toward it as if she was entranced and looked out with glee. Emma was mesmerized by how the water behaved when it hit the glass and slid down out of view. Of how the wind influenced the rain as it fell toward the surface. And of the overhead, dark clouds flew and swirled, with the occasional bolt of lightning being seen if she was lucky. Common sense kept her from opening the window, though the temptation was there to do so as she wanted nothing more than to feel the storm on her skin. Though she would definitely enjoy something like that, Valarie would absolutely not. For now, she was more than content to watch the storm while keeping nice and dry.

It wasn't long before Valarie arose. Before looking over at Emma, she stood up in bed and looked confused for a moment, wondering why the room was still dark.

"Oh, is it raining?"

"Yes," Emma replied in a soft, pleasing voice. "Lots of it. You never see this much rain back home."

"Well, it doesn't rain much in a desert."

"I know, but still. The amount of water falling from the sky right now is staggering. It's so...amazing."

"Yeah, I guess it is," Valarie smiled as she took a peek out the window. "It's gonna be a cold one today. A sneak peek for things to come."

"Oh?" Emma asked curiously. "What do you mean by that?"

"Talking about our next match, of course," Valarie responded, grinning. She went over to her bag nearby and fetched a folder. "I'm not gonna say who we're gonna go against later on the month, but I will share where it will happen to you."

"Oh, really?" Emma's excitement reached its peak. "Where are we headed? Someplace cool, I hope."

Valarie chuckled to herself. "Literally, yes."

From the folder, she pulled out a map that she had already heavily scrutinized and presented it to Emma. What she saw was a satellite view of the coming battlefield. It was an island right off the coast of Greenland, and by the look of it from the map, it was the epitome of cold. Sheets of snow laid on most of the land, and where there was none stood bare rock and gravel. Not one speck of green was on that island. Indeed, she would have believed that the landmass was utterly devoid of any and all life had she not spotted a tiny town at the southwest edge of the island.

"My god. We're going to freeze."

"I had that same exact thought when I first laid my eyes on the map," Valarie told her. "Over the next few weeks, we'll be doing cold-weather training. The main thing will be adapting to the cold. The tanks will do fine as antifreeze and winter tracks are all you need to do. It's the team that I'm concerned about."