Chapter : 7 Cheers

"I know and I was so hungry." She moaned. The pair were walking along the corridors heading for the home room. As they approached their home room, they passed Nicholas' locker, he motioned for Miho to stop and he opened the locker, he removed 2 cans of fizzy drink and a pair of chocolate bars. He gave one of each to Miho and said,

"Cheers." He popped the lid on his can and turned, he saw Miho was a little astounded. She smiled and popped the seal on her can and said,

"Cheers." The 2 friends drank their drinks quickly, in a rush to get back to class.

"Hey Nicholas" she said, " All the old Sensha-dō teams are returning and retaking their original positions and machines, so were having a commanders meeting tonight to plan the year ahead. I want you to come as you're the team's air support."

"Sure" said Nicholas, "Where is it?"

"Prez's office." Said Miho, "If you can ask the boys if they want in, that would be great."

"Sure, now we better get to class." Said Nicholas. Miho nodded, the two entered the homeroom. Meanwhile, Saori watched from around the corner, she smirked, a plot formulating in her mind.

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Miho sat in one of the comfortable chairs in the student council's office. With her were the Student council and the commanders of Hippo, Duck, Mallard, Anteater and Leopon teams. They were all here to discuss the year ahead. They were waiting for their last member of the meeting, however only the student council and Miho knew who they were waiting for.

"Why are we waiting around? We should start the meeting." Said Erwin,

"Were still waiting for one more member" said Miho, "But I think we can start. Firstly are interest, have any of you had people coming to you asking about tankery?" They all nodded, "So do you think we'll have enough for a new team?"

"Easily" said Sodoko, "We at the public morals committee have had neumerous questions about Sensha-dō and how to join."

"Also" said Nakajima, "Those crews who are also separate clubs and under crewed may be able to fill up their crews with new members to their club." As she finished there was a knock at the door.

"Enter!" called Anzu. Everyone looked up to see who was at the door. They all bar The student council and Miho were surprised to see Nicholas enter.

"Sorry, I'm late." He said, "I couldn't get away from Mr. Tani, he wanted my autograph, turns out he is a big Kreigsflieger fan." The rest of the girls all stared at him as if he were an alien. "What?"

"I haven't explained the new rules yet." Said Miho. All the commanders turned their confused faces towards Miho. She explained, "The new rules of Sensha-dō state that each team is now allowed to field 1 aircraft for the purposes of reconnaissance, ground attack and engaging the other team's aircraft. And Nicholas, being a former Kreigsflieger champion, and the only one in the school who can fly a spitfire, has volunteered to be our pilot." Most of the girls lost their surprised faces and replaced them with faces of sudden understanding. Sodoko, however, looked very unimpressed.

"I thought that Sensha-dō was a girls ONLY sport." She said in a disapproving voice.

"Not for much longer" said Nicholas as he took a seat on the sofa, setting his bag down by his feat. each team is allowed to field either, team composed fully of male students or allow up to 5 male students to fill existing vacancies in otherwise female crews."

"No way!" said Noriko, surprised. Nicholas smirked and opened his bag, he removed a copy of the rules he had photocopied from Miho's and slid it over the table to the various team commanders.

"See for yourself." He said. The commanders all huddled around the pile of paper and studied them carefully. While they were scrutinizing it, Yuzu spoke up,

"Have you had a chance to ask any of the other boys if they would be interested in joining Sensha-dō?" she asked.

"Well, the presentation you gave this afternoon helped." He said, "I've spoken to 4 of the lads, 3 say they'd do it but 1 backed out not because he wasn't interested, but because he's claustrophobic. I've still got to talk to Nara."

"The boy you were with at lunch?" queried Miho,

"Yup." Said Nicholas. The girls seemed to be content with the new rules regarding the use of male students in their team, although not all of them were happy with it, especially Sodoko.

"What are the exact rules for the use of aircraft?" asked Anzu,

"Basically," said Nicholas, "I can't fire on the flag tank. I'm not allowed to fire on an aircraft that counts as being knocked out."

"How does an aircraft show its been knocked out?" asked Momo,

"Same as in Kreigsflieger, either the pilot bails out or the aircraft deploys a green smoke trail. It's either automatically deployed or the pilot can deploy it if he feels that he or she feels like the aircraft is too damaged to continue. However I'll take the unwritten rules regarding damaged aircraft in Kreigsflieger and use them, basically if the other guy's on fire, don't shoot till he's put it out or till the pilot bails out." Explained Nicholas."

Miho smiled and said, "Well you better get them before they get us."

"Yes Commander" Said Nicholas returning the smile. The two smiled at each other for a few seconds. The other commanders didn't let this go unnoticed. The silence was broken by Momo clearing her thought. Snapping Miho and Nicholas from their trance. Miho blushed heavily and returned to the subject of the meeting.

"R...right, moving of aircraft and back to crews." Said Miho, "We have the potential for at least 3 new tank crews. But we have no spare tanks."

"So we'll have to search." Said Anzu

. "But we've searched nearly the entire ship." Said Yuzu,

"Come on," said Nicholas, "This ship is nearly 8km long, half a Km high and about a Km wide! There is no way you've searched the whole ship!"

"He's right" said Erwin, "We've searched all the nearby areas, but we haven't checked the farther out areas or below decks that much. I mean we found the Tiger P below decks, who knows what else is down there."