Chutzpah [Tankiverse fanfic]

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Chutzpah

Fanfic in the Tankiverse by Hippin_in_Hawaii[/size]

 
The three of them gathered tightly around the display.[/size]
 
“Let’s run it again,” said Al.[/size]
 
“Right,” said Fred. “We skirt the perimeter of the engagement area and come up through this gully, then we wait for the signal. Once we get it, we punch the throttle, turbo boost, and pop out here, just behind their rally point. With any luck, they’ll all be facing the line of engagement to the east. We hit the first sentry broadside, then Liza begins to traverse left while you steer this way. When we get just here,” he stabbed the screen with his finger, ”you cut left 45 degrees. That ought to line us up with a shot on the second guard. Then you make for this alley while Liza continues to traverse to the rear. If that third tank is really on his game and starts to pursue, she can hit him then. If not, we turn left at the first intersection, where I’ll drop a mine. If we disable him there, it will force any of his teammates to backtrack and circle around, giving us plenty of time to make it back to our lines. In the meantime, the rest of our squad should be moving in on their rally point for the capture.”[/size]
 
“That’s really going to be lucky, to make either of those shots,” warned Liza. “We’ll be bouncing like crazy after the jump out of that gully, so there’s no promise I’ll hit the first one. Mixing a traverse with a turn and landing that second shot is crazy hard. You have to realize there’s a decent chance we’ll be running for cover with all three of them on our tails, right?”[/size]
 
“If they stick to their pattern, they’ll have two heavies and a medium there, nothing nearly as quick or maneuverable as us. Even if we don’t disable anyone, we should still be able to evade and outrun.”[/size]
 
“I can keep us pretty safe at first while we’re in those buildings, but we have to come out sometime” said Al. “It’s only a few hundred meters square. They’re going to find us sooner rather than later.”[/size]
 
“If we are really in trouble, we’ll dodge past this retaining wall, slalom left, and tuck in between the wall and the drainage ditch. We’ll actually stop there, and since the gun will still be pointed rearwards, we’ll have a dead shot on whoever is leading the pursuit. That will bottleneck the whole quadrant of the map. We’ll be safe and they’ll be all clustered up when our forces attack from behind.”[/size]
 
“We won’t fit.”[/size]
 
“Al, I’m telling you, we’ll fit! The map says so! Lookit!”[/size]
 
Al took a bite of his banana. “So we’re trusting the map today, are we?”[/size]
 
Fred sighed, exasperated. “Look, it’s not like we’re violating a no-go zone. Why wouldn’t the map be accurate? And, regardless, this is just the contingency plan, Custer’s last stand as it were. The only reason we would need this would be if we were to fail to disable any of the sentries and our intelligence was wrong about the enemy forces.”[/size]
 
That’s how the conversation had played out last night. [/size]
 
When Golf Echo Two had popped out of the gully, there hadn’t been two heavies and a medium waiting. There had been five lights.  Only two were facing east; the other three were each covering another cardinal point. Including one whose bore they were looking straight down.[/size]
 
Liza panicked and rushed her first shot. Between the smaller-than-expected target and the about-as-bad-as-expected bouncing from the jump out of the gully, she shot low, splashing crimson paint in an elongated furrow in front of the enemy tank. [/size]
 
Her second shot, as the turret was traversing left and Al was turning in the same direction, went straight between the two east-facing sentries.[/size]
 
Al zipped between the sentries, darting for the narrow alley between the two nearest buildings. Liza squeezed off a third shot at nothing in particular. Reaching the first intersection, Al banked hard to the left, throwing Fred against his restraint harness and interrupting his timing so that the mine dropped far to one side of the alley, unlikely to damage anyone coming from behind.[/size]
 
“Al! We’re snafu’d! Make for the retaining wall! Custer’s last stand!”[/size]
 
“We won’t fit,” drawled Al.[/size]
 
“Just do it!”[/size]
 
The cannon spoke again as Liza tried to hit… what? “Liza! What are you shooting at?” Fred yelled.[/size]
 
“**** all if I know, but if someone is behind us, they’ll think twice!” she yelled back.[/size]
 
“Load and hold it!” shouted Fred. “We’re going to ambush them!”[/size]
 
“Al says we won’t fit!”[/size]
 
“We’ll ****ing fit, ok? Just do it!”[/size]
 
Fred kept his eyes on his map display. They were nearly there. This would work. This had to work.[/size]
 
“Coming up, Al!”[/size]
 
“Hold on!” Al cried as he locked the left tread. The tank slued hard to the left, lurched forward as Al straightened the steering, then jerked to a stop as he engaged the brakes.[/size]
 
“Ha!” shouted Fred. “I told you it would work! Liza, stand by, they should be right behind us!”[/size]
 
Two seconds passed, maybe three, before everyone felt the tank lurch slightly to the right.[/size]
 
“No, no, no, it isn’t fair…”whimpered Fred before they fell with a sickening lurch into the drainage ditch beside them. [/size]
 
The impact wasn’t terrible; they had slid as much as fallen, and the ditch wasn’t much deeper than the tank was wide. But they were wedged in, right side resting on the ground, left treads pointed to the sky. Fred and Al were held in their chairs by their safety harnesses; poor Liza was lying on top of one of the ammo lockers.[/size]
 
Fred sat there, the straps digging into his flesh. “Everyone ok?”[/size]
 
“Yep,” chirped Al, unflappable as ever.[/size]
 
“Ow,” whined Liza. “That hurt. Next time you decide to flip us, a little warning, please?”[/size]
 
Fred twisted, released his straps, and joined Liza on the wall of the turret. Al joined them a moment later. Fred looked at each of them in turn. “Who wants to say it?”[/size]
 
Liza gestured at Al. “It’s clearly your honor, Al.”[/size]
 
Al just shook his head. “Nah, no reason. Besides, I think watching the look on his face as he reports this is going to be sweet enough.”[/size]
 
Fred sighed. There was no putting off the inevitable. He reached for the radio handset and toggled the mic.[/size]
 
“Golf Echo Two calling Golf Echo. Golf Echo Two calling Golf Echo. We are officially ten-seventeen. Map coords…”[/size]
 
 
 
 

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Hippin_in_Hawaii

[tweezers 1,034]

Approved. 

 

-Changed the text colour from white to this to make it easier to read.

 

Loved it. Looking forward to the next installment.

 

 

To answer the inevitable question, this is the meaning of the title.

 

 

[Best_of_thunder_2015 1,354]

Why can't you rank up instead of doing this sorts of..

[tweezers 1,034]

Why can't you rank up instead of doing this sorts of..

Perhaps because some of us have other things to do with our lives apart from mindlessly grinding at games?

[Magenta 5,165]

Why can't you rank up instead of doing this sorts of..

Philistine. @tsy excellent answer.

 

 

:o

 

Just the cursing :/ Overall very good though :)

Meh, what's wrong with cursing, this ain't for 7 year olds... the cursing is a part of the story, removing it ruins the feel. The writer hopes the reader to be mature enough to understand this.

[Magenta 5,165]

Yeah, I can understand that :P But I meant like it shouldn't be censored x)

Aye, true dat, fellow mult.

[r_trooll15 827]

Anyways, best thing is to flood the whole forum xDDDD

;)

Why can't you rank up instead of doing this sorts of..

That's why

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Loved it. Looking forward to the next installment.

 

 

Thanks!

 

I actually have the next installment written (pending final edit, of course), and the outlines for two more brewing. I'd forgotten how much fun writing could be!

[Hex 11,520]

Just the cursing :/

Sometimes these can add in way more drama/sense to the story, and plus, there's nothing too serious here, so it should be okay.

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

-Changed the text colour from white to this to make it easier to read.

 

On that note...

 

I wrote my first two stories in Word, then copy-and-pasted them over, and all was fine. After that, I switched to Google Docs so I could work on them whenever the mood struck. But since I migrated, now when I copy-and-paste the text, it comes in as black on black. I tried setting the forum option to "paste as plain text," but it pastes it as black plain text. So, I select all and change the color. Which color is "normal"?

[marc.jp_44 20,837]

But since I migrated, now when I copy-and-paste the text, it comes in as black on black. I tried setting the forum option to "paste as plain text," but it pastes it as black plain text. So, I select all and change the color. Which color is "normal"?

There's another easy way to fix this issue. This issue always happens with Google Docs to Forum, I've not a clue why. Just paste everything as it is (presuming it's only text, pictures won't work well if copy-pasted, they first must be uploaded to an image service) and then press the eraser icon on the post box, it's the second icon from the top left. It will change everything to "normal" text. By "normal" (aka. default) we mean the generic grey which can be done by going to the colour button on the post editor (the button next to the smiley face) and clicking the grey next to "Automatic."

However, I'd strongly recommend simply using the "Clear Formatting" Forum tool: