Chapter 20

Dear Will,

I'll be honest hearing that you are working on an auto-loading mechanism sounds like you'll be in heaven. You always did like trying to see how to take something apart and improve how it works. I don't know if it's the one Erica and I are using. There are more than one team that has built some kind of contraption to help speed loading. Erica and I do have one of the more extensive setups. Normally the loader sits behind the driver and pulls the shells from their seat. Erica and I can't do that, but long ago we worked out an accepted change to the body of our tank. The magazine is still beneath us, but the shells come out to my left where the communications system was set up. Yes, my tank drives from the right side rather than the left, I don't know why it was set up that way initially, but I'm used to it now.

Anyways, the way we have it set up is that when Erica fires she lets me know what shell she needs next. I have a selector set up that I can reach with my left hand. When I activate it, the shell I need pops out through a special armored door. I have to then lift the shell into a sling that carries it up to Erica and she does the final loading into the breach of the gun. We both thank the Confederacy for using caseless ammo. One of the older men in our class was completely flabbergasted by its existence. He worried that the shells would be too fragile, but somehow the Confederacy has shells that don't need a big casing. It helps to not have to clear an empty shell after each shot.

So if you are improving our loader, what we really need is something that can pick up the shell and move it after it comes out of the magazine. I'm getting really good at controlling the tank with only one hand, but I'll admit we slow down just a little as I reach over to move the shell into the sling.

And the military knows about the smoke screen problem. One thing we've already been told is to expect all our fights to be in very broken terrain to make it more difficult for many Sa'arm to see us at the same time. Of course, that means our more recent classes have been in forests or rocky hills. Erica and I emerged from one test covered in bruises. The trainers had taken us to some rocky canyons out in New Mexico and set up a free-for-all fight where no tank started closer than three miles from another. The boundaries of the combat zone were a thirty mile on a side square and I don't think any of it was flat. The tank bounced us around as we tried to find and defeat the other tanks. It was fun, but after that Erica and I installed some extra padding to help soften the blows.

But I'm not just doing tank training. I've kept up the Tai Chi, which has been a blessing. Chin-pa is a font of patience and wisdom. He seems to know how to get Erica and I focused on the task at hand. This has been very important as school started up but we stayed so busy.

We found out the fourth show. I don't know why, but they decided to have us close performing Pirates of Penzance. Erica got the part of Mabel, so now we've both been a star in one of these musicals. I'm just part of the chorus this time, but it's still been fun. I'm going to miss shows like this off Earth. I understand that there really isn't much new entertainment created off Earth. I guess concubines are the entertainment. I guess Marissa should work on you. But somehow I figure you performing "Putting on the Ritz" will be a bigger disaster than what happened in the movie "Young Frankenstien."