The Caravan was set to go the next morning, and at around eight the three of us assembled at the strongholds main wharf. I came ahead of the others and grinned as I saw the fruits of my negotiation with Mae tied up.

"What happened to the ship?" Chitose questioned, and for good reason as it had been completely revamped. The cabin was now completely enclosed with shiny new Abyssal steel, (the front even had big teeth on it, not sure what I thought of that), as well as a canopy that stretched back almost half the length of the ship, covering the deck with shade.

There was also a set of chairs and a small metal table bolted down to the floor next to the cabin's door, And I suspect a whole slew of new furniture and supplies were inside as well. We could also see all of the additional mothballed float-planes, the mouthy baseballs lined up in a row alongside Chitose's old dive bombers and recon planes. It was quite the collection of aircraft, far more than an escort carriers's airwing once Chitose's internal wings were taken into account.

"What, you didn't think we were attacking these pirates for free, did you?" I said cheekily. "I managed to bum a refit of our ship, as well as supplies, fuel, and actual human food to last us the round trip. The planes are all the extra mothballed float-planes. I think the Chief was about ready to scrap them anyway if I hadn't asked about them, she said she'd kinda forgotten about them before, that's why they were even still in storage and not broke down." I hopped on board as my rigging, having had to spend the night outdoors at the dock, circled around the ship like happy little clam-sharks. The poor things wouldn't have to tow the ship anymore, as the wheelhouse had been repaired.

Hakone and Chitose climbed aboard, Hakone disconnecting and setting down her rigging to explore the ships hold, as Chitose examined the dormant planes lined against the rails. I looked out into the distance and saw that the Abyssal container ship was almost ready, the last of the dormant Abyssal-hulls (In this case a pair of Ne-class heavy cruisers) being loaded as I watched. It was odd, to see limp, lifeless bodies being loaded like commodities like that. but that was how they were apparently constructed, until they had their crew summoned they were basically unmanned, mothballed derelicts.

"So how is this going to work anyway? You said that the convoy is going to be a decoy, but those hulls look pretty real to me." Chitose said, looking where I was.

"That's the actual convoy, the Decoy is going to be going ahead of us with a half dozen Wa-class transports. It'll only have a few Ro and Ni class destroyers with a couple of To-class Light cruisers running escort, with a Chi-class torpedo Cruiser to make it look real."

"No I-class?"

"Naw, I asked the same thing, apparently they don't make them here, the little buggers apparently are one of the few 'naturally occurring' abyssal's that pop up everywhere." Chitose lookedincredibly interested as I continued. "The Ni and Ro are actually optimized variants of the I class, kind of like breeds of dog bred for a specific purpose except, you know, built." I started to untie the bowline as Chitose, seeing what I was doing, quickly went to untie the stern. Our ship, Which I really should find out the name of, began to drift out as I radioed in Derin. "Hey Derin, do we have your leave to, ya know, leave? I don't wanna get pelted by coastal guns on the way out, over." I waited for her response as I stepped into the wheelhouse.

"This is Derin, your free to go Georgia, "Breath" Guns are set to ignore your vessel, over." Excellent. I looked over the wheel controls for a moment, staring intently. Before I called out to Chitose, who was outside talking to one of her fairies.

"Hey Chitose!" She turned to me as she picked up her fairy.

"Yes?"

"You're a surface ship, any idea how to actually drive this thing?" I gestured at the controls. "All I did was tow it around before." Chitose looked at me in surprise before going to sit on the captains chair. She looked over the controls.

"Yeah this is a pretty familiar set-up for me. Want me to show you how?" I nodded but held up my hand as she started to lecture.

"Later though, let's get out of harbor first so we don't embarrass ourselves in from of all the coastal guns eh?"

She looked up through the windshield, as if just noticing the guns. "That's fair enough I suppose." We started off, passing the container ship as we came to within sight of the decoy. Which as we watched started off on their journey, we had to maintain easy radio contact distance, which because of the outdated equipment of the decoy's flagship, was almost within eyesight. As soon as they disappeared over the horizon we started on our course after them, Chitose showing me how to lay in a course as well as the basic controls as Hakone came back up from the hold, munching on something.

"Hakone, what do you have in your mouth?" I asked in an even voice. Hakone started chewing faster. "Hakone, if you just ate the new microwave I'm going to be very cross with you." She swallowed, before she held out a wafer of shiny metal.

"I found some of these in the crates downstairs! Try one! I" took the small bar from her, giving it an exploratory bite, it was... pretty good actually, chewy, had a lot of give, with a.. bright flavor to it. I worked a piece off the wafer and held it out to Chitose as Hakone continued. "It's labeled as aluminum, that's what bauxite is when you melt it down right?" I nodded.

"Yeah, never tried the actual metal alone before now, though. You Chitose?" She had swallowed her own piece, as she said:

"Actually yes. I have a lot of maintenance that normally needs aluminum with my aircraft. Bauxite is usually all that's available, but I've had the pure metal before." Hakone waved downstairs, before saying that there were several boxes of different metals down there.

"There's also this really black metal, like what the cabin is made of, its called 'Abyssal steel.'" Chitose looked a bit worried, before replying that she'd give that one a pass. I laughed at her.

"You and your Abyssal cancer theories, I swear, its all a government conspiracy I tell you!" I said jokingly.

"You'll say that right up until I start growing horns! Then you'll know better!" Said Chitose only semi-seriously. I just kept laughing as I mentally pictured a huffy Chitose with a pair of black horns growing out her head.

We eventually lapsed into silence as the journey continued, and it was a long afternoon of slowly plodding along after the caravan before night finally fell. When the sun fell I took a half step towards Chitose before stopping myself. She, of course, noticed this and asked what I was doing. "I'm used to having to carry you off to your bunk," I said, embarrassed. "Not used to you being able to get around on your own quite yet." She giggled.

"Ha! That's fine Georgia, I think I can find my own way to bed this time, still, I never did properly thank you for doing that, for everything, really. I'd probably have died there you know, back when we first met? I already had one foot in a watery grave at that point!"

"You didn't have any feet." I ducked a thrown screwdriver.

"You little sea-weed jokey!"