Georgia POV
"I swear Countess! There's a time and place for that! and it's NOT in the middle of a phone call!" I smacked Countess's arm ineffectually while she tore off another chunk of the last of the Ne's head, tearing off an ear this time. "I swear, I know you need repairs but can you at least do that in private? You'll freak out the normies!"
We got our crap together quickly once we left the Pharmacy, we really didn't have that much lying around anyway, and started off back down the road. Hakone had mentioned that we'd passed a canal on our way here, we could use that to get around Can Tho. I told everyone the plan, before Countess raised a valid question.
"W̵h̵a̵t̶ ̷a̷b̷o̵u̴t̸ ̸t̷h̷o̸s̷e̴ ̴t̸w̵o̸?" She pointed her thumb behind her at the two boys following us. That brought me up short.
"Oh yeah, unless humans suddenly learned to walk on water we're gonna have to think up a way to take them with us, won't we?" I looked at Giang expectantly as he noticed my hopeful expression.
"No walk on water." Bummer. I leaned against my Rigging as I thought, there Must be some way we could get them with us! Sure we didn't have the boat anymore, then again, we were boats too, right? I looked over at Scooter, I had a lot of space in the cockpit, maybe I could fit Duc in with me? It would be a pretty tight fit though... Duc suddenly yelled as Countess picked him up by the scruff of his neck.
"Countess! No! Not for eating!" Giang and I scrambled over to her to try and make her let go, but before we'd even made it more than a step the woman simply plopped Duc on her back. She had enough of a stoop on her cane one-handed that he didn't immediately slide off, he wrapped his arms around her neck as she straightened again.
"I̶ ̴p̷r̷o̸m̷i̸s̶e̵d̷ ̸y̵o̸u̷ ̵I̸ ̶w̶o̸u̴l̸d̴n̶'̷t̵ ̸e̸a̷t̵ ̷h̸u̴m̴a̵n̸s̵ ̶G̵e̶o̷r̴g̴i̴a̶,̶ ̶t̷h̶i̸s̵ ̵o̸n̵e̶'̸s̴ ̷h̵u̴m̵a̷n̴,̸ ̶i̸s̵n̴'̵t̶ ̵h̴e̴?" Countess said, quite reasonably actually, as we relaxed, Giang said something to Duc in Vietnamese as Duc babbled back rapidly.
"OK Countess, sorry for doubting you. Good idea by the way, we can just give them piggyback rides!" I looked at Giang, noting the height difference between us both. "Um, Hakone? you take Giang, fairly sure his legs would be underwater if he tried that with me."
Hakone advanced on Giang, who suddenly had the expression of a deer caught in headlights. "Okay! come here Giang!" Hakone squatted down, her back to the boy as he shook his head rapidly while backing up. "Come on! we have somewhere to be!" make sure to grab on tight! You don't want to fall off at the speed we'll be going at."
"I fine, I swim." I shoved him forward as he neared me, sending him sprawling forward onto Hakone's back, his arms reflexively wrapping around her as she rose, leaving his feet to dangle slightly until she grabbed under his knee's.
watch?v=mKpsuGMeqHI&feature=emb_title
"Alright! let's head out then guys an' girls!" I fist-pumped towards the sky as I flew into the engorged canal with a cry, the two ships swiftly following me, jumping into the canal with their human cargo, it felt good to be over water again, even if it was just a dinky ditch with delusions of grandeur. Spray shot up in our wakes as we built up steam in the shallow waters, Countess was obviously the slowest of us, but we were still going at a fair speed of about eighteen knots as we continued to build up momentum. We had our IFF's off, and the Destroyers were down-river at least a Kilometer or two, thankfully the recon-planes I'd seen buzzing around had gone away, the last thing we needed was one of them deciding to tail us. We passed under three more small bridges before we came out of the mouth of the canal into the river-proper. Almost immediately a group of about ten Destoyers closest to us began to give chase as we sailed North. We couldn't shoot back, even as 5" shells began to pepper our wake's, I didn't know what firing 8" naval cannons next to Duc's ear would do, but I'm fairly certain it wouldn't be good.
"We have to create some space! Hakone, you're Torpedo tubes still OK?" I didn't bother with the radio, we were literally cruising right next to each other.
"Yeah! want us to give them a spread?!" The Heavy-Cruiser replied.
"Obviously! you give em two I'll give em four, ready?!" The girl nodded, bumping Giang in the nose with the back of her head. "Now!" We both turned and shot out our fish, Giang had to strengthen his hold on Hakone's neck as the girl freed her arms to shoot out of her Rigging, before catching hold of his legs again as she hared off. I simply spun in place for a second at full-speed, Scooter and the twins shooting off their fish before turning around again. I didn't bother attaching wires to these ones, they were homing torps anyway, and we just wanted to disrupt the formation enough to make a getaway.
The Destroyers quite clearly saw us put fish in the water, they were coming right at us, so they simply shifted their approach vectors slightly to put them out of the way of the clear wakes left by the torpedoes so close to the surface in clear freshwater. Meanwhile we continued to dodge 5" shells, we were keeping ahead of their rangefinders as we sped up, we'd been building up steam in the canal while the Destroyers had had a cold start, we were now breaking twenty-three knots to their eighteen. It was lucky for us they didn't feel the need to waste AA shells on ship armor, it probably would have turned the boys into chunky salsa.
The torpedoes, meanwhile, self-corrected as they came within homing distance of the enemy Destroyers, adjusting themselves for a collision course. The Destroyers didn't notice the change immediately, and by the time they did it was too late. Two of the torps slammed into the lead Destroyer, obliterating its prow, sending humongous teeth flying in all directions as the next rammed straight down its 'throat,' causing it to blast apart from the inside, the front half doing a full-somersault on fire before crashing into the waves at 20 knots, the other four ships fared a bit better, in that they simply had their teeth caved in, slowing down almost immediately as they tried to commit to damage control as they began to list. the last five destroyers continued on undaunted, if anything speeding up as they gave chase.
"Another spread?! Hakone yelled at me as we began to pass the island planted in the middle of the river, we passed by old dilapidated farmhouses as I made to respond, only to see something that made me grin.
"I wanna try something first! Veer to starboard and get ready to jump!" Hakone looked at me like I was insane, before looking where I'd indicated with a nod of my head, she turned back. "Got it!" the Destroyers were gaining on us now, our speed had capped out at almost thirty knots while they were still accelerating, their close-in shots went wide as we turned hard-right, leaning into it like skaters as surf sprayed behind Countess and Hakone (I was hovering.) The destroyers turned as well, simple-minded, and determined. We reached the shore, still going full-speed. I didn't have to do much, my Rigging simply hovering over the dirt as Hakone jumped as high as she could, vaulting over the small dike that separated the river from the flooded irrigation canal of the farm we were sweeping through. Countess barely made it, Duc screaming in a mixture of excitement and fear as the large woman came back down on the shallow water with a giant splash. We continued on as loud crashing noises heralded the Destroyer's arrival, the large fish-beasts ramming into the dike at full speed. They made it about halfway through, and flopped in the dirt like the big dumb fish they were.
I laughed as we sailed to the other end of the irrigation channel, we made the jump off the other side, coming out on the other side of the island as we started North again. "WOOOO!" I held my arm up in the air as we sailed off to our destination, the rest of the Destroyers only now starting to realize what had happened, we had too much of a start on them now for them to catch up.
"You are fucking insane!" Giang shouted, holding onto Hakone with a white-knuckled grip huh, looked like his English was getting better!
