Near Cao Lanh-Vam Cong suspension bridge, South of Long Xuyen, Vietnam.
Chitose POV
I sat in silence as the truck trundled along at a respectable pace, We'd been driving for the past hour, the road from Xuyen was rough, and we'd had to make a stop when we got a flat on one of the tires. Thankfully some of the militiamen Lao had taken with us were used to dealing with cars, they got us up and moving again within twenty minutes. I hadn't tried to talk to any so far, I was fairly certain most of them didn't speak English or Japanese, and they'd seemed to have been avoiding me, having hushed conversations while I wasn't looking at them and avoiding my eyes. I was pleasantly surprised and a bit relieved when one of them finally scooted over to me to start a conversation in Japanese, though the subject matter he opened with was a bit odd.
"You are a Ship-Spirit, yes? Same as the Commander?" I nodded, happy to have someone to talk to besides Lao as he fumbled with something in his pack, before withdrawing a wad of Joss paper banknotes, what was he?-. "Please, spirit, My name is Do Gi Tien, I can't give this to the Commander, she's a good spirit, one of the best. But she doesn't understand, would you take this as payment?" I numbly took the offering, looking at it, they were printed in the style of the current Vietnamese Dong notes, in numerous denominations.
"W-Why?" I was rather stumped, usually these notes were meant to burn as sacrificial offerings to... spirits. Oh.
"My father was a spirit medium, married a Japanese Immigrant. I never learned the craft myself, it's discouraged now, or was, before the Month of Blood, when they had to admit the spirits were real all along. I need to know if you can..." He swallowed, before continuing. "I need to know if you would be able to tell where my daughter...?"
"I'm sorry." I really, REALLY was. "I'm not, not that kind of spirit, I would tell you if I was able, I really, truly would" I handed him the wad of sacrificial currency back, gently curling his limp hand over it again. His face fell as he looked back at his hand.
"I guess it was stupid of me to try, I'm sorry." I tentatively put my hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze, he looked up.
"Don't be, I'd try anything to save my family, or find them if they were lost." I looked around suddenly, noticing most of the other men in the truck looking at us, most with expressions of pity. "Are there many here like you? Looking for someone?" The man seemed to draw some small comfort from my words, as he recovered, stuffing the Joss paper back inside his pack as he answered.
"A few, most of us had family in around Can Tho, we were part of the local militia forces there, in those days most of what we did was roadwork and repairing buildings from bombardments on the coast." He pointed at one of the other men across from us, a dark-haired man with round spectacles, who was studiously ignoring us both. " Hạ sĩ Nguyễn over there used to live across the river in Bình Minh, had two boys." The 'had' might as well have slapped me across the face.
"I'm surprised there weren't more... like you." I struggled with my words a little. "I heard the fall of the City was, bad." The man nodded, a far off look coming into his eyes. "It was, we held the surface ships off for an entire day, you know? or at least, our T-90's did." He snorted. "All our infantry were good for was expending the enemy's ammunition. But more importantly, wasting their time." He looked at my confused expression before letting out a wry grin. "Most of their Spirits were stupid, wasting naval cannons on scattered light infantry, going after us one at a time, was like squashing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. We spread ourselves thin and egged them on, shot at them, hurled grenades and insults to their mothers, both were about as effective.
It kept them mad, kept them coming after us, gave the civilian population time to try and evacuate." He sighed, slouching back in his seat. "Didn't mean much when our MIG's were finally forced out of the sky, apparently the evil spirits WE got were special, they had advanced air to ground weapons, well, advanced for them. That paired with a spirit queen breaking directly through our lines with direct-fired anti-air guns... Commander Lao is the only reason any of us are alive, any of our families are alive. Like I said. She's a good spirit, one of the best." I nodded my head, having found a new respect for the small Frigate.
The truck slowly came to a stop ten minutes later within sight of the bridge, it had started to rain earlier, but it was so light no one was really bothered. The Commander groaned as she hopped out of the cab. "Uuuuruuugh!" She groaned, stretching this way and that as I got out and approached her. "I hate long car rides, one wrong move and I always feel like I'm going to fall through the floor! Makes for a stiff back." She looked at me, a small pout on her face. "You'd better not be pulling my leg about this submarine spy of yours. I had plans for today you know!" I came to a stop next to her, simply raising a brow.
"Oh? and what were they?"
"Sleeping till noon and then eating an entire bucket of aluminum, then the bucket! Then pretending to do paperwork for a non-existent Naval unit for a few hours, maybe." I let out a small laugh as I readied a recon plane on my top-right catapult. "What are you doing?" The small blonde asked, her starry eyes lighting up in curiosity as I launched my plane.
"Getting a recon plane up so I can see if Georgia's around, we are late after all, because of that flat tire," I responded as I started to walk towards the bridge, the small Frigate trailing behind me as four of the men stayed behind with the truck, only two coming with us.
I thought this sub was supposed to be sneaky! Or are your recon planes that good?" Ah, she seemed to have the wrong idea.
"Oh no, Georgia is almost always operating on radio silence when she's being serious, makes it a hassle to try and contact the girl honestly, my plane probably isn't going to spot her, but it'll let her know we're here. I'll just let it circle above us for a bit." I said. Lao 'Oh'd in response. One of the men, the man Gi Tien called 'Hạ sĩ Nguyễn' spoke up in Vietnamese behind me, and the Commander responded back.
It was weird to see what was very clearly an American Kanmusu speaking Vietnamese so fluently, but I was hardly one to judge things on strangeness, was I? We came to a stop near the massive cargo containers left stacked near the bridge. My plane buzzed along as we settled down to wait, I tried looking through the radio frequency Georgia and I had used before, but there was nothing. Lao leaned against the crate next to us, a bored expression on her face as the other two men found places to sit. After a while she pouted at me, before speaking up.
"Come on Chitose! you said we were out here to do sneaky spy-stuff! I really wanna meet this Georgia girl and her pet Abyssal Cruiser!"
"Oh! you've heard of Hakone?"
"Of course! you're the one that told me, about... her..." Lao looked at me, noticing that I hadn't said a word. The two men with us shouted in fright as they scrambled to their feet, pointing their rifles at a point above the Commander. I slowly pointed my finger up, and the Commanders gaze followed the motion.
Georgia's one-eyed face poked out over the lip of the container we'd been lounging against, her wet, white hair hanging down limply as she grinned mischievously.
"Yo."
Lao let out a startled scream as she aimed one of her 5" guns at Georgia's head, I swiftly ran over and took hold of Lao's arm as she readied a shot. "That's Georgia! stop!"
"She's an Abyssal! You didn't say she was an Abyssal!" She struggled briefly, but I had far too much tonnage on her for her to break away.
"I didn't say she wasn't!"
"You IMPLIED it!" She stopped as she glared at me angrily. so cute.
"Whether or not she's an Abyssal is pointless as long as she's on our side, right?" Georgia, meanwhile, had hopped down from the container she'd been on, a contrite expression on her face, she'd changed her dress since I'd last seen her, oily overalls that looked far to big for her covering her small frame.
"You didn't tell her I was an Abyssal?"
"It never came up!"
"How does me being a spooky sea-ghost 'not come up'?" I slapped a palm to my face as Lao whipped her head back and forth between the two of us as we spoke. Georgia let out a massive sigh, before turning to the Commander.
"Alright! it's clear I have to do the explaining around here. Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, with me scaring you and everything, and I apologize. But everything Chitose has said about me was probably true, I'm totally one hundred percent a spy working for her, and I totally got a lot of information on enemy movements up here." She knocked her head. "And DEFINITELY have a few other folks that need to get to safety, so can you calm down your guys over there before they embarrass themselves so I can get the others over here or what?" I gently let go of Lao's arm, ready to snatch it if she went for Georgia again, she simply crossed her arms angrily, before biting out a quick series of words to the two men, who still had their sights trained on Georgia. They lowered their rifles hesitantly as I let out a sigh of relief.
Hakone's voice suddenly rang out across the yard we were in. "Georgia?! Where are you?! You ran ahead too far!" Georgia had the decency to look sheepish, before calling back.
"Over here Hakone! I found the welcoming party!" The rest of the people with Georgia came into view then.
"Oh my gosh! Countess! what happened to you?!" I couldn't help the words as I came up to the woman, fretting over her shattered front armor. The ship smiled as she shrugged slightly. "Georgia wasn't kidding when she said you were damaged! But I'm glad you made it back.
"T̵h̷a̸n̴k̶s̴ ̴f̷o̴r̸ ̴c̴a̷r̷i̷n̴g̷ ̸C̷h̸i̸t̴o̶s̵e̵,̴ ̸I̷ ̸k̶n̵e̵w̶ ̵y̴o̷u̷ ̷w̵o̴u̸l̸d̵.̴" I flinched at the white noise that tinged Countess's speech.
"You can talk now?" My revelation was cut short though, as one of the men with Lao, the one with glasses, suddenly dropped his rifle as he surged forwards, yelling something. I turned, ready to stop him if he was about to try anything funn-
"Giang?! Duc?!" The two boys Georgia had with her startled at the words, before the big one, Giang, said something in Vietnamese as he stumbled into an embrace with the older man, the smaller one, who couldn't be any older than nine, screamed happily as he clung to both of them, before starting to cry.
I stood awkwardly next to Countess at the emotional display, as the men exchanged words I'm fairly certain would be barely understandable even if I KNEW Vietnamese. I looked helplessly at Commander Lao, who seemed as dumbstruck as I was. "Umm..." I pointed at the group hug, rain pattering around them.
"He's their father."
"Oh." That would explain it.
Joss paper, or 'Hell Money' is not an official form of recognized currency or legal tender since its sole intended purpose is to be burnt as offerings to the deceased as a solution to resolve their assumed financial problems in the afterlife. Ghosts are viewed as aids to fortune-tellers and spirit mediums because they help them to gain an understanding of people's lives. Some Vietnamese will visit spirit mediums to aid in locating dead relatives who have not received proper burials.
