Long Xuyen, Vietnam.

The frantic ride into the City was largely done in silence, shoulders bumping as the men were thrown around from Lao's frantic driving, there wasn't even any space for them to avoid Countess and Hakone, bumping into and off of them as they held on to their seats for dear life.

"I feel like I'm going to throw up," Hakone said, once more tossed slightly forward as she regained her footing, the floor creaking dangerously as she had to yank her boot heel out of the new hole in it. Hakone glanced at Giang, sat next to her, between her and his father as the man held Duc in a fierce hug to keep him from going flying. This truck really needed seatbelts in the back

"So that's your dad?" Giang looked over, a grin still on his face despite the severity of the situation.

"Yes! he warned us, but had to fight, thought he died, happy to not be right." Hakone smiled brightly, before reaching over and dragging a protesting Giang into a hug, copying his father as she brought him onto her lap. Some of the other men startled at this, but quickly began to snicker as they realized what she was doing and got over their shock. "I'm so happy for you! I almost lost Georgia back there, so I can kind of get it, but I can't imagine losing your parents for good, I'm glad you found one of them!" She said, wrapping her arms around him.

Duc noticed almost immediately after that and started laughing hysterically for some reason, babbling something to his father in Vietnamese as the man looked over in shock. Giang's face going beet red as Hakone made to continue. "I really hope your dad and Georgia get along, it would be really cool if bo- She was cut-off as the truck came to a screeching halt, everyone nearly flung to the floor as the small Kanmusu, Lao, came over the radio.

"We're here! everyone out out out now now now!" Everyone scrambled to get out of the truck at once, clogging the door until they managed to squeeze through. Hakone hopped outside, Giang still hanging off her like a particularly red teddy bear as she continued to hold him. Now that they were outside, old air raid sirens could be heard blaring in the distance.

"Put down, now. You are embarrass me!" He finally managed to wheeze out. Hakone looked at him in shock, before gaining an embarrassed look herself.

"Sorry." And so she dropped him.

Georgia and Chitose came around the back of the cab as Lao and a PAVN irregular got out of the driver's seat door, they were met with tightly controlled anarchy. They were at a dock, that much was obvious, soldiers in standard ground forces uniforms scurried around with heavy armaments, as men and women wearing civilian clothes followed them with rifles and helped set up fortifications. Trucks like the one that had driven them here were lined up at the pier, one of their slide doors opened to let in a girl that had sprinted alone down the street, revealing people packed in like sardines, the young and the old. The door closed with a slam as a PAVN officer yelled at the driver in Vietnamese, smacking the hood with his hand as the vehicle honked twice, and the truck began to roll out onto one of the small river ferry's that lined the wharves.

The Commander saw several of her men, identified by their white Navy uniforms, among the Ferry crew. "The Captains orders, no doubt," she muttered. "YOU!" She flagged down one of her men as she started towards them, the man, seeing Lao advancing, saluted. "Commander! The Captain ordered us to man the boats, the ferry operators didn't have enough crew to man all the spares at once." He said in Vietnamese, halting the question before it could leave Lao's lips. Instead, she merely nodded, waving him off as she raised the man in question over her radio, she got the operator next to his office, before he was quickly called over.

"Commander Lao here, we are at the docks as requested, our orders?" She said smartly.

"launch what aircraft you have now, we have MIG 21's doing a flyby in two minutes, they will spot the main enemy air components for our AA guns visually, they are suspected to be coming from Ho Chi Minh Cities Airstrip, but they might be Carrier launched as well." The fact that they knew the aircraft were coming at all was a no-brainer, the Abyssals may not have opened fire with their long guns, but they would almost certainly attempt to gain aerial superiority. "Hopefully Captain Chitose can give us an edge up there, other than that I trust that you can handle the direction of the... other ships, but I must ask, will they fight?" Lao looked at the Abyssals, Georgia already talking with Countess and Chitose as they seemed to be coming up with the start of a plan. "Yes Captain, I believe they will, they all speak English, should I patch them into the net?" The Captain agreed, and soon Georgia's voice spoke out on the radio.

" So gents, what are we doing? I'm seeing a lotta fella's scurrying around and I'm feeling kinda useless here."

"I've been told you are capable of launching Cruise Missiles, is this true?" Lu said.

"Yup, got about 82 in the tubes. Bear in mind that they're 109C's. I'll need a painted target, and they'll still probably miss if it's moving. I've got a couple Pelican UAV's to do the spotting for me, but they are teeny. I'll need a destination to send em, if they are going to spot them in time to make a difference," there was a brief pause before the captain replied.

"Get into the river, send out your UAV's. We have visuals on enemy formations coming up shortly, we can direct you from there," he paused. "We have a large stockpile of laser targeters and UAV's if you would-?"

"No good, Ghost, remember? Hook one up to me and it would fry." Georgia shot down the Captains hope of actually being able to use their more modern equipment for once. "I'll see if I can get a few torpedo spreads off with Hakone as they advance with surface ships.

"Not advisable, we deployed a large number of Sea mines downriver, you'd probably hit them, wait until they are expended." Georgia nodded, then realizing the man wouldn't see it, voiced her agreement. The submarine turned to Chitose, who was readying her Seaplanes for launch.

"You ready to kick Jersey's teeth in?" The Japanese Kanmusu smiled, simply launching one of her Zuiuns in reply.

Fairy POV

We launched safely and correctly, only dipping a little before starting to climb back into the air, the weight of the pontoon added a bit of a pendulum effect to a Zuiun's flight patterns, but the two 250kg bombs helped even it out, once they were launched it would be harder flying, but then my job would have been done anyway.

"Hey! you see anything back their Hahi? I asked my observer, the woman behind me looked back, her Hachimaki (Proclaiming 'Thousand-Year Victory'.) Slipping over one eye before she readjusted it.

"Hai! Chitose just waved at us!" I grinned as I banked us right, moving in a lazy circle as more and more of my squadron lifted off. I rubbed a miniature version of Chitose's good luck charm, letting it fill me with confidence as I acknowledged my squad-mates as they joined us.

"You know, I miss those Kai planes, they had a lot less turbulence." My observer looked at me oddly, before replying.

"Well I don't! One of them tried to eat me one night, when I was doing maintenance in the hanger! It almost had me too, it's a good thing I had a mop to keep it at bay with!" I laughed, before realizing she was dead-serious.

"What?! why didn't you tell me?! You know they only got like that when you forget to feed them, right?" My observer's look turned a bit embarrassed as I turned back to the radio. One of the American Seagulls the Commander had raised us all in English "All flights! MIG's moving overhead, friendly, I repeat, friendly, the jets will spot enemy forces in-bound from the East and mark targets of opportunity, our job is to help with interception once they pass over the ZSU mobile AA." Ah, we'd have competent AA on OUR side for once. I watched alongside my observer, who squeezed her fat head over the cockpits chair to look, as nine streaks shot past us, two groups of three beginning to circle the city as the last three moved on. The planes were fast, faster than anything I'd ever seen.

"Screw the Kai planes, I'd want me one of those." I said dreamily."

"Yeah." Hahi agreed.

'Colonel' Van Pham Ji POV

I flew over the buzzing friendly RC planes in-formation with the rest of my 3 man flight, Huie Bie Phuc was on my right-wing while Fan Dai was on my left, all three of us were old-timers, far too old for this nonsense. But, having lost Nhung to a stall-out five months before, I wasn't about to underestimate these damned children's toys. Our 'Airbase' had taken on many young men and women, and the other two 3-man flights represented them, held in reserve patrol for now. But I had to be here, this was the last buffer between the Sea Devils and our strip, once Long Xuyen fell, we would have to find berth elsewhere. The airbase at Hanoi maybe? Or Da Nang. Close enough to easily launch reactionary missions there." I was pulled from my thoughts as we screamed East, Bie Phuc came over the radio with his croaking voice, the result of larynx surgery in the '80s.

"I'm seeing fuzz on the horizon, looks like your Ground Force Captain was right, radar tracking is gumming up just looking at them, little bastards." We had discovered that, while we couldn't get a proper lock-on with our missile targeting, we COULD tell the general area of the little monsters by using the instruments like a metal detector, slowly sweep with the lock-on till it fuzzed-out, and that's where they were. I brought up Captain Lu on the ground.

"Looks like they are coming from exactly where you thought they were Captain, getting in from the South East, the trajectory is off for it to be from the City, how copy?" The young man answered shortly after.

"I read you loud and clear, see if you can go over them and see where they are coming from, if you can get me general eyes on any Carrier-class ships on the river we can deal with them."

"How?" If me and my boys couldn't then how was a landlocked Captain going to...?"

"We gained access to... Fairy Cruise Missiles. Should cut through the interference just fine, we only need coordinates for the UAV's to head to." 'Fairy Cruise Missiles.' I scoffed around my flight mask, what a crock of shit that was. I'd have been laughed out of the Airforce if I'd said that with a straight face. Then again, I was running ariel reconnaissance against ghosts and fighting enemy pilots who were three inches tall. I banked right, My wingmen following me as we swept over the incoming aircraft, they didn't seem to react to my squadron, which was a fair response, we'd only ever managed to hit the bombers when they were on spray missions, the trails of defoliant giving us something to track them by with our 23mm nose cannons.

"There! I see them, the river, check your 1 Oclock! near the fork!" Fan Dai said, I followed his direction... There. I tilted my MIG for a better look out of the cockpit, I wasn't able to get exactly fair looks at them as I passed, we were going too fast for that. But I could see the group had a fair number of the more monstrous ghosts, as we zipped by I saw quite the cluster of the Destroyer profiles, the white exposed skin of their Cruisers, thankfully the harlots white completion marked them out on the dark waters starkly, but it was the trio of white figures with giant crab heads that caught my attention. Tracers filled the air behind us, the Abyssals stupidly trying to hit us with AA weapons that were outdated decades before my own MIG was.

"Captain, I'm seeing three Carrier-class Abyssals along the Mekong river with escorts, looks like they've already launched a good amount, but I don't think they are empty quite yet!" We began to bank around, mostly to see if we could creep up behind the incoming aircraft and get a few of the bombers as the Captain answered.

"Good! I'll have... The Submarine send off her Pelicans now, do you think you could-"

I stopped paying attention as warnings lit up on my console. "I'm getting a missile lock-on!" Bie Phuc croaked loudly into my ear, while banking sharply as I scrambled for the countermeasures. I looked out of the cockpit, seeing the missile trails due South... I knew those. "Split off and release chaff! we have incoming sidewinders!