Chitose POV
I winced as one of my planes sped by trailing fire, I briefly tried to take control, to see if I could help them land safely. But no, the pilot had been killed, leaving only the rear observer to offer a brief apology to me in my mind, before the plane plowed into a department store downriver, shattering the storefront in a fireball. It was never easy to lose aircrew, especially when you were looking through their eyes at the time. And I blinked away an unshed tear as I focused on hitting the offending Hell Cat that had shot my plane down, my four type 89 naval guns spewing flack as my type 96 25mm guns struggled to rotate fast enough to get within firing arc of the plane, the aircraft went down shortly after, but not from my fire.
One of Lao's three Seagulls buzzed by, having stitched a line of fire into the fuselage of the enemy craft, I gave a quick salute to the plane as it passed, and Lao, who was facing away from me, spoke out; "No problem! She left herself wide open with that run."
"You control your planes very well," I said, mild frustration coloring my tone as I once again failed to track a passing Hell Cat with my type 96's.
"Yeah, had to learn to multitask fairly quick, 3 O-clock high, Liberation bombers in-bound for the dock, don't have the elevation, help?" I nodded, Lao's planes suffered from a weak engine, and had problems climbing with any amount of combat speed. I sent three of my Zuiuns on intercept, having been given a brief window to approach by the emplaced flack artillery mounted on the island up-river. The pilots acknowledged my orders, coming down on the surprised bombers before they could release their payload. Actually, the emplacements stunt with the jets earlier gave me an idea... I turned to face the direction the bombers were going, telling my AA crews to hold their guns in fixed positions ahead of me all at one point. Two of the bombers fell, perforated by my Zuiun's before they had to break off, a veritable swarm of fighters on their tail.
I opened up with all of my AA guns at once, turning my body to face the bomber so that my AA guns didn't need to traverse, letting out a brief storm of fire in the area of sky the bomber suddenly found itself in before my type 96's ten-round magazines ran out. It, along with the flack from my 89's was enough to get the job done, and a third wreck joined the other two in the river.
Hakone and Countess were trying their best near the ferries, but neither were equipped all that well for AA combat. Hakone had it easier, her pair of rapid-fire 6" guns putting out a fair amount of flack to support her own cluster of Japanese derived AA. Countess supported her, her type 98's on their swivel-mounts able to traverse slightly better than the 96's, luckily we were practically at knife-fight ranges with most of these planes, so the shorter range didn't truly matter. Still, eight type 98's were hardly going to make much of an impact, other than forcing strafing fighters away from the civilian vessels, which had finally finished loading, the last truck practically crashing into one of the ships as it quickly raised its docking ramp.
"Where the hell is your submarine?" I haven't heard a word from her since she decided to hare off down-river!" Lao said, her four 20mm AA guns making short work of a low-flying fighter forced into her cone by Hakone's flying fish.
"Georgia almost always goes dark when she's in combat! I'm sure she'll show up soon!" I replied, wincing as a wing of bombers made a successful run over the island, coating the area in flames as the napalm did its work silencing the human AA emplacements there. setting the shanty-towns dotting the shore alight as well. We were too far away to see the aftermath, and I counted myself lucky in that regard. "Hopefully she can hit the Carriers soon, if their nearest landing strip is the airbase in Ho-Chi-Mihn I doubt their planes will stick around with their amount of fuel they probably have." I turned to Pham Ngu Lao who was staring at the billowing flames upriver with wide eyes. "Lao?"
"Hey guys, what I miss?"
Lao startled out of her shocked state, looking down at Georgia, whose head had breached the surface near the jetty we were on. "Where were you?! I told you not to go down-river! It's too dangerous with the amount of Destroyers the vanguard has!" She multitasked, bringing up her guns to spray the air with flack as she spoke.
"Had."
Georgia continued despite Lao's confused look. "I got a look at the main fleet before I got forced back, it's HUGE! at least seventy Destroyers with supporting Cruisers. I also saw at least three Ta-class fast Battleships. Oh, and a really tall lady with armored arms and legs, fairly sure she's a Carrier." Oh my... So many ships.
"I got forced back once their Sea-Kings started dropping fancy ASW crap all over the place, apparently they didn't much like me dismantling their vanguard. There were sonar buoys and depth charges, even acoustic homing torpedoes! It all got out of hand really fast."
Lao finally found her voice. "Dismantling their vanguard?"
"Yep"
"The reports said there were at least twelve Destroyers there! how did you-"
"Nine actually, three got toasted by the human guys there, hurt the Ri pretty bad too judging by the exploded Rigging. Oh! Speaking of which..." Georgia leaned down awkwardly into her cockpit. "I gotta give this to Countess! She could use some of the hardware in this sucker to help repair some of her internal damage, I'd warrant."
It was the Ri's bridge. It honestly said something about our relationship that I didn't immediately freak out, firstly, I was still half concentrating on my planes, and secondly, I had found myself noticeably less squeamish about Abyssal body parts after watching Countess being constructed. Still, I really needed to have a talk with Georgia about what information you should and shouldn't share with others.
"Georgia, I know you are trying to help Countess. But please PLEASE put that away, you are scaring Lao." The submarine obliged, mumbling something as Lao trembled in-place.
"T-That, was a Cruisers head." I nodded, fighting against the urge to step over and give the small girl a comforting hug, it was difficult to deal with Georgia's eccentricities sometimes, I just hoped Lao wouldn't be too frightened about it. "I haven't sunk anything bigger than a Destroyer in the entire year I've been a Kanmusu, and she just waltzes down-river and back with a Heavy Cruiser's head?" She must be scared, she was practically blinking back tears!
"Don't worry, you get used to it." I tried to say reassuringly.
Any response was cut off as a squadron of Hellcats began a strafing run on one of the larger ferries as they pulled away from the dock, packed shoulder to shoulder with the city's inhabitants. my Zuiuns were too busy just trying to survive to render aid at the moment, Hakone and Countess began to fire on the planes as they came, standing between the squadron and the civilian vessels as Vietnamese troops opened fire with light deployable DShK guns from the top decks of the larger ships. Two of the planes survived the onslaught, strafing the vessel with their M2 Brownings, the shots swept the top deck, perforating the Captain's cabin, killing the two men inside and likely ruining the controls. The ferry began to slowly drift away from the others.
Georgia came over our shared radio then. "Hakone! get a good grip on that boat and start tugging! They cant afford to be sitting ducks like that!"
"Hai, Georgia!" Georgia paused, then faced Lao as the Heavy Cruiser scrambled to obey.
"I checked on my drones while you two were talking, I'm within marking-distance of the Carriers, if they go down, how worried for fuel are these aircraft going to be?" Lao looked pensive for a moment, before responding.
"The nearest friendly strip they'd be able to get to would be the one near Ho-Chi-Minh City. Whether or not they've repaired it since turning it into a moonscape is another matter entirely. They might break off almost immediately to reach somewhere friendly to land if they haven't." Georgia nodded before she dove down underwater, continuing the conversation via radio.
"I'll get in touch with your human Captain so we can confirm which targets we want saturated. I didn't see anyone that would fit the bill for Jersey, but I spotted a trio of Ru-class Battleships under the suspension bridge we met-up at, along with escorts. Looks like they are set up for long-range fire support, might want them gone too."
I tightened my defensive Corden as Georgia spoke, gradually shifting my surviving Zuiun's to defend the skies directly above the departing vessels at the cost of leaving the city without air cover. A few were unable to re-locate, caught up in brutal dogfighting that they couldn't disengage from without being shot down. All I could hope was that they could hold on for a little while longer. My original flight of twenty-three had already been whittled down to fifteen.
"Alright! the Captain just got off the horn with me! he's given the go-ahead to hit the Carriers and long-range support. Hopefully that'll buy some breathing room for us and the reinforcements moving down the South bank for another ambush on the main force. I'll also send the last few dozen 'hawks at the big-boats in the main formation, see if we can send 'em into a panic by taking out a capital ship or two." I nodded to myself before acknowledging, we needed the pressure taken off, and taken off soon, before the main taskforce arrived.
We might not make it out otherwise.
