With Georgia:

Dang it! Some of my missiles had been intercepted! Figures SOMEONE would have a way around 'em, eh, I'd just have to fire more at the big lady next time, if there was a next time anyway. It was lucky that the Vietnamese jets had kept the majority of the stupid fish-fly jet things occupied, they'd have probably shot down even more if they hadn't! My aim was off as well, on the main taskforce anyway.

That honestly wasn't all that surprising, I'd expected to miss at least two-thirds of the shots with moving targets. I'd still managed to destroy two Fast Battleships and at least half a dozen Cruisers though, and did enough damage with my near-misses that a handful were steaming back downriver!

And that was only counting the big group, The Ru's in back had been standing perfectly still, allowing all my shots to be more-or-less on the mark. They were rendered... Well, 'mangled' was a word you could use. I don't think I sank any of them, not quite, but hell if they'd be doing anything in the near future. A good amount of their armor looked intact, but I could tell from the black, oily smoke that I'd probably mulched anything that wasn't protected by it.

HE payloads for the win I guess, where soft-tissue structural damage is concerned anyway. The Cruisers in that group were basically already halfway to the riverbed in several pieces each. Not having the luxury of heavy-enough armor to keep together.

The scene was repeated when I looked through my second UAV. Of the three Wo-class Carriers, one had detonated, apparently, she'd had something volatile in her hanger, because there was a large circle of flaming debris floating on the water where she'd been. The other two seemed to be in somewhat of an understandable panic.

One appeared to be on fire, flailing around as the other tried to help put out the blaze with, of all things, a human-sized fire extinguisher. Helped by the few Cruisers who'd survived my barrage while the Destroyers circled about crazily, probably looking for a localized threat.

Neither of the two looked to be in any condition to launch or receive aircraft. One was on fire (it bore repeating) and both of their flight decks had been completely savaged. Their bridges were still there, so they were better off than Countess had been. But still, that wasn't saying much.

I surfaced after a moment, breaching the water like a whale, or a particularly fat person at a public pool. "Bbwwaaah!... Hey what's up?" I asked Lao, whose gaze snapped downwards to me in a mild look of terror before remembering I was one of the good guys.

"We are keeping the aircraft busy if nothing else. The AA to the East has been mostly silenced, the bombers coated that area of jungle in napalm, it's all they can do to try and drive out of the forest fire before their engines stall or their crew's cook. Luckily they were the enclosed variant, otherwise I don't think I'd have been given an update on the situation." Well, that was... Grim, she could probably appreciate some good news right about now.

"So, we don't have to worry about the plane's refueling or re-arming anytime soon, Carriers are out of the picture!" I grinned. Lao's eyes widened as she exclaimed excitedly.

"You sank all three?!"

"Nope! Only one, the bugger must have had loose munitions or something in her hanger. The other two have mulched landing strips though, so mission killed I guess? The one that blew up must have gone up like the fourth of July!" As a former American, I'm fairly certain Lao was the only one here who would get that reference. She did, a childish grin stretching from ear to ear. "Also one was completely on fire last I looked."

"That's the best news I've heard all year."

"It gets better! I also minced the Ru's downriver and took out over a third of the capital ships in the main taskforce! The only really big ships left are a single Ta-class, some weird girl in a hoody with a massive tail, and that tall lady." Lao's grin faltered at that, before picking up again as her AA guns continued to fire, nicking an oncoming Liberation bomber and forcing it away trailing smoke.

"That still leaves more Abyssals than we can deal with, but hopefully we gave them a bloody-enough nose that they will keep their distance for a bit longer, cruise with me." We made towards the ferry Hakone was tugging along while the Commander raised her Captain to pass along the news. Meanwhile I rode Scooter along beside her, suddenly feeling incredibly irrelevant now that my missile stores had been expended, too bad I couldn't stick an AA gun on my prow or something... Actually-.

"Don't even think about it." My Captain interrupted.

"Fine Jeez." I was interrupted from my potential future self-body modification by Lao.

"The Captain got word, the reinforcements we sent South? They were intercepted."

"By what? Aircraft?" I couldn't think of what else it could be, unle-.

"New Jersey." Oh. "She has Seven Ru-class Battleships with her."

Shit.

"She's walking here on foot?!" Lao nodded worriedly as we reached the ferry, I gave Hakone a small wave as we came closer. "Do they need backup?" I'd already used up my missiles but I could probably ghost one or two if they split up. Lao consulted the Captain for a moment before looking at me, her earlier cheer now completely gone.

"They made contact head-on, they are already dead. But more small harassment teams are being sent now to try and lead them on a wild goose chase, if its anything like the last time it will hopefully take another hour or two before New Jersey can corral her ships towards any real objective." Hakone turned to us at the grim news, huffing a little as she pulled along the significantly lighter ferry, her piddly Japanese AA still barking whenever some unfortunate Hell-Cat entered her cone of fire. The aircraft had begun to slack off now that the Carriers were out of business, being called off before they ran the risk of not making it back to a friendly strip. Some of the enemy fighters were still a problem, but a more manageable one now that all our defenses were focused on one area.

"So what are we supposed to do? Just... Run away?" She had a point, we had the civilians with us now, and they were our actual objective.

Lao began speaking over the radio in rapid Vietnamese, probably asking that very question. Meanwhile, Chitose practically hissed nearby as another of her Zuiuns went down in a ball of fire to one of the last Cat squadrons, I spotted Countess next to her providing support, and I called out;

"Hey, Countess!" The ship turned to me, her somewhat blank expression lighting up a bit as I waved the Ri's head at her. "Later on when we aren't doing all this crap maybe you can find something useful in this!" The woman simply nodded, giving a small lopsided smile.

"I̴'̴l̷l̷ ̸h̴a̶v̸e̵ ̶s̷o̷m̶e̶ ̴s̴p̵a̵r̴e̷ ̵c̷r̵e̸w̵ ̷d̸i̸s̶a̴s̷s̷e̷m̷b̷l̵e̵ ̷i̴t̵ ̴soon." Okay then. It was about then that Lao apparently finished receiving our new orders, turning back to us as I quickly hid the severed head I was waving about behind my back, I simply grinned at her small glance of confusion.

"Our new orders are to play escort for the ferry group, Captain Lu said that he and Lieutenant Chinh have a plan to keep the Abyssals on the river locked down if they start an advance before we are out of sight. Once we are fully away he said that they'll begin a scattered withdrawal into the surrounding countryside." I noticed activity on the shore as she said this, PAVN soldiers continuing to dig in on the shoreline as others began launching various small-craft. A trio of low-draft trawlers left the sheltered dock.

"They are gonna fight Abyssals with fishing ships?!" I said incredulously, as I noticed many of the small junks had recoilless rifles and other heavy armaments mounted on their rails, crewed by men with RPGs and LAW's.

"I don't know, all I was told is that it's going to get pretty hot on the water real soon." I could see what she meant, as I watched, black oil slicks began to spread out from behind the trawlers, and I could see men with mattocks frantically smashing open barrels on the deck of one as it slowly passed us by, rolling the empties off as they drained out. The ships were practically full of them.

"That's... a lot of oil."

"That must be all the fuel in the City they could siphon from the stations on short notice." Lao said, a thoughtful crease to her brow. "it's better this way, at least Jersey's forces won't get a free drink after we're gone." I could only nod at that. Before the Captain himself came upon all frequencies. He shouted something in Vietnamese, and Lao's face went ashen as I heard distant 'booms' in the distance over the buzzing aircraft, gunfire, and rain.

"Care to share with the class?" Lao began to cruise North, beckoning us as she went.

"The Abyssals are through the minefield, we have to go, NOW."

AU:


The small craft is a mixture of modern and antiquated junks, some of them old Yabuta's. So they hoped to buy time by giving the Abyssals a right bloody nose, but the Abyssals think they are going to do it again, so are rushing the City, who is more wrong?

Fun random lore fact, the highest-ranking Kanmusu in Vietnam is an escort Destroyer named VPNS Dai Ky, formerly RVNS Trần Khánh Dư, formerly USS Forster. She is a Commodore, as she was promoted from her provisional rank of 'Commander' due to leadership abilities shown while working with the few other Kanmusu they have, as well as being one of the few larger vessels to have actual prior service with the Peoples Navy under her belt against the Chinese, as most South Vietnamese ships joined the Philippine Navy after they escaped with the great refugee flotilla of 1975.