With Georgia 'N Friends:

We stopped at around nine, the sun had set a while ago and we'd switched on our spotlights to keep the civilian vessels (and each other!) from bumping into anything or running aground. Lao, who had joined us again hours ago from her conversation with a Lieutenant by the name of Chinh, spoke up as she took a look at the map unfolded in her hands. "We should be coming up on the border soon." She looked askance at me, only giving a minor twitch as my glowing blue gaze illuminated her face. "Do you think your ship Countess is up for some heavy lifting?"

I nodded, "She's been carrying almost thirty-thousand-something tons for the past eight hours non-stop, I think the girl can handle a few dirty cargo ships, right Countess?" The woman nodded, her own blue spotlights bobbing up and down with the motion as she readjusted her grip on the Ta-class's hull.

"Ah, I can see it now, excuse me." And Lao began to babble into her radio in Vietnamese. The convoy slowly puttered to a stop, as PAVN sailors, Lao's men mostly, put the engines in reverse briefly before shutting them off, throwing down their anchors to hold against the current. Without the engines, things were... Quiet, save for the mutterings of sailors, the local jungle wildlife, and Countess, as the woman set the Ta down on the water.

The inert Abyssal floated readily enough, set down in such a way that the hole in her neck wasn't below the waterline. And Countess quickly grabbed the Battleship's anchor, tossing it in the water so that the hulk wouldn't drift.

"So, when are you going to... Activate her?" Lao asked me, gesturing to the Battleship as the five of us, two Kanmusu and three Abyssals, approached the impromptu river barricade.

"Probably gonna wait till we get to the city and have some grub ready, Countess was absolutely starved when she Woke, and even Hakone had to eat up some Mats for crew summoning." Lao 'oh'd' at that, before asking another question.

"Whats a Mat? I can't picture carpet being all that edible." I had to resist making a rather lewd and inappropriate joke.

"Short for Materials."

"Ah."

We finally came to the base of the barricade, to be honest, I never would have guessed that the land-bridge was built on the hulks of ships, no metal was visible above the waterline, just dirt, with ferns and even the start of tree's growing across the river. "Countess, you ready?" The tall ship nodded, but paused.

"I̵'̶l̴l̶ ̸n̸e̸e̴d̶ ̷t̶o̸ ̵g̴o̶ ̴a̶l̵o̸n̷g̵ ̴a̸n̶d̵ ̶f̷i̷n̵d̵ ̵w̴h̷e̶r̵e̷ ̵o̸n̶e̸ ̶o̵f̵ ̷t̶h̶e̸ ̵h̴u̴l̵k̷s̶ ̵e̵n̶d̶s̷,̷ ̷s̷o̸ ̶I̷ ̵c̴a̷n̶ ̸t̴u̷g̴ ̷i̸t̸ ̶o̶u̵t̸ ̷i̵n̴ ̷o̸n̷e̵ ̸p̷i̴e̸c̷e̶." We nodded as the ship cruised away at a slow pace, looking down into the water for a proper handhold. I turned to Chitose as she muttered something to Lao-

"ឈប់!" I whirled around, as did the others, as a girl came sputtering out of the brush, she was Asian, obviously, and speaking in yet another language I couldn't understand. Though by the looks of it Lao could, if barely. The Frigate exchanged halting words with the young woman, who was dressed, now that I properly looked, quite formally, like you'd expect from a high-class waitress or flight attendant or something.

"That doesn't sound bing bong-ey enough to be Vietnamese, what language is that?" I asked. As Chitose lightly smacked me on top of the head for being rude Lao turned.

"She's speaking Khmer, actually, she said she was left here a while ago by the military. She's wondering why we're here, more specifically you guys." She pointed at me, I just slowly blinked, my spotlight shuttering briefly.

"I guess the Cambodians didn't abandon the place completely like we thought, though I gotta wonder why the guard they left is a waitress in the middle of nowhere, what's her name? Tell her I'm Georgia by the way, we mean no harm and all that jazz." Lao presumably did as I asked, the rapid-fire Vietnamese I was used to hearing from the American girl replaced by halting Khmer, as miss flight attendant kept staring at me. I gave a friendly smile and wave. She seemed to find whatever it was she was looking for as she turned back to Lao and spoke.

Lao turned to us, "She said her name is Ms. AmaDara, I told her who we are, and the reason why we need to move this barricade, she said that we are welcome to move this ship in particular as long as we're careful not to disturb any of the other hulks, the bow of the ship is over there." Lao pointed to a little dip in the underbrush, and Counted trundled over to it as AmaDara spoke again.

"She's been here for the past... six years? With her sisters, she said they can't come out to meet us, as they are rather weak these days." Lao translated, before frowning. "That's as long as the military outpost that was here, she and her family must have been living in these parts since these ships were first scuttled!"

The woman jerked and almost fell over as Countess grabbed hold of something under the brush and yanked, moving an entire section of the land-bridge, soil parted and fell into the water as the outline of the actual ship became visible through the shaken-off soil. "Countess! gently! Don't send the human into the drink!" I scolded good-naturedly, the Light Battlecruiser shrugged, embarrassed, before going back to her work more gently, prying the old hulk out of the mud it was deeply entrenched in. Hakone stepped onto the vessel to poke around a bit.

As the rest of us made way for the old scuttled hulk, the woman sat down on the ground, seemingly uncaring about getting a grass-stained bottom so long as she wasn't thrown around again. Lao conversed with her some more once it was moved, as one of the Yabuta's puttered up to us, the lieutenant got out of the cabin, and surprised us by calling out to Lao in semi-coherent English.

"Commander Pham Ngu Lao! Are we most ready to get?" The Frigate smiled, before replying.

"Yup! Trying to impress the Japanese ship with your English, lieutenant? I'll tell you now you have a way to go before its that impressive!" I snorted in amusement as the man seemed to sputter a little, Chitose, meanwhile, simply smiled and shook her head ruefully. Lao continued as she turned to the Cambodian woman. "I think you'd have better luck with Ms A-"

The woman was gone.

We looked around confusedly, there really wasn't anywhere she could have gone unless she'd hidden herself under some of the waist-high ferns. I turned to the man on the Yabuta. "You see where Ms AmraDama went? She was right there a second ago..."

"It's AmaDara, Georgia." Chitose corrected, I shrugged, I wasn't good at names.

The man looked at me suspiciously, but nonetheless answered. "What woman? You sitting there to talk among yourselves for the past time now..." Hakone interrupted my response, calling out to us.

"G-Guys? Georgia? You may want to look at this." The four of us stepped up onto the dirt as we walked over to Hakone, who had gone poking around the hulk as we talked.

"What is it Hakone?" Asked Chitose, as we came up beside the (why is she shaking?) Heavy Cruiser. Hakone was next to a couple of young palm trees, poking out from what was semi-recognizable as a rusted hand-rail, there was an old life preserver hooked onto the second rail, and Hakone slowly turned it around so that we could read the writing. half of it was in weird squiggly lines, that I assumed was Kimmerese or whatever the written language was called, the other, rather helpfully, was in English.

RV AmaDara ... APT River Cruises.

...

...

"S-So, um, Chitose." I said quietly, "Is it w-weird that, being technically a demon-sea ghost myself, I'm still kinda friggen terrified right now?" I waited for a response, "Chitose?" I turned, only to see the other three ships booking it right the hell past a confused Countess, who nonetheless started running after them. "W-Wait for me!" I yelled, jumping in Scooter and getting the hell-GONE.

The lieutenant later asked us to move another hulk for more clearance. They had to make do with some potentially scraped paint as we cowered together in one of the cabins, Lao's fear of me apparently taking a backseat to our shared fear of freaking GHOST'S.