Lao was on her knees, looking around on the ground for something, as I held a hand to my breast, letting out a long sigh as I stared at the wire that had nearly caused me some grief.
"There it is," The Frigate said, getting up and briefly patting the dirt off her shin-armor as she pointed ahead of her, "keep a lookout for these, it means there's a trap nearby."
There was a triangular symbol in the dirt, made out of broken-off pieces of bamboo, it was pointed in the direction of the tree the cluster of charges were set around.
Chitose bent down to examine it, "Ah, I take it this is Kỳ Hòa's?" She turned and squinted at the clustered depth charges, tilting her head slightly before her eyes widened in realization, "These look like American-issue charges, mark nines?"
"Yep," Lao said, before putting up both hands and stepping forward in front of the larger Tender, who had stepped closer to the tree the charges were clustered around, "DON'T."
Chitose stopped, stock-still, "What is it?"
Lao pointed at the trip-wire trap, "Trying to disable that is a good way to lose your fingers, here, I know most of Sentry's tricks," she moved delicately over to the tree, watching her heeled-feet the entire way.
"Sentry?" Hakone asked.
Lao nodded, "Kỳ Hòa's launch-name, USS Sentry, she was an Admirable-class, back in the bad-old-days." she stopped creeping forward, leaning over squinting, before nodding to herself, she pointed, "There, you see that? Where the grass is a bit brown on the easily accessible part?"
I looked, and yeah, I could see it, barely, the grass in a small circle near the tree, where you could see the tripwire assembly entirely, was just turning a light yellow, as if it was starting to dry out.
"Yes?"
Lao simply pointed, to where a barely-visible wire led off from the charges, disappearing into the turf after a few inches.
"Look, there's a tow-line leading in, hooked up to the initial line, if it gets cut, the line slackens, and sets off whatever the hell this is," she pointed at the circle of lightly dried grass, "There's probably a cartridge trap attached to it, that's the real damage, right there," she finished, nodding.
"I am sorry, a what?" Diane asked, slightly confused.
Lao made a few descriptive gestures as she spoke, "Bags of gunpowder set in a cylinder, with a Naval shell sitting on top and a fuse on the bottom hooked up to the wire, Kỳ Hòa digs small pits for them and puts them on common Abyssal patrol area's," she pointed at the circle again, "There's a three-inch, fifty caliber shell in there probably, waiting to shoot up through the dead-bottom of some poor ship's keel," she finished, raising a leg to point at the sole of her foot.
"Well, how do we disarm it then?"Chitose asked, leaning over, hands on her knees as she examined the assembly.
I threw my two cents in, "Could always just, ya know, set it off," the others looked at me, as I shrugged, looking again at the clustered munitions, "open-ground depth charges won't hurt us at any real range, and if the shell goes off too, it'll just fly into the air, right?" I asked, surely we could find a stick or bamboo rod or something long enough to poke the tripwire with...
Lao just shook her head, "And tell everyone withinwho knows how far where we are?" Lao swept an encompassing hand to the mountainous forest around us, "she wouldn't set traps like this in an uncontested area, it may be pretty weak by our standards, but any humans that don't see the signs and set this off? There has to be over two-thousand pounds of Torpex in these things, altogether, they'd paint what trees aren't blown-over a cherry-pie red."
I looked again at the small pile of Kanmusu-sized depth-charges, that was a lot of explosives for what equated to a prison-beat-sock's worth of soda-cans.
As for the cherry-pie analogy, god, now I had faint memories of eating the friggen things! I've never even eaten a cherry before as far as I know! Why was I craving the pie?!
Honestly, my mouth was watering!
"...And now I'm hungry, thanks." I snarked at the Frigate, who blinked in confusion, before recoiling a little.
"That's not what I-" She shuddered, "...Uhh, anyway, best bet is to just avoid it, I'll make the sign more obvious," we watched as the girl scuffed the ground a little, sweeping the leaves away and putting some larger sticks in the same triangular formation as the other, pointing at the tripwire, "there."
"So, ahm, all her traps have those?" Chitose asked hesitantly, as we followed the wide berth Lao took around the wire.
She nodded, "When she thinks there are friendlies nearby that might bumble into them, yes, this one was kind of hard to see though, it's a good thing I spotted the wire at the last second, keep your eyes peeled for more," she gestured up the path ahead of us, "if she bothered setting one, there will be more."
...
We'd been traveling in silence for the last twenty minutes, heads on a swivel for anything suspicious or triangular, when I started up the conversation again.
"So, what's this trapper like?" I asked, getting Lao's attention as I leaned over Scooter's cockpit, eye scanning for the glint of wires, "You said she was an Admirable, right? What are those?"
Lao looked a little confused, as if what I'd asked was common knowledge (which, I suppose, to WW 2 Vets like her and Chitose, it was) "Mine-sweepers, one of the largest types the US had during WW 2, there was, jeez, I don't even KNOW how many made," she paused, holding up a hand, squinting at something as the rest of us stopped, but after a moment, she shook her head, and we continued. "They ended up a lot like us Barnegats, frittered away to countries that actually needed us, I guess, some ended up in the Soviet Union, others the Republic of Vietnam, China, Korea, you name it, there was probably one of the little buggers there," she shrugged.
Chitose hummed a little, scrunching her brows in thought, "Hmm, I remember there was a fair amount of them at Leyte, they shot down a few of my planes while we were trying to prevent the landings, well, before all of them were taken out of my hangers, anyway."
Lao nodded, "Yeah, Sentry was there, as part of MineDiv 34, got six battle stars for it, well, along with everything after, likes to show 'em off, too."
"So how did a mine-sweeper make the jump to setting mines?" I asked, which was a fair question, she'd be more the Kanmusu equivalent to a bomb disposal expert than anything.
Lao scratched the back of her head, "She had the equipment for it," she slowly peeked around a large tree in our path, searching the ground and canopy before waving us forward and continuing, "Mines can be armed with anti-tamper devices, and she's seen a couple in action before," she grimaced a little, "That, paired with the fact there's a crippling lack of Submarines in Jersey's forces, means she had to start using her armaments... inventively."
"She has a cannon, right?" I asked, thinking back to the cartridge trap, "A 3"er?"
Lao nodded, "Yeah, though it's usually used as an AA gun, she mostly just uses the shells for crap like that," she thumbed backward to where we'd come from, "that aside, she's got two Bofors and a hedgehog launcher, along with two regular charge tracks. That wire? it's a bit of her de-mining kit, originally used to dredge for sea-mines. They make for good wires to set off Kanmusu munitions."
"Inventive little thing, isn't she-" I cut myself off as I stopped, "look," I pointed.
The area ahead was burned black, what trees there were, were withered and leafless, scorch marks climbing up the base of their roots.
Lao looked physically shaken, creeping forward and surveying the area, "Looks like an airstrike," she looked at us hesitantly, before waving us over, "come on."
...
We found the first bodies a few minutes later, who they were, we didn't know. They had clearly been caught in the airstrike that had blackened the mountainside, fingers curled up like claws, the few scraps of cloth the burnt corpses still had didn't have any identifiable markings, though the blackened weapons thrown nearby suggested they had been armed.
It had clearly been some time ago, there wasn't even the wisp of a smolder, the fires clearly having burned out a while ago.
"Do you think these guys were some of Kỳ's?" I asked, looking around as the girls fanned out to look over the destruction.
"Who else would be here?" Lao spit out anxiously, turning over a corpse with her foot. She winced, the front side wasn't any better-looking than the back.
"Hey girls!" Hakone called out, from where she was standing with Anne, I came over, and the Heavy Cruiser pointed at something on the ground, "What's up with all these piles of rags?" She asked.
I looked to where she was pointing, there, behind the nearest tree facing the carnage, was a formless pile of rags, I leaned down, "Let's take a look here." I said, lifting up the green cloth.
It was a military uniform, that much was sure, it looked ancient though, blackened and moldy in places, and I could see a few bullet holes as well.
"Huh, hey!" I called out to the Kanmusu, who looked over "Does this look like any uniform you recognize?" I raised the uniform up further so the others could see-
**click**