With Chitose:

In a distant corner of my mind, I wasn't truly surprised. Georgia had, on numerous occasions, proven that she had absolutely zero qualms when it came to ad-hoc repairs. I was even her first impromptu 'patient', though I hadn't been awake for it, when she'd capped off my legs.

The fact that she had no problem doing so to herself, also shouldn't have come as a surprise.

In the not so distant corner of my mind, however...

"AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEE!" I continued to scream, echoed by Lao and the newly renamed Robin, as Georgia plucked her own eye out.

Said Submarine's horrifically eyeless gaze narrowed, as she 'looked' around at the ships surrounding her, "Jeez, calm down will ya? I'm putting it back."

I didn't calm down, but I did stop screaming, putting a hand to my heaving chest as I watched her slowly pop the eye into her right socket, feeling out her path blindly, like when you try to put a plug into a socket you can't see under your bed, "You could have given us some warning!" I scolded, waiting for her to have the eye in properly, before flicking her in the forehead with a finger.

"Ag! Hey watch it!"Georgia said, rubbing her forehead as she handed me my pocket-mirror back, "yeah, I probably should have, I forgot though," she shrugged, closing her eyes thankfully, so we didn't have to look into those horrible pits.

Seeing her Damcon scurrying around in her emptied eyesocket had made me queasy for reasons I was not entirely aware.

"Won't all the connections be inverted though?" Hakone said curiously, sitting cross-legged next to us,

Georgia paused for a moment, I assumed to talk to her crew, "Nah, it's just the casing, helps direct the sensors, but it's all fitted centrally, most of it just sits on the gyroscope."

At this point, Robin and Lao had stopped screaming, though now Robin was making a valiant attempt to disappear behind a Bemused Diane, before realizing belatedly who, exactly, she was using for cover.

I looked over at Lao, and couldn't help but let out a giggle.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up," Lao said, pouting adorably as she hung off of Anne's shoulders, having jumped onto the ship in her surprise.

Anne merely exchanged a long glance with me, her visible eye conveying vague amusement at the situation, before she reached up and plucked the Frigate off of her like a ripe apple.

"Eek! Hey! Put me down!" Lao said, legs flailing, as the considerably taller Cessex did just that, setting the girl down before rubbing her blonde's head good-naturedly.

"N̵o̷ ̶w̵o̶r̶r̸i̷e̶s̵,̸ ̶d̸o̷n̶'̶t̶ ̷m̸a̴k̶e̸ ̵a̷ ̶h̴a̴b̵i̵t̴ ̴o̵f̸ ̸c̵l̶i̷m̶b̵i̸n̴g̶ ̸m̵e̴ ̶t̴h̵o̴u̷g̴h̵,̵ ̶n̷e̴x̴t̴ ̷t̷i̶m̸e̸,̴ ̶I̶ ̶m̶i̸g̴h̸t̸ ̸d̸e̷c̶i̷d̶e̷ ̶t̸o̷ ̵k̴e̶e̵p̴ ̵y̵o̸u̶," the big girl grinned, though we could barely see her mouth over her toothy-prow.

"Alright! What I miss?"

I looked down in my lap, to see Georgia blinking rapidly, adjusting to her new vision as her sole eye lit up in her, by now, familiar pale-blue glow. She'd slid her half-melted eyepatch back on, which I was grateful for,

I looked over to Lao, who was shaking her head subtly at me, her lips pursed in embarrassment. I just repeated my giggle, before looking back, meeting Georgia's one-eyed gaze, "Oh, nothing," I said, patting her on the head, before moving to get up. Georgia rocked to her feet, getting off my lap as we both rose, I put a hand on the Submarine's shoulder, "Are you sure you'll be okay?" I asked, I had to be sure the klutz wouldn't immediately fall over and hurt herself, after all.

"Yeah, I'll be fine, as soon as I dig all the shrapnel out of my hair," Georgia shook her white (though now a significant portion was stained a light grey with soot!) locks for emphasis, the tinkle of falling bits of metal shaking free serving to underline the statement.

"So," I clapped my hands together, "what have we learned?" I asked.

Georgia continued shaking out her hair (she had a lot to go over) "...Eyes are interchangeable?"

I sighed.

"...I can catch some sweet air when I get bucked off of Scooter?"

I raised a hand to massage my brow.

"No picking up strange things in a booby-trapped forest!" I said, somewhat sharply. Honestly, this girl...

"Yeah yeah, I gotcha," Georgia turned to Lao, "Didn't even see any markers though! Honest!"

Lao scratched at her head, peering back to the blast zone, where a massive but shallow crater marked where the trap had been sprung, "Well, it's not like we can check for them NOW, even if she did put one down, it's gone now," she gestured at the destruction.

I nodded, "Maybe it would be best to carry on?" I enquired.

The Abyssal ships nodded, and started to leave, though Lao stopped, wincing before looking back at the bodies.

"Hate to leave them un-buried..." She said.

I walked up to her, "We could, if you want?" I offered.

The Frigate shook her head, "I was lucky not to lose a foot turning that body over earlier, any one of them could have a torpex-surprise rigged to them, it's too risky."

I just nodded sadly, putting a hand on the smaller Seaplane-Tender's shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze, "Come on, then, let's get going."

...

With Georgia:

We passed the burned zone, though signs of a running firefight continued, the odd part was, while we came across the occasional bundle of rags, lying in odd places along the path, we never found another body. Trees and foliage were trampled and broken in places, spent casings littering the ground and bulletholes stitching lines through wide palm-leaves and scarring trunks, and more than once, we found spatters of dried blood at the base of a chewed-up piece of cover, just beginning to turn a deep, blackish red.

"Who could have caused this? Those were some of Ky Hoa's men back there, right?" Chitose asked, as we found another patch of chewed-up scenery.

"Back there? That was an Abyssal airstrike, no doubt, though how they knew she was there waiting for us... I don't know," Lao said the last a bit unsurely, "It almost looks like it was called in, no way they could have been seen from the air, we're pretty high up, but there's still enough cover that they'd be able to hide from any spotter planes..."

"We're near the Laotian border, right? Maybe it was them?" I said, playing devil's advocate.

Lao shook her head, "The more hostile hill tribes don't bother people this far South, even then, it's usually just setting up annoying 'tolls' in chokepoints, they scatter into the woods when anyone armed and organized comes through, they wouldn't straight-up attack a group of armed men... though, if they were this far out, they might have taken advantage of the Abyssal airstrike to try and pick off the survivors..." Lao hummed contemplatively.

"Sounds like a merry bunch," I said sarcastically, brushing a broken leaf aside.

"Ever since the Abyssal wars broke out, Laos has been absolutely overrun with refugees," Lao said, stopping ahead of us, before pointing out a bamboo triangle, we edged around the trap indication as she continued, "they didn't cope well, the economy couldn't handle the strain and croaked, and that sparked a civil war," She shrugged, "I don't keep up with it, more important stuff to deal with, but it does mean any civil authority in the country is basically reliant on regional leaders, including the cartels further North, near the border to Thailand."

While the Frigate talked I kneaded my scalp with one hand, finding an irregularity, I pinched, and worked out another shard of metal, about half an inch long. I flung it off to the side as I turned to her.

"Do you think she's in trouble?"

Lao looked at me, "Sentry? I don't know. She's as sneaky as a minesweeper can be, but judging by this," Lao swept an arm at the scattered destruction, "she was chased."

...

We came upon even more destruction a few miles later.

"This doesn't look like a typical airstrike," I said, as if I knew what one looked like in the first place, "seems too... patterned?"

The wide area, overlooked by a rocky outcropping, had been mulched with explosives, like it had come under mortar fire. What made it odd, however, was the fact the craters formed an almost perfect circle, with only a few spaces that weren't filled in.

We cautiously approached the area, and I could spot a few more bits of rag, though I wasn't going to be rooting around in those any time soon...

What? I learn from my mistakes!

...

Shut up, I do!

"Ah, maybe cluster munitions?" Chitose ventured, peering into one of the spaces, "look!" She pointed, "UXB's!"

There was a small canister planted into the ground, a small stick coming out of it, a small propeller capping it off.

"U-what-what?" I asked, stupid military and their stupid acronyms.

Chitose tossed me a look, "Unexploded bomb," she looked back, leaning forward but unwilling to get closer, "looks like..." She gained a puzzled look, "what is that?"

Lao came over, realization on her face, "That's a hedgehog bomb."

Chitose did a double-take, "I- it is?"

Hakone peered over her shoulder, "A hedgehog?"

I looked over, "small mammal, has spikes all over it," I turned to Lao, "so, this from your friend?" I asked.

The Frigate hesitantly nodded, "She has a hedgehog mortar, fires depth-charges in a circular ripple-pattern," She nodded to the bomb in front of us, "she has problems with the contact fuzes sometimes, she doesn't use them often, no Subs to use them on, and any Abyssal surface ship hit by it would probably just laugh at her," she shrugged, before turning around. She pointed at the rocky outcropping, "The range is pretty short, she was probably up there when she fired," Lao traced a trajectory, starting at the small cliff, that ended up where we were, "yep, definitely," she nodded to herself.

"Well, let's check out the firing point then!" I waved towards the outcropping.

Lao waved me down, "I'll go first, if Hoa is leaving traps all over the place, you bet she left one or two leading up to that firing position."

...

We made it up to the outcropping, though Lao spotted no less than three cartridge traps along the way, placed between the rocks where easy handholds would be.

What we found at the top was...

AAAAaaand done for now, lol, enjoy the cliffhanger.

Ha, cliff.