We stood, not seeing the need to hide anymore, as Chitose's (somewhat reduced) squadron of Aichi E16A's chased down the (apparently Soviet derived) reconnaissance planes.
We'd mulched the first two with our AA at comparative knife-fight range, well, I say OUR but in actuality, it was the Kanmusu, Anne, and Hakone that did most of the AA work. I didn't have anything besides insults and rocks to throw at them, and the Battleships only had four 3" AA guns between the two of them (I hadn't bothered stopping-up Robin's lighter cannons)
The fact that she actually shot at the enemy planes after a brief moment of hesitation eased my mind somewhat. Either she was disillusioned enough to fight her former allies with me, or ruthless enough to switch sides completely to save her own hide.
At this point, either worked for me, though I'd have to keep an eye on our 'prisoner' if the latter was the case.
But who knows? Maybe the Icecream did the trick?
The other two planes had the time to get low enough to avoid the gunfire, which is when Chitose hadreleased the hounds to chase them down.
The last spotter, having eluded Chitose's planes for a solid three minutes, finally made a mistake, turning into one of her Zuiuns sights. The plane, slower on the turn than Chitose's comparatively advanced craft, folded like wet tissue paper under the fusillade of fire from its pursuer's twin type 99's.
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the plane engines above, before the enemy recon plane finally crashed into the forest below, tearing through a couple of trees as it came apart.
Lao sighed in relief, "That's the last of them!" she turned to me, "You're sure they didn't get any messages out?"
I let out a gasping laugh, "Pah! Oh, they totally did," I soaked in Lao's 'deer in headlights' expression for a moment, "we didn't actually block any outgoing transmission, we just made it pretty much unintelligible," I finished, waving away the concern.
The Frigate let out a slow breath, "So they know somethings up, but not who, where, or what?" She asked for clarity.
I nodded, "Basically, yeah," I waved toward the treeline, distant on the other side of the ridge we'd been hiding behind, "we should probably get off of this mountain before they send anything else to check what happened."
Chitose nodded along with the others, "Ah, alright I'll just..." she blinked dumbly, "oh."
I looked at her, "What? What's 'oh'?"
Chitose twiddled her fingers a little, catapults hanging somewhat limply off her shoulders, "I uhm, that is, I..."
We didn't have time for this, "Well? Out with it!" I rolled my hand in a 'get on with it!' Gesture.
Chitose slumped, "I... have no idea how I'm going to land my planes," she said weakly.
"Well, just land them on your..." I blinked, realizing mid-sentence that Chitose did not, in fact, have a flight deck, "You know, oddly enough I forgot Seaplanes needed water to land." I stood there awkwardly, one foot in Scooter's cockpit.
Hakone piped up, "You could try catching them!" we turned to look at her, "What?" she asked.
"Ah, I, I would... rather not destroy my own planes, Hakone," Chitose said haltingly.
Personally, I didn't see the problem, though she'd probably need a baseball catcher's mitt or something...
Lao, the other main Seaplane-user in our group, spoke up, "Don't worry, we aren't far from the QL14C highway, a few miles East, across the border, there's a small tributary that follows along the road, you should be able to land your planes there," she finished.
Ky Hoa perked up briefly, "Yeah! me and... everyone else," her voice dipped for a second, "used some old pickup trucks to get here! We abandoned them in the bushes not far from the road. I can get us there! Follow me!" She waved us forward as she started off over the ridge, picking up speed as she started on the downwards tilt.
I looked at the other ships, before climbing into Scooter. Once I was situated I gave them one final glance.
"Race ya," Scooter surged over the ridge, followed quickly by the rest of me, the wonder twins floating after, gravity beginning to do its work as I began to pick up speed. I heard squawks behind me as the girls made to chase after me. I giggled dumbly to myself as I dipped low into my cockpit, turning Scooter intobasically a floating, frictionless luge as I started to catch up to Ky Hoa's frantic pace.
Ever start running down a hill and immediately realize you won't be able to stop?
"I cant staaaahp!" Ky Hoa shouted, before looking back, and, seeing me careening towards her like a bat out of hell, turned forward and began running faster, leaning forwards so far that I was amazed that she didn't trip, "Eeeeeeeiii!" she screamed.
I grinned, giving Scooter a couple of thumps as I conveyed what I wanted her to do.
My Rigging responded as if it was an extension of myself, which, of course, it was. Dipping low at the last second, its nose tucked under Ky's knees, sending the Minesweeper tumbling backward and into my cockpit as it leveled off again in our descent down the mountain. I was forced forward, Ky's Rigging jabbing me uncomfortably in the back as she landed behind me, landing in the rear of my cockpit as I had been leaning forward.
"Aaaaaaaaah-whah?!" Ky's screaming cut off as she finally realized she hadn't been turned into a glistening smear by the Ohio Submarine sliding down the mountain after her.
Man, that would lookso freakin' cool in ship'O vision.
"Hope you packed your bags kid!" I shouted over the wind, turning in my seat to look at the confused Kanmusu, "Cause we're going on a trip!" I leaned forward again.
"I'm not a kid!" Ky snapped, as she quickly started trying to settle herself in a cockpit only meant for one (Moi) person, her eyes widening as she realized just how goddamn fast we were starting to go. "Are you crazy?!" She gasped, grabbing my shoulders with a white-knuckled grip.
"You really wanna know the answer to that?!" I asked, not giving her time to respond before spotting a rocky outcropping ahead, "hold on!" I said unnecessarily.
The little shit behind me practically plastered herself against my back, mashing her left cheek between my shoulderblades "Aiiiieeeeee!"
We hit the makeshift jump at close to90km per hour, and were in freefall for a good five seconds at least. I nosed up a little, to bleed off a little speed, for what good it did.
Thankfully, Scooter's hover ability kept us from crashing into the ground, though I could feel the odd protruding rock splinter violently against my hull as we came down from the jump.
I was beginning to have second thoughts about my general control of the situation as we closed in on another outcropping.
I turned inwards, "Captain! How's it going in there? We alright?" I asked.
***Wordless frantic screaming***
Well.
Frick.
We hit the next outcropping at an angle, and Scooter did a spin mid-air, I was able to catch a brief sight of the Wondertwins behind us, going down at a speedy but more controlled pace, probably due to the lack of additional wieght. The girls were practically specks now, walking down the slope as quickly as they could without falling into the same gravity trap we had.
We landed backward, Ky Hoa screaming her bloody head off as I tried to twist us around again. I could see the ground speeding away from us way too fast now. I needed to see where I was going!
"Throw yourself leftwise!" I yelled.
"It's Portside you idiot Abyssal!" The Minesweeper managed to say through the incoherent screaming.
"WHATEVER JUST DO IT!" I didn't waste time, throwing my weight to the side as Ky Hoa did the same. Scooter twisted in mid-air, and once again we could see where we were going-
...
Oh Jesus here come the trees.
I shifted my weight, going a 'bit more ship' as I stuffed my hat into the cockpit in front of me, before crossing my arms in front of my face, "Brace for impact!" I shouted.
"What!?"
"We'll use the trees to bleed-off momentum! How thick is your armor?!" I asked.
The small brown-haired ship looked at me with frantic disbelief, "Armor?! I don't HAVE any armor!"
"Well then tuck your mast behind me and curl up!" I said, crossing my arms in front of my face as I braced, "I got a three-inch steel pressure hull!"
She did so just as we hit the first tree, a small, scraggly, wind-swept thing on the outskirts. We plowed through it like... well,like a 16 000-plus tonne Submarine going 140 kilometers per hour.
I sputtered a bit, as splintered chunks of wood pinged off of me in every direction as we carried through, barely slowing.
Oh boy here comes the rest-!
We slammed through tree after tree after tree after tree, carving a new pathway into the forest as we practically sailed through the shrubbery at a breakneck pace. I'd shielded my face, but I could feel twigs and branches snagging in my hair as we sped through the cracking foliage, some of the sharper splinters embedding themselves in my rubber tiles, only stopping at the steel hull beneath.
Through it all, I could hear Ky Hoa screaming in my ear, though whether in excitement, fear, or exhilaration, I couldn't tell.
Eventually, after what must have been the fiftieth or so tree, we began to slow down. And after a few more, we were going slow enough that we simply pushed over the final tree, rather than plowing straight through it.
I hesitantly lowered my raised arms as Scooter slowed to a stop, before blowing away a fern that had somehow wrapped itself around my face.
I leaned back, blinking owlishly. Idly picking an enormous wooden splinter out of my forehead as Ky finally peeked over my shoulder.
"Is it over?" She asked.
I just nodded my head dumbly, as I picked up my pirate hat out of my cockpit again, jamming it onto my head silently.
Ky Hoa shakily stood in my cockpit, before almost daintily stepping out onto solid ground. The second her hands left Scooter, she fell to her knees, as if her legs had turned to jelly.
I could relate, if I hadn't been sitting down, I'd have likely been the same.
...
I cracked first in the sudden silence.
"Heh," the short laugh burst out of me, almost involuntarily, "hehe," I continued, unable to stop myself.
"Hehe!" Ky Hoa started to laugh as well, shaking like a leaf from where she laid on the ground on her hands and knees.
"HeheheHAhaha!" I doubled over clutching my stomach.
"Heheahahaha!" Ky Hoa leaned back, letting her side-mounted Rigging rest on the forest floor as she began laughing in earnest as well, before we trailed off at the same time. A sudden silence falling over the area...
We looked over at each other at the same time.
...
"BAHAHAHA!" We burst out laughing again.
By the time everyone else caught up to us, at a far more sedate pace, we were still howling, amazed at the fact we were still alive.