"Are you kidding me? Just, really?" I facepalmed.
"Hey buzzoff, Abyssal!" Ky Hoa pouted aggressively, "I'm not old enough to drive, so t-they didn't give me the keys!" She stomped a foot.
"And you forgot to get them back af-" I cut myself off, simply making noise of aggravation as I narrowly avoided bringing up something that would make the Minesweeper cry, "AHHG!" I there my hands up, "Fine! We'll just have to hotwire it!"
I turned back to the truck.
"Ah, Georgia?" Chitose ventured, "how will we get inside in the first place?" She scratched her head as I walked around and tried the driver's door, still locked, "Burst a window?"
I waved the thought away, "Nah Nah, nothing that drastic, gimmie a minute." I grabbed onto the rubber lining of the quarter vent window on the driver's side. I pinched it apart at one point and slowly tugged it away, leaving a small inch-wide gap between the window and the truck-frame.
"What the hell are you even doing?" Lao said, a bit confused, as the fleet watched on.
Anne had wordlessly climbed into the open hatchback, sitting down on the troop bench and leaning back, closing her eyes.
"Come, Miss Robin, I'm sure Georgia will have our transportation sorted soon." Diane waved a hesitant Robin onto the back as well, as Hakone leaned forward on her heels to watch me work.
"I said gimmie a minute, jeez!" I replied to Lao, before putting my opened mouth up against the hole.
"Bleeeagh!"
A coiled rope flung itself out of my mouth, stretching down to the front seat. A couple of my SEAL's rappelled down, landing on the cushions.
Ky Hoa recoiled a little in confusion, "what is that?"
"Just some of Georgia's crew, I think they are part of her marine detachment," Chitose said, holding her hands up above her brow to look into the cabin through the glass.
Both of the SEALs looked up and gave her the finger without missing a beat.
"Derr cheelze, gnott gnaringes!" I said around the rappel-line coming out of my mouth.
Chitose looked at me, more bemused than offended, "What?"
I looked down at my crew, they'd made it down off the ropes and detached themselves. I backed away, slurping the rappel line back into my mouth like a particularly long string of spaghetti. When I was done, I wiped away some drool before looking at Chitose, "I said they are SEALs, not marines, they get pissed off if you call 'em Marines."
Chitose let out an 'Oh' as the Ma-SEALs got to work, dangit Chitose now you have me thinkin' it!
Anyway, one of the little munchkins detached her own coil of rope and started swinging it around, the tiny hooks on the end flashing. She threw it, and caught onto the door handle, where the lock was. She tugged a few times, and, when she was satisfied she'd gotten a proper hold, started to climb up the rope, the other fairy not far behind.
"Ha! I can see up your skirt!" the second one snickered.
The one above her looked down, "So? We literally live in the same five hundred and sixty-foot long metal can and everyone wears skirts." She started up the rope again, "if that's the first time you've seen those standard-issue draws I'd be surprised."
"Hey! That 'can' can hear you!" I said archly, "get on with it."
The fairies grumbled inaudibly before continuing their climb, and, once they'd reached the car door, flipped the door lock.
"Alright!" I opened the door slowly, so as not to send my little ones flying, before picking them up and letting them crawl back inside me.
I hopped into the driver's seat and immediately noticed a problem.
"Oh my god, I hate being short." I groaned, I could barely see over the dash, and my white legs dangled uselessly above the driver's pedals.
Luckily, I had taller people to do that for me. I just had to deal with the...
"Hey," I peeked out of the door, to where the Kanmusu stood, "where's the ignition?"
Lao looked in, "That locked box there," she pointed off to the side, where a padlocked box was, "should just be a button ignition, we just have to pick the lo-"
I took the lock between my thumb and index finger and pinched. The hardened steel crunching like a graham cracker as the bolt tried and failed to resist my MASSIVE MUSCLES.
"Got it!" I looked over, hop in!"
"You aren't driving, shove over," Lao said, making shooing motions.
"What? Why?" I said, taken aback, before narrowing my eyes at the Frigate, "What? Just because I'm an underboat I don't know how to drive?! Discrimination! Outrag-"
"You can't even see over the dash, move."
I grumbled, "Oh fine, I'll just get in the back then."
Chitose stepped forward as I hopped out, "You don't have to," she said, "you can stay in the cab with us," she offered.
I shook my head, pointing my thumb behind me at where my girls were sitting, "Nah, my Rigging won't fit in with me anyway, and I doubt those two wanna cram in with the girls," Lao looked away guiltily, as Ky blew me a raspberry, the little shit, "Kanmusu can take the cab, I'll stay in back and make sure nobody goes through the floor."
Chitose didn't seem to particularly like the idea of segregating the group like that, but nodded after a moment, "Alright."
Lao didn't seem nearly as distraught. Shrugging in acquiescence as she climbed in after Ky Hoa, who was now jammed between her and Chitose.
"Climb in back, and we'll be off," she said.
...
I hate the fact she probably doesn't even realize she just made a Skyrim reference.
Abyssal forward artillery position, Hồ Ya Ly Reservoir, Gia Lai Province, Vietnam:
With the Abyssals:
The Abyssal fleet was relatively small, but powerful, numbering a pair of Ru-class as well as a trio of escorting Cruisers that were barely even pretending to keep watch, bored as they were. The ships had, for now at least, been relegated to glorified artillery pieces for the main advance.
This didn't truly bother anyone, of course, it was an easy, if dull, posting, and for years, had been the one most commonly given to Jersey's Battleships and Cruisers.
The only thing that had changed was the frequency of targets.
Ru-04 scratched idly at the silvery patch of skin on her upper lip, blossoming up from the corner of her mouth in a spiderwebbing pattern. She'd received it courtesy of a lucky 8" shell from a Wildling Light Cruiser, years ago now.
She really should get it checked over again, all the recent humidity had gotten it aching again, alloy might have been a bad mix.
"'Nother one," Ru-03 said boredly, not even lifting a finger as she began rattling off the grid coordinates and payload, a six-round salvo some twenty-four kilometers North East.
"'Spose you want me to do it?" She asked, irritated.
"Oh, 'cause you're so damn busy,"
Ru-04 couldn't really argue the point, and didn't have a free hand to flip her sister off, so just made a rude noise before training her guns on the horizon.
*BOOBBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!*
The silence immediately after the salvo was deafening, save for the mild ringing in everyone's ears.
...
"So... that was fun," 04 lowered her turrets, "you're doing the next one, you lazy fuck."
"Course, course, don't want my barrels to rust after all, huh?"
...
"I really wish I could look through my planes," 03 started.
"Kind of Carrier-bull is that? Why?" 04 asked.
"Think about it, instead of standing 'round here for the past few hours, we could be looking over the countryside, flyin' around and shit."
"And miss it when the Cruisers leading those things calls in another strike? I'd rather not get my hide tanned, thank you very much"
"Pff, to hell with those fuck'n things, honestly, HUMAN spirits?" 03 spit off to the side, "We were just fine with what we had, we didn't need those damn Дьяволы."
04 rolled her eyes, "You slipped again, idiot. Stop speaking that stupid Commie language, you know what'll happen if you don't.
03 seemed genuinely abashed "Yeah..."
The two lapsed into silence for a moment, before 04 jerked, as if stung.
"Wha- I'm being jammed!"
"You're what?"
"Jammed! My Seaplanes!" 04 gained a look of intense concentration as she tried to parse the scrambled words, "It's just... nothing but CAW'ing!"
03 squinted, "That can't be anything the humans have. That's definitely the work of a Kanmusu!"
"Think those fuckers from Xuyen are creeping back?" 04 asked.
"If so, that means 8 hasn't caught up to 'em yet." 03 looked off into the distance, "You know where your spotters are?"
The other Battleship nodded, "Yeah, last report had them sweeping along the mountains a bit Southwest of here, spotting for a few platoons hunting out that way," The Ru blinked, before swearing, "shit, lost the signal completely."
"Get in contact with the Cruisers leading those platoons, they can do a ground sweep, see if they can find anything." 03 turned away, holding a hand to her ear to listen to her radio better, as 04 chased after her a little.
"And what are YOU doing?" She demanded.
03 grimaced, "Telling Jersey."
04 bared her teeth, hissing sympathetically, backing away, "Say no more, I'll leave you to it."
"Thought so."