With Georgia:

In the end, Lao drove, Chitose, while seemingly taller and older-looking, had very little experience driving a car, much less a beast of a truck like this. And had sandwiched Ky Hoa between her and the driver's seat upfront.

Anne had, surprisingly, fallen asleep. The big girl laying her back against the back of the cab on the floor of the hatchback. How she managed it, I don't know, every few minutes we hit what seemed to be a goddamn cauldron in the road, sending us all bouncing in our seats.

The tall woman just snored on, oblivious.

We hit a particularly large one, and I was interrupted from my work, yelping as I almost cut my friggen finger off, "Hey!" I called back, leaning over the back look in the cab, "Can you try not to hit every bump?!"

Lao, concentrating on her driving, didn't look away from the road as she replied, "These roads are really bad, I'm trying to miss as many as I can!"

I grumbled, giving her the benefit of the doubt, as I sat back down.

Hakone, who had been watching me with rapt attention, piped up as I got back down to business, "What are you doing?" She inquired.

I held up what had nearly taken my pinky, an incisor from the Re-class I'd taken out a while ago, "Making a knife," I said, cutting at the oversized tooth with one of the many smaller ones I'd taken.

Whatever it was made of, it cut through Battleship-grade armor like butter, though the root was comparatively soft, letting me slowly carve a handle out of it using the hard, sharp edge of a molar.

It was... Okay looking, it was going to be ugly as hell, and a bit awkward to hold until I found some leather strips or twine to wrap around it...

Actually... I glanced back at the cab through the rear-view window, the top of Ky Hoa's hat barely visible.

She used her towline for tripwires, do I have anything like that?

I asked my Captain, who sent some crew down to check. They came back a few minutes and a couple of potholes later, and told me I had some spare mooring lines I could probably use.

Hell with it, why not? Not like I'm going to ever actually moor myself to anything anytime soon.

I dragged out the long string of rope, itself not much bigger than a piece of twine, as I held the first end down against the base of the tooth's blunt end with a thumb. I quickly looped the rope around the root, going over the front end several times tightly, before starting down the 'tang', tightly wrapping it around the hilt. When I'd reached the end, I made a few loop-ties, before starting down towards the other end again. I repeated this a few times, gradually making a comfortable'ish grip.

I held up the finished work, it was...

...

Well, the grip wouldn't murder my hand, and would leave big nasty holes in whatever I stabbed with it, and that's what mattered! Hopefully! ...I better check.

I leaned down as I set the tooth-knife's edge against one of the raised bumps of the truck bed we were on, putting a bit of force behind it as it trailed along the edge of the metal-

*shreeeeeeeee~*

I shaved off about three inches of solid metal before my brain caught up with my hand, I blinked at the strip of metal I'd cut off. It looked like some kind of aluminum alloy...

I looked over at Hakone, who was still watching.

...

I wordlessly held out the cut-off strip of metal, and the Cruiser stiffened in anticipation as I gestured that I was going to throw it.

I threw it in an underhand, and Hakone made a small lunge as she caught it with her teeth, I giggled a little as she started munching, "I think you'd like popcorn" I said, leaning back.

...

We'd been on this sorry excuse for a road for almost half an hour and the weather had gone from bad, to worse. The wind had died down once we'd left the mountains behind, thankfully, but now the spitting sprinkle had turned into a full-blown rain, fat drops of water slapping the ground as we passed by and making a low roar.

As for us in the back, it honestly made no difference, water sloughing most of us in rivulets, like we were covered in grease or something. Anne had woken up from her light doze, and was practically basking in the weather.

Lao had been forced to slow down, as despite the rain there was a heavy blanket of fog we'd run smack into, and she was having some problems with visibility.

I was laid back, fiddling with my new knife, as Diane wrung her human-made skirt (an accessory not affected by the fact the woman was, in fact, a ship)

"I am still not sure why you foisted this onto me, Georgia." She said, letting out a huff as the garment simply got soaked again in the downpour, "I was perfectly fine with the clothes I already possessed!"

I quirked a brow at the Ta-class, "No ship of mine is walking through the city in her underwear, that's final," I shrugged at Diane's pout, something she'd almost certainly learned from Hakone, "Look, I, personally? Don't care too much, but ChiChi would raise a fuss, and you'd draw a lot of attention. Not to mention there's probably indecency laws or something stupid like that, and I don't wanna have to run from the cops again just because you didn't wanna wear bottoms."

Diane gestured around us, "We are nowhere close to a city, as far as I can tell, must I still wear it? It is clinging to me and making me rather uncomfortable." She asked plaintively.

I opened my mouth to answer when-

*Bumf!*

"GOB BAM IP!" I shouted, having bit the tip of my tongue as the truck shot up, having hit something on the road.

*Bumf-Bumf!* Everyone was jostled back and forth as I crawled up to the cab, I knocked on the rear window, rubbing my mouth with the other hand.

"Will you slow down!? I almost bit my freakin' tongue off!" I shouted.

Lao rolled down the driver's window, "Sorry! I can hardly see a thing in all this crap!" She gestured with one hand at the fog.

*Bumf!*

"Are we even still on the road?" Ky Hoa said, clinging to the dash so as not to put her head through it as we hit another large bump.

*Bumf-Bumf!*

"Ah, maybe weEEe should pull over for a second?" Chitose asked, her right hand clutching the 'oh shit!' handle on the side of the cab as she held Ky's shoulder for balance.

*BUMF!*

"OK STOP," I yelled, "you'll put us into a damn tree!"

"Pff, you just put your head through like, a hundred of them an hour ago!" Ky Hoa snarked back at me, as Lao slowed to a stop.

"Yeah, but this truck is probably a lot more fragile, I don't wanna walk all the way to Da Nang, you?" I replied.

The Minesweeper huffed, conceding the point, as I mounted the side of the truck, legs dangling over the side, I hopped off.

I landed with a small 'oof!' as Scooter and the wonder twins floated over after me, as I walked towards the cab to see what the-

I put my hands to my mouth, eyes widening.

Oh.

Oh, no...

Lao opened the cab door, and before I could stop her, she made to get out, heels tripping immediately just outside the door with a yelp.

I started forward as the Frigate picked herself up, blinking for a moment before she realized she was laying on.

She did a full-bodied flinch, letting out a sound that sounded similar to a frog being squished, as she landed on her rump, back to the truck.

It was a dead guy.

He was laying back to the road, head a pulped mess. We'd just managed to miss him on the road. I looked back, but all I could see was the fog the way we had driven.

Thankfully.

I put out my hand silently, and the Frigate, after staring at the dead man for a moment, took it.

I looked around as the others clamored out, or, tried to anyway. Chitose took one look at the body outside and pushed Ky back in, to the squawking girls' protest.

I turned to Hakone, who had jumped out next to me, inadvertently cracking the pavement under her booted heel, "Keep close, keep your guns ready." I said simply, as I started around towards the front of the truck.

Lao had seemingly collected herself, shuffling forward to look at the corpse more closely as I passed her.

"No weapon, plain clothes," She said over the rain, as I came to stand in front of the truck, floodlights illuminating the fog but not clearing it.

There was another body, a woman this time. Lying spread-eagled in the middle of the road, next to a small handcart. Dead eyes staring at the sky in an expression of horror. The rain had washed away the blood, leaving the ragged wounds in her torso clear as day.

Diane and Anne had disembarked as well, coming up behind me as Chitose got out from the other side of the cab. Anne came to stand next to me, giving the body I was staring at a curious look, before looking up and squinting into the fog, starting forward-

I held my arm out, halting her, "Take Diane," I said, nodding down the road. The Cessex nodded, and the pair slowly moved forward, Annes turrets slowly winding around like charmed snakes as they tried to cover every angle.

Meanwhile, I stepped forward, "'Nother one in front!" I yelled, as I bent down and got my arms under the woman's armpits.

I started dragging her to the side of the road, out of the way of the truck, as Chitose retched from her side of the cab.

Must be more bodies that way, too.

I set the body down in the grass, and tried clumsily to cross her arms, but she was too stiff.

...This must have been a while ago, if rigor mortis had set in.

I stepped back, turning, as Hakone finished pushing the handcart off the road.

I heaved a long sigh, as Anne and Diane came back, seeming to phase out of the mists around us. Anne's cane clicking on the asphalt the only noise apart from the rain.

"More?" I asked.

Anne nodded, not needing clarification, "C̴a̵r̵r̶i̸e̴s̵ ̵o̸n̷ ̸f̶o̴r̶ ̴a̷ ̵w̷h̷i̷l̸e̵," Anne said.

I nodded, before walking towards the cab, "Lao."

The Frigate looked up weakly, from where she had her hands on her knees, leaning against the truck, "Yeah?" She asked.

"Anne said it goes on for a while..." I thought back to when we'd been jostled all over the place earlier, "want some of the girls to walk in front, to... you know?" I made a shoving motion off to the side.

The Frigate swallowed thickly, before making to nod-

Which is about when a bugle sounded, and things truly went to shit.