With Hakone:
We were in so much trouble!
I'd finally managed to put my Rigging on again, though it had been a struggle with all these-
I jerked backward, a vapor trail passing by my head a few feet to the right from one of the odd land-boats, as one of the dead humans tried to wack me with something, a soundless snarl on his lips.
Whatever it was in his hands *tink*'ed off my forehead as I turned my slight stumble into a hop, going back a step before darting forward again. I struck back at him, my left arm's Rigging passing over his head as he ducked under my swing, I frowned, before following up with a strike from my right.
He made to weave out of it again, but my right arm's teeth caught him, having opened its mouth wide enough to catch a scrap of clothing. I grinned, before whipping my arm-Rigging back, sending the dead human flying off to who-knows-where.
Hopefully somewhere that hurt!
I took the brief respite this gave me to let my limited AA guns clear the area directly in front of me, the dead humans becoming even deader...er, as my gunners blew chunks out of them, draining their limited magazine's far too quickly for my liking.
I needed more small guns, like mom...
MOM!
I quickly looked back, seeing the grey-haired ship stumble slightly, one hand to her bridge as she tried to keep from capsizing. She failed, stumbling to her knees again, before being forced to lay down completely by Lao, who grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled the disoriented woman down where she'd be safer.
I was quickly reminded of my own problems, as I felt something sharp slide against the connection hose that came out of my bridge to my Rigging, I flung my arm out in a blind back-hand as I turned, the Rigging caving-in the ribcage of another dead human, a knife in his hand falling to the wet ground. I followed up with an overhead hammer strike as another came within striking distance.
The Rigging came down on top of his helmeted head squarely, turning his neckbones to powder and driving his grinning skull completely into his torso.
It looked kinda funny, to be honest.
As he fell over, already starting to fade away, I turned to Anne, who was still shielding the small Kanmusu minesweeper we'd picked up from the mountains.
My little-big sister was holding her ground, Kee Who struggling to disentangle herself from the turret that kept her pinned to the woman's back. Anne used her cane again, crushing her way through an approaching enemy in a wide, horizontal swing. She stepped forward.
"L-Let me go you big dummy!" Kee finally managed to screech, struggling against the ropey, cold connections that snaked out of Anne's back to her turrets.
Anne promptly dropped her, guntacle unwrapping itself from around the smaller vessel, only for it to whip into a firing position. The guns immediately took a few chunks out of the cover some MG's were entrenched in with their 8" shells.
The Minesweeper landed on her keel with a grunt, before quickly scrabbling back in the dirt. The small vessel rose to a kneeling position, before a small box of tubes on her back I hadn't noticed before released a staggered series of small 'poof!'s.
The spigot mortars arced over Anne's head almost gracefully, spreading out in a wide circle as they came down within one of the giant craters the zombies were using as cover for their MG nests. The round's contact fuses went off, sending up mud and mulched grass as they obliterated the position from the inside.
Ky Hoa grinned to herself, before throwing herself to the ground with a yelp as a tank shell screamed over her. It narrowly missed, almost tearing a hole through the American flag on the lower part of her mast.
The shell carried into Robin's back, and the Battleship grunted as the HE shell splashed against her citadel. It didn't penetrate the thick armor, but blew back some of the hull covering it, leaving a dollar-sized pit in her back, the black Abyssal steel of her citadel stark against the white 'flesh' surrounding it.
Robin simply twisted, not quite trusting her feet to work properly as she flourished her cape. The cornucopia of toothed turrets under the piece of cloth was revealed for a moment, chattering in anger, before they opened fire in a salvo.
The 6" guns peppered the area around a Walker Bulldog, the medium tank actually sliding sideways into a crater as some of Robin's ordinance hit low, cratering the ground under its very treads. The rest carried onwards into the distance, the casemates' accuracy thrown off as her main armament let-loose as well.
15" shells tore the partially overturned tank apart, multiple, simultaneous hits twisting the vehicle apart like a piece of hardened taffy in the hands of an impatient child.
Its magazine promptly detonated moments after, sending cooked-off ordinance and shrapnel in all directions.
Diane sighted onto another vehicle, but promptly became preoccupied as an RPG round struck her, center mass. The explosion damaged one of the barrels on a casemate, so the Battleship used one of her 15" guns to kill the shooter, in what would metaphorically be the equivalent of swatting a gnat with a sledgehammer.
"We have to move!" Lao screamed out, scrabbling to a low run as she pulled the dazed Chitose behind her, "they have us flared and marked!" She continued, gesturing at the bright lights that had fallen around them, illuminating the defoliated and cratered ground around them.
Pillars of purple smoke whipped into the high winds, mingling with the black, choking smoke of destroyed vehicles and expended ordinance.
"W-Whaazat? Why?" Chitose asked hazily, nonetheless pumping her legs awkwardly so as not to get dragged by the smaller warship.
"We're open to an airstrike Chitose! We have to get out of the marked area or we're toast!"
"B-But I can't launch an airstrike..." Chitose said, trying to gesture at the high winds above them.
"Not us you-!"
Lao was cut off, as one of the lighter vehicles, an APC, gunned it, trying to run them down under its treads.
Chitose, only barely seeing the danger, pulled on the hand Lao was leading her by, throwing the far-lighter Frigate behind her. The disoriented Seaplane Tender then braced a shoulder and checked the oncoming vehicle, letting out a low grunt.
*Ghuh!*
The front plate of the boxy vehicle crumpled around the woman, stopping dead in its tracks as its transmission was suddenly introduced violently to Chitose's shins.
Chitose blinked blearily, coming face-to-skull with the driver, who seemed disconcertingly calm under the circumstances, as he attempted to cave her face in with a wrench.
*tink!*
Chitose blinked, one eye at a time, before belatedly rearing back. The Tender went to her knees, ignoring the frantic crew, and grabbed the ruined transmission, from where it was wrapped around her knees.
She came up, throwing her arms into the air as she flipped the vehicle off of her, sending it cartwheeling twice before it came to a rest upside-down several dozen feet away.
Chitose just nodded to herself drunkenly, before turning and stumbling to where Lao laid flat on the ground, only just beginning to get up again.
"C'mon Lowe!" The grey-haired woman said, grabbing the Frigate's arm, "Ah... we gotta go, you said, no time for laying around!" She helped the Frigate to a kneel as Lao opened her mouth-
She promptly closed it, star-spangled eyes crossing as a small, almost insect-sized machine zipped in front of her face. The machine, one of the drones Georgia had used earlier, hovered before them. It seemed to turn to face her, before looking at Chitose. Seemingly satisfied, it darted off again, letting itself be blown away by a sudden gust of wind.
Lao looked at Chitose, who swayed as she continued tugging at the Frigates arm, "Did you see that?"
"Aaaum... See what?"
Ah, right, concussion.
Chitose shivered suddenly, looking up at the sky wordlessly in confusion, Lao felt it a moment later.
The howling rain, a mere annoyance so far, had turned absolutely frigid. Which was decidedly odd, as Kanmusu didn't truly feel the cold, except occasionally when in an Abyssal weather patteeeeeern...
Lao's eyes widened, "Oh."
With Georgia:
I screwed my eye shut, taking a large breath to fill my empty ballast tanks as I saw Chitose's face through the optics of one of my drones. She was still alive, good. Time to keep it that way.
I mentally flew through the battlefield, taking stock of the enemy force that had surrounded my fleet. I still didn't have the ability to pilot more than one at a time, but that is what my crew was for.
The wind was not a factor, in fact, it was oddly helpful. Pushing my drones to exactly where they needed to be, like feathers in the wind.
Enemy vehicles, thirteen-no, fourteen, seven were armored personnel carriers, six were medium to light tanks. The ruins of more littered the combat zone, but they were inoperable, dead, not my problem. They were scattered over a wide area, some taking cover within craters I have no doubt was caused by my fleet's heavier munitions. Others hid in what was left of the once-dense foliage, they were doing an admirable job of avoiding my fleet's line of fire.
They were not aware of, and could not have avoided, my sight.
I didn't stop moving, racing as I was towards the combat zone, though I did bend over my Rigging's hood so that my bared-back faced the sky. I checked once more...
Targets painted.
"Let no joyful voice be heard," I whispered, two VLS caps swinging open.
I ripple-fired, two of my VLS tubes emptying themselves completely as I launched fourteen warheads. I immediately felt a gnawing hunger, but squashed it, ruthlessly. Kill now, eat later. Plenty of time to resupply once they are all dead.
The guided munitions zeroed in on the human vehicles, having been painted by my drones. If they took evasive maneuvers wildly enough, they may esca-
I shook my head, there would be no escape. If they avoided my initial volley, I'd simply shoot them again, or chase them down and pull them apart with my bare hands, if need be.
I watched coldly as my munitions impacted, vehicle after vehicle exploding as the unitary warheads came down on them from above. Taking advantage of the aging tank design's relatively weak top-facing armor to drill deep within before exploding with over a thousand pounds of high explosives.
Targets eliminated.
"Let no enemy look up to the sky in hope." I continued the quote absently.
Now for the infantry.
They appeared oddly on my thermal imaging, blending into the background. It was likely they didn't have an internal temperature. I could see the muzzle flash of their weapons just fine, however, as they fired on my-
MY!
-fleet.
I shook the whiteness out of my eye, blinking hard once, twice, before getting back to the task at hand. I looked at the battlefield again, it appeared the enemy had hardly even made note of their vehicle's loss. They were continuing to try and hold my girls in place, what for, I didn't intend to find out.
My VLS tubes closed with a hermetic *click* as I urged my Rigging to move faster. Even if I launched all of them and left myself distressingly empty, the enemy was spaced too far away from each other for me to kill them all with my missiles alone. I'd already destroyed what heavy hitters my fleet hadn't already taken care of though, which meant I'd merely have to watch for infantry-level AT weapons.
Hmm... I thought back to when a piece of shrapnel had knocked me out of the fight, I couldn't afford that here.
I looked at the shell of the Cruiser's bridge I'd carried with me. The extra armor would be helpful if I wanted to avoid damage to my CAC... And I may not have enough missiles to kill them all, but knives didn't require ammunition, now did they?
Muzzle flashes started to light up the area ahead, I was close. Hopefully, I'd catch the first few by surprise, I didn't want to get caught in a drawn-out fight, after all.
I looked at the Cruiser's bridge again.
"And let this day be cursed, by those who have dared to awaken me."
I jammed it onto my head, my working eye just barely seeing under the bent front incisor. Thin armor was better than bare hull.
I advanced.