Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

COMMANDER MITSUO FUCHIDA’S HEART WAS HEAVY as lead inside him. He knew the strike force he led hadn’t come close to defeating and driving back the U.S. fleet. In words of one syllable, the Japanese had got smashed. A glance at the battered remnants of the strike force was enough to tell him that. Far too many Japanese planes had never got to the American fleet. Of the ones that had, far too many hadn’t got away.

And what would become of the ones that had done everything they were supposed to do? That was another good question, one much better than he wished it were. He’d seen the size of the American strike force when its path crossed his. What had the Yankees done to the Japanese fleet? Were any flight decks left for these few poor planes to land on?

He checked his fuel gauge. He’d been running as lean as he could, but he didn’t have a chance of getting back to Oahu with what was in his tanks, and he knew it. He hadn’t said anything to his radioman and bombardier, not yet. No point borrowing trouble, not when they already had so much. Maybe Akagi or Shokaku — maybe Akagi and Shokaku — still waited. He could hope. Hope didn’t hurt, and didn’t cost anything.

One of the handful of Zeros still flying with the strike force waggled its wings to get Fuchida’s attention. He waved to show he’d got the signal. The pilot (yes, that was Shindo; Fuchida might have known he was too tough and too sneaky for the Americans to kill) pointed south.

Fuchida’s eyes followed that leather-gloved index finger. There in the privacy of the cockpit, he groaned. Running into the U.S. strike force coming and going struck him as most unfair, though it wasn’t really surprising, not when both air fleets had to fly reciprocal courses to strike their enemies and return.

“Attention!” he called over the all-planes circuit. “Attention! Enemy aircraft dead ahead!” That would wake up anybody who hadn’t noticed. Then he added what was, under the circumstances, the worst thing he could say: “They appear to have seen us.”

“What do we do now, Commander- san ?” Petty Officer Mizuki asked.

“We try to get through them or past them,” said Fuchida, who had no better answer. How? And what if they succeeded? Hope one of the carriers still survived? Hope some of the other ships in the Japanese fleet still survived, so he might be rescued if he ditched? That struck him as most likely, and also as a very poor best.

Reaching the Japanese fleet would be an adventure in itself. Here came the Americans. Fuchida tried to get some feel for their numbers, some feel for how many the combat air patrol over Akagi and Shokaku and the fleet’s antiaircraft had shot down. It wasn’t easy, not with enemy planes spread out all over the sky ahead. The shortest answer he could find was not as many as I wish they had.

Brave as a daimyo ’s hunting dogs, the Zeros shot ahead to try to hold the Americans away from the Aichis and Nakajimas that might hurt enemy ships in some later fight… if they still had a flight deck to land on. But there weren’t nearly enough Zeros to do the job. A few American fighters engaged them.

That kept them busy while the other Yankees roared on toward the Japanese dive bombers and torpedo planes.

Fuchida fired a burst at an onrushing American fighter. That was more a gesture of defiance and warning than a serious attempt to shoot down the American. His B5N2 made a good torpedo plane. The Nakajima had also made a pretty good level bomber, though it was obsolete in that role now. It had never been intended to make a fighter.

After squeezing off the burst, Fuchida flung the aircraft to the left, as he had on the way north. Then he’d shaken off his attacker. This time, to his horror and dismay, the enemy went with him without an instant’s hesitation. The American plane carried half a dozen heavy machine guns, not two feeble popguns like the B5N2.

Bullets slammed into the torpedo plane. Oil from the engine sprayed across the windshield. The bombardier screamed. So did Mizuki. Fuchida wondered why he hadn’t been hit himself. It wouldn’t matter for long. The plane was falling out of the sky, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Still wrestling with the controls, he shouted, “Get out! Get out if you can!” The Pacific rushed up to meet him. He braced himself, knowing it would do no good.

Impact.

Blackness.

A COLUMN OF SMOKE GUIDED Saburo Shindo to Shokaku ’s funeral pyre. The carrier burned from stem to stern. Destroyers clustered around her, taking off survivors. He supposed they would torpedo her before long. She deserved a merciful coup de grace, as a samurai committing seppuku deserved to have a second finish him after he’d shown he had the courage to slit his own belly.

Akagi was already gone. Shindo had found no sign of the proud carrier from which he’d taken off. That made things about as bad as they could be.

Antiaircraft shells burst around him. Some of the ships down there feared he might be an American, coming back for another strike. “Baka yaro!” he snarled. Yes, they were idiots, but hadn’t they earned the right?

He watched an Aichi go into the sea not far from a destroyer. The aircraft was lost, but the crew might live. Few strike planes had managed to come even this far. After two encounters with the U.S. strike force and after the furious defense above the American fleet, the Japanese had taken a beating the likes of which they hadn’t known since… when? The encounter with the Korean turtle ships at the end of the sixteenth century? No other comparison occurred to Shindo, but this had to be worse.

He thought about ditching, too, thought about it and shook his head. Unlike the Nakajimas and Aichis, he had a chance to get back to Oahu. Hawaii would need as many airplanes as possible to defend her. Japan certainly wouldn’t be able to bring in any more. If he could land his Zero, he should.

On he flew, then. A cruiser burned not far south of Shokaku. Again, lesser ships were rescuing survivors. They probably should have been fleeing back toward Hawaii, too. The Americans were bound to strike again as soon as they could. What the devil could stop them now? This whole fleet lay at their mercy.

Perhaps half a dozen other Zeros remained in the sky with him. Shindo shook his head in disbelief. Those few fighters were all that was left of two fleet carriers’ worth of air power. Zuikaku was laid up at Pearl Harbor, a sitting duck for American air strikes. He hoped her air contingent had moved to land bases on Oahu. Even if the planes were gone, though, half of Japan’s fleet-carrier strength would have to be written off. The Yankees had put more fleet carriers into this strike than Japan had left-to say nothing of their swarm of light carriers.

“What are we going to do?” he muttered. He had no idea. Whatever it was, it would be under the Army’s aegis from now on. Japan’s naval presence in and around Hawaii had just collapsed. A man would have to be blind to think anything different. Shindo hoped he could see trouble clearly, anyhow.

The engine on one of the surviving Zeros quit. Maybe the plane had a small fuel leak. Maybe it had just flown too hard in the battle. Either way, it wouldn’t get back to Oahu. The pilot saluted as he started the long glide down to the ocean. Maybe he could ditch smoothly. Maybe a Japanese ship would find him if he did. But his chances weren’t good, and he had to know it.

Shindo wondered what his own chances were. He’d flown hard, too. He throttled back even more, using just enough power to stay airborne. Soon, he thought. Soon I’ll see the island.

And he did. The engine started coughing not long afterwards, but he got down on the Haleiwa airstrip. He’d flown from there during the Japanese invasion of Hawaii. Now he would have to defend it against an American return he’d never really expected.