Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

“ Yes.” It was a whisper, Laanui talking to himself, but Genda heard the harsh hunger in it. Idiot or hypocrite, this man would definitely do.

Lieutenant Colonel Murakami must have thought the same thing, for he said, “We will arrange your coronation at a time convenient to you and to the Japanese Empire. I hope this is agreeable?”

“Oh, yes,” Laanui repeated, and nodded once more. Then he seemed to take courage, adding, “It could have happened a while ago if only you’d decided to talk to me before you had anything to do with those other people.”

Those people with better claims, he meant, though he probably didn’t think of it in those terms. No, he was bound to be the hero in his own story-as who was not? Minoru Genda was sad for him. Even with a crown on his head, he was most unlikely to be a hero in anyone else’s.

That didn’t matter, though, not to anyone but Laanui. Japan would do what it needed to do with him-and would do what it needed to do to him. He might have done better to decline the honor, as other Hawaiian nobles had before him. He might have… except he could no more help rising to it than a trout could help rising to a fly. What did a trout know of hooks? Nothing. Nothing at all.

“I think we have an agreement here-your Majesty,” Genda said. He gave Stanley Owana Laanui a seated bow. Fuchida, Murakami, and Minami followed suit. Maybe the Hawaiian thought that was the ceremony they would have shown the Emperor. If so, he only proved himself an ignorant trout indeed. The Emperor was hedged round with degrees of ceremony no other mortal even approached.

Let Laanui think what he wanted, though. As long as he sat on the throne and did as he was told, he served his purpose admirably.

WITH HAWAII IN their hands, with h8k seaplanes and with submarines to refuel them, the Japanese could keep an eye on the West Coast of the United States. The big flying boats didn’t have to carry bombs every time. Getting a look at what the Yankees were up to counted for just as much, maybe more.

Commander Mitsuo Fuchida wished he could go on more H8K missions. But he had a swarm of other duties, and that one flight had to suffice for him. He did attend every briefing by pilots coming back to the Pan Am Clipper berth in Pearl City.

“The Americans are more alert than they were the first time we visited them,” Lieutenant Kinsuke Muto reported. He paused to yawn, then said, “So sorry. Please excuse me.”

None of the officers who’d gathered to hear him could possibly have been offended. Even for an H8K, the round trip to the mainland took a long time. A pilot who did most of the flying had earned the right to be tired. “Go on, Muto- san,” Fuchida urged. “You can sleep soon.”

“ Hai,” Muto said. “Yes, they are more alert. The blackout is better than it was-not as good as it ought to be, but better than it was. They had fighters out looking for us. Night interceptions aren’t easy, but they found one of the planes in the flight.”

The officers listening to the briefing exchanged glances, but no one said anything. Like Fuchida, some of the others had to know about the USA’s electronic detection gear. Until someone figured out countermeasures, Muto didn’t need to.

“There was an exchange of fire,” Muto continued. “The H8K has a couple of bullet holes in the tail, but nothing serious. The pilot broke off contact and escaped. After that, all the antiaircraft guns around Los Angeles harbor started going off. The tracers helped us more than they hurt; they showed exactly where the harbor was and lit it for us.”

“What did you see?” Three officers asked the same question at the same time.

“More freighters and more Navy ships than we did two weeks ago,” Lieutenant Muto answered. “They are building strength. What else can they be building it for but a strike against Hawaii?”

“Did you see any carriers?” Fuchida asked, ahead of anyone else.

“No, sir.” Muto paused to yawn again. “I’m sure I didn’t. Carriers stand out because of their size and their flight deck. Warships, yes. Freighters-maybe troopships-yes. But no carriers.”

“If they aren’t in Los Angeles, they will be in San Diego or San Francisco or Seattle.” Fuchida spoke with complete assurance. “The question is, how many will the Americans bring against us? That will tell a large part of the story of how the fight goes.”

“ Hai. Honto. Our alliance with the Germans serves us well here.” Minoru Genda sounded as precise as usual. Fuchida admired the way his friend saw not only the big picture but also how pieces of it applied to a particular situation. Genda went on, “If Germany and the USA were not at war, the Americans could move more carriers from the Atlantic and attack us with overwhelming strength.”

“We’re better than they are,” Fuchida said.

“We’ve had the advantage when we met them,” Genda responded. “We were lucky to get away from the fighting at the invasion with as little damage as we did. If that one torpedo hadn’t been a dud, they would have sunk Akagi or hurt her badly. I heard the thud, and then-nothing. I was very glad.”

“Gaining the advantage before going into the fight is part of being better,” Fuchida said stubbornly. “Our pilots are better than theirs. Zeros are better than their Wildcats. We saw that.”

“Wildcats are good enough to be dangerous with a good pilot,” Genda said.

Fuchida snorted. “If the pilot is good enough, what he flies hardly matters. But our fliers are better, all in all. As for Wildcats, they can take damage and they’re very fast in a dive. Otherwise, the Zero outdoes them in every way.”

Major Kuro Horikawa was an Army pilot. He said, “You will have Army fighters and bombers to help you against the Americans.”

Neither Fuchida nor Genda spoke right away. Major Horikawa meant well. Telling him straight out that his planes weren’t as important as he thought would make him lose face. Commander Genda chose his words with obvious care: “So far, neither side has had much luck striking ships with land-based aircraft.”

“Your planes will be very useful if the enemy lands on Oahu,” Fuchida added. “We will certainly be fighting out of the range of land-based fighters, though, and probably out of the range of most land-based bombers as well. Our goal is to defend Hawaii as far forward as possible.”

“Your G4M bombers are likely to be in the fight.” Horikawa couldn’t quite hide his resentment. “They’re land-based, even if they’re Navy aircraft.”

“They were specially designed for long range,” Fuchida said. “Even so, it is not yet decided whether they will go into the fight.” The G4Ms got their extremely long range by carrying lots of fuel. They sacrificed crew armor, self-sealing gas tanks, and structural strength for that range… and raids on Australia, Burma, and India had shown them to be extremely inflammable. Fuchida didn’t want to talk about that. The Navy didn’t air its dirty little secrets in front of the Army, any more than the Army told the Navy about its.

“We need to find out about the American carriers,” Genda told Lieutenant Muto. That was the most important order of business for him, too. Any Navy man with a gram of sense knew carriers were what really mattered. Yamato and Musashi were the biggest, most powerful battleships ever built. But if American bombers or torpedo planes flying off carriers sank them before they came within gun range of enemy battlewagons, what good were they?

As far as Fuchida was concerned, the Navy would have done better to build carriers with the steel and labor that went into the superdreadnoughts. Other opinions had prevailed, though. He couldn’t do anything about that but regret it.