A/N: New stories will appear here infrequently, based on new ideas I get and the motivation to translate them to written form.

Steady Baby

September 7, 1944

Somewhere Over The South Pacific

It was a warm, blue sky all around, with only the scattered white clouds to break up the scenery. For Lieutenant Chase Bradford, it was the kind of view that kept up his hobby of drawing. He'd sit up in the sky, memorizing each detail from the cockpit of his F6F Hellcat, and then translate it to his pad and make it immortal. He gently turned the stick to the left and looked down at his charts. According to them and his compass, he and his three wingmen were about 25 Miles South of the Kashami Atoll, which was the northernmost point of the Songolian Empire. The atoll was nothing to worry about; its population had always been, at most a flock of seagulls. Occasionally Songol ships used it as a place to stop, but not with the Osean Navy so close. His worry was the island of Kaimon ten miles away from that. "Tail" Bradford keyed his radio and cleared his throat.

"Hawk Leader, Hawk Leader to flight. Anyone see anything?' He asked.

"No Lead, not a thing." his wingman Archie Lee reported.

"Hawk Three hasn't spotted anything, Lead." Pounder Cakes chimed in.

"Hawk Four is also negative on any visuals, Hawk Lead." Bart Jonesy said, sounding as disappointed as the rest of the flight. Chase grimaced and looked to his east.

"Talon Leader, this is Hawk Leader, nothing to report in our sector...you got anything, Handles?" He asked.

"Negative Tail, not a thing." Handles Barr replied.

There weren't even any ships, Osean or Songol. The task force, steadily steaming towards the southern Shimoji Islands, was taking things very carefully in the face of increasing suicide attacks. There was also the matter of the Songols' last three carriers and their much-touted battleship, the Yamato. They weren't in this part of the ocean, though. Chase wasn't paid to sink battleships and carriers, but he reckoned they were trying to position themselves to meet the Osean force as soon as possible when they made an earnest drive in towards the islands. At the edge of his vision, he could see the atol starting to appear like an apparition. It was a blazing white, with one body surrounded by several others. Chase appraised it a second and wondered if this shot would be a good one to memorize and draw. Before they went back to the carrier, he figured he'd make another pass.

Chase looked forward again and then sat up as high as he could in his cockpit. Down below he still saw nothing but ocean. A few shadows from the clouds suggested they might be fighters, but after a second of scrutinizing he found they were just shadows. Chase sat back and bit his lower lip. The Songolians weren't biting, and that had him worried. Even as they fell back towards their easternmost territories, the Shimoji Islands, they had always maintained a die-hard attitude. They called it "Bushido" and they'd lived it. They'd even morphed it into a new, fanatical devotion of ramming themselves into Osean warships. Patrols like Chase and Handle's were now more than about destroying the Songol war machine; now it was about denying the Songols fulfillment at the coast of Osean lives.

It was exactly that kind of thing that had Chase on edge. He started checking more frequently, and ordered his flight to split into twos. Pounder and Jonesy went low while he and Archie stayed high. They turned towards the atoll, hoping to maybe draw someone's attention. Chase sighed and for a minute wished he was back with Michelle. Like any guy with someone waiting at home his thoughts were all too easily drawn towards her. Leave it to a pilot and a sailor to start having dirty thoughts in the cockpit. Maybe that's why it was called that. Chase, ever the mature one, turned a laugh into a bad elephant impersonation. He couldn't stop the second push and gave in for a minute. No doubt Archie was wondering why his lead was howling away. No sooner had he started to get a handle on himself did the radio crackle.
"Hawk Leader, Hawk Leader this is Hawk Three. We've spotted something! Looks like a dozen or so Songies!" Pounder said. So the tactic worked Chase thought as he caught his breath to reply properly.

"Got me a range and bearing on these Songies?" He asked in between a few breaths.

"Our twelve...Bearing 340. Looks like they're maybe 15 miles out, Lead."

"Roger...Roger that Hawk Three."

Chase finally caught his breath and craned his neck to try and spot the aforementioned Songolians. He spotted black dots, barely distinguishable as the shapes of airplanes, and then sat back. His mind had totalled about 12 planes of an unknown type. In a formation that big they were likely fighters or some flavor of small bomber.

"Three, Four bring it back up here...Handles, looks like we've got something. Head towards me; looks like at least twelve of em."

"Can you tell what they are, Tail?" Handles asked almost immediately.

"We'll find out soon but I doubt they're ours. Mighty big group to be some planes that got lost."

Chase armed his six M2 machine guns and drew in a deep breath. He checked his gunsight, asked for the strength from above, and cleared his throat.

"Hawk Flight, follow me." He said.

As his pilots replied quickly and obediently Chase brought his fighter to the right and made a long, almost lazy, left turn to approach the unknown aircraft from their collective ten o' clock. Anything other than a head-on approach where they could all respond with their own guns. He constantly craned his neck and stared towards the shapes as they slowly became more and more distinguishable. His experience met with the constant looking over the identification charts. What he was seeing was likely a flight of Imperial Songolian Air Army Ki-84s, a Nakajima product know by him and other Oseans as the Frank. They appeared to be in a position to screen ahead of something, maybe Kates or Vals. He didn't want to wait around to find out.

"Talon Leader this is Hawk Leader...Looks like we got about a dozen Franks down there." He reported.

"Roger that Hawk Leader we're inbound...gonna try and make a call to the Sandy and see if she can send some help." Handles replied.

It would likely be some time before any aircraft from the OFS Sand Island arrived. Chase stuffed his maps into a pouch to his left and looked at the aircraft in his flight.

"Handles I'm gonna dive on them, see if I can't scatter em. How far out are you?" He radioed.

"About two minutes, Tail."

"Roger that, your signal is "Buster"...Two follow me. Three and Four wait a second and then attack. Everybody drop tanks and stay loose."

Buster meant for them to hurry; bust their asses to reach the fight. Before he let the device go Chase checked his fuel gauges one final time and then let the device go. He switched to his internal tanks and cleared his throat. One last glance showed a few of the shapes, now colored dark green, lifting up. He saw the Ki-84s turn towards them and realized that they'd been spotted.

"Leave em dry, m'boys! Leave em dry!" The black-haired man called, echoing VF-5's battlecry.

Chase rolled his F6F to the left and brought "Steady Baby" into a steep dive. He drew out his bank to get above the Franks as they ascended before he dove so he'd be above them and then hopefully behind them as the distance closed. His flight was going to end up hitting the Songols head-on, but at this point it was too late to complain about that. Chase selected one of the Franks and chose what he guessed was the leader. Whitish-yellow lines started to zip across the sky. Chase kept calm and went inverted before he raised his nose and stitched a line of fifty-caliber bullets across the sky. The Frank became a blur as the two passed and Chase became more concerned with the G-Forces he felt. His vision shook and grayed before he came into a more stable flightpath. He hurried back upwards and searched for the Frank; it was in the middle of rolling upright and circling. Likely it was looking for him.

Chase kept low and applied extra care as he stayed below the Ki-84 and out of its sight. When he was behind the aircraft, he notched up the throttles' setting and made a quick slash upwards towards the Frank. The move worked and gave one of the bullets Chase sent up a very lucrative target: the fuel tank. The Ki-84 exploded and its remains sailed across the sky, gently diving down towards the sea below. Chase didn't even look as he leaned to the left and turned back towards where the formation had first been spotted. They weer now completely scattered, going in several directions whether solo or in a group. Chase spotted a single Ki-84 well above him.

He turned up and towards the Ki-84, which in turn rolled down towards him. Chase let loose another chattering burst from his guns as it passed over before he slowed his plane and turned to go after the Frank yer again. The two dove towards more dots coming to join the fight. Chase realized they were Hellcat, and only one other fourship was close enough. Chase fired a quick volley to try and scare the Songol pilot, then switched to his radio when that failed.

"Handles, Talon break! Bandit above you!" He called frantically.

The other F6Fs split apart, but the Frank remained undeterred, the green plane started to nose up and let off shots towards Handles's wingman: Lieutenant Dick Bellart. Chase watched in growing anger as he saw a few sparks break the Hellcat's blues and greys before the two planes passed over them.

"Talon Two's goin down, Talon 2's goin down!" Talon Three, one Charles Lang, called. Chase barely heard someone calling they say no chute, but he was too focused on the Songol as he was coming around for another pass. It didn't matter if Lang was gone; thee Songol had already gotten too many kills. The Frank turned to the left and forced Chase to slow again so he wouldn't undershoot. The Pratt and Whitney engine strained under the pressures of maneuvering and the desperate effort to keep itself running. Chase forced himself to give up the immediate chase and made a straight run while the Ki-84 was well ahead. They'd pushed to the northern border of the fight, as evidenced by the smoke trails around his seven o' clock. He looked that way several times and saw the bandit coming for him. Chase immediately turned towards the Songol and then dove when he saw flashes from the Frank's wings.

Compared to the Hellcat, the Frank carried nothing but 20mm cannons. Those shells wouldn't be kind if they hit, even to a beefy gal like the F6F. Chase pulled back up and checked for damage as he rse and then rolled back to the right to make a grab at the other plane's tail. The Ki-84 turned into his attack and swept left; Chase reversed and followed. The Songol went wide, and then came back, slowing and taking a shot at the Osean pilot. Chase pulled as tight as he dared and roared past the Ki-84 as it went by maybe a few dozen feet away. He snapped to the right and watched as the Ki-84 came back at him. He passed over it, guns ablaze, and then hurried back towards the fight. Chase gambled that if they hurried back to the fight the fear of other Hellcats latching on would keep him off balance. To Chase's quiet satisfaction, it looked like the Oseans were winning the day despite the numbers.

Chase broke to the left again, acting like he was trying to avoid some other Songol aircraft, and watched as the Ki-84 let go of him, likely to defend himself. Chase leapt on the opening and quickly reversed his move. He came at the Frank from its seven and gritted his teeth before blasting away with his M2s. Bits of the Frank's tail fell away before Chase pulled to the right and came around to hit the Frank again. The Ki-84, in a momentary panic, was diving to the right and towards the waters closer to the Shimoji Islands. Chase pushed for the knockout blow. He perforated the Nakajima's wings and passed over the mortally wounded plane as its engine started to cough. Six rounds of .50 BMG had stabbed her. Inside the pilot tried to wrestle with his plane, but his day was done. He looked up as the F6F passed by and for a second expected the Osean to shoot him up while he was trapped in his cockpit. Nothing ever came, though.

The plane passed by in a blur, leaving the Songol alive to contend with fate as he tried to escape his machine. Even though the Osean had come close to hitting him, the aircraft had been almost indistinguishable in shape. The only thing the Songol pilot distinctly saw was the smirking strawberry blonde curled up on the nose and the words "Steady Baby" beneath her image. The rest of the plane was quickly on its way towards another Ki-84 as it ascended towards the ceiling of the fight, M2s chattering again. Another Victim had fallen to the Banshees of VF-5.