Author's note: Sorry for the terrible delay! Had the most terrible block...and school is busier than I thought it would be. ^^" Many thanks to all those who bothered to review and follow! :)
Chapter 7
As it turned out, Danny and Rafe spent the next hour huddled under the staircase of the pilot barracks, wincing every now and then when a stray bullet came a bit too close for comfort. Danny tried not to think about how ridiculous they looked, but at least there wasn't anyone around to see them. The ugly metal structure jutting out from the side of the barracks wasn't exactly the best of hiding places, but it did a pretty good job of deflecting stray bullets and offered decent cover if anything did blow up nearby. Hiding in the brightly lit hangars was out of the question, and they didn't have a room assigned to them either. They didn't have anywhere else to go.
Sighing, Danny shifted backwards and tried to ease the cramps which were forming in his legs. Rafe glanced over at him, then grinned. "Feels like old times, eh?"
Danny couldn't help but smile as he remembered the countless times the both of them had hidden themselves whenever Rafe's father needed help in the fields. Once, they had fallen asleep in the back of Rafe's father's truck, squeezed up against each other just like they were now, and had woken up to find themselves locked in the garage with a raging thunderstorm outside and their stomachs grumbling in hunger…
However, what was meant to be a punishment turned out to be an amazing opportunity for a real-life reenactment of their war game fantasies. The two boys dug themselves into opposing sides of the garage, painted their faces in oil and grease and threw "grenades" at each other, one of which ended up on Rafe's father's face…Suffice to say, they never got locked into the garage again afterwards.
His happy memories were cut short by a deafening blast somewhere to their right, sending the two of them ducking low to avoid being impaled by pieces of shrapnel. Cautiously peeping around the corner, Rafe heaved a small sigh of relief. A small shed had been reduced to a smoking pile of rubble, but as far as he could see, no one was injured.
Behind him, Danny pressed his lips together and turned away. He hated it every time he was reminded of Pearl Harbor, and right now, that smoking pile of rubble was looking very much like what littered the streets after the Japanese attack. He'd seen more than his fair share of war zones since then, but something about Pearl Harbor just stuck with him. Rafe noticed his friend's unusual silence, and heaved a small inward sigh. Before he could speak, however, something loud pierced through the night.
It wasn't the sound of more explosions, bullets or even plane engines for that matter.
It was a voice, but one bristling with such hostility that for a second, Rafe thought some of the German pilots had landed and were charging the base.
"McCawley, Walker, get your American selves out here right this INSTANT!"
The two of them looked blankly at each other, then their faces paled when they realised where they had heard that voice before.
Colonel Shelly. And from the sounds of it, he was not very happy.
"Holy crap." Rafe swore softly as the two of them scrambled to their feet. "Yes, sir?" He yelled as loudly as he could over the commotion of the background battle as they ran towards the sound of the voice. It didn't take long before they were standing at attention before a glowering Colonel Shelly, who had his hands on his waist as he glared at them.
"Where did you two run off to?"
Rafe gaped at him. "You told us to get under cover, sir."
Shelly's menacing aura dissipated as he blinked innocently. "Did I? Well, times have changed, Captain." He gestured towards the runway, where two planes were parked side by side. "Now get your asses into the air."
"I thought there weren't enough planes for us?"
"They had to come back for refueling, and I thought it would be good for me to see you guys in action before I decide what to do with you tomorrow, so I told those two to take a rest." Shelly gestured towards the back while barking into his radio. "Your new buddies are joining in, guys, don't shoot them out of the air unless you really have to."
Rafe turned his head just in time to see two figures disappearing into the hangars, no doubt the lucky two pilots they'd just been called to stand in for making their escape.
"Sir…" Danny protested weakly as he was shoved into the cockpit, but Shelly only waved his hand impatiently. "Just Fred, I told you. Now get up there and make yourselves useful."
As quickly as he came, Shelly was gone, leaving the two friends half strapped into their seats and looking at each other in bewilderment.
"Thought he told us to lie low?" Danny mouthed at Rafe, who only shrugged. It was too noisy for them to hear each other now, and Danny could only sigh as he went about getting his plane ready for take-off. Looking around the small cockpit, he was relieved to see that the controls and panels were rather similar to the plane models he was used to flying. At least he wouldn't have trouble figuring out where his guns were.
The familiar whining of his engines coming to life brought a smile back on Danny's face quickly enough. Reaching up, he pulled down the glass panel to seal the cockpit, effectively shutting out all the noises from the outside. The silence that ensued was broken only by his own breathing, which was coming slightly faster than usual as the rush of adrenaline sent his heart rate climbing. It was funny how he still got nervous before going into action, he thought he would have gotten used to it by now.
Seemed like some things never got easier.
A soft beep indicated something was coming over on a private channel, and Danny automatically reached over to flick the switch on. "Beats hiding under that staircase for the rest of the night, I would say." It was Rafe, as expected.
"How'd you figure out how to use this thing so quickly?" Danny was impressed.
"I didn't do anything. Seems like these two were a pair to start off with."
It was standard procedure for pilots to use private channels to communicate with each other to avoid cluttering the main channels, especially when flying wing for each other. Danny had initially thought they would have to do without this convenience this time round, since they hadn't had time to synchronize their radios, but it seemed like luck was on their side.
"Alright, I'm your wing, Rafe. Ready and good to go."
"He seems like a nice chap."
"Yeah, but I don't like what he said about shooting us out of the air if they have to." Danny grumbled.
Rafe only laughed. "I've heard Doolittle say worse stuff."
That, Danny had to admit, was true.
Tightening his hand around the yoke, Danny set his sights on the sky above, which was now lit up brightly by the powerful searchlights situated around the base, making it much easier for them to pick their enemies and destroy them.
Unfortunately, it also meant their enemies could see them perfectly as well. Still, Danny was grateful for those lights. It was his first night on this base, and he wasn't particularly familiar with his surroundings. Being able to see where he was going would help a lot in increasing his chances of survival tonight.
After all, survival was all that mattered in times like this.
Once in the air, the two friends headed straight for the thick of the action, working together with such fluid synchrony that it would have made Doolittle proud. Tuning out the rest of the world, they focused on taking out any German planes they saw, one by one. Danny soon lost count of the number of enemy planes they knocked out, but they had had a number of close shaves themselves. Although they try to look out for each other, it wasn't always possible. Once, while Rafe was occupied, Danny almost crashed into a tree trying to shake off a particularly persistent German pilot on his tail. He pulled up just in time, but the German pilot wasn't so lucky.
Danny didn't have time to stop and think about what could have happened if he had been that bit slower though, because soon enough, he had something else to occupy his thoughts.
"Rafe, there's someone on our tail." Danny warned his friend as he swerved to avoid a slew of bullets coming at him from behind. Tucking his plane into a tight spin, Danny managed to catch sight of their pursuer, or rather pursuers. "There's two on our six."
Rafe's curses came over the radio as he was forced to abort his attack on another German plane just ahead of them. The newly freed target promptly went on to take out another plane of theirs, and Danny could only sit and watch as their unfortunate teammate, whom they never had a chance to meet, go down in flames. Gritting his teeth, Danny turned his plane around to seek out the two culprits, only to find that they were nowhere to be seen.
"Where did they…"
"Left, Danny, now!" Rae's frantic yell cut him off mid-sentence. Instinctively, Danny banked his plane hard to the left, narrowly missing a rocket which shot right through where he had been seconds ago. Before he could catch his breath, however, Danny found himself in the way of a fellow teammate coming at him at top speed, and barely managed to twist his plane into a sharp dive just in time to avoid collision.
Heart still thumping, Danny took a long loop to come up on the far right, and Rafe soon joined him, looking over the outside of his plane anxiously.
"Woah, Danny, you still in one piece?"
"Think so." His heart was still racing at the thought of how close he had come to kissing his life goodbye.
"Rockets!" Rafe cursed. "Let's show those puppies who's boss."
"I'm with you."
No one messes with them and gets away with it. No one.
Most of the planes in the German fleet looked identical, but those that carried rockets were slightly bulkier than the rest, and there were only a number of those around. Rafe soon spotted a pair of rocket-bearing German planes right ahead, and they gave chase.
Their targets were surprisingly agile, and the pair seemed to work well with each other, flying one ahead of the other but always interchanging their positions, always keeping their flight paths in intersecting loops so that they could cover each other's tails. It was a good strategy, and Danny couldn't help but admire the teamwork going on there. However, it was going to take more than that to shake them off their tails.
Determined to break the two apart, Rafe and Danny concentrated their firing on the plane slightly ahead, forcing it to break out of its looping flight path and veer off to the right in an attempt to avoid their bullets. This created a small gap in the two German planes' tight formation, and Rafe jumped at the chance to wedge himself right in the middle, effectively breaking up their little loop and forcing the plane in front to go into evasive manoeuvres.
It was a risky act for Rafe as it would mean exposing himself to the German pilot behind, who would no doubt be trying all he could to shoot him out of the air to save his partner. Yet he did it without thinking, not just because he trusted in Danny's ability to keep the partner off his tail, but also because the idea of putting Danny in that position had never crossed his mind.
"Rafe, you idiot…" Danny swore under his breath at his friend's sudden act of suicide, but he had no time to think about it as he quickly flew to intercept the second plane going in on Rafe's tail. He had to stop that plane from shooting at Rafe. Taking a quick dive, Danny came up towards the underside of his target and pressed down hard on the trigger, sending volleys of bullets at his target's belly. The pilot was forced to flip his plane and turn to the side, and in that split second of distraction, Rafe managed to hit the engine of the first plane. The explosion ripped through the left wing, leaving the plane spiralling down towards the earth in a ball of flames.
Danny heaved a sigh of relief. At least that ended well…for them. Or so he thought. He was just about to radio Rafe and show him what he thought of his recklessness when his friend's voice sounded in his ear. "Danny!"
The only time he'd heard that level of panic in Rafe's voice was when he got shot during the Doolittle Raid.
In an instant, Danny's heart went cold. The world seemed to slow down around him as he watched his friend fly past with a German plane hot on his tail. It was the partner of the plane Rafe had just shot down, and while the rest of the German fleet were already in retreat, this particular pilot seemed to show no intention of giving up.
Frantically, Danny turned his plane around and headed towards Rafe, who was pulling off admirable combinations of loops, turns, rolls, skirting around buildings and trees, but nothing was shaking that guy off his tail. He didn't appear to be shooting at Rafe though, which was rather strange…maybe he was out of bullets.
But why would he go after Rafe if he was out of bullets?
Watching the German plane closing in on Rafe, Danny realised what the German pilot was planning to do, and his face went pale.
That guy was going to ram Rafe's plane with his own. He was determined to take Rafe down, no matter the cost.
Recognizing that desperation drove Danny's senses into a state of overdrive. He had to get this guy off Rafe, now!
Danny took his plane into a hard turn and came at the German plane from the side, firing hard as he closed in. The guy didn't even make any attempts to evade his bullets…
It was the easiest target Danny ever nailed, but he felt no happiness doing it. Watching as the fireball disappeared into the ground below, Danny could only sit in his cockpit and stare straight ahead, his own ragged breathing harsh on his ears. That futile attempt of that German pilot to avenge his partner was replaying itself in his mind, and for a horrible moment, Danny could imagine himself in that situation, feeling the pain, grief and desperation as if he'd seen Rafe shot down right in front of him, and the urge to make whoever was responsible pay for it dearly…
Those two must have been really close, a pair of dear friends who were willing to give up everything for each other, including their own lives.
Rafe's quiet voice came over the radio. "Thanks, Danny."
It took a while for Danny to find his own voice. "It's alright, Rafe." He tried to sound normal, but he knew he wasn't going to fool Rafe. Slowly, he guided his plane into position beside Rafe's as they flew side by side back to the base.
"What're you thinking?"
"…I don't know." Danny admitted softly. "It's just…for a second, I saw us in them, Rafe."
And we shot them down.
Rafe was silent for a while. "…It's war, Danny."
"I know." Danny replied quietly. "I know."
Reviews? :D
