Chapter 2: "Day of Infamy"- Pearl Harbor pt.2

December 7th, 1941- Time: 7:54 am

Pennsylvania's POV:

Fire. Smoke. Explosions. Fear. All these things took hold around me as the sky became filled thick with smoke from our battleships who had just been torpedoed and were coming under direct attack from dive and level bombers, the torpedoing's of them thought to have been an impossible feat just minutes before.

All around me men were being thrown about by the explosions, jumping into the water, or manning their stations and guns to defend their ships. Many men were on fire, burning slow and painful deaths, their screams of agony being muffled by the roar of the aircraft engines soaring above us or the explosions of a bomb that would hit down onto the ships in intervals when the planes made their bombing runs. And the figures of the California and West Virgina going under caused more sounds of death and destruction as the California's hull creaked and pulled under the pressure of the ship's weight going on it's top due to capsizing.

And then there was me, rushing through the water at first as fast as I could to get over to the Arizona. After the Sirens had been pushed back to the point where their activity's became nonexistent, the militaries of the world reverted back to there old ways of war, but with us kansens being human and the soul of our ships brought to life, they decided to keep us around, if nothing more than to show their gratitude for pushing back the Sirens. Of course, with the need for kansens to use our battle forms greatly reduced, we were given some enhancements to be able to float and sail on water without having to summon our main riggings. Any weapons we may have that would be related to our rigging could still be summoned, but it wouldn't affect our main ships in any way, allowing the man of our ships to still operate without falling into the dunk.

And after I had gotten onto the Arizona, the ship seemed to be taking the hits that were hitting on point with stride, but I knew that wouldn't last long. I ran as fast as I could to the bridge, to find Arizona where I thought she would be, but not in the way I had expected. Ari was in the captain's chair, her head in her knees, and arms wrapped around her legs to keep them steady. Something had clearly upset her, so I approached slowly, despite all my instincts and thoughts telling me to grab her and go.

"Ari? What is it, Ari?" I tried to say in my best calm and kind voice I could, but there was an obvious hint of worry in the corners of my voice.

Ari just whimpered quietly in response, whether out of me being there or because of something else, I couldn't know.

"Is it because of… Me?" I asked her in a low voice, pointing to myself as I bent down to hear her.

"N-no. I… I…" Arizona stammered in response as she began to cry, almost as though she had lost someone important to her, and I knew who.

"Oh. Ok. Don't take too long, Ari, I don't want to loss you as well," I said as I hugged her and then turned to leave.

As the sounds of gunfire and explosions and aircraft engines returned to me, I was at a lull at what to do. I didn't have any weapons to fight against the Japanese planes and I had to wait for Ari to over come her emotions before I could get her out of here. Unfortunately, fate would not wait for me to decide what to do next.

The distinctive whistle of a bomb soaring through the air caught my ears, the sound coming from the front of the ship. That was when the hull was rocked slightly as the bomb hit near No. 2 turret and punched through the deck and decks as it made it's way down to the deepest parts of the ship. Ari seemed to know what had happened as she came running out of the bridge and ran head first into me. Before I knew it, we were both flying through the air and hit hard on the main deck that was below the bridge. Soon after, the ship was lifted out of the air and me and Arizona went flying into the rear mast at the back of the ship, with me being lucky enough to stop just short of it. Ari, however, wasn't so lucky.

Arizona's chest region went careening into the middle mast, with a very noticeable crunching sound following with it, and Ari coughing blood out after the breaking of her ribs occurred. I had taken a couple of splinters and pieces of shrapnel that had lodged themselves into the deck on our way here, but now Ari was in no fighting conditions. Damned be to the Japanese. I had to get Arizona outa here.

"Ari? ARI, are you ok!?" I asked her as I came over her. She was breathing heavily, and she looked like as though she would never walk again from her face, which was flared up in pain. Her hands were covering her chest area, where she had just most likely had most of her ribs broken.

"Ugh. Leave, me. Penny," Arizona gurgled out between coughing up blood. Clearly, she was not in a state to be able to move, or if she could, not without extreme amounts of pain.

As I laid over her, smoke and shrapnel began to come over us, with a hot piece of metal slamming right into my right ankle, sheering pain flowing through my body.

I didn't want to leave her, but I knew I would be forced to if I wanted to get out alive to tell of what happened to Arizona. I hugged her tight one last time, knowing it would probably be my last time seeing her alive. As I left to find my way off the ship, another piece of shrapnel hit me, this time in the abdomen in my intestines. The piece of hot metal was lodged in there tight, and the pain that flared up with it was so extreme, I wanted to keel over and cry my heart out at how painful it was. But I knew that if I did that, the fires raging on board the ship would consume my every being. So, I pushed past the sheer pain in my body and tried to find a way off the ship.

But that was easier said than done, as the Arizona had been surrounded by fires in the water from the oil that had spilled into the water and set ablaze from the explosions of the near misses and hits on the ships. If there was a small stretch of water that hadn't been contaminated by burning oil, I didn't see it anywhere. The only other option I had was to simply jump into the water and get out of the fire zone as soon as possible. The only complicating factor was that my right ankle was bleeding, meaning that, if I didn't get an immediate infection and 1st degree burn wound to where the first piece of shrapnel hit me, then the seer heat of the flames would be giving my ankle a serious rethink about whether it was the right idea or not.

But, with the Arizona sinking fast and me having nowhere else to go, I had to make my choice, and fast.

"Nothing for it, Penny," I said as I jumped as far as I could away from the Arizona before I would hit the water. I put my unhurt foot down on the water first, but the pain was still immense to the point I wondered if this was the right idea.

"Ahhhhh! Almost, there!" I yelled as I reached the edge of the fire zone. It was then that I saw a "Zero" coming at me full speed, firing at me with all it's guns. I had gotten out of the fire zone of the Arizona, but now I had to make emergency maneuvers in order to try to evade the offending aircraft. I made flank speed to my right, my speed, while slower than a destroyer or cruiser, was still fast enough to make me a nimble target on the field, which caused the Zero to miss most of his rounds as I maneuvered to get out of his field of fire, but two bullets did hit their marks.

The first bullet tore into my left shoulder as it lodged itself in my back, something I could easily take, but the second-round tore into my neck, exiting out the other side with such ease it was as though it never hit me in the first place. But a split second after the bullet exited my neck did I feel the pain. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out, as the bullet had ripped right through my vocal cords, leaving behind its mark on me.

I clutched the side of my neck where the second bullet had entered with my right hand, knowing that putting pressure on the wound would help keep the blood from flowing out like a geyser. I had to get back to a medical station asap, otherwise I would loss too much blood to remain conscious to get medical attention.

The scene when I got to the medical station at the main base was… chaos, to put it mildly, with men who had been shot or wounded all over the place where they could lay down. A nurse had come up to me and tried to see what wounds I had, talking in as much of a non-panicked as she could. I pointed to the wound in my neck and then to my vocal cords with my right hand, as my left arm felt too limb to move, then reapplied pressure to my neck wound. That seemed to get the picture across as she nodded and went off to get a doctor and see if there was anywhere for them to treat me. I sat myself down at one of the seats in the hallway as I waited for what seemed like hours but was only around 5 minutes before she returned with a doctor.

"This is her right here. As you can see, she cannot talk because her vocal cords have been shot out and her left arm is not able to move because if was punctured by a bullet," the nurse said to the doctor as he examined me.

"Hmm," the doctor muttered as her looked me over, noticing the wound to my abdomen.

"There, was that from a bullet or from shrapnel?" the doctor asked as he looked up my eyes before remembering I couldn't talk.

"Ahh, right. Ok, one finger for if it was a bullet or two fingers for if it was a shrapnel piece." He said as he pointed to the wound again.

If they were hoping for one finger, then their faces sure became very worried when I held up two with my right hand for a few seconds before returning it to applying pressure to my neck wound.

"Hmm, right, very well, follow us," the doctor the nurse had gotten said as he came in and supported me on my left side, clearly having seen my ankle wound from the blood that had been pooling up on the floor, the nurse just then noticing it and coming in to support me from my right side.

Thankfully, there was a medical bed that was available for me to rest while the doctors and nurses got everything ready for operating on me. The nurse that had gotten me help stayed by my side, applying bandages and morphine to help ease the pain and hopefully stop my blood from flowing out of me. I had lost a decent amount of blood at that point, and I was starting to go in and out of conciseness as I laid there. God damn, you, Japanese… bastards.

Enterprise's POV:

As I stood out on the flight deck of my carrier, the ship I had been born from, the 1st mate of the captain came running out of a side door leading into the superstructure of the ship and to me, out of breath as he reached me.

"What is it? Did radar pick up something?" I asked in a curious tone, but my voice was still in its pleasant mood.

"No, something much worse. Read this and see for yourself, captains orders," the 1st mate said as he gave me the message, still catching his breath.

I took the message from him and read it over, dread coming over me as my smile faded. It was from one of our men who had been ordered to fly into Pearl earlier, the message reading, "Pearl Harbor is under attack. This is no drill." I could imagine that he had been shot down by now, with the message having been sent 6 minutes ago!

"Why did it take so long to get this to me?" I questioned the 1st mate as I looked over at him, my stare cutting into his soul.

"The captain wanted to get things ready for a counterattack and he almost forgot to relay it to you, Enterprise," the 1st mate responded as though I was about to kill him, and him answering was the only way to prevent that.

"Sighs lightly Stand down, sailor, I'm not going to do anything to you," I sighed as I looked out to the ocean ahead of us. It's not like I was going to harm him, especially since we had known each over for so long now, almost as though we were family.

"I Know, it's just that, we both have many friends in Pearl, and when I heard it was being bombed, I was in utter shock," the 1st mate said as he joined me in looking over the oceans that we now knew would be a warzone.

"He, I figured you were in utter shock when you heard the news, Denver, but right now, we have to focus on what's at hand right now," I replied as I turned to look at the bridge.

That was when the intercoms came online.

"All men to general quarters, we believe we have a bearing of where the enemy fleet is at and we believe we can give them a punching before they get anywhere outa here. Pilots will be briefed on the specifics in the ready room. Let's give em' hell, men!" the voice on the intercoms was Admiral Halsey, not Captain George D. Murray like I would have expected. The next voice to come on the intercoms was the captain, and he mostly was going over stuff that was standard for when we were thrown into war.

"I'll see you later, I guess?" Denver said as he began to make his way to his station on the bridge.

"Yeah, I'll see you later, Denver," I replied as he gave me a funny look but didn't say anything.

"Sighs heavily Please be ok, Yorktown," I prayed as I looked to the sky in front of my vessel before heading back inside. If they were after us, the carriers, then it would only be a matter of time before they started to pick us off one by one, and I didn't want my dear sister to be first to go on that list.

The "Day of Infamy" had struck.

Chapter End.