Enterprise's POV:

The once dead halls of my ship, with sporadic men here and there going on their "peace" time duties, were now full of life, with men running about to their action stations or putting away a board game they had been playing just moments before. Most men seemed to have been surprised, but had determined faces on them when headed to their battle stations, most likely determined to defend the ship to the death if it came to that.

The briefing room was also a similar sight, with a lot of the men seeming to have been caught off guard by the surprise attack that had diminished over the course of getting ready to attack the supposed enemy fleet, all except one.

"We have a possible location on the enemy fleet. Fly a grid on bearing 185. If you make contact, Best and his men will lay down a smoke screen and then the torpedo bombers will make their runs. Lindsey has command."

C. Wade McClusky briefed the men of my torpedo and dive-bombing squadrons, with most of the men going along with how the captain and Halsey decided to attack the Japanese fleet, just getting out of their chairs to get to their aircraft on the flight deck. I even agreed with the plan, considering it was thought that torpedoes were the primary weapons to sink ships. One pilot, however, wasn't about to just go along with the plan with what he probably considered a "pointless" weapon if you asked him.

"Eh, to hell with Smoke. Let me go after those carriers with a real bomb," it was Richard "Dick" Best. I could recognize his voice anywhere. As I made my way from the doorway to take the lead in front of the pilots to the flight deck to take my place on the flight deck to send off my fliers, I heard Best say that as he was getting up, and he had more to say.

"Torpedoes sink ships, not bombs, and my men need a screen," it was Eugune E. Lindsey, the pilot who was put in charge of the attack, argued against Best's argument.

"Yeah, even if you get close enough, your torpedoes don't work,"

"That's a rumor," "Yeah, it's a rumor, cause the damn things have never been tested," Best and Lindsey argued over the tactics, like two bickering animals deciding who would be eating first.

"Look, the Japs are out there killing our friends. Let me put a 500-pound bomb right down their goddamn smokestack," Best turned his attention to McCluskey, the one who was in overall command of the counterattack, in one last ditch effort to change the situation, and I was on the halfway mark of the steps to the upper decks when I stopped and looked behind at him, thinking he was never going to change McCluskey's mind, and I was right.

"We're not changing tactics just because you want revenge." McCluskey responded as he stood his ground on the matter of the tactics being used to attack the Japanese fleet.

That was the last nail in the coffin for Best's argument on the tactics we were using. I continued up the rest of the way up the stairs and then waited for Best to reach the top.

"Best, come with me," I said as I grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him away from the rest of the pilots.

"Wah, hey, let go, Enty," he said as I pulled him away from the men, which some stopped and stared and some just encouraged him to get it along with some gestures, which I replied in kind by squeezing his wrist tighter, which got him to shut up and just see what I wanted.

I pulled him into a room nearby that had pretty much nothing in it but had space for 5 people to comfortably sit-down in. I pulled him in and slapped him across the face with a controlled slap, as a full-blown slap would have knocked him out, and then told him how what he did could have gotten him taken off duties, if not thrown in the brig.

"Your one of the best pilots on this ship, and I don't want you to get in trouble because of your actions, Best," I finished as my eyes started to tear up at me having to force myself upon someone like that, let alone one of my best dive-bomber pilots at the time.

Best seemed to understand what his actions had done, pulling me into a hug to comfort me as I broke down from having to yell at him.

As I recovered, I hugged him tight around the waist.

"Just, promise me you won't do anything to get you thrown into the brig, ok?" I ask between teared up eyes and sniffles to help calm me down.

"I'll try, ok," Best replied as he knew he had a cocky attitude that could get in the way.

"Ok, as long as you'll try,"

December 7th, 1941- 8:28 pm

It was getting late for them to be getting back. As I was standing on the open bow of the flight deck and looked to the sky which was becoming blanketed by stars, I thought that maybe that they had over-extended their search and many had had to ditch in the ocean as a result of having to return in the night. Then I remembered that, during the briefing of the counterattack, that they were to fly a course on a bearing of 185, plenty of distance away from my carrier but still within range that nobody would have to ditch.

I shook my head slightly, clearing the thoughts that anybody had had to ditch from my head. I looked out to the sky, which was becoming a beautiful blanket of stars as the sun set in the distance off to the stern of my ship, trying, and failing, to keep the thoughts of the squadrons off my mind.

Not hearing back from them for so long had taken it's toll on my mind, and even though my training and mind told me better, my thoughts got the better of me, and I reached my hand to the radio earpiece in my pocket.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" I asked through the mic as I looked back to the bridge, most likely the radio intercepts room picking up the message as it went out.

Seconds later, I got my reply.

"E-Enterprise? Yeah, we can hear you loud and clear," a voice crackled out over the coms of the one-ear earpiece, with me recognizing the voice immediately.

"B-Best? Thank God. Where have you guys been? What's taken so long to get back?" I asked in a little bit of a panicked voice, clearly showing my discomfort for them having been out this long.

"Calm down, Enterprise, we're all alright, nobody has had to ditch." Best's voice came over the coms again, trying to calm me down before I got into a panic attack over them not having gotten back yet.

"As for what's taken so long, flying dive-bombers with torpedo bombers being weighed down by their torpedoes takes time to get places, especially since we aren't flying at the speed of sound or anything, and we flew all the way on our bearing search pattern and didn't find anything, no fleets, not even a god damn whale, so my squadron ditched it's "weapons" but the torpedo bombers didn't, so if there's a crash on the carrier, it might go boom, so be prepared," Best continued as I calmed myself down as he talked about why it took so long for them to get back, but the end bit of the torpedo bombers not ditching their weapons on the return trip worried me a little, because if there was a crash, my carrier would be lit up like a Christmas tree, but much more deadlier.

"Speaking of carriers, we're coming into view of home port, so be ready," Best's voice crackled out over the comms one last time as I heard the distant roar of aircraft engines coming in from the direction of the stern, recognizing it instantly to be the squadrons returning to my carrier.

I turned roundabout 180 degrees to see the first of the planes coming in to land on the carrier. I instantly began to run to the aft of the ship in preparation to receive the pilots back onto the carrier. As I slowed and stopped at the steps up the superstructure that were on the outside of it, the signature thud and pulling of wires indicated that the first plane had landed.

The crew around me got to work instantly, moving in and around the plane to move it out of the way of the next plane who would be coming in and releasing the arresting cable from the wire that the pilot had landed on to pull the wire back into place for the next pilot to land. The pilot got out of the plane and the personnel who was responsible for the warming up and the down laying of the aircraft when the planes were getting ready to launch or when they were landing and were needed back down in the hanger got into the pilots seat to make sure all the systems were working alright. As all this was happening, the next plane was coming in to land on the Enterprise.

After all but one plane of the first squadron had landed, I noticed that Best's plane hadn't landed yet, coming to the conclusion that he was landing last like he always did, and sure enough, the next plane that landed, which was the last of his squadron, was Best's plane. As he got out of his plane and walked up to his men who all had landed safely, McCluskey spoke up from the level above them on the superstructure.

"We got word from Pearl. The Jap fleet was north, not south," McCluskey announced as some of the pilots got a bit annoyed that they went out there for nothing.

"God damn it!" Best muttered to himself as he was clearly very annoyed at not have been able to hit the Japanese fleet, even if it was with "useless" weapons.

Just then, a torpedo bomber from Lindsey's squadron hit the deck a bit rougher than he had expected and at an angle and the torpedo under his plane came loose and came careening in our direction, aimed at the superstructure. Luckly, a sailor which happened to be right next to the path of the torpedo lunged onto the torpedo and tried to stop it on the smooth deck of the ship, slowing it for sure, but he was having trouble stopping the 1,000-pound underwater bomb. McCluskey came running down from the upper position he was at to try and help stop the sporadic torpedo, but the sailor stopped it by the time he got down to the flight deck by sticking his leg out and stamping his foot into the metal column that ran up through the outer superstructure to stop the torpedo before it could hit the superstructural elements of my ship, the torpedo stopping dead in it's tracks as he hit the column.

Everybody cheered or breathed a sigh of relief as the torpedo had been stopped and the ship saved, men patting each other on the back as a show of gratitude to the sailor. Best patted a pilot on the back before he turned his attention to the leader of the pilot who had just almost cost them, and me, the ship they sailed on, and he clearly wasn't happy. McCluskey noticed it right away as well as he turned his attention to Best getting up in arms against Lindsey.

"Hey, Lindsey, this is what I was afraid of. One of your men almost blows up the damn carrier because you were too afraid to get shot down flying into Pearl," Best yelled at Lindsey as I was reminded of the promise he had made me before they left, and felt a ping of anger and sadness that he had broken it this early.

"Do I have to remind you that I am your superior officer, Lieutenant?" Lindsey responded in kind, clearly showing no fear about what had just happened.

That was the line that took it too far, and McCluskey and I moved to intercept the two before they broke out into a fist fight.

"You gonna hide behind your rank?" Best replied before McCluskey pulled the two away from each other and let Lindsey go back to his men, Lindsey looking back as he walked back to his men to debrief them on what had happened.

"Save it for the Japs," McCluskey said as he came down on Best, with me grabbing Best by his left arm to calm him down and pull him away farther from Lindsey.

"We're at war now McCluskey. When that guy screws up, people die!" Best responded as he was still very angry at Lindsey.

"Best! It's not his fault the torpedo nearly blew us all up! It was just the fact that you guys had to make a night landing and that they forgot to ditch their torpedoes to the ocean that it happened! Nobody is to BLAME HERE!" I yelled at Best as he came to his senses and realized that he could have been taken off duty because of it, remembering our agreement, and the whole flight deck and even some men up in the bridge were looking at us after my outbreak, clearly disturbed by the sheer intensity of it.

"I-I. Just. Stay away from me," I said as I backed off of Best and then ran to my personal courters, not bothering to let my emotions to be kept in check as I made my way down, tears running down my face as I passed by men who had understandably confused faces who had not heard my outbreak on the flight deck.

After I had gotten into my personal courters, I threw myself onto my bed that I had, which was much more than just the simple chained bunks that the enlisted men had to sleep in and my courters being more like the officers courters on the ship, but a bit bigger and personalized for me specifically, and curled up into a ball at having so many thoughts going through my head at the same time. It made my head hurt. Eventually, darkness consumed me as I fell asleep from the days work and stress of knowing what happened at Pearl, to my friends.

My dreams offered no relief, to my dismay.

I was standing still at the end of the pier of the drydocks in San Fransisco as the day was just coming to light, the warm rays of sun hitting my back from just over the mountains, almost as if calling out for me to hug the rays that hit me. The smell of ocean water from the port was an overwhelming sensation, with emotions coming to and thro in my mind as I watched as the harbor begin to wake up. The very back of my mind knew it was a dream, but it all felt so real. The seagulls waking up and squawking as the new day brought with it new opportunities to steal peoples food for themselves, the crashing of the waves on the shores, and the warmth of the sunlight, it all felt like it was real. But all this peace was not to last.

Air raid sirens indicated that an air raid was incoming on the port, but, an air raid? Here? In San Fransisco, on the mainland United States?! But it became too obvious that an air raid was on it's way, as the faint roar of aircraft engines encroached on the periphery of my hearing, and I soon saw the planes that were coming in to strike a devastating blow to us, the offender becoming all too obvious by the pattern on the planes. The "Red Rising Sun" was seen from miles away on the Japanese planes if you had good vision, and the "Sun" was very obviously seen from the ground view I had of the offending aircraft, terror filling my body as the just earlier faint hum of aircraft engines became an all-mighty roar that would bring anybody to their knees in terror.

The bombs and the subsequent screams of men crying out in pain and shock soon filled the harbor of San Fransisco, the screams of the men being cut short as the next set of bombs hit their marks. The fire, the oil, and the pools of blood of the men who had just had their lives cut short filled my vision as the port facilities behind me soon began to sing the song of destruction as bombs fell and men screamed, only to be cut short by the guns of the Zeros that were swarming the harbor, their engines making an almost-deafening roar of a sympathy of death.

And as I stood there, the events going on around me playing almost like it was a replay of events that was going on just for me to experience, my mind kept repeating the same thought over and over again, "It's all just a dream. It's all just a dream. IT'S ALL JUST A DREAM!" my thoughts began to scream it at me as it all played out, my body falling to it's knees after my legs felt like they were going to turn to liquid, pain starting to fill my body as I lay there in the agony that my body was going through, my stomach feeling like it was going to throw itself out of my body no matter what way it did it. My eyes began to water up, my hair felt like it was on fire, my back aching up in extreme pain as though someone had just cut several, deep cuts into it.

As I felt like I was going to reach my breaking point and I would be crushed of my lifeforce, I suddenly found all my pain gone, the smoke that had filled my eyes, gone, and the sounds of death and terror. Gone. I jolted up in shock, my breathing clearly having seen better days, as my throat was gasping for air as I came back to the real world. I must have left the door to my courters unlocked as Best and Denver came running into my room, their faces full of worry. Denver came onto my bed and grabbed me by my shoulders, looking me over for signs of harm or injury. When he knew that nobody had harmed me in my sleep, he hugged me tight and started to rub his hand on the back of my head to try and calm me down and prevent me from hyperventilating myself to death.

That seemed to do the trick, as his warm, comforting embrace calmed me down after a minute or two, and after I had calmed down, I began to cry at what I had seen in my dream. The death and carnage I had seen made me what to throw up in real life, but I refrained from doing so as so not to ruin my companion's clothing, especially when they had no idea what had upset me so much.

"Enty, what happened, was it, about. Me?" Best asked as I started to feel better, to which I replied with a shake of my head as I didn't feel comfortable enough to speak yet, even if I had my voice, which I felt I still didn't have due to the realism of the dream, or, nightmare.

Best seemed to get the memo with my answer and simply nodded, but stayed put where he was because he didn't want to upset me more by getting closer in case I still held some feelings about what had happened when he had landed. Denver continued to comfort me as I recovered from my nightmare which had almost required them to get medical attention, and thus, blow their cover of them being in my courters without my permission, but I wasn't too mad that they had entered without my permission. In fact, I was more relieved than anything that they were here to give me the help I needed, otherwise, I might not have been alive at that point if they hadn't been there.

After things had clamed down and I retuned to my normal self, the first thing on my mind wasn't about the dream or why they had been in my personal courters in the first place, but the time.

"W-what time is it?" I asked them as they got looks of surprise on their faces as they looked at each-other, then Best took out his pocket watch and looked at the time, squinting to see what it was due to being in nearly pitch black with a few low lights still on.

"1:23 am right now, but why do you want to know the time?" Best replied as he put his pocket watch away, curious as to why I asked for the time.

"I, had a really bad dream just now, actually, a nightmare, where San Fransisco Harbor was attacked by the Japanese and I was just, standing in the middle of all it, not being able to do anything to stop it, and, my body felt like it was in, in so much pain that I felt like, like I was going to be ripped of my lifeforce," I replied as the memories of the nightmare came back to me, causing me to lean out of weakness on Denver, and he held me with care as he made sure I would not start hyperventilating again.

"Oh, I see, that is understandable, especially since it's been a long while since you've seen combat, right? Makes sense why this would happen because of you not having had an enemy that you have had to fight for so long." Best responded as he came to his conclusion of what had happened with me and my nightmare, and, in part, I had to agree with him, as it made since being thrown back into combat like this would throw a bunch of mental turmoil into the fray as I had lived so long now without needing to fight a war, and now being thrown back into war would bring back some not-so-kind habits and memories.

I nodded my agreement with Best's assessment of what had happened, and Denver wanted to say something, but refrained from saying it out of respect, I had seen and felt that feeling many times before so I knew when it showed.

"Denver, what is it you wanna say," I asked him as I turned to him as he braced himself, physically and mentally, as he stated, "D-do you want to get it on while we're here, or no?"

I stared at him in shock for a few seconds before I returned to normal, my face bright red from the thoughts going through my mind. My body and thoughts wanted him to dominate me, but with Best here, I wasn't sure if Best would be willing to join in because of what had happened on the flight deck earlier, but he seemed to be content with joining as a way of "making it up to me" for his actions earlier, as he lowered himself onto the end of my bed and smiled at me as I made up my mind with a sigh.

"V-very well, but only until 4:20 will we be doing it, after that, we stop as so to get ready for the day, ok?" I said as I begun to unbutton my uniform that I had slept in the previous night, revealing my sexy lingerie that I had worn the day before, which no doubt got Best and Denver turned on just by seeing it.

"Ok, Enty," Denver said as he began to get undressed, clearly not paying head to the fact that we were supposed to go until 4:20 before we stopped, having all the intentions to go at me as long as he wanted, even if he got in some deep trouble for getting caught.

I guess it couldn't be helped then.

I'll leave the details for you to imagine what happened here when Enty got it on with two men, one that was like family, and the other, one of the best dive-bomber pilots in her air arms.

Chapter End.