The Final Countdown
Chapter 8.
Friday, December 5th
Senator Chapman and his secretary Laurel Scott met with Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh aboard the USS Arizona during the afternoon. The ship had just returned from night surface practice, conducting gunnery Exercises.
"So what do you think of our readiness Senator?" Captain Valkenburgh asked. "I know you are convinced that the president isn't taking the Japanese threat seriously, but I hope we've shown you that the Navy is ready for them."
"What makes you think they won't attack us here, or even on the mainland west coast?" Chapman asked. "From what I've seen here we have the strength to counter any aggression the enemy might offer to us in the Pacific, but you seem rather complacent about the possibility of them showing up here."
The Captain of the Arizona pointed toward a point in the distance higher up on the island. "Do you see that installation up there, Senator?"
Chapman looked to where the Captain pointed, he could just barely make out that there was anything out on the bit of land jutting out toward the ocean.
"That equipment is the latest in long distance radio detection." he said. "I'm told it is called RADAR, and that it can warn us of the approach of enemy planes or ships long before they are visible to our field glasses. Don't worry, we won't be taken by surprise."
After his tour of the Arizona Chapman and Scott made their way to the slip where the Senator's yacht was tied up. The captain and two of the senator's invited guests were already on board the small vessel.
"Are we ready to shove off Harvey?" Chapman asked one of the two associates he had invited to accompany him on the pleasure craft.
"All set Senator. The captain said we can leave whenever you want."
"Excellent!" Chapman replied. "Laurel, will you verify that all of our gear has been stowed on board? I can't wait to get out of here, I've been dreaming of fishing for weeks!"
Saturday December 6th
The attack task force slowed their approach towards Hawaii. Akagi captain Kiichi Hasegawa ordered a flight of A6M2's to patrol the immediate area to search for any enemy ships. Atlas and two other pilots took off to the south east and flew a circular pattern a hundred miles in radius around their fleet of ships. They spotted nothing, and reported back to the Akagi that they were in the clear and had not been spotted. Admiral Nagano greeted the news with enthusiasm, his orders were to abort the operation if the attack fleet were to be discovered.
Aboard the Kaga, Astro overheard Captain Jisaku Okada in contact with the Akagi. He had a thin smile on his face as he picked up an intercom mike and announced to his crew that a surveillance flight launched from the command ship had not encountered any resistance. The attack was on.
Just beyond the radar horizon of the Naval base at Pearl Harbor the USS Nimitz was fighting with a freak storm that blinded the ship's electronic communications systems. A training flight of F14 Tomcats was struggling to stay in landing formation. After several harrowing minutes the clouds began to dissipate, and the electrical interference with the ships systems cleared. Once again the flight deck was filled with the screams of jet engines as the twin engine supersonic fighters resumed pounding onto the deck of the ship.
As soon as the last of the F14's had returned safely, including one that had to land into barrier nets due to a defective tail hook, the bridge crew turned their attention to a more serious issue.
"I can't raise Pearl," the ship's radio officer informed Captain Yelland. "In fact, the entire VHF and UHF bands are dead. The only thing that seems to be working are the low bands."
"Any radar contacts?" Yelland asked.
"Just one, looks like a small vessel to our north west."
"Launch an AWACS flight, and send out a few patrols." Yelland ordered. "I want to know exactly what's out there."
The flight of three A6M2's were heading back toward the Akagi when they spotted the yacht flying the American flag. There were three people on the deck who pointed upwards at the aircraft. "They've spotted us!" one of the two pilots flying lower down cried out on his radio. "We're going to make another pass and silence them!"
Atlas had the sun between him and the yacht, his aircraft remained hidden from view. He watched as the two pilots under his command dived lower to strafe the ship with gun fire.
"Leave them alone BAKA!" Atlas cried out on the radio. "Our mission is reconnaissance, not to attack civilian ships. Now you have really put the attack mission in jeopardy!"
The two younger pilots ignored their leader and turned about to make another pass. One of them managed to hit the fuel tanks in the small vessel and it exploded into a huge fireball. Suddenly, a pair of F14 fighters with squadron markings of a skull and cross bones, flew past the two Zekes.
"WTF!" Atlas gasped. "Those aircraft don't belong here in 1941! Those are 1980 vintage US supersonic fighters!" He firewalled his throttle and pulled back on the stick to climb as fast has his aircraft would go. Keeping the sun between him and the Tomcats, he made his way back to the carrier.
The two American fighters engaged the Zeros. Atlas heard the chatter in his headphones as one of his companions was shot up by machine gun fire, and the second was blasted out of the sky by a heat seeking missile.
Astro peeled off the naval uniform he'd been wearing for more than a week. Waiting for his chance to sneak away unnoticed, he took off under his own power heading to the south east. There was nothing else he could do, he'd have to warn the American naval base that the attack was coming. As he flew closer towards Hawaii, he suddenly hit a backwash of a horizontal vortex. Astro immediately recognized the air pattern he'd just flown though as wake turbulence caused by the passage of an aircraft larger and faster than he was. He scanned the sky ahead of him and spotted the two Tomcat's heading in for a landing on a lone aircraft carrier. Astro's computer brain quickly compared the image of the ship to those in his historical database, and he identified the aircraft carrier as the USS Nimitz. As the ship had been commissioned in 1972, it was obvious to Astro that he and Atlas were not the only ones that had been sucked backwards in time to 1941.
Astro followed the two supersonic aircraft towards the flattop, and he landed next to the command bridge where Captain Yelland was now making his way onto the flight deck. Astro spotted the captain and recognized his rank by the insignia bars on his uniform.
Yelland had been striding towards the two aircraft that had just returned from patrol when he noticed the bare chested boy wearing short black pants and red boots heading in his direction.
"Captain!" Astro called out, "I need to talk to you!"
"Who are you, and how did you get here?" Yelland demanded as soon as he was within a few feet of the robot boy.
"My name is Astro, and I'm from the future, just as you are." Astro replied, "And I flew here."
"I don't know of any unknown aircraft landing on my ship." The captain replied.
"That's not what I meant." Astro answered. "My body is capable of flight. I'm a robot. I'm also Japanese." Astro slowly opened his chest panel so the captain could see his inner mechanics.
Yelland's eyes widened for an instant, but at once he understood and believed. He reached over to the wall of the command tower and grabbed for the intercom handset. "Mr. Thurman I need to see you on the bridge at once." He quickly got a response, and relayed orders to his executive officer. "Clear the bridge of unessential personal at once, and get me the smallest size officer's uniform we have in stores, I don't care about the rank."
Yelland then turned back to Astro, "Come with me!" he ordered.
Astro and the captain climbed up the steps to the bridge and entered The captain looked around and was satisfied that he could trust the personal remaining on the bridge. "Gentlemen, what you are about to hear shall remain off the official records, mostly because I don't think anyone will believe it."
Astro turned to the captain. "In less than a day from now Japanese naval aircraft will launch a surprise attack on the sea base at Pearl harbor." he said. "They will sink at least one major ship and damage many others. There will be a substantial loss of life in the attack. Your forces are sitting ducks where they remain, the base must be warned and the fleet docked there needs to get out to sea."
"We are quite aware of the events that will happen." Yelland replied. "We have already figured out what has happened to this ship."
The executive officer entered the bridge holding a folded up Ensign's uniform. "This was the smallest officer's uniform I could find." he replied. Yelland took the package from Thurman and handed it to Astro. "Put this on." he replied. "You'll blend in much better wearing a naval uniform than if you walk around this ship nearly naked." Astro quickly donned the uniform, it was quite baggy on him, but it looked believable.
Yelland continued to address the crew. "As we all know, that storm we went through dragged us back in time. Even stranger is the fact that we were not the only ones effected by that strange bit of weather." Yelland put his hand on Astro's shoulder. "Astro here is a humanoid robot from our future. He also wants to change history so the events of the next day do not happen."
"I don't believe this!" Dan Thurman spat out. "This is a war ship, or it at least it used to be, or will be! My God, this is crazy!"
"What are you going to do, Captain?" Astro asked.
"The duty of this ship is to protect the interests of the United States." The captain replied. "I take my orders from the president."
"Would that be, FDR?" Warren Lasky asked.
His mind made up, Yelland opened the ship's intercom to address the crew."
"This is the Captain," he began. "As many of you have begun to realize, that strange storm we recently went through as sent up back in time to December 6, 1941. In a few hours, we will fight a battle that was lost before most of you were born. This time things are going to be different!"