The Final Countdown
Chapter 9.
Sunday, December 7th
The sky was clear as the sun came over the horizon. Already the line crew were loading bombs onto the undercarriages of the B5N Kates, and loading the coils of ammo in the machine guns of them, as well as the A6M2 Zeros. Atlas was up before dawn getting ready. He attended the final briefing with the rest of the Akagi's pilots and stood by his plane waiting for the signal to launch with the rest of his squadron.
He would be flying in the first sortie, and he hoped that he would be back in time to join the third wave of the attack, the one that hadn't happened and the one that would have dealt a final killing blow to the US forces that would have kept them out of the war long enough for Japan to finish their conquest of the Pacific. Atlas also knew that the reason Nagumo had not ordered the third wave attack was because he didn't know where the missing American aircraft carriers were. Atlas decided that he would locate them, even if he had do it without his aircraft.
There was just one thing that Atlas had forgotten, well actually two. In a few hours he would realize his mistake.
Meanwhile, the flight crews aboard the USS Nimitz were also getting ready. They were anxious to try and change history and possibly stop the war in the pacific before it had a chance to get started. Astro stood in the bridge next to the Captain and watched as the flight deck became crowded with Tomcats winding up their engines. "Are you sure we are doing the right thing, sir?" Astro asked. "We might be about to create a time paradox or something."
"I'm no Einstein, and I don't know if it's even possible to change history, Astro." Yelland replied. "But if we actually can deliver a shock and awe to the Japanese Navy that will have Yamamoto shitting in his pants the, Pacific war might not even get started."
"Very well." Astro agreed, "but I'm going to fly along with your pilots. If anything goes wrong, well I'm actually more heavily armed than several of those F14's put together!"
"What?" Yelland asked in shock.
"It's true. I have 500 rounds of armor piercing shells in my fanny guns, two super high powered lasers in my index fingers, and a particle beam cannon in my left arm that can take the top of a mountain off." Astro replied. "Plus, I can hit Mach 5 in level atmospheric flight, and can reach orbital velocity once I've cleared the top of the stratosphere."
"Sir, the AWACS just reported seeing the first wave of the Japanese strike force lifting off their carriers," the radio officer said, looking up from his station.
"Right!" Yelland replied, picking up his intercom microphone. "All fighters, launch! Intercept course!"
The line crew began directing the fighters toward the catapults. The first aircraft off the deck was the squadron leader, callsign 'Cowboy'. One by one the Tomcats took to the air, just seconds behind each other. Astro peeled the Ensign's uniform off and handed it to the Captain. "I won't be needing this in the air," he replied.
It didn't take Astro very long to catch up to the lead fighter. His super sensitive eyesight soon detected the first of the incoming Kates and Zeros minutes before any of the F14 pilots had them painted on their radars.
Atlas flew his Zero a few thousand feet above the Kates. From this vantage point he would have a good view of any incoming enemy fighters, although he knew from history that the only resistance the attack force would encounter would come from AA fire once they were over the islands.
"Here they come!" Astro radioed to the squadron leader.
"Man you got good eyes!" Cowboy laughed. "They're still to far away to get a weapons lock!"
Atlas kept his eyes moving, and he suddenly spotted the incoming flight of F14's coming over the horizon. He'd been hoping that the two supersonic fighters he'd run into the previous day were the only ones that had gotten caught in the time rift that he and Astro had been, but judging by the number of them he now saw it was more likely that an aircraft carrier, or even a fleet of them had been sucked into the same vortex that he had.
"Shit!" he thought, realizing that he had little choice in his actions. He pushed the canopy of the aircraft back to the full open position and pushed the stick forward with the throttle wide one, and the supercharger at maximum boost. He aimed the A6M2 at the lead fighter, intending to make a Kamikaze collision with it, and bail out at the last instant.
Astro saw the Zero diving out of the sun on a collision course with the lead Tomcat. "Lookout Cowboy!" Astro yelled into the radio, "bandit at 12 o'clock high coming in at ya!"
The F14 pilot had little time to react, and Astro saw that. He quickly morphed his left arm into a cannon, took careful aim and blew the left wing off of the Zero.
"Nice shooting, Tex!" Cowboy yelled, "I owe you one!"
Atlas bailed out as the aircraft disintegrated around him. He looked around to see what had him, and then spotted Astro flying along side the lead Tomcat. "Why you damn bastard!" Atlas yelled out. "I warned you to keep out of my way!"
The weather radar on the Nimitz suddenly began painting the same strange cloud formations on every other scan. Out in front of the ship, dark green clouds began to appear on the horizon.
"Here we go again!" Black Cloud, the weather officer moaned.
"Turn us out of its path!" Yelland yelled, "try and out run the storm!"
"It's no good!" Black Cloud groaned, the storm turns as we do, and it's keeping up with us!"
"Scrub the mission!" Yelland yelled into the microphone, "Call those planes back!"
Cowboy relayed the orders to the flight wing. "Damn it!" he yelled, "The Japs are going to win this battle again!" Reluctantly the squadron rolled into a 180 degree turn, leaving the oncoming Japanese forces behind them. Astro looked about him, and then turned to follow Cowboy back to the Nimitz.
Atlas had morphed back into the battle bot form as he fell from the wreck of his aircraft, his blue and red armor shined brightly against the sun. He engaged the after burners in his leg jets and quickly caught up with the fleeing jets, and Astro. "Don't say I didn't warn you!" he roared as he morphed his arm into a cannon and fired a blast at Astro.
Atlas's aim was just a tad off. The cannon blast singed Astro's skin, but the bulk of it took out Cowboy's starboard engine.
"I'm hit!" the fighter jock yelled.
"I can see that!" Astro yelled, "Can you remain airborne?"
"I think so, I still have hydraulics, and the controls are responding, though a bit sluggish. Port engine is still running fine."
Astro turned about to face his nemesis. "Are you crazy?" he yelled toward the battle bot.
"No, I know exactly what I'm doing!" Atlas replied. "I'm taking YOU out!" He increased his speed and slammed into Astro knocking him towards the ground.
Astro tumbled through the air, but quickly regained control. He looked towards where his wingman had departed and saw that the Nimitz was now in sight, and that Cowboy had lowered his landing gear in preparation to get his wounded Tomcat onto the flight deck. Atlas took aim with his laser and shot out one of the twin rudders on the wounded aircraft. "Now let's see what you can do about that?" Atlas laughed.
Cowboy was fighting with his controls trying to make it back to the carrier. Suddenly, the sky darkened as the approaching storm engulfed them. Astro flew towards Cowboy to grab hold of the rear of his aircraft to steady its flight. Atlas approached him and slammed into him again.
"Ain't going to be that easy, Astro." He laughed, "Payback time!"
With the wind increasing, and lightning flashing all about them, Astro had a hard time keeping up with the fighters as they made their way back to the ship. He caught sight of Atlas out of the corner of his eye and fired a cannon burst at him. Now almost close enough to help Cowboy, Astro approached the wounded fighter from below, intending to guide it with pressure under the port wing. Atlas saw him and fired another cannon blast that hit Astro in the upper chest. His body was thrown backwards, and his head slammed into the wheel well of the Tomcat. His vision went dark and he felt himself spiraling about.
After blasting Astro, Atlas was hit by a bolt of lightning and was sucked into a whirlwind. All about him the sky glowed green and he could see nothing but the clouds and flashes of lightning.
The sky cleared and the wind subsided. The first thing that Cowboy saw as the IFR conditions melted away before his eyes was the heaving flight deck of the USS Nimitz beckoning him home. His controls were sluggish, but he was able to aim the airplane at the target, he felt the welcoming tug of his tail hook grabbing the wire as his head was jerked forwards by the sudden deceleration.
He shutdown his engine and quickly jumped out of the cockpit to take a good look at the damage to his aircraft. The starboard engine was a mess, and the rudder above it was mostly missing. He climbed under the aircraft just as a young Ensign got there to look at the charred wheel well. Astro's decapitated head was jammed tightly behind the landing gear.