Chapter 6: The Morning After.

As the monster departed, I finally began to come back to my senses. I slowly unstrapped myself from the gunnery chair. As I rose to my feet, I found that my legs felt wobbly. I began to walk but was very unsteady on my feet. It was an ongoing effect of the adrenaline rush from my near flight. Slowly and carefully, I climbed back up to the flight-deck to find it in shambles. As I made my way through the chaotic mess of men and debris, I began to find my feet again. Officers were scrambling all around me, assessing what had happened and how much damage the ship had taken.

Moving more confidently as the initial shock wore off, I found my way to the battle-scarred island of the Enterprise. There, I came upon the remains of a dozen sailors, all of them had been part of the gunnery crews. My heart sank when I discovered the remains of my friend Teddy among them. His blue eyes were just staring up at me lifelessly. It was clear at just a glance, that his neck had been broken from the impact of hitting the steel plating of the ship. I stood there speechless.

'I told him that he'd be alright.' I thought bitterly, fighting back tears. 'He was just a kid. He didn't deserve this.'

My knees got weak again, and I began to buckle. I had to sit down. I quickly threw a hand down onto the flight deck to support myself and ended up putting it into a pool of blood. I stared at it for a moment and had the urge to vomit. However, I regained my composure and wiped the blood off on my pant leg instead. I looked around from body to body, trying to find Joe and the others. It might have been too late to help them, but if nothing else, I needed to see their bodies for myself. Just to know for certain what had become of them.

I realized as I searched that they were nowhere to be found. It occurred to me that there were a lot of other men from the other gun crews who were unaccounted for too. The few bodies that were still on the flight deck, couldn't have accounted for even a third of the missing men. There was only one logical explanation; they had to have been blown overboard. Suddenly, there was a flicker of hope for my friends.

I was still feeling too weak to stand, so I crawled on my hands and knees over to the starboard side of the ship to look over. In my mind's eye, I imagined seeing Joe and the others all floating there, just waiting to be plucked out of the water. All I had to do is look over and they'd be there, I told myself. However, I was disappointed by the reality of the situation. As I peered over the deck, there was only dark choppy water there to greet me. Off in the distance, I could make out the outlines of bodies floating on the water, supported by their life preservers, but they didn't seem to be moving. The small specs of men were just bobbing up and down with the waves lifelessly. Worse, the Enterprise was moving away from them.

Unknown to me, it had already been decided that the capitol ships of the fleet were to change course and return to the nearest port for repairs. The Admiral didn't want to risk keeping them there, should the creature decide to return for a second attack. Minutes later, I heard the captain announce the plan over the PA system. The undamaged destroyers would remain to fish survivors out of the water, while the rest of the taskforce withdrew.

Hours went by like minutes. I watched as Marines attended to the bodies of the fallen sailors on the deck. I wanted to help but couldn't bring myself to touch Teddy's body. The damage control teams were already seeing to the needs of the ship. Aside from some clean-up, there wasn't much for them to do though. Most of the damage was pretty minor. The dents in the island section of the ship couldn't be repaired properly until we were back in port. They did wash off the blood though, of which, I was grateful.

Even while the Enterprise was withdrawing, we were still on alert, so I returned to my battle station. However, with the rest of the guys absent, there wasn't much I was going to accomplish on my own. The cannon was too complicated for one person to operate effectively. I didn't know what else to do, so I just sat there and watched the waves. It wasn't too long before the alert was cancelled. With little else to do, I returned to the bunk room.

When I entered the compartment, I saw only empty cots. They were all stacked together tightly, one on top of the other. They were three high, two across, and two deep. Twelve all together in our section. My place was the one on the left center. If they had been occupied, I would have been within reaching distance of all my buddies. As I stood there, I felt just as empty as the unoccupied cots. The room was deathly quiet. It felt like a tomb. Tired as I was, I couldn't bring myself to lie down there in that lonely place. I was awake for the rest of the night. The ship sailed on, and I wandered the ship aimlessly. I couldn't get the image of Teddy's dead eyes looking up at me out of my head.

By noon the next day, our battered taskforce arrived at the Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines. Repair crews started working right away, patching the fleet back together. Almost every ship in the fleet had been damaged in one way or another. Thankfully, most of it was light.

The majority of the damage was a result of the monster's final pass over us. Some of the ships had loose ammunition explode on their decks as it was blown around. Two cruisers had collided into each other having been blown off course. A third cruiser had more serious damage though. It had a huge hole in its forward hull from where the monster had gouged the ship with its beak. The crew had done an outstanding job of compartmentalizing the flooding, but if they had taken much more punishment, they might not have made it back to port at all. As it was, the cruiser limped back in with the destroyers that had remained behind to collect our men in the water. They arrived about three hours after the main fleet.

Overall, the worst losses were the two destroyers sunk in the attack. The majority of both crews went down to the ocean floor with their ships. Just over six hundred men in all were either K.I.A. or M.I.A. We were lucky not to have suffered worse casualties, but it was still a terrible loss, and a great blow to morale across the fleet.

I pitched in and did what I could to help the repair guys get things back in working order on the Enterprise. We fared better than most ships in the fleet had. The sturdy carrier had sustained only minor structural damage during the fight. The crew was shaken by the sudden attack, and like me, many were rattled by the death of fellow crewmates. Overall though, the Enterprise was still intact and in fighting shape.

As the fleet's destroyers arrived in port, they came bearing good and bad tidings. While they had fished out a lot of bodies of comrades from the water, they had also found more than a couple survivors. Following the guidelines of a more recently established Navy tradition, they ransomed some of the Enterprise's sailors back to us for a couple of tubs of ice cream. It was well-worth the cost.

As I came to see what they had brought back to us, I was overcome with joy to see them carrying Joe up the ramp. His arm was broken, but he was alive. There were others from my gunnery crew too. Big Jim was right behind Joe. He was helping to move another sailor up the deck on a stretcher. Jamie Boggs was on the other end of the stretcher, helping out. Randy followed closely behind them. Almost everyone was back, except one. There was no sign of Nick, the gun captain. I ran over to them, and they set Joe down off to the side so I could talk with him. I took his hand and grasped it tightly.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see that you're alright." I told Joe, not able to contain my elation. "I thought the worst had happened."

Joe smiled up at me, but he was not himself. His usual overconfident demeanor was nowhere to be found. It was ironic, there had been so many times before then, that I had wished Joe would wash that cocky smirk off his face, but at that moment, I would have loved to have seen just a glimmer of it. The whole world felt a little off kilter. Something normal would have gone a long ways to setting my mind at ease.

"Nick didn't make it Mark." Joe told me somberly. "He drowned in the water. We went for a rough ride after that monster went over us. We were blown at least one-hundred and fifty yards overboard. I think Nick hit his head on something on the way out. I saw him floating face down in the water. I couldn't get to him in time to help. I'm sorry." The grief and remorse were plain to see in Joe's eyes.

"You have nothing to be sorry to me for, Joe." I reassured him. "It wasn't your fault. None of this was your fault. It was that thing that attacked us. It killed our friends." I paused, preparing to deliver my own bad news. "Teddy is dead too. I thought all you guys were dead, and that I was all that was left of us. I didn't know how I was going to carry on. I'm glad I was wrong." I looked around at the rest of the guys. "It's good to see all of you."

"I'm glad you are okay too." Joe replied. "When I didn't see you in the water, I didn't know what to think." He looked like he wanted to say more but couldn't find the words.

"Well, for now, just get to sickbay and get some rest." I told him. "I have a feeling we're going to need you back at the guns sooner than later." Joe nodded and they picked him back up.

…

The monster that attacked us the night before, had not been quiet following its raid on the fleet. As the creature headed north, it changed its heading and veered off into the waters of the Japanese home islands. The Japanese military had not yet implemented radar, so they didn't have the slightest clue what was coming at them. The monster had infiltrated their airspace around Kyushu, the southern-most island that made up Japan. The monster's speed left a vapor trail that initially went unnoticed in the morning air, but its path was taking it directly towards Nyutabaru Air Base.

Down on the airfield, a flight of medium Betty-bombers were being prepared to launch. In just a few hours, they were going to be relocated to a base over in China. They were earmarked to be part of the renewed effort to hunt down Baragon. The warplanes were all lined up in a row in the process of being fueled. Dozens of bombs were being wheeled out by the ground crews on the runway in preparation for them to be loaded into the planes.

The fueling truck had just finished with the last plane, and the ordnance teams were beginning to hoist in the first bombs when a strange whistling noise could be heard all over the base. The ground crews came out from under the aircraft and looked to the skies. Above them, they could see a long white band on the horizon. It almost looked like someone was drawing a thin line made out of clouds. They had no idea what it was. None of the men had ever seen anything like it before. They looked at one another confused. Was it some sort of strange weather phenomenon?

The line in the sky suddenly turned and hooked around towards them. As it came closer, they could see that something was flying at the head of the vapor trail and was, in fact, the very thing causing it to appear. The base's air raid siren began to go off. Whatever was coming at them, the officers in the control tower decided it was a threat.

Soldiers ran out from the barracks and started to man the AA guns at the perimeter of the base. Most of the ground crews wisely took cover in the nearby bunkers, though some of the more curious stayed to watch as the situation continued to unfold. Pilots suited up and began to scramble to their fighters, but it was already far too late for that to do any good. Within seconds, the creature was upon them.

The first thing the monster did was pass over the base. It dove down, coming in extremely close to the ground. In fact, the creature was so close that its armored underbelly clipped the control tower. Between the force of the impact, and the immensely strong winds that followed, the tower toppled over. The officers inside smashed against the glass as the tower hit the ground.

The Zero fighters occupying the tarmac were picked up by the hurricane-like winds and scattered like leaves in a violent torrent. Some of them fell right back down to the runway and were crushed, while others flew into the hangers around them. One of the planes blew up on impact, starting a fire.

Within just a few short seconds, half the airbase was devastated. It didn't take long for the attacker to return. The creature circled back around and landed on the far side of the base. The nearby AA gunners trained their weapons on the monster and opened fire. It reacted by flapping its wings and creating a powerful surge of wind strong enough to blow away anything that wasn't nailed down.

The gun crews were instantly stripped off their machines and flew away to meet their fate. Bombs that had been sitting on stands on the runway, began to fall over. Some of them landed on their nose and exploded immediately on impact, while others rolled across the runway, threatening to blow up anything they came across. Several bombs made their way into the sides of structures before finally going off. The bombers on the runway became airborne hazards themselves, caught up in the powerful winds, and tearing up anything in their path. Full of fuel, the aircraft spread fires all over the base as they were ripped open. One of the bombers found its way directly into the main fuel storage section. The metal tanks there crumpled under the force of the collision, and the largest explosion yet rocked the entire base.

…

Nearby, two squadrons of Zero fighters were participating in normal training exercises. It was very routine for them to take part in mock battles, pitting the pilots up against one another to hone their dog-fighting skills. Leading them was Akira Saegusa, a veteran pilot of the Sino-Japanese War. He had been temporarily knocked out of combat but was due to rotate back into the Chinese theater soon. He had been wounded in his left shoulder from a stray piece of flak some weeks ago, but it had almost completely healed.

Akira was only one kill away from being declared a flying Ace. Getting his last kill wouldn't be too much trouble as long as he could get back into the fight. As brave as they were, Chinese pilots were not as well trained and flew inferior aircraft compared to the Japanese. The odds were always stacked against them when they came up against an experienced Japanese flyer.

Akira had not seen any Chinese fighters for over two months though. He had been getting back into the swing of things for the last couple of weeks by leading a crop of fresh young recruits on training flights. It was a far cry from actual combat, but it wasn't so bad. At least he could feel the sky beneath him again. There was nothing else quite like it. Any good aviator loved the skies as much as a sailor loved the Ocean.

Akira watched closely as his pupils executed their last series of maneuvers for the morning. This was to be their final sortie together and his last lesson. He was going to miss them. Though Akira hated the idea of being their babysitter at first, he had come to find he enjoyed teaching them. No one was more surprised than himself that he had a knack for it.

Though Akira hated to leave his students behind, he figured in a couple more weeks some of them would likely be joining him at the front. He was eager to see what they could do during actual combat operations. Akira signaled for his flyers to get back into formation for the trip home. They regrouped and started southward towards the base. After a few minutes, Akira picked up his radio transmitter and pressed the button to speak.

"Akira to tower, Akira to tower." He spoke loud and clearly. "Come in tower, this is Tanaka Flight on approach. Requesting landing clearance, over." Akira could only hear static coming back over his receiver. "Takashi, can you try raising the base? I'm not getting through." He asked his wingman. Takashi obeyed and waited for an answer.

"I'm not getting anything back either sir." Takashi reported. "Could they be having issues with their radio?" He suggested.

"It's possible." Akira shrugged. "We will just have to get in closer and try again. If we can't make contact, we'll simply circle until we are sure it's safe to land." He spared a brief glance down at the gauges in front of him. "We still have plenty of fuel, and we should be the only aircraft up at this point anyway. The bombers aren't supposed to take off for another two hours yet. I'm supposed to be with them when they do."

"Captain Saegusa, the base!" One of the junior pilots cut in over the radio frantically.

Akira looked up to see a huge plume of smoke rising over three-hundred feet into the air in front of them. The airbase was burning. As the fighters flew in closer, they were able to make out the carnage below. The fuel storage had gone up, and five smaller fires were burning all over. Parked planes had been turned over and were scattered everywhere. Not a single building was left undamaged.

"Sir, what happened?!" Takashi asked alarmed.

"Looks to be a raid of some sort." Akira answered coolly, keeping his composure. He could see that bombs had cratered a portion of the runway. He knew that the Americans had brought a carrier force to the South China Sea. Perhaps they had launched a surprise attack. Akira's eyes narrowed. "Attention Tanaka flight. Be on your guard, the base has been attacked and we have to assume the assailants are still in the area. Keep your eyes peeled for enemy planes."

Within his Zero, Takashi nervously looked to his left and then his right. He had a cold sweat, sensing danger nearby. However, there was nothing to be seen. If there were enemy aircraft in the area, they were nowhere to be found. Just then, there was a flash of a shadow above him. Takashi tried to look up, but it was around noon and the sun was directly in his line of sight. There was something up above him 10 o'clock high, but it kept itself directly in line with the sun so he couldn't see it.

"Captain...!" Takashi began, trying to warn Akira, but it was already too late.

KA-BOOoommmmmmmm!

Takashi's fighter was hit and shattered into a hundred burning pieces that fell from the sky. Akira turned to see what happened, but it was all over within a split-second. Whatever had hit Takashi's plane was already gone. A moment later, the entire flight group could hear a billowing noise that resembled thunder. The fighters vibrated as the blast wave passed them. One of the other Zeros that had been following behind Takashi's suddenly lost control as it passed through the area where his fighter had been. It spun about, as if it were caught up in a whirlwind. It was Goro's plane.

"Bail out Goro!" Akira ordered sternly. "Goro, bail out!" He repeated, but he could see that Goro was pinned to his seat as his fighter continued to tumble out of the sky. 'What the hell is going on!?' Akira thought to himself agitated. Suddenly, he heard a pop from behind him. A third fighter was going down, this one was on fire. Something had cut off the right wing of the plane. This time it was Kobayashi. He was able to bail out and Akira caught a glance of what had attacked him.

A pair of gigantic brown wings rose over the group of fighter planes and banked in a barrel-loop up and around them. It appeared to be a massive flying dinosaur of some sort. The creature came around and started back towards the squadron of Zeros again.

"Break formation!" Akira barked over the radio to his men. "Squad one, break right, squad two, break left with me. The fighters began to maneuver out of the way, but one of them wasn't fast enough and got caught by the monster while trying. Sharp talons on the feet of the creature plucked the Zero out of the sky and crushed it instantly. The pilot didn't have any chance to escape. Akira wasn't sure who it was. At that point, everything had turned into pure chaos.

Whatever the creature was, it was larger, faster, and more maneuverable than the Zeros by a long shot. Akira knew if they were going to have any chance against it at all, they'd have to pull together and take it on as a group. They still had enough planes left to make a fight of it. Akira quickly issued out his orders to both squadrons and they moved into position.

With its last kill, the monster had lost much of its initial speed. It was now slow enough to allow the Zeros to get on either side of it. The fighters approached from both directions, not leaving the creature anywhere to go. The Zeros closed within firing range and opened up on the monster with their 20mm cannons. Many of the bullets hit home, but to Akira's horror, he could see all the burning magnesium tracer rounds bouncing off the beast's hide. Their machine guns appeared to be entirely useless against it. Only then, Akira realized just how dire their situation truly was.

"All fighters break off!" Akira shouted into his mic, but it was already too late. The monster rapidly changed course and went for the second group of Zeros that were approaching it. The creature began to furiously beat its wings at them. The hurricane force winds the monster created knocked the planes off course, scattering their formation. Two planes collided and fell from the sky.

"Honzo, take command and get everyone who's still left out of here." Akira commanded with grit in his voice.

"Yes sir!" Honzo replied.

Akira turned his plane with steel pumping in his veins. He pushed his fighter as hard as he could, gaining both altitude and speed. When he was high enough, Akira put his Zero on a direct course for the monster. He aimed, lining up his crosshairs to target the monster's head. Akira knew he had no chance of winning, but he intended to at least buy his men some time to escape.

The monster changed course again, before Akira could fire. The creature was diving, closing in on one of the Zeros that had been sent reeling from its previous attacks. The creature had not noticed Akira's plane moving in from above. Akira could see that it was already too late to help the other pilot. The monster flew directly over their plane and swooped down, scraping the canopy of the fighter off against its armored underbelly. The unfortunate pilot lost his head, along with the top portion of his aircraft. Akira cursed in his cockpit. Too many of his men had already died. He would not let it happen to any more of them.

To Akira's benefit, the monster changed course again. It was circling back in his direction. Its new focus was on the clump of fighters retreating off in the distance toward the base. The creature had still not noticed him. Akira opened up his canopy and pressed his stick down hard to bring his fighter into a forty-five-degree dive. There was a patch of clouds that would mask his Zero's approach. He was going to put his fighter directly in the flight path of the monster on a collision course. He only hoped the creature wouldn't see him until it was already too late.

Akira locked his controls into place and said a prayer as he jumped out of his Zero. The fighter continued on course without him. Akira tried to look back as the force of his free-fall dragged him towards the ground, but he couldn't see much. Once Akira determined that he'd gotten a safe enough distance away, he deployed his parachute. It jerked him to a sharp stop. The force of it shook his body like a ragdoll.

As he floated downward, Akira struggled to see if his efforts had been in vain or not. He turned against the straps of his chute and saw his plane crash directly into the left wing of the monster. The fighter exploded as the remaining fuel within it ignited. The monster immediately had trouble maintaining its speed and course. In fact, for a moment or two, it was struggling just to remain airborne. Akira watched as the monster turned and began to fly west out of the area. He cheered as he realized it had given up on hunting his remaining men. His desperate gamble had paid off.

…

The creature came to be known as Rodan. News of its attacks on the U.S. fleet and Japanese airbase spread quickly. Its appearance changed the political situation in Asia. It had hit two of the major powers in the Pacific in the space of just a few hours. More importantly, the world went from a single manageable menace to two. What made most people uneasy was that Rodan, with his unbelievable speed, could conceivably hit anywhere in the Western Pacific in the space of twenty-four hours.

There was still a very real fear of Anguirus reappearing too. If he were to do so, then we'd have a terror for the land, air, and sea. Such as it was, the Japanese called for a conference with all the major powers in the Pacific to address the mutual threats. Our government agreed to it, but only under certain conditions. First, the Japanese had to agree to cease their invasion of China permanently. They agreed to this with little argument. With all the recent losses of men, material, and supplies to Baragon, they could no longer effectively carry on the war anyways. Over the last couple of weeks, the Chinese had managed to throw together a huge counterattack. They had taken back a lot of lost territory while the Japanese had been distracted fighting Baragon.

The Japanese had terms of their own though. Their stipulation was that the United States could no longer supply the Chinese military with American equipment. The Chinese didn't like it, but they begrudgingly agreed once we had whittled down the Japanese into agreeing to only discontinuing the supply of tanks and advanced warplanes. Small arms and artillery were to remain as they were. The Chinese agreed to those terms. The Russians were more than willing to fill that void with weapons afterwards.

As part of the agreement, we were able to negotiate the Japanese into allowing us to temporarily move three army divisions into China to help hunt down Baragon. They were suspicious at first, but eventually agreed to it. I guess they'd had enough of their own men dying facing off against the monster alone. Still, they stipulated that we were obligated to remove those forces once Baragon was dealt with. With the agreement signed, preparations were made and U.S. forces from the Philippines were mobilized.

In the meantime, plans for the conference were also set in motion. Since all sides were still a little weary of each other, a relatively neutral site was selected. The location they settled on was a small Chinese town on the border that had been occupied by the Japanese for months. It had been recently retaken by the Chinese. One of the big selling points for it was a large airfield located nearby, which would allow delegates from all sides to fly in and meet there quickly.

The plan was to bring in representatives from the various militaries, scientific experts, and eyewitnesses who had seen the monsters up close to share their information and discuss strategies on how to potentially kill them. The whole thing was set to last for three days, and the site was already being prepared. Admiral Nimitz was ordered to attend, given his experience. In turn, the Admiral insisted that I come along as well, given the insights I had about Anguirus, and that I had encountered Rodan firsthand as well. I had misgivings about going but was not in a position to refuse.

Prior to leaving, there was one last matter we had to address first. We had a military funeral to honor all the sailors we lost during the skirmish with Rodan. There weren't many bodies. Most of the men lost had been taken by the sea. I'm not sure if that made it easier or harder to accept the losses. There were only a handful of caskets to deal with, but I couldn't help but think of their families. None of them would have a body in the cemetery to visit. Nothing to say goodbye to. It didn't seem right considering what their sons had given up for their country. The best we could do for them was send ceremonial flags with letters, describing their son's valor, and hoping that helped ease their burden.

As the ceremony wrapped up, I thought about Teddy's folks in particular. They would at least be getting his remains, but I doubt it would make them feel a whole lot better about the situation. Later that day, we went to the airfield, boarded a C-47, and took off for the conference.