"We have to get back to Ford Island as fast as we can," Chuck replied. "If the Japs are attacking Ewa, chances are they'll be attacking Pearl as well. All those battleships and destroyers in the harbour are sitting ducks!"
"Skid!" Mead shouted from behind Marquez. "The Zero's coming around for another pass! Permission to open fire?"
"Lieutenant?" Marquez asked. He'd never been in a real dogfight before and the proper protocols for this situation had vanished from his mind. Having your tutors explaining the correct way to engage an enemy aircraft was one thing, but recalling that while being peppered by live ammunition in the sky was something else.
"Yes, fire at will!" Chuck shouted back.
The gunner in each Dauntless unleashed his M-2 Browning machine gun, blazing away at the Zero as it scudded past. One of the gunners scored a hit on the Japanese plane and a thin plume of black smoke issued from the fighter as it sped away, intent on finding easier prey. "I hit it!" Mead shouted.
"Good shooting," Marquez said, "but don't start celebrating just yet. I've got a feeling there's plenty more where that one came from."
Both SBDs were halfway between Ewa and Ford Island. The sky ahead was alive with small black clouds, evidence of considerable anti-aircraft fire between them and their destination. News of the Japanese attack must have spread and those on the ground were determined to shoot anything that moved out of the sky, regardless of its origins or markings. "Sweet mercy," the lieutenant whispered, shock and awe audible in his voice.
Before Marquez could say anything, his Dauntless came under fire from another Zero. He twisted sideways and saw a trio of Japanese planes on attack vector. "Three enemy bogies closing in, nine o'clock high!"
"Dive!" Chuck commanded. "Get as close to the deck as you dare, Skid, let's find out what these bastards have got!" The two pilots flung their SBDs towards the lush green island below, while both gunners were concentrating their fire on the approaching Zeros. The enemy planes skimmed overhead, undone by the swift reactions of the two navy pilots. But no sooner had Chuck and Marquez escaped one threat than they flew straight into another. The sky around them exploded in a storm of anti-aircraft fire. "Break left!" Chuck yelled. "If we stay on this heading, our own guns will bring us down! Break left!"
Extracts from a speech delivered by President Roosevelt to a joint session of Congress on December 8, 1941:
"The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defence. Always will be remembered the character of the onslaught against us.
"No matter how long it may take us to overcome this ... the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again. With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God."
TWO
Paxton knew that one man could make little difference in a battle, and there was even less a single soldier could do to stop a war. But he was determined to get back to B Company's barracks, if only to right some of the wrongs he'd committed. The marine searched the tumbledown house for bandages to dress his wounded breast. Kissy's home was little more than a shack, with pitifully few possessions to show she had ever lived there. I guess her corpse on the front porch is enough evidence, Paxton thought. He found the cleanest sheet in the house and ripped it into shreds, before using them to bind his wound. He tied them as tight as possible to stem the bleeding.
The marine found the last of his clothes strewn about inside, carelessly cast aside during some drunken moments of passion the previous night. It was almost ironic, he had fantasised for months about getting Kissy into bed. When he did turn fantasy into reality, he'd been too drunk to remember any of it. He got dressed inside, not wanting to spend any more time near her corpse than necessary. Kissy's cold, empty eyes stared at him every time he ventured out on the porch to see how the attack was progressing. Only after he'd pulled on his boots and was ready to leave did Paxton dare return to the dead woman's side. He crouched down on one knee and kissed her cold, waxy forehead. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I know I promised to protect you, but..." Paxton closed his eyes, overcome by his guilt and shame.
"Spare me your pathetic remorse," a low, sibilant voice hissed at the marine. He opened his eyes to find Kissy sneering at him, hatred in her eyes. "You only cared about yourself, about what you wanted. I was just another whore to you, another notch in your belt, another conquest to brag about!"
Paxton fell over backwards, unable to comprehend what was happening. "But y-you can't... You w-were dead... I saw you!"
Kissy sat bolt upright on the bed, the sudden movement startling him. She lifted a hand to her throat and stroked her fingers across the wound, caressing the twin punctures as a lover would caress a nipple. "I was dead, but my master gave me a better gift than life, he made me an immortal!" Her head twisted around to glare at Paxton and her lips drew back into a sick parody of a smile, revealing the fangs that had grown from her upper jaw.
The marine cursed under his breath, not sure he wasn't still dreaming. This had to be a nightmare, didn't it? Creatures like Kimura and whatever Kissy had become weren't real, were they?
"I'm real enough," she replied, "and I can read every thought in that puny, sick, sordid little mind of yours. Can you read my thoughts? Can you guess what I'm going to do to you, you disgusting worm?"
"Stay back," Paxton warned, scrabbling away across the floor, until his back slammed into the rotten wooden banisters that enclosed the porch.
Kissy was on her feet in the blink of an eye, stretching and flexing her lithe body, the joints and tendons popping as she sloughed off the onset of rigor mortis. "I think I'll start with your eyeballs," Kissy ventured, a playful grin playing about her lips. "They always were your best feature. Would you prefer I plucked them out with a fingernail, or should I suck them from their sockets?"
The marine found himself praying, a long forgotten invocation for god's mercy and protection coming to mind when he most needed its reassurance.
The vampyr laughed at him, mocking his sudden religious fervour. "If you're expecting some deity to rescue you, I fear you're going to be terribly disappointed. Vampyrs are the new gods and we walk the earth. Worship us!" Kissy flung herself at Paxton, the talon-like fingernails of her left hand clawing into his face, shoving it aside to allow better access to his neck. The marine tried to fight back, tried to resist her, but she whispered sweet words of seduction in his ear. Paxton felt his will giving in to her words, his resistance crumbling before the soft, soothing murmurs of her voice.
Kissy licked her lips, ready to plunge her fangs deep into the soldier's throat, to suck the life from him as it had been sucked from her. But a massive explosion nearby threw a concussion wave outwards, rippling the air and blowing the bamboo blinds away from the porch. The rising sun slipped through the gap and set fire to Kissy's face and hair. The vampyr screamed in agony, slapping at her face and scalp, trying to put out the flames.
With the spell broken, Paxton was able to fight back. He swung his legs up into the air, pitching Kissy over the top of the banisters and out into the garden. The moment her body was bathed in sunshine, she burst into flames, becoming an inhuman torch. The marine twisted around, getting ready to repel her next attack, but the vampyr had more pressing problems. She lurched across the garden, every inch of her burning with incandescent radiance while black, greasy fumes rose into the air. Kissy shrieked and screamed, wailing like some demented air raid siren, like a thousand sets of fingernails clawing at a blackboard. Paxton clamped his hands over his ears, but even that wasn't enough to block out her cries. She screamed inside his mind as well, attacking his thoughts with her pain.
Kissy had just set foot on the steps leading up to the porch when her body exploded, one final shriek hanging in the air as a cloud of dust and ashes settled to the ground below. Paxton stayed where he was, gasping for breath, his mind racing at what he had witnessed. The sunlight had killed her, it had burned her alive. She had been killed by a monster and, after dying, had become like that monster. She had craved his blood and bent his will to her own. There was no denying it: Kissy Nagara had turned into a vampyr. The marine shook his head. He never would have believed it possible if he hadn't seen it. Hell, he had seen it and still wasn't sure he believed it. Of course, whether or not he believed didn't matter; there was no proof, nothing to corroborate what he had witnessed.
Paxton dissolved into hysterics, tears streaming down his cheeks. He was laughing so hard he didn't think he'd ever be able to laugh again. One day earlier he'd been a bored grunt hoping to get lucky with an Oriental waitress. Now he knew that waitress had been a spy, he'd encountered two supernatural monsters, and a few miles away a war had broken out between America and Japan. The marine kept laughing, not wanting to imagine what could possibly happen next. That didn't bear thinking about.
It needed both Maeda and Walton to get the heavy, awkward Browning machine gun up on to the roof of B Company's barracks. The two marines worked as fast as they could to get it ready for firing, Maeda locking the gun into place on its bipod while Walton checked that the firing mechanism was ready. The machine gun had been in storage for months and there was no real guarantee of when it had last been serviced. The corps had protocols for such things during wartime, but it had been peace until this morning.
Maeda's eyes searched the horizon as he worked, trying to anticipate from where the next attack might come. It was only a matter of time before the fighters returned for another strafing run over the navy yards. When the Zeros came back, the two marines knew they would be easy, inviting targets for the enemy pilots. Walton struggled to load a 250-round ammunition belt into position, but his hands were shaking too much, fear getting the better of his training. He could smell burning oil on the air and tasted the tang of adrenaline at the back of his throat, bitter and metallic.
In the distance a massive explosion rocked the harbour, closely followed by a second and then a third. The horizon was spotted with small black puffs of smoke where anti-aircraft fire was detonating in the sky, while huge, dark plumes of smoke billowed from the vessels moored in pairs along battleship row. Walton had always enjoyed walking around the docks, admiring the destroyers and aircraft carriers, wondering which of them might one day transport him to some distant land. Guess I'll found out soon, he thought, assuming any of them are seaworthy after today, and that I'm still alive.
A fresh explosion, louder and closer than anything so far, rocked the navy yard. Maeda raised a hand to shield his eyes, peering through the pall of smoke that hung over the harbour like a shroud. A fireball was mushrooming into the sky from one of the vessels. "That's the
Arizona
," he said, his voice sounding thin and weak against the cacophony of noise. "I think it's sinking."
Walton didn't bother to look. Instead he made the sign of the cross and whispered a brief prayer for all those who must still be trapped inside the vessel. "May God have mercy on their souls."
"Amen," Maeda replied, priming the machine gun for firing before sweeping around in search of targets. "Now, let's see if we can even the odds!"
Hitori watched the carnage enveloping Pearl Harbour and nearby military installations, with quiet satisfaction at his own involvement in events. He and Kimura may have played only a small part in the unfolding events, but the intelligence they had gathered over the previous days and Hitori's intervention at signal corps headquarters had contributed to ensuring the initial attack came as a surprise to the Americans. That had improved the safety of the second wave of dive-bombers and fighters. If the US forces had gotten their planes off the ground, the second attack could have been disastrous for the incoming Japanese. Instead many American aircraft had been destroyed while still on the ground, and the confusion engendered by wave after wave of Zeros making strafing runs at aircrews was keeping most of the other planes grounded. There was still a blizzard of anti-aircraft fire for incoming Japanese aircraft to cope with, but US aerial resistance was negligible.
Hitori had arranged to meet Kimura at Hickam Field by nine that morning. The US Army air base was south of Pearl Harbour, along the coast from the city of Honolulu. It had been pounded repeatedly by Japanese dive bombers because Hickam Field was home to the 18th Bombardment Wing, a potential threat to the Imperial Japanese Navy's fleet. Hitori had assigned himself the task of guiding in the Vals, secreting transmitters in each hangar, all of them broadcasting a homing signal for the dive bombers on a specific frequency. Moving between buildings without attracting attention was not easy, as he had to keep his skin concealed from the sun at all times. Fortunately the field was quiet on a Sunday morning and few paid any attention to an officer going about his business.
The first strike came just before 08.00 hours, eight Vals raining bombs down on Hangars 7 and 11. One American craft being prepared for take-off suffered a direct hit, exploding with devastating effect. When the smoke cleared Hitori could see the shredded corpses of more than a dozen men, while others lay dying on the apron beside the landing strip. Next came the Zeros, sweeping back and forth above the airfield, strafing the hangars and ground crews with merciless ferocity. Planes parked outside were set ablaze by the Zeros, the fighters returning again and again, despite the increasing ferocity of anti-aircraft flak coming from the ground.