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“Yes,” said Harada. “Well I don’t want to see it delivered. Let’s see if we can discourage them. Do we have the range yet with our SM-2s?”

“Not yet, sir. I make it another ten minutes at the current closing rate.”

“Then we hit them as soon as they cross our max range line. Two SM-2s, nothing more. I doubt if they’ve seen anything like our missiles before. It might shake them up.”

It did.

The thin streaks of the missile contrails caught the rosy dawn and were impossible to overlook. Hiroko Shiota was tuning in to listen to any chatter from the incoming planes, and they were dumfounded, and quite alarmed, particularly when the leading flight of F4F Wildcats became the intended targets of those SM-2s.

Missile shock had been a weapon Karpov had used on his WWII era enemies from the very first, but as it had also happened before, a diligent US pilot decided to connect the dots. Something had come out of the northwest horizon, trailing that long white contrail, something fast, mean, and deadly. But if they followed that trail it might lead them to whatever had fired of that little 4th of July party. It was his Dauntless from the small group of six off Vicksburg that would finally see a lone ship on that empty horizon, and his wing mates were just mad enough to want to get even for the loss of those fighters.

Chapter 14

“Damn,” said Harada under his breath. He looked at Fukada. “I was afraid this might happen.”

“Hell, we can knock them down in five minutes.”

“Yes, well how many SM-2s is that going to leave us under the forward deck?”

As if to answer the Captain, Lt. Hideo Honjo sounded off. “Sir, we expended two of thirty-eight missiles against that initial recon flight, and—”

“I can do the math,” said Harada. “How many bogies?”

“I’m reading 24, and it looks like 12 are up on top cover. Those have to be fighters. The second group is 3000 feet lower, 12 more contacts.”

“Probably the strike package.”

“Why so few?” said Harada. “Didn’t the US carriers pack over eighty planes each?”

“If we were spotted by that recon flight, then they know we’re just a single ship. They wouldn’t empty their flight deck for a lone target.”

“Then we put our missiles on the group at lower altitude,” said Harada. “Maybe if we thin the herd a bit more, we can dissipate this strike without expending much of our defensive capability. We’ll do it in stages. Give me four more SM-2s and we’ll repeat the performance and see if they clap.”

The result was almost preordained—four missiles away, four more planes dead, and another breaking off and making a wide turn, possibly damaged or too shaken up to continue. That was still going to leave seven strike planes, and 32 SM-2s under the deck. The range closed to 40 klicks.

“Fukada, how good are these guys?”

“Anybody’s guess,” said Fukada. “It’s going to be the pilots that will decide that. From the altitude they’re flying, I’d guess these are dive bombers, and they’ll come in right on top of us. If even one gets a bomb on us it won’t be pretty.”

“Alright, I’ll knock down two more and thin out the odds. Then we’ll see what the close in systems can do.”

Harada was even reluctant to expend those last two SM-2s, thinning their inventory to just 30 missiles, and the 12 SM-3s. Yet he did cut the odds in half, because after those last two missiles went up, only four planes had the stomach to stay in the hunt.

The US pilots had seen the uncanny accuracy of the rockets, watched them swerve and home in on wildly dancing planes trying to avoid them. It was more than shocking to hear the explosions and know that one man after another that you had breakfast with wasn’t going to be there for chow the next time you found the mess hall. The four that braved the experience to make their dives were going to meet something different.

The Phalanx could elevate through 80 degrees and it knocked down two. The last two let their bombs fly early and bugged out, hitting nothing but seawater. Thankfully, the other twelve planes were fighters, just as Otani had suggested. They broke off and turned for home.

“No problem,” said Fukada. “We probably could have held those last two missiles and let the R2-D2s chew them up.” US Navy sailors often called the Phalanx that because of the cylindrical shape of the weapon mount, with its characteristic domed top. Fukada had picked up the slang in the Bars at Yokohama, drinking with American sailors. To hear him use the terms reminded Captain Harada of those days, when the US was an ally, and longtime defender of the new Japan that was built after the war. Here they were, fighting for the Imperial Japanese Empire now, yet most harbored misgivings about the world they might be living in if Japan were to win this war.

Harada still had profound doubts about that prospect. The miracles under his forward deck were running thin.

“That was twelve planes,” said Harada. “I’m standing here wondering if we’d be having this conversation if they threw sixty at us.”

No one said anything.

“Alright, come about to 020. Feed all present contact info to Yamamoto, and we’re off north. We’ll scout out towards the Duff Islands to make sure there’s nothing sneaking in north of the Santa Cruz Islands.”

* * *

It started on the morning of the 11th of January. The Americans had gathered their forces near the Ellice Islands, the wink of the two new scout carriers on the lanterns flashing through the morning haze. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had come all the way from Pearl, bigger versions of the Shiloh Class, with two dozen planes each, and 8-inch guns forward where the Shiloh had 6-inchers. That ship was also at hand with Antietam, to escort the Marine Para Battalion serving as a raiding unit for the planned operation in the New Hebrides.

The Vicksburg group was just the scouting and escort element of the American fleet. They would be tasked with feeling the way towards the New Hebrides to look for enemy carriers, the one threat Halsey was there to deal with if necessary. Behind that small task force, 8th Marine Regiment under Colonel Hall had boarded transports in Pago Pago four days ago and was now also closing on the scene.

It was now clear to both sides that the enemy was near. Planes off the Vicksburg had been the unfortunate group to stumble on Takami, but those off Gettysburg had overflown the many islands, and spotted the carriers that had bombed Ndeni earlier that day.

On the Japanese side, there had been a squadron of 12 Pete float planes at Efate, along with 18 Zeroes, with a number of Kates and Vals that had diverted there months ago in the first big carrier clash, and were never pulled off. One of those planes found TF-11 that morning, and before noon the Japanese sent word to Yamamoto that a strong force composed of carriers and battleships was east of the New Hebrides, and on a westward course. The American scout carriers had also been spotted, and so the travail of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had only just begun.

Carrier Division 1 could not send dive bombers out that far, but the torpedo planes could make the range. Unfortunately, the weather was stormy and looked to be worsening. That was one factor that had favored the two light hybrids, that and the fact that they had both gone to sea with their primary air groups fighter heavy. The US thought of these ships as defensive escorts and long range scouts, and armed them accordingly with 18 Hellcats and six strike planes, which were mostly used in the naval search role.