Spitfire shook her head and blinked as her vision came back. She looked to see all around the controlled chaos of the carriers deck resume as everypony got their bearings. She turned to look over her shoulder and spoke, "You good back there DJ?"
"I'm good!" Vinyl's voice came over the intercom. Satisfied her backseater was ready she next looked over to Soarin' and Octavia's jet. Soarin spotted her looking and gave a quick salute to signify they were ready. Spitfire gave a quick nod back and ran her eyes over the Hornet's cockpit one last time before turning and giving a salute to the yellow garbed 'shooter.' She threw the throttle wide open as he gave several more hoof signals before setting down and pointing off the bow.
Just as Spitfire felt herself be thrown into her seat as the catapult launched them, a beat started up. It was something Vinyl did every time they launched or got into a dogfight. She had installed a few extra bits on the intercom, making it so that she could play music over it. It was against regs' and Spitfire would have ordered her to remove it, but Vinyl had installed a useful feature where the volume would go down when somepony spoke making so that they could hear the radio and each other. It hadn't caused any issues so she left it.
Three seconds later the jet was off the end of the ship. She took the control column and eased back putting the jet into a climb. Glancing over her shoulder revealed Soarin's jet off her wing, having launched a second after.
"Render, this is Bolt one-one. Bolt flight airborne." She reported to the AWACS.
"Bolt one-one, this is Render. Orbit carrier at five thousand feet. Will provide further instructions when airborne." Came the reply from the E-2 controller. They would likely be up shortly Spitfire surmised. She complied with the order and climbed up to five thousand feet. Once there she began flying a large slow orbit. She began looking around. Off to the north she could see an island, likely Haywii. But what was surprising was the lack of other aircraft or ships. The Honesty was nowhere to be found, as were the Hornets that had been flying overhead.
"Hey DJ? Where the hay'd the Honesty and our Air Force friends go?" She asked Vinyl.
"I dunno. Maybe the eggheads screwed up their spell." Came her response, "I don't see em either. There's the island though."
Sure enough the hills of Oahu rose a little ways off to the north-west. Down below Spitfire could see the carrier and the AWACS lunch. They continued circling as the E-2 climbed up to altitude. A minute later the controller came back on.
"Bolt one-one, Render. I have sixty plus unidentified contacts. Heading zero-five, forty klicks. Looks like they're over Pearl." Spitfire's eyebrow raised.
"Copy, moving to intercept." She muttered, turning her jet around and accelerating, setting a course for Pearl Harbor. It was a moment later that the contacts appeared on her Hornet's radar. "Got 'em DJ?" she inquired.
"Yeah I see them." Vinyl responded, "That's a lot of contacts. No IFFs though. We're gonna have to visually ID them."
That's when Render spoke up sounding much more energetic than his normal calm collected self, "Bolt, Render. Be advised I have got Lots of radio chatter from Pearl. They say they're under attack. You are hereby cleared hot. Repeat weapons hot. Visually ID the attackers if you can."
"Bolt one-one, copy." Spitfire confirmed pushing the throttle all the way open, though not afterburning.
"Holy shit." muttered Vinyl. Spitfire felt a burst of Adrenalin fill her at the prospect of combat. She watched as the shore came rapidly past the bottom of her plane, rising up out of the ocean. She could see the harbor now. Black columns of smoke rose into the air and dozens of small dots of aircraft flew around. But Spitfire felt a sense of wrongness. That's when she realized what it was. The ships in the harbor. They weren't the modern missile destroyers and carriers. Instead there were old battleships, long scrapped, and dozens of smaller gun armed destroyers. They got closer and DJ muttered to herself, "Is that...?"
Spitfire felt the Adrenalin kick back with a vengeance. She knew exactly where she was. It was where her grandfather had died, trying to get his plane in the air. It was where dozens of Equestian sailors and serviceponies died. The Neighpanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And right in front of her plane was one of the attackers. A white Zero, gleaming in the sun. She reacted in a split second, flipping on the master arm and depressing the trigger.
And then she was past, the Zero missing a wing and beginning its long plummet to Earth. She rolled over and dove into the fray. "Render! hostiles are Neighpanese!" Vinyl yelled over the radio, "I think we got sent back in time! The fleet is under attack by Zeros and other Neighpanese World War Two fighters! We are engaging!"
Spitfire keyed her Sidewinders and let one fly at a distant B5N Kate bomber as she crossed the west side of the harbour. She lit full afterburner and lined up another Kate firing another Sidewinder. "Bolt one, Render copies," Came the AWACS as a Zero cut across her nose and she rolled hard right to follow. "We are scrambling the two more, callsigns Bolt Two-One and Bolt Two-Two." She chopped her throttle to stay behind it and fired a quick burst that went wide. Lining up again she fired, this time tearing the tail to pieces. "Good Hunting. Render out."
"On our six! Break!" DJ yelled on the intercom. Spitfire quickly complied hitting the afterburners and going vertical as several cannon shells whizzed past the plane. There was a dull thud but she kept going, the Zero losing its airspeed behind and stalling. Spitfire looked back just in time to see several tracers strike it before Soarin's F-18 went hurtling past. She let grin appear beneath her oxygen mask. She pulled around an Immelmann and levelled off to apprise the situation.
From what she could tell the Arizona had already blown up. She had visited the memorial on a trip once and could see the ship in battleship row writhed in flames. Neighpanese aircraft were everywhere, shooting up the fleet. She looked over to Hickam Field to the west of the Harbour. Equestrian aircraft were burning all around. She knew that down there was where her Grandfather Rapidfire had died. It was hard to forget that. Her grandma would talk about him all the time. Hell, her brother, Rapidfire was named after him.
Spitfire looked back towards Ford Island. It was in much the same shape. She took a deep breath and was about to roll back in when DJ piped up, "Hey! There's a P-40 trying to take off from Hickam!" Spitfire's head turned so fast Vinyl would later swear that it should have given her whiplash. Spitfire immediately look to see far below a P-40 trying to take off. Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw a Zero approaching it from behind, intending to strife the poor pilot. She know there was a good to fair chance that it was her Grandfather.
And she could save him.
She didn't give it a second thought. The opened the afterburner and pulled as hard as she could, fighting to not blackout. As soon as she had the nose pointed down and in the direction of the Zero she locked and fired a Sidewinder. She knew it was a horrible shot. She was a kilometre and a half ahead and above the white fighter. The missile would have to track the heat signature of the Zero against all the fires and ground clutter. And the simple angle the missile was coming from made the onboard computer's job even harder. If Spitfire was a math wiz she would have figured out that the missiles hit chances were below forty percent. Even then she knew the chances of the missile hitting were low.
So that's why she fired three more.
It proved to be a smart decision as two of the Sidewinders lost the target and went on to detonate on the ground. A third tracked the Zero but ended up flying past behind and suffering the same fate as the other two. But the fourth tracked beautifully, leading the Neighpanese fighter and detonating right on target sending the plane to earth a burning wreck.
"Nice shot!" Vinyl exclaimed.
The P-40 finally lurched into the air and Spitfire gave herself a new objective: Keep him alive. She turned into a trailing position above and behind the Tomahawk. Almost immediately a Zero came winging in and the P-40 went into a turn to try and avoid the enemy fighter's cannon fire. Spitfire quickly pulled up behind the Zero and pumped him full of cannon rounds.
And so went the next fifteen minutes. Zeros coming in to try and take down the Equestrian fighter while Spitfire kept mowing them down either with cannon fire or missiles. A few times the Neighpanese pilots decided the Hornet was a juicier target and Spifire had to shake them, but twice Soarin came flying over to knock them off her.
"Phoenix! Break right!" Came Soarin using her callsign. Spitfire quickly rolled right and threw open the throttle just as Zero began shooting. A few seconds later Soarin blew it out of the sky. She looked around and again before her eyebrow raised. "Hey! Where'd all the planes go?" Vinyl asked. They had been in a whirling mass of planes attacking, bombing and strafing. And suddenly the only planes in the sky were the two Hornets and the P-40 they had been protecting. Spitfire glanced at her radar. Her jet was facing north and she could see dozens of contacts off in that direction.
She let out a sigh of relief and slumped back in her seat. She only had fifty cannon rounds left, and a thousand of the thirteen thousand pounds of fuel she had taken off with. "Render, Bolt one-one. Its over. Winchester weapons, Bingo fuel." She muttered.
"Copy Bolt. Head back. Two more Hornets are on their way to take over CAP of the Harbour." said the AWACS.
"Wilco. Bolt out." Spitfire replied. She pulled up beside the P-40 and looked over to see the pilot looking her way. She flipped up her visor and gave him a salute which was returned. She then peeled off and set a course for the Midnight.
It was two days after the attack and Spitfire was in a Hornet again. This time a spare single seat F variant. She watched as a pair of Hornets launched off the bow catapults and roared off into the midday sky. Technically she wasn't supposed to be flying right now, but what the air wing CO didn't know wouldn't hurt her. The back blast shields lowered and one of the deck crew began signalling her forward. She taxied up and slowed as she came up on the catapult. Working the rudder pedals as per the hoof signals given by the yellow garbed shooter directing her. he crossed his leg and she stopped.
Then all she could do was her last minute checks. A minute later found her looking at the shooter off her left. A few seconds later and he crouched and pointed off the bow. Spitfire threw the throttle wide open, sat back in her seat and placed her head on the headrest.
She felt herself shoved back in her seat as the Hornet leapt forward. And she was off. She grabbed the stick and flipped up the landing gear, easing into a slight climb. She levelled off at only a thousand feet and throttled back.
She wasn't going very far today. The Midnight was sailing only six kilometres outside Pearl Harbour. She was heading to Hickam to take care of some personal business. A minute later she pulled into the circuit over Hickam. She asked for and received clearance from the tower and brought the plane down.
"Hickam Ground, Phoenix holding at Charlie, request taxi and parking instructions." She spoke into the radio. She opened her canopy, flipped her visor up and undid her oxygen mask. Imedately she we greeted by a blast of hot tropical air.
"Phoenix, Hickam Ground. Cleared taxi for the apron. Go ahead and park by hanger four." Came the reply.
"Phoenix." She muttered as she began taxiing along the apron. All along her path to the right were burned out and damaged aircraft. Lots of ponies were working, salvaging parts and fixing up those that weren't to badly shot up. They all looked up as she passed, many with looks of surprise or amazement. She kept going until she came upon a hangar with a large 4 on it. She spun the jet fighter and parked facing away. She shut down the engines and went over her shut down procedures.
Satisfied, the golden pegasus unstrapped herself and pulled off her helmet. She climbed out of the cockpit, and flapped her wings to hover down to the ground. A pair of rifle toting soldiers came trotting over. One of them, a unicorn wearing the stripes of a sergeant, came up to her and snapped of a salute. "Lieutenant-Commander. I'm Sergeant Greener. We have been assigned to keep your aircraft secure."
Spitfire returned the salute, "Much appreciated Sergeant. Carry on." He nodded to her and the two trotted over to guard the Hornet. "Oh Sergeant?" Spitfire asked looking back over her shoulder.
"Yes Ma'am?" He asked.
"Do you know a Flying Officer Rapidfire?" She asked.
"Yes Ma'am. Last I checked he was in the briefing room. That building over there." He pointed to building adjacent to the hanger she had parked outside.
"Thank you Sergeant." Spitfire replied while taking to the air.
Spitfire made her way towards the building the Sergeant had pointed out. Just as she approached two ponies stepped out. One was a stallion wearing the blue uniform of the Royal Air Force while the second was wearing a black naval officers uniform. As Spitfire got closer she could see the officers rank insignia of a Rear-Admiral. She immediately snapped to attention and snapped off a salute. "Ma'am!"
The Admiral looked her over and spotted the rank on her flight suit before returning the salute. "Lieutenant-Commander. Where is your cover? And get that hideous uniform pressed." She said with a look of disgust. She seemed to shudder, "Carry on."
The Admiral trotted off and Spitfire looked after her stunned. She finally recovered her wits and muttered, "What crawled up her plot and died?"
The airpony beside her chuckled, "Yeah I know. Even bearing good news I can barely stand her." He turned to look at her, "Where are my manners." The grey pegasus snapped to attention and saluted, "I'm Flying Officer Rapid Fire."
Spitfire returned the salute and shook his hoof as she introduced herself, "Good to meet you Flying Officer. I'm Lieutenant-Commander Spitfire. Are you busy at the moment?"
He shook his head, "No ma'am."
"Oh please. I'm the one who should be calling you sir. Come with me." She answered as she began trotting towards her Jet.
Rapid Fire stood in confusion for a couple of seconds before he gave his wings a flap to catch up. "What do you mean by that?"
Spitfire just grinned at her grandpa's confusion, "You'll find out."
The two pegasi trotted over the apron towards her Hornet. When Rapidfire spotted it his eyes widened in realization. "You were the one in the plane that covered me!"
"Yup." Spitfire grinned, "I saw you taking off and that Zero coming after you. I figured you could use some help, and you were a absolute bullet magnet once you where in the air."
"Yeah well…Thanks to you I'm alive to receive a Celestial Cross for getting those kills." He grinned earnestly."There's been rumours that you guys are from the future."
"Yeah." Spitfire muttered absentmindedly. She sighed and cracked a grin. "I have something to tell you."
"What?" He asked.
"There's another reason I came to find you today." She looked him in the eye, "I'm your Granddaughter. In the normal timeline, you died. That Zero shot up your plane on takeoff."
Rapidfire froze up. Spitfire couldn't blame him. She has just told him he was supposed to have died. He seemed to take a moment to process this. "But I have no kids…" He muttered. Then he seemed to have a revelation, "Oh." Rapidfire turned to look at her, "Rainy's pregnant isn't she?"
Spitfire nodded. Rapidfire grinned and began moving again, "Well lets take a look at this plane of yours! Then we can go to my place and meet your Grandma and give the good news!"
"Sure…Gramps!" Spitfire said a huge smile splitting her face.