Dale Cole darted his head around, trying to spot the Zero beyond his plane’s cracked windscreen. The air inside the cockpit was still clouded with particulate matter that had been vapourised by the bullets as they tore through the Dauntless.

There was still no response from Garcia behind him.

Then briefly, out of the corner of his eye, a glimpse – the Zero, throwing out a cloud of thick black smoke.

It hung in the air for a moment, moribund, before spinning downwards out of sight. Garcia had got it.

Dale breathed out, his thoughts turning again to his friend.

“Garcia?” he asked into the radio once more.

A few seconds later, a faint grunt came back through the static in his ears. Then: “I think I’m shot.”

Dale’s stomach dropped. “You – are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.” A pause. “I feel tired.”

Dale winced. “Okay – hey! Stay awake, Garcia. We’ll just head on back to base and get you patched up. You’ll be alright.”

“Okay.” Garcia’s voice was thick with lethargy, arriving from somewhere far-off.

Dale’s pulse quickened. Garcia didn’t sound good at all.

But he wasn’t dead.

Alright, back to base.

A survey through the damaged canopy revealed no sign of the rest of his squadron. While continuing to look around the sky outside, he reached down and flicked on the long-range radio.

“Fox Leader, I’ve just been bounced by a Zeke, believe it was a lone bandit. The Zeke’s down, repeat Zeke’s down, but I’ve got damage and my gunner’s injured.”

Dale waited. There was no reply.

He glanced down at his instrument panel, and saw a mess of tangled wiring and bullet holes. What remained of his long-distance radio was dead. His compass had also disappeared, replaced by a dark, jagged hole that extended into the plane’s nose and engine bay. He realised then that it was only sheer good fortune that the plane’s mechanical integrity and flight surfaces were still sufficiently intact to allow stable flight. Dale only hoped the aircraft would continue to cope during the return journey back to base.

Back to base…

He craned his neck and glanced up through the canopy, squinting against the overwhelming glare. The sun was directly overhead, making it impossible to determine which way he was flying.

He clutched the yoke, keeping the plane level. His hands had developed a thin sheen of sweat.

He thought back. Had he moved the yoke at all when the Zero attacked? He couldn’t remember. And had he even been flying directly back towards Midway to begin with? He doubted it.

He took a hand off the yoke and clenched it, trying to stifle the slight trembling.

He had to get Garcia back, get him some help – but which direction did he need to go?

Rational, clear thought was becoming increasingly difficult. The cockpit seemed to tighten around him. He wanted to rip off his mask and goggles, open the canopy, and get out.

He shook his head, shedding the absurd notion.

Seizing a moment of clarity, he decided to take the route that was least likely to lead him further astray. He would keep on flying the way he was going.

An hour passed, with nothing but the vivid blue waters below and the harsh glare of the sun above. Every so often, a small island appeared in his periphery, rolling lazily past along the horizon to his left or right. They were all thin blotches with nothing but trees and sand, forming no sane place to try and land the damaged aircraft.

The sun wheeled slowly overhead, though it was still too high and bright for him to look at its position with any accuracy. Soon, it would drop low enough for him to determine cardinal directions.

Garcia had long ago gone silent.

Dale continued on over the vast waters, growing increasingly exasperated, but unable to do anything. The bomber’s relative speed seemed reduced to that of a snail against the boundless expanse of ocean ahead of him. The wind whipped past outside the canopy a metre next to his head, but he felt motionless, trapped in his seat on a fixed path into an uncertain future.

He glanced at his fuel gauge, and did some quick arithmetic. He had just under another hour of fuel left.

Sometime later, he saw beneath the tiny whitecaps and cresting seafoam in the far-off distance a large, dark shape, as though a gargantuan creature was swimming leisurely just under the surface. The area in question was too far away to make out any specifics, and came to his eyes warped slightly through the scratched glass; more likely, it was just a large shoal of fish or a strange current.

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With a sinking feeling, he realised he’d now flown further since the battle than he had to arrive there. He was definitely flying the wrong way, to whatever degree, but there was still no better option than to stay on this course.

He hadn’t the heart to try and talk to Garcia again. In all likelihood, it would only cement the fear in his heart. At least within the silence, his ignorant hope could endure.

The fuel gauge dropped, and dropped.

The minutes passed, and the gauge was hovering a fingernail above empty when he spied it, there in the distance – a faint twinkling speck, a dull silver-grey glint interrupting the ocean’s uniformity.

Dale frowned. It certainly wasn’t Midway; he knew it wouldn’t and couldn’t be. Aside from the fact that the distances were all wrong, it was far too small and artificial in appearance. But just what the hell was it? And where the hell was it?

He gently pushed the yoke forward, sending the plane into a gentle descent.

He must have been a few kilometres away when the structure began to resolve itself. It was a platform of sorts, in appearance like an aircraft carrier combined with an oil rig. It was lifted above the ocean’s surface by several large support struts which extended down through the clear waters, and gradually disappeared into the depths beyond a certain point. Most of the structure’s surface was taken up by a long, flat runway, which was adjoined to a tall square building that sat against the side of the runway’s centre.

He continued descending, flying over the structure at a height of a few hundred metres, then sent the plane into a long banking manoeuvre in preparation for another lower pass. The plane arced gracefully, and he brought it back into a stable trajectory once he was facing back towards the structure. He shot past again just above it, and was close enough to see a detail that stoked him with relief. Flapping on a pole at the building’s uppermost point was a US flag.

Dale exhaled. Even had the flag been Japanese, he probably still would have landed; despite his fears over how he would have been treated as a hostage, he didn’t know if he had the nerves to fly his plane straight into the ocean and end it all for certain. But seeing the US flag was an infinitely better outcome.

Even still, something in his mind was cautioning him. He was a lowly pilot, not cleared to know the more clandestine goings-on within the armed forces, but there being some kind of isolated base out here, in the middle of what was probably nowhere, felt… strange. At the same time, a still louder voice was telling him that it was just an observation post, or resupply station, or something equally mundane.

Whatever it was, it was time to land.

Dale eased the Dauntless down gently, running on an autopilot of training and muscle memory. He guided the plane down towards the runway almost imperceptibly, closing the gap ever so slightly, gradually, gradually, until the bomber’s wheels hit the tarmac with a brief squeal of rubber and smoke. Dale pulled the brake lever hard.

The structure’s runway was large, significantly more so than that of an aircraft carrier, and he had no trouble bringing the bomber to a stop with plenty of room to spare.

He paused, and took a deep breath. He’d made it.

But made it where?

There was movement to the right of the plane. Through the damaged windscreen, he saw a number of soldiers filtering out of a door in the large building next to the runway, and walking towards him across the tarmac.

A wave of exhaustion had begun to wash over him. Wanting out of the cockpit, he flicked the canopy’s release latch and heaved it open, sending a shower of small glass shards onto his head and lap. Then he put his feet down to push himself out, and they splashed. The cockpit floor was covered with a layer of blood. He shook his boots out, numb to the implications.

Once he was out, he walked along the wing towards where Garcia was seated, trailing blotchy red footprints, and taking in lungfuls of crisp sea air.

He reached into the already-open cockpit and shook his friend’s shoulders. “Garcia?”

The man’s face was pale, his eyes closed. He could have been sleeping.

“I think he’s dead, son.” The deep voice coming from behind him twanged with a heavy Southern accent.

Dale shook his head.

“Hey, Garcia. Garcia!” He said again, jostling his friend harder.

Dale knew he was dead. But maybe, if he just shook him hard enough…

“It’s alright,” the voice behind him said gently. “Let him be, now.”

Dale turned, eyes blurring with tears.

A man in a US military uniform was standing a few metres away, his solid frame fighting against the tight fit of his garments. There was a kindly face hiding underneath his rough, worn features, and Dale guessed he was just cresting middle age.

“My friend…” Dale mumbled.

The man put a reassuring hand up. “We’ve got him.”

Two soldiers walked past and clambered up onto the bomber’s wing. Dale turned to see them carefully pull Garcia out from his seat, before passing him down to another pair of soldiers on the tarmac below. His friend’s body was completely limp within his red-stained uniform, a dead weight devoid of whatever he’d known as ‘Garcia’. The soldiers strapped the corpse to a stretcher, then wheeled it off towards the large building that adjoined the runway.

Dale looked on, feeling detached, like he was observing some other reality. This couldn’t be how things were now. It was all wrong. He was meant to get Garcia back to Midway, get him saved.

“It’s not your fault, son,” the man said. “It’s just war.”

If Dale had any energy left, he would have laughed. Just war. Yes, just another body, another man whose roll came up short. Just his friend.

He closed his eyes. If this was what war was, he’d had quite enough already. He stood rigid, scared to move his legs, convinced he would collapse.

The man approached him and extended his hand. “Colonel Wyatt Shaw,” he said tenderly, by way of introduction. “What’s your name, son?”

Dale opened his eyes and feebly shook the man’s hand. “Flight Officer… Dale Cole, sir.” His voice sounded distant even to his own ears.

Colonel Shaw nodded, then lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. “Well, it’s good to have you with us, Dale.” He blew out a stream of smoke and glanced at the damaged Dauntless, peppered with bullet holes. “It looks like you boys really went through the thick of it. I don’t know how you made it here in that thing.” He shook his head in wonder. “There but for the grace of God…”

Dale felt his eyelids falling, too heavy. “Yes, sir.”

“Midway?”

“Yes, sir.”

The corner of Shaw’s mouth turned upwards. “So, how’d we go?”

Dale struggled to recollect how the battle had gone. Had he ever felt this tired? “We… we gave them a rough time, sir.”

Shaw smiled, his eyes glinting. “Well now, that’s good. Very good.”

Dale nodded.

“There’s just one thing, Dale. One small problem.” Shaw paused, looking unsure of how to proceed. The cigarette clasped between his fingers snaked a trail of smoke into the sky. His tone shifted. “You’re really not supposed to be here.”

Then he signalled to something or someone behind Dale.

Dale was still trying to make sense of Shaw’s tone when everything suddenly went dark, and each increasingly rapid breath sucked in the fabric pressing against his face as he felt himself being dragged away.