Authors: Marc Cerasini
"Uh-oh," Michaelson moaned.
As the crew of SEACAP ONE watched, Godzilla, the king of the monsters, rose out of the Pacific depths with a bawling roar. Seawater poured off its charcoal-black hide in torrents, and the water churned all around the enormous prehistoric leviathan. The stunned crew of the Super Stallion found themselves eye-to-eye with a beast that should have died sixty-five million years ago.
"It's Godzilla!" the sonarman cried, even as Ensign Delany tried to take the chopper up and away from the creature's grasp.
With astonishing speed, Godzilla lashed out. His feral head lunged toward the helicopter, even as his terrible jaws opened to swallow them whole.
The crews on SEACAP TWO and THREE fired flares at Godzilla and radioed the monster's position to the squadron above.
Ensign Delany pulled her chopper back, her eyes fixed on the twin rows of irregular teeth that lined Godzilla's blood-red mouth. The helicopter accelerated backward so fast that when Godzilla's jaws snapped shut, they closed on empty air.
"Go! Go! Go!"
Michaelson cried as Godzilla's eyes narrowed and the pupils focused on them. Godzilla prepared to lunge again.
But the agile Sea Stallion had flown too high too fast, and the prehistoric monster lost its chance to destroy the helicopter. "We have incoming!" Michaelson announced. "Tomcats at three o'clock -"
"Let's get out of here before we're caught by friendly fire!" Ensign Delany cried as she pushed the throttle forward again. The Sea Stallion spun on its axis and darted away.
As SEACAP ONE raced out of the attack zone, the F-14s, directed by the flares, dived toward Godzilla. The Tomcats from the
Nimitz
carried a special payload.
After evaluating the attacks made against Godzilla on land and sea, the United States Navy, with the help of
kaiju
ologists, had devised a new strategy to destroy Godzilla. Given that the creature was a radioactive mutant, possessing incredible powers of organic regeneration, it was decided that most conventional weapons would be useless.
Most
... but not all.
The strategists in the Pentagon deduced that if enough damage could be inflicted on Godzilla in a short span of time, the monster's powers of regeneration would be overwhelmed. There would be no chance for the creature to regrow its cells and organs before mortal wounds could be inflicted.
But what conventional weapon could inflict such damage?
The answer was something called a fuel-air explosive.
The six Tomcats that dropped out of the sky toward Godzilla each carried a fuel-air explosive canister - basically, a container filled with a flammable mixture of petroleum and chemicals fitted with a timer and a parachute. A fuel-air explosive was designed to drop slowly over a target, then explode
above
it at a predetermined altitude.
The weapon provided what is known in military parlance as a "double whammy" - it smashed its target with the force of a gigantic hammer, and it covered the area around the target with a layer of burning chemicals that could not easily be extinguished.
It was not a compassionate weapon. Dr. Birchwood felt it was so cruel that he had reservations about using it. But he also understood that the lives of thousands were at stake, especially if Godzilla came ashore on the densely populated West Coast.
The final result was that now, in the sky over Godzilla, the Tomcat pilots dropped their lethal payload as they swooped over the creature.
Their mission completed, the jets climbed back into the clouds. It was time for them to "get out of Dodge City"!
Godzilla gazed up with catlike curiosity as six parachutes blossomed open directly above him. Slowly, the canisters drifted down until the lowest one was right above his wedge-shaped head.
Godzilla grunted. Then the electric discharge that preceded his radioactive blast danced along his dorsal spines.
At that moment, an electronic signal was sent from the lead SEACAP helicopter - a signal that detonated all six of the explosive devices at the same time.
Even though the helicopter crews were briefed on what to expect, the intensity of the fuel-air explosions took them by surprise. As they watched from two miles away, their choppers were buffeted by the hot blast. The blue Pacific sky turned bright yellow as it was lit up like a second sun.
A tremendous glowing ball of fiery force smashed down on Godzilla. The violence of the blast knocked the stunned creature onto his side. The surface of the Pacific began to boil as a flaming blanket of burning chemicals descended on the area. The burning cloud covered the monster completely.
Roaring with rage and pain, Godzilla thrashed about on the surface, churning the red waves with each agonized movement. Every exposed section of the creature's hide was burning in the aftermath of the explosion.
As the creature's cries of mortal agony echoed across the water, Ensign Delany felt her breakfast rising back up her throat. She had to look away, but she could not shut out the horrible cries of pain and confusion. Delany had been raised on a farm and loved animals, and she couldn't watch this magnificent creature as it writhed in its death throes.
Finally, Godzilla's suffering seemed to end. The creature stopped thrashing, and his burning body began to sink beneath the simmering waves. The last of the flaming cloud of burning liquid and gas settled over the ocean, turning the pale blue waves to a bright, bloody crimson. Godzilla was gone.
SEACAP ONE, TWO, and THREE hovered in place as the ocean burned for miles around. No one aboard the choppers spoke.
Ensign Delany ordered a new batch of sonar buoys to be dropped into the ocean. The tiny portable sonar devices pinged the depths as soon as they sank beneath the waves.
The submarines, too, began a sonar sweep of the area, searching for Godzilla or his remains. But even after an hour, there was no sign of the mighty
kaiju
.
It appeared, even to the skeptical Dr. Birchwood, that Godzilla might indeed be dead.
* * *
Lori Angelo thrashed about in her bed as the dream overtook her. This time the images were more vivid, more powerful, and more emotional than ever before. And this time, the truth was finally revealed to her.
The dream lasted only a few minutes, but when Lori awoke, she was at peace for the first time in weeks. Now she understood what was happening. Lori knew that Mothra was the Protector of the Earth, and that she had come down from space to save humanity from something worse than Varan, or Godzilla, or Rodan - or even a swarm of killer asteroids.
Most of all, Lori knew what she had to do.
Rising from her bed, she went to her personal computer and began to work. The clock was already ticking, and Lori didn't have much time to plan her escape from Project Valkyrie.
Friday, June 11, 1999, 0703 mission time
The Mir space station
In orbit, 125 miles above the earth
Slowly, carefully, the space shuttle Atlantis docked with the primary module of the Russian Mir space station high above the blue Pacific Ocean. Through the viewports in the other modules on Mir, the station personnel watched the gleaming white shuttle slip smoothly into the docking collar.
The shuttle was a welcome sight, bringing much-needed supplies of food, water, oxygen, and scientific equipment to the overworked, aging space station. It also brought with it another guest for the already overcrowded Mir, Dr. Chandra Mishra.
Since the discovery of the Reyes-Mishra asteroids, Mir had become one of the focal points in a planet-wide effort to destroy the asteroids before they collided with Earth. The station, which was designed to function with a crew of five and perhaps three scientists or researchers, now had thirteen full-time residents and temporary crews coming and going on a monthly basis.
Now another crew member was being added to the roster. The crowded conditions put a strain on the Mir's scanty resources, and supplies were now being replenished from Earth weekly.
NASA was breaking all previous performance records toward that end. Each of the four American space shuttles was sent up in turn, alternating with Russian
Soyuz
resupply vehicles.
Mir had been designed and built to last only five or six years. At fifteen years, the station was not only still in service, it was starting to look like Grand Central Terminal.
The newest member of the Mir team, now disembarking from the
Atlantis
, Dr. Chandra Mishra pushed his way clumsily through the narrow hatch that connected
Atlantis
with the Mir module. He was not yet accustomed to weightlessness, and though he had experienced no nausea or motion sickness, he had had a lot of trouble maneuvering in zero-Gs.
His first impression of Mir was the smell. A distinctive odor of unwashed bodies assailed his nose, making him flash on the memory of the smelly locker rooms from his cricket-playing college days.
Dr. Mishra, forty, had actually been selected for the NASA astronaut training program over a decade before. Unfortunately, a previously undiagnosed thyroid condition washed him out of the program in his second year. The Indian-American scientist thought his dreams of space flight had ended then and there.
Now, to his delight and amazement, he was orbiting high over Earth in Mir, about to witness the destruction of the asteroid swarm from the telescopes in Mir's Kristall and Kvant science modules. Despite the discomfort and overcrowding, Dr. Mishra was glad he was aboard, and he was greeted warmly by the international team of astronauts and cosmonauts on the Russian-designed space station.
The greeting was sincere and heartfelt, for Dr. Mishra was the primary architect of the plan to destroy the asteroids.
Today, the final steps in Dr. Mishra's plan were about to be implemented. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was ready to launch the last of its three robotic smart bombs from a launching pad in Florida.
Mishra's plan had been simple, but infinitely difficult to set into motion. Since there were only three large asteroids in the swarm, they would be targeted individually - by as many remote-control nuclear bombs as the nations of the world could launch in the limited time they had left.
The plan was idiot-proof and included quadruple redundancy. The attacks would be coordinated, and each asteroid would have a total of four warheads coming at it after today's launch. If one or two missiles failed, there were more to take their place.
The United States, Russia, Japan, and France, with international technical and financial assistance, were launching the nuclear missiles. The Russians had already launched six Energia rockets carrying multiple nuclear warheads. Those guided missiles were heading for the asteroid swarm, and would intercept them at a point in space between the moon and Mars.
A second group of three nuclear missiles were being launched by a French/Japanese consortium - the Japanese supplied the boosters, and the French supplied the warheads.
Now, a third and final group of three high-tech robotic bombs were about to be launched from the United States on three separate Air Force boosters. These super-smart warheads contained their own guidance systems and rocket motors. They were designed to seek out and destroy any smaller pieces of the asteroids that might continue on toward Earth after the initial detonations.
It was an ambitious plan, and not without risk - though, as it turned out, most of those risks were political.
Project EarthFirst had been hotly debated on the floor of the United Nations. Some of the smaller countries unfriendly to the West had actually tried to stop the project through political pressure, debate, and even an oil embargo.
The actions of these rogue nations came to a head when an Iranian-backed terrorist group tried to sabotage the joint Japanese/French space launch. The bomb the terrorists planted at the launching pad was discovered before it detonated, and French security teams captured the terrorists and interrogated them.
Three days later, French warplanes and cruise missiles struck Tehran, slaughtering many high government officials and doing a considerable amount of damage to Iran's infrastructure.
The punitive actions taken by the French military frightened the rogue nations, and no further terrorist action was taken against Project EarthFirst. Even the debates in the UN General Assembly became more civil - if not more civilized.
In the end, when faced with extinction, most nations put aside their petty squabbles and pledged full cooperation. It was the closest thing to a united world as humanity had come, though it was far from a utopia.
As Dr. Mishra moved through Mir, shaking hands and listening to words of support and encouragement from scientists and cosmonauts from a half-dozen nations, he still harbored secret doubts.
As the swarm approached Earth, Dr. Mishra's observations revealed that there was something strange about the largest asteroid. It behaved like no other space rock recorded in the annals of astronomy. The asteroid moved when it shouldn't have. It spun for no apparent reason. And lately it had seemed to have developed a mind of its own.
Other scientists had explanations for the weird behavior, but none of their answers satisfied Dr. Mishra. The problem vexed him so much that in the last several days he'd even experienced a series of colorful nightmares - featuring a golden dragon with three heads on long, snakelike necks.
Sigmund Freud would have a field day with that image
, the astrophysicist thought wryly.
Dr. Mishra pushed aside his misgivings as a handsome young Russian cosmonaut floated toward him, his right hand outstretched in greeting. Dr. Mishra was introduced to Captain Yuri Sheglova, chief cosmonaut aboard the Mir station.
The two men shook hands warmly.
* * *
At his office at Nellis, Colonel Krupp reviewed the daily information brief supplied to him each morning by the Pentagon.
Surprisingly, the news was almost all good.
The swarm of Kamacuras had been totally destroyed. Though the seeds of new creatures still fell out of the sky inside the swarm's meteors, teams of scientists had discovered a way to detect them on the ground. Trained soldiers retrieved the rocks that contained the alien DNA.