Godzilla 2000 (24 page)

As spy aircraft filmed the creature's movements from high in the stratosphere, Godzilla surprised the experts. Instead of traveling in a straight line, which would lead him to the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountain range, Godzilla turned.

As if guided by some higher power, Godzilla avoided the most rugged terrain and moved instead toward the Gunnison National Forest.

After Godzilla's turn southeast was confirmed, G-Force departed Nellis for Gunnison County Airport in Colorado.

* * *

On a beautiful Sunday morning, when the eyes of the whole planet were turned toward the heavens, G-Force prepared to make war on Earth's most dangerous monster.

As the team assembled in the mobile command center, they each watched the drama that was unfolding in the depths of space.

In two hours, at 12:21 P.M., local time, the first wave of nuclear missiles would strike the Reyes-Mishra asteroids. It was hoped that the nukes would obliterate the space rocks, but if they failed, there was still a second wave of missiles that would strike in another week. The G-Force team would learn the results of Project EarthFirst only after their mission was over.

If everything went as scheduled, they would be attacking Godzilla just as the missiles struck the asteroid cloud.

As he crossed the hot tarmac toward Raptor-One, Kip used the meditation techniques he had been taught to empty his mind of chaos and concentrate on the battle ahead. Pierce Dillard walked silently at his side, concentrating on his own doubts and fears.

Only Tobias Nelson and Martin Wong seemed unperturbed by the coming battle. Pierce wondered if they'd let their easy victory against Varan cloud their judgment.

He worried that they were too overconfident.

As Tia Shimura approached the aircraft, she was troubled by doubts of her own. Late the night before, Lori had knocked on the door of her tiny cabin inside the C-130 Hercules. The older girl had looked distraught, and Tia admitted her.

She wished now that she hadn't.

In violation of a direct order from General Taggart, and the wishes of Dr. Markham, Lori told Tia about her disturbing dreams and about the vision of Mothra she saw over San Francisco Bay.

"I wanted someone to know," Lori told her. "In case something happens to me..."

Tia wished she
didn't
know, for now she was racked by the same doubts as Lori. Now she wondered if the monster they were about to attack was mankind's deadliest foe - or greatest friend.

* * *

The forests of Colorado were green with the fullness of summer. As Pierce flew Raptor-One toward Gunnison National Forest, he couldn't help but admire the forest's natural beauty.

Behind and above them, the Raptor-Two broadcast rock music to her sister ship. Martin had slipped Toby the tape before they lifted off. The music of Blue Oyster Cult blared into their ears. The tape began with "Don't Fear the Reaper," and now had moved on to the Cult classic "Godzilla."

"Is this Toby's idea of a joke?" Kip asked Pierce. The pilot turned and noticed Martin snickering beside him.

"I don't think so..." Pierce replied, staring hard at his giggling co-pilot.

Despite the weak attempt at humor, tension was thick inside the cockpit. Kip felt it too. But he also felt an adrenaline high, along with the rest of his teammates. After their first battle, and the weeks of inaction, the G-Force team was more than ready. They were pumped.

But Kip noticed that Tia and Lori were strangely silent, which was odd. Especially for Lori. He was about to remark on it when the music vanished, and the headphones in his helmet crackled to life.

"Target ahead," Lori announced.

* * *

Sunday, July 11, 1999, 1:55 P.M.
Johnson Space Center
Houston, Texas

At NASA's Deep Space Observation Station, Dr. Carl Strickler and Dr. Ramon Reyes watched the computer-enhanced images of the Reyes-Mishra asteroids as they appeared on a huge monitor in the front of the room.

Above the screen, a digital clock ticked down the minutes before the first wave of nuclear missiles reached its targets. In less than two minutes, the cloud would meet Earth's first line of defense.

The two men exchanged meaningful glances as a hush fell over the technicians and scientists who were there to witness humanity's salvation - or its most perilous failure.

At the back of the room, a group of journalists selected from a pool of all the networks stood, watching the monitors. By their sides, each journalist had a cameraman poised to capture the dramatic scenes. Pictures of this most momentous event were being broadcast live, all over the world. It was the most-watched television event in the history of the planet.

Carl turned and glanced up at the digital clock. One minute, forty-three seconds, and counting...

* * *

Godzilla loomed like a black shadow over the pine forests of Colorado. The creature moved with surprising grace, Kip thought, and not with the lumbering, clumsy stride of the computer-generated virtual monster they'd fought for months on end.

The difference served to remind Kip that this was the real thing. It was a sobering revelation.

As Kip waited for Pierce's final approach, when the pilot would turn over command of the Raptor to him, he studied the monster below.

To his surprise, Godzilla raised his head and stared right at the oncoming aircraft. Kip's heart seemed to stop beating. Suddenly, he had a flashback to that day in the video arcade when Godzilla's roaring face appeared on the BATTLEGROUND 2000 machine and he froze. And again, doubts about his mission assailed Kip.
Is it right to attack Godzilla?
he wondered.

A moment after the monster's mouth yawned open, the sound of a faraway roar battered their ship. Again, Lori's voice crackled in his headphones.

"Okay," she said. "Attack low and from the rear. Let's avoid Godzilla's rays for as long as we can..."

"Roger," Pierce replied as he dipped Raptor-One and swung around and behind the
kaiju
.

"Ready, Daniels?" Pierce asked.

Kip swallowed hard. Then he gripped the joystick with both hands. "Roger," he said calmly.

* * *

The temptation was just too great. Every tabloid news show had sent the word out to their freelance photographers, photojournalists, and cameramen. Pictures of the top-secret G-Force team battling Godzilla in Colorado would be worth
big
money.
Really
big money.

Dozens of them set out in cars, on horseback, even on foot, to the area around Gunnison. Of course, it was a restricted area, and the military was there, too.

By the morning of the battle, almost all of the freelance photographers had been caught and removed from the area. Two of them, however, had so far eluded capture, despite the fact that they were amateurs. Their names were Billy and Zelly Whitman, fifteen-year-old twins, who hailed from nearby Grand Junction. They'd "borrowed" their dad's video camera and two of their grandma's horses. They had sneaked away from home and entered the restricted area two days before.

They had waited, listening to reports on their radio and eating army rations rather than risk a fire that could be spotted by patrols. Billy was an Eagle Scout, so he knew how to live in the wilderness. Zelly wasn't happy living in the woods, but it had been her idea to try this stunt. She got it while watching
America's Funniest Home Videos
.

Now their wait was almost over. As she and her brother climbed a peak to find a good place to watch the action, they heard the monster's roar echoing through the hills.

"Wow!" Zelly cried. "Godzilla sounds so cool!"

In the valley below, Godzilla crashed through the trees and stomped through a small stream. Deer scampered among the trees at his feet. His thunderous tread shook the forest.

"There he is!" Billy cried, focusing the camera.

As Billy and Zelly watched, the roar of a strange engine rumbled toward them until the sound battered their ears. Suddenly, a huge flying machine popped up from behind a hill and rushed toward Godzilla.

"Wow!" Zelly screamed over the sound. "This is
amazing!
"

Billy pointed the camera at the aircraft.

The machine was drab gray and blended with the sky. It had two huge horizontal rotors that looked half the size of football fields. The thrumming of the blades beat the ground and shook the trees.

* * *

Kip popped the Raptor over the low hill. The forest and verdant hills rushed past their cockpit with dizzying speed. Godzilla's spines filled Kip's HUD, and he nudged the aircraft to one side and targeted a point under the monster's right ear.

That should get his attention
, Kip thought.

He keyed up the weapons menu, and chose the eight Avenger cannons. He ignored the treetops, which nearly brushed the Raptor's belly, and concentrated on the target.

He pressed the trigger, and the whole aircraft shook with the force of the guns. In the first second, over 42,000 armor-piercing explosive shells tore into Godzilla's neck.

That got his attention.

Godzilla whirled his head around, searching for his attacker. Even as he spun, blue flashes of electricity rippled through the tangle of bony plates on his back. His mouth opened, and Godzilla spat a burst of radioactive fire.

The blast was undirected, but it forced Kip to pull up, and he lost valuable seconds. As he flashed past Godzilla's left shoulder, Kip spun the aircraft, vainly attempting to reacquire the target in his HUD.

Smoke still poured from the wound on Godzilla's neck as Kip guided the Raptor to a frontal assault position.

Let's get this over with
, he thought. He flicked a button on his control stick. The heat-resistant panels closed over the Raptor's transparencies. The cockpit got dark for a second, just enough time for the windows to convert to their second function-digital television screens. Hundreds of cameras on the fuselage and wings transmitted real-time images of the exterior of the aircraft.

The images were so realistic that there was virtually no difference between the television screen and the actual view outside of the cockpit.

Kip circled Godzilla as he slowed the Raptor to a hover position. Now the Raptor was face-to-face with the mammoth
kaiju
. The cross hairs on his HUD met in the middle of Godzilla's charcoal-black chest.

Kip's eyes narrowed ruthlessly as he depressed the trigger.

Once again, the Raptor was knocked backward by the recoil from its own multiple cannons. And again, over 40,000 rounds of explosive ammunition struck a single point on Godzilla's tough hide. The burst lasted a second and a half. Kip could not risk a longer burst because it affected the stability of the Raptor.

As the shells slammed into Godzilla, a bell-like yowl of pain burst from his throat.

It was followed by a blast of blue fire that struck the nose of the Raptor. The heat-resistant space-age tiles did their job. Instantly, they both reflected and dispersed the heat. Godzilla‘s radioactive burst was completely ineffective.

Kip steadied the Raptor and reacquired the target. Then he fired the cannons in another second-and-a-half burst.

* * *

"Get down!" Zelly cried, grabbing her brother's coat and pulling him to the ground. Despite the unexpected move, Billy was able to keep the camera focused on the action. Though the noise of the battle was deafening, he was about to ask what she thought she was doing when a rain of shrapnel came down all around them.

The expended chunks of depleted uranium tore leaves and branches off the trees. Billy could hear bits of metal striking the rocks and tree trunks, too.

Behind them, far down at the bottom of the hill, one of their grandparents' horses whinnied in fear or pain. Billy hoped that the animal had not been hurt by the shrapnel.

His heart was racing, and his adrenaline pumping, but Billy continued to aim the camera at the action.

* * *

"Twenty seconds and counting," Nick Gordon, INN's science reporter, said from the NASA observation station. Near the huge screen in the center of the room, Carl Strickler watched real-time images of the Reyes-Mishra Swarm. Everyone was waiting as the digital clock ticked down the last four seconds.

Three. Two. One... zero.

For a split second, nothing happened. Then multiple blasts engulfed the asteroid swarm. Everyone in the room exploded in wild applause.

At least the rockets made it to their targets
, Carl thought.
Now we have to wait and see if they did the job...

* * *

A red emergency light lit up on Martin's engineering board. "Number five cannon failure," he announced. "I think it's jammed."

"Roger," Kip said, releasing the trigger and ending his third burst. Kip flicked a switch and took number five off-line. Inside the bowels of the Raptor, the cannon unloaded itself and the ammunition was automatically transferred to a working cannon.

But suddenly Tia cried a warning. She'd seen something on her radar screen.

"We have an unidentified aircraft inbound," she informed them. One of the monitors inside the cockpit showed a light single-engine airplane approaching the combat zone.

"Damn!" Pierce cried. "This area was supposed to be cleared of unauthorized aircraft."

"I'll take care of it," Toby announced from Two.

"No," Pierce replied. "Don't bring Two in that low. It's too dangerous!"

"Don't worry," Toby declared over the radio. Pierce was about to protest again, when another blast of Godzilla's rays rocked the aircraft. A secondary explosion caused Raptor-One to shudder.

"What's the problem?" Pierce barked.

"The heat shield over missile bay two has failed," Martin said after scanning his engineering panel. "One of the Hellfire missiles detonated inside the pod."

"We have a fire," Tia announced. She, Martin, and Pierce began firefighting procedures as Kip battled on against Godzilla.

* * *

The unauthorized aircraft that flew across the battlefield was flown by a journalist from a local Colorado newspaper. Next to him, a freelance photographer, who sometimes worked for the news show
Total Focus
, was filming the battle.