Godzilla 2000 (27 page)

The big fear during preparation was that Godzilla would arrive in the dead of night, or in the middle of a snowstorm. But this rain and wet fog was much, much worse. It even confounded their computer-enhanced targeting systems.

It was a bad omen that Godzilla had picked today of all days to arrive.

Suddenly, the radio speaker crackled. "Lock and load," an emotionless voice announced. Finally, the code releasing the attack had been given.

Lieutenant Patterson looked down at Private Greene, the fastest loader in the battalion. It was his job to feed the cannon round after round of ammunition. Above Private Greene sat Sergeant George Hammond, in the gunner's station. Private Willy Hernandez sat in the driver's seat, gunning the diesel engines, ready to move at a second's notice.

The job of the 72nd Tank Battalion was not to stop Godzilla. They were there to force the monster into the box, where the traps that the scientists designed would be triggered.

With luck, they might never have to fire a shot. If Godzilla kept on walking in a straight line, between the two lines of high-tension electrical towers, then everything would be fine.

But it wasn't going to be that way, and Patterson knew it.

"I see something!" Sergeant Hammond announced, automatically reaching for the handle of his gun.

"Load!" Lieutenant Patterson commanded, peering through his viewer. In a battle against a human enemy, the tank commander would usually specify the type of ammunition to be used. But a new type of ammunition - a Teflon-coated depleted-uranium shell - was about to be tested against Godzilla. To the soldiers' dismay, the experimental shells were the only type they carried.

"Up!" Private Greene announced as he slammed the shell home.

Suddenly, the curtain of fog parted, and a black wall of rutted flesh appeared in front of the line of tanks. The gunner swiftly elevated the main gun twenty degrees. He centered the cross hairs on a section of Godzilla's neck. His finger closed around the trigger.

"Wait... wait..." Lieutenant Patterson and the other tank commanders' eyes were locked on two bright yellow lines painted on either side of the abandoned factory's parking lot. As long as the monster kept between those lines, they were to hold their fire. But if Godzilla moved to either side, then the tanks there were to open up - driving him back to the center of the park.

It sounded fine - in
theory
. But when Patterson saw Godzilla emerge from the fog, he wasn't prepared for the size of the monster. Somehow, the lieutenant was expecting something along the lines of the
T.rex
in
Jurassic Park
.

Godzilla was much more impressive than that!

Patterson kept elevating his periscope up and up, until - finally - he focused on Godzilla's reptilian head. The eyes seemed to gleam with feral intelligence.

The earth shook again as Godzilla took another step closer. As the gunner traversed the turret, keeping the sight on the creature's throat, Godzilla abruptly shifted his weight and turned, his tail lashing out and slamming against the factory.

The brick structure collapsed in on itself with a thunderous clamor. Godzilla bellowed a reverberating roar.

"Fire!" Lieutenant Patterson cried as Godzilla lurched across the yellow line and toward his tank - and the high-tension wires behind it.

"Awaaaaay!" the gunner cried as he depressed the trigger. The Abrams rocked from the cannon's recoil. The tank filled with the smell of cordite. A second later, their shell - and a dozen others - slammed into Godzilla.

Even as the shell struck home, the driver threw the tank into reverse and tried to back out of Godzilla's path. But for an agonizing second or two, the treads skidded in the mud and the tank would not budge.

Finally, the treads caught, and Patterson's M1A1 began to move. The gunner traversed the turret in a futile attempt to reacquire the target, but Godzilla was faster.

As they backed up, Godzilla's enormous foot slammed down right in front of their tank. Filthy water and oily mud washed up over the Abrams, splashing the periscope's exterior lens and coating it with muck.

Then Godzilla roared. The sound echoed through the tank. As Lieutenant Patterson peered through his scope, he spotted another Abrams floundering in the oily muck. Godzilla's mammoth foot came crashing down on top of it.

The tank was crushed. The ammunition inside detonated, and the explosion blasted another shower of mud and debris over them.

"Go! Go! Go!"
Patterson cried, urging Hernandez to get them out of there. But even as the tank skidded from side to side trying to dodge the monster's feet, Godzilla swept over and past them.

As the creature slammed into the high-tension electrical towers, his tail casually brushed their tank, knocking it to the side. The tank slid through the mud and into a concrete foundation, where construction blocks caught the treads and slipped them off the wheel. As the tank skidded to a jolting halt, Patterson knew they were hopelessly stuck.

Without thinking, he popped the hatch on the turret. Cold, wet, fresh air washed down onto the gunner. He looked up as his commander stuck his head out of the hatch.

"No, sir!"
Hammond cried.
"Don't go out there -"

But it was too late.

As the gunner and the loader watched in horror, high-tension electrical wires, alive and crackling with thousands of volts of electricity, dropped down on top of their tank.

Patterson screamed. There was a terrible flash of blue lightning. Then the gunner covered his face as the tank filled with the smell of ozone and the stench of burning flesh.

Finally, what was left of Patterson dropped back down through the hatch as tons of steel from the shattered electrical towers rained down on the crippled tank and its occupants.

* * *

When Godzilla stepped across the yellow line and outside the killing box, he triggered a second line of defense.

Miles away from the industrial park, mobile artillery was preparing to unleash its fury. In dozens of mall parking lots, high school football fields, vacant lots and any wide, expansive space in the otherwise crowded urban landscape surrounding the killing zone, clusters of special mobile artillery vehicles awaited the signal to attack.

The angular, boxlike, treaded vehicles - called Vought Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems - each carried twelve 227mm rockets in a dozen launch tubes on their backs. These anti-armor rocket launchers, scattered all over Gary and the surrounding area, were ready to pour destruction down on Godzilla's head.

Alarms blared as the men ran to their vehicles. Suddenly, their radios crackled to life, and the final coordinates of the monster were sent to them.

As the launchers elevated and pointed into the rainy, overcast sky, General Cranford, at command headquarters, hoped that none of the lead tanks had gotten hung up. The whole area was about to be lit up by tons upon tons of high explosives.

At the command radio, Colonel Milford looked expectantly at his commander. Grimly, General Cranford nodded.

"Fire!"
the colonel barked into the microphone.

From all over the city, rockets streaked into the sky, trailing bright yellow plumes of fire and white, misty smoke. First dozens, then hundreds of rockets poured into the sky, disappearing in the low cloud cover.

Miles away, in the middle of the ruins of a shattered factory, Godzilla bellowed out a challenge as the rockets mingled with the raindrops that fell out of the low clouds.

* * *

As night fell in Gary, Godzilla slowly lumbered past the industrial park and slipped below the waves of Lake Michigan.

The monster had avoided all of the traps set for it, as if it had been warned. As rockets rained down around him, Godzilla stoically made his way toward the fresh waters of the lake, where he disappeared beneath the cold, dark waters with barely a ripple.

Saturday, December 25, 1999, 1905 hours
Kristall docking module, Mir space station
125 miles above the earth

The crew of Mir greeted the arrival of the space shuttle
Atlantis
with Christmas cake and cookies, along with a fine Russian tea brewed in portable packets.

The
Atlantis
docked on one try with the Kristall module of Mir, and the shuttle's main bay door opened to link with the docking ring as the earth revolved blue and serene far below.

The American astronauts who floated through the narrow docking collar looked fresh and clean next to the tired and haggard scientists and technicians aboard the Mir, some of whom had been in Earth orbit for many months.

The
Atlantis
was a welcome diversion. It brought necessary supplies, and would provide a ride back home for several Russian and American technicians. Mir would be a lot less crowded when
Atlantis
headed back to Earth the following morning - and not a moment too soon. The resources of the space station had been severely taxed by the demands of the previous few months.

Through oxygen generator failure, battery failure, a complete breakdown of one of the docking arms, and, most troubling, a catastrophic failure of the shipboard sanitation and waste facilities, those aboard Mir endured without complaint. For some, at least, the ordeal was almost over.

As the final airlock door swung open, the crew of the shuttle called out greetings to their Russian hosts. The American astronauts brought vitally needed replacement parts, fresh food and water, and a new scientist - Dr. Moshe Lipinski - to replace the departing Dr. Chandra Mishra.

All in the nick of time
, Cosmonaut S. A. Romanenko thought, sighing. Though the Iron Curtain had vanished over a decade before, he still couldn't get used to the "new" order. Romanenko had been trained as a MIG-29 fighter pilot, and indoctrinated with the notion that America was the enemy.

Now the Americans are the victors, in a Cold War that was never declared
, Romanenko thought bitterly.
And they won without firing a shot.

But as the commander of the shuttle astronauts shook the Russian Mir commander's hand, Romanenko thought he detected a change in the once-invincible Americans. Something behind their eyes was different... something new was there, something that Romanenko understood all too well.

Defeat
, he thought.
I see defeat in their eyes. Godzilla has humbled them.
For the first time in weeks, Romanenko smiled.
I wish there were gravity here, just to see if the American cowboys still know how to swagger.

Romanenko remembered the international news broadcast he'd watched earlier that day. He recalled that, just a week ago, Godzilla had emerged from Lake Ontario at a place called Rochester, New York. This time, the authorities had been caught off guard.

The destruction was almost as great as when Godzilla fist struck Tokyo. There were thousands of American casualties in New York State, and thousands more were homeless and destitute.

Even Romanenko, who'd seen the destruction in Afghanistan and Chechnya, was appalled by the footage he'd seen. Worse still, Godzilla had finally collided with a nuclear power plant, just outside Syracuse. Even though the creature had absorbed much of the radiation, there was still environmental damage.

An INN news commentator said the ecological damage was worse than at a place called Love Canal, but Romanenko didn't understand the reference. He knew all about Chernobyl, however.

As several other cosmonauts began passing the fresh supplies through the modules, Romanenko forgot about Godzilla and the new visitors, and joined his comrades in helping with the work.

* * *

Dr. Mishra was at the other end of the space station, in the cramped, instrument-laden Kvant module. The doctor was finishing up the last of his experiments and making final notes.

He hated to leave Mir with the job unfinished. But the mysterious creature that had appeared in the Reyes-Mishra Swarm continued to drift in space 780,000 kilometers from Earth, and it hadn't moved in weeks. Perhaps it would remain there forever...

For now, like it or not, it was time for Dr. Mishra to go home. After a significant time without gravity, human bones begin to lose mass and human muscles atrophy. Dr. Mishra already suspected that, when he arrived back on Earth, he would have to be carried from the shuttle like a helpless child, because he would be too weak to walk on his own.

In the last few weeks, he had even neglected his mandatory exercises and spent long hours in the lab. There was just too much to learn and too little time.

Dr. Mishra grabbed an overhead handle and pulled himself toward the optical telescope, situated right next to the GLAZER ultraviolet telescope. He wanted one last look at the phenomenon, unobstructed by miles of polluted atmosphere.

Squinting, Dr. Mishra peered through the telescope eyepiece. He found himself gazing at an empty section of space. Instantly, the scientist checked the instrument. The telescope was calibrated correctly.

It felt as if someone had dribbled icy cold water down Dr. Mishra's spine.
The creature bad moved!

The scientist jumped when the buzzer went off on the communications console next to him. An incoming transmission. Dr. Mishra snatched the microphone, which floated next to him.

"Dr. Mishra here," he said. There was the usual time lag due to the great distance between Earth control and Mir. Finally, Dr. Strickler answered.

"Did you see it, Dr. Mishra?" the young scientist asked from the NASA Deep Space Observation Station back in Houston, Texas. "The creature is moving - at an amazing speed..."

"How fast?" Dr. Mishra demanded. A moment stretched into eternity as the scientist waited for an answer.

"Hard to tell," Dr. Strickler finally replied. "It is still accelerating. But it will reach the orbit of Earth in mere minutes..."

Minutes!
Dr. Mishra pressed the emergency alarm. Klaxons sounded in every single module of Mir. He got on the intercom and informed the crew that the object was moving toward Earth - and them - at very high speed.