Godzilla at World's End (18 page)

"We'll get there in five hours," Captain Dolan replied. "But how can we land this thing without a ground crew?"

Simon held up the crumpled paper in his hand.

"According to Mycroft, a tower and a ground crew are waiting for us at these coordinates."

Saturday, December 9, 2000, 1016 hours
NORAD Space Command Center
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

"Launch alert, Colonel," Airman Miles Jackson announced. Jackson, a three-year veteran of SCC, had relieved Sandy Stilson an hour before. Colonel Wistendahl was still on duty, and would be for another two hours.

"Where is the point of origin?" Wistendahl asked.

"Baikonur," Rodofsky cried from the Teal Sapphire monitoring station. Colonel Wistendahl nodded.

Unlike an unplanned launch from Antarctica, a launch from the Russian version of Kennedy Space Center was easy to detect.

"Get me the Cinc," Wistendahl demanded, referring to General Bierce.

A moment later, Jackson looked up at his commander. "Bierce is in a video conference with the president, sir," the young man informed him.

Wistendahl nodded his head at the news. "I guess we'll handle this one ourselves," he muttered.

"I have a course and speed, sir," Jackson reported.

"Cut to the chase and tell me where it's going, Airman," Wistendahl replied as he sank into the command chair.

"Sir ... I think you should see this," Jackson said, his voice tense. "The computer estimates that the rocket just launched is an orbital ballistic missile. The missile is on an intercept course with the object ... I mean, with Gigan, sir!"

"Holeeee -" Wistendahl bit off the words as he jumped to his feet again. Then the colonel shook his head. "Looks like the Russians were tired of watching their satellites being knocked out of the sky," the officer announced. "They decided to do something about it."

The Space Command Center grew quiet and tense as everyone watched the blip on the screen steadily approach the red dot that represented Gigan. It took six minutes for the two computer images to converge.

Rodofsky looked up from his monitor. "Teal Sapphire has just recorded a nuclear blast in space," he reported gravely.

"They used a nuke!" Colonel Wistendahl cursed.

"Well, sir, maybe they finished it off," Rodofsky offered hopefully.

"No such luck!" Jackson cried. "Gigan is still there ... and he's pissed!"

"Clarify, Airman!" Wistendahl barked.

"The creature has changed course, Colonel," Jackson reported in a brisk military fashion. "It is beginning a descent."

"Oh, my God," Rodofsky muttered. "It's heading for Russia!"

"More accurately," Jackson announced, "it's heading for Baikonur Cosmodrome."

Saturday, December 9, 2000, 10:01 P.M.
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Energia-Buran
launch site
On the Kazakhstan steppes east of the Aral Sea

Floodlights and precisely directed spotlights illuminated the crowning achievement of the newly revived Russian space program - the multipurpose carrier vehicle-shuttle complex
Energia-Buran
. An influx of foreign money from Japan, Europe, and the United States had made this leap in Russian space technology possible.

When the
Mir
was destroyed, it looked as if Russian space exploration had died with it. But renewed interest in building an international space station - and the knowledge that dangers such as King Ghidorah might lurk in space - fueled the development of the Russian shuttle program as an adjunct to America's program.

The brightly lit ground complex designed for the launch of the
Energia-Buran
featured a huge assembly hangar, cryogenic propellant depots, and the uniquely designed launchpad itself. Off in the distance, the concrete landing runway for the
Buran
space shuttle's return to Earth - a field that had never yet been used - waited for the
Buran
's maiden voyage. A new age was about to begin with the launch of Russia's version of the U.S. space shuttle in just a few days' time.

Already, technicians had assembled the various stages of the
Energia
rocket booster in the weatherproof hangar. The huge railway trains designed for the task had moved the completed booster and shuttle to the main launch complex. Now the
Energia-Buran
stood proudly on the launchpad, its nose pointed at the stars shimmering in the desert sky.

Work had been interrupted earlier, when the scientists and technicians first noticed lights and activity at the Proton launch site on the other side of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. As far as anyone knew, no Proton rocket was scheduled to be launched - yet within hours after the flurry of activity began, the men working on the
Energia-Buran
were stunned into silence when a rocket indeed lifted off from that distant pad, lighting up the Russian night with its fiery exhaust.

Now, more than an hour later, the excitement of the mysterious, unscheduled launch had died in the face of the daunting work that still needed to be done before the
Energia-Buran
could fly into history.

As men in cold-weather gear scrambled around the base of the
Energia
booster rocket, high-pressure pipes were hooked up to the boosters themselves. Other technicians in white coats scrambled around on the catwalks of the delicate-looking two-story launch tower. Two elevators constantly moved up and down inside, carrying men and material to their workstations.

Underneath the rocket, inside the five-story concrete hexagon that served as the launching pad, scientists and ground crew members were performing vital system checks on the high-pressure hydraulic pipes and gas ducts.

There were over 400 rooms inside this pad. The rooms were filled with instruments and equipment that still needed to be installed in the booster before the launch could commence.

In the distance, lights burned in the huge, 787-foot-long, 175-foot-high vehicle assembly hangar. There, railcars were loaded with explosive fuel, destined to be pumped into the
Buran
shuttle's engine tanks. The shuttle, which was already attached to the hull of the
Energia
three-stage booster, gleamed white in the spotlights.

The booster rockets themselves had already been fueled before being railed out to the launch pad. It was a hazardous practice, but part of the Russian space program since its inception.

The Russian shuttle looked remarkably like its NASA counterpart. In fact, only an educated observer could tell them apart. The
Buran
was white, covered by heat-resistant tiles; it had swept-back wings and a drooping nose that was painted in antiglare black.

Around the
Energia-Buran
pad was a forest of service facilities, diverters, and the floodlights - which could be pointed at a specific area of the shuttle or booster for work at night.

There were also tall lightning-protection masts to draw nature's fury away from the sensitive rocket during the many storms that blow across the steppes.

As midnight passed, work continued - until the unexpected sound of the cosmodrome's early-warning system began to wail. The alarm system was a relic of the Cold War days, a precaution against an American sneak attack.

The men halted their work and exchanged uneasy glances. One of the project directors cursed aloud and flipped open his cellular phone.

"This has to be a mistake," he muttered angrily.

But the man could not raise anyone on his cell phone. Satellite communications were down - or his cell phone battery was dead. In the distance, some of the workers began to heed the air-raid warning and moved to their designated bomb shelters.

Dropping the cell phone into the pocket of his overalls, the project director crossed a concrete plain to a communications post. There, a hardwired phone was installed for just such an emergency.

The director lifted the phone and clicked the receiver. On the other side of Baikonur, at the Leninsk control facility, an excited voice answered.

"What is this nonsense?" the director spat. "We have mere days to prepare for the launch, and you have my men excited over nothing!"

But the voice on the other end of the line ignored the project director's words. "Get into the shelters," the voice cried excitedly. "We believe an attack is imminent."

Attack?
the project director thought.
Attack by whom?

The director slammed the phone onto its hook. He turned and saw technicians and scientists staring at him. They were waiting for instructions.

"Well, what are you waiting for!" the director cried. "Get to the shelters."

The men took off in a run. But it was already too late.

"Look!" a ground crewman cried, pointing at the dark horizon. Others paused and turned, staring into the darkness. Despite the blinding lights of the launchpad, a glowing streak was evident in the night sky.

The project director grunted. That glow resembled the one that often surrounded a space vehicle as it reentered the atmosphere.

The director felt a touch of fear. He turned and pushed the scientist in front of him. "Get to the shelter, Dmitri," he commanded. But the scientist, along with several others, was too mesmerized by the vision dropping out of space toward them.

Three minutes later, Gigan slammed into the middle of Baikonur Cosmodrome. The creature landed in a forest of rocket-fuel tanks and high-pressure pipes near Pad Number Two - the Proton site, which had launched so mysteriously earlier that night.

A mushroom cloud of fiery fuel blossomed over the space center. The explosion was so brilliant that it lit the entire cosmodrome as if it were early afternoon.

The technicians at the Proton site, who had just launched the orbital missile that struck the creature, had fled to their underground shelters at the first sound of the air-raid alarm. Now torrents of burning liquid fuel gushed into the crowded shelters. Men and women died screaming.

In the midst of the firestorm, Gigan rose to its feet and howled into the night. Its single scarlet eye glowed in the creature's head. Above that eye, a tiny red dot flickered eerily.

The gigantic creature turned and moved toward the Proton assembly building nearby. As Gigan walked, its single-clawed foot knocked aside the heavy railcars that transported rockets to their launch pads.

Under Gigan's fearsome tread, the tracks curled and buckled, and concrete shattered. Underground pipes burst, and water spewed from the ground.

Gigan slammed into the Proton's assembly hangar, which was still brightly lit - powered by its own internal electric generators. The creature opened its beak, and a shrill machine sound suddenly shattered the night. The huge buzz saw built into the cyborg's chest began to whirl, until the individual blades were lost in a blur.

Then Gigan slammed, belly first, into the assembly building, the blades cutting into the walls of the hangar. The hollow building was twice the size of the sixty-five-meter-tall creature. But Gigan's terrible power was tremendous.

The hangar crumpled under the cyborg's assault. The roof came down on top of Gigan's head, but the creature was not even stunned. Shaking off debris and whole sections of steel framework, Gigan lurched into the center of the building. As the walls collapsed around the monster, high-pressure fuel lines began to blow up.

Gigan staggered through the exploding building, finally stumbling out the other side as blazing debris flew in all directions. The noise and explosions seemed to infuriate the monster even further.

One curved metallic forearm lashed out, knocking down a swaying launch tower. As the steel-frame structure slowly tilted and fell, an underground fuel tank detonated. It sent the tower flying into the sky like one of the rockets that once rose into space from that very pad.

Kilometers away, a HIND military helicopter rose from the airfield on the far side of the town of Leninsk. The sprawling town was the home of thousands of scientists, cosmonauts, engineers, technicians, and their families. Inside the helicopter, the top directors of the Baikonur Cosmodrome and their immediate family members were being evacuated.

But the movement attracted Gigan's attention. Its dead red eye focused on the object in the distance, and the creature stood stock-still. Suddenly a red beam of energy sprang from the tiny dot in the middle of Gigan's forehead.

The light stabbed through the darkness, striking the helicopter as it attempted to escape. The chopper instantly blew apart in a yellow blast, raining debris onto the runway and igniting several aircraft parked on the tarmac. These fires quickly spread to the hangars and to several other helicopters idling for takeoff.

Now two sections of the Baikonur Cosmodrome were burning.

But not yet satisfied with the destruction it was meting out, Gigan turned to the brightly illuminated
Energia-Buran
launchpad a kilometer or more away. With surprising speed, the 25,000-ton creature lumbered across the steppes to the other launchpad.

With the creature's imminent approach, the shelters near the pad began to disgorge frightened technicians and scientists, who fled the monster's apocalyptic destruction.

Sunday, December 10, 2000, 11:00 A.M.
Parque Molinas, Miraflores
Central Lima, Peru

Her gigantic shadow falling across the buildings of central Lima, the airship
Destiny Explorer
was docked on a temporary mooring tower and an elevator tower erected in a small, tidy park in the heart of the crowded city of seven and a half million souls. Mycroft E. Endicott was as true as his word. The mast and elevator tower were waiting when the airship arrived in Lima.

This South American metropolis was one of the first European settlements in the New World, and was founded by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro - who, in 1535, actually laid out the 117 blocks of the main town with his own hand on a blank sheet of parchment.

The city had since grown, and the latter half of the twentieth century saw the rise of the
pueblos jovenes
- literally "young towns" - the terrible shanty-towns where most of the unskilled rural laborers ended up living after they moved to the city to find work. These settlements had rampant crime, and they lacked electricity, running water, and sanitation facilities. Most of the waste from the shantytowns ended up in the Pacific Ocean.