Godzilla at World's End (21 page)

"Those guys are crazy!" Peter exclaimed, tensing for the horror to come.

For almost a minute, the police line fired round after round at the monster. The creature did not even notice them at first, but when an armored truck came up behind the police phalanx and fired several bursts from a turret-mounted heavy machine gun, the monster looked down at them.

Lightning danced along the star-shaped horn, and a red bolt of jagged energy arced downward, rippling across the line of policemen. Their riot shields were futile as death rained on them. The men fell with screams on their lips.

When the arc of energy danced to the armored car, the vehicle exploded. The force of the blast blew the doors and hatches off. A man was blasted out of the gun turret like a rag doll as the entire vehicle lifted off the street and flipped onto its side.

The police - what few of them were left alive - beat a hasty retreat.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning from the creature arced right over the two teens. Ned and Peter instantly dropped to the hull as the hairs on their heads stood on end from the proximity of so much electric energy.

They heard an explosion behind them. Ned turned and saw the target of the energy bolt. The flaming remains of some type of helicopter were dropping out of the sky. The aircraft crashed down in the middle of a crowded plaza as people scattered in all directions.

The realization hit Peter and Ned at the same time:
This ship could be struck at any moment.

Streets of Leninsk
Baikonur Cosmodrome

Sergeant Yuri Chevakov's T-80 tank, along with the rest of the tanks in his division, had been playing cat and mouse with the monster through the city streets for more than an hour.

The sergeant decided he did not like that game anymore.

Soon after the vehicles reached the heart of the city, rubble and debris from fallen buildings blocked their progress. In the smoke and confusion, the various units became separated. A three-pronged attack that was meant to surround the creature and drive it out of the town turned into chaos.

Soon, the battle was down to tank units of two or three vehicles. Some of the less-experienced men were so edgy that they fired at anything. Chevakov saw a T-72 near his heavier, more advanced tank destroyed by friendly fire.

He couldn't understand how a gunner could mistake a tank for a sixty-five-meter-tall monster!

The tanks were having a tough time hitting the monster as well. Though Leninsk was not a huge metropolis with towering skyscrapers, it was still difficult to get a clean shot at the gigantic blue-and-golden-scaled creature in the heart of the city.

Twice before, Sergei, his driver, had gotten them lost in the smoke and confusion of battle. They even drove down a dead end at one point. The street was so narrow that Sergei had to throw the T-80 in reverse and back out again.

A little while ago, they had gotten lucky. As the T-80 emerged onto a wide boulevard lined with shattered, burning buildings, Sergeant Chevakov spotted the monster in the crosshairs of his infrared targeting system.

The sergeant immediately pressed the fire-control trigger. The tank bucked with the recoil of the 125-millimeter cannon. But at that precise second, the creature ducked its head to swipe its curved claw at a T-72 tank that had emerged from another direction. Chevakov's shot went right over the creature's horned head.

The tank that the monster had struck flew apart. The turret slammed into a line of buildings even as the hull bounced down the wide boulevard like a toy thrown by a spoiled child.

Chevakov slapped the cannon, impatient for the automatic loader to spew the empty shell out of the chamber and feed a new high-explosive round in. When the operation was completed, he quickly put his eye to the sight again.

But the creature had moved on.

Too slow! Too slow!
thought the tank commander, cursing the loader.

The automatic loader was the bane of the Russian tank corps. On the one hand, it saved vital resources. The tanks of the NATO armies all had crews of four. A Russian tank needed only three men to operate it in battle. The fourth crewman was replaced by the automatic loader. But the downside was that the loader was
slow
- much slower than a man performing the task. In T-72s the loader was prone to jamming, too. That was not the case with the improved gun of the T-80, but it was still slow. And in battle, speed was decisive.

Chevakov was suddenly glad he had never had to face the Western countries in a full-scale war.

Just then, bricks and debris rained down on the composite armor of the T-80. The driver, shocked into action by the noise, threw the tank into gear, and it leaped forward. Chevakov struck his head against the wall of the compartment.

As the T-80 jumped forward, crawling up and over a pile of debris, Sergeant Chevakov traversed the turret and elevated the gun.

There you are!
he thought with deadly satisfaction as the single red eye of the monster filled his infrared gun sight. His breath hissed out of his mouth as he depressed the trigger.

Again, the T-80 bucked from the recoil. The interior of the tank filled with the smell of cordite. But Chevakov's eye never left the eyepiece. The high-explosive antitank round was designed to penetrate thick armor and detonate in the vulnerable interior of the target. But even through the hull of the tank, Chevakov heard a bell-like clang as his round bounced off the monster's armored scales.

Then Sergei gunned the engine, and the T-80 disappeared around a corner. The monster vanished from the view port's field of vision.

"Sergeant!" his radioman cried out. "I'm getting the recall code from headquarters."

"Retreat?" Chevakov said in disbelief. "The general wants us to
retreat?
"

But the radioman smiled. "Not exactly, Sergeant. The creature is about to be attacked by an artillery bombardment - and then a ballistic missile attack from Kapustin Yar!"

Sergeant Chevakov smiled. In the red-lit interior of the tank, he looked almost devilish with his drooping handlebar mustache. The sergeant knew all about Kapustin Yar. It was another cosmodrome, hundreds of miles away from here and close to the shores of the Caspian Sea.

That facility had huge missiles stored there - missiles capable of dealing with the monster, he was sure. Sergeant Chevakov realized that a missile attack probably meant that their generals were willing to destroy the Baikonur Cosmodrome as well.

But
, the sergeant thought philosophically,
there's not much left of it any way ... and better Baikonur than me and my men!

"All right, Sergei," the sergeant said, slapping the driver on the shoulder. "Get us out of here ..."

Bridge of the
Destiny Explorer
Over Lima, Peru

As the jagged bolt of energy sizzled past the airship, Captain Jack Dolan made a decision.

"I'm getting the ship out of here," he announced.

At one of the observation windows, Shelly Townsend turned to face the captain, her mouth gaping in surprise.

"You can't just leave!" she cried. "What about Dad! What about the soldiers down there? And the ground crew?"

"Look out there, beyond that river," Captain Dolan said, pointing through the window. "Do you see that fire on the opposite shore?" Captain Dolan said, pointing. "
That's
where your father is. He's not going to make it back, Shelly, not now!"

As he spoke, the captain began his preflight checks. His words brought fear to Shelly's heart and tears to her eyes, but Dolan seemed oblivious to her emotional turmoil.

Michael Sullivan was visiting the bridge to say good-bye when the monster appeared. Now he reached out his hand and touched her arm.

"I'm sure your father is okay, Shelly," Michael stated with more confidence than he felt. "We can always make contact with him later - and pick him up somewhere else."

The girl looked at him and rubbed away the tears. She nodded weakly. Outside, an explosion from the city vibrated the windows of the bridge like drums. Shelly jumped from her chair.

"You never answered me, Jack!" she cried. "What about the soldiers down there at the base of the tower? We can't just
leave
them here."

Dolan turned and faced the teenager. "Do what you want to do," he replied, checking the instrument panel. "You've got five minutes to get them aboard before I move the
Explorer
out of harm's way."

"I'm going to the elevator," Shelly announced, rushing past Michael toward the exit.

"Wait!" Captain Dolan commanded. "I need your help here on the bridge."

Shelly pointed to the teenager in the wheelchair. "Michael will help you. He's a smart kid and he knows what's what!"

Then Shelly was gone, headed for the loading dock and the elevator to the surface.

Michael looked up at the captain. "What do you want me to do, sir?" he asked.

***

Meanwhile, on the other side of the river that divided the city, and behind a wall of fire and destruction, the military column led by Colonel Briteis was trapped. The destruction ahead of them was so massive that they could not get around it.

Furthermore, their limited progress was hindered by fleeing crowds of panicked people. Colonel Torres halted the Hummer. Behind him the other trucks in the column stopped, too. Colonel Briteis jumped down from the passenger side of the HMV and looked around.

Dozens of people were lying in the streets. Some of them were not moving, but most were trying to free themselves from under heaps of debris; others were crawling with wounded limbs, trying to escape the wall of fire that consumed the buildings nearby and moved inexorably toward them.

Suddenly, Simon Townsend appeared at Colonel Briteis's shoulder. "We've got to get to the airship!" the designer shouted urgently over the noise and screams. "The
Explorer
could be destroyed by the monster at any moment!"

Colonel Briteis looked at the airship designer. Simon Townsend's eyes were bright, and his pony-tail whipped sharply around his head in the hot gusts of winds churned up by the fires. Then the U.S. Army officer turned toward the injured people scattered, crushed, and trapped in the streets and the buildings all around them.

After a long silence, the soldier turned back and looked Simon Townsend in the eye. "I'm sorry, Simon," Colonel Briteis said. "We're never going to get you to your airship now. But we
can
do some good. Let's help these people."

Simon Townsend was about to argue when Dr. Max Birchwood placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come on," the kaijuologist said. "These people need us."

Leninsk
Baikonur Cosmodrome

The artillery rained down on the ruins of the city of Leninsk for an hour. Tons of explosives detonated inside the city limits, demolishing the few structures that remained standing.

Because the radios in some of the tanks had failed to pick up the recall code, a few remained behind and were caught in the holocaust. Many Russian soldiers died from shells fired by their countrymen.

After the artillery bombardment, Kapustin Yar launched an attack by ballistic missiles fitted with conventional, non-nuclear warheads.

Far away from the blazing city, the few tankers who survived the Battle of Leninsk stuck their heads out of their hatches and gulped fresh air as they watched the missiles arc over their heads and descend on the target area.

But when the horizon had been lit up by millions of tons of explosives - reducing Leninsk, Baikonur, and everything around it to dust - a figure rose, phoenixlike, from the ashes.

Gigan had survived.

The creature scanned the area. Its cyclopean eye glowing in the half-light of the burning city. There was nothing left to destroy, so the cyborg, as per its programming, calculated the trajectory of the missiles that had attacked it.

When Gigan calculated the position from which the rocket attack originated, it spread its wings and took off into the night sky.

Gigan was heading for the cosmodrome at Kapustin Yar at Mach 4 ...

Parque Molinas, Miraflores
Lima, Peru

"I don't like the look of that crowd," Bob Bodusky said nervously, shifting the M-16 in his grip.

Corporal Brennan scanned the crowds fleeing through the streets around the park. So far, the boundaries of the park itself were secure. Since they arrived, it had been guarded by Peruvian paramilitary policemen. But as the insect monster continued its rampage, those policemen were looking plenty nervous as the minutes passed.

"I think they're going to head for the hills any second now," Johnny Rocco announced, eyeing the Peruvians warily.

"Just like those other bums," Tucker Guyson added, referring to the members of the airship's ground crew who had slipped off into the crowd a few minutes before.

Sean Brennan nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing.
What should I do?
the young man wondered, his mind in turmoil.
Should I abandon my post and protect my men, or stay here and risk being killed by the monster - or the mob?

As he ran the options through his head, Sean Brennan saw that the crowds in the streets were beginning to swell. Some of the people were pointing at the airship, no doubt figuring it was a fast way out of town and away from the monster.

"What do we do, boss?" Jim Cirelli asked. Brennan faced his comrade. He noticed that the rest of the squad, along with others on guard duty with them, were looking to him for leadership.

For the hundredth time since he'd been given a temporary field promotion, Brennan regretted it. His mind flashed back to the moment he was given the rank. It was after the skirmish at the Wari ruins.

Colonel Briteis called Brennan into his tent and dropped the bomb in the young man's lap.

"Corporal Franks is going home," the colonel announced, referring to the American soldier who had been wounded. "I like the way you performed out there, Brennan, so you get his job and the temporary field promotion that goes with it," Colonel Briteis announced blandly.

"Sir, yes, sir," Brennan replied, fighting the urge to salute his commander - something you
didn't
do in the field.