Godzilla 2000 (15 page)

* * *

Project Valkyrie's command center was fully activated when the G-Force team responded to the Code One alert. But when they took their assigned places at the control stations, one seat was still empty. "Where's Lori?" Toby asked Tia Shimura.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. Then General Taggart and Colonel Krupp entered the center.

"We've got a situation," the general announced. "I want you all to pay attention to the large monitor..." But before the lights could dim, Toby spoke.

"Where's Lori?" he demanded. "Where's my co-pilot?"

Krupp looked at General Taggart, but the officer‘s stony face was unreadable. The silence stretched on.

"Ms. Angelo has been removed from active duty," Taggart announced finally. "We hope this situation will be temporary."

"What's wrong with her?" Tia asked.

"No further questions!" Colonel Krupp barked. "Eyes front."

The lights in the command center dimmed, and the general began to brief them.

"Sixteen hours ago, seismic instruments detected a mild earthquake near the North Pole. The epicenter was in such a remote area that there were no witnesses or casualties.

"Six hours later, radar tracking stations all over Alaska began to detect a large object in the sky, moving at about 400 miles per hour at an altitude of 55,000 feet. The object was moving from the polar region toward Fairbanks.

"Four F-16s were scrambled out of Eielson to intercept. This footage was shot by one of the pilots..."

The large center television screen came alive - first with static, then with a video image of a dawn sky. Suddenly, a tiny object appeared in the center of the monitor. The image quickly grew in size.

"Wow!" Toby exclaimed. Martin Wong whistled. Tia, Kip, and Pierce Dillard remained gravely silent.

"This creature has been identified by kaijuologists as a mutated
Pteranodon
, a kind of prehistoric flying reptile," General Taggart continued.

"Infrared and other analyses indicate that this creature, like Godzilla, is considerably radioactive. How it was exposed to radiation is still a mystery, though we have a theory..."

Colonel Krupp stepped up to the podium, and the video image of the gigantic flying
kaiju
was replaced with a map of the polar region. On the map, an area near the East Siberian Sea was highlighted.

"Military intelligence believes that the area near the earthquake's center, here in Siberia, was used by the former Soviet Union as a nuclear waste dumping ground. The epicenter is less than two hundred miles from the radioactive site, and they probably share the same water table."

"So," General Taggart added, "if this flying
kaiju
is indeed radioactive, then it probably came from this remote area in Siberia and was released by the quake."

"Where is the
kaiju
now?" Pierce asked.

"In Canadian air space," Colonel Krupp answered. "Even as we speak, elements of the Canadian Air Force are set to intercept and shoot down the creature..."

* * *

In the skies over the central Canadian province of Saskatchewan, a battle was raging.

Sixteen Canadair CF-5 Freedom Fighters, armed with thirty-two AIM Sidewinder missiles, intercepted Rodan. From maximum range, the fighters fired all of their missiles in the hope of bringing the creature down.

With the exception of one Sidewinder, which malfunctioned and dropped to the earth, all of the missiles struck the creature. Though Rodan's flight speed diminished, it was not harmed, so the jets moved to attack with their 20mm M39 cannons.

When the creature spotted the jets, it shifted direction and came at the fighters head-on. The jets fired their cannons, then scattered to avoid a midair collision.

Two of the Freedom Fighters could not move in time, and Rodan slammed into them. One aircraft disintegrated instantly. The other broke in two, and the pieces spun to earth.

Neither pilot ejected in time.

As Rodan blasted past the offending airplanes, the squadron quickly re-formed and went after the monster. Coming in from behind the
kaiju
, the fourteen remaining CF-5s opened up with the cannons once again. And once again, Rodan quickly changed direction in an incredible high-speed turn that rivaled the maneuverability of the top-of-the-line fighters in NATO's arsenal.

The fighters scattered again. This time, two of the Canadian jets collided with each other. Only one pilot was able to punch out. The other was killed in the collision.

Angered by the attack, Rodan did not seek to elude the Canadian pilots. Instead, it attacked the airplanes aggressively.

Blast after blast of electric rays issued from the mutant creatures beak. With each arc of lightning, a CF-5 exploded. At one point, Rodan actually took off after an individual fighter. Though the pilot jinked and turned, he could not avoid Rodan's crushing beak.

In the end, the lone jet was snapped up in Rodan's jaws like prey. The CF-5 exploded in the creature's beak, and the pilot died. But at least the pilot had led the creature away from the rest of the squadron - allowing his comrades to escape.

The seven CF-5s limped back to their base, their ammunition and fuel nearly exhausted.

After the attack, Rodan was tracked on Canadian and U.S. military radar. The creature had resumed its original course, and was moving toward the border of the United States at over 400 miles an hour.

* * *

When it looked as if the briefing had ended, the G-Force team rose to leave the command center. They were halted by General Taggart.

"One more thing," the general announced ominously. Everyone took their seats again.

"I have just received word that the Japanese research vessel
Kongo-Maru
was destroyed in the South Pacific. Three survivors have been picked up in a raft. One of them was dead, a victim of radiation burns."

A grim hush fell over the assembled teenagers.

"The Japanese government has just informed us that Dr. Emiko Takado, the ship's kaijuologist, was pulled alive from that raft," the general added. "She has sustained injuries and is unconscious, so we don't know what happened yet... but I think you all know the probable cause of the ship's destruction."

The general studied their faces. Kip felt as if the Air Force officer could see right through him.

"Tonight," Taggart announced, "at 2000 hours, we will redouble our training efforts and practice night attack strategies utilizing a single aircraft - at least until our personnel problems are resolved."

"Dismissed!" Colonel Krupp cried, and the G-Force team - minus one - filed out of the command center.

For the first time since he had arrived at Project Valkyrie, Kip felt he was in real danger. As he prepared for the night flight in Raptor-One, he recalled Lori Angelo's first words to him, on the day he arrived at Nellis.

"I know you think it's cool to be selected for this mission," she said. "But just remember one thing... in Norse mythology, the Valkyries were also called the Choosers of the Slain."

Sunday June 6, 1999, 10:55 A.M.
The Pacific Ocean

It took the combined navies of the world six days to locate Godzilla. The delay was due to the fact that everyone was looking in the wrong place. The authorities assumed that Godzilla would return to Japanese waters, as he had the last two times he made landfall.

But Godzilla surprised everyone. This time, he headed east.

The USS
Altoona
, a
Los Angeles
-class submarine heading back to its southern port at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, located Godzilla quite by accident. In fact, there almost
was
an accident.

The submarine narrowly avoided colliding with the monster in the ocean depths. The captain surfaced immediately after the close encounter. He reported the incident, as well as his location, to Pacific command headquarters. He also informed them of Godzilla's speed and direction.

The
Altoona
's broadcast caused consternation in military circles, and the president was notified. After a hastily arranged conference in the Oval Office, it was decided that, for the moment, the government would keep the news a secret.

The president wasn't quite ready to inform the American people that Godzilla was only 500 miles away - and heading for the coast of California. Because the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supplied the president with weekly reports on Project Valkyrie, the commander-in-chief knew about the staff crisis in G-Force.

The president decided, in the end, that General Taggart should be notified of Godzilla's approach. However, the general was not to pass on that information to the G-Force team at this time.

The commander-in-chief wanted to try conventional forces before he committed teenagers - albeit exceptionally well-trained and well-disciplined teenagers - to mortal combat with the most powerful and destructive
kaiju
of all.

So while General Taggart pushed his team in simulated and live-fire exercises in Raptor-One and Dr. Markham conducted more experiments on Lori Angelo, elements of the Pacific fleet were steaming toward a section of the Pacific Ocean where a confrontation between an ancient monster and modern, high-tech weapons was about to commence.

* * *

The presidential order put General Taggart between a rock and a hard place. More than anything else, the general wanted to get the team in shape for a confrontation with Godzilla in the near future. But he was not permitted to give them the knowledge that would spur them on and give them a sense of urgency.

Worse still, the general was facing a kind of mutiny over the situation with Lori Angelo. Her teammates remained loyal to her, and wanted to know why she'd been suspended from G-Force so unfairly. Even Colonel Krupp questioned his commander's decision.

General Taggart wanted to know why, too. So he kept Lori on the base - isolated from the others - instead of sending her to a psychiatric institution for more extensive study, as Dr. Markham had suggested. So far, Lori was cooperating, and she remained under the watchful eye of Dr. Markham.

* * *

On the morning of June 8, elements of the Pacific fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral John C. Shiller, prepared to face Godzilla as the creature arrived in the shallow waters off the coast of California.

On the bridge of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS
Nimitz
, Admiral Shiller watched the tranquil waters of the Pacific. Because Godzilla was being escorted by two
Los Angeles
-class submarines, Shiller knew its location at all times.

On the bridge with the admiral, Dr. Max Birchwood scanned the electronic instruments. He watched the image of Godzilla on sonar as the creature moved into attack range.

"Has all commercial shipping been cleared out of the area?" Admiral Shiller asked.

Captain Niles Carnahan nodded. "The last ship was moved out of the area two hours ago," he informed his commander.

"Then you have my permission to alert the submarines," the admiral announced. Instantly, officers on the bridge sent the command out to a fleet of subs waiting in Godzilla's path.

Dr. Birchwood listened to the radio chatter with anticipation. He knew the plan. He had helped formulate it. But the
kaiju
ologist wasn't confident that the scheme would succeed. He had studied Dr. Nobeyama's research on Godzilla, and was convinced that the creature was indestructible.

However, Dr. Birchwood had been ordered to formulate a plan, so he did. But now, as Phase One of his attack went into action, the nervous kaijuologist had grave misgivings.

"All submarines stand by," the First Officer spoke into the radio. Then, after a moment, the admiral gave the command.

"Launch torpedoes!"

A hundred miles away, the fleet of submarines fired a battery of torpedoes at the oncoming monster. The torpedoes were not intended to kill, but to drive Godzilla to the surface for the real attack - for even as the torpedoes were being fired deep beneath the blue waters of the Pacific, a squadron of F-14 Tomcats launched from the Nimitz circled in the sky like birds of prey.

* * *

Hovering less than fifty feet above the waves, three Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters waited for Godzilla to appear. Equipped with anti-submarine warfare gear, the choppers acted as forward air control for the fighters that circled above. The helicopter crews listened intently to their radios and the sonar operator as the torpedo attack was launched in the ocean below.

For what seemed like an eternity after the command to fire was given, nothing happened. The sea below the choppers remained calm.

Then, suddenly, the helos' ASW sonar picked up the sound of the torpedoes detonating underwater. Almost immediately, great spouts of water shot into the sky as the torpedoes struck.

On board SEACAP ONE, Ensign Dale Delany and her co-pilot, Bob Michaelson, exchanged meaningful glances. They were both well versed in naval warfare and, despite what they heard in the pre-mission briefing, neither thought that Godzilla would survive the initial undersea attack.

"I wonder if a carcass the size of Godzilla's will float?" Michaelson mused out loud. "Otherwise, we could be here all day..."

Ensign Delany chanced a quick glance at her copilot. "Stop exaggerating," she quipped. "We've only got five hours of fuel!"

More geysers shot into the air. One explosion was so close it rocked SEACAP ONE and sprayed seawater all over the windshield. "That was close," Michaelson noted calmly.

Another line of blasts tore up the otherwise tranquil waters. Finally, the torpedoes were spent, and the ocean grew calm once more. Ensign Delany turned to her sonarman.

"Got anything?" she asked.

The man shook his head. "I think the explosions fried our sonar buoys," he informed her.

Delany nodded. "Get ready to drop more remote sonar detectors," she commanded. But before her crew could comply, the ocean underneath SEACAP ONE's hull began to bubble, then boil.

"Look!" Michaelson cried, pointing to the water below and in front of them. Ensign Delany stared as the ocean bubbled and began to steam.