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.
27
THE KING OF
TERROR COMES!
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.
He recommended that Mir be evacuated immediately.
* * *
Seven minutes later, as the American astronauts were still scrambling to free the crowded Atlantis from Mir's docking ring, the mysterious object from the depths of space came rushing toward the space station.
But it was more than just an object - it was a living creature, and it was riding the winds of space on golden wings.
Dr. Mishra made no move to evacuate. Instead, he downloaded the shocking real-time images of the golden creature to the NASA monitoring station. It was the least he could do.
After all, it had been his plan to destroy the asteroid threat with nuclear missiles.
How could he have known that the blast would destroy one threat, but release another? How could he have known a terrible creature had been trapped within those cold, dark rocks that had been circling the galaxy for eons?
He could not have known. Yet, like so many scientists before him, who never anticipated the horrible ends their discoveries and inventions could create, Dr. Mishra felt somehow responsible.
As the golden-scaled being loomed larger through the viewport, Dr. Mishra activated Mir's exterior cameras and sent the signals with the rest of the data.
He no longer cared about his own life... only what he could do to help save the billions of lives back home.
* * *
At the NASA Deep Space Observation Station in Houston, the scientists and technicians watched the huge monitor as the first images of the space creature Dr. Mishra had discovered came into view.
Brilliantly lit by the sun's rays reflected off the earth's atmosphere, the immense, golden-hued creature with three heads filled the central monitor. The being was completely covered with golden scales. Its three snakelike necks were crowned by three independently functioning heads that looked almost exactly like traditional Asian sculptures of dragons.
On the smaller monitors surrounding the central screen, real-time images were downloaded from a surveillance satellite in orbit. These monitors showed Mir, with the Atlantis still hooked to the docking ring, floating helplessly in space.
"Hurry up, damn you... hurry up!" the usually calm Dr. Strickler shouted to the flickering, silent television screens.
On the satellite pictures, Mir appeared tranquil and serene. Yet Dr. Strickler knew in his gut that death was approaching it on huge golden wings.
* * *
Aboard Mir, Dr. Mishra felt the whole space station shake. He peered out the thick window and saw a Soyuz TM emergency evacuation capsule blast free of the station and drop toward the blue-and-green planet far below.
Mir shook again as a second Soyuz capsule followed the first.
Meanwhile, the American astronauts were rushing through the undocking and start-up procedures, even though the shuttle would never be able to launch in time.
In the pilot's seat, the commander of the Atlantis ran through the launch procedures faster than he'd even done before. Suddenly, he heard a gasp from the co-pilot. The commander looked up from his control panel through the shuttle's thick windows.
The three-headed horror was diving out of the star field toward them, the long necks twisting sinuously. As the commander and his co-pilot watched helplessly, the monster spat out powerful rays from each mouth.
A single jagged bolt of power struck Mir's central module, and Mir exploded instantly. The outer modules, which were connected to the central section by flimsy docking tunnels, broke into pieces, spilling their contents into the vacuum of space. As the astronauts watched, humans were dumped without protection into the airless void.
The occupants of the demolished space station didn't have time to suffocate to death - explosive decompression mercifully ended their lives in seconds.
As secondary explosions ripped through Mir, the docking ring broke loose. Debris and one of the solar panels pelted the fuselage of the Atlantis as the shuttle, still without power, spun free and tumbled uncontrollably down into the earth's gravity well, where the atmosphere waited to burn it up.
A third explosion tore the Kvant module apart. A huge portion of the cylindrical hull dashed itself against the floundering Atlantis. The shuttle's still-open bay door ripped free with the force of the impact. The hull of the Atlantis was ruptured in three places, and white-hot shrapnel ripped through the engine and into the fuel tank.
The orange ball of fire that was once the Atlantis expanded, engulfing the shattered remains of Mir.
The three-headed monster streaked past the explosion, toward the blue-green waters of the Atlantic Ocean below. As the creature encountered the earth's atmosphere, its golden scales began to glow bright red from the friction of reentry. The brilliant glare was visible all across the Northern Hemisphere.
* * *
The NASA Deep Space Observation facility immediately alerted the NORAD defense system that an unidentified creature was entering the atmosphere from outer space. NORAD instantly passed on the warning to other nuclear powers, just in case someone got the wrong idea and launched a nuclear strike.
As the monster plunged through the atmosphere, it left a bright trail of superheated gases that turned night into artificial day. The massive creature was easily observed on radar as well. American, Canadian, Russian,
and European tracking stations followed the creature as it slowed its descent.
As it approached sea level, the monster leveled off and flew over the North Sea, between the coasts of Norway and Great Britain. Instantly, the British Royal Air Force scrambled interceptors from their northern air bases. In minutes, the night sky over the frigid North Sea was filled with warplanes.
* * *
The Gullfaks oilfield lies in the middle of the North Sea between Britain and mainland Europe. The nearest land is the Norwegian coast, over 110 miles away. In the middle of that oilfield, rising from the black waters, a cluster of a thousand floodlights and an intermittent blast of fire marked the location of the largest seagoing gas and oil production platform in the world.
The Gullfaks D oil pumping station, just completed in 1998, consisted of a steel platform resting on top of four massive concrete pillars and a base, which rested on the bottom of the sea almost 800 feet below the waves.
The highest point of Gullfaks D - the flare stack, where excess gas is burned off in spectacular bursts of rolling fire - rose almost 500 feet from the ocean's surface.
The framework was covered with many decks and structures and housed working and living quarters for 400 petroleum workers, a power station that generated enough electricity to run a whole town, production equipment, derricks for loading and unloading material, and a circular helicopter pad.
There was even a small hospital and a leisure center with a movie theater, a gym, and a coffee bar.
On this night, as the skies over the North Sea were lit up like day, many of the workers crowded on the upper decks, trying to get a closer look at the celestial phenomenon.
A few hundred yards away, clearly visible in the unnatural brightness, an oil tanker bobbed on the waves, waiting for the signal to dock and take on some of the 275,000 barrels of oil that the rig pumped up from wells under the ocean floor each and every day.
As the petroleum workers stared into the night sky, a ball of fire appeared on the horizon. The huge glowing object seemed to get closer and closer every second. Suddenly, a sonic boom washed over the men, shaking the platform as it echoed across the waves.
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