"As far as the soldiers are concerned, they are trained for this. If it means death, they will accept that," the colonel said icily.
Then he stood up and leaned over the table toward Simon Townsend. The colonel's voice dropped an octave.
"Though this is not yet general knowledge," Colonel Briteis announced, "I am authorized to inform you of this, Mr. Townsend ...
"Right now, even as we speak, a previously unknown monster is raging through the Russian Republic. That creature came from the mysterious pit in Antarctica - we know that - and so did at least two other creatures who have not yet shown their ugly faces."
The colonel paused and stood up to his full height.
"Someone or something at the South Pole has declared war on humanity, Mr. Townsend, and it's up to the Airborne Rangers to put a stop to it."
Yuri Gagarin Highway
Five kilometers outside Baikonur Cosmodrome
"Yes, yes, run along to Moscow, you chicken-turd little peasant cowards!" the officer bellowed loudly from his position in the command hatch of the speeding T-80 main battle tank.
"The big, bad monster has you all on the run. And whom do you call? Why the heroes of the Russian Army, of course!"
Sergeant Yuri Chevakov twirled the corners of his handlebar mustache as he directed more venom at the fleeing populace who choked the two-lane highway. The refugees were fleeing in the opposite direction from which the tanks were coming, hindering the soldiers sent to do battle with the mysterious creature.
"Get out of the way, you fools!" Chevakov cried, waving a group of people away from a stalled Russian-built automobile that had died in the middle of the roadway. Without slowing, the T-80 slammed into the car, smashing it off the road, over a guardrail, and into a drainage ditch that ran parallel to the raised roadway.
Chevakov laughed as a civilian shook his fist at the passing column of tanks.
"Yes, we are here to save your skins, comrades!" Chevakov cried. "You don't have to thank us."
The civilian was left to choke on the diesel exhaust of the tanks, which was polluting the late-afternoon sky.
With his bluster and bellicose voice, the Russian sergeant reminded his men of a parody of an arrogant czarist officer from the old days of the Russian Empire. Of course, no one ever said that to Chevakov's face.
If someone did, he would probably give him a good beating - and then buy the man a vodka, if he had any rubles in his pocket.
Yuri Chevakov was not the kind of man who held a grudge.
As the tank rounded a curve in the road, a boxy Russian-built Zil limousine came right at them at a fast clip. At the last minute, the driver of the car lost the game of chicken with the nearly fifty-ton tank. He swerved off the road and into the drainage ditch.
Before the car flipped over, Chevakov saw the pale face of a woman peering out from the backseat window of the black vehicle.
She was screaming.
"Yes, well," Chevakov said fatalistically as the tank rolled by. "Maybe next time you will remember to pay us soldiers more regularly with the money you earn from your capitalistic factory collectives!"
In the 1950s, when the cosmodrome was constructed, the area around Baikonur was a vast empty steppe. Since then, because of the huge and sprawling space center, a whole city called Leninsk had grown up in the desert. It was a town of schools, tradesmen, businesses, and even a Palace of Culture.
But on this day, the inhabitants of Leninsk were fleeing their homes in the wake of the monster that had dropped out of the night sky hours before.
Now, as morning brushed the horizon, Sergeant Chevakov, at the head of the fast-moving column of T-72 and T-80 main battle tanks, could see the red fires of the cosmodrome burning in the distance.
"Here we come, monster," Chevakov cried, shaking his fist at the inferno that flickered on the horizon.
"Maybe the capitalists cannot kill giant monsters, but we Russians can!"
As he shouted those words, another huge explosion lit up the distant horizon. A plume of fire and smoke rose hundreds of feet into the sky. The initial blast was followed by several secondary explosions.
Chevakov pulled a map from his pocket and scanned it in the dim glow of his flashlight. He tried to orient himself and discover where the explosion had actually occurred.
"It looks as if our nation's space program has been dealt another serious blow," the sergeant announced to no one in particular. "That fire over there was once the Energia-Buran pad ..."
Bridge of the Yuushio-class submarine Takashio
Sea of Japan
Captain Sendai slapped the control console in front of him.
"Course and speed?" he demanded.
The sonarman replied without looking up from his screen. "Still moving in the same direction and at the same speed, Captain," the man replied with crisp precision.
Sendai turned to his first mate. The second-in-command's face glowed softly in the red lights of the bridge.
"Estimated time of arrival?" Captain Sendai asked the first mate.
The man glanced down at the illuminated map table in front of him. "If Godzilla continues to move at his present course and speed, he will reach Honshu in less than five hours, Captain Sendai," the first mate replied. As he spoke, his fingers traced the probable path of the monster.
Captain Sendai slumped into his command chair. "That's it, then," he announced. "We must notify the government of a possible landing by Godzilla."
Three hours before, Captain Sendai's sonar had first picked up Godzilla. The captain hadn't expected to find the monster in the Sea of Japan - the last time he'd tracked the creature, he'd been in the Sea of Okhotsk, and he had been moving away from Japan.
Something had turned the creature around. For some mysterious reason, Godzilla was returning to the shores of Sendai's homeland.
"Helm," Captain Sendai barked, rising from his chair. "Blow the main ballast, and take her up ... We must break radio silence and send a warning immediately."
Fifteen minutes later, the Takashio floated on the water's choppy surface. The communications mast had been raised, but the radioman had failed to make a satellite link. Captain Sendai checked his computer log and knew exactly where the Japanese satellite should have been ... but for some inexplicable reason it was gone, or dead.
Sendai tried to raise another Japanese vessel. When that failed, he attempted to contact a U.S. Navy ship. But that effort was unsuccessful as well.
"Damn!" Sendai cursed. "Try to raise another ship. There must be some way to warn the mainland that Godzilla is coming!"
Government Palace
Plaza de las Armas
Lima, Peru
The meeting had just ended, and the details of the shift in command of the Destiny Explorer had been worked out. Now, Simon Townsend watched as the U.S. Army Airborne Rangers piled into two trucks parked outside the Government Palace.
The soldiers were in full combat gear and carried M-16 assault rifles, grenades, and an assortment of light weaponry. They were clad in camouflage BDUs and Kevlar "Fritz" helmets, and each man's bulky backpack seemed big enough to tip him over at any time.
Colonel Briteis directed the men as they mounted the trucks and loaded crates of spare ammunition. Simon closely watched the man who would now be commanding him. The airship designer had a definite distrust of soldiers, though Briteis seemed honest enough, if a little aggressive.
As Simon watched, Dr. Max Birchwood emerged from the palace, carrying a backpack and a laptop computer. He, too, was wearing army BDUs. Except for his slim physique and his wild and unruly beard, the kaijuologist looked just like the rest of the soldiers.
"Am I supposed to wear a uniform, too?" Townsend asked, only half-jokingly. Dr. Birchwood halted in his tracks and approached the airship designer.
"I know how you feel, Mr. Townsend," he said sympathetically. "I'm a scientist, too, and I've had a number of projects about which I cared very dearly pulled out from under me in my time."
"Well," Townsend said, relenting, "at least my daughter won't be making this trip. I'd hate to have to worry about her safety -"
Suddenly, the earth beneath the Plaza de las Armas began to quake. The ground itself seemed to ripple, and a great rumbling filled their ears. The soldiers reacted first. Most of them bailed out of the trucks and hugged the ground. Some of the men rolled under the trucks themselves as a tree branch dropped to the pavement nearby.
Dr. Birchwood tugged on Townsend's shoulder and pulled him away from the palace. Pieces of the building's facade began to drop off. In the distance, they could hear windows breaking and people crying out in alarm. Across the plaza, a wrought-iron lamppost tilted and fell into the street.
The quaking lasted for several minutes. Then, just as Simon Townsend began to think it would never end, it did.
A strange calm descended on the city. In the distance, sirens began to wail.
"Okay, okay, let's go," Colonel Briteis barked at his men as he clapped his hands. "Mount up and let's get moving!"
Reluctantly, the soldiers rose from their safe positions on the ground and climbed into the trucks. Dr. Birchwood and Simon Townsend stood nearby, listening as more sirens rose from the city around them.
Suddenly, a man in a Peruvian military uniform burst through the gate of the Government Palace and called to Colonel Briteis in Spanish. They exchanged words in an intense conversation. Dr. Birchwood and Townsend, both curious, approached the two soldiers.
"What's going on?" the kaijuologist asked. Colonel Briteis pulled off his Kevlar helmet and scratched his head.
"Colonel Torres here claims that a giant monster has broken out of the ground under one of the pueblos jovenes and is wrecking the city."
11
ARMAGEDDON
Parque Molinas, Miraflores
Central Lima, Peru
When the quake first began, Corporal Sean Brennan had ordered his men away from the airship's mooring mast and down onto the ground. Soon the vibrations had intensified, and he'd hugged the earth, too. This was the second major earthquake they'd experienced since arriving in Peru. The soldiers were becoming old hands at it.
You just had to know what to do until it passed.
Out beyond the boundary of Parque Molinas, the crowds that had gathered in the streets to see the Destiny Explorer dropped to the pavement. The earth rumbled, windows shattered, and a marble statue in the center of the park began to sway. So did the temporary mooring tower and cargo elevator. The members of the INN ground crew began yelling, but there was nothing to be done.
Finally, the quake passed. The mast and tower remained intact.
Then the sirens started to wail.
"This is worse than California," Bob Bodusky complained.
"Hey, look over there! "Jim Cirelli cried, pointing to an area of the city in the distance. Smoke began to rise in dark, rolling clouds. "Do you think something caught fire?"
***
Inside the observation deck of the Destiny Explorer, Nick Gordon and Robin Halliday spotted the cloud of smoke rising into the sky from the "new town" across the brown waters of the Rio Remac, on the other side of the city. From their vantage point high above the area of Lima called Miraflores, Nick and Robin had a pretty good view of the monster that suddenly emerged from the trembling ground!
Robin cried out when she saw the insectoid head rise above a cluster of wooden and paper huts and shelters that made up the shantytown. While she watched, entire structures leaped into the air as gigantic pointed claws lashed out at everything around them. People spilled out of those buildings, dropping into the pit from which the creature emerged.
"I've got to find my video camera!" Nick cried, tearing into his suitcase.
***
Ned Landson and Peter Blackwater were in the hangar bay saying good-bye to the Messerschmitt-XYB, regretting that they'd never tried out the toy on which both of them had worked so hard. They were joking about hijacking the XYB when they suddenly felt the airship shake. At first they thought it was just an errant gust of wind that had pushed the ship.
Then they heard the rumble of the Earth many feet beneath the airship. The boys ran to a view port in the hangar deck and peered outside - just in time to see a giant green monster crawl out of the pit in the heart of a shantytown!
"Wow!" Ned cried. "This is so cool in the extreme!"
Peter felt less enthusiastic. But Ned is a biologist, he reasoned. And that thing out there is a new form of life!
"I want a better view of this," Ned proclaimed.
"We're not going down there, are we?" Peter replied.
"Nope," Ned answered, grabbing his shoulder. "I know a way to the top of the airship!" With that, Ned dashed off with Peter in tow.
"Do you mean on top?" Peter asked nervously. "Like ... on the hull?"
"Sure!" Ned said as he began to climb a narrow ladder that ran through the center of the hull.
In the Plaza de las Armas ...
As soon as Colonel Torres brought the Airborne unit the news about the creature, the army trucks moved off. Together, Simon Townsend and Dr. Birchwood clambered into the back of one of the ten-ton, six-wheeled, camouflage-green vehicles.
The military column, led by Colonel Torres's Hummer, left the plaza and entered the streets of Lima. Already, the city was in chaos. People stumbled in every direction. Some carried possessions. Others dragged children behind them.
A few minutes later, as they cautiously navigated the narrow, crowded streets, the colonels, Torres and Briteis, got their first view of the monster.
"What the hell is that?" Colonel Briteis exclaimed, looking up at the creature, which was fortunately still a good distance away. The thing looked like a big bug with two pointed metal drills for hands. As he watched, the monster slammed its foreclaws together. Sparks flew, and a clanging peal echoed over the city.
"Bad news, Colonel Briteis," Colonel Torres told the U.S. Army officer in Spanish. "That diablo is between us and the flying ship!"
Sunday, December 10, 2000, 8:10 P.M.
Outskirts of Leninsk
Near Baikonur Cosmodrome
The Russian tanks reached the suburbs of Leninsk at about the same time that Gigan reached the opposite end of the town. General Borodin would have preferred to confront the monster on the steppes, or even in the vast cosmodrome itself, which had plenty of empty space for his tanks to maneuver.
But the flood of refugees fleeing the town had slowed the progress of the defense troops. The tanks - fifty-five T-72s and twenty-five T-80s - had arrived more than an hour late.
Worse still, Borodin had no artillery - and artillery was the backbone of all Russian military tactics.
"Without artillery, you cannot fight a battle." Borodin heard these words all during his decades of military training. But in this case, he did not have the luxury of time. The general had been ordered by the prime minister himself to destroy the creature right here at Baikonur.
And it would be another two hours before the artillery was in position.
Anyway, his former military instructors had fought Nazis in the Great Patriotic War - not monsters in an age of monsters.
Borodin found little comfort in that knowledge. The general cursed the inefficiency of the new Russian Army and the chaotic political situation in the region. Baikonur, which had once had its own division of troops to guard it from internal and external threats in the days of the Soviet Union, now shared civil defense troops with the independent government of Kazakhstan.
General Borodin pulled off his oversized hat and rubbed his right hand through the dirty-gray stubble on his head. A short, bulky sixty-eight-year-old man with an even temperament, Leonid Borodin projected an aura of power and authority.
He paced around the command trailer for a few moments, considering his options. Then he stooped over a map table. The illuminated surface displayed a detailed map of the city.
Already, Borodin had sent scouts into the area, and they were constantly
reporting on the creature's whereabouts. According to the latest report, the monster had reached the heart of Leninsk. The creature's position was marked with a blip on his map display.
Not that Borodin had to look far to find the creature - he only had to look for fires on the horizon.
His decision made, the general crossed the command trailer and tapped his communications officer on the shoulder. The man, who sat in front of a huge communications console, removed his bulky earphones and looked up at his commander.
"The attack will commence in twenty minutes," General Borodin announced. "The tanks will enter Leninsk from three directions, as planned. The tank commanders are to use concentrated fire to destroy the creature upon contact."
As the general spoke, the communications officer scribbled notes on a piece of blank paper.
"Even if that attack fails, it will buy us time," the general continued in a rare moment of candor. "In two hours the artillery will be in position to finish off the monster."
Hull of the Destiny Explorer
Over Lima, Peru
"Up here," Ned cried to Peter, who was still climbing the narrow ladder far beneath him. When the older teen reached the top, his progress was blocked by a round aluminum hatch. Ned studied the latch mechanism for a moment, then threw it. Fresh air gushed into the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel they'd been climbing through. Ned pushed again, and the hatch clanged open.
Scrambling to the top of the ladder, Ned pulled himself out of the tunnel and onto the top of the Destiny Explorer's hull. Winds blasted him, throwing his long blond hair over his eyes. Ned brushed it aside and helped Peter out of the tunnel. But when the Native American teenager crawled onto the hull, he clutched the handhold and wouldn't stand up. His raven-black shoulder-length hair whipped around in the wind.
Ned rose unsteadily, but immediately dropped down again when the airship lurched. Both he and Peter could feel the Explorer swaying beneath them. Ned was ready to go back down the ladder when Peter spotted a yellow sign. He pulled on Ned's arm and pointed.
Godzilla at World's End Page 15