Authors: Marc Cerasini
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.
That sound was swiftly followed by the distinctive noise of jet engines. As the men of Gullfaks D watched the skies, three fighters flying in formation raced over their heads, toward the ball of fire in the sky.
"Has a bloody war broken out?" one of the British petroleum workers asked from an upper deck. The others shook their heads, wondering what crisis the world was facing now.
As they watched, the jets raced away, disappearing into the bright night. But before they completely vanished in the distance, the workers saw the aircraft fire their wing-mounted missiles at the brilliant ball of yellow fire on the horizon.
The booming sounds of the missiles detonating sent repercussions skimming over the North Sea. Then they saw an eerie bolt of lightning in the otherwise clear sky. The bolt struck something in the air and a small explosion, like a distant firecracker, flared up and vanished.
"The fighters are shooting at something," one petroleum worker cried.
"Yeah," an American replied. "And something is shooting
back
."
As the men watched, the brilliant ball of fire finally faded. But far away, a small object still glowed in the sky. The American peered through a pair of binoculars, then gasped.
"What is it, mate?" the Brit asked. The American said nothing, but he handed the other man his binoculars. The Brit raised them to his eyes and gazed through the lenses.
"Bloody hell!" he cried.
With a terrible fascination, the men on the platform watched as the glowing object came closer and closer. Soon, they could make out details... gigantic wings, three long necks, twin tails. And then, before it seemed possible, the thing was upon them.
The night sky was filled with a mad cackling sound. The necks writhed angrily as the tremendous golden thing flapped its massive wings. The central head seemed to focus on the brightly lit platform in the middle of the dark water. As the cold, alien eyes looked down at them, the workers began to panic. As one, the men rushed belowdecks to the evacuation stations.
But it was too late.
The three-headed monster opened the gaping maw of its central head and spat a bolt of electricity at the Gullfaks D. The powerful ray skimmed along the North Sea, boiling the water where it touched. Then the jagged bolt of power reached out and struck the Gullfaks D's central section.
Metal seared and melted, and secondary explosions ripped through the Gullfaks living quarters and power station. Then a second bolt of jagged energy lanced out and struck the oil storage facility.
The result was the largest non-nuclear explosion ever to occur on the face of the earth. The Gullfaks D literally vanished in a dazzling, glaring, burning mass of fire. The blast reached into the sky in a fiery mushroom cloud.
The noise would have been deafening, if there had been anyone still alive to hear it.
The force of the explosion capsized the nearby tanker, trapping its helpless crew inside the hull as it sank beneath the tossing waves. On the ocean floor, pipes that led from the drilling stations on the seabed ruptured, spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil into the North Sea.
Over a hundred miles away, windows were shattered in buildings along Norway's coast. The bright blast was visible in Norway, Scotland, and from ships at sea in the North Atlantic.
* * *
At dawn, a press conference was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, announcing the arrival of a new, unknown
kaiju
, more powerful than even Godzilla.
The monster, called King Ghidorah, after the monster predicted by the "Prophetess of Doom," was now circling over Europe. The UN delegates assured the citizens of Earth that everything was being done to protect them from King Ghidorah, and that they should remain calm.
Friday, December 31, 1999, 3:45 P.M.
G-Force mobile command station
La Guardia Airport, Queens, New York
Outside the gigantic C-130 Hercules transport plane, the last afternoon of the twentieth century was windy, brisk, and clear. Miles away from the airport, across the East River, the jagged skyscrapers of Manhattan glittered under a bright blue sky. Even as far away as the airport, hundreds of helicopters were visible above the city.
The air over Manhattan was filled with military, commercial, and privately owned helicopters of every shape and size. Their crews were frantically evacuating the city, not of its citizens, but of its valuable government and corporate records, art objects, and anything else deemed irreplaceable.
The millions of New Yorkers who inhabited the mighty metropolis were already gone. They were camped in cold tents in the outer boroughs, upstate, in New Jersey, Connecticut, and even Pennsylvania. Manhattan was empty, except for the criminals, the homeless, and the insane who still roamed the streets, where they fought one another for the remaining spoils.
On this day, the traditional New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square was usually held. But, for the first time in almost a century, the event was canceled. In its place, Dick Clark was planning a live broadcast from Atlanta to celebrate the holiday.
As Kip Daniels crossed the concrete tarmac toward the aircraft that served as their mobile command center, he pulled his flight jacket close around his neck for protection against the buffeting winds. His mood was as bleak as the nation's.
In the next twenty-four hours, it was likely that he would once again go head-to-head with what he feared most - Godzilla. The monster was moving in a straight line toward Manhattan. At last report, Godzilla had entered the Hudson River near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Currently, he was moving at a steady pace downriver.
Some bridges had been destroyed, and some river barges overturned, but generally Godzilla caused less damage when he moved through the nation's waterways than when he traveled across land.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the skies over France, NATO air forces were about to engage King Ghidorah. The City of Lights had drawn the space monster like a magnet. Hours ago, the monster descended on Paris without warning.
The death toll was staggering. The French government appealed for help.
Their appeal was granted, and the combined forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were mounting a counterattack.
Kip climbed the ramp and entered the aircraft. Inside the mobile command center, the air was hot, dry, and tense. On a raised platform, General Taggart sat in consultation with Colonel Krupp, Dr. Birchwood, and Dr. Markham. Kip saw Tia and Martin watching live images of King Ghidorah squatting in the rubble of the Eiffel Tower.