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  He keyed up the weapons menu, and chose the eight Avenger cannons. He ignored the treetops, which nearly brushed the Raptor's belly, and concentrated on the target.

  He pressed the trigger, and the whole aircraft shook with the force of the guns. In the first second, over 42,000 armor-piercing explosive shells tore into Godzilla's neck.

  That got his attention.

  Godzilla whirled his head around, searching for his attacker. Even as he spun, blue flashes of electricity rippled through the tangle of bony plates on his back. His mouth opened, and Godzilla spat a burst of radioactive fire.

  The blast was undirected, but it forced Kip to pull up, and he lost valuable seconds. As he flashed past Godzilla's left shoulder, Kip spun the aircraft, vainly attempting to reacquire the target in his HUD.

  Smoke still poured from the wound on Godzilla's neck as Kip guided the Raptor to a frontal assault position.

  Let's get this over with, he thought. He flicked a button on his control stick. The heat-resistant panels closed over the Raptor's transparencies. The cockpit got dark for a second, just enough time for the windows to convert to their second function-digital television screens. Hundreds of cameras on the fuselage and wings transmitted real-time images of the exterior of the aircraft.

  The images were so realistic that there was virtually no difference between the television screen and the actual view outside of the cockpit.

  Kip circled Godzilla as he slowed the Raptor to a hover position. Now the Raptor was face-to-face with the mammoth kaiju. The cross hairs on his HUD met in the middle of Godzilla's charcoal-black chest.

  Kip's eyes narrowed ruthlessly as he depressed the trigger.

  Once again, the Raptor was knocked backward by the recoil from its own multiple cannons. And again, over 40,000 rounds of explosive ammunition struck a single point on Godzilla's tough hide. The burst lasted a second and a half. Kip could not risk a longer burst because it affected the stability of the Raptor.

  As the shells slammed into Godzilla, a bell-like yowl of pain burst from his throat.

  It was followed by a blast of blue fire that struck the nose of the Raptor. The heat-resistant space-age tiles did their job. Instantly, they both reflected and dispersed the heat. Godzilla‘s radioactive burst was completely ineffective.

  Kip steadied the Raptor and reacquired the target. Then he fired the cannons in another second-and-a-half burst.

  * * *

  "Get down!" Zelly cried, grabbing her brother's coat and pulling him to the ground. Despite the unexpected move, Billy was able to keep the camera focused on the action. Though the noise of the battle was deafening, he was about to ask what she thought she was doing when a rain of shrapnel came down all around them.

  The expended chunks of depleted uranium tore leaves and branches off the trees. Billy could hear bits of metal striking the rocks and tree trunks, too.

  Behind them, far down at the bottom of the hill, one of their grandparents' horses whinnied in fear or pain. Billy hoped that the animal had not been hurt by the shrapnel.

  His heart was racing, and his adrenaline pumping, but Billy continued to aim the camera at the action.

  * * *

  "Twenty seconds and counting," Nick Gordon, INN's science reporter, said from the NASA observation station. Near the huge screen in the center of the room, Carl Strickler watched real-time images of the Reyes-Mishra Swarm. Everyone was waiting as the digital clock ticked down the last four seconds.

  Three. Two. One... zero.

  For a split second, nothing happened. Then multiple blasts engulfed the asteroid swarm. Everyone in the room exploded in wild applause.

  At least the rockets made it to their targets, Carl thought. Now we have to wait and see if they did the job...

  * * *

  A red emergency light lit up on Martin's engineering board. "Number five cannon failure," he announced. "I think it's jammed."

  "Roger," Kip said, releasing the trigger and ending his third burst. Kip flicked a switch and took number five off-line. Inside the bowels of the Raptor, the cannon unloaded itself and the ammunition was automatically transferred to a working cannon.

  But suddenly Tia cried a warning. She'd seen something on her radar screen.

  "We have an unidentified aircraft inbound," she informed them. One of the monitors inside the cockpit showed a light single-engine airplane approaching the combat zone.

  "Damn!" Pierce cried. "This area was supposed to be cleared of unauthorized aircraft."

  "I'll take care of it," Toby announced from Two.

  "No," Pierce replied. "Don't bring Two in that low. It's too dangerous!"

  "Don't worry," Toby declared over the radio. Pierce was about to protest again, when another blast of Godzilla's rays rocked the aircraft. A secondary explosion caused Raptor-One to shudder.

  "What's the problem?" Pierce barked.

  "The heat shield over missile bay two has failed," Martin said after scanning his engineering panel. "One of the Hellfire missiles detonated inside the pod."

  "We have a fire," Tia announced. She, Martin, and Pierce began firefighting procedures as Kip battled on against Godzilla.

  * * *

  The unauthorized aircraft that flew across the battlefield was flown by a journalist from a local Colorado newspaper. Next to him, a freelance photographer, who sometimes worked for the news show Total Focus, was filming the battle.

  "Get in closer!" the cameraman shouted. But the pilot was worried. The Cessna was already in range of Godzilla's radioactive ray. He didn't want to think about what would happen if they were hit.

  Suddenly, the pilot saw a CV-22 Osprey with gray-and-purple-mottled camouflage drop out of the sky right in front of the Cessna. It was Raptor-Two.

  The pilot of the Cessna immediately dropped the small plane's flaps and swerved to avoid a collision, but Raptor-Two stayed in front of him.

  "Attention, unidentified aircraft," a woman's voice said over their radio. "You are in restricted airspace, interfering with a United States military operation. I strongly advise you to leave immediately."

  The Cessna pilot banked his small plane once again. And again, Raptor-Two got in front of him.

  "Dodge them!" the cameraman cried. Though the pilot had second thoughts, he remembered his flagging career and dived the aircraft. But they had gotten very close to the much larger aircraft that was doing battle with the enraged mutant saurian. As Godzilla let out a blast of radioactive fire, it missed Raptor-One and streaked toward the helpless Cessna.

  "Get out of the way!" Lori cried over the radio.

  "I'm on it," Toby cried. As he spoke, he maneuvered Raptor-Two until it hovered between the Cessna and Godzilla's burst of radioactive fire. The full force of the monster's blast struck Raptor-Two.

  Inside the cockpit, systems began shorting out and sparks flew from the consoles. Though Raptor-Two was armored, it was in no way as heat-resistant as Raptor-One.

  One by one, Raptor-Two's systems shorted out. Worse than that, the rotor blades on the starboard propeller began to melt. Suddenly, the aircraft was crashing.

  "Mayday! Mayday!" Lori cried. "We are hit and are going down -" At that moment, her radio went dead.

  "Eject! Eject! Eject!" Toby cried. Then he reached behind him, grabbed the yellow-and-black-striped ejection control, and pulled.

  The ACES II "zero-zero" ejection seat - so named because it can save the pilot from certain death even if his aircraft is at zero speed and zero altitude - blasted the pilot of Raptor-Two through the cockpit escape hatch.

  * * *

  In the Cessna, the pilot and cameraman watched in horror as Raptor-Two seemed to disintegrate before their eyes. Suddenly, the cockpit hatch blew open and one of the pilots was blasted free. He tumbled through the air and disappeared from sight.

  As the reporter banked the Cessna away, the cameraman noticed something strange. He grabbed the pilot's shoulder. "Look!" he cried, pointing.

  The Cessna pilot struggled to co
ntrol his plane, but he peeked out of the corner of his eyes in the direction his partner was pointing. Despite his fear, and his struggle to keep the aircraft in the sky, the pilot's jaw dropped in amazement.

  As the two men watched, a huge swirl of whirling colors seemed to envelop Raptor-Two. For a second, the aircraft was entirely engulfed in a bright, throbbing glow. Then, abruptly as it appeared, the mass of light just vanished.

  Raptor-Two struggled to stay in the air for another moment. Then, as the two reporters fled from the scene, Raptor-Two turned belly-up and plunged into the valley below.

  * * *

  For a second, Toby was totally disoriented. Then he felt a jolt that told him that his parachute had opened. Because Raptor-Two was so low, Toby tumbled through tree branches just seconds after his chute billowed open above him.

  He broke through a thick bundle of branches and leaves and landed hard. He rolled over once, then struck the trunk of a tree.

  * * *

  Tia scanned her radar screen in horror. Raptor-Two was gone. "Is Two down?" Pierce asked calmly.

  "Yes," Tia replied, fighting her emotions.

  "I'm taking command," Pierce declared, just as Kip maneuvered for another attack on Godzilla.

  "I'm ready to fire!" Kip protested, his focus still on the target. But Pierce was the commander, and he overruled Kip's objection and took control of the warplane.

  "I was ready to hit him hard!" Kip argued angrily.

  "The rules of engagement are clear," Martin reminded him. "If an aircraft is lost, the survivor is to break off the attack and return to base. Immediately."

  Kip seethed, but said nothing. The excitement of the battle was starting to wear off. It was replaced by worry for his teammates in the other aircraft.

  "Did anyone see a parachute?" Pierce asked as he flew out of the valley, away from Godzilla. The monster bellowed a challenge as the Raptor disappeared into the sky.

  "I saw one," Martin replied. "Just one..."

  Tia nodded. "That's affirmative," she said. "I only saw one chute."

  The rest of the flight to Gunnison County Airport was conducted in silence. Everybody wondered who punched out... and who didn't.

  25

  CELESTIAL

  PHENOMENON

  Thursday, July 15, 1999, 2:15 P.M.

  Project Valkyrie headquarters

  Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada

  Tobias Nelson was found by Billy and Zelly Whitman, the two teenagers who sneaked into Gunnison National Forest on a quest for video footage of Godzilla. They brought the unconscious G-Force member out by horseback on the evening after the battle - and then they sold the footage and exclusive rights to their story to a tabloid television show for $1.2 million.

  Toby had a broken arm and a concussion, but the prognosis was good. He was isolated in the base hospital until the military could debrief him about the crash.

  There was no sign of Lori Angelo. The Air Force investigative team that combed the wreckage of Raptor-Two found that the escape hatch and ejection seat on Lori's side of the aircraft were both missing - which indicated that she had ejected from the aircraft. The investigators concluded that her parachute had failed to open.

  Military patrols were still in the area, searching for her remains. Hopes were dimming, however. It was a big forest, and there were many scavengers.

  The unidentified small plane that had caused the crash of Raptor-Two had vanished. No doubt the occupants feared punishment. The Air Force sent the word out that any witnesses to the event would merely be questioned, but still, no one came forward.

  Dr. Irene Markham was handling the debriefing of Raptor-One's crew. G-Force had suffered their first defeat - and their first casualty. Morale was low, and their mood wasn't helped by the executive order to pull G-Force out of combat. The team felt it was a signal that the president had lost faith in them.

  General Taggart knew better. He understood that if they went into battle now, they would be short of both aircraft and personnel. He thought that it was best for G-Force to stand down.

  Meanwhile, Godzilla continued his trek across the heart of the United States. The creature had completely crossed Colorado and was now just outside Garden City, Kansas.

  * * *

  The blinding flash against the black depths of starless space startled and temporarily blinded Dr. Chandra Mishra, and he pulled away from the space telescope's eyepiece. He blinked the stars out of his eyes and peered through the eyepiece again.

  The bright after-blast corona from the mysterious event was still spreading outward. He checked the ultraviolet telescope GLAZAR. It, too, had recorded the phenomenon.

  It was four days after the EarthFirst nuclear explosions. The Reyes-Mishra Asteroid Swarm appeared to have been successfully obliterated as a threat to the earth.

  Could one of the nuclear missiles have detonated late? he wondered. Then he dismissed the notion as unlikely.

  Yet something had exploded inside the small scattered remnants of the Reyes-Mishra Swarm. Dr. Mishra watched as the halo around the flash continued to expand.

  Suddenly, a beep went off on the console beside the puzzled professor. He grabbed the radio headphones, which were floating in the gravity-free environment, and put them on.

  "Dr. Mishra," he announced into the mike.

  The voice on the other end of the radio came from NASA's Deep Space Observation Station. Because of the great distance, there was a split-second gap between the signal and its reception.

  "Did you see it, Dr. Mishra?" the man on the radio demanded. Even distorted by time and distance, Dr. Mishra recognized his co-discoverer's voice.

  "Yes, Dr. Reyes," Dr. Mishra replied. "I did see it... but how is this possible?"

  The split-second delay seemed like an eternity. "We have accounted for all of the nuclear rockets," Dr. Reyes answered finally. "That flash was not caused by our weapons."

  Dr. Mishra peered through the eyepiece of the space telescope. The event in deep space was still expanding. Something is terribly wrong, he thought ominously.

  What have I done?

  * * *

  Dr. Max Birchwood Watched the nest on Mount Rushmore from a hill several miles away. It was as close as anyone was permitted to get to Rodan, who had remained in its lair, minding its single egg, for days now, atop the magnificent sculptures carved over decades by the artist Gutzon Borglum.

  The kaijuologist had a feeling that this might be the day when the egg finally hatched. There was no scientific reason for his optimism. It was just a hunch.

  He looked away from his telescope and down at the Air Force radio that the military had given to him. In the event that Rodan took to the air, he was ordered to notify headquarters. Fighters would be scrambled, and the war against Rodan would begin again.

  Sighing, Dr. Birchwood wondered if attacking Rodan was the right thing to do. He had a theory that the creature had only flown to warmer climes to lay an egg. He was convinced that once the egg hatched, Rodan would return to the North Pole, and would not trouble mankind again.

  But it was just a theory, and the Air Force wasn't buying it. So Dr. Birchwood knew that he would have to make a decision soon. Should he trust his instinct, or obey his commanders?

  * * *

  Dr. Chandra Mishra and two Russian astronomers had waited for hours for the after-blast corona to fade so that they could get their first clear look at the event.

  The aftereffects of the celestial explosion were still too bright for observation by the human eye, but the ultraviolet telescopes aboard Mir were beginning to make headway.

  Finally, the ultraviolet and radio telescopes began getting decipherable photographs. The three scientists pored over them.

  Then they looked up from the images and at one another as they realized the ominous implications of their discovery. When the scientists were sure of their conclusions, they contacted their various governments.

  Something, they said, was twisting and writhing in the very heart
of that celestial flash, in the exact spot where the EarthFirst rockets had exploded four days before.

  Although they did not agree on what the object was, they all knew that the threat of the asteroid collision had suddenly been replaced by a totally unknown phenomenon.

  Only Dr. Mishra seemed certain about the object. He maintained not only that it was an alien presence but that it also had somehow been released from the asteroid swarm by the EarthFirst blast.

  The other scientists rejected his notion as bizarre conjecture, of course. But everyone could agree on one fact: Whatever it was, the object was still moving toward Earth, and it would still arrive in a few weeks.

  * * *

  On Friday, July 16, a press conference was held at the Johnson Space Center outside Houston, Texas. It was a follow-up to the announcement made four days before, which stated that the Reyes-Mishra asteroids had been successfully targeted in the initial nuclear blasts. Now, as the members of the international press converged on the center, Dr. Ramon Reyes opened with a brief statement.

  "It has been confirmed by tracking stations all over the globe," he announced. "The asteroids that threatened Earth have been obliterated."

  There was riotous applause, then the scientist continued.

  "There is, however, a single small piece that is still on a trajectory toward Earth," he informed them. "This fragment is too small to be tracked by the second wave of nuclear missiles, and if it does enter the earth's gravity, it will almost certainly be burned up in the atmosphere.

  "In short," Dr. Reyes concluded, "the earth has been spared from destruction by the combined technological advances of the human race. Let us use this second chance wisely."

  Reporter Nick Gordon pushed to the front of the crowd of journalists and shot a question at the scientist on the podium.

  "Is it true," Gordon demanded, "that Dr. Chandra Mishra believes that this object coming toward us is a space alien?"

  Looking uncomfortable, Dr. Reyes tried to answer. "It is true that Dr. Mishra does not concur with the theories of the rest of the scientific community. Why, exactly, I cannot say..."