At long last, the first entry of my New Godzilla series has arrived, quite fittingly on 08/28/18, exactly four years after the publishing of my original story: The Rise of Mothra.
So without further ado, I give you Landfall.
PROLOGUE:
It was an early morning in the beginning of March. A cluster of US Navy Warships stood ready around a small collective of islands. The ships varied from small light cruisers to full aircraft carriers with planes rowed across their decks. An eerie silence hung over the lagoon as the naval ships were entirely devoid of life. Left abandoned, they were strewn about the lagoon in different locations, anchored down to the ocean floor.
They were targets.
Far, far from the atoll a viewing platform was assembled on the deck of a ship. Over a dozen military officials were taking their seats in the rows as scientists adorned in white labcoats frantically dashed about amongst the khaki uniforms of Navy Officers. Radios squawked as the occasional plane flew overhead. Radar dishes slowly turned atop the command tower of the vessel as several video cameras were rolling, their lenses pointed in the direction of the islands several kilometres away.
"Top Secret" was an understatement, as only the highest ranking officials had any idea of the operation. Amongst the US Military insignias was a far different icon. The symbol had a globe adorned with leaf crests and the words Division Three.
Division Three was the multinational organisation overseeing the operation. They were known for their obsessive secrecy, with their unofficial motto "The less the people know, the better."
Down below deck in one of several offices, Gendo Yamane was finishing a memo on a typewriter. He had been assigned to help put together a false collection of events to cover up the true intentions of Division Three and the US Navy. His job was to rewrite statements and erase any trace of Division Three's involvement. For plausible deniability, not even Yamane knew the details of what his organisation was up to. Hailing from Takayama, Japan, he was a man in his early twenties. Getting into the organisation purely through nepotism, he quickly fell under the wings of the programs' director and surpassed his fathers' position in the executive branch. His short dark hair a mess, thick-rimmed glasses hanging on his nose in front of incredibly tired eyes, it was clear he had been up all night long working on the document, carefully putting into place each of the pre-made statements by higher-ranking personnel.
SHRIMP Drive Prototype:
Attached to the cylindrical ballistic case was a natural-uranium liner, the radiation case; that was about 2.5 cm thick. Its internal surface was lined (glued) with a copper liner that was about 240 μm thick, and made from 0.08-μm thick copper foil, to increase the overall albedo of the hohlraum. Copper possesses excellent reflecting properties, and its low cost, compared to other reflecting materials like gold, made it useful for mass-produced hydrogen weapons. Hohlraum albedo is a very important design parameter for any inertial-confinement configuration.
Yamane frantically typed away, ignoring the pain in his knuckles as they tensed up from the strain. After another few minutes it was too much and he sat back in his chair, flexing his hands painfully. Eyes watering, he let out a long yawn when a hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder from behind and Yamane jumped.
"There's about an hour to go." A familiar voice said calmly as he turned to greet them. It was Howard Fogarty; the Director of Division Three's TOHO Board. "I think you should see it." He gestured to the typewriter. "That can wait."
"Yes, sir." Yamane replied, getting out of his chair.
Yamane struggled to keep up with Fogarty's strides. The man was in his early fifties with his short-cropped hair beginning to grey at the temples. Dressed in a clean black suit and tie, he seemed incredibly out of place aboard the ship, especially as the two climbed the stairs and arrived on deck where the other military officials waited.
"We're going all-out with this one." Fogarty explained, "She's expected to reach The Big Five."
Yamane knew exactly what that meant. Five Megatons.
Reaching their seats towards the end of the third row, the two sat down and picked up the protective goggles off of the floor beneath the seats. As Yamane fiddled with the straps on the bulky black goggles, Fogarty began to talk with one of the disgruntled scientists stood nearby.
"What do you mean?" He asked the man casually,
"J. Carson Mark ran the numbers. He said it would be a Big One." Doctor Turner replied anxiously, to which Fogarty scoffed,
"That's a good thing. Bravo's supposed to be bigger." He said confidently.
Turner shook his head, "Not as big as Carson predicted."
The Director shrugged and pulled down his goggles,
"The bigger the bang; the better."
….
The hour slowly ticked away as they awaited the countdown. Yamane was practically blind in the goggles as the lenses were so dark he could barely make out the sun in the sky. He tried to look at his hands when the countdown started.
10….
9….
8….
Chills ran down Yamane's spine as he looked around at the other officials. All of them had their gazes off into the horizon at the cluster of islands. Looking around, he saw the cameras were still rolling; their operators leaning closer and closer to the viewfinders. Yamane looked down at his watch:
06:44
5….
4….
3…
Looking back up to the islands, he blinked hard when he thought he saw something move. Squinting, he thought it was the darkness of the lenses playing a trick on his eyes. Except he was wrong. He could clearly see one of the islands –it looked like it was ….moving?
2…
1…
All sound in the world died in an instant as Yamane shot his eyes to the floor to protect his eyes from an immensely bright flash. It was as if the sun had appeared on the horizon in a split second. The light was so bright he wasn't sure if the lenses in his goggles were still there. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he looked up again at the light on the horizon.
Yamane was no stranger to explosions. He had witnessed countless weapons tests in the last year and a half at Division Three. He had watched intently as Target Aircraft struck the ground and erupted in flames. He had seen test footage of buildings being blasted apart, but nothing could at all compare to what was in front of him.
It was a monster of a fireball. Shooting up high into the sky, he could see clouds dispersing around it as it ballooned up. Miles upon miles high, Yamane was sure it would reach outer space as it rapidly expanded and blossomed. It was as if his brain had shut down as not a single thought ran through Yamane's head as he sat, transfixed at the devastation.
….
Castle Bravo. Detonated 06:45 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands; March 1st 1954.
Predictions estimated the bomb to be in the range of Five Megatons, however, Bravo detonated with a much higher yield of Fifteen; three times what had been calculated. This was due to the hypothesis that only the Lithium-Six Isotope would be reactive, however Lithium-Seven also decayed, causing a much larger Neutron Flux and therefore higher yield.
It had been two days since the detonation when Yamane finished the statement, leaving the finished thirty-plus page memo on Fogarty's desk. Heading back to his office, he slumped down in his chair and stared at the piece of paper next to his typewriter. It was a stray piece of notepad he had torn out of a notebook he had since gotten rid of. Picking up a pencil, he continued his sketch on the paper. Yamane had frequently been trying to draw what he had seen before the bomb went off. The island he saw move was much larger than the others if he remembered correctly. Except unlike previous sketches, this one was more accurate. The palm trees atop of this island silhouette were more erratic and angular –more like spikes than actual plant life. It was almost as if the island was alive. Yamane didn't dare ask Fogarty about it.
What the hell was Division Three keeping secret from the world?
LANDFALL
Boom, the prologue of Landfall. As of posting, the story is already complete and I'm half way through the sequel, so I will be uploading new chapters DAILY. I'd upload them at a faster rate but converting the chapters to Fanfiction's DocX system is a bitch because the original Word file had different text sizes and fonts, so a simple copy and paste makes it look more like a copypasta code.
Anyway, I hope you like this story, feel free to leave a review and stay epic
-MrWorthARead