Greg Cox - Godzilla - The Official Movie Novelization

But was it too late for both of them — and the world?

Not far away, Serizawa also wandered through the ruins. He watched numbly as rows of lifeless bodies were zipped unceremoniously into ugly black body bags. It was like the aftermath of a battle or natural disaster, yet all this carnage and destruction had been caused by a single organism emerging from the cocoon, just as it had burst from its egg sac in the Philippines over a decade ago. History was repeating itself — on an even more apocalyptic scale.

His clothing was torn and rumpled. He and Graham had barely escaped the crow’s nest before it had crashed to the ground, but many others had not been so lucky. He watched grimly as Gregory Whelan was zipped into a bag. To his credit, the embattled chief scientist had stayed at his post until the bitter end, waiting until everyone else was evacuated, like a captain going down with his ship. Serizawa recalled ruefully just how excited Whelan had been only hours ago, thinking that he was on the verge of a revolutionary discovery. Little had the man known that the “living fuel cell” in the cocoon would cost him his life.

Goodbye, Gregory. Serizawa bowed his head in respect. You were a good scientist. Your only mistake was not realizing that certain forces were beyond your control.

“Dr. Serizawa!”

A deep voice intruded on the moment. Serizawa turned to see a U.S. Navy officer approaching him, accompanied by Graham and a Japan Self-Defense Force captain. A helicopter was revving up behind them, its rotors stirring up the already dusty air.

“Captain Russell Hampton,” the American officer introduced himself, shouting to be heard over the ‘copter’s spinning rotors. He was a tall, fit man wearing military fatigues, at least a decade younger than the scientist. A bald pate crowned his stoic face, which could have been carved from a block of dark brown granite. “Tactical authority of this situation has been accorded to Admiral Stenz, Commander, US Naval Forces, Seventh Fleet, part of a joint task force. I’m told your organization has situational awareness of our unidentified organism?”

Serizawa nodded. For more than six decades, a top-secret international coalition known as Monarch had been covertly studying and monitoring evidence of unknown mega-fauna such as the one that had just hatched from the cocoon. Alas, their practical experience in dealing with living specimens was minimal at best.

“Then I’m going to have to ask you to join me,” Hampton said. He glanced around at the surrounding bedlam. “Are there any other personnel you need?”

Serizawa considered the question. There was Graham, of course; that went without saying. But was there anybody else? He joined Hampton in scanning the crowd around them. He noticed that Joe Brody, the power plant engineer, was lying injured on a gurney nearby. A younger American, whom Serizawa’s assumed to be Brody’s son, Ford, was looking on anxiously as paramedics scrambled to stabilize his father’s condition. Serizawa recalled the data that had been confiscated from Brody. Serizawa had made sure that the disks and charts survived the disaster, but, now more than ever, he wanted to know everything the trespassing engineer knew about the nuclear disaster fifteen years ago. He pointed decisively at Brody and son.

“Them.”

The transport chopper roared through the sky toward the USS Saratoga , a Nimitz -class nuclear-powered super-carrier more than a thousand feet in length. One of the largest warships ever constructed, the Saratoga rose twenty stories above the water and was accompanied by a sizable naval strike group composed of smaller frigates, cruisers, an oiler, a supply ship, and other support vessels. Aboard the ‘copter, Ford stuck close to his dad while trying to keep up with their rapidly changing situation. One minute, he and Joe had been stuck in the ruins of the base, the next they had been hustled aboard a waiting chopper…

Hang on, Dad , he thought. Just a few more minutes.

A medic struggled to keep Joe alive, monitoring the battered engineer’s vital signs, but seemed to be fighting a losing battle. Captain Hampton and a pair of civilian scientists looked on as Joe feebly clung to life. Ford still wasn’t quite sure why he and his dad were now getting special treatment, after being arrested as trespassers before, but he wasn’t about to question this unexpected turn of events. All that mattered was keeping his father alive. They had a second chance to rebuild their fractured relationship, and Ford didn’t want to lose that. He wanted his father back.

“You were right,” Ford said, squeezing Joe’s hand. His eyes welled up. His throat tightened. “I’m sorry.”

Joe gazed up at Ford through bloodshot eyes. His voice was weak and raspy as he struggled to speak. Ford leaned in to hear him.

“Whatever it takes,” he said faintly. “You have to end this…”

He began to slip away, perhaps for good.

“Dad—”

“Whatever it takes…”

“Dad, stay with me!” Ford exclaimed. “Dad!”

Joe’s eyes lost focus, staring somewhere beyond this world. Ford watched helplessly as the medic scrambled to save his failing patient, who was fading fast…

The Saratoga’s Combat Direction Center, located below decks, was packed and buzzing. Banks of monitors and work stations, manned by uniformed analysts, were jammed with data feeds. Armed services personnel, sporting the uniforms of several allied nationalities, were crammed into the war room, which reminded Serizawa of the crow’s nest back at the base. The overhead lights were kept dim to increase the visibility of the various screens and graphic displays. A backlit table map projected the creature’s potential courses, as calculated by the incoming data. As the simulations ran, dotted lines crossed the ocean, branching off in all directions, but with most heading east across the Pacific. Each dotted line was accompanied by a flurry of algorithmic probability data: wind speed, currents, altitude, weather conditions, and so on. Quietly observing the operations, Serizawa was just selfish enough to be relieved that the creature appeared to be winging away from his homeland.

Not that anywhere in the world was truly safe at the moment.

“Okay! Listen up!” Captain Hampton said, taking the floor. To say that his manner was “brisk” would be an understatement. “Quiet please!” He waited, but not for long, for the general chatter and hubbub to die down. “Briefing is up. New faces. New info. From here out, we do not try to move quickly, we will move quickly.” He turned to introduce a figure to his right. “Admiral?”

A senior officer, with cropped white hair and a lean, taciturn face, stepped forward. He gestured at a monitor displaying a blurry image of the creature that had emerged from the cocoon. Hushed voices murmured in awe.

“Good afternoon,” the admiral said crisply. “ This is our needle in a haystack, people. A ‘massive unidentified terrestrial organism,’ which from this point forward will be referred to as ‘MUTO.’ The world still thinks this was an earthquake, and it would be preferable if that were to remain so. It was last sighted heading east across the Pacific. However, this… animal’s electromagnetism has been playing havoc with radar, satellite feeds, you name it, leaving us, for the moment, blind as bats.” A frown deepened the well-earned creases on his face. “I emphasize ‘for the moment’ because I have every confidence in the world that you will find it. We have to .”

His remarks concluded, he surrendered the floor and sought out Serizawa at the back of the room. He extended his hand.