Only a moment later, however, the creature swung its entire body around—bringing its massive tail hurtling straight at Shinden’s cockpit.
“Whoa!” Koichi exclaimed. Reacting instantly, he extended his wing flaps to serve as an air brake. By increasing the drag on his plane, he was able to stall ever so slightly in midair and dodge the creature’s tail whip. “Damn, that was close…”
He was taken aback by his reaction speed; any slower, and he would have no doubt been swatted out of the sky. All the hours he’d put into learning how to maneuver out of an enemy’s line of fire in mock battles had finally paid off.
After several close flybys, circling the beast like a pesky gnat, Godzilla was officially frustrated enough to make Shinden its new primary target. As the creature changed course, Koichi began luring it slowly but surely back to Sagami Bay.
On the bridge of Yukikaze, Akitsu, Noda, and the others were watching with rapt attention through telescopes and long-distance binoculars.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Akitsu, whistling in admiration. “He actually pulled it off. Look at that big brute, chasing after him. He must’ve pissed it off big-time.”
“Now it’s our time to shine,” said Noda.
At last, Captain Hotta gave the order to every Operation Wadatsumi vessel:
“All ships, begin final checks!”
One by one, transmissions came in over the radio in reply:
“Cable ready!”
“Freon cylinders ready!”
“All circuits connected and responsive!”
“Flotation device is good to go. Just checked everything one last time.”
The four cruisers aligned their bows and started advancing toward Godzilla as the creature stepped back into the ocean near Enoshima with a gigantic splash. Then, slithering its massive body, the creature swam like a crocodile in pursuit of Shinden, with only its head and dorsal fins poking up from beneath the surface of the water. Koichi adjusted his course to match Godzilla’s speed, zigzagging back and forth so as not to ever get too far away from the beast as he goaded it toward the Wadatsumi fleet. When the two were finally close enough, Hotta gave the next order from the bridge of Yukikaze.
“Send out Unit One!” he said. “We’ll run the maneuver as planned!”
As his subordinates all repeated the order back to him in confirmation, the first pair of destroyers—Yukaze and Keyaki—broke free from the line and began moving in parallel toward Godzilla’s position. In Shinden, Koichi carried on straight through the gap between the two ships before rapidly climbing to a higher altitude.
It was only then that Godzilla noticed the two boats headed straight for it. The sight of the destroyers made the creature recall the bombardment it had suffered at the hands of Takao and how irksome that had been. Then, like clockwork, each of Godzilla’s dorsal fins began to give off a pale blue light as they jutted out one by one.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Noda, watching from the bridge of Yukikaze. “Go on.”
As the final dorsal fin extended from the top of Godzilla’s spine, the creature’s mouth opened, the same blue light swirling in its throat.
Meanwhile, on Yukaze, there was strangely little panic. And more curious still, there was not a single person standing on the bridge—only several lines of rope, fastened to both the walls and the steering wheel to hold the ship’s rudder in place.
Yes—both the Yukaze and the Keyaki were unmanned and advancing toward Godzilla without a lone human aboard, their bows pointed straight at the beast as it charged up its ultimate attack.
Then, sure enough, Godzilla’s dorsal fins locked back into their original positions, and a blinding beam of bluish white light shot forth from the creature’s mouth, aimed straight for the two destroyers.
It was the same heat ray that had razed Ginza to the ground.
In an instant, the two ships were transmuted into white-hot fireballs, which then exploded and evaporated much of the surrounding ocean in the blink of an eye.
When the resultant shockwave hit Yukikaze and Hibiki, it nearly blew the men who were standing on deck overboard. All of them clung for dear life to whatever structural supports they could find and braced themselves against the oncoming wall of force from the blast, followed by a massive tidal wave—which would have tossed their ships like toy boats had their bows not been pointed directly into the explosion.
On the bridge of Yukikaze, everyone was completely silent. Presumably, none of them had witnessed Godzilla using its heat ray in Ginza and then lived to tell the tale. And Noda and Akitsu had only seen a vague cloud of glowing light from beneath the surface of the water before it vaporized Takao. But now, having finally witnessed the creature’s deadliest attack with their own eyes, they could only stand there, mouths agape, rendered speechless by its sheer destructive might.
“Good god,” Captain Hotta eventually mumbled. “That’s its heat ray?”
“We’re doomed!” cried one of the other men on the bridge, practically sobbing. “Captain, please! It’s too powerful! Order all ships to retreat immediately!”
“No, stay the course!” said Noda. “We’ll proceed with the operation as planned!”
“But we don’t know when it’ll fire that heat ray again!”
Ignoring the other man’s pleas, Noda turned to Captain Hotta. “It needs time to recover before it can fire its heat ray again—that was the whole point of using the decoys!” said Noda. “This is our only chance! We have to move now!”
At Noda’s urging, Captain Hotta finally collected himself.
“Commence Operation Wadatsumi!” he ordered.
From the rear of each of the two vessels, several giant gas cylinders, courtesy of the Toyo Balloon Company, were slowly lowered into the water one after another. There were ten cylinders in total, all connected to a massive cable which ran between the two ships and which trailed behind them like a giant fishing net as they advanced toward Godzilla’s position.
As the ships spread out in opposite directions to circle around the beast, Godzilla chose Yukikaze as its first victim and turned its upper body to face its new target. But before the beast could move from its current position, Koichi dove in from above and pelted it with a spray of 30mm rounds. This successfully drew Godzilla’s attention back to the plane, and the beast turned yet again, stretching its massive body upward to try to lunge at tiny Shinden as it passed—but it was a futile attempt that Koichi easily evaded.
The crew on the deck of Yukikaze was grateful to Koichi for distracting Godzilla as they continued feeding out the cable’s remaining slack into the water behind them. Once it was fully reeled out, forming a giant arc around Godzilla, the next step was to close the circle and tighten the cable around the beast’s torso—a task for which a large crane had been specially installed at the rear of Yukikaze alone. By extending the crane out to one side, with the cable running down from its apex into the water, they would create a small gap which Hibiki could pass through to close and then tighten the circle.
Captain Hotta was calm at the helm as the other ship approached. In order to pull the maneuver off, Hibiki needed to pass directly under the crane, which would necessarily bring the two ships within just meters of one another.
“Yukikaze to Hibiki,” he called over the radio. “Adjust course, four degrees portside.”
Hibiki was charging straight toward Yukikaze—any minor discrepancy in either ship’s heading at this point would result in a head-on collision. And yet, Captain Hotta’s many years of experience told him to trust his intuition.
“Course adjusted, four degrees to port!” said the other ship’s captain.
“Hibiki approaching portside, Captain!” said one of the men nearby. “Remaining clearance, twenty meters… Ten meters… Five meters!”
“Brace yourselves, men!” Captain Hotta shouted out. “We may take some minor damage, but we’ll be just fine! Hibiki, maintain course! All ships, prepare for impact!”
As Hibiki passed through the narrow opening between Yukikaze and the cable hanging from its crane, the hulls of the two ships scraped harshly against one another, the impact rocking everyone aboard both vessels.
“Crossing complete, Captain!” called out one of the men on deck.
It seemed they’d successfully closed the loop; all that was left now was to tighten it around Godzilla’s waist. To do this, both ships simply needed to continue full speed ahead and pull the cable taut. Noda stepped out onto the bridge wing to monitor this process.
“Yes, that’s it…” he whispered to himself. “Keep going!”
Only as the circle grew smaller and smaller did Godzilla finally notice the cable being tightened around its flanks. And while the creature surely couldn’t comprehend what the purpose of the device was, it seemed to recognize, instinctively, that this was not something it should allow to occur. And what’s more, it had been plenty long enough now since the beast’s first shot of its heat ray. So once again, the beast’s dorsal fins began to give off that ominous, pale-blue glow—as one by one, they jutted out from its spine.
“No… Not yet!” said Noda.