Godzilla Lives!
A Godzilla fanfiction by Travis J. DeSantis
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Amane sat on the bench, his head in his hands. Sitting in the quiet, sterile locker room, he was beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of his decision. It was tearing him up inside to think that he could do nothing while his friends confronted the nuclear monstrosity that is Godzilla. The sergeant stood and tried to pace the fear from his thoughts.
On his third pass, a glint of metal caught his eye. Amane looked up and saw that Major Kuroki had--in the rush to take off--failed to close his locker. The door was ajar slightly and something on the top shelf was reflecting the colorless flourescent lights. Driven by curiosity, he reached inside the locker and pulled out Sho's lucky rabbit's foot; the light was being reflected off the polished copper cap. Amane himself didn't believe in such superstitions, but he had a brief flash of morbid wonder if this small oversight would be his commanding officer's doom.
"Ah, there you are," came an old man's voice. Amane turned to see Tomoyuki Tanaka enter the locker room. "The techs told me you were still here, sergeant."
"Um, yeah," Higa replied. "Ms. Saegusa wanted to try and use her power to drive Godzilla away again. I opted to stay behind. Now I'm not so sure if that was a good idea," he added with a weak smile.
"Since you're here, what should we do with the Fire Mirror?"
"What? Yashiro said it was broken."
Old man Tanaka shook his head and 'tsk'ed in annoyance. "That boy, he doesn't understand anything. The Fire Mirror's power converter is damaged. But the laser cannon is totally operational. It runs on electricity; that's what the converter is for. As a weapon, it works just fine."
"Then why didn't you put it back in the Super-X2?" Amane demanded.
The retired soldier raised his hand. "Snuff that anger, Matchstick. The laser requires a tremendous amount of energy to fire. If we hooked it up to the Super-X2's systems, it wouldn't even have enough power to fly."
The redhead dry-washed his face, trying to quell his frustration. "Dammit! If we'd known this sooner, we might have come up with a better plan." Suddenly, his eyes popped open as an idea began to tickle the edges of his brain. "A plan...wait... The laser can be powered by an ordinary electric generator?"
"That's right," Tanaka replied. "Why, what are you thinking?"
Talking very fast, Higa started to backpedal towards the locker room door. "I've got an idea, I think, maybe. Look, there are some extra walkie-talkies in the security room; grab one. I gotta clear this with the commander first!" he called over his shoulder, dashing out of the room.
