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.