The Extraterrestrial Hover Boats and the Riverine Warfare

Before Billy's team headed for their destination, he quickly climbed up the tree and boarded the hover boat before he then approached us. He immediately asked her if he could take her pickaxe with him, deeming that it might prove to be useful in desperate melee combat.

Although she did not seem to comprehend what he might be referring to, she nevertheless let him take her pickaxe anyway, complaining that it had been a burden for her to keep on carrying it wherever she went. He chuckled for a moment, before wishing us all good luck and climbed down the tree again before he led his team and rushed for their destination.

As he and his whole team's figures slowly faded in the distance, I checked around to look at both my and Commander General Girsang's team, which apparently had shown signs of either eagerness or impatience based on their body movements. Not long after that, few of them began to sit on the ground, small rocks or to lean themselves against the tall tree trunks as they waited for an updated information from either Commodore Quentin or Billy.

Apparently, most of the soldiers were able to cool themselves down a little bit by taking a more relaxed position. That being said, all five soldiers on board the hover boat also decided to sit down right in the middle of the deck.

I decided to take another more detailed look on our surroundings since there still had yet any new from either the two of the team leaders, as well as to try and consider any other things regarding our current situation. The first thing that came to my mind was about the origins of the current aliens. Both the current and the past kinds of aliens had one same similarity – their lack of familiarity with the surroundings and areas that they had invaded.

That would mean that even the slightest disturbance or distraction would already be enough to raise their alerts. Sure, if we were to regard it straight away as it is, it would seem like we had to be extremely careful when moving around if we did not want to give away our positions.

However, as if that could also act like a dual-edged blade, it also had its drawback. Their tendency to pick up any signs of abnormalities in the slightest would also make them tend to be easier to get distracted.

For example, back in the grassy meadows where the rain had become a downpour, occasionally accompanied by a strong wind with flashes of lightning and thunder rumbling, their hearings had been deafened by the rumbling thunder in the distance. Thus, it gave the three of us some sort of a time gap, although very short, to take them down without alerting the rest of the others that had also been scattered on the same area.

Based on that account and comparing to our current situation, I quickly noticed something that could be used as emergency distraction later on when the aliens had been lured to the area. I looked upwards, and clearly saw that there must have been hundreds of cone fruits hanging on the twigs of the pine trees around us.

Since I had myself a suppressed firearm, I could shoot one and made it fell to the ground without creating a loud gunshot noise in order to create a distraction for the aliens if they came too close to the ambush team later on. Also, not only could it serve as a distraction, the fall of the cone fruit could also be used as some sort of a signal for the ambush team if the time was right to attack.

However, I also suddenly became concerned about something that I had not taken into consideration earlier. It was whether or not it could be raining later on, since there was absolutely no one among us that could take on the updated information of the current meteorological condition of the whole area directly from the headquarters anymore. It would not be a problem for the hover boat, hijack, and luring team since they could still freely move above the ground no matter what the weather would become.

However, if the rain were to fall when the ambush team had submerged themselves inside the river, then it would definitely reduce their vision, significantly lowering the effectiveness of underwater fire.

Of course, those things only occurred inside my head, and I obviously would not think even for once to share it with the others, as I believed it would only raise a new, and also perhaps unnecessary concerns. Even though the atmosphere around us had become a little more relaxed than before, it was still nonetheless tense, and I would not want to make the situation became worse.

I only took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment, before I slowly opened them up again and released it very slowly in order to make myself calm again. Not too long after that, I finally received an updated information from Billy, who told us that his whole team had taken up a position on a treetop.

"This is Golden Jackal." Billy suddenly talked on the mask radio. "The team has climbed on a treetop and is now standing by."

"Nicely done, Jackal." I quickly responded. "Where is the exact location of your team?"

"About… roughly one kilometer away from the hover boat to the east direction." he answered to me. "We are just beside the large river shore just outside the forest."

He proceeded to tell some details that his team had encountered along the way. He first mentioned that they came across few collapsed tree trunks that might perhaps prove to be useful later on during combat should it take place inside the forest. He also said that all of the tree trunks were solid and not hollow, which would mean that despite the fact no one would be able to use it to hide inside, it could be used as a covering spot.

Then, he also noticed that not all of the trees were pine, as some of the others had hanging roots. I asked if they were banyan trees, to which he answered that he was not sure about it. He was however, confident that the hanging roots could support the weight of a man. Even though it did not look like we would be able to use the hanging roots, nevertheless they provided us the way to attack the wandering aliens from above later on.

When he finished, I asked him on where exactly he had seen the collapsed tree trunks and the hanging roots. He could not be sure about the exact spot, but it had been about ten minutes after he had begun to go to his destination where he found the tree trunks, lying right above the ground where there were lots of bushes.

As for the hanging roots, he believed that it had not been until another ten minutes before he saw the hanging roots on the trees around him. If there was anything else that he had noticed then, it was that there were not even a single cone fruit scattered along the ground between the tree trunks and the hanging roots. He also said that the whole team had really gone straight to the east direction.

Given his information, I quickly estimated and figured out that it was roughly three hundred meters to the east where we would be able to find the collapsed tree trunks, and it would also take another three hundred meters to the same direction in order for us to be able to find the hanging roots.

If anything, the only thing that I could imagine about the collapsed tree trunks was that we would be able to trip the pursuing aliens later on during the battle, provided that some of them decided to pursue us on foot instead of flying. As for the hanging roots, I still had yet to be able to think of any possible usage for it.

Shortly after that, Commodore Quentin came into us through the mask radio as well. He said that he had found a position he believed to be suitable for them to look for and lure one of the aliens' hover boat towards Billy's team. Billy quickly asked him where his exact position was, to which he said that his whole team was just outside the outer section of the forest, where there were plenty of large black rocks around the river shore.

Even though he complained that the surfaces around the river shore was very slippery, he also mentioned that it was worth it since the large black rocks gave them several spots large enough to hide themselves.

That being said, he gained my full attention when he commented on how intense the volcanic ashes had become since the whole team could see some of the ashes grouped up together far above the area of the mountain peak where they had descended earlier, even though it was just faintly seen.

He mentioned that back when they were about to climb the cliff before they had met with the three of us again, the peak could still be seen, whereas at the moment, he could not see anything up there anymore since it was already completely shrouded in ashes.

"What is the estimation of the distance between your position and ours, Sir?" I asked Commodore Quentin.

"If I would have to guess, then I would say… about one and a quarter miles to the northeast." he quickly responded.

Again, given his information, I quickly estimated on how far and big the area of the warzone later on would be. The equivalency of one and a quarter miles was roughly around two kilometers, and I had to assume that my estimation would be the smallest measurement of the warzone area.

That would mean the smallest possibility of the warzone later on would be no less than two hundred hectares or nearly five hundred acres of the mountainous river and forest, not to mention that the river deeper inside the forest had yet to be put into the estimation. Of course, I quickly told about it to all of the people with the mask radios about the estimation.

"I hope the imminent battle will not start a forest fire…" I said, concluding my calculations regarding the area of the warzone.

"I guess that depends on how powerful the blast of their auto-beams would be towards the trees." Commodore Quentin responded. "Then again, all we had ever seen was the blast from their beam rifles…"

"Black Caiman, I suggest that we are to move now and go to the other river." Commander General Girsang interrupted. "It is not too far from here, but nevertheless I believe both our teams must begin to stand by."

"Well said, General." I replied to him short, as I immediately gestured to all of the soldiers on my team as well as Jessica to get up and stand by on the mounted auto-beams on the deck and the display screen inside the bridge.

As I asked the soldier standing right in front of the display screen to reactivate the hovering ability of the hover boat, I could see the rest of the other soldiers awestruck by the sight of the technology that no men had ever seen before. Of course, I had no intention on reactivating the stealth camouflage there, as it would hide my whole team from the sight of the ambush team.

I offered Commander General Girsang if he would like to get on board on the deck, but for some reason he refused it and chose to walk instead after he had informed how far the river should be from where we were. According to him, the river was just about five to six hundred meters to the north, and thus that was the direction where I headed for.

It only took a few minutes before I could clearly see the smaller, but with still seemingly a strong current river through the hover boat windshield, before another few minutes later the ambush team caught up to us, just walking casually in the middle of the forest. I then told the same soldier to turn it off again, and as the vehicle was no longer hovering in the air, it gave out a faint thudding sound as it touched the ground again.

Then, the whole ambush team immediately began to spread out by hiding themselves behind the tree trunks, inside the large and wide bushes, getting into the prone position on the mossy parts of the ground, and crouched just in front of the river shore. I also advised Commander General Girsang to tell his team to distance themselves about thirty meters of radius away from the hover boat, which he immediately told and signaled his whole team about it.

Three out of five soldiers in my team were to standby on the mounted auto-beams on the deck, while the other two were to standby on the display screen and also in front of the lever. As both of the teams had then begun to stand by until further updated information, I could feel the tense atmosphere building up rapidly all around us again.

First I waited for five minutes, and then ten, twenty, and until it was already thirty minutes and yet there was still not even another word said from either Commodore Quentin or Billy. But then again, I could imagine how tense and anxious the both of them might be since they would be the first ones who would actually encounter the horde of aliens pretty soon after that.

Not too long after that, either he only wanted to break the tension or that Billy just wanted to inform us while we were waiting, he told everyone with the mask radio on what he had found about mounted auto-beams. He first noted that they were not powerful enough to create some serious damages on their vehicles, which he figured out back when the three of us were still inside the mothership hangar and had been in the process of hijacking the hover boat.

At that time, he knew for sure that some of the beams he had fired had hit the other hover boats that were parked inside, however he soon realized that the beams barely damaged them at all. Also, during our escape with the hover boat where he had fired it too towards the pursuing horde of aliens on their hover boards, he had the very same reason on why he fired the auto-beams towards the aliens instead of the hover boards – because it barely damaged them.

That being said, he mentioned that the auto-beams did literally made holes in the bodies of the aliens that he had taken down, which was something he had not expected at all since he had thought that their bodies were far stronger than that. It was concerning however, when he also stressed out that unlike when they were hit by our own conventional standard firearms, their beam rifles had only become broken when they had been struck by the auto-beams.

"Why do I feel like I have partially heard about this before…" Commodore Quentin gave his response about it.

"Because I had told you about it back when I was still recovering in Canada, Sir." I replied to him. "It was about when I saw for the first time through the sewers what their beam rifles would do to human bodies."

"So, are you trying to tell me that the current aliens we are facing are actually the weaker ones?" Billy asked to the both of us, making sure.

"Who knows…" I answered him quickly. "That being said, we also never have the chance or even the permission to do some sort of an autopsy on their bodies…"

Just then, I could like the ground right below us quaking for approximately a couple of minutes, but thankfully only mildly, before it stopped right after that. As I had expected, both Commodore Quentin and Billy also felt that earthquake, and thus the topic of the conversation suddenly changed.

"Did you two feel that earthquake just now?" Billy asked with haste in his voice.

"I did, I did." I answered him in a hurry. "Is it because of the volcano? Has it erupted again?"

"I think… it has something to do with their next big move…" Commodore Quentin replied, somehow with a sense of concern in his voice.

At first, I did not grasp completely on what he said. However, as soon as he mentioned that his whole team began to see four hover boats slowly descending down from the steep surfaces of the cliff, and headed directly towards the large river below, I began to slowly understand what had been going on.

As the four hover boats had completely descended down to the large river, they seemed to immediately start following the direction of the river current. All of a sudden, Commodore Quentin stuttered upon something that he had just seen with his own eyes, and I would also definitely have a hard time believing it had I not heard it for myself for what was about to happen right after it.

"You have got… to be kidding me…!" Commodore Quentin said, with an extremely heavy breathing through the mask radio.

"Sir?" Billy asked him in response.

"It is the mothership…!" Commodore Quentin stressed out, clearly with sense of horror in his voice. "They are bringing that giant thing down with them to the river!"

In an instant, chills ran down to every bit of my spine on my back and sweat quickly wet why whole body upon hearing the information from him. I still could not believe my ears as I then realized full well that the earthquake just earlier had most likely not caused by the volcano activity, but instead the process of the mothership coming out of its hiding state from somewhere near the crater of the volcano.

The three of us must have caused damage far greater than what they had guessed, and that it most probably made them very angry, resulting in them to decide to ditch their digging activity and to conduct their full pursuit to find and wipe us out. I became all the more anxious and nervous once I heard Commodore Quentin's last transmission before we lost our communication with him.

"Jackal, I think the mothership and the hover boats have seen us!!" he suddenly said from his radio mask with alert in his tone. "This is it! We are bringing them to you-!"

"Sir?! Sir!!" Billy quickly responded in a panic.

Just then, everyone around me could hear a faint sound of explosion in the distance towards the northeast direction, which was most probably the attack from the mothership that had caused him to lose his communication with us.

I immediately turned to Commander General Girsang, who had also heard the whole conversation from the start. Despite his concerned and anxious expression, he cleared his throat twice, before calmly telling Billy to stay calm and to proceed with the plan, while he also told me to keep on standing by on the hover boat.

"Dammit! That was close!" Commodore Quentin suddenly emerged on our communication line again. "You heard what I said, right Jackal?"

"Yes, sir! Standing by!" Billy responded to him with a voice full of nervousness.

"Caiman! Twelve men from my team succeeded in luring some aliens on their hovering boards!" Commodore Quentin continued as I could clearly hear him running and luring the hover boats with his dear life. "They are currently rushing back towards the initial location! Remember! You have only ONE, CHANCE, OF SURPRISE ATTACK!!"

"Understood, Nest!!" I quickly responded as I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip on my submachine gun.

Everything had then escalated so quickly within a snap of a finger, and the tense atmosphere around both of the waiting had become so immeasurable that whenever I tried to look at the soldiers that were waiting for the arrival of the aliens all I could see was a stern and focused face.

I gulped hard as I crouched and waited for the arrival of the luring team to our location. Each passing seconds felt like a few minutes passed, and within each minute felt like I had been waiting for an hour, and the fact that the sweat that kept on running down my back did not help me on my attempt to stay calm either.

'FTEW FTEW FTEW FTEW'

Beamshot and gunshot noises were shortly after heard from the northeast direction, and just like what we had all expected right from the start, we could begin to see multiple silhouettes of hovering things in the distance, with dozens of soldiers were also sighted running away desperately from them.

When they had finally regrouped with us, they immediately hid themselves among the bushes or to go into prone position on mossy grounds. We had indeed prepared ourselves for the worst possible numbers of the aliens, except for one thing – the presence of another hover boat.

In an instant, I could feel that the tense atmosphere suddenly changed to terrifying atmosphere, even though the soldiers did not express it directly from their faces. Its pincer-like feature on its right head, the four pairs of wheel fenders, as well as its noiseless hovering ability, there was absolutely no mistaking it. Realizing that we had to somehow improvise, I had no choice but to refer to Jessica who was also on board right beside me.

"Jess, I need you to take control of this hover boat." I said in a hurry and in a very low voice.

"What?! What are you going to do?" she responded, also with a very low voice and shocked.

"We need to get the aliens off that hover boat…" I tried to explain to her as brief as possible. "And I am the only one who can do it!"

She was extremely hesitant, yet concerned, but as she looked at me straight in the eyes, she finally agreed.

"Promise me that nothing will happen to you..." she agreed, as she held my left hand.

I only nodded once as a response, and by then I noticed that some of the ambush team had begun to submerge themselves inside the river, and had begun to wait for the next signal. I quickly told all of the soldiers and also Jessica to crawl and hide right below the deck corners. It did not take too long before the whole group of pursuing aliens on their hover boards and hover boat arrived right in front of us.

All of a sudden, everything around us had become silent, except for the very faint and familiar turbine engine sounds from the hover board, which slowly began to get spread out around the area. I could not even think of lifting my head for a little just to look at the current condition around us as I could not pinpoint the current location of the hover boat. My only concern was that if there was any soldiers unlucky enough to be crushed by the wheel fenders as it hovered along the ground.

Fortunately, some small portion of the head part of the other hover boat could still be seen from where I was hiding. Thus, I decided to slowly crawl along the deck ground towards the edge of the deck as I still kept on paying attention on the position of that vehicle, which I believed was then hovering slowly right behind our hover boat.

As I arrived on the edge of the deck, I waited for the other hover boat to go a little further before I would then gave the signal for the ambush. I also told one of the soldiers to slowly go for the display screen right beside the steering wheel in order to activate the stealth camouflage immediately after the signal. The other hover boat had finally come to the right position, and thus even though with my heart still beating fast, and both of my legs trembling a little, I aimed towards three of the cone fruits on the tree twigs above and fired my submachine gun.

'thub thub thub'

I immediately went back to my crawling position as I then signaled the soldier to immediately reactivate the vehicle's stealth camouflage. He tapped on the screen, and just about two or three seconds after he had done it, everyone on board immediately rushed either inside the bridge or towards the mounted auto-beams to shoot upon the aliens around us, whereas I rushed and jumped on board to the other hover boat and fired my submachine gun there towards all of the aliens on board, taking out four aliens there.

However, as I was about to reload my firearm, one last remaining alien suddenly charged on me and forced me to drop my submachine gun on the deck.

It unsheathed its beam spear and within a couple of seconds, it began to leap and attempt to pierce on me as I struggled to get my firearm back. The gunshot and beamshot noises from outside dominated the chaotic atmosphere created by the sudden attack made it almost obvious that everyone outside was fully occupied by the ongoing battle, meaning that I would have to get myself uncornered alone.

Just then, it suddenly leapt towards me again, but I luckily managed to slide myself down and passed through the leaping creature. I quickly grabbed my handgun from my holster and fired four rounds towards the creature's head before I went up on my feet again, taking it down hard.

I rushed back outside to the deck, only to see that few men seemed to have already been down because of the alien's counter attack, although the aliens' numbers had also been severely reduced. Luckily even though the soldiers were seriously injured, it did not seem like they were not life threatening. The underwater fire tactic seemed to go far better than I had expected, since there were dozens of dead aliens scattered right in front of the river shore, added by another dozens of corpses scattered right behind those dead bodies.

The result of the sudden mounted auto-beams attack from the hijacked hover boat also was also perhaps too well, especially when I saw that there must have been at least twenty corpses of aliens with holes on their bodies piling up right on the middle of the ground, with their black viscous blood gushing out violently from their wounds.

As for the soldiers who had attacked while having themselves hidden on the bushes and mossy grounds, even though the tactic did not seem to claim as many aliens lives compared to the others, they were nevertheless enough to seemingly instill a good scare on the extraterrestrial creatures.

I went for the mounted auto-beam on the middle and immediately fired upon some of the remaining aliens, before then only barely dozens of them were left and forced to retreat back to both the east and northeast direction. Some of the uninjured and also perhaps, war-hungry soldiers insisted both me and Commander General Girsang to give them pursuit by using both of the stolen hover boat, but the Commander General instead told them to stay in line according to the original plan.

Thankfully, none of them complained on his orders, and thus I immediately informed Billy that the ambush succeeded and we even managed to hijack another hover boat.

"Golden Jackal, do you copy? This is Black Caiman, we have succeeded in executing the ambush." I said through my mask radio as I was still panting. "We also somehow managed to succeed in getting another hover boat and the rest of the remaining… few of the aliens seemed to be coming to your direction, over."

"This is Golden Jackal. I heard you, Golden Caiman. My team was able to get one with almost no difficulty" he quickly responded. "But you are not going to believe me. Commodore Quentin also succeeded in hijacking one with his team, even before the other hover boat came to my direction."

"Wait, what?!" I asked him in disbelief.

"Come over to the river from the northeast direction." he continued. "Whatever you do, if any of you find the fifth hover boat, DO NOT DESTROY IT! If we can capture it, we would be so much better do."

"Copy, moving in to your designated position. Black Caiman out." I ended the conversation before I quickly notified everyone about the updated information.

I quickly explained the whole situation to everyone as brief and short as possible, resulting in them cheering to each other for a brief moment before they were all then brought to their focused attention again by Commander General Girsang. I also told them that the next thing that we should do, would be to rejoin them by going to the northeast direction using the hover boats.

Unlike before, all of the soldiers, both uninjured and injured showed spirits as they boarded the hover boats, and I had to admit it was actually a very good thing to happen after a decisive battle. I had a slight concern that by having almost a dozen of people on board each of the hover boats would made them slow down, but as they began to move again and without any signs of overloaded, I quickly accelerated the vehicle until its full speed and maximum gear as I wanted to arrive at the new rendezvous point as quickly as possible.

Once in a while, I looked back to see if Jessica was still catching up with me, and fortunately she somehow managed to keep up with the pace.

As the hover boat eventually went out of the forest and into the large river outside, the sight of a rather large burnt circle markings along the river shore could be seen, stealing the attention of most of the soldiers on the hover boat. It made me recalled the events that had happened earlier when there was suddenly an explosion that was heard right at the same time when Commodore Quentin lost his communication temporarily with us.

"I guess that is what the blast from the mothership can do to rough surfaces…" Commander General Girsang said.

"And I bet that a couple of blasts like that at most are the only things necessary to destroy this vehicle…" I responded to him as I focused on steering the hover boat again.

Shortly after, the river forked towards two different directions – the narrow one with a weaker current to the north, and the wide one with a stronger current to the east. Of course, since both Commodore Quentin and Billy were waiting, I had no business at all to go north. It did not take me until ten minutes before all of us could regroup again with the luring and hijack teams, all of them on their hijacked vehicles.

"Alright so, what is the next plan?" I said through my mask radio.

"Eh, let us just release these things for now." Commodore Quentin said as he began to remove his mask. "We would not need anyway for the time being."

All of the team leaders than grouped up on the decks of the hover boats commanded by me and Billy for an emergency briefing about taking down the mothership and also if possible, the hijacking of the fifth hover boat.

Those two objects of extraterrestrial origins had retreated back to the mountain peak, most probably to re-strategize on how they would attempt to wipe us all out, especially since they had their numbers greatly reduced by the sudden attack, and not to mention that we also succeeded in stealing three of their main means of armored transportation.

All of the soldiers, both uninjured and injured ones were also included in the emergency briefing, and it was actually Commodore Quentin who insisted it since he said that every soldiers would have a considerably fatal role in the next battle. When Billy asked him why, he returned the question with another question of his own.

"Does any of you here familiar with the term 'Riverine Warfare' or 'Brown Water Warfare'?" he asked as he looked to all of the Special Forces Command soldiers.

"We gave them the basic knowledge of using the advantage of river and lake environments in the middle of a war during their basic training." Commander General Girsang quickly answered. "However, if you are looking for few people among these men that have that specific experience, then you will not find any."

"Well, the last time our own troops had direct and field experiences to those kind of warfare was back in late 60s and early 70s, Gill…" Commodore Quentin chuckled.

He then continued by telling us all that we would most likely had to do some improvisations in order to take down the mothership by using the basic concepts of Riverine Warfare, which was the term that could be used when an army and a navy force joint their hands together in conducting a military operation on shallow river and lake environments. Usually in that term, the army forces would be the one who would first initiate the battle, while the navy would provide them supports be they supplies, structures, transportations, or even additional firepower.

However given our current condition, apparently it would be the navy who would instead initiate the attack on the mothership. Commodore Quentin made it simpler by saying that there would be two hover boats on the river, and another two standing by inside the forest. As the hover boats attacked the mothership by using the pincer projectiles, they would also attempt to avoid its deadly large beam attack in the process, speeding up towards right underneath the mothership before they would then get inside the forest.

At that same moment, the army forces who had been lying in wait, substituted them for the attack, with one hover boat acting as the decoy that would lure the mothership along the river, while the other followed it from behind and attack the mothership again. Should there be any remaining aliens on their hover boards flying towards either of the hover boats in order to take down the soldiers behind the mounted auto-beams, one of the reserving hover boats would come out of the forest and provide support.

"So the improvisation is that we are going to use a relaying technique, sir?" Billy asked to Commodore Quentin, making sure.

"Exactly." he responded, fast and short. "Now I hope that none of you would mind, but I would personally like both me and Travis to initiate the attack."

"I have no objections at all…" Commander General Girsang replied.

Billy only shook his head once, and just like that, all of the team leaders including me put on our masks again as we began to stand by for our next attack. As if the mothership had also waited for us, it immediately appeared itself again, by slowly emerging from the river fork right ahead of us, just as the two other hover boats had gone inside the forest.

Before we moved the hover boats straight ahead towards the mothership, I reminded all of the soldiers on board to focus on the aliens and not their vehicles, and to protect their teammates behind the mounted auto-beams.

"Remember, men! Keep your focus on the aliens, not the hover boards, and protect your teammates firing the auto-beams at all costs! Are we clear!?" I said to them in a voice as loud as I could.

"Yessir!!" the soldiers said in unison with even a louder voice.

The two hover boats then immediately sped up towards the mothership, and as the one commandeered by Commodore Quentin had begun firing its pincer projectiles, the mothership also began to charge its bottom pyramid-like part. It was then when he immediately told me to evade, and all of a sudden a large lime green beam was then fired from it, but it missed and hit some of the trees near the river shore somewhere in the distance behind the hover boats.

"Now I know where those burned circular marking from earlier had come from." I said through my mask radio as I signaled one of the soldiers to begin shooting projectiles towards the mothership.

"And that is why I have thought that there was no necessary explanation in the first place." Commodore Quentin responded through the mask radio.

As the hover boats were getting closer to the mothership, some parts of its lower body had begun to show a few holes, and it seemed like it was what made Commodore Quentin focused on attacking that particular spot.

With the intents on assisting him, I moved my hover boat a little further from his, and told the same soldier to continuously fire the projectiles, in order to make another hole on a dented part of the mothership as I also kept on dodging its large lime green beam, and strangely it seemed that it took a longer time to become fully charged than before the holes were made.

The dent had become significantly worse by the continuous firing, but it had not ruptured yet by the time both of our hover boats had arrived directly underneath it and headed straight into the forest. Just when the other two hover boats went past mine and Commodore Quentin's, I immediately told both Commander General Girsang and Billy to aim for the dents until they became holes, as it apparently weakened and slowed down its beam charging process.

They proceeded along, and unlike before, the mothership then suddenly released another horde of aliens on hover boards, which according to Billy might be numbering nearly around a hundred of them.

"The leader has become desperate." Commodore Quentin said with a calm tone. "Fine, then we will too have to go all out."

He immediately went back to the direction where we had come in from, and as we went back to the large river outside the forest again, both of the hover boats were indeed surrounded by the aliens on their hover boards like moths attracted to a couple of light bulbs. Commodore Quentin rushed his hover boat towards Billy's, who was acting as the decoy, leaving me to assist the Commander General's team in attacking from behind and covering him from the flying aliens.

All soldier on the deck opened fire in an instant towards the flying aliens, gradually dropping them one by one, and succumbing to the barrage of bullets. By then, there were already a few more holes on the body of the mothership that I felt like somehow it had also slowed down a little because of the sustained damage.

However, as the mothership kept on going and followed the reverse direction of the river current, it went completely backwards all of a sudden and on a very high speed that had I not reached and tapped all of the wheel fenders symbols on the display screen beside me, the whole hover boat would be dragged along with it as well. I immediately turned them back on again, having the hover boat hovering up in the air above the water before I then noticed something very strange from the mothership.

The remaining numbers of the flying aliens, which I believed were no less than twenties had all scattered up to the forest, and as the mothership kept on ascending while also headed to the end of the rushing river, a shocking thing happened right before our eyes. It was the sudden huge explosion of the mothership, creating a very bright lime green ball of light in the sky, before it quickly fell down right in the middle of the end of the rushing river, and blocking most of the water volume as a result.

"Wait, what just happened?" Billy suddenly asked from the mask radio, as both his hover boat and Commander General Girsang's arrived right next to mine.

"Malfunction due to severe sustained damage?" I answered him, but with full of doubts.

"No… it is not finished yet…" Commodore Quentin responded with an alerted tone. "Stay… alert…"

There was a total silence in the next ten minutes and only the noise of the rushing river around us, as we were all waiting for anything to happen. Since nothing at all came up, Billy volunteered to go down from the hover boat on the river shore to look around the mothership, and few of the soldiers on his hover boat decided to follow him as well. I felt like he would need some assistance and thus, I also decided to follow him, leaving the steering wheel to the soldier who had been in charge of the display screen beside it.

As I jumped down from the boat and regrouped with Billy's team, I could not explain it, but just like what Commodore Quentin had said, I somehow knew that the battle was not over yet…