I noticed that most of the aliens were using some sort of a mask on their faces, which would most probably explain why they did not fall ill to the contaminated air inside the mothership despite the intensity of the volcanic ashes. So far as I could see, all of the masks had the similar appearance to their faces except for the eyes part where it strangely shaped to protrude out in the shape of cone, and had a color of black instead of their usual deep red.
Then, all of a sudden, the whole horde opened fire towards us, shooting their own hovering object, or rather, supposedly their own armed and armored transport vehicle. I had to admit though, if it was not for Billy pushing me hard that it made me fell hard to the ground, there could be a hole on my body by then since few of their shots did manage to reach inside the hovering object bridge.
"Thanks. That was a close call…" I said to Billy as I gave out a sigh of relieved and still had my heart beating very fast.
"You are welcome…" he said, as he gestured all three of us to stay on crawling position, "But uh… I guess now we are stuck inside this… thing…"
"Hover boat." I responded to him, as it also made Jessica turned to me. "I would rather call this vehicle of theirs as a hover boat from now on."
"Fine, do you have any suggestions?" he then quickly asked me.
I initially had my mind on a blank, and was completely not sure on what to think and suggest. But then, I tried to recall on anything that might help with our situation, and it was at that moment when I remembered about something. Three years earlier back in the sewers of Chicago, the alien that attacked me with both its club-like left arm and beam rifle had to reload after about five rounds.
If the current beam rifle were of the very same kind, then it would also definitely mean that they were not firing each of their rifles continuously, but rather a series of volleys of fire where one few would fire first before other few followed to one specific target. If that was the case, then the only option would be to first distance ourselves further from their range of fire by moving the hover boat, meaning that we would have to actually operate it.
'But… how in the world can we reach the buttons and the controls without actually standing up? It is not like any of the controls can be accessed when we are in a crawling position.' I thought to myself as we were still keeping our heads down from the beamshot from outside.
Just then, I quickly had my attention locked towards the only thing that could be reached from crawling position – the standing stick of the left side of the bridge. Since it looked like it was connected to something below the floor, I had a feeling that it might be some sort of a lever. As to whatever the function might be for, I still had no idea, but since there were no other things that could be reached on our current condition, I decided that I had to go for the lever.
Still in crawling position, I rushed to approach to where the lever was and pulled it as hard as I could by using my left hand. As it had finally pulled down, it slowly got back up again and nothing seemed to change at all until all of a sudden the whole interior of the bridge was lit up by a couple lines of lime green bright light, and was immediately followed by what I believed to be some sort of the hovering process since I could literally feel like the whole vehicle was starting to levitate.
It was also at that moment when all aliens on the outside seemed to cease their fire. At first, I had no idea what was happening besides the fact that we had most likely turned on the hover boat. However, it also came to my mind that perhaps by turning on the vehicle, I had also unintentionally turned on its stealth mode instead, making the vehicle and all three of us inside it invisible. I gulped hard, and mustered up all of my courage before I slowly stood up to try and see if I had guessed correctly. I could not even begin to describe how relieved and glad I was when it was indeed true.
The aliens in the distance had then begun to slowly approach the direction of the hover boat, perhaps to determine where it might had gone according to their last seen location. Both Billy and Jessica also finally proceeded to do the same, before all three of us knew for sure that we had then suddenly gained the advantage against all of them.
"Oh, that is right…" Billy said as he also stood up, "I guess we are now cannot be seen by them, huh?"
He then immediately suggested if I would be the one who figured out on how to drive all three of us to get out of the mothership while he would hold all of the aliens we encountered along our way by using the mounted auto-beam. At first I was not so sure, since even I still had yet to know how to utilize it, but just as I was about to forward my concerns to him, he had already went towards the deck and headed to one of the mounted auto-beam while saying that he would buy the time for me to figure out how to drive the whole vehicle.
"I will help you do not worry!" Jessica also said.
Therefore, I only nodded and began to try each of the control panels on the bridge, as not long after that I suddenly heard one of the auto-beams on the deck had been fired and made me shocked for a little bit. I quickly tapped on my mask headband as I still tried each of the control panels.
'PWOOM PWOOM PWOOM PWOOM PWOOM PWOOM'
"Bill?!" What was that?!" I said through my mask radio.
"Yeah! That was me!" he replied very quickly. "Do not worry! I figured out how to use these mounted beams, but hurry up! They are all heading towards the other hover boats, and I cannot guarantee that I can shoot all of them before they get there!"
As several bumps were then felt from the outer walls of the vehicle, indicating that the aliens had managed to hit the vehicle again, both Jessica and I finally decided to split up trying the rest of the controls on both the right and left side of the bridge. She focused on the controls around the lever that I had pulled earlier, while I tried to push every buttons I could find around the yoke-like steering wheel.
During that moment, I came to notice the presence of a very familiar large screen that apparently showed the whole state of the hover boat, and it immediately reminded me of the one inside the narwhal flying object back in Chicago. It showed a thin and rather short rectangular shape in front of a water droplet shape, with the rounded end of the shape directly intersected with one of the shorter ends of the rectangular object. I somehow had the feeling that the rectangular shape was the pincer-like object of the vehicle.
On both of the sides of the water droplet shape, there were also four square shapes directly intersected with the sides of the water droplet shape, in which I believed that they were most probably the wheel fenders that enabled the vehicle to hover. There was also a cylindrical shape protruding out from each of the sides of the water droplet shape, as well as another protruding out from the pointed end of the water droplet shape. I believed that the three mounted auto-beams were displayed by those three cylindrical shapes. All of the shapes showed lime green color.
There was nothing else that picked up my particular interest on the screen, except for the circular shape inside the water droplet shape and near its rounded end, which I could not figure out what it was at first since unlike the narwhal flying object, the hover boat did not have any form of parts under its body, except for the boat-like hull, which I believe would not be represented by such shape.
In my complete curiosity, I tried to touch the circular shape, just to take a further guess what it might be. Instead, it activated another part inside the bridge, and to the very least of my expectation that mentioned part was in fact, the steering wheel. Jessica was the one who had seen everything from the start and had she not told me about it through my mask radio, I would have not realized it much sooner. In other words, in my oblivion I had accidentally activated the steering wheel for the whole vehicle.
"Thanks… now… what about this steering wheel…" I responded to her notification as the both of us then approached right in front of the yoke like steering wheel.
In a glance, one would say that the steering wheel reminded them of an airplane's, but with four buttons on them – two on each of the yoke edge. There also seemed to be a single larger button right on the center of the yoke, which obviously would not be for horns. I gently put both of my hands on the steering wheel, right after I told Billy that I was about to try moving the vehicle slowly.
"Alright, Bill! I am going to try something now!" I told Billy through my mask radio as I was about to try to slowly turn the vehicle towards the left direction.
"About time! I can barely prevent any of them from reaching the other hover boats! Hurry up!" he shouted through the mask radio.
As I then tried to gently turn the steering wheel, the whole vehicle indeed turned to the same direction. What made me more surprised however was that some small part of the front left side of the windshield then showed the same very same screen display that I had looked at earlier, while on the right side, it showed me some sort of a map, showing a number of water droplet shapes but only the one in the center was glowing with lime green color and blinking, indicating that it was the vehicle that we were currently riding on.
The map also slowly turned to the same direction where I had turned the vehicle to, and when we it was finally directly facing to one of the other hover boats. I quickly reached out to the large screen right beside me to tap on the short rectangular object on it, while hoping that it would also activate the pincer-like object of the vehicle, which I assumed to be some sort of a weapon of great damage than the mounted auto-beam.
"Please tell me that I am right…" I muttered to myself as I tapped the shape on the screen.
'PTEW'
'GA-BOOOM!!!'
If it was not for the map display on the right side of the windshield, I would have a hard time believing everything that my eyes saw upon realizing what I had just done to everything right in front of the pincer-like object. It was not only one hover boat that was struck and destroyed by whatever kind of projectile that had been fired from the object, but it was three in a straight row instead, and as if that were not enough, it left a serious damage on the wall behind those hover boats.
"What was that?!" Billy shouted as he came rushing in.
"The pincer…" I replied to him, extremely stuttering, "I-I mean, the pointy object of this vehicle!"
Even though I could not see both Billy's and Jessica's expressions behind their masks, I could be completely sure that they were also as surprised as I was. I quickly told Billy that I activated the pincer object through the screen on my right side. He rushed towards the screen and as he had finally seen the display for himself, he told me to aim for the other hover boats as he believed that we should take down all of the hover boats there before we would escape out of the mothership by using the only one remaining.
'PTEW PTEW'
'GA-BOOOM!!! GA-BOOOM!!!'
In a short moment of time, there were absolutely no more hover boats left inside the hangar, except the one in which we were riding on. The aliens, which even I believed had then had their numbers around a hundred were also scattered and seemed to be panicking as well as they were all rushing towards the corridor we had entered from. Billy then blasted away the wall separating the corridor and the hangar, leaving a huge gap as well as alien casualties as very few of the rest managed to retreat elsewhere.
"And now, to move forward…" I said as I attempted to tilt the steering wheel to the front.
The vehicle did indeed begin to move forward as I pushed the steering wheel, but it did not tilt forward. Instead, the whole steering unit seemed to move forward a little bit as I pushed it. The harder I pushed, the faster the vehicle went until the whole unit could no longer be moved forward. I then asked both Billy and Jessica to try and push the buttons on the control panels around us but to no avail.
Since there was nothing else that had been pressed, I wonder what the buttons on the steering wheel would do. I first tried to push the biggest button, which was on the center of the yoke, resulting in a sudden stop of the whole vehicle, and nearly made both Billy and Jessica fell forward.
"S-sorry…" I told to the both of them, as I also had held myself from falling forward.
However, I noticed that the steering wheel had gone back to the original place before I had moved it forward just earlier. It was at that moment when it hit my mind that perhaps it had some sort of a similarity to switching gears and applying brakes in ground vehicles.
I tried to move the vehicle forward again, by using the exact same way and as it went faster and the steering wheel could no longer be pushed again, I tried to push the other button. At that time, I chose one of the buttons on the left edge of the yoke. As it turned out, the steering wheel suddenly pushed me backwards again, but the vehicle ran faster instead. I could not contain my smile as I could finally figure out on how to 'switch gears' on an extraterrestrial vehicle.
Unfortunately for us, I could suddenly felt like the whole hangar were about to collapse as soon as there was a massive quake that could even be felt from inside the vehicle even though we were literally hovering above the ground. I quickly believed that there must have been two possibilities for the cause of the quake – that it was because the blast of the pincer-like object had also made some serious construction damage on the hangar, or that the volcano outside was about to erupt again.
I initially thought the latter to be the cause, but since neither Commodore Quentin nor Commander General Girsang had contacted us about an imminent explosion, I shrugged that thought off and quickly became fully convinced that the former reason was the cause once I saw for myself the dents and bents on many of the pillars inside the hangar as the vehicle was just about to exit it. I believed it was not until ten seconds after the vehicle had completely gone out from the hangar before the whole area caved in, and buried whatever was left behind.
"Push it harder!" Billy shouted to me as he patted my back several times when the quake did not seem to be stopping even after the hangar had collapsed.
"I am trying!" I replied to him right away by shouting too as I then shifted the gear to the next one.
Fortunately for us, the width of the corridor was wide enough for the vehicle to be able to advance smoothly without having to scratch anything against the wall, ground or ceiling, and it did not take long before we were finally back to the wide sloping spiral lane. Of course, I chose to ascend to the higher floors since I would definitely not want all three of us to be buried alive inside an alien mothership. I had to make a sharp turn to the left direction, which nearly made both Billy and Jessica fell again for the second time, and almost scratched the tail of the vehicle against the pillar.
"Nope, no no! I will not make any excuses! That was my fault!" I told the both of them as I attempted to position the vehicle to run on the middle of the lane.
"Just… get us out of here, quick!" Jessica said as he tried to get back up again.
"Ugh, good thing I do not easily carsick!" Billy muttered to himself.
As we kept on ascending, the map displayed on the windshield had also changed to show a quarter-cut large circle on the right side while the rest of the display was a water droplet shape inside a larger quarter-cut circle, indicating that there was no imminent exit. However, yet another problem then proceeded to follow us. It was the sudden appearance of a great number of the aliens, with each two of them riding on some sort of a flying platform following us from behind. Jessica was the one who told both me and Billy about it.
She said that the form of the platform immediately reminded her of a skateboard, but instead of wheels, the board hovered in air by using some sort of a turbine each on its edge. Also, the hover board strangely had a railing right in the middle of it, where two aliens would hold one of their hands there, and the beam rifle on the other. Even though I had shifted the gear for the third time, and there did not seem to be any other button to push on the steering wheel, the hover board seemed to be slowly catching up to us each time I turned back to look at them.
"If only this thing can go faster…" I said to myself as I gritted my teeth.
"I will hold them off!" Billy shouted as he rushed outside and tapped on his mask headband. "Travis, give me the warning when it is time to make a sharp turn!"
"Roger that!" I shouted and tapped my mask headband too before I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
And just like that, beamshot noises were then heard again from the deck as I tried to get all three of us out of the mothership by using the vehicle. I constantly checked on the large display screen to see if the vehicle had sustained any damage on any parts of it, but as I had taken a look at a glance, apparently nothing was blinking, which most likely indicated that everything could still be considered unscratched.
I also wondered if the aliens could not actually shoot the vehicle as they could not see it since it had its stealth camouflage activated, or rather if they were actually hesitating as it could be the only one left inside the mothership. Regardless, I was far more concerned to the seemingly endless numbers of the pursuers with each time I looked back outside, and as if everything was not tense enough, Jessica suddenly decided to assist Billy in holding back the pursuing aliens.
"Travis, I will go and help Billy! I trust that you can handle the steering far better now!" Jessica said just before she rushed to the deck.
"Wha- wait! Jess!" I said as I tried to convince her against it, but it was too late.
I did not know what kind of conversation they were having on the deck, but apparently Billy also did not like the idea in the slightest as I could see him looking like he was yelling towards Jessica, who in return seemed to also still insisted on helping. However, just then I noticed that the display of the map on the windshield had slowly begun to change.
The small quarter-cut circle on the right side of the map had ended with a straight vertical line, as the larger quarter-cut circle also opened up to what seemed to be two corridors that were heading to the same direction. Since the distance between the water droplet shape and the corridors on the map were getting closer, I knew full well that I would be able to see the path to the corridor very soon.
"Brace yourselves! Sharp turn to the left in any second now!!" I shouted as I tapped my headband before I held the steering wheel with both my hands again.
I turned the steering wheel hard to the left, in order to avoid crashing against the wall, and immediately tapped on the pincer-like object symbol on the screen before it immediately fired the same projectile that had destroyed the rest of the other hover boats to the corridor wall, rupturing it just before the vehicle went into the corridor.
As the vehicle had entered the corridor, a whole new and also simpler map was then displayed on the windshield. It was simply a couple of parallel lines with the water droplet shape right on its center, indicating that the vehicle was currently on a long, straight path towards something we had yet to know. Also, another thing that made I quickly noticed was that the lane seemed to be a little steeper than it had been back on the spiral lane, but fortunately it had not hindered the maximum speed of the vehicle which probably was thanks to its hovering mechanism instead of the usual direct-contact-with-ground.
"Whatever you just did, we owe you one, Travis!" Billy said through the mask radio as he was laughing. "Many of them crashed the wall hard to their own death by that sudden turn! We created a significant gap between the aliens and us!"
"Good job, Travis!" Jessica said in a relieved tone.
Indeed, I was also relieved upon hearing that news. However, all three of us were not to let down our guard as well since a number of the aliens were still pursuing us. Shortly after, a notification from Billy about the aliens that were beginning to close in on us again came in right at the exact moment when the display of the map began to change again, but I could feel that something was off.
The map no longer showed any sort of shapes, lines, or even arcs, as the end of the two parallel lines were getting closer against the water droplet shape. I then had my attention locked towards the windshield, and very shortly after I could see the end of the corridor, closed in and seemed to be sealed. I immediately tapped on the pincer-like object symbol on the screen beside me for about three times, and as it fired the same projectile towards the end of the corridor, it revealed nothing but bright light, indicating that it might directly lead outside the mothership and back to the mountain.
Just then, I realized that if that was the case, and based on how fast the vehicle had been going, there would be no doubt that the vehicle would jump at the end of the corridor and would fall fast to the ground below it. There would be also no telling how far down we would go, and upon that realization, I immediately felt a rushing heartbeat inside my chest as I quickly tapped my headband.
"Both of you!! Get back inside now! There is no time to explain!!" I shouted as loud as I could through my mask radio that for a moment I felt like I had made my throat sore.
"What is it?!" Billy shortly came and approached me.
I was still trying to regain my voice but I hinted him by pointing out the map on the windshield and also the bright light at the end of the corridor that were approaching fast.
"Wha…" he said as he seemed to realize what was going to happen.
Right after that, the vehicle suddenly went out of the corridor, to the world outside again. Even though I knew that the vehicle would definitely jumped and fell down hard towards the ground below, I had never thought that we would actually have the ground to be more than a hundred feet below us, which was
"BRACE YOURSELVES!!!" I screamed as held on to the steering wheel, and felt like Jessica was holding hard against my left arm.
I did not know exactly for how long I had been holding on since I also had closed my eyes as hard as I could, before I had both my legs lifted up and fell down at an incredible speed that it made me so hard to stay conscious. I did however, hear few tree branches rustling and scratching sounds before I completely lose my consciousness.
.
I woke up lying on the floor of the bridge with my face down, and Jessica right beside me. I quickly tried to get up, to which I struggled to since I felt like both of my feet were very weak and when I did, I desperately attempted to make both Billy and Jessica woke up. Just then, I realized that the vehicle was in fact, floating on a river and was following the rushing current, towards the waterfall not too far ahead.
"Oh my God!" I screamed as I tried to turn the vehicle by turning the steer, before realizing that it had become unresponsive. "And why is not it working!?"
Shocked, I set aside my intention on waking the two of them up as I tried to go and turn on the lever of the vehicle again as it had gone off and the steering wheel unresponsive. With each passing second, I had my sweat rolling down my neck and towards my back as the vehicle was approaching closer to the end of the waterfall, and since I had no choice but to drag my right leg as it was still too weak for me to run right away, it became far more time consuming for me.
"Eearghhhhh!!" I screamed as I could finally reach and pulled the lever, turning the vehicle on once again, and made it hover on the river and only a few feet before the tip of the waterfall.
I could not describe how relieved I was right at that moment, as I suddenly had both my legs numb. I dragged myself to the steering wheel again, and forced my body to stand up as I slowly commandeer the vehicle to the nearest river shore and stopped it there, before I released both of my hands from the steering wheel and falling to the ground again and released my mask in the process.
It took me fifteen minutes before I could begin to gain my strength for both of my legs again, and it was at that moment when I tried to wake both Billy and Jessica again. To be honest, I still felt like I could collapse any second then, but I knew full well that it was not the right time for it.
"Bill! Come on! Wake up!" I said to him as I shook his body after I removed his mask.
"Urgh…" he groaned, as he began to regain his consciousness. "What… happened?"
"I guess... we had gone down a hundred feet somewhere below the mountain peak…" I replied to him as I approached Jessica.
I first opened up her mask, and gently lifted her head and body up with both of my hands before I tried to wake her up.
"Jess… come on… wake up…" I said to her as I caressed her cheek with one of my hands.
"Mmh… Travis…" she said, finally regaining her consciousness.
I gave out a loud sigh of relieve as all three of us had regained our consciousness again. I did not know how far we had gone to, and I also wondered if the mask could still be used to contact either Commodore Quentin or Commander General Girsang. However, one thing that I knew for sure was even though we had not succeeded in sabotaging the mothership, we had at least put some serious damage towards it that it would most likely result in full pursuit against us. The time was then 01.40 p.m., and thankfully the air around us had not been polluted with volcanic ashes, yet…