I first decided to drive the hover boat a little deeper into the forest near the river shore again, in order to not giving out an obvious hint of our presence towards any pursuing aliens later on. At the same time, I was also looking for any sorts of large rocks or tall trees for us to be able to either step or climb down with. I did not find any large rocks inside the outer section of the forest, but I did find a tall tree with many branches that we could use as some sort of a ladder for us to step down from the hover boat.
I quickly drove the boat and parked it right beside the tree, and told both Billy and Jessica to go down to the forest ground by using the tree as I tried to figure out on how to turn off the vehicle. My first decision was to approach the lever and pulled it again to see if it would work, but unfortunately it did not work that way since I could not move the lever again even for a little no matter how hard I pulled it. Therefore, the next thing that came to my mind was to turn it off via the large screen right beside the steering wheel.
I proceeded to tap all of the wheel fenders symbol on the screen, resulting in a sudden fall down of the vehicle that it made me surprised and lost my balance for a brief moment. I knew for sure that I had just deactivated all of the vehicle's hovering motors, however I could also tell that it did not turn off the whole vehicle since the whole interior of the bridge was still illuminated by the same lime green light.
As I thought of something else that might be working, I wondered if tapping the whole water droplet shape would actually turn off the whole vehicle. I decided to give it a try, and still there did not seem to be anything different, at least not from inside the bridge. It was also then when Billy suddenly called me from outside.
"Hey, Travis! What did you just do? The whole thing is now not invisible anymore!" he said, with a curious tone.
I quickly walked to the deck, to see that both Billy and Jessica had been waiting on the right side of the vehicle, which was also seemed to be the same direction to the deeper part of the forest. I was confused by his words, and thus I decided to take a look with my own eyes, and as I turned my head from the corner of the deck, it turned out that I could indeed see the whole form of the vehicle.
I then went back to the bridge in a rush, to make sure that I did not mistake what I had seen, and the whole interior of the bridge was indeed still illuminated by the lime green light. I also noticed that by that time, the water droplet and all of the wheel fenders symbols on the screen had no longer shone, indicating that I had deactivated both the vehicle's hovering mode as well as its stealth mode but without turning it off.
At that moment, I supposed to myself that apparently I could just leave it as it was since at least we could then know for sure where it was parked, and besides, it was not like it let out weird engine noises that would attract anybody or the pursuing aliens to go near it. Therefore, I finally decided to leave it there and step down to the forest ground by using the branches of the tall tree right beside it.
As I had then stepped on the ground again, I took a deep breath and, for the first time, I felt completely relieved and glad to be breathing the authentic air of the rainforest wilderness. It took me a few seconds to completely refresh both my mind and body before I could begin to look, and also hear the natural surroundings around us.
First things first, the tree beside the parked hover boat was not necessarily the tallest tree around, as I believed that the rest of the others that had surrounded us might even be taller, yet with far less amount of strong branches. Also, based on the features of all of the trees there, I strongly believed that they were all spruces, distinguishable by the presence of their countless cone-like fruits. Even as I had just realized what kind of trees they were, a couple of the cones suddenly fell right on top of my head from one of the treetops near me, and it somehow made Jessica laughed for a little moment.
Secondly, I could also clearly hear the rushing river noises from where we were standing even though we were at least tens of feet inside the forest from the river shore. Sure, it might be because that the river shore was also very near to a waterfall, however I also could not shake the possibility that there might probably also be another river somewhere not too far inside the forest. That being said, I could not hear any animal sounds around us, and if I were to say anything about it, I supposed that it had something to do with their more sensitive instincts towards natural disasters like volcano eruptions.
Those two things that I had taken into my serious attention were not without purpose, for they might in fact prove some sort of a use towards our current situation. Currently, I had imagined how it would be if the aliens were to pursue the three of us to even deep into the jungle, since I also strongly believed that they must have some sort of a tracker or tracer for their hijacked hover boat, not to mention if it was indeed their last spare vehicle and thus it could be assumed that their pursuit and search for it must be inevitable, if not imminent.
Since we had confirmed with our own eyes that the current aliens had also brought their beam rifles, we would have no chance at all to face them head on, even if we were all armed with obsolete firearms which for whatever reasons, could not be detected for auto-attacks by their armed vehicles. And since firepower was definitely not the solution, we had only had one more thing to use against them – the nature itself.
All of the Special Forces Command soldiers, and even the Commander General Girsang himself all wore their combat camouflage uniform fatigue, also with jungle camouflage face paints. Luckily there were no lacks of bushes at all around us and so far as my eyes could see, the soils around us had the perfect match for the dark brown color of their camouflage. Those two points clearly hinted out that we could use our surroundings to hide ourselves in the nature and create our own version of stealth camouflage.
The hover boat, no matter how hard I gave a thought about it, I could not think of any other way to turn it off besides to actually destroy it right there and then, or all of the aliens would have a clear hint of its whereabouts. At a glance, I would definitely consider the presence of the vehicle to be a hindrance towards all of us. However, when I gave it a second thought, it might in fact be actually useful as a bait to lure the aliens inside the forest, before we would then ambush them there.
In practice, I could move the vehicle to a deeper spot in the forest where the noise of the rushing river would be loud enough to cover the sounds that we might make whenever we move to attack the aliens with stealth. Some of the soldiers might even have to hold their breaths and waited inside the river before they would then shoot the wandering aliens from there, which would be challenging for us, but still possible to do since we had done it before.
The single remaining question however, was if it there was in fact, a rushing river not too far deeper inside the forest. If it turned out that there was no river at all, then the tactic would not be able to work and all we could do was only to evade the pursuing aliens, and that moving the hover boat would only give us more time to get away from them. As I could not think of anything else once that thought came up to my mind, I closed both my eyes hard and sighed deeply as I gently lifted my glasses and wiped my face off my sweat.
"You have something in your mind do not you?" Billy asked me as he patted on my shoulder.
"As a matter of fact, yeah I do…" I said to him as I put my glasses on again.
"Well, why do not you-" he was about to ask me about something before a faint noise were then heard from behind one of the trees in the distance.
I immediately readied my submachine gun and crouched before walking towards the direction, with Billy following me and Jessica hid behind another tree near her. It did not take long before the two of us arrived at the tree, and as we counted to three, we swiftly made our move to the other side of it, revealing ourselves the very thing that had caused the noise, which was actually someone that we were just about to look for – a Special Forces Command soldier.
"Glad to see the both of you still in one piece after that damn fall…" Commodore Quentin said, among the rest of the other soldiers.
"I take it that all of you see the vehicle came rushing down towards that river far below the mountain?" Billy asked him, as he smiled and lowered his submachine gun.
"Rushing down? If anything, I would say that was one hell of a death leap…" Commodore Quentin answered quickly, as he chuckled. "I like you, young man. You have a similar sense of humor like I do, apparently…"
"Well, it is not like this is the first time I have faced my own apparent imminent death right in front of my face, Sir…" Billy responded to him.
With the two of us had then regrouped with the rest of the whole squad, I then signaled Jessica that it was safe to come towards us. Right after that, Commodore Quentin explained to all three of us that they witnessed, although very faintly, that the whole vehicle leaping down to the river far below from the direction of the northern side of the mountain top. What I had not expected however, was that the river down below there was actually also the location where the whole squad had started to climb up to the mountain since it was surrounded by steep cliffs leading directly to the mountain peak.
As they were about to climb down and pursue the vehicle that had apparently fell down to the river far down there, both Commodore Quentin and Commander General Girsang noticed there were a sudden huge commotion coming from the area around the crater. Since the volcanic ashes had become too thick by then, none of them could see what that was about, but after seeing that the vehicle had fallen down like that, Commodore Quentin supposed that something had been going on inside the alien mothership that had been hidden right under the mountain peak, especially since he also heard most of our conversations when we were inside it.
It was at that moment when I suddenly remembered that most of our time in the mothership, we were speaking with each other through our masks, meaning that both Commodore Quentin and Commander General Girsang had also heard nearly everything right after the conversation with the man from the Pentagon had ended. I then asked if the both of them heard us hijacking before stealing one of the alien's hover boats and escaping the mothership while breaking some havoc during our getaway, to which Commander General Girsang told me that it was actually thanks to those conversations, that the both of them were able to guess what had been going on, and knew right away that the strange unseen thing suddenly bursting out of the mountain peak was the hover boat.
With all that said, I knew for sure that it would be far easier to explain our current situation to the whole squad. I immediately told and brought all of them to the location where I had parked the hover boat, and as I had expected, I could see most of the soldiers had either their eyes bugged out towards the extraterrestrial technology, or had their facial expression showing a full disbelief upon the sight of the bulky machine.
"Gentlemen, I present to you, the Beetle Hovering Object." I said as I gestured my right hand towards the parked hover boat. "Or, as I would also like to call it 'Alien Hover Boat', since it had a faintly good resemblance to a tugboat, once you get on the deck."
I let the men looked at the hover boat for a closer look, and some of them even climbed up the tree beside it to look inside. Thankfully, none of them decided to touch anything there, particularly the lever, steering wheel, the display screen, and the mounted auto-beams. When five minutes had passed, I explained to all of them about our current situation, the possibility of the aliens' full pursuit, as well as what I had planned on in order to counter them.
As I had expected, once I had finished explaining, Commodore Quentin was the first to ask about any holes in my plan, to which I truthfully answered that my plan would only work if there was a river with a pretty strong current flowing deep inside the forest, before we would then ambush the aliens by shooting at them from inside the river. I became so much relieved when Commander General Girsang told me that there was indeed a wide river not too far from where we were, however it also concerned me when he mentioned that there was no backup plan for us should the worst were to come and we failed.
"Pardon me, Commodore." Billy said, shortly after Commander General Girsang raised his concern. "I have a suggestion regarding the backup plan."
His backup plan was to actually steal another hover boat right away from the hands of the aliens, and to create some sort of a pincer attack directly from the large river outside of the forest. The whole ambush team would still lie down around the other hover boat that would be used as bait, and when it was time to attack, the bait would also suddenly went active and wipe out all of the aliens around it, meaning that few people must in fact be inside the hover boat right from the start.
Should it succeeded, which he was pretty sure of, the remaining aliens, if there was any ,would attempt to flee outside the forest and would most likely get out to the large river. The second stolen hover boat would then wipe the rest of them out. Once that had been finished, we would by then have not one, but two of their technologies that would supposedly be enough to wipe the rest of the other hover boats, and also hopefully, the mothership as well.
I recalled that there were four other hover boats back on the crater when we had last seen them on the previous day during the dusk. If there was indeed no more hover boats inside the mothership, and that those four were the only ones left for them, then that would mean that once we stole another one, our strengths in terms of firepower might not be so much different by then. Billy also immediately proceeded to the hardest part of his suggested plan.
It was how to actually steal one, without giving the rest of the other hover boats too much alert. In order to do that, few of us would actually have to lure one or two of the hover boats first, and then with only one chance, few others must get onto the deck as fast as they could, and wipe all of the aliens on board before they would then proceeded to hijack the vehicle. To do all of that, the team who would lure the hover boat must stay outside of the forest until one of the hover boats spot them, while the team who would get on the deck must wait and stay still on a treetop as the luring team attracted the chasing hover boat towards that tree.
Once the hover boat arrived right next to the treetop, the hijacking team would get on the deck as fast as they could and wipe out all of the aliens on board. The tricky part was when they must make their move fast and actually jumped right before the hover boat got right next to the tree since it would not make stop there. It was indeed a risky plan, but considering the result that it would brought with it if we succeeded, I also cannot argue about it.
"Bill… it is risky…" I said to him, half whispering.
"It is. And so was jumping off from a mountain top straight down to the river tens of meters below, right after hijacking an alien technology we knew nothing about while running away from the pursuits of aliens…" he responded as he sighed.
"Alright, so who do you have in mind to lead the luring team, the hijacking team, the ambush team, and the hover boat team?" Commodore Quentin then asked him.
Billy went silent for a moment, as I could feel that tense atmosphere quickly built up and dominated the air around us that it felt like it was a little harder to breathe than before. A short while after, he then first asked both Commander General Girsang and Commodore Quentin to lead the ambush team and the luring team respectively. In an instant, they both looked towards each other, before they then shared a chuckle for a brief moment. I honestly thought that they would refuse, but to the least of my expectation, they told him that he must not hesitate to personally handpick the right man for the right task.
With that being said, he proceeded to immediately ask me if I was willing to lead the hover boat team, to which I gladly accepted. With that in mind, he would lead the hijacking team. Both Commodore Quentin and Commander General Girsang would each lead fifteen men under them, while both Billy and I would each led five men under us. As an addition, Jessica was to be with me, since it would be safer for her inside the hover boat while at the same time she also had ever been inside the boat.
Everything was then happening so quickly, as all of the soldiers then checked their weapons and equipment that they needed in order to execute the plan. As me, five soldiers, and Jessica went on board of the hover boat deck, I noticed that the masks belonging to us three were still there. I quickly went down to give one to Billy and one of the soldiers in Commodore Quentin's team for communication purpose, before they then proceeded to rush towards their destination. The time was then 02.20 p.m., and I took a couple of long deep breaths as I put my mask back on, realizing that we had then were about to face another imminent extraterrestrial battle…