"Travis, I do not know how to say it but… I feel like something dangerous is inside that thing…" Billy said through his mask radio at the very front of the line.
"I heard you… I cannot shake that feeling as well…" I responded to him as I tapped on my mask radio.
Even though I did not literally see everyone there, I could tell for sure that all eyes were locked on the shattered and fallen mothership, lying right in the middle of the river and blocking most of the flow of the water. At a glance, it was as if that a small tower had fallen straight into the river, creating some sort of a blockade for the flow of the water in the process.
No aliens were seen anymore as we moved closer little by little towards it, however instead of a relieved and more relaxed atmosphere, the air around us felt like it had just become more oppressed even after the major threat upon us had been eliminated, or so it would seem. Nevertheless, both Billy and I knew for sure that we need to make sure what could be in store for us inside the remnants of the destroyed extraterrestrial spaceship.
There was absolutely no one who said or mentioned anything as we had arrived right in front of the massive chunks of outer space debris. Of course, absolutely none among of us seemed to have the courage, or rather brave enough to directly touch and try to move it away, in order to get inside the mothership from the large hole it had blocked. I turned to the direction of Commodore Quentin, who was standing by right behind one of the mounted auto-beams on his hover boat, and he only shook his head slowly towards me, most likely signaling that it was not good to just wait right in front of the debris.
"Let us just… pull back and try to destroy this debris with the auto-beams." I said to Billy as I tapped on my mask headband.
"I agree… It is not like we will be able to find out anything outside it anyway…" he responded as he sighed.
'BO-GANCK!!'
Just then, all of a sudden, there was a very loud banging noise coming from the other end of the mothership, alerting everyone there and force us all to aim our firearms towards it. Apparently the noise had been coming from the pyramid like part at the bottom part of the mothership, that had the ability to fire out large lime green beams before its destruction. At first, none of us moved at the slightest as we heard that noise, however since the second, and then third bang was also heard very shortly after, I decided to slowly pull back while keeping my eyes towards the source of the noise. Billy and his whole team also proceeded to do the exact same thing.
"BO-GANCK!!'
The fourth bang made a chunk of the pyramid-like part to flew up and towards both me and Billy's whole team, which would definitely hit us had we not dodged it by swiftly jumping aside, and thus it only resulted in a near miss. I ended up landing by splashing myself into the river shore, wetting my whole body in the process, while the soldiers on Billy's team seemed to be forced to land on the rough pebbles on the shore. However, the sight right before all of our eyes right after that completely made me forgotten about my wet body.
It was the sudden emergence of another whole new variant of an alien, which was most likely the commander of the mothership. It came out of the hole on the pyramid-like part by climbing out of it with ease, something which I soon completely knew why.
Unlike the previous alien leader back in three years earlier, the current alien leader had a completely different feature, from its face to its feet. I could not deny that the very first thing that caught my attention was none other than its two large and shining oval eyes, which had a very strong resemblance to a pair of blue diamonds. I supposed that it was rather ironic that I could still get myself quite fascinated over something that was in fact of an extreme threat towards us.
It also had an extremely pointed nose, which somehow I believed that it could pierce through over something, should it try to stab it using its own nose. However, its large forehead and together with its rather small jaw quickly made me no longer thought about it, since it would have most likely meant that it would not just charge head on and buttnose everything it saw. In fact, I began to wonder if it was actually significantly smarter than the rest of its other counterparts that we had encountered before, of course if its brain was located right inside its head in the first place.
It was indeed a little bit shorter and less muscular compared to the alien leader back in three years earlier, but instead of armored and scaly skins all around its body, I believed that its most distinguishable feature on its torso would be its horn-like left shoulder pad, which was most probably its unique armor to differentiate itself from the rest of its subordinates. Also, if it was indeed wore some sort of a uniform, it must be wearing a one-piece armor from the torso to both its feet, since I could not tell the rest of its other features. The thing that concerned me the most however, was not any of its features.
It was what it held tightly on both of its long-fingered hands, something greatly resembling a chain-sickle, but strangely with a shining lime green blade tip. At first, I had not really noticed another strange feature of its weapon, but as I took a little more detailed glance I soon noticed that the chain seemed to also be shining with a bright jade blue light coming from the weight on the chain's end. I could not determine it for sure before since the alien commander's uniform also had a colored of a blinding bright blue diamond. That, and the sun above us just helped it in covering the feature of the chain.
If I had to assume, I would say that the chain's end gave out some sort of a charging through the chain in order to enhance the cutting ability of the sickle blade. Looking at how the alien commander held the chain-sickle like a ninja would, I immediately had the feeling that it must be extremely proficient in using the weapon.
Then, within a blink of an eye, it suddenly had its eyes as if they were locked upon both me and Billy, and in almost an instant it immediately spun its weapon twice before swinging it towards the both of us. Fortunately, we managed to dodge the sickle blade by yet again jumping aside, and as the sickle hit the pebble grounds instead, the small stones were instantly cut off like they were butter sliced off by a red hot knife, before it was then pulled back to the alien commander's right hand within a gasp of a breath.
"PULL BACK!!" I shouted from inside my mask, no longer care to activate its radio function as I believed that literally everyone there would proceed to do the same.
On that instant, everyone standing on the ground ran as fast as their legs could carry them, and everyone on all hover boats immediately opened fired towards the extraterrestrial behemoth. As I turned my head back to see how it would react to it however, it somehow managed to flip its entire body backwards and hid itself right behind the pyramid-like debris.
Then, like within a snap of a finger, suddenly a sickle blade flew out as pierced through the debris, scratching one of the hover boats attacking it, seemingly leaving its permanent blade mark on the vehicle. The sickle blade returned again in almost an instant, before it also sliced the debris off in the process, and revealing the behemoth hiding behind it once again.
As if that was not enough, it proceeded to jump high in the air, probably around twenty feet from the ground before it proceeded to try to plow another hover boat by nosediving right towards it using its horned left shoulder pad in such an extreme speed. Had the one behind the steering wheel of the hover boat had been late by just half a second, the entire vehicle along with everyone on board would definitely be sunken to the bottom of the river floor within a blink of an eye. It made me all the far more terrified when the behemoth could still jump out of the river with such a speed as it did another backflip again in the air right before it swiftly and smoothly landed right on the middle of the mothership debris.
It was right at that moment when I completely realized that not only everyone was facing an extreme threat of outer space origin, but it was also agile, dexterous, and fast that it made me believed that the current alien commander might be at least three times more dangerous than the one from three years earlier. As an addition, the fact that it brandished another whole new and entirely different weapon somehow made thought if it had something to do with its realization on the necessity of another type of weapon in order for it to be able to face us with ease.
One of the soldiers from Billy's team then proceeded to fire his assault rifle towards the behemoth as he was running away and trying to distance himself from the threat together with the others. However, it then swung its sickle around very swiftly and just before I knew it, it succeeded in deflecting all of the bullets fired by the soldier, redirecting them towards the tree trunks around us and even nearly grazed us.
"So not only it moves fast, but it can also deflect bullets?!" Billy shouted through his mask radio.
I then quickly removed my mask as it hindered my breathing during our run, and held it on my left hand as we kept on running away from the behemoth and the mothership debris. The hover boats were also seen to be beginning on pulling back further away from the debris, but I soon came upon another realization that apparently the behemoth's main target was not its stolen vehicles. Instead, it was both Billy and I.
I could clearly see it with my own eyes running so swiftly on top of the debris, before it then proceeded to jump and landed smoothly, and strangely with a rather quite noise and barely any thudding sound right in front of us, blocking our way ahead. Both of its shining, but also intimidating bright blue diamond eyes seemed to have locked on towards us as it squinted them for a very brief moment before slowly began to swing its chain-sickle twice and almost immediately threw it towards us very quickly.
Fortunately, all of us managed to evade the sickle blade by either ducking, all throwing ourselves aside to the ground besides us. During that brief moment of life-and-death situation however, I felt like I noticed something that could just be utilized to our own advantage even if for each tiny gap of split seconds.
Right during the time when it had swung the sickle for the first time, I noticed that the sickle had been glowing even more brightly in lime green color than before. It might only seemed to be some sort of a rough supposition, but I somehow felt like whenever the sickle was swung, it would make the tip of the sickle blade to be starting to get charged with more source of energy coming from the weight of the chain's end. I became all the more convinced about it when the sickle had been swung for the second time, since there had also been glowing brightly in jade blue color while the tip of the sickle blade had become dazzling, just before it was thrown towards us.
Then, just as I had ducked and evaded the thrown sickle by a near miss, I had clearly seen that the glow of the chain had rapidly gone dim, right before the behemoth had caught the glowing sickle again. It just came to my mind, but it made me questioned if during that very brief time gap should we somehow able to attack it, would we end up succeeding on hitting it since it could not deflect anything at that exact brief moment? Or that it would not matter since it had worn its special jade blue uniform anyway? As for what kind of energy that was charged towards the sickle blade from the chain's end, I would not know what else to say other than some sort of their other form of a direct energy.
"No one is to shoot!" I quickly said to everyone standing on the ground right in front of the behemoth.
"What?! But-" Billy responded in reflex, before I quickly cut off his words.
"I think I may have found out about something that can help us…" I continued, as I gulped hard and had my heart beating very fast.
We slowly moved backwards, as it also proceeded to slowly approach us, but still had yet to swing its sickle again. As we kept on going backwards however, it apparently began to lose its patience and quickly proceeded to swing its sickle again and not twice but three times, resulting in the tip of the sickle blade to become more dazzling before it threw the sickle towards us again.
Just like before, we avoided the sickle blade as it very easily cut through the debris that had been blocking the large hole leading towards inside the mothership, but at that moment I had not only ducked but also aimed my submachine gun towards the behemoth, firing the whole magazine empty towards it as it apparently staggered due to the injuries it sustained, even if only slightly.
"That is it!!" Billy shouted. "Shoot at it just right after it threw the sickle!!"
I was not surprised in the slightest when the behemoth screamed right away just after I had emptied my whole submachine gun magazine and had to reload with another one, clearly indicating that I had made it completely enraged by what I had done. I took my eyes off it just for a little while until I had finished reloading my submachine gun, and just as I looked towards it again, I came across something horned very quickly charging towards me that I had to throw myself inside the mothership in order to dodge it. Apparently, the behemoth had then had its focused fully towards me and decided to plow me by using its horned shoulder pad.
As if that was not enough, it then proceeded to slice through every part of the mothership from the outside by using its chain-sickle continuously that I was forced to run away from the inside. I could hear faint gunshot noises from outside but for some reason, either the behemoth did not mind them or that it managed to avoid most of the fired shots as it was also still able to keep on slicing the mothership little by little.
I was fortunate enough to be able to find another opening to the outside as I kept on running away from it and its charged chain-sickle, and managed to climb out of it by jumping up to the hole on the ceiling, and stretched myself out to the open again just before its sickle reached any part of my body. As I had expected, the behemoth showed its extreme persistent by destroying a large part of the surface before it jumped outside towards the long, river-blocking debris again.
It was at that moment when I realized that everyone outside had been occupied with the sudden occurrence of the remaining aliens that had scattered away earlier when the mothership had fallen, making me realize in an instant that the gunshot noises from earlier had been for the flying aliens on their hover boards instead. That would mean that it only left me as the only one facing the enraged behemoth. It rather concerned me however, that I could not find Billy anywhere amongst the rest of the others who had themselves completely occupied with the swarming flying aliens.
I could only slowly walk backwards along the frail debris of the mothership right on the edge of the waterfall, as one tiny mistake and slip could result me in either falling to my death, or getting myself sliced in half by a sickle of extraterrestrial origin. That was the moment when I suddenly thought to myself if it had been all planned by the behemoth all along, to lure me out towards it and to bait me and force me to get myself trapped inside the mothership before what was left of its subordinate would act as a distraction for everyone so that absolutely no one would be able to interrupt it anymore. Such a cunning creature it was, should that be the case.
The behemoth did not waste any single second before it made the very same move again, but with a much faster speed that I could barely catch the right time gap to fire my submachine gun towards it. Even though I had no choice but to skip the occurred time gap three times, I succeeded in shooting my firearms towards it again at the fourth opportunity, however it also seemed that it had been planning for my action all along.
Just as I had emptied my magazine again and was about to reload, it suddenly threw the chain's end towards me, and although I jumped back to avoid it, I was not so fortunate at that time as it caught my left foot and dropping me down hard, before it proceeded to drag me quickly towards it.
'Urgh, I was too reckless!' I thought to myself, believing that my demise was just within a few seconds.
But all of a sudden, the behemoth screamed in agony just as something rather sharp had pierced through its left torso, quickly making itself drenched in its own black viscous blood that stained its uniform. I was left dumfounded with what had just happened, and it turned out that it was Billy all along who had silently sneaked and followed the behemoth from behind, and struck it with Jessica's pickaxe just at the very right moment.
However, things also turned to be the worse for him, as the behemoth then turned back and grabbed him entirely as it lifted him up and seemed to be attempting to crush him slowly and painfully as it still had the pickaxe dangling from behind its body.
"Argkkk!! ARGHHHHH!!!!" Billy screamed in extreme agony.
Either he had never been the one to give up, or that adrenaline suddenly filled up his entire body, or rather both, he aimed his submachine gun right towards the behemoth's face and fired it at almost point blank range, particularly towards its right eye, and apparently completely rupturing it in the entirely.
'BHUARGRHHHKKKK!!!' it screamed in an extremely disturbing voice.
It shocked every bone in my body when I saw with my own eyes it threw him away like a pebble towards one of the tree trunks on the other end of the river shore before it covered its ruptured right eye with both of its hand.
"BILL!!!" I screamed as I could not believe my eyes upon the sight of my partner had then completely covered in blood and lying himself against a tree trunk.
I was not thinking straight right afterwards, but I somehow just knew that I would be free of the chains that had tied my left foot by removing my combat shoe, to which I immediately did before I reloaded my submachine gun again and rushed towards the large chain-sickle, which it had dropped in reflex due to its eye injury. I picked it up and stabbed it deeply into its middle abdomen, resulting in another of its agonizing scream before I threw the chain's end to a protruding part of the debris.
"How do you like that?!" I shouted to the behemoth just before I pushed it hard backwards by using my left shoulders as it fell down to the interior of the mothership debris.
That fall created a large thudding sound as well as a quake that it began to shatter every part of what had been left of that extraterrestrial object. I rushed as fast as my legs could take me and just when the debris on the other end of the river had begun to crumble and fell from the waterfall to the river far down below, I managed to jump off from it and onto the river shore where Billy had been thrown to. As I landed, I quickly noticed that most of the flying aliens had been wiped out, and all of the debris blocking the river flow had also begun to slowly crumble and washed down to the river down below as well.
'BURGGKK!' shouted something from right at the edge of the waterfall
I felt like I had my heart jumped when something suddenly grabbed my right foot hard from the edge of the waterfall, forcing me to fall down hard to the ground, losing my grip on my submachine gun and slowly dragging me to the edge of the cliff. As I held my whole body against the heavy dragging force, it turned out that the behemoth was still alive but also bloodied pretty badly and had its right eye gushing out black viscous liquid as it held on to my right foot with its dear life using both of its hands.
The last part of debris that was about to fall down would definitely drag both me and the behemoth with it, and so I had to do something in order to be free of the extremely heavy shackle on my foot. I first thought of reaching my handgun holstered on my waist, but I worried that it would be able to reach my hand when I attempted to do so.
Therefore, I desperately stretched my left hand towards my submachine gun, as I also noticed that the time until the fall of the last part of the debris was getting more and more imminent. I screamed as loud as my lungs could make me right before I was finally able to reach my submachine gun, and immediately aimed it firmly with both of my hands right at the middle of the forehead of the creature as I said my parting words to it.
"ADDIO, IMBECILE!!" I shouted to the behemoth in Italian, which had the meaning of saying farewell while also mocked it as an imbecile.
'THUB THUB THUB THUB THUB THUB THUB THUB THUB THUB'
I emptied my last magazine as it then immediately lost its grip on my right foot and fell down the waterfall right at the exact moment when the last part of the debris fall down to the river far below as well. I breathed as hard as I could, and felt like I had lost my voice for some moment there until the behemoth then suddenly exploded as it was still falling down the waterfall, ripping apart its body in half right before it finally fell to the river below.
'Huh… so Billy had somehow taped the last dynamite to the pickaxe and lit it up right before he stabbed that monster with it.' I thought to myself. 'Smart and bold move, Bill…'
Just then, I immediately reminded of Billy's critical situation and I quickly went up just before I rushed towards him, ignoring every pain that my left foot endured caused by the pebble grounds on the river shore. I also realized that by then, there were no flying aliens left in the air and therefore, there were absolutely no more extraterrestrial threats in the area.
"Bill! Bill!!" I screamed at him, as I finally approached him. "Come on, stay with me!"
"Urgh, what took you so long…" He said, as he coughed out blood and panted. "But heh, that freak is finally scratched off from our villains list, right? Good to know."
The other soldiers, and particularly the ones who had brought emergency medical kits rushed towards him, and although they revealed that he had not sustained a fatal wound, they stressed out that he needed an emergency treatment very soon. I was still not relieved in the slightest since I was still concerned since there seemed to be no one there who brought a conventional radio system, until Commander General Girsang said that he should be able to get an emergency help past the first village since there were already another emergency response team stationed there and standing by. As for the matter of how we would get there, there seemed to be no other choice than to use the hover boats.
"Aduh… Bill…" Jessica said with a concerned voice as she then finally approached Billy.
"Tenang, Jess… Ini bukan waktunya gue ketemu lagi sama Bayu kok…" he responded quickly, although still panting and said that he would not kick the bucket at that moment since he knew full well that it was not the time for him to be reunited again with his late brother, Bayu.
It is kind of heart breaking to see my partner got lifted up very slowly and carefully to the deck of one of the hover boats, especially since I could also clearly see how he held back the pain that he felt with every single movement that the other soldiers made. As the hover boat slowly disappeared within my view into the forest, Jessica then approached me next.
"Glad to see you are not injured seriously…" she said as she first looked at my entire body and finally straight into my eyes with both a concerned and relieved look.
I only smiled gently and nodded once, since I did not know what else to say. My mind was too tired and also drained out to think of any response anyway.
"Your foot…" she continued by asking, referring to my left foot that was full of stitch marks and scratches.
"Yeah, that is a long story…" I said as I sighed hard and sat on one of the collapsed tree trunks nearby, looking at the sun in the distance that was about to set.
Another extraterrestrial war before us had finally ended, and fortunately with our side winning again too. But I still could not shake my worried feeling about Billy, especially when I witnessed with my own two eyes how hard he had been thrown by the behemoth earlier. I just hope that he would pull through alright without any permanent injury for the rest of his life…