I felt a rather sharp pain on my left forehead as I slowly stood up from the pilot seat, turning my head to the three others; Alek, Takeshi, and Flint who were all lying on the cabin and seemed to be unconscious with their shields covering their entire body.
Wait, just how heavy are those shields?
Holding my left forehead with my left hand, I slowly walked up towards the nearest of them three, Takeshi to wake him up by first lifting the shield off his back.
Well, I imagined that it would be the hardest for him compared to the other two to wake up with the weight of the shield holding his body down anyway, since he was the smallest and shortest one compared to the other two.
Oh okay, this is heavier than the beam halberd….
The shield was more or less one and a half times heavier than the beam trident halberd, or somewhere close to the weight of a large full corn flour bag. Both Alek and Flint must have no problem in waking up with those shields holding them down, but Takeshi probably would experience some struggle.
"Hey, Takeshi! Wake up!" I said to him just as I had moved the shield away from his back.
"Rgh… That really hurts…." He groaned.
I helped him to get on his feet again, and just like I had guessed, he had not fully regained his balance just yet….
"I guess the crashlanding was too rough, is not it?" I held his body so that he would not fall.
"I… believe I would do the same if I were you, Major." he held his body against the cabin door.
"It is not like you had any other option or anything just now…."
He is right, though. Either I had to bring them far from the building and let the air base main building got destroyed by the stealth aircraft beam bombs, or to shoot the aircraft from the distance and be too late to come to rescue them three.
Thinking about it, what I had done was technically the only alternative option….
"Is it me, or is the door stuck?" Takeshi struggled in opening the cabin door.
I told him to keep trying while I tried the other door, but it was also the same. They were both stuck.
Right… this gunship IS currently literally stuck between the debris of the building….
But I cannot just break the door open by force; I will not be able to fix it later on!
Besides, those beam bombs dropped by Vulture's stealth aircraft barely put any dents inside this gunship.
So, I really doubt if I can break the door open in the first place….
"Let me help." I responded as I began to help him pulling the cabin door.
The door handle had a rather large grip, which must mean that it was meant to be opened by that turtle behemoth due its matching size, and obviously strength. I knew that combining both my and Takeshi's pulling force would probably still not be enough, but after remembering about what that alien voyager commander said about me having the strength nearly matching a few of its kind I had to give it a try.
"HRNGHH!" I pulled it as I made every vein showed up in both of my arms.
The door finally opened up a little, creating a small opening on the right side but enough for my foot to fit in and help in pushing the door open.
"It is working, Major!" Takeshi laughed in relieve.
"Yes! Keep pushing!" I gritted my teeth as I tried to create even a bigger opening.
When the door was just a little more than half opened, the both of us decided to stop and just walked out of the gunship before collapsing again on the ground outside, breathing the air of freedom once again.
Ugh! Finally, no more dense space!
However, several gunshots were suddenly fired at our direction, missing just a few steps away from our bodies! I rushed to the nearest debris and took cover there while Takeshi ran back inside the gunship and covered behind the remaining unopened door.
Taking my chance to fire back at our attackers, I waited for them until they were just about to run out of bullets in their assault rifle before I quickly went out of my cover and fired a round at the attacker's left arm.
"Yargh!" One of the soldiers scream as he had his arm shot and fell to the ground.
"Takeshi! Shoot his legs!" I told him to completely make the enemy soldier completely unable to move, but not necessarily to kill him.
After Takeshi fired a round from his rifle, the same soldier could then be heard screaming in pain. The rest of the others were probably retreating a few distances away and took cover and maybe also waiting for their other comrades.
Wait, how many rounds do I have left inside my handgun again?
Checking out my handgun magazine, I could not believe my eye as there was only one bullet left inside the handgun. The ammunition crate from the truck inside the gunship had tens of spare bullets for my handgun, but the distance between me and the gunship were already pretty far.
From inside the gunship, Takeshi signalled that he also ran out of bullets for his rifles. To make matters worse, he also conveyed that enemy soldiers are closing in, with numbers more than five, clearly outnumbering us two.
This is not good!
Just then, I remembered that there was actually another weapon that we had brought with us together inside the gunship….
The beam trident halberd belonged to the turtle alien behemoth.
Is this really the time for me to use it?!
Wait, how did that behemoth activate its beam halberd again?
After waiting for a moment, I recalled some similar things about the beam halberd when it was still in the hands of the turtle behemoth. Apparently, every time it held the halberd it nearly always tightened its grip on the halberd handle. It always carried it one handed, and the spot where it tightened its grip was always just below the center part.
So, by tightening the handle I will activate the beam halberd?
I may as well try!
I gave the signal to Takeshi to pick up the beam halberd as well as my Browning Automatic Rifle. When I continued by ordering him to use my rifle instead of tossing it to me and to actually toss me the beam trident halberd, he made a huge frown on his face, implying he could not believe what I had just try to convey to him.
He seemed to be even more confused when I signalled him to use my rifle and fired it towards the nearing soldiers.
'Just do it!' I gestured my mouth to him while still hiding behind the debris.
Nodding from behind the partially closed cabin door, Takeshi slowly reached for my rifle and the inactivated beam halberd, very carefully so that he would not make any unnecessary noise. Just then, I caught upon three shadows belonging to the enemy soldiers closing in towards the gunship.
Come on, Takeshi! Any time now!
Suddenly, he ran outside with the alien heavy shield on his left hand, charging right towards the six approaching enemy soldiers, tossing four out of six of them out of his way before throwing the beam halberd to me! Good thing I rushed to its direction and jumped to catch it before it fell to the ground.
But I was not quick enough to move away from the remaining two soldiers who had not been tossed away by Takeshi! They quickly aimed their assault rifles at me!
Shit! I have no time to shoot them and my handgun only has one bullet left!
Time to see what this halberd can do!
Tightening my grip on the halberd handle, I took a guarding stance as they began firing their assault rifle towards me, until they were both empty!
…they missed all of their shots?!
But our distances were less than five meters away, there is no way any elite soldier would miss such a close target!
Wait, no! They did not miss….
I could not hold myself from bugging out my right eye, and maybe also making my mouth gaped open upon realizing that the beam blade of the halberd apparently pulled all of the bullets to it, and melting them all once they came to contact with the beam.
How in the hell-
Oh, I understand now!
If the beam which was basically a solar energy harvested directly from the Sun, then the aliens might also somehow keep the original trait of the Sun; the gravitational force pull from the Sun which attracted any small objects coming too close to it. Therefore, it is only natural for the halberd blade to consider the bullet as those similar small objects, but just in an extremely smaller scale.
These aliens are terrifyingly smart and effective! No wonder they have completely abandoned the beam rifles from perhaps many centuries ago!
If the beam halberd was combined with the heavy shield that could protect the user from even a main battle tank artillery round as an additional protection, then they would be absolutely invulnerable to all sorts of attacks while still possessing a good offense by having the capability of dealing serious damage from the beam halberd blade.
No wonder there were quite some numbers of these shields stored inside the gunship; they must make sure that every single of the elite alien soldiers inside were both protected with invulnerable armors and a good offensive weapon. That, and the need to reload after every several rounds had been removed for good too.
But, since both their gunship and the stealth aircraft were still just their completed prototypes for outer space defence and offense, then that might also mean both their beam halberd and scythe spear were also just prototypes.
I suppose that was why the turtle behemoth's soldiers were still only equipped with plain beam spears, and naturally they would also have less capability to pull bullets to the beam unlike the halberd prototype.
Okay, enough about the revelation! Time to take down these two miserable soldiers!
Having both of their eyes bugged out without blinking as they had clearly shocked to their spines upon witnessing for themselves what the halberd could do, I decided to give them another chance of staying alive.
"Stop it." I said to them, while having the trident halberd at the ready.
"This is your only chance. Put down your rifles, those RPGs on your backs, and-"
But they still decided to suddenly crouched down and quickly fired their RPGs at the same time just before I finished my words….
Do these soldiers truly still uphold their beliefs on their commander? Even though he is an arrogant piece of shit?
Tightening my grip on the halberd again, I swung it as hard as my hand could make, splitting the fired rocket projectile into two, and ended with a loud explosion somewhere behind me.
Yet, they still decided to switch to their rifle bayonet and charged right towards me….
Shame….
I gave another couple of swing right towards their body without holding back anymore, instantly splitting their bodies into two; torso and legs, spurting out gushes of fresh red blood as a result and stained a few parts of my clothes, sending them to their demise at once….
That was exactly the price they had to pay for blindly following an absolutely wicked commander….
Right after that, all four of the soldiers that had been tossed earlier regained their consciousness altogether at once, and was quickly on their feet again with their assault rifles all aimed right at me. Either they had not witnessed what had happened to their fellow comrades lying lifelessly in two pieces not too far from them, or they were just desperate that they decided to just do or die.
Then again, it was only fair for me to put out a warning since I was absolutely on the advantage there….
"You four. Stand down your rifles, your RPGs, and surrender. I will spare you if you do as ordered." I said as I did not loosen my grip on the halberd
"We have our own orders, Major!" One of the soldiers said as his finger was on the edge of the trigger.
"And our commander will see to it that we obeyed our orders by any means necessary!"
Hundreds of bullets were fired upon me, but they were all pulled and eventually melted by the beam blade.
And, so my guess had been right all along. Failure to kill me, capturing the gunship, or destroying the air base main building would lead to their execution by Vulture himself.
What an irony….
Piercing and slashing them quickly just before they could fired their RPGs, even more fresh blood splattered upon my neck and clothes. I did not like even a little on slaughtering them like this… but it was either what I had to defend or them….
Vulture! You are supposed to join our hands together in order to repel extraterrestrial terrors, not to create another among ourselves!
I gritted my teeth, and took my breath deeply several times as I had to contain my wrath upon what that arrogant commander had made his men do. Thankfully it only took a little while as I noticed that I had all of my veins shown on my right hand, making the beam halberd lit up due to the pressure even though I had not meant for it to get that way.
Right after that, another soldier called me from the distance.
"Put your hands up, and drop your halberd, Major!" The soldier said.
Turning around, it turned out that Takeshi had been held against the ground, the alien heavy shield missing from his left hand and was on his gunpoint! He must have been tackled from behind just as he had to stop because of exhaustion and injuries!
"Major! Don-"
"It is okay, Takeshi! And it was not your fault, you are injured because of the crash earlier!" I said to him as I began to raise my left hand slowly.
Right… and there goes this halberd's limitation; long ranged attacks!
I slowly crouched down, and gently put the halberd on the ground, making the beam slowly dimmed out until it was no longer erected out from the handle as I removed my grip on it.
But I know that he is aiming to shoot me from the start!
I quickly unholstered my handgun and was about to fire the last bullet to his hand while he also suddenly aimed his assault rifle towards me.
But someone else fired a round directly from inside the gunship; the sound of the Lee-Enfield rifle being fired! It literally shattered a little part of the right forehead of the enemy soldier, and leaving a hole straight through his head, making his lifeless body fell down to the ground hard, face down!
"You are too kind-hearted, Major!" Said someone with a familiar male voice as he was also gasping.
It was Flint. He had also regained his consciousness and was also able to get on his feet again all by himself, despite the alien heavy shield right above his body when he was still unconscious. Although with his forehead apparently bleeding because of the crash landing impact and have his steps staggering a little, he seemed to still be able aim rather accurately.
"You should have just tear them all in half right from the start with that halberd." He continued as he pulled back the rifle bolt.
"Is that your way of asking me the permission to try this weapon?" I handed him the halberd.
"But take care, it is about as heavy as my rifle. So, you better-"
"No, it is okay." He shook his head and raised his left hand.
"I am not fond of halberds or spears in the first place. And besides, it suits you anyway…."
With most of his soldiers had been taken down, and Vulture himself seemed to still be stuck inside the damaged stealth aircraft, I decided to follow the grazed mark on the runway.