Reconquest: Mother Earth

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXII

Mitch swallowed hard. He had no idea how sharp Merelda's combat skills were or the ship's capabilities as a fighting vessel, making him wish he was back in the arena fighting aliens in hand-to-hand combat. At least he had more control over the situation.  

"What kind of armament does your ship have?" Deborah asked.  

Merelda didn't look back. "Sufficient for our purposes. Mitch, can you fly this?" 

Mitch wiped the sweat off his forehead. The controls looked similar to those in the vessel Sarm had given him. "Yes. I think." 

Merelda left the seat. "We have no time to think. Take the controls." 

Mitch took a deep breath.  

"I am taking you off autopilot." Merelda flicked a switch. 

Mitch gazed at the rear viewfinder and spotted the four alien ships trailing them, closing in quickly. " What the hell are we going to do? We can't fight them all. Should I try to outrun them?" 

Merelda took a seat on the other side of the cabin. "No. We may have the ability to fly faster, but they will get reinforcements. The Minister means to destroy you. There will be more than these to deal with." 

Mitch frowned. They must have discovered that Merelda had been helping him and then trailed her. Now the only question was whether the aliens would try to blow them out of the sky or force them to land.  

"What's our move?" Mitch asked.  

"We will use the bomb that we were planning to use on the target. You are right. We have no ability to fight four vessels. Therefore, we will eliminate them all at once." 

Mitch gritted his teeth. There went the one decisive strike against the Minister that could serve as the catalyst to having the aliens leave the planet. Then again, if the aliens shot them out of the sky, they wouldn't be able to deliver that strike anyway.  

"Act as if you're going to land, then make a sharp reversal and fly toward them." 

Wonderful. There was going to be no feeling out process for him. He punched a button and instead of lowering, the ship soared upward. 

"I said act as if you are landing," Merelda shouted.  

Mitch leveled the ship. "Got it."  

On the transmitter, the aliens attempted to communicate. Mitch had no way of understanding what they were saying, nor did he care.  

Mitch kept one eye on Merelda and one on the rear viewfinder.  

Deborah had managed to release herself from her harness and stood next to Mitch. "Are you sure you can do this?" 

He gave Deborah a sideways glance and a half shrug.  

"Turn it around now," Merelda said.  

Mitch flicked a few buttons, hoping they were the right ones, then pulled the steering column hard. Deborah fell forward, while Mitch held tightly onto the steering column to prevent the same from happening to him. The ship did a full reversal. He peered at the rear viewfinder and the enemy crafts were gone. He then looked at the panoramic screen that gave a near-perfect image of the area in front of the vessel. They were dead ahead, all four of them.  

"Now," Merelda shouted. A shiny silver cylinder shot out of their vessel. "Fly full speed forward." 

Mitch put on the rear jets at full speed, and their vessel roared across the sky at a frightening pace. He stared at the rearview finder and saw the cylinder Merelda had just sent latch onto one of the enemy vessels. Everything went black after that. The explosion that followed gave a deafening blast. The aftershocks tipped their vessel end over end. When he finally managed to right the ship after flipping over several times and losing serious altitude, he looked at the rear viewfinder and saw a massive mushroom cloud in the distance.