Chapter 35: Meeting Dora Again

The small space cruiser just moved to the cloud levels when James turned it upside down and descended again towards the ground at high speed that freaked Rigo out.

"Are you crazy? Are you going to do this again?"

James waited to the moment when the cruiser was about to hit the ground and rapidly turned it straight as he ordered with amusing tone:

"Activate the shields, all of them, do it now."

"You are crazy, you know that?" Rigo yelled hysterically.

"Raise the shields and then yell as much as you like," James commented without care towards Rigo's tone. James had already succeeded in doing an old, nearly impossible maneuver that made all his body tremble out of excitement.

"All shields are up, what do y…" Rigo cut his own words in disbelief, as he witnessed something that wasn't less crazy than that descent maneuver.

The cruiser was flying straight a few meters above the ground, and by activating its shields, the whole ground turned to be part of this cruiser.

Now, James was moving the cruiser with a very fast speed towards any ground troops or defenses, where the shields didn't act as they were supposed to be, a defensive tool, as they started to reap lives like any strong offensive weapon.

Rigo looked at his crazy supreme leader without knowing what to say, James was using one old forgotten way after another, which made him wonder if this man was really young or he was sent in time from the past, the really far past.

What Rigo didn't know was that James had nearly memorized an entire base full of old records from many areas of the universe, and most of them were military records.

James was a modern man with an old mind, but he wasn't obsolete as he tried to merge what modern technology offered and what the past taught him.

James' new trick did a marvelous job, as the cruise was like an armored mountain that moved with unstoppable momentum clearing everything it its way. After the end of the first round, James turned the cruiser as he directed it to go back the way it came from.

Although he managed to destroy many defenses, it wasn't effective yet, as they were fighting the whole zone. Round after round was done repeatedly without anything there to stop the cruiser.

James was getting used to this, as he felt he was riding a winged horse, flying with high speed, and waving his mighty broadsword to decapitate and degenerate anyone and anything that stood in his path.

"Supreme leader, the boys back there can't shoot the ground troops at all like this," Rigo said after a couple of rounds like these. James was immersed in doing this maneuver which he read long time ago in the old records, so he took few moments before saying:

"Let them forget the ground troops, I will handle them all. Make them target those nasty fighters."

"But this is supposed to be that princess job," Rigo complained.

"Don't argue, if I was one of these fighters, then I would have forgotten the princess for a while and focused on this life reaper cruiser. Make the boys kill those fighters or else we will be in trouble," James explained in a rush as he was trying to concentrate on what he was doing.

Rigo understood his point, so he didn't delay and relayed the orders to the other droids back there. In a few moments, they all left the ground cannons and used the rooftop ones, as they started to rain fire over these fighters.

It wasn't an easy job to shoot these fighters from the ground, especially with the high speed this cruiser was moving with, but the longer they kept firing, the more they got used to it. This battle didn't last for over one hour when a transmission came suddenly from Dora to James.

"Full back now, you were a great guardian of the phoenix. Follow my ship and disengage from this fight, we will handle it from here."

James looked to the sky to find more reinforcements were coming from far. Many small fighters, which belonged to the rebels, appeared on the scanners of the cruiser.

"It seemed the rebels weren't just standing by after all," Rigo commented sarcastically. James looked at him without saying a word, as he was part of the empire once and he knew exactly how limited the resources of the rebels were.

It was great for them to bring all these fighters here in this small time, which reminded James of the hideous scheme of the Immortal. That man was like a snake, when it decided to bite you then you realize you would die, no matter how hard you tried to fight it back.

"Let's follow her ship, you take over the wheel while I will go and check over those two," James ordered as he left his seat slowly and steadily.

Rigo did exactly what James expected, as it raised the cruiser suddenly to hover in the sky. James steadied himself firmly as he reached the place where he kept Eli and that unknown guy sleeping on the ground.

James didn't intend to check them, as he was feeling some drowsiness after all the stress he just experienced. He executed two old maneuvers perfectly, and this was his first battle ever, so it was normal for his mind to feel this exhausted.

James leaned his body over the only seat there, where Eli loved to use. He recalled her weird knowledge of navigation, which was strangely similar to his knowledge with warfare. He just closed his eyes for a minute before he heard Rigo saying out loud:

"The princess has stopped her ship, and now I will stop ours just in front of her. Do you want me to come with you, supreme leader?"

James opened his eyes and squeezed them with the palms of his hand while saying while yawning:

"No, stay here and be ready for any battle."

"Affirmative," Rigo replied.

James felt the cruiser to land on the ground, as the bottom three landing legs supported the cruiser from a rough landing. James then moved back towards the big hall as he opened the hatch and descended to the ground.

In front of him, he found Dora standing there waiting calmly for him. Once she saw him, she froze as she recognized him. James walked slowly towards her, as the warm wind blew his face and threw his hair all over his shoulders and face.

Dora's eyes were fixated over him, like a tiger eyes its prey, which made James slightly uncomfortable, but what was annoying to him wasn't her looks, but the hot winds that made him feel more exhausted.

"I didn't think this mysterious guardian of the phoenix to actually turn out to be you," Dora said this while shaking her head with a soft sigh as if she was denying what she was seeing in front of her.

"Why? Am I that ugly? I thou…" Just as he was about to complete his sentence, a sudden blow of extremely hot wind came to force him to stop. He wasn't alone affected by this strange wind, but Dora as well.

"What the hell is wrong with this wind? I feel like I'm in him…" James was just shouting loudly from anger when something fell heavily over his stretched arms to make him stop, and even take his body to fall violently on the ground.

The hit was strong, but that wasn't what worried James, as the thing that fell onto him was already blazing with strange deep orange fire. James rolled away from this fire for a couple of meters before he stood straight facing this bizarre scene.

That wasn't a ruined object from the ongoing battles everywhere as he suspected, that was a human engulfed totally with this weird fire that didn't even touch that girl's clothes. James looked deeply towards that girl to feel weirder, as he muttered in a low voice:

"Another comatose person, great, that's just great. My ship has turned into a mobile hospital for any comatose homeless, nameless person… that's just perfect."