章節 30: The First Space Battle for James

"Ok, wait here for a second until we confirm with the princess."

James leaned back on his seat as he waited patiently for the princess' reply. He tried to use some meaningful words that would attract her attention immediately, hoping that it would succeed, and it did.

"The guardian of phoenix, you are cleared to pass. The princess sent an urgent message telling you to move to the coordinates we will send you now."

"Thanks leader Rot."

James glanced briefly towards Rigo who remained silent for a moment before saying:

"The coordinates received, based on this and the map we have, this princess is five minutes away from us."

James took a deep breath trying to calm down his anxiety before saying:

"Let's move there now, we have to figure out a way to convince her with our mission. Do you have a record of that transmission we have seen?"

"Well, we do have the transmission but it will take sometime to search for it," Rigo said after a moment of pause. James looked at it with question eyes, so he added:

"It's your cruiser supreme leader."

"Its system is way above its level, so stop belittling my ship," James said, stressing on every word he said.

"I know the system is terrific, but the ship is a wrack of garbage. Sorry supreme leader but this is a fact, this ship holds the system capabilities back so it can't use some basic skills like data search."

James returned to look at the world ahead of them as he muttered:

"It's my ship's fault again… anyway, we have this recording and that is what it matters. I hope this princess isn't like the rumors say."

"What rumors?" Rigo asked with curiosity while looking towards James, who replied:

"She is called the bloody princess of the rebels for a reason, right?"

Rigo kept his silence throughout the rest of the trip. As they passed over this world, they noticed the chaos in it.

The appearance of the rebels here wasn't unique, as there was another force that was fighting with them, the force of the garrison of this world. the deeper they advanced, the more battles they saw, which made James surprised to see the size of this garrison.

He thought it would take some time for the famous brutal armies of Terasoras space ship to arrive here and cause some troubles for the rebel forces, but he was mistaken. The rebels were already having it hard here dealing with this garrison.

"Do you want us to support those rebels?"

James pointed out towards the far front, where they were supposed to meet with Dora. There, a huge air battle was commencing between small space cruisers and space fighters, while a higher ground battle was going heartedly between the two forces. James just glanced at this battle as he muttered:

"No, let's just be invisible for the time being."

"That will be a problem, as this dora princess is engaged in a difficult situation up there."

James looked towards the direction Rigo pointed to. There, he found five small cruisers supported by tens of fighters, and their situation was really critical.

They were totally overwhelmed by the coordinated attacks from bigger numbers of space fighters, supported by the missiles launched from ground defenses.

These missiles were like a headache for Dora's small fleet, especially for those space fighters. James knew if he left the situation like this Dora wouldn't lose her life but she would lose her ship in the process, which was something unacceptable for him.

"Tell the boys to be ready with their cannons," James ordered.

"Are we going to blast those small fighters?" Rigo said with excitement.

"No, we are going to silence those ground defenders so the princess and her fleet can have a space to breath," James said while pressing on the transmission button. Rigo just glanced at him while relaying his orders to the rest of the droids on board.

"This is the guardian of phoenix small cruiser, we will give you a small hand here and take out all those ground troops. You take the chance and clean the sky for us."

Just as he was about to ask Rigo to advance, he received an immediate response by Dora herself.

"Roger that, just don't stray away."

James felt strange as the voice of Dora seemed exhausted, that was different than what he thought.

"Are the boys ready?" James asked.

"Yes, they are," Rigo replied.

"Let's do this."

The small cruiser was eye catchy in the sky, especially with the presence of one other small cruiser only amidst the hundred of space fighters engaging in a close brutal battle.

"Activate the shields and all defenses," James ordered.

"Shields activated and all defenses and offensive canons are ready," Rigo replied after pressing some buttons on his side. The cruiser then went directly inside this mess.

James wasn't suicidal, although he knew how strong his shields were in front of the fighters canons, he wouldn't risk it, so he went on very high altitude from the beginning, stopped his cruiser midair, then changed the direction of it sharply to descend from high downwards.

"Let them fire at will," James ordered as he steered the cruiser to fall sharply to the ground. Rigo felt doubt towards his supreme leader's madness, but just before he could ask anything, James turned the descending course suddenly just after passing most of the battle.

Through all this descent, he hit many space fighters which cracked open like eggs on a hard rock. His cruiser trembled frequently, sometimes faintly and others vigorously, but he managed to pass through.

He turned the cruiser to fly straight above all the ground troops and defenses with literally high speed. The sounds of cannons fired from and at his cruiser fell the whole place, so he ordered Rigo:

"Perform all-time diagnostics and run urgent repairs at any damaged places."

"Affirmative."

James led the cruiser in a risky way, but this was his first real battle ever. He read about countless battles and went through many strategies, old and new, to have really wide immature experience. All he lacked was to pass through real battles to solidify this experience and get it mature.