Chapter 31: Dancing Descent Maneuver

James moved with his cruiser with moderate speed, but that was way faster than what he wanted. The fast movement of his cruiser made it evade most of the attacks over it, but in return it missed many of its targets.

James had to decrease the speed of the cruiser to the lowest possible without being an easy target for the ground troops or those nasty fighters.

Although Dora was doing a great job over there, she had limited numbers of fighters, so she couldn't manage to block them all. Without the help of the shield, the cruiser would have been shot down long ago.

"Make the boys concentrate some fire over these fighters," James ordered while he was turning the cruiser for the third round.

"They are pretty fast and they are hitting us from the sides, we don't have enough cannons on the sides to block them," Rigo said.

James knew Rigo was right about this point, as those fighters had already spotted the places of his cannons and began to adapt.

"The longer this fight takes, the more time we lose. Tell the boys I will give them a clear shot, so they have to be ready to kill as many fighters as possible."

Rig didn't have a chance to ask for more details as James directed the cruiser with faster speed towards the sky. He was planning to repeat his previous tactic with some small modifications this time.

"Are you going to do that crazy thing, sir?" Rigo asked with an anxious tone.

"Yes, and I will be far crazier this time. Have you heard the dancing descent trick before?" James said.

"Oh boy!" Rigo just said that while the cruiser had reached a higher altitude than before. James had a crazy smile over his face as he said:

"As you know it, you know what you have to tell the boys then. Do it now, here we go," James said as he laughed hysterically from excitement. The dancing descent move was an old tactic used by big cruisers like his when dealing with smaller enemies like these fighters.

Although it was a very successful tactic, the risk coming with it was very high as many cruisers were destroyed trying to pull this trick. James was crazy to try this out right here, regarding his shallow practical experience, but he had no other solution to deal with these nasty fighters.

If he had his fleet with him, he could have destroyed the fighters in minutes, but he didn't want to withdraw the fleet now from the outer zone, as it seemed that Immortal had planned deeper than what he revealed back at the planet.

"Princess, let your fleet slightly away from my ship firing range please."

James sent this short message just before he started to move his ship to the ground. Just as the cruiser was descending fast he started to move the handle to roll the cruiser around itself.

Supported by the momentum of its descent, the cruiser added more speed to its rotation that it should be, which was one of the strengths of this move as when the cannons kept firing like now, the cruiser turned itself into a movable killing machine that showed no mercy to ally or foe.

"Release the scanners, notify me when we are 200 meters from the ground," James said as he held the handle with both hands trying to control its growing resistance.

The engines of the cruisers weren't designed to supply this high force to it, and the cruiser body wasn't meant to withstand such pressure on it. That trick put more pressure over the shields, which were relieved of most of the cannons attacking the cruiser, as the speed of its descent and rotation were really superb.

"1500 meters to the ground," Rigo said with a slightly trembling voice.

"Just notify me when we reach 200 meters, and notify the engine room, when I say it they must kill all the engines without exception or we all are going to die," James shouted with seriousness.

James read before an old record regarding the steps of this tactic, which was written by an old forgotten empire that claimed the right of inventing it.

In that record, there was a description of a slight step when done perfectly, any space ship could do this maneuver without getting hurt. James intended to use it now, but he needed his crew to coordinate with his orders perfectly in time, or else everything would be lost.

The cruiser turned into a death reaper, as its firing cannons kept shooting without pause, killing a lot of enemies and very few unlucky allies who couldn't run in time away from the range of this death machine.

Descending more than one kilometers with this momentum and strange move was very tedious on the cruiser and James, and it didn't take long before it reached the desired altitude James was waiting for.

"200 meters reached, sir."

James then did something crazier as he closed his eyes. He did this on a hunch, as he tried to feel the moves of the cruiser, the speed of descent, its momentum and direction.

"Kill the engines, now," James said calmly without a speck of worry or anxiety. He was in a strange calm world, so calm that made his stretched nerves get relaxed.

James didn't lose his mind, or focus as he changed the direction of the cruiser using the main wheel where he used a certain angle to glide the ship like a flat rock thrown on a lake surface. This was unbelievable, as all who saw this move were sure of the crushin end of this cruiser.

"Punch the engines with full power, all engines at the same time."

James ordered this with his calm and closed eyes, while the cruiser was tilted to one side with its front directing to the ground. Just as Rigo relayed the message, James did something unexpected at all, he used the control unit triggering many back cannons to launch towards the ground.

These cannons created a recoil effect over the cruiser, where its back became higher and higher, while its front became lower and lower.

"It's going to crash, we are going to die," Rigo said with certainty when he saw the general position of the cruiser through its scanners.

"No we won't."

This time James punched the cannons again with the release of the back shields that made the back of the cruiser lighter. This second wave of shot aided by the removal of shields had pushed the cruiser over the edge of crashing, as it became vertically inverted in place with its front downward a few meters only away from the ground.

The momentum caused by the cannons didn't stop there, as it continued to push the back of the cruiser far towards the front, this time it made it go directly and heavily to the ground in a motion that made the front of it get elevated for tens of meters in response.

At these specific moments the engines returned to their vitality, and started to roar using all their power to push the cruiser back to safety and move it with great difficulty towards the sky.

"Wow, yeah, we did it, you did it, you crazy lunatic, you did it," Rigo said with screams of excitement after escaping the death jaws.