“Except for the ones we rescued, most these Rangers have no clue what we’ve been through and what we’ve done and what we can do! If they try sneak into New Cancun’s landing field in the middle of the night, they will get stomped. They should let us do that. The aliens will never know what hit them! Besides, I’d like to add at least one more notch on my crossbow before I retire.”
-Montana Hernandez, age 16, squad 4, archer, Jacks Company
The colonial capital, New Hope Town, has been abandoned and now West Hills is the last major settlement in the West still held by the human colonists and the aliens intend to change that very soon. The problem for the Rift and their army of Andoval mercenaries now though is that they failed to capture any of the humans, their last hope to gain some leverage before the next starship arrives with reinforcements for the Colonial Rangers. They know they have lost but they have no choice but to continue, the Andoval won’t let them quit.
Even with the aliens closing in on the last of the human settlements, things are beginning to shift in the human colonists and Colonial Rangers' favor. While the Battle of New Hope Town was going on, Commander Rick Cassidy, Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford and their Jacks Company plus the other units comprising 'Sixth Battalion' have re-taken the abandoned settlement of New St Louis from the aliens who had moved all their troops from there to the west for their campaign to take New Hope Town. The time for the girls of Jacks Company to be reunited with their families might be coming sooner than later and opportunities for taking back other lost towns are shifting the initiative away from the aliens.
The Vitus Bering is just days away from reaching the colony but how they will send their cargo and passengers, including 1800 Colonial Rangers, down from orbit is very much in question now that the main landing field in New Hope Town has been lost. The Antarctica with the AREF, the Advance Relief Expeditionary Force, is just weeks away and they are bringing much more powerful weapons to use against the aliens, exactly what the Rift fear the most.
