Hitting Back

By Mike Adams

The good news is that the Rangers have reinforcements on the way. The bad news is that the aliens do too.
Can the Colonial Rangers hold back the aliens long enough for the starship Marco Polo and the 2,000 Rangers aboard her to get there?

Things have been mostly quiet since the battles at the end of the summer at the New Hope Colony. The aliens have been licking their wounds and wondering what the humans might do next.

The Rangers are also licking their wounds but that doesn’t mean they are standing pat. The Rangers want to strike first but how and where?

Maybe the Hot Tub Brain Trust will come up with something.
Even so, if an opportunity to hit them back arises, can the Rangers move fast enough to take advantage of it?

The weather is changing rapidly, winter is coming. That means the predators known as demon wolves will be coming down from the higher altitudes to find food. The survivors of the Cairo may be on their menu

If you liked the first books of the Fierce Girls At War series you will love Hitting Back, the 7th installment of the saga of the ‘fierce girls’ war against the aliens. Click the BUY NOW button at the top and continue your journey now.

“Just a day before the aliens invaded, me and my mates Raven, Sierra, Karlie, Ksenia, Lydia, Julia and Malina spent the day at one of the new beach houses on the Ranger Base. It was brilliant and the weather was glorious! We had a full cooler and roasted bangers on the grill, and we got to lay bums out on the beach! I hope the aliens didn’t mess with them; I left my swim togs hanging in the bathroom and my sunnies on the nightstand. I’m hoping for a chance to get them back, you can’t buy new ones anywhere these days!”
-Lieutenant Jelena Simons, platoon leader, New Zealand detachment, Eagle Company

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Adams
• Release date: Jun 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463377284

Mike Adams

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Staten Island, NY. Mike has a BS in Business Admin from Wagner College and an MBA from SDSU. A retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander, Supply Corps (Logistics), a former small business owner, and part-time substitute teacher. he's visited 6 continents and 36 countries, speak Spanish, some German, a little Italian and a little less French. He currently lives in Chula Vista, CA with his wife Chris.

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Prologue

The Rift

December 10, 2126

Day 84

Rift flagship

The Rift, a diminutive, long-lived, advanced intelligent species had come to the planet they called Rih’ta with an army of 30,000 Andoval mercenaries to reclaim the planet from an alien invader that was colonizing the planet. The Rift had considered this world to be theirs for more than a thousand years although they had not begun to develop it. They launched their invasion of the alien colony and within seven days had taken three of the four major settlements on the eastern end of the colony. Since then, they had been frustrated, taking only the settlement at the southwestern corner of the large peninsula that jutted out from the south in the mid-section of the planet’s main continent, the only landmass the invaders had occupied.

The Expeditionary Force Commander General Bysr Osmu’a had seen his army reduced by two-thirds and he’d had lost three of the six orbit-to-ground transport airships that he relied upon to move his army around and keep them supplied. Gold Star, Green Star and Red Star had been destroyed 15 days before on the first day of a major offensive that had failed miserably and cost him half his army for little return.

Hours earlier, the aliens who called themselves humans had raided the southern coastal settlement they had named Southport. The Rift Ground Force Commander, General Warsh, had come up from his headquarters near Southport on one of the last three remaining atmospheric transports, Orange Star, to deliver the news in person. I am ashamed to report that we have failed miserably, Expeditionary Force Commander, said General Warsh to his superior. "The aliens have destroyed all of our seagoing attack ships in Southport. They have also destroyed Blue Star." They had now lost four of the six airships they’d started with.

Osmu’a stared at him in miserable disappointment and frustration. The two small earholes on either side of the General’s head flared opened in irritation then closed again. His large yellow eyes and small oily nose shining above his narrow jaw and small teeth he asked, How many of our attack ships do we have left?

Warsh responded, Approximately fifty at the river settlement the aliens call New Saint Louis and thirty at the peninsula settlement called Rocky Point. All the rest are on the Eastern coast, perhaps another seventy in all.

How long would it take to bring them around to the southern settlement? The human settlement of New Cancun had, like Southport, been taken on the first day. This town was located on the southeastern coast above a long peninsula that jutted south for some four hundred miles. Southport was on the southern coast several hundred miles west of that peninsula.

Warsh looked away from his commander before answering, The weather has gotten very bad at sea. To sail any ships from the eastern coast now they would have to stay very close to land so that they could put in whenever the weather gets too bad. There is also the extreme risk of running aground. It will be another 15-25 local days, on average, if historical weather patterns hold, before the weather calms in the southern seas before I would advise even attempting to bring them around the southeastern peninsula.

Osmu’a gave the Rift version of a sigh, In that case, keep them there until then. And what about those at the river settlement?

With all of the rain over the last ten days the river is running very fast now, greatly increasing the risk of running aground when they pass through the river delta to the open sea. With the water higher our ships will not be able to follow the channels that were discovered earlier. There are many sandbars that are now submerged yet it is not high enough to simply sail over them. With no mishaps they can be at the southern settlement within three days once they leave there but until this blasted rain stops, I would recommend against it. It will be another ten to fifteen days, perhaps more, before it is safe enough to risk the passage through the delta. In any case that was when we had planned to bring most of them out of the river. As the cold sets in the river may begin to freeze. If it does, it may damage the hulls of the ships. Even if it doesn’t freeze completely, we can expect large chunks of ice to flow down that way later in the winter which may also cause damage.

How many did you plan to send down to the southern settlement?

More than half, General. A dozen have been pulled out of the water for the winter. There is not enough space to bring all of them out along the shore.

When the time is right then, General Warsh, I want you to bring down all but those dozen ships out of the river.

You’re not concerned that the aliens will return to destroy them as well? Warsh asked.

Osmu’a frowned, I am but we cannot simply hide, afraid that they will come back. We must rethink the way we ensure the security of our bases.

General Osmu’a, we failed to anticipate that they would attack in bad weather. All of the guards were allowed to go inside one of the structures to stay warm and dry. Now we know that this was foolish. We will salvage whatever we can from the marina but the aliens managed to sink all of the ships there. Some of the large energy projectors are damaged beyond our ability to have them repaired. We will need some of the ships from the river settlement to tow the hulks out of the way to make room for others coming down.

General Warsh, our inexperience with this kind of war has hampered us throughout. We have made many decisions based on how we would react if attacked. We have failed over and over again to understand that these aliens think differently and obviously have more experience at war than we do. We failed to take even the simplest precautions which with hindsight appeared to have been obvious steps that we overlooked. We must be on our guard against further attacks during the winter months. In your opinion do you think that they will return after we bring the ships down from the river settlement?

Giving the equivalent of a shrug Warsh said, Before this last attack I would have said no but now we have every reason to assume that they will. The first time they came we allowed them to plant explosive charges on at least a dozen of our ships by not guarding them. Now we know we must construct enclosed guard posts so that the Andoval sentries will remain on duty and not leave to find warmth and a place out of the rain. The large ship mounted energy projectors are the most powerful weapons we have against the aliens. It was folly on our part to think that keeping them mounted on those ships and having them near the settlements would be enough. I believe that we must have at least a few positioned on land to cover our encampments and the landing fields. It will be sometime before the hulks can be removed from the port area. However, I think we can salvage some of the large energy projectors from those ships in the meantime.

Osmu’a gave the Rift equivalent of a nod, Yes, I agree. Do that if possible. If none can be salvaged, then we must take some, a small number, from the ships at the river settlement and the eastern coast on one of our remaining air transport vehicles and deliver them by air. We must have at least one at each of the landing fields in case the aliens return again.

Warsh nodded, "The sub-commanders in charge of our bases will be relieved to have them no doubt. Sub-Commander Loni’a came very close to being killed or taken prisoner by the invader’s raiding party that attacked the terminal building he had made his command center. That was the only mistake the aliens made, attacking that building. If they had simply left then detonated the explosives they had put on Blue Star the way they did with the ships in the marina, they would’ve gotten away without our ever seeing them. It is fortunate that there were many Andoval taking shelter there and in the adjacent buildings. Once the presence of the aliens was detected they reacted quickly and killed many of the intruders. The warriors feasted on the bodies of more than thirty of the humans. None were taken alive though. Sub-Commander Loni’a says the morale of the Andoval there improved markedly after that. It was a reminder of why they had agreed to come here in the first place, to feast on the thousands of aliens we knew to be here. Warsh paused and stared directly at his superior before asking, General, do you wish to cease all operations against the invaders until the arrival of General Miltcar?"

Osmu’a sighed heavily, "We shall see. We cannot afford to do anything hasty and find ourselves in an even worse position when she arrives. We must think any possible operation through carefully. Once the ships from the river settlement have arrived in the south and the winter weather subsides, we will reevaluate. In the meantime, we will look at what options there may be to strike a blow somewhere. Perhaps we should look to moving some of our remaining Andoval from the eastern coast to the southern settlement. And we must keep Orange Star and Pink Star out of danger. We cannot and must not lose them."

I concur completely, Warsh agreed.

Osmu’a asked, Do you wish to have them sent up to remain with the transports in orbit?

Warsh thought about that for a moment before responding, No, there are too many demands on their carrying capability to withdraw them at this time. Perhaps we will keep them up here after they have completed their current assignments of moving the food animals from the north down to the southern, peninsula and eastern settlements. They are our only means of transporting supplies to our army.

What of the various foodstuffs the aliens have been growing? I have tried some of the samples brought up and found some of them to be quite interesting.

There are numerous areas that the aliens had begun to cultivate, especially in the south. There are a large number of unknown plants that they appear to have been growing for food. We’re beginning to gather all that is found to be edible but we need the meat animals from the north. Large prey animals appear to be in scant supply along the coastal areas. There are some but they are smaller and quicker and have avoided our hunting parties. Warsh sighed, No doubt they can smell the Andoval from a great distance. I know I can.

Osmu’a grunted agreement, Indeed. Our mercenaries are restive enough as it is with our failure to conquer the aliens in the north. A lack of meat may turn them against us.

Yes. Their chiefs are already angry that the promised rewards have not been obtained. And they are angry at the heavy casualties they have been taking for no return. I think they are beginning to fear the aliens as well. They are not afraid of death but to be incinerated without a chance to exchange blows with their enemy is a great cause for alarm.

What do you think is our greatest vulnerability, General Warsh?

Expeditionary Force Commander, these aliens do the unthinkable. They destroy their own property and facilities to keep us from using them. To what extent they would go on doing so I can only imagine. They must know that we are using the buildings that they abandoned to house our army for the winter. If they were willing to destroy those buildings, another attack is certainly possible. With the fire from the engines of those large transport ships of theirs they can burn down an entire town and a great part of our Army along with it.

Do you truly think they would do that? It is unconscionable, a disturbed Osmu’a asked.

How can we be sure what they would do? We can no longer fool ourselves into believing that they will act rationally as we would. Every time we thought that we have had the advantage they did something unexpected. It could be the very reason that they attacked our ships in port. They know the large energy projectors are mounted on the ships and would be used against their air transports should one of them approach the settlement for an attack. They may be willing to risk one or more of them now that those energy projectors are out of action.

That is all the more reason then that we must move quickly to mount some of them on land to protect our army. I do hope that we can find a way to make them suffer before General Miltcar arrives.

How long before the task force arrives?

The estimated arrival in orbit of Miltcar’s ships is in 45 local days.

Chapter 1

Ruby McCarthy

December 9, 2126

Day 83

CTL Cairo

Fifteen days after the Battle of the Valley, 14-year-old Ruby McCarthy was on early morning lookout duty on the main deck of the cargo transport lander Cairo watching for approaching alien airships, changes in the weather and any sign of predators in the valley. She was standing 200 feet aft of the access door that led into the airlock that opened into the interior main deck and was surveying the valley with a set of Ranger–issue field glasses. She couldn’t see the waterfall three miles to the south on the other side of the mile-long lake in the dark but with the infra-red function of her helmet visor she could see the heat signatures of the groups of small predators that were helping clean up the valley. They were devouring the meat from the bodies of hundreds of dead aliens strewn around the east side of the valley, on the other side of the river that ran through it.

It still stinks out here when the wind blows this way, said 15-year-old Vika Magnuson. The Norwegian girl was one of the other members of their four-person watch section. The other two, watch section leader 17-year-old Rain Moon and 16-year-old Sasha Romanova, whose twin sister Anya was also in the group of school girls trapped in the valley after the transport’s crash, were stationed by the access door with one inside watching the monitors showing the feed from the remote cameras set up on the valley rim to detect approaching alien airships.

I know but at least it’s not blowing this way right now and it gets better every time it rains.

Ruby’s helmet com activated and she heard Rain’s voice, Watch leader to stern watch.

Stern watch, go, she replied formally.

"See anything interesting out there?"

Just some critters having a picnic over there.

"Okay, time to rotate then. Vika first, then when Sasha gets there you come on back here."

Right, Vika’s on her way, her watchmate was also listening on her helmet comm and gave Ruby a little wave then turned and started back to the airlock.

"I see her. Sasha’s on her way and I’m going to watch the monitors until Vika gets here," Rain told her.

Any hot chocolate left?

"Um, not much. You can go for some refills when you get back here."

Sounds good.

The Cairo had crashed in the mountain valley three months ago and Commander Rick Cassidy and Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford had begun training the 50 girls from the New Hope Academy, 46 students and four interns, along with the uninjured staff members who had survived, within days of the crash. Ruby and the other students, all but five of whom were between the ages of 14 and 17, had been selected to go on the spring internship tour of the eastern settlements of the New Hope Colony. This was a reward for superior academic and physical or/and artistic achievement during the two-month winter semester that had just ended. The four female interns, all recent graduates aged 18 or 19, were along to help the staff keep them in line and out of trouble. Besides spending time in government and company offices in the various settlements learning how the colony functioned behind the scenes the girls put on very popular music and dance performances for the entertainment starved colonists wherever they stopped. The gymnastics and dance teacher Meifeng Li and the music teacher Daniela Poitiers were in charge of the performance group and among them were some excellent singers, musicians and dancers, some of whom were also outstanding gymnasts. Ruby was one of those who worked behind the scenes helping with the lights and sound systems.

The tour group had put on several performances in New St. Louis, their first stop, and in Southport, and they had been headed to New Cancun on the Alpha continent's southeastern coast aboard the Cairo when they inadvertently flew over a fleet of alien seagoing ships on their way to invade the southern coast near Southport. Two separate fleets attacked and captured Southport and New Cancun that day. Those fleets of ships carried thousands of giant aliens; 7-foot tall, 400-pound inhumanly strong and fast beings that fought with primitive weapons like spears and spiked iron balls and war hammers. The Rangers had dubbed them Raagaas after their war cry ‘RAAGAA!’ that they shouted when they attacked. The giants were so strong that they could accurately hit a target with a thrown weapon such as one of their heavy spears over 200 yards away. This was farther than the Rangers defending those towns could accurately fire with their own weapons. The aliens’ plan had been to surprise the two settlements, overwhelm the defenders and capture the thousands of human inhabitants who would be used as food for the giants.

The Raagaas were led by a group of more technologically advanced smaller aliens who were referred to as Jammies by the Rangers because of the one-piece footed coveralls they wore that reminded them of toddlers’ pajamas. The Jammies carried plasma rifles, smaller versions of the larger plasma cannon that had damaged Cairo and forced it to crash in the mountains 500 miles north of Southport. Cairo’s pilot and his flight crew tried to get them beyond the huge mountainous area that stretched 700 miles from the southern coast to the open countryside that stretched another 500 miles to Winter Haven but the huge transport's antigravity cells were too badly damaged and eventually they lost too much altitude and came down hard in the mountain river valley far from any rescue. The aliens had destroyed the communication satellites soon after they attacked the Cairo but not soon enough to keep them from sending out a warning that gave the Rangers in Southport and New Cancun some time to prepare while the civilian residents were evacuated. Without the satellites Cairo could not talk to the outside world and no one knew where they were so no rescue was anticipated anytime soon.

Gunnery Sergeant Pickford and the other surviving Ranger NCOs had put the girls and teachers through a very challenging training regimen throughout the summer and they had all become above average to expert marksmen and they were all in outstanding physical condition. They had been formed into six-girl squads and trained in small unit tactics, communications protocols and they had practiced what to do when, not if, the aliens came for them. This training had paid off near the end of the summer when the aliens came to the valley in force and tried to take the transport and its occupants.

Not only had they (they being Cassidy, Pickford, a handful of Rangers NCOs and teachers and the 50 schoolgirls who made up over 80% of Jacks Company) fought the aliens off but they had crushed an alien army of a thousand of the giants and a dozen of their Jammie officers killing most of them and destroying one of the three airships that had brought them and damaging a second. Ruby along with her squad had fought in the fort made of cargo containers they’d constructed next to the transport. The fighting had been hard and terrifying but all of the girls had fought bravely and ferociously. Several girls had been injured, some seriously, and 16-year-old Luda Bukharin had been killed fighting in the fort. Other squads fought from the outer main deck of the ship, where 15-year-old River Sleight and Meifeng Li had died, and from sniper nests along the ridgeline above the ship.

During the fight for the fort one of the Raagaas had grabbed Ruby’s weapon, a standard Ranger PR85 automatic rifle, and tried to pull it out through the firing port she'd been shooting through. The gun wouldn't fit through the opening so the Raagaa had shoved it hard into her shoulder knocking her down and tearing it out of her grasp. She pulled her sidearm and shot the alien in the face, recovered her weapon then continued fighting. Later as the adrenaline wore off her shoulder and arm had gone numb, her shoulder was badly bruised, and she’d needed assistance to descend into the weapons container that was being used as a safe room when the time had come to abandon the fort. She had recovered fully within a week or so.

Now they were near the middle of the 24-day long fall transition season. There was a lot of rain on and off and everyday was colder than the one before. Winter would be upon them soon and they expected the first snows to come before that. Based on information from the ship’s data banks they expected up to 25 feet of snow to accumulate over the two-month winter and that packs of demon wolves, the planet’s deadliest predators, would soon descend into the valley and attack them. The wolves had been watching them all summer from the ridges above the valley but they weren't able to come down from the upper valley to the south until the waterfall and the lake below it froze, allowing them to climb down and make their way the three miles north to the ship.

Ruby and her mother Lacey McCarthy had prepared for over two years for the trip to the colony. Ruby's father had been a soldier in the Canadian Army in Africa and he had been killed in action when she was three and she barely remembered him except in pictures. Lacey was a research biologist and had applied for a position with a pharmaceutical company that had a research lab at the New Hope Colony and she had been promised the job if she could get there sometime in the next 18 months. The voyage to the colony took six to seven months and everyone hoping to go to the colony had to meet stringent physical, mental and academic requirements before they would be accepted for passage to the colony so the 18 months lead time was fairly standard.

Lacey had already started preparing herself and the 12-year-old Ruby was very excited over the idea of going to live and go to school on another planet. She put all her energy into her studies and her physical conditioning so that she could pass the same requirements the adults did. The rule was that children had to be 14 before their starship left Earth’s solar system and made its jump to the Tau Ceti system. Ruby was not quite 14 when they departed on the cargo supply ship Antarctica. They arrived at the colony in April 2126 after a 6-month transit. Ruby was extremely smart and did well in all her onboard classes; all children headed to the colony were required to continue their academic studies during the voyage. She met two of her best friends, Gabriella Mendez and Monica Keller on that voyage. They were all the same age and were first-year students at the Academy.

The New Hope Academy was the colony’s only school. It was technically a high school but because of the caliber of the students it was more like a junior college. Graduates of the New Hope Academy were in high demand back on Earth and were typically were offered full rides to the best universities which were anxious to recruit these high caliber students and benefit from their experiences of living on another planet.

Gaby and Monica had also been chosen for the internship tour and they were together with some of their other friends on the Cairo when it was attacked. Ruby had gone into the restroom at the aft end of the main deck forward passenger cabin where all the passengers had been assigned their crash couches. She was just washing her hands when the first plasma blasts hit the transport. The port and starboard side antigravity cells which held the transport in the air took several hits from the energy bolts and the starboard side grav cells lost almost all power. The 850-foot-long transport ship suddenly turned over on its side 20,000 feet up in the air. Ruby had tried to get out of the restroom as the ship suddenly turned over but the door had slammed on her left wrist breaking it and she was trapped there.

Ruby had been both horrified and terrified as she watched some of the students and teachers fall from the now higher port side down to the starboard side that was now as much as 70 feet below. Several suffered broken limbs or fractured skulls. The pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Janssen, had flown the ship sideways through the mountains for nearly 40 minutes but as the ship lost altitude their options shrank rapidly. The ship’s navigator and assistant engineer, Captain Gabriella Tomei, had spotted a river valley several miles ahead and she and the Chief Engineer were able to transfer enough power to the starboard side just as the transport was about to come over the lake at the southern end of the valley to level the ship out so that Janssen could try to land the ship.

While she was trapped in the doorway, Ruby had seen Commander Rick Cassidy looking at her from the hatch on the other side of the passenger cabin and when the ship suddenly leveled out, he had raced all the way aft, picked her up like a doll, threw her into one of the crash couches then jumped in on top of her as its canopy dropped in place encapsulating them in the crash couch. Seconds later, crash gel foam was released automatically when the sensors showed that the transport was about to impact something and kept them safe as the transport skidded along the valley floor until it rammed into a granite hillside two miles north of the lake. The sudden stop killed most of the crew, the cargo crew had been working in the cargo bay and had not been able to get into their crash couches, and all of the flight crew except for Tomei, the senior engineering tech Master Sergeant Guy Gilbert and the communications tech Corporal Miruku Nakamura (she was Sergeant Nakamura now). Four of the New Hope Academy staff members and four members of the ship’s 7-man security detachment were also killed, and several others were badly injured. Thanks to the sacrifice made by the four Colonial Security officers and those four teachers all 50 girls had survived although some were also injured. Sixteen-year-old Marta