Boundary Formation Alpha

By Mike Adams

“I’m so happy to see my parents and my brother again but there’s not a lot to do in New St Louis right now besides taking long walks together along the riverside. Even the gym is full of people so we can’t even use that. There’s a soccer field but no equipment to use, no balls, not cleats, nada. There’s no snow here so we can’t even have snowball fights. I hope we can go back to New Cancun soon, it’s warmer there and maybe we can have a picnic on the beach. My dad wants to know why we still carry our guns wherever we go. It’s probably safe here but the Gunny says that you never know when the aliens might show up without calling ahead first.”
Vika Magnuson, age 16, squad 8, Jacks Company, Norway
The Colonial Rangers have taken back New Cancun and Rocky Point to go along with New St Louis, and now the Vitus Bering is in orbit and has begun sending down personnel and material. The question now before the Regiment’s command staff is what to do next? The Rangers on the Vitus Bering still don’t have access to their weapons and other gear and the Antarctica with the Advance Relief Expeditionary Force, the AREF, is still a month away.
The Rift general captured at New Cancun’s landing field by Jacks Company has answered some of the questions that have been nagging the Rangers since the beginning of the war – Who are they? Why did they attack? Why didn’t they even try to talk to the humans first? The answers to these questions and others has been illuminating and it’s now clear that the aliens, the Rift, know that they have lost but they can’t quit without their army of giant mercenaries, the Andoval, turning on them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Adams
• Release date: Nov 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215521731

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

Settling In

July 6, 2127

Day 275

New St Louis/ Rocky Point/New Cancun

In New St. Louis, the girls of Jacks Company, under the commander of Commander Rick Cassidy and Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford, and now part of Sixth Battalion which Cassidy also commanded, were starting to feel a bit bored. They had finally been reunited with their families, most of whom had been shocked to learn that their daughters had not only been part of the force that had retaken New Cancun from the aliens but that Jacks Company, the Jackies along with their Australian detachment, had been the first to covertly enter alien-occupied New Cancun with the job of taking the landing field without alerting the aliens that an attack was in progress. This group of Australians had fought with them since the Jackies had rescued them from imminent capture by the aliens. Together they had seized the ferry and both ferry houses at the crossing on the Clearwater River so they could use the big boat to get across the Mississippi-like waterway then continue on to Winter Cove which they also had to take from the aliens.

Their parents had been shown a narrated compilation of recordings of their adventures since the crash of the 850-foot-long cargo transport lander (CTL) Cairo in the mountains 500 miles north of Southport on the first day of the invasion. This compilation was just a fraction of the thousands of hours of recordings and it left their parents a bit shell-shocked. That reunion had been a few days ago and now the girls were feeling at loose ends with little to do. They hadn't stayed in one place for more than a couple of days since leaving the mountain valley three months before and New St. Louis had become a little 'too' safe for a group that had spent the last ten months living on a knife-edge when every day could be their last. Today though, something interesting had happened and in twos and threes they had been stopping by to say hello to one or another of the people working at the clinic in the terminal building but what they really wanted was a peek at the Jammie general, the 'Rift' general they knew now, they'd captured at the landing field along with another Rift officer. After five days of unconsciousness, they'd finally woken up.

Jacks Company's medical people were monitoring the aliens around the clock. Both of the diminutive aliens had suffered head injuries when they were captured but both were now awake and Commander Cassidy had talked to the alien general using the translation device that they'd taken off one of the dead Rift officers at the landing field in New Cancun. The Rift used the small box-like devices they wore on their wrists to communicate with the 7-foot-tall, 450-pound mercenaries that the Rift general said were called Andoval. The Rangers had been calling them Raagaas since the beginning because they would sound their war cry ‘RAAGAA’ whenever they attacked. The much smaller Rift had been dubbed ‘the Jammies’ because of the one-piece, footed, coverall-like garments they wore which reminded the Rangers of a toddler's pajamas. At an average height of just five feet, the more technologically advanced Rift were shorter than any human on the planet. Only a few like General Vorla’na were two or 3 inches taller. The Rangers didn't know yet that most of the taller Rift were female and that the commander of the alien force, General Miltcar, a female, was the tallest of them all at 5-foot-8 inches.

The two aliens had just awakened that afternoon and Veronika Tchachenko had told the Jackies what she'd heard the alien say to Commander Cassidy. The aliens were guarded by some officers from Colonial Security, most of them part of Jacks Company, but also two Colonial Security squads that had been transferred to Sixth Battalion, including one that Commander Cassidy's sister Lieutenant Bridget O'Brien was in charge of. They were there to keep anyone from doing harm to the aliens; there were more than a few people in New St Louis who would be quite happy to bash their heads in given the opportunity to do so. The Colonial Security people under Captains Pierre Legrande and Sandalee Silva gently but firmly steered the Jackies away from the aliens.

###

In Rocky Point, seized from the aliens by Third Battalion the same night as New Cancun had been taken, Colonel Kenji Takahashi had resumed command of Third Batt from Colonel Cheyenne Harper who had taken the battalion to Rocky Point while Takahashi had led the Northern Force at New Cancun. After saying goodbye to the Jackies who had rescued her and 38 others from the underground bunker in Winter Cove, Yoko Takahashi had left New St. Louis for New Cancun to be with Kenji then they'd gone together to Rocky Point. Kenji had spent three long, miserable months not knowing whether his wife had been killed and eaten by the voracious aliens who had taken Winter Haven or had somehow escaped their grasp until the Ranger Regiment had received a message from Cassidy that had included a list of all those they'd rescued from the aliens, including the holdouts in Winter Haven.

Cassidy, who'd named his slapdash command Sixth Battalion because the lower numbers had been taken already, was now in charge of all the civilian volunteers under arms. Sixth Battalion also included the three companies of Rangers, Charlie, Echo and Razor, along with the crew of the Moscow and various other Rangers who had been aboard the disabled transport that had been under attack by the aliens until Jacks Company had shown up to rescue them. While Cassidy dealt with the civilian volunteers, the actual Colonial Rangers in Sixth Battalion were assigned to Cassidy's Executive Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Claudia Stairs. Claudia was not only an extremely competent field commander; she was also one of Rick Cassidy's and Molly Pickford's oldest and closest friends at the colony.

Most of the civilian volunteers had already been sent to New St. Louis where they were reorganized by occupation and settlement of origin then sent out to help get the retaken settlements up and running again. The volunteer platoons had been organized as they completed training, and a common native language had been the only common factor, and not always that. As a result, after New St. Louis and Rocky Point and New Cancun had been taken back, the right people with the right skills were more often than not somewhere else.

Major Emma Borstad, an administrative officer who had once been on the Regiment's staff, had commanded two companies of archers, civilian volunteers trained by the archery team members and their coach at the New Hope Academy in New Hope Town. Those companies had fought the aliens at the second canal line north of New Hope Town prior to the final evacuation of the colonial capital. The archery companies, which included several siblings of girls in Jacks Company, were now in New St Louis and had for the most part been disbanded. Major Borstad, now Cassidy’s senior Administrative officer, had the job of reorganizing the volunteers as they came in then sending them where needed. These civilians were still under arms and a captain with several lieutenants was in command of these volunteers in each of the settlements they were sent to. These Rangers officers had the day-to-day task of tracking the priority list of things that needed to be done and what skills were needed to get the settlements ready for re-occupation by the former residents who were mostly still at the overcrowded bastions on the Gamma continent, 1100 miles south across the ocean from the Alpha continent where all of the New Hope Colony settlements had been established. Among the skilled workers needed to get the settlements operating again were electricians, hydrologists, solar power engineers, cargo handlers, personnel to run the cafeterias, heavy equipment operators, etc. Semi-skilled and unskilled workers among the volunteers were also sent out to help get water-damaged apartments ready for occupancy, clean up the messes made by the aliens, and otherwise assist where needed.

The aliens meanwhile was still trying to get their nearly 100,000 Andoval warriors and their Rift officers who'd been sent to take New Hope Town and the other western settlements out of the New Hope Town area by ship to Novo Napoli, some 900 miles east of New Hope Town, or overland to their camps several hundred miles to the north and east. The aliens only had two larger and two smaller transport airships left and there were usually between two and four of the larger, heavily armored Ranger transports circling the area watching the airspace around New Hope Town for a chance to play 'bumper cars' with the alien aircraft. The heavily armored cargo transport landers (CTLs) would purposely ram the lightly armored alien airships and knock them out of the sky if an opportunity presented itself. They had done this once before, destroying one of the larger airships that had been on its way to try to bomb New Hope Town with a cargo of rocks, copying what had been done to them by the Rangers. The Ranger transports had forced the three airships trapped on the ground at New Hope Town to stay there or turn back and land again to avoid being rammed by the bigger aircraft. The fourth airship left to the Rift, one of the larger ones, was up in orbit docked with the its mothership, the big transport Kara'kar, safe from danger for the moment.

###

Like Rocky Point, New Cancun was now back in human hands and the town had been swept clear of any aliens. Detachment-sized patrols went out from the Ranger Base daily searching both north and south of the town looking for any stray aliens that might have slipped away. The marina 10 miles north of town was being used as an outpost with a full detachment assigned there. Another detachment was assigned for security for the agro specialists working at the citrus groves on the strip of land between the Big and Little Citrus Rivers 20 miles south of New Cancun. This group was using the transport Montréal as a base of operations as well as a ready evacuation platform in case too large a group of aliens to defend against were spotted headed their way.

Separate from the detachments in that duty rotation, 10 detachments from Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Austria had just begun using the basements of eight of the barracks buildings to hone their skills in covert entry in preparation for the coming operation to take back Winter Haven from the aliens. Only two of those detachments had come in on the Vitus Bering a few days earlier. The colony transport ship had arrived carrying 6000 passengers including some 1800 Colonial Rangers. Among the Rangers were 14 new national detachments, each averaging close to 110 personnel each. There were also nearly 300 Ranger support personnel – aircrews for shuttles and the CTLs, plus medical, admin, communications, logistics and maintenance types.

Not all of the barracks at the Ranger Base in New Cancun were ready for occupancy yet. They'd been stripped of whatever was removable during a raid the previous winter and the material was just coming back now. Even if the barracks were ready however, there wasn't room for 1800 new Rangers along with Second Battalion although 80 of them were crews for the four new CTLs that had come in with the Vitus Bering, nestled in the huge hanger area atop the even bigger engineering section at the back of the ship. Those crews had their own quarters aboard their transports.

When the other 12 detachments would be told to come down was still up in the air. The new Norwegian and Russian detachments had been asked to come down and were being thrown right into the fray. Like the other detachments assigned to the Winter Haven operation, the Norwegians and Russians were trained in winter warfare and carried both cross country skis and snowshoes as part of their equipment load-out. Winter Haven was about 1500 miles northwest of New Cancun and it was cold and snowy with an estimated 6 to 8 feet of snow on the ground at the moment. They would all be putting the cold weather training they’d gone through back on Earth to good use and they would have to approach their target buildings on skis and snowshoes. There was always the chance that the aliens had come up with a way to move around outside and the Rangers would have to fight them before they reached their first targets, the hidden bunkers that were connected by concealed tunnels leading to the basements of some of the major buildings in town including the new and old Administrative Center buildings, the main settlement hospital, and some apartment complexes.

With the recapture of the three eastern settlements there was a new found sense of hope among the Rangers and colonists. The Advanced Relief Expeditionary Force would arrive on the cargo supply ship Antarctica in a few weeks and the main relief force on the colony transport ship James Cook should be jumping into the Tau Ceti system soon. With the air transport the aliens had brought to the colony decimated and half their seagoing ships sunk or otherwise destroyed the aliens were on the defensive and the leaders of the Ranger Regiment were of the opinion that the aliens had already lost the war and now it was just a matter of time before the aliens recognized that fact and ended the conflict.

Chapter 1

Lieutenant Jelena Simons

New Zealand 2123

Lieutenant Jelena Danica Simons was born in the base hospital at the Davenport Naval Base at Auckland, New Zealand on January 21, 2101 and was the oldest of three children. Jelena’s mom Mercia had been an officer in the New Zealand Royal Navy before leaving it to stay at home with her young children. When they were older, she went to work for an NGO that provided assistance to climate refugees, mostly Pacific Islanders, displaced by rising seas that were inundating many low-lying islands in the western Pacific. Her father Cullen was also an Naval officer who had retired as a Captain after having command of the HMNZS Quest, an arctic support ship. Cullen then went to work for the same NGO as Mercia as the head of its military liaison office.

Soon after the establishment of the Colonial Rangers in 2116, the 15-year-old Jelena made it known to her parents that she would like to go to the New Hope Colony as a Colonial Ranger if there was a path to get there. The Colonial Rangers had been formed in 2116 to provide protection for the exploration and survey parties that were looking for valuable resources, surveying areas for the sites of future settlements and for the roads and bridges needed to connect them. Those parties needed protection from the planet’s native predators, especially the ferocious 800-1200-pound demon wolves that ran in packs of 30 or more adults and were notoriously hard to kill because of their armored hides, the result of metabolizing the iron-rich sap of the finger-like leaves of the iron pine trees found at elevations above 4,000 feet.

A brilliant student and an exceptional athlete, Jelena attended the University of Hawaii on an athletic scholarship and played forward on the school’s varsity soccer team that won the Pacific Rim regional championship in 2122. Her desire to be a Colonial Ranger never wavered and Jelena’s father knew people in the government who could help if she met all the criteria. Jelena was recruited during her third year at the university. Upon graduation in May 2123 Jelena attended the New Zealand Army Officer Cadet School at Waiouru Military Camp near Waiouru in the central part of New Zealand’s North Island from mid-July until late September of that year. The 7-week course included both cold weather and jungle warfare training.

###

Indonesia February 2125

The antigravity troop transport carrying 52 soldiers from New Zealand under the command of Captain Geoff ‘Jocko’ Candelaria was one of seven transport aircraft carrying over 300 New Zealander and Australian security and medical personnel to the Indonesian island of Sumba to look for and treat survivors of a tsunami caused by the eruption of the Gunung Ranakah volcano. The 30-foot-high wall of water had come barreling ashore straight at the middle of the island just across the narrowest portion of the Sava Sea. Most of the area’s 150,000 inhabitants had been evacuated inland in time but the suddenness of the eruption had taken many by surprise and the roads leading inland had been jammed with vehicles and civilians on foot when the tsunami struck.

It was estimated that at least 50,000 people had still been in the town but no one could really say for sure. The New Zealanders and Australians had been enroute to East Timor when they were diverted to the island that was less than 6 hours sailing time from their position when the disaster struck. The flotilla consisted of six naval ships including the Australian amphibious transport carrier Gallipoli with its mixed battalion of Australian and New Zealand Army personnel.

Lieutenant Jelena Simons, the platoon leader for the troopers on the aircraft, was aboard the troop transport as Candelaria. The 24-year-old Simons had completed her basic officer training 17 months earlier then attended a series of training courses over the next 6 months. In March of 2124 she was assigned to Bravo Company of the Second Battalion of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment based in Burnham Camp near Christchurch on the country’s South Island. This was her first overseas deployment and although she was not unhappy with a reprieve from dropping into the middle of a civil war in East Timor, doing search and rescue and providing security for the devastated towns along the coast made her uneasy. The unit she was with would be the first relief unit to arrive after a request for assistance was sent by the Indonesian government whose own overstretched military and civilian relief forces were having difficulty just reaching the devastated areas that stretched for over 100 miles along the north coast of Sumba Island and the scores of towns and villages on smaller islands within 50 miles of the eruption.

Jesus, will you look at that, Cap! said Warrant Officer Second Class Jeremy Burke, the company’s senior enlisted member pointing out through one of the side windows of the transport.

Candelaria took a look at the devastation below, Nature’s wrath is nothing to take lightly and this part of the world has had more than its share.

Sitting across from him, Simons asked, You’ve seen something like this before, Sir?

Candelaria nodded, Yeah, about eight years ago there was another eruption, in the Philippines that time, that left a coat of gray ash 8 inches thick over an area of nearly 1000 square miles and killed over 5,000 people. We were rescuing survivors, treating the injured, providing shelter, food and water. Much like this mission but in some ways harder, other ways perhaps less so. While there were fewer dead, there were a couple of hundred thousand with no place to lie their heads, no water to drink, no food. What’s down below here is a lot more visible, no ash to hide the wreckage or the bodies, and there are a lot more bodies that will soon start rotting in the sun here. This will not easy for any of us but there will still be people to save, to dig out of the wreckage, to try and help them find their families, and to gather bodies for identification.

Simons had heard this before from her training officers at officer cadet school who had also been in the Philippines after that eruption. She heard over the communications unit in her helmet the voice of one of the aircrew, "We are coming up on our drop off point. The LZ area isn’t very big so we’ll have to go in one at a time until some space is cleared then we’ll start search and rescue operations."

Candelaria said, All right boys and girls, time to go to work. Remember to be careful where you step. If you find a body, leave a yellow marker, a badly injured survivor, a red marker, and a relatively uninjured survivor, a blue marker, and we’ll get to them as quick as we can. Remember, these people will be in shock and will have a hard time getting around on their own. Anyone who can walk, send them to the LZ, we’ll have food, water and blankets for them and a medical tent. Oh, and make sure you keep your gloves on. There will be a lot of sharp edges to cut the unwary and watch out for water snakes, some of them are poisonous.

The next two days were an exhausting and heartbreaking round-the-clock search to find as many survivors as possible before it was too late to save them. Simons’ platoon spent most of the time pulling survivors, some barely alive, out from under fallen trees, pieces of building walls and roofs, overturned vehicles and piles of wreckage. They also located hundreds of bodies, many of them children, marking their locations for later retrieval. Simons’ unit was there for a full week before being relieved by other units from Australia, New Zealand and the United States then it was back to the Gallipoli for the short voyage to East Timor.

The civil war there had been touched off after another natural disaster, a devastating tropical storm that had ravaged half the country and the incompetent response by the government triggered an attempt by a group of senior army officers to take over, promising to do a better job of taking care of their people. Unfortunately, things had quickly deteriorated into a civil war between units loyal to the government and those supporting the rebels. The New Zealanders would spend two months in Timor before being relieved then returning to their base in New Zealand in May of 2125.

###

Lieutenant Simons reporting as ordered, General, Jelena said as she stood at attention before General Owen Robertson, the commander of Burnham Camp, a week after returning from Timor.

At ease, Simons. Have a seat. Jelena sat as directed and waited expectantly. When you were recruited as a potential member of one of our units seconded to the Colonial Rangers you were told that you would have to serve for two years before that could happen.

Jelena nodded, Yes, sir. I’m at one year and eight months now.

Robertson smiled at her in approval, Ah, keeping track! I take it you still wish to go to the New Hope Colony as a Colonial Ranger.

Simon’s eyes lit up, Yes, most definitely, General.

Very good. Would you be willing to go a little earlier than anticipated?

She blinked in surprise, Sir? How much earlier?

"If you agree, you will be joining a detachment of soldiers beginning their three-month Ranger training course in about four weeks then you’ll be boarding the starship Antarctica for the trip to the New Hope Colony. You’ll have a three-week leave first to visit your family and get your affairs in order."

Simons smiled, Yes, General, I’d like that very much. I thought New Zealand wouldn’t be sending a detachment until sometime next year.

Yes, that was the original plan but Ranger Command asked if we could send our detachment three months earlier and the Powers That Be said yes. We’ve been contacting everyone slated to go and checking to see if they are willing to go earlier and pulling them out of their current assignments.

Sir, do you know why they want us to go early?

From what I understand, the Colonial Rangers have been authorized to significantly increase the number of national detachments going to the colony over the next 2 to 3 years and beyond. That will mean that there will be more new detachments going through the training pipeline at the same time than ever before. Therefore, any units that can be moved up are being moved up or there will not be enough room at the training facilities, at least until some additional facilities come online, perhaps sometime next year.

I see, Sir. What about my current assignment in Bravo Company?

A replacement officer will be found to lead your platoon, don’t worry about that. Say your goodbyes and pack your kit, Lieutenant. Although normally volunteers must serve for two years before they can apply for Ranger duty, since you were already recruited for this assignment there’s no need to apply, and so as long as you still want to go, given that your evaluations have been exceptional, then you are in and by the time you finish your Ranger course you will have served the required two years so that requirement has been waived.

Simons smiled broadly, Yes, sir. Thank you, General. I’m looking forward to representing New Zealand in the Colonial Rangers.

Very good, Simons, and I hope you will have an interesting and exciting tour of duty at the colony.

Thank you, General

###

New Hope Colony 2125-2127

The New Zealand detachment led by Captain Nils Brubaker departed Earth on the CSS Antarctica in late October 2125 and arrived at New Hope Town’s landing field in early May of 2126. After a few weeks to get acclimated to their new surroundings they were sent to Ranger Base New Cancun where they were matched up with a Polish detachment under Captain Karol Babik in Second Battalion’s Eagle Company. The Poles had been there for six months, a full local year, by the time the New Zealanders got there. Babik was the senior captain; therefore, he was the company commander while Brubaker served as his Executive officer as well as the commander of his detachment. It was summer and that meant it was exploration season in the mountainous areas of the eastern third of the Alpha continent that were rich in precious resources.

The New Zealanders had a few minor encounters with the predators who generally stayed away from humans unless they spotted a weak point to attack or the humans entered their territory. Everything changed for the people at the colony when the aliens showed themselves on September 12, 2126 and Simons wryly recalled General Robertson’s wish that she have an interesting and exciting tour. She supposed that thinking an invasion by thousands of 7-foot-tall alien giants led by 5-foot-tall teddy bears with plasma rifles was interesting and exciting was one way to look at it. That morning word came down that aliens had invaded the colony and a fleet of their ships carrying thousands of giants was on its way to New Cancun.

Later that day, aside from a squad of Greek scouts that was almost wiped out when they ran into an alien scouting party, Eagle Company was the first unit to encounter the vanguard of the 5,000-strong alien army that had landed 30 miles south of New Cancun. That encounter had left more than a dozen Polish Rangers dead, their bodies consumed by the alien giants to the horror of the rest of Eagle Company who witnessed the awful scene from across the river. The Battle of the Bridges over the Big and Little Citrus Rivers which took place over the course of that day left 250 Rangers dead or wounded with including over 60 Poles and New Zealanders from Eagle. A separate battle that morning at Southport on the southern coast had cost another 150 Rangers killed in action. In both cases the Rangers had been able to hold off the aliens long enough to evacuate virtually all of the civilians in those settlements.

Eagle would go on to fight the aliens several more times including at the First and Second Battles of Winter Haven, during both raids on New Cancun, and they had been at the loss of Winter Haven although they hadn’t had to fight before they were evacuated. Over the course of the 10 months of the war against the aliens both the New Zealanders and the Poles incurred major casualties and had been reduced to near or less than fifty percent of their original numbers. Captain Babik was killed during the nearly catastrophic Second Battle of Winter Haven and Brubaker took command of Eagle Company. They had been in West Hills during the Battle of New Hope Town. The remaining Polish Rangers were eventually shifted over to the new Blade Company and matched with a newly arrived detachment of American Rangers when the Australia came in. They were replaced in Eagle by five platoons of trained civilian volunteers.

At one point, Eagle Company was assigned to assist with training new volunteers at the Ranger Base in New Hope Town, Jelena Simons and the other female officers from Eagle all moved into the building that had once been the private residence of the Director of Logistics, Commander Rick Cassidy. Cassidy had left the residence in the care of Major Naomi MacCaffrey who had just reported in to the logistics department two days before Cassidy and his deputy Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford had left New Hope Town on the transport Cairo escorting a large shipment of ammunition, weapons and other equipment for the Rangers based in the eastern settlements.

The Cairo was shot down on day one of the invasion and MacCaffrey had taken over logistics and drastically expanded the residence as a haven for all of the female officers in the area. At the back of the residence was Cassidy’s 10-seat hot tub, a gift from a group of scientists he’d saved during a demon wolf attack three years earlier. Before long a group of very intelligent and resourceful women led by MacCaffrey formed an unofficial operational planning group that became known as the Brain Trust, or the ‘Hot Tub Brain Trust’ to the handful of senior officers who were aware that the women tended to come up with their schemes while sitting naked in the hot tub drinking cold beer and chilled wine. Jelena Simons was a member of that group.

###

The New Zealanders were the day's ready detachment that would be called upon in case of emergency. They’d hoped that nothing would spoil their day off but two containers full of mattresses and other bedding for the barracks had been delivered so the Kiwis were given the task of pulling the mattresses and blankets and other items out of the containers and carrying them up to the barracks' rooms. It would take a couple of hours but they would be sleeping on them tonight so there were no complaints.

The New Zealanders had been moving mattresses from the containers into the barracks for the past hour and Captain Brubaker told them all to take a break. Jelena Simons and another platoon leader, Lieutenant Sierra Hampton, wiped the sweat from their brows as they sat on the steps leading up to the center entrance into the barracks their platoons were working in. It was rather hot in New Cancun that day, and they’d helped themselves to the cool bottles of water brought over from the base cafeteria. They all looked forward to sleeping on real mattresses again after having to use air mattresses for much of the past year.

There's supposed to be a promotion ceremony this evening, is that right? asked Hampton.

Jelena swallowed a mouthful of water as she nodded, then she replied, That's right. Captain Brubaker to Major and Raven to Captain. That's just ours; I hear they'll be others too, but I'm not sure who. Lieutenant Raven Paul was the senior platoon leader in the New Zealand detachment. With Brubaker being promoted to Major as the commander of the reorganized Eagle Company, Paul was being promoted to captain and would command the detachment. Sometime soon the current detachment of New Zealanders would be joined by a