The Strike Teams by Mike Adams

Author:Mike Adams [Adams, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Vitus Bering Closing In

June 18, 2127

Day 259

CTS Vitus Bering

The colony transport ship Vitus Bering was closing in on the New Hope Colony but there were still twelve days left to go before insertion into orbit and things were looking more and more like the aliens planned to attack New Hope Town before they could get there. The Bering carried 6000 passengers including 1800 Colonial Rangers. There were 14 new Ranger detachments totaling just over 1500 plus another 300 support personnel including medical, administrative, communications, maintenance and training specialists, aircrews and Colonial Security officers. Half of the Rangers had been scheduled to replace detachments and other personnel due to return to Earth within six months of the starship’s arrival while the rest were meant to increase the size of the Ranger Regiment in conjunction with the establishment of a new Ranger base on the Beta continent. All that had changed though with the alien invasion of the Alpha continent.

Vitus Bering’s commander Captain Eliza Drake called a meeting of the senior Ranger officers onboard to go over the latest information sent from New Hope Town via the Australia. The cargo supply ship had lifted off and gone into orbit several days earlier to observe and to serve as a communication relay for the damaged transport Moscow which was still on the ground in the northeastern tier of the Alpha continent. The Moscow had been badly damaged by plasma cannon fire during its bombing run over the largest of the seven alien encampments in the region that had been struck simultaneously.

“Thank you for coming everyone,” Drake told the assembled officers. “We’ve received an updated report from Ranger HQ and there have been some developments, both good and bad. On the plus side, the Rangers have executed three separate missions to degrade the aliens’ ability to move their troops into the New Hope Town area.

“The first mission sent all nine of their operational transports on a bombing raid against alien troop concentrations all over the Alpha continent. Each CTL carried up to 50 tons of rocks broken into 20 to 100 pound pieces. Preliminary estimates are that more than 15,000 aliens were killed or badly injured, some 100 small air and ground vehicles that had just been delivered by the alien ship that recently arrived in orbit were destroyed and two of their transport airships were destroyed on the ground including possibly one of the larger ones that came in with that starship. The cost was heavy damage to one transport and minor damage to three others. The CTL Moscow is on the ground in the East but it may be repairable enough to get it home if they can accomplish the repairs before the aliens find them and attack.

“The second mission was an attack by several platoons of Rangers delivered by shuttle to Ryan’s island. They were able to destroy 24 of the estimated 50 ships scattered around the island, so nearly half of them. Unfortunately a shuttle filled with American Rangers was destroyed in the air during the withdrawal; nearly 40 Rangers were lost.

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