"These aliens are seven feet tall and so strong they can throw a spear accurately further than we can shoot. We can kill them when they get closer if they haven't already killed all of us first!"- Captain Melissa Rossi, CO, Falcon Company, 2nd Battalion, Colonial Rangers, New Hope Colony, Tau Ceti 4, France"Dese girls are tougher dan dey look. Dey had to carry dead bodies an clean up blood an brains an not vun uf dem quit!"- Veronika Tchachenko, Russia, Assistant Director of Student Travel and Transportation, New Hope AcademyThe Rift have begun their invasion of the New Hope colony. They have shot down the 850-foot long transport Cairo which crashed in a mountain valley with CDR Rick Cassidy and GSGT Molly Pickford and 50 female students from the New Hope Academy. The aliens have taken Southport and set their sights on their next target, New Cancun, as thousands of refugees pour into the western settlements.Back on Earth Rick Cassidy's family gathers at the family home to celebrate Kelly's commissioning as a major in Colonial Security and to discuss Stellar Enterprise's plans for the New Hope colony. Chloe tells her that she wants to go on to the colony earlier than planned to help manage the family businesses there. She'll be going on Australia in seven weeks with her sister Nicole whose Ranger detachment will be leaving for the colony.

Rick's daughter Ciara is already on her way their on the Asia and his sister Bridget is a Lieutenant in Colonial Security on the way to the colony on the Marco Polo. On the Rift flagship Expeditionary Force Commander General Osmu'a reviews the progress of his campaign to retake the planet and realizes that the transport that was fired upon must have gotten a warning message out before they had destroyed the alien communications satellites. He had been counting on taking thousands of the alien invaders captive to use as a food source for the thousands of primitive and voracious Andoval. Further operations were going to be delayed by the need to gather food for his army.Preparing for an alien attack on New Cancun and the communications satellites down Colonel Fox sends a recon shuttle to Southport to see what has been going on there. Six companies of Colonial Rangers set up defenses at the bridges on the two rivers the aliens must cross to reach New Cancun while the evacuation of the settlement's 8,000 inhabitants begin to be evacuated.At the mountain valley crash site where the Cairo came down Rick Cassidy and Molly Pickford begin to organize the survivors. Most of the crew and some of the New Hope Academy staff members died in the crash.

All of the fifty female students and interns survived but some are injured. Medical officer Major Maya Scott takes charge of the injured.