Chapter 15

This ambush was different because we had 10 new people along to give us a total of 22 shooters. We had so many because I wanted to be sure of adequate backup in case the new people contracted some new form of "buck fever" and froze when they should have been shooting. We went in with four flying boxes: HAF-1 and HAF-2 in case we needed firepower and HAF-3 and HAF-4 for overnight accommodations. It was a problem hiding that many of the flying boxes, but I thought that we did an acceptable job. Of course, that may have been my low opinion of the aliens peeking through.

We sabotaged the cutting machines as we usually did and waited for the aliens to show up. The foxholes were dug in an arc so that none of the humans would be shot by a stray bullet, and all we had to do now was to wait. It was the next morning before any aliens showed up, and it was a damned anticlimax. Only one flying box showed up, and it contained only four aliens. We let the newbies take care of them, and it was a real overkill. The consolation was that there was no reluctance on the part of the newbies to shoot, and we did pick up eight more ray guns and one more flying box.

When it was all over, we laughed at our "massive show of force." Based on our previous experience, only two of the experienced shooters could have taken care of the aliens. However, it was apparent that we we going to have to change our tactics. The aliens must be starting to take us seriously to send so few of their number into what appeared to be certain death. Oh, well, live and learn. Even the aliens seemed to be doing that.

Okay, we now had enough ray guns to equip each flying box with a quad-mount. We even stripped some of the quad-mounts from HAF-1 and HAF-2 to make sure that each flying box had at least one set of guns. Now, we simply mounted a concerted attack against the harvesters and distilleries. Our air craft fanned out to cover as much territory as possible and to destroy as much of the alien property as we could. We now had 10 flying boxes rigged with ray guns and bombardiers so that we could maximize our search and destroy efficiency. Eventually, we were going to force the aliens to meet us in battle or else slink away to escape our ire.

Our only fear was that they would bring back the UFOs. Those bastards were so fast and agile that we did not know what we could do against them. Since we had not seen them after that first attack, we were working on the assumption that they were not a part of the people who were harvesting the trees. Instead, we figured that they must be a bunch of mercenaries who were only hired for that first onslaught and who had since gone on to other jobs. If that were true, and the evidence pointed to it, then we could win the war with the moonshiners if we would just stick to what we were doing.

We reached the point very soon at which we were destroying 10-15 harvesting crews per day, and blowing up 3-5 distilleries per day. At that rate, we should have all of New England cleared by the end of the year. Our plans were to branch out into other areas as soon as New England was free of alien presence. We would work our way south and west as fast as we could, and we should have cleared North America of alien infestation inside of three years. There were vast areas of open plains without trees in the American and Canadian west, so that we were not worried about what might be going on there.

From what we had seen, the harvesting was done on trees only, and there was no effort made to harvest grass. Unless that changed, our task was not insurmountable, and we would eventually win. All we had to do was to dedicate ourselves to the job.

Somehow, I had worked myself into the job of managing the fight against the aliens, and I rarely had an opportunity to shoot at anything anymore. I still practiced enough to keep my "shooting eye" so that I would have it if I ever was pressed into service. I rotated the shooting at aliens around among our people so that everybody felt engaged in our struggle.

We now had regular hunting details, but we were soon going to have to go into raising domestic animals. One of the air ships had spotted a small herd of cattle grazing in a cleared area, and I wanted to send out a crew to capture as many of them as possible. I had set aside a group of hills not suitable for agriculture to be used as our place for cattle.

HAF-9 was arbitrarily selected as the cattle hauler, and it was cleared in its cargo area of everything except piles of hay. The deck was covered with about six inches of hay, and the craft was dispatched with two others to act as cover after the workers disembarked. The roundup began, and, as expected, it was a real hassle to capture a bull. I wished that we had taped the efforts to catch that bull because it was so funny. However, it was probably well that we didn't because the human participants found nothing funny in the effort. Anyway, they picked up seven cows and one bull for transportation to our "ranch."

Things were a bit easier as they gained some experience, but it was still a lot more work than it was fun. Eventually, we had 23 cows and three bulls. We decided to save the largest of the bulls and slaughtered the other two for our first meal of fresh beef in a couple of years. There was quite a celebration when the first roast beef was served, and I could have been elected king for a day if the election were held right after the ice cream we had for dessert.

Fortunately, there was a gracious plenty of Cyclone fencing available in and around Worcester, and we were able to surround our ranch with a fence made of this and 12' high. Certainly, this was going to keep the cattle in, but it was also going to keep any predators out. The land inside the main fence was sectioned off into several pastures with electric fencing, and both the cattle and the humans were happy with that arrangement.

A large building had been included within the ranch, and that was used as a barn. Mostly, the cattle circulated in the pasture, but they could reach the barn when the weather was bad. The cattle also came to the barn at milking time. As it happened, most of our cattle were Jerseys, so we had enough nutritious milk for the children and some for occasional ice cream. It was of poor quality, but it was ice cream.

We got through the winter very well, though we all breathed a sigh of relief at the early spring. The row crops were planted as soon as the ground was dry enough, and we had the advantage of power equipment for this job. A large garden tractor was found, along with all of the necessary accessories, and Sarah was in hog heaven supervising the planting of her huge garden. It seemed to me that she planted it if she could find seeds. She put in some of everything, but concentrated on beans and carrots and that sort of vegetable. The garden was also surrounded by a high cyclone fence, and the dogs were given free run of the garden to keep away animals small enough to crawl through the fence. The dogs loved that job, and we had very few plants lost to varmints.

Sarah's work on the garden did have to be curtailed when her baby finally arrived. By this time, several of the women were experienced midwives, and Sarah's delivery of a boy she named Adam went very well. She was out of action for a few weeks, and other people took over the garden to continue her work. However, as soon as possible, she was back supervising the work. Between supervising a wet-nurse for Adam and supervising the work on her garden, Sarah had a full spring.

The war against the aliens continued, but it was somewhat reduced by the other work required in the spring. We were looking forward to the summer when work on the garden and other things would slack off and we could resume our attack on the harvesting machines.

We were able to work into New York state because of the great speed of the flying boxes. We could still use Worcester as our base of operations, but that was going to change as we spread our activities. The far reaches of New York were going to require that we move to another location to base our flying boxes. We had not worked that out yet, but it was an item of high priority. Initially, we would probably base five of the flying boxes at some point for a week, and then rotate them home to Worcester while another crew worked that area. I put a lot of thought into that plan and consulted with everyone who would listen to my problems, but we could not come up with a better idea.