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    Jacks Company
    Jacks Company
    Jacks Company
    Ebook396 pages6 hours

    Jacks Company

    By Mike Adams

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    About this ebook

    The alien Rift get ready for their summer offensive against the humans at the New Hope Colony.

    Another Rift airship takes a close look at the crashed transport Cairo; it’s a tempting target.

    Commander Rick Cassidy and Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford know time is running out and must do all they can to prepare for the inevitable attack. Those school girls they’ve been training have some ideas of their own on how to defend their valley against the aliens.

    The Marco Polo makes its jump into the Tau Ceti system. Among the 2000 Rangers on the Polo is LT Bridget O’Brien, Rick Cassidy’s eldest sister. His other sisters Nikki and Chloe O’Brien are also planning on going to the colony.

    The starship Asia arrives in orbit and finally learns that the colony has been under attack. Ciara Cassidy finally arrives on the starship and there’s no way they’re going to keep her on board but her dad Rick Cassidy and aunt Molly Pickford are missing in action. Major Naomi MacCaffrey will have to break the bad news to her.

    Not their first meeting though.

    The inevitable day when the aliens come for the Cairo and its survivors is coming fast.
    1000 7-foot-tall, Incredibly strong and fast alien warriors against a bunch of school girls.
    The aliens have a 20:1 advantage and plasma weapons.
    What chance can survivors of the Cairo really have?

    If you liked the first books of the Fierce Girls At War series you will love Jacks Company, the 10th 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.

    “We know the aliens will be coming soon. My squad will be in the fort and I’m scared, we all are, but we’re confident too. More than anything I’m scared I’ll lose someone because I make the wrong decision.”
    -Stormy James, age 18, leader of squad One, intern, New Hope Academy, New Hope Colony, US

    “Talk about feeling small. Every one of these girls can shoot better than I can and they’ll all be out there risking their lives while I’m inside safe and sound. I know the Master Sergeant and I are needed inside to handle the drones, keep the power on and help with any casualties but that doesn’t make me feel any better. These kids really are some fierce girls. I better not let them hear me refer to them as kids though; I’m liable to get kicked where it hurts the most!”

    -Corporal Damian Carter, cargo engineer, CTL Cairo, New Hope Colony, UK

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMike Adams
    Release dateApr 11, 2018
    ISBN9781370621804
    Jacks Company
    Author

    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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      Book preview

      Jacks Company - Mike Adams

      Chapter 1

      Staff Sergeant Alicia Oliveira

      October 24, 2126

      Day 40

      New Hope Town

      Born in 2099 in the city of Fortaleza on the northeastern coast of Brazil, Staff Sergeant Alicia Oliveira had joined the Brazilian army at age 19 and after excellent evaluations and demonstrating superior skills with a rifle she had been sent for training as a scout sniper. She was part of the relief force sent to assist areas along Brazil’s northeastern coast that was devastated by Hurricane Monica in 2121 and she was selected to be part of the quick reaction team on the security force at the XLIII Pan American Games held in Sao Paolo in 2123. After that, Oliveira applied for a slot with a new Brazilian detachment that would be joining the Colonial Rangers at the New Hope colony. The attractive dark-haired soldier had recently been promoted to Third Sergeant which was equivalent to staff sergeant in the Colonial Rangers, the rank she wore after she was accepted for that posting. Her detachment began its 3-month Ranger training in August of 2124. After saying goodbye to her parents and her younger brother and sister, she boarded the colony transport ship James Cook with her detachment in February 2125, arriving at the colony that September. By September of 2126 the detachment was assigned to Southport on the southeast coast.

      Things had seemed to be going well for the Brazilians until they were matched up with a more experienced Chinese detachment under Captain Eva Zhang. The Chinese captain had been at the colony for two and a half years by that time and she’d stayed when her original detachment of Chinese Rangers went home after they finished their tour of duty. She was a few months junior in rank to Vericiano though so the Brazilian became Tiger Company’s commander with Zhang as his number two.

      Problems began to surface early on when the combat-experienced, Chinese Ranger captain had to countermand some poorly thought-out, to put it mildly, orders the three male platoon leaders, Lieutenants Carvalho, Lopes and Henriques and their commander Captain Vericiano had made while the Brazilians were on their first deployment into the mountains of the Alpha continent, the main landmass being explored and colonized. The Colonial Rangers’ primary reason for existing was to protect the exploration and survey parties looking for valuable metals, minerals and other coveted resources from the planet’s fearsome predators. The inexperienced Brazilians made several decisions that put their troopers and the civilians they protected in unnecessary danger and Zhang, who was along to provide guidance and support, was forced to intervene.

      Embarrassed and offended, the resentful young lieutenants resisted and contested almost every decision Zhang made after that and Vericiano would side with his officers more often than not rather than create a rift between him and the platoon leaders. Lieutenant Sondra Mendes, the transportation platoon leader, was the only female Brazilian officer deployed with the detachment and she was firmly in Zhang’s corner as were most of the enlisted troopers who were well aware that she had pulled their asses out of the fire more than once. Staff Sergeant Oliveira, like Mendes, looked up to Zhang and the day before they were sent out on the recon mission she’d had enough and berated the three male platoon leaders when she heard them saying that the very attractive Chinese captain had probably slept with some high-ranking officer to become a detachment commander. The next day Carvalho had retaliated by sending Alicia and her squad out on their scheduled weekend off. Unlike so many of those who had been in Southport when the aliens attacked, everyone in her squad was alive and well despite the hardships they’d endured and for that she was very thankful.

      ###

      Alicia Oliveira and her squad were still trying to get their bearings nine days after their rescue outside of New Cancun. She and her squad, Sergeant Daysi Fernandes, Sergeant Ana Branco, Corporal Mateus Bosque. Corporal Alberto Carrasco and Private 1st Class Gustavo Moreno, had been missing and presumed dead for over a month along with the crew of the shuttle they’d been on.

      The six Brazilians were in relatively good condition and after ten days of debriefings, and rest and recuperation they were headed to Winter Haven to join the rest of the Brazilians, now led by Lieutenant Carvalho the detachment’s senior surviving officer after Captain Vericiano and Lieutenant Henriques had been killed.

      Oliveira and her squad were at the terminal in New Hope Town waiting to board the cargo transport lander Athens for the flight to Winter Haven to rejoin what was left of their detachment. Ana Branco said, We’d better get something from the cafeteria before we board. It’s a long flight and all we’ll probably get are some field ration bars.

      Alicia replied, That’s a good idea. We’ll have to get something we can take with us though. We’ll be boarding soon.

      Let’s get going then, said Daysi Fernandes who like Alicia had been trained as a scout sniper. I don’t want to hear the boys whining about being hungry for the next seven or eight hours.

      You know us too well, rejoined Mateus Bosque.

      I had to listen to you whining for a week after we ran out of food on our floating shuttle-boat! Daysi said with a headshake.

      "That’s because we were out of food Sergeant!" said Private Moreno.

      You do know they were talking about eating you if we didn’t catch any fish, don’t you? said Branco.

      "What? Eat me? No, no, no. If you think I would have tasted better than that poor excuse for a fish you are crazy," Moreno said with a laugh.

      That fish-thing tasted like it was marinated in motor oil. I don’t know how it made it to the approved to eat list, said Alberto Carrasco. You on the other hand probably taste like chicken!

      Hey! Steak maybe; I’m a real beefcake don’t you think, Staff Sergeant? Moreno stopped to pose and show off his muscular frame.

      Alicia snorted, Now I know why you asked to join my squad. Oliveira’s was the only squad with three females in it. There had been just 25 females in the Brazilian detachment, half of them in Lieutenant Mendes’ vehicle platoon. The other 13 had been scattered among the other three platoons. Six of them had been killed at Southport and two others wounded who’d made it to the hospital in New Hope Town. Oliveira and her squad had visited all the Brazilians still in the hospital waiting for the Asia to take them home. That left just three from the field platoons besides herself, Fernandez and Branco.

      Their platoon leader Lieutenant Felix Carvalho had assigned them to accompany a recon shuttle flight two days before the alien invasion kicked off. The shuttle crew, Lieutenant Daniel Beaufort and his engineer Master Sergeant Mindy Taylor, had picked them up at the terminal in Southport where Tiger Company was based and they’d flown 300 miles to the south to investigate some islands that were obscured for some reason from observation from orbit. They’d gotten too close and the aliens had shot them down. When they crashed into the sea they were inside a strange ‘fog bank’ that was really some kind of energy field the aliens were using to keep the humans from seeing the preparations they and their army of giant mercenaries were making for a sea invasion of the New Hope colony’s eastern settlements of Southport and New Cancun.

      The Rangers who’d first seen them had dubbed the smaller but far more technologically advanced aliens ‘Jammies’ after the brown one-piece, footed coverall-like garment they wore that reminded them of a toddler’s pajamas. The Jammies had brought an army of thousands of 7-foot tall, 400+ pound, incredibly fast and inhumanly strong, semi-primitive beings the humans called the Raagaas after their war cry ‘RAAGAA!’ in three transports from some unknown part of the galaxy with the intention of not only conquering the planet but feeding the human colonists to the Raagaas.

      The Raagaas used primitive weapons such as heavy spears, spiked-iron balls, war hammers, clubs and short swords. The aliens could throw them with uncanny accuracy while on the run and hit a target over 200 yards away, farther than the Rangers could shoot with their low-powered standard weapons the PR85 automatic rifle. The PR85 was designed for police forces that worked great at relatively short distances such as a police SWAT team might operate but without the punch of a military assault rifle. It would hit its target without coming out the other side and endangering innocent bystanders behind the target. When used properly it was an effective weapon against the colony planet Tau Ceti 4’s dangerous predators and allowed those who worried that some nation or group of nations might try to pull a military coup and take over the colony to sleep better. Unfortunately, that meant the Rangers fighting the aliens were at a decided disadvantage against the Raagaas’ throwing weapons and even more so against the plasma rifles carried by their Jammie leaders that could kill humans or even destroy an unarmored vehicle from a half-mile away.

      The sea-going ships the aliens had brought down to be assembled and sailed against the human settlements when the time was right carried much larger versions of these plasma guns. The energy ‘cannon’ had shot down their shuttle and on the morning of the invasion they had shot down the 850-foot long anti-grav cargo transport lander Cairo which had disappeared somewhere in the mountains north of Southport.

      The Cairo had been carrying the colony’s Director of Logistics Commander Rick Cassidy and his deputy Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford along with a group of 50 students and interns from the New Hope Academy and their staff escorts. Nothing had been heard from them since they’d gone missing although many believed that the tough, armored transport which was built to keep its passengers alive in a crash, might be safe somewhere in those mountains. If so, they would be unable to communicate with anyone with the satellites out of commission and with its grav cells damaged so it couldn’t fly, after it had managed to escape the alien fleet they’d inadvertently flown over after getting out a brief warning message. That warning had given the Rangers based in Southport and New Cancun time to prepare a defense while the thousands of civilians living there were evacuated to safety in the western half of the Alpha continent.

      The ‘strange fog bank’ had hidden the downed shuttle and its occupants while a number of the alien ships sailed by in the darkness that night. The shuttle’s airframe was water-tight and because Beaufort and Taylor had been able to get the aircraft’s nose up in time to avoid crashing nose first into the ocean, which would have killed them all, they’d survived with only minor injuries. They spent the next 12 days lost at sea with little food, no way to call for help and far from rescue before their lookouts spotted land, the southern end of the Clinton Peninsula below New Cancun. The managed to get the shuttle aground on the shore 350 miles from New Cancun and spent the next couple of weeks making their way there not knowing if it was safe to go there or not.

      They’d almost missed having their last flare spotted by some of the Rangers on the last shuttle leaving New Cancun after the raid on the Ranger Base and the settlement hospital, among other targets. Fortunately, those Rangers had alerted the officers in charge and a shuttle went back and found them. The elation of being rescued was short-lived however. The mission commander Colonel Farah Halim had asked the Brazilians to come up to the London’s conference room on the second deck. It was there that they learned from the Colonel and the Italian detachment’s Admin officer Lieutenant Giulianna Barbieri, who'd been there for the battle, what had happened to Tiger Company when the aliens had invaded Southport. Half the Brazilian detachment had been killed or badly wounded during the battle, including many of their friends and their commander Captain Andres Vericiano. The Chinese, Italians, and Russians from Tiger and Charlie Companies had also suffered terribly.

      The one positive note was that the raiders had found another group of Rangers, three Italians and two Brazilians, who had escaped with some civilians. The two Brazilians were wounded and would be out of the fight for some time but they had survived. Upon arrival in New Hope Town, they’d been greeted by Lieutenant Vida Kazumi, the Admin officer for the Brazilian detachment and by General Jamison who had personally welcomed them back from the dead.

      Chapter 2

      Rift Preparations

      Rift Flagship

      General Bysr Osmu’a, the Expeditionary Force Commander of the Rift fleet of three transport starships gathered his senior commanders in the command center of the Rift starship E’pinos’a. Captain Ektor, what is the latest estimate on when the alien ship will arrive in orbit above the planet? the Rift commander asked his flagship captain.

      Eighteen local days, General, Ektor replied. The flag captain knew that the information was for the benefit of the Sub-Commanders rather than Osmu’a who was well aware of the enemy ship’s approach.

      And you are sure that we know what type of starship this one is? the General inquired.

      It is smaller than the last one that stayed in orbit, Ektor responded. We believe that it is one of those that will land at the largest settlement on the western side of the continent. There was one such in this system when we first arrived. It remained on the ground for thirty local days before it departed.

      And you are sure that it has not seen us?

      We cannot be absolutely sure but we moved our ships behind this moon before they had a direct sensor view of the planet. They have not altered their course in any way.

      General Osmu’a turned to his Ground Force Commander General Warsh and asked, How soon will you be ready to proceed?

      All of our Andoval will be on the ground within three days. They will want to eat as soon as the transport shuttles land. The aliens continue to make gathering food animals inconvenient but we have what we will need in hand and I expect the first groups of herd beasts to be ready for transport to the south for the winter months within seven days after that. I wish to complete that transfer before we proceed. Perhaps ten days more to finish the food beast transfer, for the Andoval to recover their strength after their long sleep and to organize the columns for movement. Then we will be ready to move north. From there I estimate it will take five to six days to reach positions to attack the northern settlement in force from the east, west and south.

      Good. Twenty thousand Andoval with their Rift officers should be sufficient. Sub-Commander Aleri, you are ready to take the eastern pass this time? Osmu’a asked the Eastern Attack Force Sub-Commander.

      Yes, General. The attack that failed taught us much about how these aliens fight. We will not fail this time, Aleri responded with confidence

      Yes, that failure was very illuminating. Even so, do not be so confident in front of your troops. Overconfidence has killed many of our Rift officers fighting these aliens, Osmu’a reminded him.

      I understand, General.

      Good. And Sub-Commander Larca, you will be ready to launch an attack on the easternmost of the two peninsula settlements by sea from the east at the same time as the attack on the northern settlement?

      Yes, General. We are ready now and only await the order to move, replied Larca, the new Western Attack Force Sub-Commander who had replaced Sub-Commander Therba. Therba had replaced the Northern Attack force Sub-Commander Epral who had been killed during the first battle for the northern settlement.

      Osmu’a turned to Sub-Commander Ocha, the Central Attack Force Sub-Commander, Ocha, will you be ready to send a second diversionary force to the aliens’ central settlement on the plains in the west before the northern attack begins.

      We too are ready and only await the order to move, Ocha replied eagerly. The Sub-Force commander had commanded the central attack force that had shot down the huge alien ship but his troops had faced little resistance along the southern coast.

      See that you are all ready when the time comes, Osmu’a said. He then turned to his Ground Force Commander and the three Sub-Commanders who would lead the attack on the northern settlement from the western and southern routes to the alien town. Sub-Commanders Darb’na and Noensi, you have not faced these aliens yet but you have seen the reports of Sub-Commander Epral’s failed attempt and those of the successful conquests by Aleri and Therba in taking the three alien towns in the south. Do not make Epral’s mistake of trying to lead your force from the center of your column! He not only lost control of his force but was killed along with most of them.

      The two Sub-Commanders, who along with Therba would command the three columns attacking from the south and west, bowed in acknowledgement without speaking. Therba reminded them, The aliens’ explosive weapons killed most of our Rift officers and killed or wounded more than two-thirds of our Andoval very quickly during Epral’s misguided attack. He wasn’t expecting the weapons they used. We shall be ready for them this time. We will not have our three columns simply run right to their deaths.

      Would it have made a difference had we waited for more Andoval to be ready as Sub-Commander Epral had wished? Ocha asked drawing the Rift equivalent of a scowl from his superior, General Warsh.

      General Warsh looked at the youngest of his Sub-Commanders sternly, Ocha, if they were not expecting the weapons used against them, would the result have been any different? Perhaps so; or perhaps our losses would have been correspondingly greater with no better success. Had the number of warriors committed to the eastern hill route been doubled or tripled they might have taken the hill, at great cost, but then what? The aliens killed most of our Rift officers in that column early on. If the Andoval had taken the hill, would they have proceeded without them when the other two columns were already virtually annihilated? They are beasts but they are not stupid.

      Osmu’a told his Sub-Commanders, Epral was young for his rank and eager to prove himself. He thought his battle plan would overcome the aliens’ defenses easily. He didn’t listen when told that he should not count on the reports of his scouts when they said there no resistance waiting along any of the three avenues of advance. It was a grievous mistake for him. And in truth, he should have been nowhere near the main force. How could he expect to monitor all three of his formations from the midst of his moving column? Do not make that mistake.

      Each column has three times as many warriors this time, Warsh said, but not three times as many Rift officers for many have been killed by the aliens who target them for elimination. Regardless, we are better prepared now than before our last attempt to take their settlement. Sub-Commander Aleri has gathered sufficient food for all his forces on the eastern coast, Warsh said, with a nod at the Eastern Attack Force commander. There was more food available in the north along the coast than near the aliens’ coastal settlement in the south.

      Very good, Aleri, Osmu’a told him.

      Thank you, General. My assault force is at our new base near the coast and is no more than three days’ easy march from the northeastern pass. We will keep the aliens there busy while the main attack proceeds further west. Then when the main force has succeeded in taking the main settlement we can advance on the pass from both directions, if we do not breakthrough before that.

      And your seagoing ships? asked Osmu’a.

      Aleri replied, All but a handful of my ships are at the new base or near it. Some are keeping watch on the coast near the eastern settlement in the south in case of another intrusion.

      And the southern town? Osmu’a asked.

      Warsh answered, Sub-Commander Ocha has his headquarters in the southern coastal town. Our engineers are working to repair some of the damage to the town in order to house our forces during the coming winter. As you know, much of the town was destroyed during the battle unlike the other towns which were taken almost completely intact.

      Very well. We must keep these aliens guessing what we will do next. I do not want the alien starship to see us so we will wait until it lands before we move back into orbit. And the transfer of the herd animals must be completed. Our attacks will start in twenty-five local days from now unless the alien ship remains in orbit. If so, then we will reconsider our options before moving forward.

      We will be ready, General, Warsh told him.

      Chapter 3

      Disposition

      New Hope Town

      The Colonial Rangers’ commander General Gavin Jamison had gathered his senior commanders at Regimental headquarters onboard the converted starship Seeker to discuss what was to be done with the eight companies’ worth of civilian volunteers about to complete their training. We’ve got nearly 1200 people who’ll be as ready to go into the field as they’re going to be completing their training over the next three weeks. Although we have discussed this before I would like your thoughts once again on how they should be deployed.

      Twelve hundred more shooters are going to help a lot but they have no combat experience, Colonel Kenji Takahashi, the Third Battalion commander observed. He had just arrived from Winter Haven that morning. What about their officers?

      We have about a dozen who were officers back on Earth and some more experienced NCOs who have been commissioned as lieutenants, the recently promoted Major Zoey Bryant replied. Bryant’s Delta Company had provided the key training cadre for getting the volunteers ready to fight the aliens. We also have four who were Ranger officers who came back as civilians. They’ve been reinstated to their former ranks but only two of them have combat experience. We also received a fair number of officers with the support personnel Colonel Fox sent back here. A number of them are experienced field Rangers.

      Second Battalion’s commander Colonel Colin Fox had also come to New Hope Town from Winter Haven to confer with General Jamison. He asked the young major, How are they organized? By nationality?

      Major Bryant nodded, Mainly by nationality where there are large groups but there are others where there aren’t more than a handful from the same country. We also had more experienced former NCOs in some groups and we had to take some of them and use them wherever we needed them.

      The largest groups? Takahashi asked.

      "We have the usual suspects; lots of native English speakers, about a third of them American. The rest of them are mostly Brits, Aussies, Canadians, Irish and Kiwis.

      Colonel Angus McTeague, the First Battalion commander asked, Are there enough weapons and ammunition for all of them? Seeing as Bryant worked directly for him, he already knew the answer to that question but they were for the enlightenment of the others attending the meeting who did not have all the information they needed.

      Bryant replied, Yes and no, Colonel. Thanks to the cache of weapons and ammunition stockpiled by Commander Cassidy and Gunnery Sergeant Pickford there were enough new PR85s to provide about 800 of these volunteers a brand-new rifle. The rest have been issued weapons from among those recovered from Ranger casualties. There were more than 500 weapons recovered although about half of them are in the armory in Winter Haven.

      Do you want us to send them here? Fox asked.

      Bryant nodded, Yes, Sir. We have another 800 volunteers who are about to start training once the current group, or most of them, vacates the barracks here. We don’t enough guns for all of them.

      I will see that they are sent back right away. All our people are armed and they are not doing us any good locked up there.

      Thank you, Colonel. That will help quite a bit, Bryant said thankfully.

      There are uniforms enough for everyone? Takahashi asked.

      Zoey nodded, For this first group, yes, again mostly thanks to Cassidy and Pickford’s stockpile. Added to that was all that we were able to clear out of the commissary and the supply warehouse in New Cancun. Almost a third of Cassidy’s stockpile went to the Rangers who had to leave all their gear and personal effects behind in New Cancun and Southport but the New Cancun raid took care of the rest. Most only have one set but everyone does have a uniform. I hate to say this but for the most recent volunteers we’ve had to resort to collecting the uniforms from the dead and the wounded who won’t be needing them anymore. We’ve had them all cleaned and they’ll be issued to the volunteers as we run out of the new stock.

      You said yes and no to the enough weapons question, Major. Was there something else you need besides us shipping back the weapons in the armory in Winter Haven? General Jamison asked rhetorically already knowing the answer.

      Bryant grinned and said, Well there is one thing. In part because we knew that there might be a shortage and because we had another option, we have created some special teams among the volunteers. As you may have heard, Cassidy and Pickford had several hundred crossbows and thousands of bolts for them in one of their weapons containers.

      Crossbows. What good will they be? Fox asked in bemusement. We might as well throw darts at the Raagaas. They’ll just pull them out and fling them back at us.

      Zoey Bryant shook her head, Not with these they won’t, Colonel. Sir, before she was killed at New St Louis Captain Jing Woo from Alpha Company realized that they had been ordered by Cassidy and Pickford to be used against demon wolves but with the addition of a small explosive charge that would detonate on contact. They also had several thousand detonator caps of the kind that were meant to be fitted onto a narrow round stick used to place them inside the holes that miners would drill then fill with explosives. With a little adjustment these caps can be mounted on a crossbow bolt and made to explode on contact. The idea was to fire one at a demon wolf and blow a hole in its armor. They never got a chance to test them but we did and if you hit a Raagaa in the head or torso with one they will go down and not be getting back up again, I guarantee it.

      The three battalion commanders all grinned at the young major who had just offered them a new weapon in their war against the aliens. The General asked me not to mention this to either of you until they were ready, McTeague told his colleagues.

      Yes, Gavin Jamison said, when Major MacCaffrey brought this to my attention soon after the discovery of the cache of weapons, ammunition and other supplies those two rogues had accumulated the possibilities leapt out at me immediately. The problem of course was that hardly any of our Rangers could hit the veritable broad side of a barn at a hundred feet with one.

      But there were archery clubs in every settlement, McTeague added. Another one of those Cassidy and Pickford ventures they did on their own. Unfortunately, almost all of the experienced crossbow shooters were occupied elsewhere so we had no one to train any of the recruit volunteers.

      Bryant took up the narrative, Then not long before the mission to New Cancun I was talking to Lieutenant Colonel Gunderson about this and he mentioned that there was an archery team at the New Hope Academy that competed against the adult clubs in town.

      Gunderson’s wife Liana is a teacher there, that’s why he knew about it, Colonel Raj Gupta, the Regiment’s Operations Officer, Chief of Staff and second in command said from Jamison’s right.

      Yes, Jamison said. When he mentioned this to me, I contacted Rodger Summerfield at the Academy and he offered up some people to help train some of our volunteers.

      So, you’ve had some of their staff teaching our people how to shoot the crossbow? Colin Fox asked. They went over to the base to do that?

      Not exactly and no, Bryant said with a chuckle. "Every afternoon we would send a group over to the school. They have their own archery range set up over there. And they only have one staff member who knows how to use the crossbow. But we did have seven experienced shooters from their varsity and junior varsity teams to help train them. Five boys and two girls aged fifteen to eighteen. We might have had more but unfortunately, over half of their archery teams are with Commander Cassidy on Cairo."

      And the result of this training was? Fox asked with interest.

      Bryant replied, Well, now we’ve got more than fifty pretty competent crossbowmen and another fifty still in training who are getting there. We’re planning to run every one of the next bunch of recruits through the range there to find the best candidates. Interest soared when we had the kids demonstrate the bolts with the blasting caps on them. They had great fun blowing things up as you can imagine. We’ve greatly expanded the range at the school now and more of the students from the school’s archery club teams are helping train our people as well. Archery is one of their optional physical education classes so there are about sixty students on campus with crossbow experience.

      These archers you’re training are learning to shoot the rifles too, right? Takahashi asked.

      Of course, Colonel.

      Jamison cleared his throat to get the discussion back in track. Back to the question of disposition of the volunteer companies, people.

      "General, perhaps we should present the question as to how do we divvy up 48 platoons of volunteers, Colonel Gupta suggested. They’ve already been organized into platoons and during the second half of their training they trained together with their officers and NCOs. It would be best, I think, to keep those platoons together."

      You’re quite right, Raj, Jamison agreed. "Colonels, we have 48 platoons that will be ready to deploy over the next two weeks. How shall we use them?"

      Colin Fox, the senior-most of the three battalion commanders answered quickly, having considered this question during the discussion, They must be integrated with existing companies with an experienced commander. We have a number of good experienced executive officers who should do nicely as company commanders. We also have veteran senior lieutenants to serve as their number twos. We won’t be able to have one of the top two officers in each company representing the two largest groups of troopers in those companies in all cases though.

      Would you move an executive officer over to be company commander with or without their national detachment? Jamison asked.

      "Definitely with,

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