Sudden Silence

By Mike Adams

An insurmountable challenge or Fuka’s highlight of the day?
The group of deadly, highly trained teenaged school girls commanded by Commander Rick Cassidy and Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford and known as Jacks Company, short for 'Jacks the Giant Killers', and the group of ex-captives they've picked up along the way are still days from their rendezvous with Guy Gilbert's shuttle full of supplies and their food is almost completely gone. To get to their rendezvous they have a mountain to get over first.

A group of Rangers hunted into a dead end
The MIA Australians under Lieutenant Aaron Harper and Aria Giffords have been on the run from the aliens ever since the shuttle they were in was shot down near Winter Haven the morning the aliens attacked. They are running out of time and an alien hunting party is after them.

The Mississippi-like Clearwater River lies up ahead and there’s only one way to get across. Jacks Company is hoping to avoid a fight but there may be no choice in the matter. But first a rendezvous with the stay-behind awaits.

"The way some of these Rangers are looking at us you'd think they'd never seen a bunch of teenage girls shoot some aliens in the head before! Well now that I think about it, it does seem a bit unusual, you know?”
- Rain Moon, age 18, fourth-year student at the New Hope Academy and assistant squad leader, squad Seven, Jacks Company, US

If you liked the first books of the Fierce Girls At War series you will love Sudden Silence, the 19th 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Adams
• Release date: May 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463900888

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

The Student Enforcement Group

September 14, 2125

New Cancun

Veronika Tchachenko, the beautiful Assistant Director for Student Travel and Transportation at the New Hope Academy was in the audience watching a performance with her friend Natalia Rugani, a biology teacher at the Academy who'd recently arrived and joined the academic staff. She'd been looking around and noticed that some of the boys were not where they were supposed to be. Natalia, did you see vere dat Murray boy an his fren Richie Ha-skell wend. I doan see dem. Veronika could speak English perfectly if she wanted to but mangling her syntax and pronunciation with a faux accent was both fun and a reminder that she was a proud Russian, even if she had no intention of going back there other than for a visit someday.

The Italian shook her head, No, Roni. Maybe they went to the rec center. The performance group from the spring 2125 internship tour was on the open-air stage in the park near the Administrative Center building in New Cancun. Fifty boys and girls had been chosen from among the four hundred at the New Hope Academy to go on the three-week tour of the eastern settlements where they would work with the administrators and managers of the settlements and companies developing the colony for a behind the scenes look at how things worked. Only those who had both top grades and performed well either in sports, music, dance or gymnastics were picked to go and about half of the group were members of the school's performance group run by Meifeng Li, the school's dance and gymnastics teacher, and by French music teacher Daniela Poitiers. The tour took them to New St. Louis, Winter Haven, New Cancun, Southport and Rocky Point; spending up to five days in each settlement. In the evenings the performance group put on their popular and always well-attended shows featuring music and singing, dance and acrobatics for the benefit of the entertainment-starved colonists.

The 50 students were accompanied by 10 Academy staff members. The tours had started five years earlier when the school had less than 100 students. There'd been no performances and they'd visited only Southport, New St. Louis and New Cancun. The tours had grown along with the student body and the colony itself. A separate tour of the western settlements went out in the fall; some students would get to go on both. Tau Ceti 4's year was about half that of Earth's so there were two Spring and two Fall tours during each Earth year.

I doan see dem anyvere. I don't trust dem, specially dat Ha-skell boy. I hear com-plaints from some girls before we god on road. I tink udder boys are mizzing too. Rec cender would be okay, long as dey doan ged into trupple.

The crowd burst into applause and Natalia said, Did you see that? Liu Sun and Sun-Hi are amazing. Liu must've somersaulted 10 feet into the air.

Veronika nodded agreement, Da, she's really good. Dere's some really good ones, younger ones, dat didn't make dis tour; Fuka someting, an Bailin Chow. Dat January Pierson girl can really sink, too. Some of de boys are pretty good too, bedder at sinking den danzing, most of dem, Roni said.

Look, here comes Daniela with her cello. Her string quartet is exceptional. So many students at the Academy are so talented; it's something special to see.

Dey are all top of class types af-der all. Really smart an some are studyink muzic or danze or gymnasties since dey vere babies.

I know, I met some of them on the starship coming here. I got them through a whole year of their biology credits during the trip. They were studying starship systems and engineering and other advanced stuff too. Most were just 14 or 15.

When the performance was over the students received a standing ovation. They would do it again the next night and the one after that before leaving for Southport. Veronika and the other staff gathered the students together after all of the instruments and props had been put away in a storeroom under the stage. They took a count and four boys were missing, Bart Murray, Richie Haskell, Pierre Willot and Gregor Kolchek. The four were all 15 or 16 and Veronika figured they ought to be able to find their way back to the transient barracks near the main hospital where they were staying. The settlement wasn't very big; it had less than 6,500 people living there plus another 1600 at the Ranger Base two miles south of town where their third concert would be held.

Verever dey are dey bedder be at barracks by mitnight unless dey are wid parents bud I don't tink any of dem haf family here. One of the benefits of the tour for some of the students was the chance to spend some time with their parents, some of whom lived and worked thousands of miles from New Hope Town and the Academy where all of the students lived in dormitories on campus.

Merde!

Skata!

Those little ass-holes!

Whad? Whad happened? Veronika asked as she hurried to the front of the walking group as they neared the transient barracks. When she saw the reason for the comments her eyes narrowed and she grimaced in anger. She ordered, Evry-body, go check rooms now!

Nikola Dubrovski, a fourth-year student who would graduate soon, said angrily, It was those four little pricks, coach!

Veronika had no doubt about who'd done it either. While everyone else was at the performance, either on stage, backstage, or in the audience, the four boys had raided the rooms of every female student and staff member, taken all of their underwear and hung them on a line that ran from the roof of the building where they were staying to another across the street then to another catty corner to theirs. Even worse, the owners' names were written on them with indelible markers. More than simply embarrassed, the girls were all furious, while the other boys and male staff members were trying not to snicker or otherwise get the wrong kind of attention focused on them. It was an open secret on campus that there was a student enforcement group, student vigilantes really, that had taken it upon themselves to deal, forcefully if necessary, with any troublemakers, especially the harassers, bullies or wandering-hands types if the school administration didn't or couldn't. Some of those students were among the internship tour group.

The school's senior administrators had limited options when it came to dealing with certain kinds of problems. The students came from 34 different countries with different cultural and behavioral standards and their parents often lived far away and were not usually available to come to the school on short notice. Suspensions had little effect when all the students lived on campus; it would just mean a day off from school for the offender. Expulsion would mean that the student would be sent back to Earth and one or both parents would probably have to accompany them, and very possibly abandon very well-paying and often critical positions in the settlements. The Academy was the only school at the colony; there was no other place for an expelled student to go nor would they be allowed to live anywhere other than on campus unless they were at least 18 and then they would have to seek employment or return to Earth. Most of the parents of these students were highly skilled professionals: doctors, scientists, administrators, engineers, and the like, often with contracts that ran five years or more and many hoped to stay permanently. The students were all very intelligent and a fully paid education at the top universities on Earth awaited every graduate of the Academy. Virtually every college and university on Earth competed for the very small number of students who had lived on another planet.

Everyone hoping to go to the colony had to pass rigorous screening requirements including medical, physical, and psychological testing, and they had to meet high intelligence and academic standards. Students applying to the Academy had to have high grades and play sports, an instrument or have training in dance or gymnastics. Psychological tests were supposed to identify and disqualify potential bullies and kids with other negative tendencies but the kids sometimes developed such traits later. A perfectly well-behaved 13- or 14-year-old might become less of an angel by the time they were 15 or 16 or 17. One of the problems was that they all were ultra-intelligent, sometimes outright geniuses, and ultracompetitive, the top of their class and the star of the team, the club, or academic totem pole where they were from. Then they get to the Academy and some soon find themselves in the middle or even the lower third of the class. Most adjusted very well but there were always a few who needed some 'special counseling' to keep them in line; most but not all got the message the first time.

Nikola Dubrovski had arrived on the cargo supply ship North America in early 2123 when she was sixteen and she soon become fast friends with Stormy James, the daughter of Villa De La Montana's Assistant Settlement Director. Neither was the type to sit back and do nothing when any of the students, especially the younger ones, were being abused by other students. Nikola, inspired by her friends Commander Rick Cassidy and Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford who had been with her on the North America, came with up with an idea for dealing with such student problems and Stormy enthusiastically embraced it.

They set about recruiting other students, most of them girls but not all. By 2125, some of the older original members had graduated and the core members were now mostly third or fourth-year students and several were with the internship group that night. Winter Summerfield, the daughter of the school's senior Director, and Naomi Winston, the daughter of the Academic Director, were among the group that was not officially recognized as existing by the school's administrators. Besides Nikola, there were other core members on that tour including third-year students Saki Hashimoto, Sofia Goldman, and Luka Teranova. Also on the tour were second-year students Rain Moon and Liu Sun Chu. These girls were not only very smart, they were all excellent athletes who were or would soon be the captains or co-captains of the various girls' athletic teams including gymnastics, soccer, volleyball, archery and tennis. They'd all been selected for the tour for their academic and physical accomplishments.

The four boys came back just before curfew and the girls were waiting. The boys were given an option, strip naked and turn over their clothes or face the consequences. The ringleaders of the little group, Murray and Haskell, just laughed as they tried to push their way through. Three minutes later Veronika and some of the teachers dove into the melee and separated the two groups; it wasn't that hard to do, all of the girls were on their feet and all of the boys were on the ground holding their crotches, broken figures and noses, split lips and fast-blackening eyes. Transport was called for and the four boys and three of the girls were taken to the nearby hospital's emergency room. The girls got a halfhearted chewing out from Veronika while the boys were warned that they might face expulsion if what they'd done came to the attention of the administration, at least officially. Nikola made it very clear to them that they'd have to be carried onto the starship that took them home if they talked.

When Roger Summerfield and Penelope Winston heard about the incident, they were appalled to learn that their daughters had been involved but they were also secretly proud as well. They informed the four boys that if they told their parents what happened they would have to tell them why and face the consequences. That kind of thing would not be tolerated at the Academy. The boys never told their parents and passed the injuries off as sports' accidents.

Officially, it never happened, but word got around quickly and most everyone got the message. It wouldn't be the last episode involving Richie Haskell however. It did mean the end of the co-ed tour groups; from then on there would be separate internship tours for the girls and boys. When one was on the Western tour, the other would be on the Eastern tour.

Chapter 1

Veronika Tchachenko

May 18, 2127

Day 230

Jacks Company, 440 miles southwest of Winter Haven

Veronika Tchachenko was born in St. Petersburg Russia in June of 2098. Her mother had been a star on Russia's Olympic soccer team and her father was a sports medicine physician. Veronika starred in soccer in high school and had been selected for the junior national soccer team when a bad concussion at 16 forced her to put off her early dream of playing professionally. Her hiatus from the sport gave her an opportunity to explore other interests. She found a new interest in the starship and colony program that was beginning to develop the planet Tau Ceti 4 which was now being referred to as the New Hope Colony.

Veronika was easily accepted by Moscow University and played varsity soccer for four years, receiving an invitation to try out for the national team. Along the way though she'd continued to read everything she could find about the New Hope Colony after learning in 2116 that the first children, high school age students, would be allowed to accompany their parents to the colony and they would attend the New Hope Academy which had begun accepting the first students. It would be the colony's only school for the foreseeable future.

Veronika was pursuing a degree in teaching and kinesiology, learning how to get the best out of the human body, to explore its limits and push its boundaries. She'd studied English since she was in primary school and by the time she graduated from the University, she was fluent and could speak perfectly with an American accent. Seeing some openings posted for several upcoming faculty staff jobs at the Academy she applied to the Russian office of the colony program which reviewed her qualifications. She had to go through all of the required screening tests and she passed them all with flying colors. With the support of the Russian office, she was offered a job at the Academy where she would begin as assistant soccer coach and teach physiology to the students. She would also be an informal counselor for the Russian students.

Veronika boarded the colony transport ship Marco Polo in late 2123. On the Polo she met Meifeng Li, a former Olympic gymnast from China who was on her way to teach dance and gymnastics at the Academy. The two hit it off immediately, their interests, their sense of humor and their hopes for the future were very similar and by the time the starship reached the colony they'd become best friends. Fifteen months later, 15-year-old Russian student Luda Bukharin arrived with her family and entered the Academy. She quickly gravitated to the tall Russian who introduced her to other Russian students and became a mentor to her. Luda reminded Veronika greatly of her younger sister, Vanessa, who was studying to be a doctor and also hoped to come to the colony someday, and the two became very close. Luda's parents were posted in New Cancun, 5,000 miles away from New Hope Town. Her father Andre was the settlement's new Assistant Facilities manager and her mother Ekaterina was its new Assistant Director of Personnel. Veronika helped Luda and her brothers Ivan and Anton get settled into life at the Academy; the three had never lived away from either parent before. Ivan had just turned 17 when they arrived and was only at the Academy for a little more than a year before graduating and returning to Earth in June 2126 on the Antarctica to attend university; Anton was 10 months younger than Luda.

A year after arriving, Veronika became the Assistant Director of Student Travel and Transportation, a post that not only ran the internship tours during the 24-day spring and fall season breaks between the regular summer and winter semesters but also oversaw any travel by the underage students to other settlements to visit family or for any other reason. No student could just board a transport at the New Hope Town main terminal and go off by themselves without their movements first being approved and then tracked. Students could accompany friends visiting their parents or, when time permitted and space was available, they were allowed to go to the other settlements just out of curiosity. Veronika would get the approvals from their parents and she would arrange their transportation and accommodations for the duration of their visit.

In September 2126, the girls' spring internship tour of the East departed the New Hope Academy and Veronika was in charge again. This time though she was supposed to leave the tour in New Cancun when her replacement Bridget Regan arrived to take over. Veronika would be moving up to the post of Director of Student Travel and Transportation when she returned to New Hope Town. Nikola Dubrovski and Stormy James, along with Venus Bennett and Chloe Capps, two other long-term members of the 'student enforcement group', had all graduated but had stayed on as school interns while they waited for their siblings to graduate so they could return to Earth together. In Nikola's case, her mother and younger sister had only recently arrived and she wanted to spend some time with them before leaving and facing another long separation.

The student body had grown to over 600 and there were 46 female students on the tour plus the four interns there to help the eleven staff members keep them in line and to mentor them. Some of the girls who'd been on the tour a year earlier were back, and some of them were close to graduating; it would be their last opportunity to go on the tour. Saki Hashimoto, Luka Teranova, Sofia Goldman, Winter Summerfield, were all within a semester's worth of credits from graduating while Sun-Hi Kwan, Naomi Winston, Liu Sun Chu, Brooklyn Connors, Rain Moon and Emilie Paulus were all entering their last year at the Academy.

After several days in Southport, the group had boarded the Cairo which had been ordered to leave before dawn. Because of this most of the other passengers didn't get a chance to board the big transport. The internship group had boarded the night before and slept in the crash couches in the forward passenger cabin on the main deck. The only other passengers were Commander Rick Cassidy, Gunnery Sergeant Molly Pickford, medical officer Major Maya Scott and the two medics with her, Staff Sergeant Ian Ferguson and Sergeant Heidi Kampf. Twenty minutes after takeoff and just minutes after the sun broke over the horizon, the transport flew over a fleet of alien ships that pounded the 850-foot-long antigravity cargo transport lander with blasts of energy from plasma cannons mounted on those ships. That invasion fleet had been on its way to the south coast east of Southport. A second invasion fleet was headed directly for Southport and a third fleet was on its way to attack New Cancun.

During the stopover in Southport, Veronika had had a brief fling with Captain Paolo Galetti, the commander of the Italian Ranger detachment based there. When the first casualty lists came in days later, she learned that he'd been killed on the first day of the war while the Italians, Brazilians, Russians and Chinese Rangers stationed in Southport delayed the invading aliens long enough for all of the civilians to be evacuated.

The damaged transport had lost grav-cell power and turned over onto its starboard side in mid-air. Some of its passengers fell up to 60 feet down to the now lower starboard side armored bulkhead. After a terrifying sideways flight at 700 mph through the mountains north of Southport the pilot was able to level the sinking aircraft just enough to make a barely controlled landing in a mountain valley. Unable to slow down without crashing sooner, the craft hit the valley floor and skidded for a mile then plowed into the granite wall ahead of them. Twenty of the Cairo's crew and four Academy staff members were killed. Others were badly injured including several of the girls but all those in crash couches survived and eventually recovered thanks to the efforts of Major Scott and her medics.

Cassidy and Pickford immediately took charge and they had to make the decision that would define the group that would eventually come to be called Jacks Company. Cassidy asked Veronika to gather everyone in the ship's lounge and asked for volunteers to do some very difficult jobs. Almost all of the adults were now dead, injured or caring for the injured. Rick asked the girls, some as young as 14, to carry the bodies of the eight teachers and crewmen who had been killed in the passenger cabin, they had sacrificed their lives to make sure every one of the girls had made it to the safety of the crash couches, and the bodies of the three members of the flight deck crew who had been killed, all the way down to the cargo bay. Those in the forward passenger cabin had been thrown forward into the armored bulkhead when the Cairo slammed into the mountain at 100 miles per hour. Their bodies had been shattered with almost every bone broken; skulls were crushed and there was blood and brains were everywhere. Even worse was the situation in the cargo bay where 13 of the 14-man cargo crew had died, crushed under smashed vehicles or hurled far forward into bulkheads or cargo containers. The bodies had to be recovered and the cleanup would be a horrible experience, gruesome at best, and nightmarish at times. Even so, every one of the girls volunteered to help with the grim task. The older girls, especially those who were part of Nikola's group, immediately stepped up as leaders, carrying the heavier bodies down to the cargo bay, comforting the younger girls and keeping them calm, and making sure no one else was injured.

Veronika's first instinct was to protect the girls from this terrible ordeal but there really was no one else to do it and everyone had volunteered; not one of them quit because it was too hard. Letting go of her feelings of responsibility was difficult at first. When Cassidy told a meeting of the surviving NCOs and staff members that there could only be one leader and there would be no group decision-making Veronika had reflexively objected; the Academy staff were all used to a more consensus-type decision-making process. Cassidy had expected objections and immediately nominated Tchachenko to take charge of the whole group then asked her to come up with a plan for what to do next.

Taken aback, Veronika had soon come around; everyone agreed that Cassidy would have full authority over both Rangers and civilians. He assigned people to take charge of key areas and chose Veronika to be the group's quartermaster, in charge of keeping everyone well-fed and provided with whatever equipment and clothing that was required from the full load of cargo containers in Cairo's hold. She would also be squad leader for the Headquarters squad when Cassidy and Pickford organized the group into a more military-style 'company'. The girls who'd demonstrated leadership abilities were made squad leaders or assistant squad leaders of the eight six-girl squads. Unable to train with the other girls due to their injuries Athena Milonos and Marta Trapp were assigned to the HQ squad.

Veronika and the rest of the company trained hard for what they knew was inevitable and for what they knew was also a strong possibility. They'd quickly realized that no one was coming for them and unless they were found first, they knew they would have to fight demon wolves, the ferocious 800- to 1200-pound predators that roamed the mountains in packs of up to 30 wolves. Once the lake at the south end of the valley froze over during the winter they would descend into the valley.

They also had to prepare for the possibility that the aliens would find them. As it turned out, the aliens did find them and soon after they attacked. The company's arduous training regimen and preparations paid off; they not only fought the aliens, they had succeeded in wiping out over two-thirds of the force that came in on three of their airships. They paid a price for their victory though. Two girls, River Sleight and Luda Bukharin, and Veronika's best friend Meifeng Li were killed while others were badly wounded. It was that day they'd became Jacks Company, short for Jacks the Giant Killers.

The wounded would recover but not all would be ready in time to leave the valley with the main body of the company which used some antigravity shuttles they'd spent the fall and early winter struggling to get out of cargo containers and assembled. Unfortunately, they were only provided with smaller, less powerful maintenance cells to operate them and the anti-grav aircraft wouldn't get them far enough to be safe from the aliens. They would have to fly out of the mountains then continue on foot with some Ranger ATVs carried in the ship's cargo hold.

The loss of both Meifeng and Luda had hit Veronika very hard. As with many of the girls, the traumatic experience had taken time to recover from. She'd become very close to both Cassidy and Pickford and for a week she'd spent the night with one or the other who would hold her until she cried herself to sleep. Some of the girls suffered through it much the same way, comforted by friends, by Cassidy and Pickford, and by the other Rangers who would check in on them frequently. The group was resilient though, they'd seen death before and they knew the aliens could come back at any time.

They continued to train throughout the winter and early spring until it was time to leave. Fifty-three members of Jacks Company were airlifted out the valley, 13 others remained with the Cairo, some to continue to recuperate from their injuries and others stayed to assist them. They were to rendezvous with the main group later in the summer with a shuttle full of supplies. Veronika took her responsibility for keeping track of their limited supplies, especially the provisions, and for keeping everyone fed, very seriously. She also took her turn on rearguard, forward scout and lookout duty. Besides Cassidy and Pickford, Veronika Tchachenko was probably the most loved and respected member of Jacks Company and she was determined to do all she could to help get the girls back to their families safely.

In the past week Jacks Company had saved two groups of Rangers and civilians held captive by the aliens during daring and extremely perilous night operations. Altogether they'd saved 28 Rangers and 6 civilians. Some of them were friends of Cassidy, Pickford and some of the NCOs in Jacks Company and one, Hannalee Trapp, was the mother of Marta Trapp who was still in the valley on the Cairo.

That had been four days ago. After an unexpected encounter with thousands of stampeding tau-beasts, the hungry, virtually out of food band had been able to recover the bodies of several of the 200-pound tau-boars that had impaled themselves on the two-foot long, sharp thorns that grew out of the trunks of the stand of tau-thorn trees they'd taken refuge in. The meat had helped but Veronika was worried that they would still run completely out of food before they made their rendezvous. Everyone had been on reduced rations even before they'd rescued the first group of 12 captives and then they'd added another 22 mouths to feed. The rescued were weak from exhaustion and undernourishment, some more than others, and once they had run out of food she wondered if some of them would be able to keep going.

Chapter 2

On the Marco Polo

CTS Marco Polo, Sol system

The colony transport ship Marco Polo had jumped into Earth's solar system three days earlier and the starship's commander Captain Roger Daubert was already hearing complaints from some of his 10,000 passengers about the hold on all outgoing personal messages. To deal with that he called a mid-morning meeting in the large conference room on the main deck down the passageway from the bridge and his private quarters with some of the senior officials onboard. These officials were mainly government representatives and company managers plus the senior Ranger aboard, Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Stafford, who was also serving as Daubert's Communications officer.

Miguel Santos, the representative for the government of Brazil, told Daubert, People are anxious to talk with their families, Captain. There were so many casualties among our Ranger detachment, and the other detachments as well. People want to contact their families and reassure them that they are safe and will be home soon.

Ryan Stafford countered, Senhor Santos, I have spoken to Lieutenant Carvalho and he assured me that all of the Brazilian Rangers completely understand the need to wait. All of the families of those who were killed or seriously injured should be notified first and not find out through the newsies or on social media. Personal messages to family or friends that mention names or circumstances might well be let out, even inadvertently, before the families are officially informed. Lieutenant Felix Carvalho had been the acting commander of the Brazilian Ranger detachment before losing a leg at the Second Battle of Winter Haven at the end of the previous New Hope summer.

The Brazilian gave him a deflated look and nodded. "Yes, the Rangers, they would understand but there are many civilians who