The next book up is Kyron the Mercenary which should done some time in November – hopefully. It is still too early to put a date on it I’m afraid.
After that will be The Princess and the Travelers where the Princess is sent to investigate the strange derelict ship mentioned in the 3rd book – is it from another human civilization or is it an alien vessel?
Taroniah at Peace will follow and then Kyron the Mercenary after which…? Probably The New Federation which is pure space opera – big battles, aliens, the whole bit. And no, that is not Arturo’s Federation nor anyone else’s for that matter. At least not so far…

Chapter 4

The Volunteer

Andrew Harris joined the small line of men and women lined up in front of the cubicle holding the recruiting desk inside the council building foyer. Most looked to be older than him, and he received some strange looks from the others in the queue, but he simply stood and waited patiently. With the strange invasion going on down south filling the news channels, accompanied by rumors of enemy magicians, he knew his duty. Even his father hadn’t been opposed, which had surprised him, especially when his old man made noise about enlisting himself, although Andrew thought his dad was probably too old to be accepted. The line moved forward periodically, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower, and after what seemed like hours but was probably less than one, he finally made it to the front.

The person who entered the cubicle ahead of him finally exited, and it was his turn.

“Next.” Came the almost yell from inside the cubicle.

Andrew walked in and stopped in front of the desk in the center of the area. Behind the desk, a man dressed in the mottled green and sand uniform of the army sat, busily typing something into a computer. A second man, also in uniform, sat to one side, enjoying a cup of coffee.

“Name?” The man at the desk asked, his head bent over the keyboard. Then looked up from his keyboard and frowned at Andrew. “Huh? How old are you, kid?”

“My name is Andrew Harris, and I just turned eighteen.”

The soldier studied him. “You don’t look eighteen.”

Andrew was used to people not believing he was as old as he was. In fairness, he looked like he was only fifteen or sixteen, partly because he was just starting to fill out. His grandmother had done something to him before she died that delayed puberty to an extent. She had said it was to keep him under control once he came into his power. Reading her journal, he had discovered that one of her few earlier children had been born with a hormonal imbalance that required special drugs when he reached puberty, and he had grown up to be very strong magically. Or so she claimed. She made no mention of his death, so Andrew assumed he was still alive, somewhere.

His grandmother had studied how the drugs worked and come up with a spell that did much the same thing, and that was what she’d used on Andrew. She said it would wear off somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-five. Andrew hadn’t been given a choice, but at least he didn’t have to take drugs. His erstwhile uncle was somewhere in the Pilbara when he was last heard from, and his even older aunt had been forced to move to Nuzeeland because of her lack of aging. They had lost contact with her entirely since she had moved over there.

“Here is my ID card.” He handed over the card with the ridiculously bad photo of his face looking out from it.

He looked around and pointed at some of them in the bushes just behind him.

“You five, into the building. Top floor. Work your way to the end but try not to attract attention. When I say now mentally, open fire on them.”

The five men his wave had encompassed all nodded, and they headed inside the building. He signed to the rest to move forward under cover of the hedges in the garden fronting the road. Then the bushes ran out, so he signed for them to press up against the wall and move forward that way. The gunmen had opened fire too soon, Toshiro decided. Just then, the dull noise in the background suddenly got louder in the form of a grinding metal machine noise, and a tank appeared behind them and began grinding its way up the left-hand side of the road.

Behind it came a force of maybe ten cyborgs and twenty former civilians led by a fellow in a black suit. Toshiro did a double-take when he realized it was his nephew Akiro, who was supposed to be in his second year at university.

“Akiro! What are you doing here?” Toshiro yelled at the young man.

“Drafted. The whole university was. They’re starting to fly unaffected people and cyborgs over from Europe, but it’s a slow process. Everyone’s petrified of losing our last portal. I am now Provisional Mentalist Akiro Sato. So what’s going on?”

“Resistance is stiffening. There’s a bunch of fellows in that building up there. If your tank can blow them out, that would be very welcome.”

Akiro closed his eyes for a few moments, then smiled at Toshiro. The tank’s turret rotated, and then it fired at the building, taking out a large section of the top floor. Toshiro thought he saw at least one of the enemy fall down with the rubble.

“Come on!” He yelled, waving everyone forward, and led the charge.

They stumbled into the wrecked building but met no opposition. The enemy had evacuated the building, probably when they saw the tank coming, so he pressed on. The next door led them inside the hospital proper, and he discovered that many of the beds were still occupied despite the staff having fled. He directed Akiro to take most of the troops upstairs.

“Check the other floors!” He yelled, and then he pressed forward as his nephew disappeared up the stairs

A laser flashed past him from one of the cyborgs who had stayed with him.

“Is the broadcast power on?”

“Looks that way, sir.”

“Right. Clear all the floors in here.” He ordered and headed out of the building, leaving the Cyborgs to the unpleasant task.

It was harsh, but they didn’t have time to coddle patients too sick to move. Besides, the Japanese worlds had always eliminated a much higher proportion of the natives than the Russian or German branches of the Alliance. It made even more sense if there was not going to be any more zivvy to keep them under control. Then there was the Plague to worry about as well. Eliminating all the patients still here would make for a messy clean-up later, but that wasn’t his problem. He had to keep pushing and take as much territory as possible as quickly as possible before the defenders got organized. Given the increased gunfire he could hear as he exited the building, he had a feeling the natives were getting organized quicker than he had been hoping.

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Taroniah at War

“Sir.” The cyborg said, saluting. “I am Cyborg one eight two seven six, seventy-six. We have a composite force of twenty-six former household servants that have been assigned to your command. General Koga wants you to continue pushing south.”

“Hence the reinforcements. Right. I recognize you, and you’re now my second in command until another mentalist arrives. There’s what looks to be a hospital a block south that should be our first target. It will probably make a good Cybernetics Centre.” The cyborg nodded. “Take one of your squads west to the next crossroad and advance on the hospital along that street while I take the other half forward from here.”

“Sir.” The cyborg replied and began issuing orders to the servants.

Toshiro shook his head, turned, and began issuing orders to the cyborgs that had formed his entire force up until now.

“All you cyborgs fan along this block and move through the buildings. Check every room, and I mean every room, even the lady’s lavs. Treat all civilians fairly but firmly. Kill them if they resist or don’t follow orders promptly. Bring them all to the street here and put them under guard. Got that?”

The two senior cyborgs nodded. He left them to it and led his half of the the servant force west. The two trucks returned north, presumably to go back to the homeworld for more troops. There was no real opposition as he moved up the street. A couple of bullets came his way from an unseen sniper, but that was about it. Ahead of their advance, people were decamping from the buildings and fleeing in the opposite direction, which was actually a good thing. It would mean more mouths for the defenders to feed, and until they got a new Cybernetics Center up and running, there was not a lot they could do with masses of prisoners. Apart from killing them. Not that most of the True Men would have any problem with doing just that, despite it being a waste of potential manpower.

And then there were the rumors about the latest shipment of zivvy not arriving as scheduled. If there was no zivvy, they couldn’t chip the natives anyway, even if they got a Cybernetics Centre set up. He tried not to think about what the non-delivery of the zivvy meant. It had only been a breathless rumor that had swept the portal facility just as they’d prepped to open the portal to this world, and he’d had other things to worry about, so he hadn’t paid much attention. Was it just a break in the chain somewhere due to the plague? Was Natori sitting on their zivvy, or had Sendai kept it? Was it because of an attack on the 300? Shit, now that would be a disaster! Surely the Enemy wasn’t strong enough to attack the 300! They had reached about halfway up the block when several automatic rifles opened up without warning. Toshiro was holding a shield, so casualties were limited, but at least three of his men were hit, dead or just wounded; he wasn’t sure and didn’t have time to worry about the matter right then! The fire seemed to be coming from the yellow brick building that was on this side of the hospital. Some of the men dropped behind a parked car on the far side of the broad road. Another got stuck in the middle behind one of the trees that were planted in the median strip. The rest piled into the bushes on the right-hand side of the road.

Toshiro came to attention and saluted as soon as the General turned in his direction.

“Sir.”

“Report.” The General grunted, his eyes roaming the area.

Toshiro quickly outlined the situation, where he had sent troops, and pointed out they hadn’t really had a chance to search all the buildings in the immediate area. And he mentioned the big missile that had taken out the portal and the surrounding area.

“Yes. It destroyed the portal machinery and killed the portal maker. We’re down to one working portal interface at present. Right. Did you say the troops over there didn’t have a Mentalist in charge?” He pointed to the south.

“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir, they don’t.”

“Very well. You are now in command of that force. I will get you more troops as they come through.”

“Sir!” He saluted and then hesitated, waiting for further information, but nothing came.

The General turned away, patently ignoring him, which he took as dismissal, so, after another look around, he headed south to take charge of that flank.

Damn. Only one portal for an invasion of a technological world was going to make this even harder than it had been. Who’s idea had this been? Of course, they needed a technological world to set up a cyborg and chip installation center. This place looked good to the scouts, being a technological world but not a strong one, but he had a horrible feeling it would be harder than the government thought. Their technology seemed higher than the scouts had reported, and they had certainly reacted quickly! No matter. He headed towards where he had sent the troops on this flank earlier and began assessing the situation.

The cyborgs he’d sent south had established a line on a road running north-south and were pushing south to extend the line. Fortunately, there was little opposition as the troops were getting very spread out. Looking to the south down the straight road, he could see hordes of civilians running for their lives. He brought the southern expansion to a halt and did a quick recon up and down the line in a captured civilian vehicle driven by a cyborg who had claimed he could drive the machine. With a bit of practice, the cyborg probably would be able to drive the vehicle.

The city, or at least the main center area of it, was laid out on a north to south and east to west grid of roads. He was only fired on a couple of times as he drove along the road that a sign told him was called Yara Street. That sounded almost Russian, but he was sure the people here spoke English, or at least that is what the scouts had claimed. The street ran right down to the shore of the bay the city was built along,  stopping where a green park strip ran along the shore.

He returned to the main street just in time for two trucks to roll up crammed with what looked like civilians. They dismounted, and he found he had a platoon of servants. They were armed with an assortment of weapons and under the command of three cyborgs. Two were older cyborgs and they were in direct command of half the force each, while the third was a genuine military cyborg who was in overall command of the small company.