“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.