“So, we’re all magic? I wonder if Sergeant Duncan is too?”

Nguyen shook his head. “No. Corporal Sanchez is, though. About the same as you, strength-wise. I don’t know about the others. I guess we’ll find out when they show up.”

Andrew looked at his watch.

“In the meantime, I suggest we head to the mess and get ourselves some dinner. Sound good?”

“Sure does, mate,” Paul replied, and the five of them headed off for dinner.

When they returned to the barracks, they found three other men who looked quite at home already and were obviously the missing men from earlier. Andrew could tell they could all do magic with their glows being similar to the men he had already met. One was tall and fair; the second was medium height and rather solid, while the third was of a similar height but with dark hair and a very swarthy appearance.

“So, it looks like the threat of maggots has been fulfilled.” The tall one observed as they walked in, studying the five of them.

Andrew studied the three new acquaintances as well. They were all shielding but were clearly fairly strong magically. The tall one looked to be not quite as strong as John, while the other two were of similar strength to the other three.

“Andrew Harris.” He introduced himself that his four new friends followed suit.

“David Williams,” said the tall one.

“Adrian Reynolds.” Said the solid one.

“Tony Contos.” The last one said.

“So you guys have been here for a while?”

“Yeah. Close to a fortnight. Corporal Sanchez has been working with us to build up our capability. There’s two women as well who are part of the squad.”

“And we don’t have communal barracks? Damn.” Said Paul.

Williams laughed, and the other two sniggered. “You say that now, but you haven’t met them.”

“Oh. I guess from that comment that they’re not that good-looking?” Daryl asked.

“You could say that. One’s built like a battleship, and although her face is pretty, she’s gay, so no joy there, and the other is, well, she’s not ugly, I suppose, but she is not exactly a movie star either.”

“So, where is Corporal Sanchez?”

“He got called down to Army HQ for a meeting about us magic types. He wasn’t impressed with being dragged all the way down there, I can tell you. Of course, I think he’d prefer to be at the front rather than training us. Sanchez doesn’t really hide the fact that he regards this as something he has to do rather than what he wants to be doing.”

“Right. So what form does this training take?” Paul Nguyen asked.

“Mostly, it’s about practicing shields and gathering power. You need to be able to keep up physical, energy, and mental shields pretty much the whole time you’re near these bastards, so that’s what we get drilled at over and over. Their cyborgs use lasers, as do their tanks. Their support troops use normal firearms, and then their Mentalists, as they call them, will use magic on you, and if they can, they will try and control you.”