Chapter 7

New men

There had been some heavy drizzle earlier in the day, and there were still puddles in the lower spots in the immediate area as an exhausted Toshiro Ozawa perched on the bus stop seat on the side of the divided road at the top of the ridge that had taken his men all day to take. Their advance along the coastal areas had gone fairly easily, but trying to advance along the two main roads had gone slowly as the local’s defense had solidified. The defenders were still short of heavy weapons, and they were increasingly using civilian volunteers to slow the advance of the Tomkyan forces.

He had decided that this would do for today. Tomorrow he would re-organize, see what new troops had been assigned to him, if any, and then start the assault on the town. He heard a whistling sound, dropped to the ground, and rolled under the seat just as half a dozen mortar shells landed, straddling the dual carriageway road. A couple of pieces of shrapnel hit the plastic bus shelter, but he remained unharmed. The salvo wasn’t repeated. The mortar unit was probably re-locating before counter-battery fire could target them.

He picked himself up off the ground and looked around. Maybe a casualty or two, but nobody seemed to have died this time. He heard a shout and looked around. Uesugi Kenshin was creeping along the side of the fence of the second house back from where Toshiro was sheltering. Toshiro moved to meet him, then halted and looked sharply at the older man. Uesugi held out his hand and showed power, and Toshiro relaxed.

“I thought you were in Europe? I was worried that you would have caught the plague.” He said as he and his old mentor clasped forearms.

The older man smiled and shook his head.

“Actually, I was in Nippon visiting family when the attack started. There were huge amounts of panic, of course. People were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It was truly amazing. I’m talking about senior officials here, sensible dour, career bureaucrats, and such like, you understand. And the plague wasn’t even in Nippon. No wonder Europe collapsed.”

“Have you heard what is going on there? I’ve been a bit out of touch here.”

“Civil war. Besides the plague that removes a mentalist’s power, there’s something else that dissolves the zivvy. Cyborgs started running amok all over the place, and then they got clever and began spreading the substance that dissolves the zivvy wires. I don’t know whether it was the cyborgs or the abolitionists, but I doubt we control anywhere in central Europe anymore. When I flew out of Nippon for the portal complex in North America, there were reports of cyborgs revolting and civilian servants supporting them in Nippon as well.”

“Shit!”

“Yes. That about sums it up. The revolts looked so strong and widespread that I told the authorities in Nippon that they’d be better off shipping everybody they could over to North America and through the portal to here rather than trying to defend Nippon, but whether anybody’s listening, I don’t know. So tell me where you’re up to on this front. The General was a bit vague when he sent me down this way with my troops.”