Besides the constant rumors of help from the Kiwis, who were supposed to be sending troops any time now, there were also supposed to be expeditionary forces being sent to the mainland from places like New Caledonia and Tonga, although nothing had actually materialized as far as Andrew was aware. There was supposed to be a Nuzeeland division arriving in Western Port Bay any day now, but he had first heard that rumor three months ago, and there were no Kiwis walking around that he had seen. Apart from a few exchange fellows and a bunch of Kiwis who lived in Ostraya, some of whom had volunteered or been drafted where they’d become dual citizens. The train’s carriages were old, although perhaps not as old as the ones he’d had coming south to begin training, but clearly, they’d been dragged out of storage somewhere for this troop train.

The line diverged to the right at Hornsby to dodge the still radioactive area of the former city of Sydney proper, and then it diverged again to dodge the radioactive area that had been the city of Parramatta. The line curved through Castle Hill and then Blacktown before rejoining the old mainline at Fairfield. Most of the inner parts of the former Sydney metropolitan area were composed of overgrown ruins, at least in the areas surrounding the two atomic bomb blast sites. Areas further out had been less directly affected but had still suffered from radioactive fallout and had largely been abandoned in the immediate postwar period. Over the last couple of centuries, the radioactive fallout had been washed away to a large extent, and civilization was slowly returning.

The whole area had been scavenged over the centuries, but these days some of the areas were being turned over to agriculture, provided they’d been certified to be free of radioactive fallout. It was mostly cattle and sheep rather than plants that had roots that dug down into the soil, and he’d heard that a lot of people were very wary of anything that came out of the area regardless of what the scientists said. Penriff had largely been spared the radioactive fallout and was both a large city and the state capital.

They stopped at Liverpool for some of the troops to disembark and presumably head for the army base nearby while more soldiers joined the train, heading south to the front. There was a train loaded with tanks, LAVs, and artillery waiting in a siding and which appeared to be ready to follow them south. He wondered why such a train-load of heavy equipment wasn’t already at the front, but then he overheard one of his fellow soldiers tell the guy next to him that the equipment had been pulled out of storage and had needed to be refurbished before being sent south. He guessed that the soldiers who had joined the train were probably the crews for the equipment on the other train.

The train rattled south at a reasonable rate. This was the old mainline between Sydney and Melbourne, and the engineering was much better than more recently built lines that connected some of the new centers that had grown up since the nuclear war. There was a half an hour stop at Golburn, where most of the troops grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Andrew, being used to the balmy temperatures of his hometown, found the cold getting to him as the train dragged itself over the Great Dividing Range, and Wagga at 4 am was easily the coldest place he had ever been! He huddled in his seat, trying to stop his teeth from chattering as the train finally got going again, heading for Allbree.

Uesugi’s troops were kept to a standstill for most of the afternoon while Toshiro’s troops, well, Kato’s now, forged ahead. Unlike the built-up area they had taken a few days before, the town of Drysdale fell with hardly a shot being fired. A few old folks were dealt with, but the momentum barely slowed as they continued to forge along the road that ran parallel to the southern shore of the bay. Early the next morning, the lead troops reached the shore at Portarlington and swung to the east along the shore. The resistance was minimal, and the whole Battalion was instructed to swing south and west.

Uesegi’s troops started making progress again, and by late that day, his battalion had reached the edge of the built-up area called Ocean Grove. The First Battalion had no trouble taking the town of Queenscliff by the end of that day, and these began pushing west to link up with the Second Battalion. They gradually squeezed the natives back into a smaller and smaller area until, finally, they retreated across the bridge at Barwon Heads, blowing the bridge behind them.

Toshiro ordered an assault across the waterway the next morning, but the losses were heavy, and he gave it away as a bad investment and sent reports to headquarters while the two armies sat looked at each other across the waterway. The enemy didn’t even bother with much in the way of harassing artillery fire, presumably to save ammunition. Apparently, the natives were no more well off as far as artillery shells were concerned than Toshiro’s troops were. Still, it had been a successful advance, the best they had managed so far since the invasion started. On the other hand, it was obvious the locals had planned their withdrawal well ahead of time. They left next to nothing behind and blew up anything they couldn’t take with them. That included every fuel supply point, much to Toshiro’s annoyance.

Chapter 8

To the front

Andrew found himself crammed aboard the train that took them south. The comment from a grizzled Sergeant in the seat across the aisle from Andrew’s spot was that they were packed in like sardines. Andrew wondered where that saying had originated, but he had to agree with the sentiment. Besides all the new recruits that had just finished training, there were numbers of men and women returning from leave, plus men who had been transferred from garrisons further north. Talking to a couple of men from Harvee Bay, it appeared the government was running down the coastal garrisons and leaving the older, not as fit men to hold the forts, so to speak, and transferring the younger healthy men to combat units in the south. They were apparently still keeping a strong garrison in the far north to face the Indos, but they felt no need to have similarly strong garrisons along the east coast in the face of the transdimensional invasion. Ostraya’s relations with the islanders to the east and northeast were good.

  “Come with me, and I’ll introduce you to your new subordinates, which include my nephew, but don’t coddle him, please. He’s grown up a lot since we invaded here, but he still needs to do a bit more growing up yet. He still has a tendency to see the natives as people.”

Kato nodded but didn’t reply, and then he followed Toshiro to where his junior officers were adding the final touches to the plan for the action that would kick off in the morning. Toshiro ran through the plan for Kato’s benefit, who seemed to pick the operational details up without a problem, and eventually, they all headed for their billets or tents, as the case may be.

Their attack in the morning went well. The first thing Toshiro noticed about being the Brigade commander and not having to oversee the fighting directly was how strange that felt. The second thing he noticed was that the attacks went far too well and that they broke through much too easily. In fact, he noticed from the reports that the native force was not only falling back faster than his men could advance, but they were falling back to the southwest and leaving an ever-widening gap at the eastern end of their line.

As their advance to the east picked up speed along the broad highway and through the open paddocks, their advance to the south and southeast slowed. The enemy began to defend every line of trees, wall, fence, and house slowing their advance as much as they could. Finally, Toshiro managed to get one of their increasingly rare drones in the air to the southeast to see what was happening behind the lines. The enemy had all manner of ways of getting rid of drones and had obviously faced drones before. That in itself was worrying.

It quickly became apparent that the enemy was evacuating all their civilians from the headland. There was a massive lineup of cars and trucks along the road leading to the bridge across the river that emptied into the ocean to the south of Gilong as the residents from further east attempted to flee to the west. The drone was destroyed before it could get a good view of what was happening other than a massive traffic jam, but it did explain why things were progressing the way they were. The enemy was desperately defending directly north of the ocean road while allowing the True Men to advance at will along the coast of the bay to the north.

In the area due west of the swampy lake ground that divided the Peninsula from the flat lands to the west, the enemy had set up defensive positions along a creek line that ran west and then northwest beyond the edge of the suburban area until it finished up in a mine or something. That was outside his operational area, being Fifth Brigade’s responsibility, but he gathered they were having trouble making any ground and so far had crossed the creek successfully anywhere. If anything, Fifth Brigade was even less well-equipped than his brigade.

Kato nodded, taking in the information.”And our broadcast power doesn’t reach the front here?”

“Not yet. The engineers keep expanding the coverage, but it’s slow work. Without a Cybernetics Centre and zivvy, we can’t impress large numbers of natives as labor without tying up too many of our troops as guards, which is limiting things a bit.”

“Yes. Over on the northern front where I’ve been serving, they have been using native labor for cleanup tasks and gross engineering tasks like rebuilding bridges and such, even though it does tie down men as guards. The overseers are using whips, would you believe, to get the natives to work.” He shook his head. “It’s all very medieval.”

“You don’t sound like you approve?”

Kato shrugged. “With no zivvy, I don’t have an alternative, but it seems very inefficient.”

It was Toshiro’s turn to shrug. “We need to get as much use out of the healthy ones as we can. Our reinforcements are starting to slow down while the enemy is growing in strength.”

“That’s certainly true, although I was told they aren’t as strong down here on this front.”

“No. Nothing like the number of regular troops I’ve heard you’ve been facing up north. We are generally facing a lot of militia leavened by a few regulars down here. No Tanks and only a few pieces of artillery. They do have plenty of mortars which are a pain.”

He paused and pointed at some nearby troops. “And down here, we have a much higher ratio of impressed militia to military cyborgs than they have on the northern front, or so I’ve heard.”

The other man nodded in agreement. “Yes. And even then, a lot of the cyborgs we have aren’t even military. You’ll find a good third are ex-police or ex-chauffeurs or whatever.”

“Good God!”

“Yes. About the only thing we haven’t resorted to so far as using women in the front line, although I’ve heard they’re being pressed into service in the city, doing jobs that men would normally do because of all the manpower being on the front line.”

Rokuro smiled at some thought.

“You should hear some of the complaints from the older matrons whose daughters are being put to work.” He grinned at Toshiro. “A lot of the younger women are quite happy to be put to work, mind you. It gets them away from the matrons!”

Toshiro couldn’t help himself and snorted while Kato grinned at him.

“So. What relation are you to the main Rokuro family?”

Kato frowned at Toshiro for a moment and then shrugged.

“Before the troubles started, I was Rokuro 22. God knows what number I am now. Don’t let it bother you, though. I try not to let it bother me.”

“Right,” Toshiro said after a moment while he took that in and tried to process someone that high being on the front lines so far from Home. Damn, the fellow was probably even higher in rank now, and Toshiro was supposed to treat him as a subordinate? This could get dicey.