“Not even I can slice that far!” She said, frowning at him. “We are going to have to sit down and go through this journal of your grandmother’s. Did you bring it with you?”

He nodded. “You mean, like, right now?”

She shook her head. “No. We don’t have the time at the moment. I want you to get down to the Eighth Battalion and get yourself integrated with them. The Japs have a lot of mentalists, but they generally only employ one really strong one and any one section of the line. Depending on how big the attack is, you might find that there are two or three weaker mentalists in support of the main one. Their job will be to provide shields for their troops, while the main one will be looking to take over our people and disrupt our formations. Your job will be to disrupt him.”

Jason nodded, trying to look calm. He wasn’t about to admit that he was as nervous as he was feeling. The captain studied him for a moment and then nodded in return.

“Leave your kit here, but take enough water with you to keep you going today. They’ll have supplies at the Battalion HQ. Report to Lieutenant Colonel Gray. His HQ is on Bellangi Road, somewhere south of the racecourse. The railway makes a big loop down there, and we are trying to defend the line of the railway. They took the airport last week, not that we’ve got many planes left and practically no helicopters anymore, so we didn’t try and defend it too heavily. The railway line is more important so do as you can.”

There was a tone of finality in this last sentence which Andrew took as being a dismissal. He collected himself together, stood at attention, and saluted, which the Captain returned, and then he left her office. Outside he stopped and checked his phone to make sure that there was a map available of the area which there was. He turned to the Corporal, who was looking at him expectantly.

“The Captain said I was to leave the kid here, grab some water, and head down to the Eighth Battalion’s HQ. So, water and transport? And should I take a tent?”

The Corporal shook his head. “Eighth Battalion will organize a billet for you. Fill your water bottle through there while I organize some transport.”

The man indicated another door that Andrew hadn’t really noticed when he’d arrived, so grabbing his army-issue water bottle, he headed through the indicated door while the Corporal got on his phone to arrange transport. Through the door, he found a small kitchen area with a sink, and he quickly filled up his water bottle and returned to the main office.

“There’ll be a car here in five minutes that will take you to Eight Battalion’s HQ.”

The Corporal informed him. Jason nodded and stepped out to wait for the car.

She reflected on the fact that practically no one had escaped once the Japanese occupied an area. Early on, there were reports of atrocities, such as the reputed killing of a large number of patients in the Gilong Hospital, which had led to the Government adopting a mandatory evacuation order for any area under threat of occupation. Several fellow officers she had spoken to told of seeing seriously wounded Ostrayan soldiers or civilians being shot out of hand but advancing Japanese troops, and they were only taking healthy people prisoner. Aerial photos showed work gangs clearing rubble off roads and such behind the lines, which seemed to be the primary use of prisoners. How the prisoners were actually treated was unknown.

“We have gotten some high-altitude drone intelligence which seems to indicate the Japs are going to attack Backus Marsh in the next day or two. I’m assigning you to the eighth battalion NOR which is tasked with defending the southwestern side of the town. You’ll be used mostly to provide mental shields to protect the troops from their mentalists. If you can coordinate physical shields with the troops, that would be beneficial as well, even if it is only a local area effect. But do concentrate on the mental shields, as disrupting our positions by taking over soldiers and opening fire on everyone in the area is the most common way they make advances. I will be teamed up with a sniper with a heavy-duty gun, and we will hunt their mentalists while providing support to the southeastern flank. Are you ready for real combat, soldier?”

“I think so, Captain. I won’t know until I’m actually faced with enemy fire and enemy mentalists, I guess, but I think I’m ready.”

“Good. Now I’ve read the report from Sanchez, but just how powerful are you in practical terms?”

Andrew scratched his head. “I have no frame of reference, I’m sorry.”

She studied him for a moment. “Hmm. Sanchez said you could slice ten meters. Is that right?”

“I can probably do a bit more than that. I tried not to show off in front of the others.”

“Oh?” She said and studied him again.

Andrew started to fidget as her steady gaze made him uncomfortable. She turned away and pointed at a tree maybe thirty meters away. Probably more like twenty-five, he decided. There was a branch jutting out from the trunk, not too far above the ground.

“Can you cut that branch off?”

Right. Andrew thought to himself. Time to stop mucking around and hiding what he can do. He’d been looking for an opportunity to impress the Captain. He looked at the tree, extended his invisible force blade, and sliced the branch off about ten centimeters out from the trunk of the tree. He glanced at the Captain, grinned, and turned back to look further beyond where the tree with the branch was. There was a small tree maybe another twenty meters further on, and he cut the trunk clean through about a meter above the ground. He heard a hiss behind him and turned to face the Captain.

“As far as we can tell, the Japanese invasion was fast running out of steam. They had a brief surge in combat units a couple of weeks ago, followed by a lot more civilian militia, and they are still getting lots of people through their gate, but they’re mostly women and children over the last couple of days. Surprisingly, the Japs still weren’t using women in combat, at least not in any large numbers. The government was still concerned about the Indos up north choosing to invade while we were occupied fighting the Japs, and we’re keeping a large part of the regular military in the north for that reason. I don’t agree with that policy, but who listens to the troops on the ground anyway.”

“Anyway, the Japanese advances have been slowed but not entirely stopped as both sides are running short of munitions. The lasers of the Japanese cyborgs and the armored vehicles give them a combat edge as they don’t require ammunition, so as long as they remain within the slowly increasing broadcast power area. Last week they deployed a new type of tank that carries a humongous powered mortar. It’s only good within their broadcast power range but packs a wallop and can fire very accurately.”

She moved over to the mat with a stick and pointed at a red irregular line inset within the Japanese occupied area.

“That’s the broadcast power limit at the moment. We think they’re building a new repeater station in this area here and another one there, but they’re being very careful so as to not let us spot them and then blow them up. Things are becoming increasingly difficult for the us as our ammunition supplies are in short supply. We are ramping up production, but the demand is still greater than the supply at the moment. The Nuzeelanders are sending us ammunition and troops, but so far, only the ammunition has arrived and that in small amounts. Attempts to take out the power relay towers were a continuous activity, but to be honest, we are struggling to achieve significant results as we’ve used up a good deal of our combat aircraft in earlier attacks, and the production rate of new aircraft has yet to gear up. We had hoped drones would work, but their damned lasers are too effective.”

“We’ve given up trying to sneak saboteurs past their mentalists at the moment, thank goodness. It very much depended on whether their mentalists in the area were wide-awake, and after the first raid, they’ve generally had at least one mentalist awake and looking all along the front. They’ve brought down two of the last trained mentalists from up north who both have very good mental shields, and they’re being assigned to two special forces units that were going to use their magician’s mental shield to hide them from the Japanese mentalists, which will hopefully allow them to sneak into their rear areas. We have so little information on what went on behind the lines apart from the occasional aerial photo that any information would be welcome.”

Someone asked for maps with Taroniah – I meant to put one in the front of the latest Taroniah book – sorry
I’ve posted these before but here some

“Such as?” The Captain still looked skeptical.”Well, in one section, she mentions using her invisibility spell to sneak into a building. Unfortunately, at no point in the journal does she explain how the invisibility spell works, which is really frustrating. Nor is that an isolated example. Do you know how to levitate?”Greaves opened her eyes and then shook her head. “No. I’ve thought about it, but I’ve never managed to come up with anything that works. I have heard of an Indo mentalist who could levitate stuff but only at second hand. He may not even be alive now as that story has been around for years.””I haven’t worked it out either, but then I’m still struggling to master the ordinary stuff and haven’t really put much thought into it.””Is your grandmother still around?””No. well, probably not.””Probably?””Well, over the years, she faked her own death on several occasions, and then she would set up a new life somewhere else. I never actually saw her body as it was a closed coffin. She was officially a hundred and five, although she only looked to be in her eighties to me just before she died. I was very young when she died, so my memory is not reliable. Having read her journal, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was masquerading as a woman in her sixties somewhere, possibly out west.””Are you being serious?”Unlike earlier, this was more of a polite inquiry. He opened the palms of his hand in a gesture of not knowing.”I actually think she’s dead this time. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have her journal. On the other hand, if in a few years’ time somebody said they’d seen in Nuzeeland I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”The Captain sat back and considered this. Then her eyes opened wide, and she stared at Andrew.”Wait. You said that officially she was a hundred and five. Yes?” Andrew nodded. “How old was she really?”Andrew took a moment to think about his answer and then decided to tell her the truth.”My grandmother was one of the original Tellies in North America. She happened to be far enough away from the main site that she wasn’t killed in the nuclear attack.””Holy Shit!” The Captain studied him for a moment. “You’re serious, aren’t you? That explains why you’re so strong.” Andrew decided not to tell her about his grandfather. Captain Greaves studied him in silence for a bit longer and then shook her head. She pulled up the latest map of the frontlines that had a computer displayed on the wall to the left.”This is the situation at the moment, as far as we can tell. Intelligence on foot is almost impossible, with their mentalists spotting anyone almost immediately. Drones keep getting eliminated as their cyborg’s lasers can knock them out at several kilometers range if they spot the drones.”Andrew moved slightly and turned his head so he could study the map better, which allowed Captain Greaves to study him in profile without him realizing. His face looked leaner and harder than it had when she had sat next to him on the train.

Sorry – went away for a week and forgot to post last week.

“So, how did you come up with the idea of grounding the shields?” She asked finally.

Andrew shrugged and trotted at the same story he told everyone else.

“The magical shields are essentially no different to the padded protection we used in football training. They couldn’t stop the big, tough tacklers any more than the ungrounded shields could stop the rifle bullets. All they did was protect you somewhat from being knocked over. I tried to think up a way of making them less likely to be knocked over and came up with the idea of digging the shields into the ground. They have a very narrow profile, like a slice spell, so they can be worked into the ground quite deeply fairly easily, even through concrete or tar, although I did suggest to the Corporal that people being trained to dig their shields in should be warned about not doing it in built-up areas.” He grinned at the captain at this point, and she found herself smiling back at him involuntarily.

“I see. Or at least, I don’t see. I’m afraid I find the link between the two rather vague. Is that really where you got the idea?” It was just a stab in the dark because the story sounded too trite even though it was probably the truth, but she saw the slight flinch and smiled. “It was a good story to tell Corporal Sanchez, but it wasn’t the truth, was it?”

She leaned forward and stared at him. Damn! Andrew thought. Should he stick to his story or tell the truth?

“What other techniques do you know?” She asked after a moment.

Andrew thought quickly. He hadn’t realized they didn’t know about grounding shields, and there were probably other techniques, as she called them, that they didn’t know, but the problem was he didn’t know what they didn’t know. He smiled as he wondered if that even made sense.

“You think it’s funny?”

“Ah, no, sir. I was just thinking about techniques and the fact that I don’t really know what the others don’t know that I do know. Does that make sense, sir?” He could feel himself blushing for sounding so stupid.

She studied him balefully as if he was trying to pull her leg. He knew he was looking nervous as the silence dragged on while she just sat and stared at him. Finally, she leaned back in her chair.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, sir. I might be able to do magic, or techniques I guess we’re calling them now, but I’m not psychic, sir. I know what I know, but I don’t know what you don’t know.”

“And how do you know so much, soldier?”

Okay, time to tell the truth. She’d get really annoyed if he kept pulling interesting techniques out of his arse. Besides, he still thought she was cute.

“I have a journal my grandmother left me, sir.”

“A journal your grandmother left you. And it contains mentalist techniques?”

“Yes, sir. Although in a lot of cases, she just mentions the spell, she calls them spells, sir, without any explanation of what she’s talking about or how to achieve the effect. I’ve managed to guess some, but many of the journal references are just too unclear to determine exactly how she was doing what she said she was doing.”