Bloody hell! He thought about his first wife and shuddered. The picture was getting messier and messier! Not that things were going well here, either, but at least they were making ground.

“Damn! What a mess.” Then another thought hit him. “Is there any sign of it here?”

“Not so far. The thinking at headquarters is that the Natori situation was the result of deliberate action by the Enemy because it was so well planned. They sought out the disaffected on the planet and built a network without anyone realizing it. With no separate native enclaves left on Natori, their guard was down with regard to the chances of internal revolt. We’re watching more closely here, if for no other reason than we are already fighting a war. It’s bad enough the natives have mentalists of their own.”

The General paused to gather his thoughts. So far, Toshiro hadn’t had to face any enemy mentalists on his front. He understood that, generally, they weren’t as powerful as the average True Man mentalist, but there were rumors of at least one or two very powerful enemy mentalists that had been encountered in the north, but they were not operating on his front line yet. Why you would hold your strongest back, Toshiro had no idea, and they were only rumors, but it was worrying. He considered asking the General but the General spoke first, waving a hand at the other officer.

“Saburo here will be commanding what will be your third battalion. It is composed of mostly Natori people and has the usual mix of a few trained military cyborgs and a lot of semi-trained former civilians. Plus, we are adding six armored gun carriers to your armored company, which will give it some bite back.”

Toshiro nodded. The armored company was down to four tanks and six of the gun carriers, although two more tanks were being repaired at present, mostly by cannibalizing a tank that had been hit badly and deemed not worth repairing.

“Your mechanized company is going to be split in two to form a mechanized company and a motorized company. You’ll be getting eight armored tracked troop carriers supplied by Natori, complete with troops, and we are ramping up the conversion of local vehicles to build a lot more of those armored utility vehicles. Eventually, we hope to build enough to build your motorized company up to full strength.”

“That’s the good news. The bad news is that the trickle of reinforcements you’ve been getting for your infantry battalions is going to dry up, at least in the short term. The locals have fielded some new units on the northern front, and we’ve taken some losses. So the north is getting all the reinforcements in the short term, Then the northwest and you last, I’m afraid.” Toshiro nodded in acceptance. The recent assault on the town that was the key to the left end of the northern front had been stopped with heavy losses, which explained why most of the Natori troops would be sent north. What choice did he have, anyway? So now Natori was lost to rebellion like Tomkya was, or at least the most heavily populated part of Tomkya. The Enemy was bringing the Alliance to its knees, and no one seemed to be able to stop them.