Better late than never – sorry

“The powers that be were impressed with your performance, Andrew. A promotion and a medal are coming, but more importantly, you will be transferred to the Nuzeeland troops they’re hoping will get to Apollo Bay in time to hold it. The high command was not sure exactly where the Japs have reached and how soon they’ll get to Apollo Bay, so you are instructed to take the road through Rokewood to Colac. From there, you can take the road through Gellibrand to Lavers Hill, and from there, you can either head towards Apollo Bay or back towards Port Campbell, which is where the Nuzeelanders will land if Apollo Bay is out of the question.

The Captain had a map which he studied and nodded in agreement with her suggestion.

“Looks like a plan. Do you expect the troops at Apollo Bay to hold?”

“Just a company with no mentalist support? Not a chance. The only way the Kiwis will be able to land there is if the Japs decide to stop and have a rest instead of continuing their advance. It’s only like an hour and a half’s drive normally, probably twice that for armored vehicles, and I expect they’ll be in a position to attack tomorrow. Here are your orders.” She pulled some paper out of her jacket and handed them over. “They give you the leeway to cut across country to Port Campbell if Apollo Bay falls quickly. Right. There is a driver and a car outside. Get going.”

“Sir.” He saluted, which she returned.

“Look after yourself, Andrew,” She said as he reached the door.

He smiled but didn’t turn back. The car was easy to find, and after a brief stop at his billet to grab his gear, they were off at a hundred k’s an hour down the through road to Rokewood and then Colac. They got held up at various checkpoints, and at one point outside Colac, they had to stop and wait for a long convoy of trucks that had been impressed into the army to pass by before they could proceed.

Andrew thought the trucks couldn’t have traveled much more slowly and still kept moving, and it took forever for the convoy to finally go past. Most were medium-sized box trucks with no idea what was inside them, but there were several impressively marked vehicles that appeared to be carrying ammunition and others that appeared to be carrying food, plus several petrol tankers. So far, the shipment of oil from the oil refinery built on the southeast coast of Victoria nearest the Bass Strait oilfields hadn’t been interrupted, not that the country didn’t have a fair amount of fuel in reserve. He realized that the tankers, at least, must have gone up and around the whole northern front to get here from the refinery.

They were about three kilometers south of Colac when they got word over the radio that Apollo Bay had been taken, and the Japs were pushing ahead along the coast road so it would not be safe for them to take the road through Ferguson to Lavers Hill, but instead cut across to the Carlisle Road then work their way southwest from Chapple Vale and reached the coast road before the Twelve Apostles. Rather than stop to look at the maps, Andrew had the driver head west while he pulled up maps on his phone, and after some rather exciting moments on one dirt road or another, they made it to the Princetown Road and then the Great Ocean Road in one piece. They approached the road junction carefully, and it was with some relief that they decided they were ahead of the Japanese advance, which they saw no sign of.

Most of the defenders had already fallen back to face Tachibana’s attack, so his troops had no trouble brushing the remaining defenders aside and advancing into the town as well. It quickly devolved into a route during which probably only a third of the Ostrayan troops managed to escape along the ocean road. Yamashita had sent his troops in the four-wheel-drives to that further south on the fire trails anticipating cutting the Oastrayans off, but it took the troops longer to get back to the ocean road than they had anticipated. They arrived at the junction just as the first Ostrayan troops did and were held up short of the main road as an ever-increasing number of native soldiers joined the defense line to allow their brethren coming along behind to escape along the road.

The locals took up defensive positions on the far side of a creek at the next town, but they didn’t have time to dig in properly before the now combined Japanese troops arrived. Tachibana did the same trick by putting mentalists in the armored infantry vehicles and simply charged across the mudflats and assaulted the defender’s positions with the mentalists shielding the vehicles as they approached. The short, sharp action lasted for about an hour, leaving the few survivors to flee further west along the ocean road.

Chapter 13

Responding to the Japs

Rumors of the breakthrough down on the coast road spread rapidly through the Ostrayan army once word had reached headquarters in the usual manner that rumors spread through armies faster than the speed of light. Troops were pulled out of their positions near Winchelsea and rushed south. Two companies of infantry with artillery support were sent to Deans Marsh with instructions to push forward down that road and bottle the Japs up on the coast. More troops were sent to Forest with similar instructions for the road leading down to the coast from there. A company of infantry and some artillery that were at Warnumbool raced along the coast in a convoy of cabin cruisers and reached Apollo Bay before the Japanese did where they dug in. The hope was that they would hold until the Nuzeeland troops arrived, who were due any time soon.

Andrew had not been called upon in the two weeks since the battle of Backus Marsh, as it was now being called. Captain Greaves was back on her feet, and Paul Nguyen had turned up to reinforce their mentalist stocks. When news of the breakthrough arrived, there was considerable concern shown by all concerned. Captain Greaves pulled Andrew and Paul aside the day after the news of the breakthrough had been released officially and informed them that David Williams and Tony Contos had also been assigned to this front but had since been forwarded to the troops in the south. Contos was assigned to the force holding the Deans Marsh Road, and Williams was headed for Forest. The Captain gave a subtle signal to Andrew to stay behind when Paul left the room.

He proposed using the still-fresh Natori battalion to hook around the northern flank of the locals and either force them to retreat in a hasty and disorganized manner or get cut off and trapped in the western half of the town. It took two days for a reply to come back, which only said that they were looking at his plan. Then, two days later, a mentalist turned up whom he’d never met, so he was presumably one of the Natori people. One of the Tachibana family, Hiro, was in his fifties by the look of it, but if he’d had a good response to Rejuv, he could be a good deal older. He strode into Toshiro’s headquarters as if he owned it, which didn’t endear him to Toshiro, but he was quite respectful in his manner. After introductions, he got down to the reason for his appearance.

“I’ve got a force of ten tracked APCs with troops to add to your force. The general likes your idea and wants you to get the operation underway tomorrow.”

Toshiro was a little surprised but didn’t object to getting things underway. He introduced Tachibana to Gentaro, and the three of them sat down to work out the operational details for the following day’s attack. Because Tachibana’s troops were completely fresh, it was decided they would take the lead in the offensive, supported by all the operational armored vehicles, with Gentaro’s battalion following behind to back them up. The plan was to swing north around the large mine site that was out of use and follow the forestry trails to attack the Ostrayan positions in the flank and rear. Tachibana suggested they round up local cars to provide extra mobility for Gentaro’s troops, but Toshiro reduced that down to just four-wheel-drive vehicles and informed Gentaro would assign all the four-wheel-drive vehicles he had to Gentaro, but it wouldn’t be enough for even a quarter of his troops. Nothing else would get through the forestry trails. Tachibana shrugged and accepted their assessment of the local situation.

The attack kicked off just on first light with a team of mentalists, including Gentaro and Tachibana, ranging ahead of the lead troops knocking out the sentries and scouts. It worked so well that Toshiro didn’t think the locals realized what was happening until they were nearly surrounded. The main attack came slicing down past where the ruined communications tower was, slamming into the back of the defenders with little or no warning as far as Toshiro could tell from his position on the far side of the river.

A chaotic action ensued in the houses as the defenders tried to hold up the Japanese attack, but they hadn’t received enough reinforcements to compensate for the losses they’d taken as a result of their own attack a few days previously. Their depleted units had great trouble stopping the armored vehicles pushing into their positions, especially the ones that had mentalists aboard shielding the front of them, and gradually their whole position collapsed. Toshiro personally led an attack by his veteran first battalion across the sands at the mouth of the river where the Ostrayans had been decimated in their attack.

Rocked by the alarming news of her natural father’s death, swiftly followed by the disappearance of her half-brother, Taroniah begrudgingly returns to Marsea, the capital of Marland, at the urging of her natural father’s cousin. Here, she finds herself facing many problems; uppity nobles, rebellious Kerns, foreign invaders, and, most importantly, locating the whereabouts of her half-brother, Patros, who is now the King of Marland.

Most of these problems are not things her enormous magical power can easily rectify. Fortunately, there are some loyal people on her side who can help her resolve all these issues as she attempts to restore her brother to his throne.

“No problem. If headquarters doesn’t tell me to expand my front to the north more than it is now, I may use your troops initially to give some of my own troops a break. We’ve been practically fighting non-stop since the invasion began. Well, a lot of the men have. A few days’ break will do them good.” He gave his head a little jerk in the direction of their now-departed commander. “The enemy is building up to a counterattack on this front, or so my analysts assure me. I think it will be important that our men rest up as much as possible before the enemy launches their offensive rather than try and continue attacking ourselves just now.”

True to his word, he fed the Natori troops into the line and pulled his first battalion out for a break, and after a week, used them to replace the second battalion. Unfortunately for the second battalion, the locals decided to attack after they had only enjoyed two days’ rest. Fortunately, the local’s attack was ill-coordinated and not as strong as he had feared.

The battle raged for two days, and Toshiro even got into the action himself, personally leading a counter-attack at one point when it looked like the locals were going to break through the line. In the end, the locals lost nearly three to one in casualties and achieved nothing of significance. They managed to knock out three of his newly acquired gun carriers and a couple of the armored troop vehicles, and his brigade’s casualties were mostly among the more experienced of his troops, but it was still a resounding victory.

The key attack had come across the shallow river to the north of the town and actually managed to get across the river briefly. That was when Toshiro took the field personally. His mentalist combat skills, especially his shields, enabled them to drive back the locals across the eastern branch of the river and the western one, where they had been able to lodge a firm foothold on the far side of the river. Although his two original battalions were pretty worn out, the new one composed of Natori troops was still pretty fresh, especially as the area of the river they were defending had been subject to very little in the way of attacks by the locals.

A mad charge across the sand near the river mouth was decimated, and after that, the only action they saw was the desultory artillery barrage that went on intermittently while most of the fighting occurred further north. He pulled the second battalion back and gave them a couple of days rest before replacing the Natori battalion bringing it into reserve while he wrote up detailed plans, which he submitted to headquarters. He estimated that it would take the locals the best part of two weeks to recover from their losses in terms of organization and even longer in terms of replacements. They didn’t appear to be as short of infantry equipment as his own forces were getting, but they were short of artillery and heavy vehicles. Their losses in this battle wouldn’t help.