“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.