Clearly, the vehicle had the mentalist aboard, and he had to be very strong to have absorbed the explosion. Toshiro wasn’t sure he’d be able to absorb the blast of an artillery shell like that on his shield and simply keep on driving! The artillery fire at least caused the column to stop and reverse around the point out of view. Undoubtedly, the enemy would deploy their own artillery or send infantry up and over the hills. He jumped back into his ATV and proceeded into the town, where he quickly set about organizing reinforcements to dig in along the ridgeline that ran north-south, protecting the town from the west. Meanwhile, he sent Gentaro with the third battalion up the road towards Deans Marsh with instructions to find a good defensive position not too far up the road and to dig in.

His main concern was the enemy’s advance north of him. They could swing down and cut him off at Torquay if they got beyond Winchelsea. General Yamashita was organizing reserve forces to prevent the enemy from doing that, but given the enemy numbers that were being reported, Toshiro had no real confidence that the enemy advance could be stopped short of Gilong. Concerned about his rear, he had Usegi begin pulling the second battalion back toward Anglesea even though it would leave him short of troops here. The first of the second battalion’s troops had barely left the town when the enemy began their attack on the hill to the west.

The enemy had occupied the hill to the west beyond the small stream and obviously had some mortars or other artillery up there out of sight behind the crest as they were laying down sporadic fire on Akiro’s positions. Toshiro had them pull back behind the ridgeline to make it harder for the enemy to fire on them while, at the same time, he moved to the north as it was clear the enemy troops were attempting to flank their defenses by moving through the rough ground to the north. So far, he had felt their mentalist, which was odd. He had his ATV run him along the street that ran along the top of the ridge, trying to see what the enemy was up to, but the visibility wasn’t great with all the trees. He closed his eyes and tried to sense the enemy troops but couldn’t feel any that were very close. They were definitely heading in this direction, though.

He found a position near the town’s water tank and tried sensing again but still couldn’t feel anything too close. At least the radio coverage was good at the top of the hill. He decided to spend the night there with one of his people on watch all night in case anything happened. He didn’t sleep particularly well in the tent that he had thrown up himself, refusing the assistance of his men and field rations for breakfast with the ideal way to start the day, but a quick call around to all his commanders produced the result that the enemy had stayed quiet all night as well, apparently.

my eyes seem to be OK after the two operations in January.
The Princess & The Spy is in the hands of the editor. Should be out by the end of next month hopefully – early April at worst.
Just started writingTaroniah at Sea. Aiming for July release but early days so subject to change.
Am doing a a full edit of Ostraya when I feel the urge…. my editor will go through it as time permits as well and then we’ll send to Pam for her (hopefully) approval. No time frame but some time this year.
I am changing the next Kyron title from Kyron the Conquerer to Kyron the Warlord.

He instructed Saburo Gentaro, the commander of the third battalion, to get the battalion back to Lorne as quickly as possible and then push up the road to Deans Marsh, link up with the force that was already holding that position, and dig in and not allow the natives to break through and cut the rest of the brigade off. Meanwhile, Toshiro would stay at Apollo Bay and coordinate the retreat of the other two battalions. It was all turning into a disaster! Tachibana was the first to get back to the coast road, and he had him deploy his troops at the road junction until the first battalion reached them. At the same time, he ordered Akiro to begin falling back down the road from Forrest. Fortunately, the enemy dug in around that town showed no signs of following up immediately. Indeed the only people that seemed to be aggressively advancing with the ones coming from the west. They were advancing rapidly in a highly mobile column led by the damn mentalist who had killed Rokuro.

An hour later, the first of Uesugi’s troops began arriving at Apollo Bay, and rather than clog up the road to the east, he had them deploy and begin new defensive positions as more and more of them straggled into the town. He had Akiro keep his troops moving when he reached the coast road with instructions to support Gentaro as well as hold the road leading inland from Lorne until the rest of them had made it back to that town.

Once the last of Akiro’s troops were clear of Skene’s Creek, he had Tachibana start pulling his troops out to follow as the last of the first battalion’s troops had finally retreated to Apollo Bay. He held them there for an hour to let the second battalion get well up the road before joining the retreat. The first battalion’s troops were extremely twitchy. He’d never seen Japanese troops quite so nervous-looking and made sure that he showed a confident front in front of everybody.

The drive back to Lorne was marred by mechanical failures amongst the vehicles, particularly the civilian ones they had pressed into service, and he finished up having to order trucks forward from the third battalion to pick up troops that had lost all their transport as the ragged column made its way eastward. They were barely a kilometer from Lorne when the troops at the rear of the column reported enemy vehicles were in sight, pursuing them. He had his driver pull his ATV off the road and let the rest of the column pass before getting going again at the rear of the column.

He had Akiro deploy his troops on the top of the hill to the west of the town, including two of the remaining artillery pieces, and they were ready to open fire as soon as the pursuing natives came into view. Toshiro had stopped at a spot where he could still get a view of where the road came around the point to the west and waited for the first enemy vehicle to appear. The column of enemy troops came around the point in the artillery open fire almost immediately. The first shell hit on the side of the hill above the road and slightly in front of the column doing no damage other than to shout the road with debris. The second shell appeared to hit the first vehicle in the column, but even before the smoke cleared, the vehicle appeared out of the smoke and continued driving along the road. Damn!

The other half of the first battalion had diverged off the same road and headed west through a town called Beach Forrest and then had turned north, but that thrust had been stopped short of a town called Gellibrand. Hiro Tachibana, who was commanding the force, reported the natives dug in on a ridge in a strong defensive position with mentalist support yet again. They even had artillery support, and he hadn’t even contemplated an assault on their position but had simply dug in while waiting for further orders or reinforcements.

Rokuro had been surging west with his battalion, trying to catch the reported enemy troops arriving by sea before they could be fully deployed, but apparently, not only were they deployed, but they were advancing, and they had a very strong mentalist at their head because Rokuro was dead and his leading force had been shattered and was retreating on his main body at a place called Lavers Hill. His battalion was completely disorganized, strung out along the road as well as on several side roads, and he had no faith in the man’s second-in-command, Mitsuo Fuchida. Fuchida had never struck him as a particularly steady individual, and going on the feverish demands for support arriving at Toshiro’s headquarters, he was almost in a panic already.

Toshiro had stayed at the town of Apollo Bay with the third battalion, into which all the companies that had suffered heavy casualties had been transferred while the fresh companies that had been in the third battalion were transferred to the front line units in the first and second battalions. He had already dispatched Uesugi Kenshin to take over the second battalion from the whining Fuchida with instructions to hold the town of Laver’s Hill while Toshiro got the third battalion on the road to support him. Looking at the map, Toshiro was getting the distinct impression that they had reached the high tide mark of their invasion as the Natives continued to field ever-increasing numbers of troops and now mentalists of their own in significant numbers. On the other hand, his people were reaching the end of their possible reserves unless one of the other Japanese worlds came to their aid. Going on the reports about the failed attack on Home, this was unlikely, to say the least.

He sighed, then had one last look at the map before he began organizing to get the third battalion heading west. At least they had a few days’ rest to recuperate. He had barely traveled two kilometers from the town when General Yamashita called him in a panic. The Natives had launched a surprise attack to the east of the town called Colac, which was next on the list of places General Yamashita had intended to take, and had caught the Japanese forces by surprise and were already at a town called Birregura and they were threatening to drive to the coast behind Yashiro and cut him off. He ordered Toshiro to withdraw back to Lorne and drive northwards from there to disrupt the enemy advance and drive them back beyond Birregurra.

Toshiro quickly ordered his column to stop and pulled out the map, which he studied for some time before giving orders. He called the panicking Fuchida and told him to get his entire battalion on the road back to Apollo Bay and that Kenshin should be there shortly to take over command from him, which didn’t go over so well. He then called Tachibana and got him to start retreating with his troops while leaving Akiro in place for the moment until the others were past where the road his troops were deployed on joined the coast road so that the rest of the brigade could retreat safely.

So0rry about no Ostraya this week – I came to a bit where there were changes being made – finished now so I will post on Monday as normal.

Kyron is out
https://www.amazon.com/Kyron-Magician-Ithria-Book-8-ebook/dp/B0CTXV17VK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SITO8ZLDLXKX&keywords=kyron+the+magician&qid=1707163414&s=digital-text&sprefix=kyron+the+magicia%2Cdigital-text%2C400&sr=1-1

The next book is The Princess & the Spy
I’m running behind with it due to the eye operations – I concentrated on getting the edits to Kyron done
Princess is up to 85k words so only 3 weeks or so until he writing is done. I will begin editing it early to speed things up.

Taroniah at Sea is next, then the next Kyron and then Federation 2 where a well know person is found.

The eye operations worked great – $3500 each so they should have.

Peter
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