Sorry guys – better late than never


“You Harris?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell your driver to follow us. We’ve got a problem we’re hoping you can deal with.” The officer commanded.

“Righto, sir.”

Simpson communicated with the crew, and when the other APC drew ahead and turned left, they followed. The officer’s APC turned up the next street to the left, which ran at a bit of an angle, and then they crossed the main road and followed the APC up a narrow one-way alley the wrong way before reaching another main road, where they turned right. They took the next left, and then they reached a narrow lane opposite the large ornate building with classical columns, where they turned left again. This laneway looked to be a service way for the businesses that backed onto it, possibly.

Chapter 17

Failure

Toshiro Osawa had woken up in what he decided was the back of a native truck or utility vehicle. He was one of at least a dozen other men piled in the back tray compartment who showed signs of having been wounded. A couple of civilian medics were leaning against the back of the cab, watching the scenery go by as they raced up the fairly straight road.

“Where am I, and what’s going on?” He demanded, sitting up.

This proved not to be a good idea as his head started to throb and he saw stars, but he held himself together for a few moments, closing his eyes, and at least the stars went away.

“We’re on the road from Torquay to Gilong, sir.” One of the medics replied, studying him. Given the speed at which the vehicle was traveling, it was probably too much to expect for the man to come over and give him a once-over. “When it was discovered you were still alive, sir, we were ordered to get you back to headquarters as quickly as possible.”

In his groggy mental state, that statement made no sense. He needed to be at the front, shoring up the defenses before they crumbled completely.

“Why?” he demanded.

“I don’t know, sir. We’ve heard all sorts of rumors. What is clear is that the northern front is collapsing.”

“What? Even worse than down south where I was in command?”

“By all accounts, much worse, sir. It’s only hearsay, of course, and hopefully, they’ll be able to tell you more when we get to the headquarters building.”

Toshiro was finding it hard to keep his eyes open, so he nodded and settled back down against one of the other wounded soldiers, who seemed to be totally unconscious. When he awoke next, they were pulling up outside what you presumed was the headquarters building. He hadn’t been in Gilong since the start of the invasion, so although he had talked to people on the radio who were at headquarters, he didn’t actually know where it was.

Half a dozen armored cyborgs were standing around outside the main entrance, and a civilian with a medical armband was obviously waiting for him because he rushed over once the truck pulled over and the two medics on board started to help Toshiro out. Once that task was accomplished, the truck took off, leaving him to be led inside the building by the medical person.

When the man paused for a moment, possibly to try a different form of attack, Andrew lashed out with a lightning bolt and then a combination of both stun and sleep. At the same time, he used his left hand a squeeze Simpson’s thigh as she leveled her gun over his shoulder. Boom. The man dropped like a sack of potatoes, and when they reached him, they could see a nice hole in the middle of his forehead.

“Night shot, Simpson.”

She smiled brightly at him. “We make a good team, don’t we? Why don’t you call me Jess, Andrew.”

He smiled back, momentarily forgetting his surroundings. A fusillade of shots that pounded into his shield recalled him to the situation, and he looked around to see where they were coming from. There appeared to be Japanese further down the road in the trees on the left. He threw a series of fireballs, using his feel of their mental position with his eyes closed. When he opened his eyes again, a whole bunch of trees were on fire down the road a bit further.

The shooting stopped, so they began advancing again.

“You’re really a one-man army, aren’t you?” She said.

“No, where a two-person army.”

She made some sort of noise that he couldn’t quite work out whether it was a word or what it was, but he could feel, magically, that she was happy as she walked along behind him. They came under fire again almost immediately from what looked like the stands of a football stadium. Simpson fired on a fellow who then tumbled out of the stands into the road in a classic move dive. There was at least one more, so he felt for him magically and then spotted him and did a narrow push pencil thin. The fellow collapsed, and they continued their move down the street. He heard the sound of vehicles behind him and, looking over his shoulder, could see what looked like the whole Nuzeeland army advancing down the road behind them.

They stepped over to the side of the road and let the army rumble past. The APC they’d been traveling all the way on pulled up in front of them, and they hopped on with Andrew taking up his usual position sitting on the front glacis and Simpson standing in the commander’s hatch. The crew grinned at them briefly before resuming concentrating on driving their vehicle. The column continued to advance, units splitting off into the side streets as they rolled through the center of Gilong. They passed an old movie theatre on their right before the road went over a crest, and from there, they could just make out the bay in the distance. The Nuzeelanders continued to drive forward in the face of very little organized opposition now. The occasional diehard would open fire on the head of the column, with such attacks met by mass return fire before the advance would continue.

With their APC well back in the column, Andrew wasn’t called upon again until they reached the t-junction, where the road ended just to the right of the old pier. As the APC Andrew was riding on approached the T-junction, they passed another APC, which had an officer standing on the top of it who, as he spotted Andrew, yelled out at them.

It worked – you can download the pdf = button at bottom of the map

This is a test

Note: at some point my edit of this story went past the point in this story where these posts were up to – please excuse any apparent discontinuities, jumps or even the same bit re-appearing 🙂

The fire didn’t last long as there were several high-pitched cracks from behind him somewhere that sounded like sniper rifles firing, and he assumed that they were taking out the Japanese firing at the civilians. The pressure on his shields continued to build as more and more of the women and children panicked and stampeded across the bridge. Every so often, another burst of fire came from the Japanese side of the river that would invariably be met by repeated shots from the snipers on this side. The response either killed the Japs firing or forced them to take cover, which helped keep the casualties down. He had no idea of how many women and children came across the bridge before the flow started to slow to a trickle, but it was thousands, possibly tens of thousands. He thought he’d heard maybe twenty grenade explosions that hadn’t been in the water, which wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Finally, The flow eased to a stop, and Andrew decided it was time to advance.

He climbed up the bank to join Simpson, who was hunkered down right at the edge of the bushes next to the sidewalk. He relaxed his mental shield, although he wasn’t as mentally exhausted as he had been before his nap.

“What say we go and find this mentalist and take him out?” He said to her with a grin.

“I can feel him,” she said, looking surprised. “He’s on the left-hand side of the road in those bushes, or at least under their cover.”

There were bodies scattered all over the bridge of women, young men, and lots of young children. Some looked to be barely old enough to be able to walk on their own. Andrew felt his gorge rise and his anger grow. He pulled buckets of power, the air frosting around him as he marched across the bridge. There were at least a couple of hundred women and children who’d been wounded, some horribly, who were still trying to make their way across the bridge, but he couldn’t stop to help them with the Jap mentalist just the other side of the bridge. He had his physical shield up as well, but he had to keep only just wide enough to cover him and Simpson due to all the bodies he was having ot make his way around. Simpson was tagging along right behind him as usual so as not to be obvious what she was capable of.

The roadway sort of dipped down a little on the far side of the bridge, and when they were about two-thirds of the way across, a man stepped out of the building on the left-hand side beyond the bushes Simpson had spoken of. He was wearing a dark, long coat with a high collar, dark pants, and a dark shirt under the coat, all embroidered elaborately, plus shiny tall boots. He was glowing with power and began throwing fireballs at Andrew immediately after he came into sight. The barrage of fireballs landed on Andrew’s shield in the air heated up, and he drew power from the heat, adding it to his store, strengthening his shields, and readying a counterstrike. The mentalist swapped to a slash, but it had little effect, so he threw a few more fireballs.

Taroniah is happy to be home in Alcitran finally, even if keeping up with demand for leaf springs and pipes keeps her busy. In the southwest, the adherents of a new faith are proving to be troublesome with their plans for expansion. Korlah sets a wedding date, but heading to the wedding means Taroniah has to leave two new and largely untried magicians in charge of her enterprises for several weeks, which is a considerable risk. A few days before the wedding, the Goddess Davina pays Taroniah a visit and tells her about a dragon entombed in a frozen lake and how Taroniah is the only one powerful enough to deal with it!

damn- missed a whole week – sorry –

Just then, Simpson turned up. “The Captain says I should come with you just in case. He said he has enough snipers.”

Andrew found himself smiling at the Nuzeeland soldier, who grinned back at him! Apparently, she had been offended by his clumsy innuendo before their nap. Not that she hadn’t come back at him with a similar comment, but he’d noticed women were touchy about that sort of thing. Not that he’d had much personal experience, but he’d seen other guys put their foot in it with that sort of joking around.

.The three of them made their way along the side of the main road, keeping low, and soon reached where the bushes started, which enabled them to move a bit easier now that they were in cover. He pushed as far forward as he could, and they finished up crouched on the side of the bank behind some lantana and other bushes with a somewhat patchy view of the bridge. The Kiwi Sergeant, Karl Williams, had a radio with him so the Captain could notify them when the Japanese finally started across the bridge. It took another hour before there was any movement. Finally, he got a message and looked at the other two.

“They’re beginning to cross the bridge. Better do your stuff, bro.”

Andrew nodded and reached out with his senses. He found he could feel the masses of glows from all the Japanese women and children moving like a tide across the bridge. Their glows were all dull, and he assumed that was because of the chips the adults had in their heads and the lack of magic amongst the youngsters. He brought up his mental shield and pushed it across the bridge as far as he could reach, which wasn’t quite to the other shore but a good deal further than he was expecting.

“Talk to them.” He said loudly.

The Kiwi Sergeant started bellowing in what Andrew guessed was Japanese, and he hoped that the Japanese could understand the Kiwi Sergeant. Simpson was a little further up the rise, closer to the road, and could see further from where she was.

“It’s working! Sort of. Some have thrown their bombs into the water and are running for this side of the bridge, while others look confused. Some are still coming with their grenades. Better shout a few more times, Sergeant.”

The Sergeant began shouting the instructions repeatedly, and then, as he could hear the first of the feet running past them on the road above their heads, he felt a pressure on his mental shield driving him back. He moved slightly so he was more directly in the sunshine and pulled power, pressing back against the Japanese mentalist.

“I’ve got mental company, but I’m too busy holding a shield to work out where he is.” He told Simpson.

There were lots of feet running past their heads now, and then there were a few shots. The Sergeant stopped yelling for a few moments and then tried yelling something else. Then he began rotating through the first lot of yelling and the second lot as the stampede across the bridge continued. He felt Simpson moving up onto the bridge itself. He looked up and saw she was standing behind some of the bushes appearing across the bridge. Suddenly, there was a burst of fire from the other side of the river, and he could hear screams and yells and assumed that the Japanese were firing on their own civilians.