The following weeks were full of horror as the full extent of the Japanese invader’s lack of regard for the rules of war became evident. Hundreds of local civilians had been killed in the fighting despite the best efforts of the authorities to evacuate civilians in front of the  Japanese advance. Hundreds, possibly thousands, more who had been taken prisoner had been killed by the enemy after the fighting was over when they proved to be useless to the Japanese. No one who was crippled, paraplegic, or unable to work physically survived at all after their occupation of an area. Mass graves were found, and the laborious task of identifying the bodies began.

Captain Greaves found Andrew, and he was carted off to the Ostrayan headquarters, where senior officers congratulated him, and he was given several medals. Apparently, his report had been quite eye-opening. They were particularly interested in the fact that he could detect the beacons when they were operating. It seemed none of the other Ostrayan mentalists could detect the beacons like it appeared he could, so he was promoted to Lieutenant and put in charge of a beacon-hunting squad. He was given a Sergeant, six soldiers armed with a variety of weapons, and at his special request, Jessica Simpson was transferred in from the Nuzeeland corps.

He quickly discovered that the Sergeant and the six troopers were some sort of special forces, in the traditional sense of the word, if not undercover SAS, and weren’t overly impressed with being assigned to a rather uninspiring newly promoted Lieutenant. Simpson impressed them with her shooting, and they both impressed them once he started teaching her how to do magic, which they now had time to begin. He developed a routine, which the Sergeant in the special forces chaps kept him to religiously of checking for a beacon every hour on the hour regardless of what they were doing.

Epilogue

Andrew felt something mentally and closed his eyes, where he could see the silver thread reaching toward him. It wasn’t all jagged like the Japanese gate threads but rather smooth like a hose. It connected with the world somewhere in the north and well away from where he was, but even as he watched mentally, it wiggled, broke free, and moved. He could see it moving around the world in some definition of around and world, and then it reattached somewhere in the ruined industrial area in North Gilong.

He decided that it was definitely not one of the Triple Alliance powered gates, at least not one of those he was familiar with, but he was almost certain it was a gate of some description. The Japs, or someone else from the Triple Alliance,  had twice tried to reconnect with bright, jagged, writhing electrical snakes but hadn’t found any beacons to attach to. He had watched mentally as they writhed around briefly each time and then snapped out of existence.

“Heads up. A portal has attached somewhere in that ruined industrial area in North Gilong.  Load up! It doesn’t feel like a Jap one, but I could be wrong, so we need to get there fast and shut it down before they get another army through!” He yelled at his people.