Bloody hell! He thought about his first wife and shuddered. The picture was getting messier and messier! Not that things were going well here, either, but at least they were making ground.

“Damn! What a mess.” Then another thought hit him. “Is there any sign of it here?”

“Not so far. The thinking at headquarters is that the Natori situation was the result of deliberate action by the Enemy because it was so well planned. They sought out the disaffected on the planet and built a network without anyone realizing it. With no separate native enclaves left on Natori, their guard was down with regard to the chances of internal revolt. We’re watching more closely here, if for no other reason than we are already fighting a war. It’s bad enough the natives have mentalists of their own.”

The General paused to gather his thoughts. So far, Toshiro hadn’t had to face any enemy mentalists on his front. He understood that, generally, they weren’t as powerful as the average True Man mentalist, but there were rumors of at least one or two very powerful enemy mentalists that had been encountered in the north, but they were not operating on his front line yet. Why you would hold your strongest back, Toshiro had no idea, and they were only rumors, but it was worrying. He considered asking the General but the General spoke first, waving a hand at the other officer.

“Saburo here will be commanding what will be your third battalion. It is composed of mostly Natori people and has the usual mix of a few trained military cyborgs and a lot of semi-trained former civilians. Plus, we are adding six armored gun carriers to your armored company, which will give it some bite back.”

Toshiro nodded. The armored company was down to four tanks and six of the gun carriers, although two more tanks were being repaired at present, mostly by cannibalizing a tank that had been hit badly and deemed not worth repairing.

“Your mechanized company is going to be split in two to form a mechanized company and a motorized company. You’ll be getting eight armored tracked troop carriers supplied by Natori, complete with troops, and we are ramping up the conversion of local vehicles to build a lot more of those armored utility vehicles. Eventually, we hope to build enough to build your motorized company up to full strength.”

“That’s the good news. The bad news is that the trickle of reinforcements you’ve been getting for your infantry battalions is going to dry up, at least in the short term. The locals have fielded some new units on the northern front, and we’ve taken some losses. So the north is getting all the reinforcements in the short term, Then the northwest and you last, I’m afraid.” Toshiro nodded in acceptance. The recent assault on the town that was the key to the left end of the northern front had been stopped with heavy losses, which explained why most of the Natori troops would be sent north. What choice did he have, anyway? So now Natori was lost to rebellion like Tomkya was, or at least the most heavily populated part of Tomkya. The Enemy was bringing the Alliance to its knees, and no one seemed to be able to stop them.

I have been having eye issues for some time and learned that I had cataracts. I am being operated on over two days – 30th October and 11th November so production may be somewhat limited during that time and for maybe a few days after.
I have been required to put drops in my eyes twice a day over the last three weeks whcih has also caused vision problems and slowed the writing down
Plus we are having a long weekend away next weekend (20, 21 & 22 October)
Plus I have a specialists appointment today and a doctors appointment tomorrow and a family get together Sunday and so and so forth.

I will try and get the Taxon paperback done over the weekend or early next week
Taroniah at Large is with the editor and I expect it to be out around the end of the month or more likely the first week of November
Kyron the Magician has been lagging due to the interruptions with my ability to write – I am hopeful of a late January or early February release date.
I haven’t decided which book to work on after Kyron so here is a vote:
The Princess and the Spy (Princess 5)
The Harrecan problem (New Fed 2)

Ostraya is being re-written in parts and I’m not sure when it will be finished.

Peter

“Most of the stories are true. More to the point, it’s banned because, on top of everything else, it dissolves zivvy.”

The zivvy or Zhivyye provoda, the living wire that grew out of the control chip into a person’s brain and allowed them to be controlled en-masse by a mentalist, was what had allowed the growth of the Alliance. When a new world was discovered that was deemed worthy, the True Men would invade, use biological, chemical, and even nuclear weapons to overcome the local population, and would then institute a campaign of mass chipping of the survivors, or at least the survivors in the areas the True Men wished to control. Something that would dissolve the zivvy was as much a threat as the Plague that took away a mentalist’s power.

“Shit!”

Gentaro nodded and took over from the General.

“Exactly. We got hit with the plague, which was bad enough. On Natori, the Enemy or someone spread the orgy drug via agents all around the main cities, which they managed to keep quiet. It takes three days to dissolve the zivvy, and the underground timed it perfectly. Suddenly, two-thirds of the army was their army, most of the police, and probably eighty percent of the servants all rose up and created a bloodbath throughout Europe, China, and Nippon.”

“We lost all three of our portals to the insurgents. Only North America was left relatively untouched. But we had no portal. Your people opened a portal there for your regular wheat shipment, and now we are coming here as well. Well, those who live in North America and the refugees that have managed to get there.”

“Damn! But what about Sendai? Can’t they send troops?”

Gentaro shook his head. “All their portals are down, and we have no idea what’s happening there.”

Toshiro just looked at him while he processed that. All of Sendai’s portals were still down? That had to mean that not only had the big attack on the rest of the Alliance failed, but they hadn’t been able to reinstate any of their portals! No zivvy would mean no new portal operators. Dman! It was turning into a major problem for the whole Japanese third of the Alliance! With Natori having no portals either, it meant that they were all technically out of contact and ripe for another arm of the Alliance to lay claim to them, although perhaps not, with everyone who had been chipped running amok and the supply of zivvy dried up.

“We’ve been using our portal to evacuate people from Natori. Their council has decided there is no chance of regaining the planet without outside help. Not only that but, well.” He stopped and peered at Toshiro narrowly. “This is top secret, you understand, so tell no one. The Orgy drug not only dissolves the zivvy, but if used every day for three weeks, it dissolves the chip itself!”

“Damn!” “It gets worse. A lot of the servants have power, as many of them are halfers or even more. The zivvy suppressed it, but with the zivvy gone, they can regain some of their power, and with the chip gone, a lot of them are strong enough to be a serious threat, especially the women, a lot of whom have axes to grind about how they were treated.”

“Anyway. I just wanted to thank you personally for stepping up yesterday. You did a good job, Private. Have you eaten today?” At Andrew’s shake of his head, he nodded. “Go and get something to eat and rest until we need you again.”
“Sir,” Andrew replied, saluted, and left the office, his stomach now emphasizing that the suggestion to get something to eat was a good idea.

Chapter 11

Another twist

Toshiro was enjoying the third day of his four days of leave in a house on the outskirts of a small coastal town. It was his first leave since the invasion started. The house was built on a rise overlooking the ocean and beach with a patio or balcony out the front. He had a comfortable armchair he was stretched out in with a smaller chair in front of him for his feet to rest on. This was the third day of his leave, and so far, his second in command had not called him from brigade headquarters to report any disasters. The brigade was slowly advancing along a broad front, attempting to take the coastal town of Angalsee and the regional town of Winchalsee. His forces were spread more thinly than he would wish, and he had given his second-in-command some very careful instructions about not letting his forces get stretched too thin.

Suddenly he heard a voice yelling his name. Damn! He hunkered down. Maybe they would go away.

“Lord Ozawa!” called the voice once more. Damn!

“On the back porch.” He yelled in reply.

The sound of clumping feet came, and then the back door opened, revealing his commander Lord Yamashita, now designated the General commanding the southern front. Toshiro reluctantly got to his feet and saluted. The General was accompanied by another man whom Toshiro didn’t recognize.

“Ah, here you are,” Yamashita said, looking around. “Not a bad spot. Sorry to interrupt your leave.”

“Is anyone truly on leave when there is a war going on?” Toshiro replied.

Yamashita nodded with a tight smile. “Very refreshing attitude. Now, this is Lord Saburo Gentaro from Natori.”

He and Toshiro exchanged bows.

“Saburo will be commanding the new Third Battalion we are assigning to your Brigade, Toshiro.”

Natori was sending them troops? Now that was interesting if unexpected. At what price?

“I hadn’t heard that Natori was lending us troops.” He replied.

“They’re not,” Yamashita replied. “You’ve heard about the disastrous attack on Home?”

“Only that it didn’t go well.”

“It was an unmitigated disaster. There will be a full report on what happened, as far as we’ve determined what happened, distributed to senior officers shortly. Of more immediate concern, have you heard of the Orgy drug?”

Toshiro nodded. “I’ve heard of it and a lot of ridiculous claims about what it can do.”

Yamashita said nothing for a moment frowning as he clearly decided whether to tell Toshiro the truth or the government line. Toshiro had gotten quite good at reading his commander even before he had been officially made a General and given overall command of the southwestern flank of the invasion. Yamashita sighed.

“That’s good, sir. We’ve driven them back for now, but I’m down to just the one healthy mentalist for the next week or so. Any chance of another one or two being sent this way?” Silence as he listened to the answer. “Right. And the Kiwis don’t have any?” Silence as he listened. “Well, that can’t be helped. The news about the Indos is good, though, sir.” Another short pause as the person on the other end of the line responded to that comment. “Very good, sir. We’ll try and hold.”

He got off the phone and nodded at Andrew. “You’re my main man until Greaves is out of her hospital bed. Think you can handle it?”

“I have so far, sir. They appear to have many more mentalists than we do, sir, but many of them aren’t that strong, comparatively speaking. At least not the ones I’ve run into.”

“Read your report from training school. You are the strongest of the mentalist trainees in that batch. The others have all been deployed on either the northern front or the northeastern one. This is understandable as they have been sharing one not very strong mentalist between them. The Kiwi convoy is about to leave Wellington, so they should be here in a week or two, although it hasn’t been decided where they’ll unload. Unfortunately, while they have people with the talent, none have had any training, as such talents were frowned upon in Kiwi-land.” He gave his head a little shake. “Much like they were here up until a decade ago.”

He paused for a moment, perhaps reviewing the past, but then he continued. “The good news is the Indos are sending an expeditionary force that will have half a dozen strong mentalists. Although how strong theirs are compared to the Jap ones is anybody’s guess. They might think they’re strong and then find they’re woefully underdone, like our first group.” Then he grinned. “Finally, the tide is turning. Ammunition production is up, and we’re about to introduce the Japs to thirtieth-century warfare with our new drones.”

“Is that what was filling up the helipad area at the hospital?” Andrew asked, forgetting for a moment that he was a private in the office of a Lieutenant Colonel.

“Spotted them, did you? Yes. Both we and the Japs have been using quite a few drones but mostly for surveillance and artillery spotting. All the traditional drone roles. Our strategists have found it interesting that the Japs don’t seem to regard them as weapons in their own right. We haven’t been subject to mass attacks by kamikaze drones so far. There have been some used on apparently choice targets, but generally, they haven’t attacked infrastructure or the population. When you think about it, what with them being Jeps and all, it is kind of odd.” He shook his head in puzzlement.

“Of course, our air defenses are quite good and have had a fair bit of practical experience in recent years, which they discovered very rapidly as we shot down several hundred drones in the first few days. Not that we don’t have the same problems. Their cyborg lasers are more than capable of taking down drones at a low altitude, and the chips in the cyborg’s heads mean they have no trouble competing the angles and how much to lead the target on the fly in the field without the computer set up that we have on our defense systems.”

The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake by a strange lieutenant. It took him a moment to realize that a superior officer was waking him, but then his mind stepped into gear, and he rolled off the couch, stood up in a somewhat wobbly manner, and managed to salute, after a fashion.

“You’re Harris, right?” The Lieutenant said rather than asking him.

“Sir.”

“Come with me.” The Lieutenant clearly didn’t want to waste any time, but as the officer turned to head out of the room, Andrew queried the immediacy.

“Be all right if I take a leak first, sir. I need to go pretty bad.”

“Oh, right. Of course.”

That task was quickly accomplished, and he followed the Lieutenant out of the building where there was a car waiting. It was clearly a civilian car that had been requisitioned for military use and given a quick dab of olive paint here and there over its black base color. As they came down the stairs, he could see some kind of white design painted on the roof, but because of the low angle, he couldn’t make out what it was. They turned left and drove back up Grant Street until they reached the hospital, where they pulled up at the front entrance, having gone past the helipad that was covered in men doing something. He wasn’t exactly sure what.

He was taken inside the hospital and soon discovered that some of the outer buildings had been taken over for military use. He was shown around the corner to one where he found Captain Greaves reclining in a bed with her right leg all bandaged up. He came into the room to the end of the bed and came to attention.

“How are you, Captain? What happened to your leg?”

“Harris. I hear I have you to thank for the hospital not getting overrun by the Japs yesterday.”

“I wasn’t on my own, Captain.”

The Captain nodded. “No. But without you, we wouldn’t have held once I was injured. You did a damn fine job. The officer in charge of the defense is putting you in for a metal.”

“Um, I don’t feel I am due a medal, sir.”

The Captain nodded. “Those that earn them usually feel that way. Anyway, you’re going to be tasked with the defense of this whole section of the front. At least as far as countering enemy mentalists are concerned. Do you think you can handle it?”

“All I can do is try, sir.”

She smiled from her bed. “Good man.”

“Any idea of when you’ll be getting out, sir?”

“Probably another week yet, maybe longer. The doctors aren’t sure.”

“Well, I hope you get better soon, sir.”

The Captain nodded with a smile. “I will try, I will try. Anyhow you do your best; that’s all anyone can ask.”

“Sir.”

He left the room to find the Lieutenant still waiting for him. They returned to the car and proceeded up Grant Street to the roundabout, where they turned right, took the first right, and then pulled up in front of the RACV center, which had been taken over to be used as the Battalion headquarters. He was taken to an office just inside the front doors, where he sat and waited for nearly an hour before being ushered into the presence of Lieutenant Colonel Grey. The weathered, tough-looking officer was on the phone with someone when he was shown in, and he was waved to sit in the chair at the front of the desk so the battalion commander didn’t have to interrupt his listening to whatever the other person was saying. Whoever was speaking on the other end of the phone finally stopped, and the Lieutenant Colonel spoke for the first time.

The things must not have been armed with machine guns, or at least if they were, they weren’t firing at him, but one of them had a mentalist on board because the next thing he knew, a fireball slammed into his shields. He did the arcing fireball trick to the right-hand machine, and it went up spectacularly, the explosion damaging the vehicle next door, which twisted sideways and then ran diagonally into the next house along the street from its position. A figure jumped down from began advancing up the road towards him, and a series of fireballs came glancing towards Andrew from the Japanese mentalist. They weren’t overly strong fireballs, as far as Andrew could tell, and then he prepared his own response with fireball, slice, sleep, and stun. He followed the stun with another fireball and slice combination.

Whatever he did, the mentalist was suddenly in several bloody pieces as the slice spell got through. He looked to the south but couldn’t see any more the gun carriages he knew with there, so he ran back across the main road to the service station as he was fairly certain they wouldn’t target that as all scuttlebut said that the Japs were short of fuel. He spotted one of the machines sticking its front around the football club building, but from where he was, he couldn’t lob a fireball into the top compartment. Then he saw a second one moving around the other corner of the football club and heading across the football ground. Sacrilege! He thought to himself as the tracked vehicle dug up the hallowed turf.

He raced back across the road to the cricket club practice wickets, where he could clamber up the wire fence and balance on one of the horizontal cross pieces while eyeballing the gun carriage. From his precarious perch, he could see enough of the open top lob a fireball into the opening, which turned it into a giant fireworks display. There must’ve been troops somewhere nearby because lasers suddenly flashed out in his direction, and more solid rounds bounced off the wire netting around him. He dropped back down and scooted away, angling back towards the main road to see if you get a bead on the remaining gun carriage he could hear moving. Looking down the main road, he couldn’t see anything, but he could hear it moving, and then he saw it to the left of the sport football club building retreating down the road taking the troops with it.

With the Japs apparently retreating, a couple of hundred Ostrayan troops poured across the bridge and began deploying on Andrew’s side of the river, leapfrogging down Grant Street. Other squads advanced down peel men’s Lane and Taverner Street as the Japs began a general withdrawal from the area. By this stage, Andrew was exhausted and found his way back to the pub on the corner on this side of the bridge. The place was closed, but he banged on the door loudly until finally, a portly gentleman opened the door, and he explained that he had been fighting the Japs all day and he needed a drink and somewhere to sleep. The portly gentleman looked past him and saw no one else trying to get in, so he beckoned Andrew into the building and shut the door behind him. Five minutes later, he was stretched out on a comfy lounge in the man’s office with a beer half-drunk beside him, and he decided he’d just close his eyes for a minute.

“Shit!” Andrew said in surprise.

A couple of soldiers bailed out of the building next door and raced across the road to the restaurant there, although they didn’t go inside. Instead, they went around the back to put the building between them and the enemy. Andrew couldn’t see anything from where he was, so he diagonally ran across the road to join them. Leaning out looking down ground Street he could see one of the gun carriages just turn at the roundabout where Station in Griffith met. That lined itself up on the college building to the right of where Andrew wasn’t fired, the explosion knocking down a fair chunk of one of the buildings.

Andrew still couldn’t see enough and decided he needed to get higher. He could try and get upstairs in the building he was hiding behind, but then, if the building became a target, that wouldn’t be such a good idea. He spotted the big tree in the verge area between the car park on the main road. He made a snap decision, kicked in the rear door, and started through the restaurant. Then he spotted a fridge with drinks in the main dining area and grabbed a cola. The sugary drink was just what he needed! Then he saw some sports drinks in the last section and grabbed two of them. One he chugged even as he moved to the front of the restaurant while he shoved the other into his backpack for later.

He spotted the tree just out front and then had trouble opening the front door before nearly ripping it off its hinges. He raced out to the tree, trying to keep low, and took up a position behind the trunk while he studied the trunk. There were a couple of convenient branches that allowed him to haul himself a fair way up, and then the was a junction area where several branches spread out that he managed to climb up to and where it was possible to stand.

From here, he could just make out the closest of the silvery, reflective gun carriages much more clearly, and he could also see that it was apparently open-topped. How convenient! He smiled as a thought occurred to him. He prepared a strong fireball as he could manage and then looped the spell into the open top of the gun carriage. A flash of flame shot up from inside the vehicle, and then it exploded as the ammunition cooked off. He could see a second vehicle still driving up Station Street, but it was just too far away for him to reach with a fireball.

The house on the corner that had blown up was now just a smoldering ruin, so he hopped out of his tree and raced over the main road, where he took up a position behind a tree with a lot of branches. He was able to work his way up into it to some extent, although not as far as he had on the previous tree. Because the house had been largely demolished, he could see down Taverner Street, where two of the gun carriages were moving forward in tandem. The tree had too many branches for him to throw the spell properly, so he hopped down and ran across the road to an electrical box or something. The gun carriages must’ve seen him as one of them fired in his direction. He heard the shell whistle past his head before it smashed into the house behind him, where it exploded, wrecking the house pretty much totally.

800 years ago, a large science vessel accidentally created a wormhole into a different universe. The survivors traveled to the Earth in this strange universe and discovered it was still hot, humid, and ruled by dinosaurs, as the asteroid that impacted their universe had apparently missed in this one. Unable to find any way home, they developed a planet in the system they had arrived in, where they built a new civilization derived from their old one and called it the New Federation. Over the centuries, they had caught intimations of other civilizations but chose to keep hiding until they were strong enough to stand alone. And then the Troodons came…. and the Troodons weren’t friendly.

Follow the New Federation as they struggle to survive in a galaxy full of aggressive aliens.

“Who’s in charge here?”

The crowd parted, and a Captain, whom Andrew hadn’t even noticed until then, stepped forward.

“Captain Wilson, sir.” The man said, saluting the General.

“Ah, Paul, there you are. We’re one mentalist down for the moment, so I want you to get your men dug in along the river line but deployed along the edge of the built-up area so they have to cross the open ground to get to us if they come across the river. I need your mentalist.”

“Okay, general.” He looked around and spotted Andrew, whom he gave a jerk of his head. “Here he is, sir.” He jerked his head, causing Andrew to step forward. “He did a damn fine job, sir.”

“Glad to hear it.” The general said, frowning at Andrew. “What’s your name, soldier?”

Andrew came to attention and saluted. “Andrew Harris, sir.”

“I don’t think much of you people, Harris, but you’re all we’ve got to stop these bastards. Climb in. You’re needed down in the center of the army.”

Andrew piled in the back of the 4×4 while the general took the front seat. As soon as they were both the board, the driver took off racing back along Gisborne Street and then down towards the main part of town. They turned left onto Main Street before pulling up outside the shopping center, where an obvious command post was positioned in the car park. Several officers came racing over as the General got out of the ute.

“How far have they advanced?” He demanded.

“They’re just about at the tennis courts, sir.”

“Right. Harris, wasn’t it?” But before Andrew could answer, the general continued. “There’ve got a mentalist and some tank things. They’re not real tanks, sort of tracked gun carriers, or something. Get down there and see what you can do about stopping them. Take the ute.”

Andrew mentally shrugged and saluted. He really needed a rest before engaging another mentalist, but from the look on the General’s face, he didn’t think the General would welcome him asking for a rest first. He hopped into the front seat of the ute this time, and the driver gave him a nod and then concentrated on a quick U-turn before racing back to the corner and then heading south to where the fighting was taking place. Ahead of them, Andrew could see explosions taking place, and plenty of smoke rose from burning buildings. They crossed the river, and the driver screeched to a halt as a couple of men jumped out in front of them, flagging them down.

“You’ll have to back it up.” One of the men said loudly. “The Japs are advancing up Taverner Street and Station Street. They’ve got these tracked gun things.”

“Righto, I’ll hop out here,” he said to the driver. “You can head back to the General.” The driver obviously thought this was a good idea because he wasted no time in chucking a U-turn and heading up the road at a great rate to get out of the danger zone as quickly as possible. Andrew ran over to the building on the left-hand side of the road that the two soldiers had appeared out of and joined them in taking cover behind a hedge as the house on the corner of the next block blew up.

NOTE:
for those of you reading along – first the good news. I finished the story and submitted it to Pam. She is happy for it ot go ahead.
Bad news: she wants me to change a few things… at least 2 and probably 3 chapters will be heavily revised and 1 or more chapters possibly added. I won’t know until I sit down and do it. So the published book will have some differences to what you have read here.