He set out his mental sense and discovered his commanders weren’t quite correct. A large force of enemy troops was barely a hundred meters away, moving towards his position in a skirmish formation. He set out the alarm and ordered reinforcements while his own people dug in with the few troops that were stationed on the hill. Two minutes later, a firefight erupted as the first of the enemy troops appeared through the trees. A surprisingly brief firefight ensued as the enemy fell back almost immediately. He was keeping track of the enemy with his mentalist senses, and then suddenly, he felt a powerful mentalist’s bright, hard knot of power appear right in front of his position. The man must’ve been shielding himself the whole time the enemy advanced.

Figures appeared out of the trees, and his men opened fire immediately, but it did no good because, this time, the enemy troops were shielded by the mentalist who was clearly at the center of the small group of enemy soldiers that were visible. He spread his shield out to offer his men some protection and then collected as much power as he could before slashing at the enemy mentalist, who was only about twenty meters away. He didn’t break through the enemy’s shield, but he must have surprised him with the strength of his slash because the enemy mentalist ordered his men to take cover and then pulled his shield back to around just himself and another soldier that was standing behind him. Toshiro slashed again, but this time it seemed to have even less effect than the previous time, and before he could come up with some alternative plan of action, the enemy threw a force punch at him that didn’t break through his shield but rocked him back a couple of feet from the force of it. Damn, the man was strong!

Then a fireball came his way, and he hastily raised an energy shield. He’d already had both a physical and a mental shield up and holding three shields was as much as he could manage, which meant he couldn’t attack. He briefly dropped his mental shield and threw a fireball of his own, only to see it disperse against the enemy’s energy shield, and he quickly threw the metal shield back up again as he felt the first glimmerings of a mental attack. Whatever it was didn’t get through his mental shield, and he dropped his physical shield to throw a force punch of his own. The enemy mentalist yelled out as he did so.

“Now!” There was a crack of a high-powered rifle just as his force punch hit his enemy, and the enemy mentalist staggered backward slightly, but the force punch clearly didn’t penetrate his shield. At the same time, something hit him hard, knocking him back, and he found it hard to breathe. His vision started to tunnel as he and any felt himself falling to the ground as everything went completely black.

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
–

“The Japs are on that hill.”

He no sooner spoke than a fusillade of shots rang out, causing the APC commander to drop down into his hatch until he realized none were getting through Andrew’s shield.

“That’s fucking handy!” He said as he cautiously stuck his head back up.

The turret could be controlled while he had his head out of the hatch, as Andrew discovered when it began to unleash heavy fire on the Japanese positions. Andrew was watching and saw a Japanese soldier step from behind a tree with an RPG on his shoulder. He pointed, and Reynolds fired quicker than he imagined she could. The shot missed, but it hit the tree right next to his head, causing the Japanese soldier to flinch. By the time he got his RPG up again, she took him out with a clean hit to his head. A couple more APCs rolled up on either side and joined in the demolition of the Japanese position, and Andrew could sense the diminishing number of survivors retreating back over the hill.

“You can cease fire now.” He told the commander of the vehicle. “They retreated behind the hill.”

“You can tell?”

“Yeah. I can sense them mentally. Hmmm. They’re huddling into a small area, and now they’re heading off at a far clip – Must be in a truck.”

“Righto.”

The APC lurched into motion once more, and they passed the position the Japanese had occupied, which had very nice views of the ocean off to the right.

Chapter 14

Things are crook

Toshiro Ozawa studied the map, trying to work out a way to get out of the mess they were in. The most recent northern offensive designed to break through the native lines and split their army in two had been stopped practically before it had even gotten started. Instead of breaking through the Native lines at the town of Backus Marsh, their forces had been stopped dead, and they’d had several mentalists killed in the process. What was worse, the natives had apparently fielded at least one mentalist as good or better than their own, unlike the weak ones they had faced earlier in the invasion. Apart from the mentalists that had been killed, the losses, although heavy, had not been crippling. Yes, it had been the best troops used in the attack, and losing a fair number of them was a bad blow, but the biggest problem was that the attack had failed. While his own forces had been rushing forward, the reverse up north hadn’t been quite so critical, but like the army in the north, his troops had come to a crashing halt. He had sent half his first battalion under Akiro Sato up a narrow road to a town called Forrest, whose name suited the location. His advance had stopped just short of the town where the enemy had been found entrenched in a strong defensive position and supported by a mentalist, if not as strong as Akiro, strong enough to make it difficult to assault the position successfully.

The enemy had dug in up there, giving them a good field of fire back up the main road. He couldn’t take his shielded troops off the road and keep the shield up because the trees would get in the way, so as they neared the point where the road turned sharply left around the shoulder the flat area was sitting on and launched several fireballs through the trees at the enemy positions. Only one of them made it to the enemy troops, but the effectiveness of that one fireball that did get through was enough to cause the Japanese troops to retreat back down the road yet again.

He continued his slow advance as the road twisted to the right around the shoulder the Japanese troops had been set up on and then along a straight stretch of road before it curved around to the left once more. He only moved very slowly to allow the troops in the bush on the left to keep up. He couldn’t see the troops that were on the right now because they were on the other side of the shoulder, but he could hear the occasional gunshot as they advanced. He reached out with his senses, and he could feel the Japanese retreating willy-nilly down the road well ahead of them now, just leaving the odd sniper behind as they retired.

The road continued to run below the ridgeline, so he couldn’t see what was happening on the right, but the Japanese troops continued to retire as far as he could tell. The road curved back up on top of the ridge and continued to wind its way east, curving first left and right. Behind him, he could hear the sound of the Nuzeelander’s vehicles being driven forward as they continued to walk along the road. And it was beginning to wonder why there was no serious opposition when the Captain came up to him.

“We just got a report that the Japanese are attacking up the road to Forest. Do you know where that is?”

Andrew tried to visualize the map. Oh yeah, that was the road that ran down to the coast. He nodded to the Captain.

“Right. We should get mounted up and pursue the Japs in front of us back onto their main body. I can ride in the lead vehicle and shield. Enough to survive small arms, at any rate.”

“Righto. We need to put some pressure on ASAP!”

“Okay, sir.”

They brought up one of their wheeled APCs, and he jumped on the top, sitting on the flat area in front of the small turret. Simpson took up a position in the commander’s hatch with her big sniper rifle, and with everyone settled, they started down the road at a much higher speed than they had been managing on foot. This time he kept his senses looking ahead, so he felt the Japs before they reached them. He held up a hand, and Simpson, who had a comms link with the driver, had him bring the vehicle to a stop. He climbed back behind the turret, and Reynolds joined him there, allowing the commander to stick his head out of the hatch. Andrew pointed at the hill to their front.

The Captain looked down the road for a few moments and then nodded. In seconds, he was giving orders for troops to begin dismounting. As they formed up, he began spreading them out into the bush on either side of the road, although the troops on the right stayed within the bush without moving into the open ground out that way that Andrew had only just spotted. The lead battalion’s Colonel came trotting up and spoke with the Captain, and then he looked over at Andrew with an expression that looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end, he refrained. Simpson, the sniper, stayed glued to him as the squad assigned to his advance assembled in his vicinity.

“I’m going to put up a shield that is tinted slightly red. You should be able to see it clearly enough. I will make a hole, not much bigger than the barrel of your guns, for each of you to shoot through. Please don’t stand directly behind the hole because I can assure you the cyborgs will be able to put shots through those holes quite accurately.”

This brought a few smiles from the men and women assigned to him. He threw up the shield, and a dozen soldiers fanned out on either side of him, several of them reaching out to touch the shield gingerly and then spotting the holes he had created for each soldier to shoot through. He glanced behind to make sure Simpson was behind him, and she smiled at him, which he found quite enchanting. He returned his attention to his front and began to walk forward.

The bush at the edge of the road thinned, and he could make out a cleared area beside the road to his right that could be used as a viewing spot because, beyond the cleared area, he was surprised to see the sea. There was a sudden clatter of assault rifles firing, and he could feel the impacts of shells against his shield. The troops sheltering behind his shield fired back, and he was pleased to note they took care not to line up directly on the holes he had opened in the shield as they did so. The fact that his people were shielded and the enemy troops weren’t gradually told as he continued to slowly move forward, and fairly soon, he could feel the enemy troops falling back on either side of the road.

The Nuzeeland troops in the bush on the left were pushing forward as well, while those on the right were being more circumspect given the more open ground on that side of the road. Around the curve, a track leading to a farmhouse of some description branched to the right off the main road.  It went up and over a ridge while the main road continued on and then turned to the left below the ridge. The enemy fire was starting to slacken as his troops took a toll on those of the enemy that tried to stand and fight. His steady advance continued for maybe two or three hundred meters before the road curved around a flattish area that was some way above the road level.

Someone raised the issue that I changed the way Gods are created in Taroniah at Large. This has been bothering me but I can;t find the original post so I thought I’d enlarge on the issue here.
The original version of how gods were created (I think it is only addressed in Taroniah at School but it may be mentioned in other books – memory is not what it used to be.)
Anyway – the earlier information I am fairly sure is what is thought to be the case by the people of Taroniah’s time whereas the information in At Large comes direct form a god and is therefore what really happens.

Kyron the magician should be out the 1st week of February hopefully – depending on how my 2 eye operations go

The Pricness and the Spy with be the next book after Kyron the Magician