Most of the defenders had already fallen back to face Tachibana’s attack, so his troops had no trouble brushing the remaining defenders aside and advancing into the town as well. It quickly devolved into a route during which probably only a third of the Ostrayan troops managed to escape along the ocean road. Yamashita had sent his troops in the four-wheel-drives to that further south on the fire trails anticipating cutting the Oastrayans off, but it took the troops longer to get back to the ocean road than they had anticipated. They arrived at the junction just as the first Ostrayan troops did and were held up short of the main road as an ever-increasing number of native soldiers joined the defense line to allow their brethren coming along behind to escape along the road.

The locals took up defensive positions on the far side of a creek at the next town, but they didn’t have time to dig in properly before the now combined Japanese troops arrived. Tachibana did the same trick by putting mentalists in the armored infantry vehicles and simply charged across the mudflats and assaulted the defender’s positions with the mentalists shielding the vehicles as they approached. The short, sharp action lasted for about an hour, leaving the few survivors to flee further west along the ocean road.

Chapter 13

Responding to the Japs

Rumors of the breakthrough down on the coast road spread rapidly through the Ostrayan army once word had reached headquarters in the usual manner that rumors spread through armies faster than the speed of light. Troops were pulled out of their positions near Winchelsea and rushed south. Two companies of infantry with artillery support were sent to Deans Marsh with instructions to push forward down that road and bottle the Japs up on the coast. More troops were sent to Forest with similar instructions for the road leading down to the coast from there. A company of infantry and some artillery that were at Warnumbool raced along the coast in a convoy of cabin cruisers and reached Apollo Bay before the Japanese did where they dug in. The hope was that they would hold until the Nuzeeland troops arrived, who were due any time soon.

Andrew had not been called upon in the two weeks since the battle of Backus Marsh, as it was now being called. Captain Greaves was back on her feet, and Paul Nguyen had turned up to reinforce their mentalist stocks. When news of the breakthrough arrived, there was considerable concern shown by all concerned. Captain Greaves pulled Andrew and Paul aside the day after the news of the breakthrough had been released officially and informed them that David Williams and Tony Contos had also been assigned to this front but had since been forwarded to the troops in the south. Contos was assigned to the force holding the Deans Marsh Road, and Williams was headed for Forest. The Captain gave a subtle signal to Andrew to stay behind when Paul left the room.

He proposed using the still-fresh Natori battalion to hook around the northern flank of the locals and either force them to retreat in a hasty and disorganized manner or get cut off and trapped in the western half of the town. It took two days for a reply to come back, which only said that they were looking at his plan. Then, two days later, a mentalist turned up whom he’d never met, so he was presumably one of the Natori people. One of the Tachibana family, Hiro, was in his fifties by the look of it, but if he’d had a good response to Rejuv, he could be a good deal older. He strode into Toshiro’s headquarters as if he owned it, which didn’t endear him to Toshiro, but he was quite respectful in his manner. After introductions, he got down to the reason for his appearance.

“I’ve got a force of ten tracked APCs with troops to add to your force. The general likes your idea and wants you to get the operation underway tomorrow.”

Toshiro was a little surprised but didn’t object to getting things underway. He introduced Tachibana to Gentaro, and the three of them sat down to work out the operational details for the following day’s attack. Because Tachibana’s troops were completely fresh, it was decided they would take the lead in the offensive, supported by all the operational armored vehicles, with Gentaro’s battalion following behind to back them up. The plan was to swing north around the large mine site that was out of use and follow the forestry trails to attack the Ostrayan positions in the flank and rear. Tachibana suggested they round up local cars to provide extra mobility for Gentaro’s troops, but Toshiro reduced that down to just four-wheel-drive vehicles and informed Gentaro would assign all the four-wheel-drive vehicles he had to Gentaro, but it wouldn’t be enough for even a quarter of his troops. Nothing else would get through the forestry trails. Tachibana shrugged and accepted their assessment of the local situation.

The attack kicked off just on first light with a team of mentalists, including Gentaro and Tachibana, ranging ahead of the lead troops knocking out the sentries and scouts. It worked so well that Toshiro didn’t think the locals realized what was happening until they were nearly surrounded. The main attack came slicing down past where the ruined communications tower was, slamming into the back of the defenders with little or no warning as far as Toshiro could tell from his position on the far side of the river.

A chaotic action ensued in the houses as the defenders tried to hold up the Japanese attack, but they hadn’t received enough reinforcements to compensate for the losses they’d taken as a result of their own attack a few days previously. Their depleted units had great trouble stopping the armored vehicles pushing into their positions, especially the ones that had mentalists aboard shielding the front of them, and gradually their whole position collapsed. Toshiro personally led an attack by his veteran first battalion across the sands at the mouth of the river where the Ostrayans had been decimated in their attack.

Rocked by the alarming news of her natural father’s death, swiftly followed by the disappearance of her half-brother, Taroniah begrudgingly returns to Marsea, the capital of Marland, at the urging of her natural father’s cousin. Here, she finds herself facing many problems; uppity nobles, rebellious Kerns, foreign invaders, and, most importantly, locating the whereabouts of her half-brother, Patros, who is now the King of Marland.

Most of these problems are not things her enormous magical power can easily rectify. Fortunately, there are some loyal people on her side who can help her resolve all these issues as she attempts to restore her brother to his throne.

“No problem. If headquarters doesn’t tell me to expand my front to the north more than it is now, I may use your troops initially to give some of my own troops a break. We’ve been practically fighting non-stop since the invasion began. Well, a lot of the men have. A few days’ break will do them good.” He gave his head a little jerk in the direction of their now-departed commander. “The enemy is building up to a counterattack on this front, or so my analysts assure me. I think it will be important that our men rest up as much as possible before the enemy launches their offensive rather than try and continue attacking ourselves just now.”

True to his word, he fed the Natori troops into the line and pulled his first battalion out for a break, and after a week, used them to replace the second battalion. Unfortunately for the second battalion, the locals decided to attack after they had only enjoyed two days’ rest. Fortunately, the local’s attack was ill-coordinated and not as strong as he had feared.

The battle raged for two days, and Toshiro even got into the action himself, personally leading a counter-attack at one point when it looked like the locals were going to break through the line. In the end, the locals lost nearly three to one in casualties and achieved nothing of significance. They managed to knock out three of his newly acquired gun carriers and a couple of the armored troop vehicles, and his brigade’s casualties were mostly among the more experienced of his troops, but it was still a resounding victory.

The key attack had come across the shallow river to the north of the town and actually managed to get across the river briefly. That was when Toshiro took the field personally. His mentalist combat skills, especially his shields, enabled them to drive back the locals across the eastern branch of the river and the western one, where they had been able to lodge a firm foothold on the far side of the river. Although his two original battalions were pretty worn out, the new one composed of Natori troops was still pretty fresh, especially as the area of the river they were defending had been subject to very little in the way of attacks by the locals.

A mad charge across the sand near the river mouth was decimated, and after that, the only action they saw was the desultory artillery barrage that went on intermittently while most of the fighting occurred further north. He pulled the second battalion back and gave them a couple of days rest before replacing the Natori battalion bringing it into reserve while he wrote up detailed plans, which he submitted to headquarters. He estimated that it would take the locals the best part of two weeks to recover from their losses in terms of organization and even longer in terms of replacements. They didn’t appear to be as short of infantry equipment as his own forces were getting, but they were short of artillery and heavy vehicles. Their losses in this battle wouldn’t help.

Better late than never… sorry

And he was no longer confident of their ability to conquer this world either. He was becoming increasingly convinced that the scouts had misunderstood or misrepresented the situation. He was expecting the high command to release one of the targeted plagues that they often used to subdue planets, but there had been no mention of one so far, and it was possible that the laboratory facilities required, along with the trained staff, were in the plague area.

Their initial attacks had gone well, but their opponents had fallen back in good order, evacuating their civilians ahead of them, not in a disorganized rout. Their technology level, in some areas, was higher than the Alliance’s, plus they had mentalists of their own, even if they were weak and badly trained. As far as he could see, the whole thing was falling apart at the seams. If not for the extra reinforcements that the fleeing Natori people would now provide him, he was half expecting to have to start falling back in the face of enemy attacks very shortly.

The enemy forces facing his own troops had increased substantially in the last few weeks, and from the few prisoners they had been able to get hold of recently, apparently, the enemy government had carried out a program of raising levies that were just now finishing their training and coming to the front. One of the men he had interrogated also reported that somebody called the Indoneeshans, who had been the main threat to the people they were invading, were now talking about making an alliance with the locals to face the invaders jointly. Even if all they concluded was a peace treaty, it would free up even more troops for the locals to send south.

With no zivvy, it was going to be impossible to control the locals they had taken prisoner. They couldn’t even control their own juveniles, and there were increasing reports of youngsters fleeing to the dubious safety of the enemy. So far, the government had resisted introducing the so-called pinning method that had recently been approved due to the poor survival rate of those it was used on, but the pressure to adopt that method was growing with the ever-increasing number of prisoners. Chipping had been bad enough, and he had several relatives who had had bad grow-ins, including his cousin Himari who had gone from a bright above, average student to a drooling idiot when she received a wife chip. He briefly wondered what had happened to her in all this turmoil before turning his attention back to the matters at hand.

“I had best end my leave and return to the front to oversee the integration of these new troops into my command, sir.”

“Unfortunately, yes. Right. Gentlemen, I shall leave you to it.”

The General received and returned their salutes and departed, leaving Toshiro and Gentaro facing each other. Toshiro took in the nervous expression on the face of the newest mentalist assigned to his command and smiled.

“Where are your troops at the moment?”

“Strung out along the road leading to this town. The armored gun carriers and the mechanized vehicles were right behind us, maybe thirty or forty minutes at most. The rest are on foot, so they probably won’t be here till tomorrow.”

On further examination it has been decided there is another problem with my left eye that need’s ficiing first – so I am having surgery on that on Monday 23rd – its said to be painful and require wearing eye protection afterward for at least 2 days so there will be no Ostraya post this week –
I will still have to have the other surgeries I mentioned in about 6 weeks time with a 10 day gap which places them in early December hopefully they will both be completed before Xmas.
My writing will probably be affected between now and early January (we have 20 days holiday from the 27th dec onward every year)
Taroniah will hopefully still be out the weekend after next or thereabouts
Kyron will be delayed I expext.

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.