He threw out his senses and detected all the various men with mentalist capability out to his right. There were several that had some mentalist power, although when he looked, it was clear they were cyborgs. That was apart from the strong glow just near a tree at the bottom of the embankment. He studied to position and realized a man standing next to the tree wearing a long coat projecting a large shield to protect the Japanese troops. This had to be one of the full-on mentalists, and Andrew had no idea how he would fair now that he was facing a trained mentalist.

He began collecting power, and the man at the tree immediately turned his attention in Andrew’s direction and began advancing, gathering power himself. Not sure how strong the man’s shields were, Andrew through a slice out as hard as he could. The power of the attack staggered the Japanese mentalist and must’ve surprised him as he stopped advancing and threw a fireball at Andrew, followed by a second and the third. Andrew’s shields had no trouble coping with the attacks; indeed, with the last one, he drew power from his opponent’s spell while at the same time addressing the men behind him.

“Open fire on the chap in the coat. I will try to distract him and cause him to change his shielding, or I might even break it entirely.”

He had no idea whether they’d be in a position to take aim at the man, but he immediately threw sleep and then stun, followed by a really strong fireball of his own. The enemy mentalist shifted his shields to mental and energy just as he had hoped and didn’t appear to have enough power to have a third shield running as two of the men with Andrew shot several holes in the man almost simultaneously as the fireball arrived. The mentalist collapsed, and Andrew began picking off the cyborgs with the mentalist ability with the slice spell thrown hard.

Without the mentalist to protect them, the rest of the Japanese assault force quickly began to take casualties, and over the next two hours, the Ostryayn troops drove them back over the railway embankment. From there, they kept going and drove the Japs back across the creek bed until they came under direct fire from heavy weapons on the low hill to the rear that now provided cover for the retreating Japanese troops. Having Andrew able to protect groups of soldiers near him with a shield of his own spread out in front of them enabled the Ostrayans to advance in the same way the Japs had originally, nicely turning the tables on the enemy. Lieutenant Langford was just organizing a new assault up the hill when Captain Wright turned up and told them to resume defending the railway embankment and not to press too far beyond it for the moment.

He then called Lieutenant Langford back to headquarters so that he could be debriefed about the attack, and Andrew overheard Captain Wright saying that there was a much more serious attack on their left flank beyond the town. By the end of the day, their section of the front had calmed down again, with just the occasional artillery shell landing on something the Japanese drones spotted. Andrew took himself back up to the top of the embankment where the railway crossed the road and could hear the shelling going on to their east. He also spotted a speck in the sky not too far away from their front, and he did a quick radio check with Captain Wright, resulting in them declaring it an enemy drone. It was too far away for them to fire at effectively, but Andrew let off a very narrow, highly focused lightning discharge in the general direction. He didn’t think he hit the drone, but it went down like a shot duck and stayed down as far as they could tell.

“That’ll be that hot Captain Greaves.” One of the men said. “For a Spec, she’s not bad!”

As Andrew rather agreed with that thought, there wasn’t much he could say, so he just nodded in agreement. He pointed to the right rear.

“I’m going to keep following the railway line to get a better feel for our position here. Catch you later, guys.”

“Yeah. Later.” One of the men said.

Andrew continued to follow the railway line, which curved right around the entire area, making a large horseshoe shape. The Japs apparently stayed with the creek line, leaving a very wide no man’s land between the Ostryan defense line on the railway and the Jap forward positions in the creek bed. A road came down from the town at about a forty-five-degree angle that crossed the railway line, and that bridge marked the end of his unit’s operational area. Studying the terrain as he walked along the railway, he decided any major offensive would almost certainly be directed at the curve that was essentially at the bottom of the battalion’s deployment area.

The only redeeming feature of the area was the fact that the curve of the railway line rose above the surrounding ground level on a bank with the highest point where it crossed over the main south road. Of course, in truth, it was the ground dropping down rather than the railway rising up, but even so, the bank the railway was on would provide a good cover against anyone trying to attack out of the streambed.

Chapter 10

Combat

Over the next two days, Andrew settled in as the time passed without any excitement occurring, apart from the fact that it rained heavily on the first day. Just before dawn on the third day, Andrew was awakened by the crump of mortars and the boom of artillery shells landing close by. His tent wasn’t far from the headquarters building, although it was covered with a camouflaged netting, along with three other tents in the immediate vicinity. He threw his uniform on a raced over towards the vehicle park, where he jumped in the first vehicle heading south. The ute already had four other soldiers in the rear, but they squeezed over the let him sit on the tailgate. The driver floored it, throwing up dust everywhere as they headed for the front.

They didn’t have to go far to find the war. There were Japanese infantry and cyborgs all over the railway bank where the road passed underneath it, and the driver of the ute had no option but to pull over to the side of the road behind a line of trees and scrub, bouncing over the property’s barbed wire fence as shots came their way. Andrew had thrown up a shield so no one was hit, and as soon as the vehicle stopped, they all piled out and took cover in the trees and bush, returning fire against the Japanese troops.

It was a basically untenable position, particularly as Japanese troops began pouring off the railway embankment to their right, flanking their position. More troops were coming down the road behind them but were stopping further back under enemy fire. Then he realized that the Japanese troops out in the open to their right were not taking any casualties despite the fire being directed in at them from both Andrew’s own group of men and from the increasing numbers of troops that had stopped further back up the road and were deploying into the paddock to the right of the road facing the Japanese.

The Japanese positions weren’t terribly obvious until he brought up his distant viewing spell, and the bushes leaped toward him visually. Ah, there you are. He thought to himself with a smile. He could see several of the Japanese troops in a trench they had dug on the far side of the creek. The trench didn’t look that long and only appeared to hold five or six men. He turned his view slightly to his left and could see that there was another trench maybe twenty meters further along the creek. Presumably, the trenches were only dug in areas are soft ground. He briefly considered trying out some of the longer-range spells on them but then decided that keeping his presence on this front a secret was probably a better idea.

He dropped back down to the other men and grinned at them.

“No shots. My lucky day, I guess.” The other men just shook their heads at him, so he grinned and pointed further along the railway line, where it curved around towards the road. “I’ll just do a recce over there and see what’s happening.”

The railway actually passed over the road on a wooden trestle bridge, and the creek curved up towards the railway at that point. He eased himself up the side of the bank and carefully looked over the top. The Japanese weren’t actually positioned on the opposite side of the creek bank here but further back along the ridge, where a line of interlocking dugouts covered the area. You couldn’t really call them trenches so much as hollows. It looked to Andrew as if they shoveled out a bit of dirt which they piled up at the front of the hole they were digging, and that would do for a defensive position. Given that they were on the high ground, relatively speaking, it was probably good enough.

He looked around and saw a group of soldiers dug in on the other bank at the bridge’s western end and gave them a wave. They just shook their heads at him. He shrugged, clambered back down the slope, and then ran across the road to their side. A couple of bullets whizzed past him, fired from somewhere, and then he was across the behind the bank on the south side of the bridge.

“Ya mad!” One of the men yelled at him as he climbed up the bank to their position.

“Na. I was prepared.” He said and tapped the patch as he turned his shoulder so they could see it clearly.

“Well, I’ll be blowed; we got our own medallist!” The man was Corporal’s stripes on his sleeves said.

“Yep. I’m not going to make any rash promises, but hopefully, it will come as a bit of a surprise to those fellas when they attack.”

“You know when they’re going to attack?” The corporal asked.

Andrew shook his head. “The Captain thinks it will be real soon.”

“He’s been say’n that for a month, mate.” Jason shrugged. “I just got here, so I’ve got no idea. But my Captain seemed to think having me over here was a good idea.”

As promised

Just so everybody is up to date
Next book to be released is

The Taxon War
New Federation book 1

this is the first of a new Space Opera series – the second book of which series will see the re-appearance of a well-know character from elsewhere.

The Taxon War is with the editor now (only just so it won;t be out until next month at the earliest)

After that will be Taroniah in Control followed by Kyron The Magician
Beyond Kyron 4 I am not sure
either The Princess and the Spy or the second New Federation book….
Ostraya is nearly finished – it will then have to go to Pam Uphoff for her consideration – she may want significant changes if it doesn’t fit in with her other books/plans . After that it will need to go tot he editor so it might be out this year or perhaps not until next year – art this stage it will get published separately to the normal production schedule.

Maps

Tomorrow I will post all the Ithria maps I have lying around so they don;t submerge this update.

Bear in mind that the map gets changed/updated as things happen.

What am I reading?
One of my favorite authors, Nathan Lowell added 2 books to his Ishamael Wang books – third later this month or next. His books are slow and satisfying to read – start with Quarter Share
Pam Uphoff’s latest book – Aslanov – a couple of weeks ago – currently re-reading the entire Wine of the Gods series.
The latest in Chris Nuttall’s Schooled in Magic series – The Demon’s Design – great series

Several other unmemorable books – sigh
One defect of becoming an author is I’ve become much pickier with what I read.

sorry I’m late people

He went over and looked and then backed out. “Seems like it has everything. If you need something, see Sergeant Krasny over at HQ. Try not to move around too much in the daytime, as they have drones up now and then and occasionally drop artillery on us. So far, they haven’t directly targeted the HQ, as they generally concentrate more on the front lines.”

“Thanks, sir. And where are the front lines?”

The Lieutenant motioned him to follow out into the field. He pointed at the raised line at the far end of the paddock.

“At the moment, the railway embankment is our front line, with the far side of the creek beyond there being their front line.”

“Is it all right if I go down and have a look?”

The Lieutenant studied him for a moment and then shrugged.

“It’s your funeral.”

“Sir. I’ll just check out the tent and see what’s what.”

Andrew saluted, and the Lieutenant returned the salute and walked away. The tent was well-ordered, and he saw four meal packs with relief. Nothing had been said about meals up to this point. As an added bonus, the tent came with a gun and five clips of ammo, which tended to indicate the previous fellow had been wounded when off duty. He grabbed the gun, checked it out, attached a couple of magazines to his webbing, and then headed toward the railway embankment. He sent his senses out ahead and picked up the troops dug in along the line of the railway.

About two-thirds of the way across the paddock, he realized how stupid he was simply walking across the open ground, but he couldn’t detect anything threatening him, so he kept walking and soon reached the scrub that grew on the beside of the embankment. He climbed up the bank and nodded to the three men in the small trench near the top who had been watching him.

“Pretty ballsy walking across the field like that.” One of them commented.

Andrew dropped down into the trench and shrugged. “Quickest way to get here. So, where are the Japs?”

One of the men pointed at the line of scrub about four hundred meters away.

“They’re dug in on the far side of the creek. We don’t catch sight of them very often. They don’t seem to have many snipers, but every so often, one of their snipers will turn up and take potshots at anyone who sticks his head up over the berm.”

“There’s never any warning. Just bang, and someone gets a hole in his head. Damn annoying, mate!”

“I can imagine.” Andrew concurred.

He moved up to the top of the rise.

“Hey, mate. Don’t go stickin’ ya head up. Ya never know when one of their snipers is about.”

“I’ll be right, mate.” He answered, pointing to the red circle with a red diagonal cross-bar patch on his shoulder.

He put up both a physical and energy shield in case a powered cyborg took a shot at him. During their basic training, the instructors warned them that the cyborgs would charge up their lasers in the rear areas and then save the charge until needed. The Cyborg lasers degraded rapidly in the atmosphere, but they were still deadly out to several hundred meters, they had been informed. Satisfied with his defensive measures stuck his head up over the rise so he could see the creek and the scrub that ran along it.

Andrew thought the Captain was going to dismiss him, but after contemplating Andrew for a few moments, he instead turned to the wall to his right and pointed at the map that was displayed there. He pointed to the wiggly line of a creek.

“We’re deployed along the northern side of this creek with a secondary line of defense set up this side of the railway line in case they push us back. They took the airfield last week though we didn’t try and defend it very strongly as it was nothing that was easily defendable.”

He glanced at Andrew to make sure he was paying attention, then pointed at a spot on the map.

“Down here, where the road crosses the creek and passes under the railway, is where they’re going to attack. They’ve been slowly building up their forces, trying to hide them from our drones, but my estimate is that there’ve got close to a thousand troops in this area here.”

With this, he waved his finger around the area directly to the south of where they were, covering an area extended east to west of their position.

“They’ve been camouflaging their troops in all these small patches of trees in the hope of hiding their numbers, but when you look at the aerial photos, it’s pretty clear that there are a lot more troops in the area than what HQ seems to think.” He pointed at a patch of greenery southwest of the road that ran largely east-west across most of the map before turning northwest near the edge. “We’re pretty sure the headquarters is in that building there. We’ve tried bombing it a couple of times, but all we’ve done is lose several drones and one aircraft. They definitely put those mental shield things up when we tried to bomb, so we’re pretty sure that’s where their mentalists are hanging out.”

“If that’s where their mentalists are, sir, then we’ll need to track the vehicles when they leave, so I can get myself in a position to face them down across the battlefield.”

“You honestly think you’re powerful enough to face one of their mentalists in the field?”

“Only one way to find out, sir. And as they won’t expect us to have a mentalist or at least a powerful one, at any rate, they’re more likely to put a second rater on this flank where they don’t expect they’ll need one, if you see what I mean, sir.”

The Captain studied for a short while without commenting. Finally, he nodded.

“Can’t fault your willingness to fight, I guess. Well, you’ll get your chance soon enough. My people think they’re going to attack sometime in the next week.” He turned to a Lieutenant whom Andrew hadn’t noticed, standing in the corner of the room.

“Pete, find this man a billet, please.”

“Sir.” The Lieutenant motioned to Andrew. “Come this way, please.”

He was led around the building to a small copse of trees where there were a bunch of tents. The Lieutenant pointed to a tent off to the right. “Jackson got invalided out the other day, so you can have his tent.”

The road ran south-southwest, then curved slightly more west before turning almost due south. They pulled up next to a tin shack that was obviously some farming building or at least had been. The ramshackle external appearance was completely at odds with the desk full of computers and screens inside the gloomy building. Andrew had spotted a farmhouse to their east just before they reached the shack and wondered why the company headquarters wasn’t set up there and filed that question away until he could ask somebody at some point.

Captain Wright was a slightly rotund, relatively short man balding on top, even though he was probably only thirty or so. The lieutenant saluted.

“Lieutenant Colonel Gray is still not convinced the Japs are going to attack your positions directly. The indications are that their main attack will fall to the east, probably hoping to break through and encircle the town from behind. However, he is not leaving you hanging out to dry entirely. He’s retaining the headquarters company back up the road, ready to deploy if needed in your support, and he sent you Private Harris here along as a reinforcement.”

Captain Wright did not look overly impressed with this information.

“Is this some sort of joke?”

“Harris here is one of Greaves’ people. She deliberately assigned him to this flank because, according to him, he is the next strongest mentalist after Greaves even though he’s only just arrived at the front.”

The Captain studied his new reinforcement with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Then he frowned.

“Only just arrived at the front, eh? Where were stationed before that?”

Here we go, Andrew thought to himself.

“Boot camp at Singleton.”

The Captain swung around to face the grinning Lieutenant Frost.

“Is the Colonel’s idea of a joke, Frost?”

The Lieutenant didn’t appear to be intimidated by the captain’s ire. He was slow to wipe the mirth off his face as he answered Captain Wright.

“Well, he doesn’t seem to think you’re going to be attacked, but Captain Greaves thought you needed mentalist support,” he waved at Andrew. “She’s over on the east side.”

“Jesus Christ!”

The Lieutenant drew himself up at attention and saluted. “I need to report back to headquarters, Captain. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Shit! Yeah, piss off Frost.”

The Lieutenant gave a very sloppy salute and disappeared out the door. Captain Wright stared after him for some considerable time before he finally wheeled around and studied Andrew.

“So you’re a brand-new mentalist, are you?”

“I’m a brand-new soldier, sir. Not a brand-new mentalist.”

This response caused the Captain’s eyes to narrow.

“To me, you appear to be a waste of time. However, I’m willing to listen for a few moments if you can tell me what you can do for me.”

“That depends on the tactical situation, sir. If you are convinced the Japs are about to attack your positions here, first, I would need to look at a map so I can see the tactical situation, sir. Any intel on where their mentalists are would be helpful as well, sir.”

The lieutenant marched forward, came to attention, and saluted as did Andrew, and they received a lazy return salute from the man with Lieutenant Colonal’s insignia on his collar behind the desk.

“So what’s Michael’s problem now, Geoff?” He asked the Lieutenant after a moment.

“The Captain is convinced that the japs are about to launch a major assault directly on our part of the front, sir. Apparently, half the Japanese army has deployed in front of us, sir.”

“I seriously doubt half their army has deployed in front of us.” He turned his attention to Andrew. “And who are you?”

“Private Andrew Harris, sir. Captain Greaves told me to report to you.”

The man behind the desk eyed Andrew with a speculative look on his face. “One of Greaves’ people, eh? Your uniform looks fairly spiffy; how long have you been at the front?”

“I just got here, sir. I just finished training, sir.”

“Did you now? And why did the good captain send you to me?”

“She seems to think the Japanese are about to assault our positions in this area, sir. She’s gone over to the eastern flank and sent me to you.”

“So she thinks they’re about to attack too, hmmm. And their main attack will be over to the east.” The Lieutenant Colonel muttered as if talking to himself.

“I wouldn’t count on that, sir. She sent me here because I’m the best she has.” Andrew offered and then realized he should probably have kept his mouth shut.

Gray leaned back in his chair and glared at Andrew.

“You’re straight from boot camp.” He said finally.

“Yes, sir. I’m still the best she has.”

Gray snorted but nodded as well. “I like a man who has confidence in himself. Geoff. Run him out to Michael and tell him that I am taking his warnings seriously and have sent him reinforcements.”

At this point, he waved a hand at Andrew in a languid manner. The Lieutenant laughed.

“Righto, sir. Come on, Harris. I’ll run you up to the front line.”

The Lieutenant gave a lazy salute to his superior, but Andrew didn’t feel he should follow suit and instead came to attention and gave the Lieutenant Colonel a proper salute. That worthy glanced at him, gave what could be generously described as a return salute, and turned his eyes back to the paperwork on his desk. The lieutenant was already nearly out the door, so Andrew had to hustle a little to keep up with him. They piled into the Emu and were soon haring back down the road from the direction the car had come originally. The Lieutenant made a show of concentrating on the road, so Andrew held his peace.

It could well be that the Lieutenant was one of those people who were heavily biased against the genies. Andrew had been brought up hearing about the way many people are biased against those with genetic engineering, which was one of the reasons his father was so against him using his magic, but he didn’t have a lot of first-hand experience with that sort of bias himself.

“I’m thinking that we should arrest you as a spy. You’re probably here to assassinate the Colonel.” The one on the left said.

“Yeah. No orders. Just wants to walk straight into the joint.”

Andrew crossed his arms over his chest and studied the two men. If they made the list attempt to arrest him, they would find out that he wasn’t just any old private.

“You two are getting funnier all the time. You know that, don’t you?”

The one on the left went to sling his assault rifle, but Andrew waved a finger at him.

“You don’t want to be doing that, fella.”

The soldier hesitated before Andrew was faced with trying to work out how to re-respond to them pointing their weapons at him, another vehicle pulled up. The vehicle was a militarized version of the Emu 4×4 made by Macedon Motors, which was one of the more popular off-road vehicles on the Ostrayan market. It was painted in the usual green and brown camouflage colors and had military markings on the front and back bumper bar, body reinforcement panels, and roof racks. An officer hopped out of the driver’s side and strode towards the three men who had stopped their now heated discussion to observe the arrival of the Emu.

The officer, a Lieutenant Andrew saw, nodded the two idiots, glanced at Andrew, and made to walk into the building but then stopped and turned to look at Andrew again.

“I don’t recognize you. Who are you?”

“Private Andrew Harris, sir. I was told to report to Lieutenant Colonel Gray, sir.”

“Orders?”

“Only verbal ones from Captain Greaves, sir.”

The man’s eyes open slightly. “You’re one of her people?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. Come with me, and I’ll take you to the Colonel.”

The Lieutenant strode off inside the building, and Andrew managed to get in a smug smile at the two idiots at the door before following him. The building had clearly housed an industrial operation before the invasion but was now fully given over to military activities. There was a maintenance bay along the right-hand side of the complex with several vehicles and APCs being worked on. Andrew guessed that most of the left-hand side of the building had been empty originally as well, but the small office area at the left front had been expanded backward nearly the whole length of the building.

The Lieutenant marched straight past what had to be the secretary or orderly’s desk, the occupant turning her head to watch them walk past without saying a word, merely nodding to the Lieutenant as he strode past. There was a short corridor dividing the two sections of such offices, the old ones and the new ones, by the look of it that he headed down, and at the far end, there was a door on the left at which he stopped, looking back to make sure Andrew was behind him and then knocked on the door and entered. Inside was a drab office with two metal chairs off to one side and a large metal desk in the center with a dark-haired man in his forties sitting behind it. To the left, there was a large map on the wall of the immediate area that Andrew thought was showing the dispositions of the Ostrayan forces in the area with a few not-so-clear markings on the map, which from their position on the map, he felt showed the invaders positions.