Chapter 9

Front lines

The vehicle that drove up was indeed a car rather than a military vehicle. A car that the army had requisitioned then had some splashes of green and dark brown paint applied over the original paint, and army insignia stuck on to turn it into an army vehicle. He trotted to the car and, spotting people in the front, opened the back door. There was a private in the back seat on the far side of the vehicle who nodded and smiled.

“Eighth Battalion?”

“Yeah, mate,” Andrew answered and settled into his seat. He started putting on his seat belt, and the fellow grinned.

“Hey, Andy. This guy must’ve heard about your driving already!”

This comment produced a snort from the front passenger and an upraised middle finger from the driver.  The car took off a fair clip, and Andrew quickly decided that his fellow backseat passenger’s implied assessment of the driver’s style of controlling a vehicle wasn’t that far off. They headed southwest and then south out of the built-up area and raced south along some main road for a distance before pulling over to the left and stopping in front of an industrial building.

“HQ is in there, mate.”

“Ok. Thanks, guys.” Andrew replied and hopped out.

The car barely waited long enough for him to shut the door before it took off in a cloud of dust from the driveway. Andrew shook his head bemusedly and turned towards the entrance to the industrial area. He supposed the couple of fellows standing at the entrance could be seen to be on guard, although their slovenly stance was at odds with the crisp men on guard at every other military base he had visited since volunteering.

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

“That’ll be to the Lieutenant Colonel himself, will it private?”

Andrew couldn’t decide which way to jump at this point in the face of their rather odd manner.

“Can you direct me to his office, please?”

“Hey Frank, he said please, and everything.” The one on the left said to the one on the right.

“Straight out of boot camp, I reckon. Look at his uniform, looks like it only came out of the packing two days ago.”

“Yeah, you’re right, mate. You’re just out of boot camp, aren’t you, sport?”

For some reason, Andrew felt embarrassed about having to admit that he was straight out of boot camp.

“Yeah. I am. Captain Greaves assigned me to the eighth Battalion and told me to report to Lieutenant Colonel Gray. I have the right place, don’t I?”

The one on the left shook his head. “Privates don’t report to the CO, maggot. Which company you assigned to?”

“I’m not assigned to any company. I’m assigned to the Eighth Battalion.”

“What’ya orders say?” The one on the right asked.

“I don’t have written orders. I have a verbal instruction from Captain Greaves to report to Lieutenant Colonel Gray. Is he in here?” Andrew said, nodding towards the building that they were ostensibly guarding.

He was gradually becoming quite sick of these two galahs. Lead to smart alecs looked at each other and grinned momentarily before turning their attention back to Andrew.

“Not even I can slice that far!” She said, frowning at him. “We are going to have to sit down and go through this journal of your grandmother’s. Did you bring it with you?”

He nodded. “You mean, like, right now?”

She shook her head. “No. We don’t have the time at the moment. I want you to get down to the Eighth Battalion and get yourself integrated with them. The Japs have a lot of mentalists, but they generally only employ one really strong one and any one section of the line. Depending on how big the attack is, you might find that there are two or three weaker mentalists in support of the main one. Their job will be to provide shields for their troops, while the main one will be looking to take over our people and disrupt our formations. Your job will be to disrupt him.”

Jason nodded, trying to look calm. He wasn’t about to admit that he was as nervous as he was feeling. The captain studied him for a moment and then nodded in return.

“Leave your kit here, but take enough water with you to keep you going today. They’ll have supplies at the Battalion HQ. Report to Lieutenant Colonel Gray. His HQ is on Bellangi Road, somewhere south of the racecourse. The railway makes a big loop down there, and we are trying to defend the line of the railway. They took the airport last week, not that we’ve got many planes left and practically no helicopters anymore, so we didn’t try and defend it too heavily. The railway line is more important so do as you can.”

There was a tone of finality in this last sentence which Andrew took as being a dismissal. He collected himself together, stood at attention, and saluted, which the Captain returned, and then he left her office. Outside he stopped and checked his phone to make sure that there was a map available of the area which there was. He turned to the Corporal, who was looking at him expectantly.

“The Captain said I was to leave the kid here, grab some water, and head down to the Eighth Battalion’s HQ. So, water and transport? And should I take a tent?”

The Corporal shook his head. “Eighth Battalion will organize a billet for you. Fill your water bottle through there while I organize some transport.”

The man indicated another door that Andrew hadn’t really noticed when he’d arrived, so grabbing his army-issue water bottle, he headed through the indicated door while the Corporal got on his phone to arrange transport. Through the door, he found a small kitchen area with a sink, and he quickly filled up his water bottle and returned to the main office.

“There’ll be a car here in five minutes that will take you to Eight Battalion’s HQ.”

The Corporal informed him. Jason nodded and stepped out to wait for the car.

She reflected on the fact that practically no one had escaped once the Japanese occupied an area. Early on, there were reports of atrocities, such as the reputed killing of a large number of patients in the Gilong Hospital, which had led to the Government adopting a mandatory evacuation order for any area under threat of occupation. Several fellow officers she had spoken to told of seeing seriously wounded Ostrayan soldiers or civilians being shot out of hand but advancing Japanese troops, and they were only taking healthy people prisoner. Aerial photos showed work gangs clearing rubble off roads and such behind the lines, which seemed to be the primary use of prisoners. How the prisoners were actually treated was unknown.

“We have gotten some high-altitude drone intelligence which seems to indicate the Japs are going to attack Backus Marsh in the next day or two. I’m assigning you to the eighth battalion NOR which is tasked with defending the southwestern side of the town. You’ll be used mostly to provide mental shields to protect the troops from their mentalists. If you can coordinate physical shields with the troops, that would be beneficial as well, even if it is only a local area effect. But do concentrate on the mental shields, as disrupting our positions by taking over soldiers and opening fire on everyone in the area is the most common way they make advances. I will be teamed up with a sniper with a heavy-duty gun, and we will hunt their mentalists while providing support to the southeastern flank. Are you ready for real combat, soldier?”

“I think so, Captain. I won’t know until I’m actually faced with enemy fire and enemy mentalists, I guess, but I think I’m ready.”

“Good. Now I’ve read the report from Sanchez, but just how powerful are you in practical terms?”

Andrew scratched his head. “I have no frame of reference, I’m sorry.”

She studied him for a moment. “Hmm. Sanchez said you could slice ten meters. Is that right?”

“I can probably do a bit more than that. I tried not to show off in front of the others.”

“Oh?” She said and studied him again.

Andrew started to fidget as her steady gaze made him uncomfortable. She turned away and pointed at a tree maybe thirty meters away. Probably more like twenty-five, he decided. There was a branch jutting out from the trunk, not too far above the ground.

“Can you cut that branch off?”

Right. Andrew thought to himself. Time to stop mucking around and hiding what he can do. He’d been looking for an opportunity to impress the Captain. He looked at the tree, extended his invisible force blade, and sliced the branch off about ten centimeters out from the trunk of the tree. He glanced at the Captain, grinned, and turned back to look further beyond where the tree with the branch was. There was a small tree maybe another twenty meters further on, and he cut the trunk clean through about a meter above the ground. He heard a hiss behind him and turned to face the Captain.

“As far as we can tell, the Japanese invasion was fast running out of steam. They had a brief surge in combat units a couple of weeks ago, followed by a lot more civilian militia, and they are still getting lots of people through their gate, but they’re mostly women and children over the last couple of days. Surprisingly, the Japs still weren’t using women in combat, at least not in any large numbers. The government was still concerned about the Indos up north choosing to invade while we were occupied fighting the Japs, and we’re keeping a large part of the regular military in the north for that reason. I don’t agree with that policy, but who listens to the troops on the ground anyway.”

“Anyway, the Japanese advances have been slowed but not entirely stopped as both sides are running short of munitions. The lasers of the Japanese cyborgs and the armored vehicles give them a combat edge as they don’t require ammunition, so as long as they remain within the slowly increasing broadcast power area. Last week they deployed a new type of tank that carries a humongous powered mortar. It’s only good within their broadcast power range but packs a wallop and can fire very accurately.”

She moved over to the mat with a stick and pointed at a red irregular line inset within the Japanese occupied area.

“That’s the broadcast power limit at the moment. We think they’re building a new repeater station in this area here and another one there, but they’re being very careful so as to not let us spot them and then blow them up. Things are becoming increasingly difficult for the us as our ammunition supplies are in short supply. We are ramping up production, but the demand is still greater than the supply at the moment. The Nuzeelanders are sending us ammunition and troops, but so far, only the ammunition has arrived and that in small amounts. Attempts to take out the power relay towers were a continuous activity, but to be honest, we are struggling to achieve significant results as we’ve used up a good deal of our combat aircraft in earlier attacks, and the production rate of new aircraft has yet to gear up. We had hoped drones would work, but their damned lasers are too effective.”

“We’ve given up trying to sneak saboteurs past their mentalists at the moment, thank goodness. It very much depended on whether their mentalists in the area were wide-awake, and after the first raid, they’ve generally had at least one mentalist awake and looking all along the front. They’ve brought down two of the last trained mentalists from up north who both have very good mental shields, and they’re being assigned to two special forces units that were going to use their magician’s mental shield to hide them from the Japanese mentalists, which will hopefully allow them to sneak into their rear areas. We have so little information on what went on behind the lines apart from the occasional aerial photo that any information would be welcome.”

Someone asked for maps with Taroniah – I meant to put one in the front of the latest Taroniah book – sorry
I’ve posted these before but here some

“Such as?” The Captain still looked skeptical.”Well, in one section, she mentions using her invisibility spell to sneak into a building. Unfortunately, at no point in the journal does she explain how the invisibility spell works, which is really frustrating. Nor is that an isolated example. Do you know how to levitate?”Greaves opened her eyes and then shook her head. “No. I’ve thought about it, but I’ve never managed to come up with anything that works. I have heard of an Indo mentalist who could levitate stuff but only at second hand. He may not even be alive now as that story has been around for years.””I haven’t worked it out either, but then I’m still struggling to master the ordinary stuff and haven’t really put much thought into it.””Is your grandmother still around?””No. well, probably not.””Probably?””Well, over the years, she faked her own death on several occasions, and then she would set up a new life somewhere else. I never actually saw her body as it was a closed coffin. She was officially a hundred and five, although she only looked to be in her eighties to me just before she died. I was very young when she died, so my memory is not reliable. Having read her journal, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was masquerading as a woman in her sixties somewhere, possibly out west.””Are you being serious?”Unlike earlier, this was more of a polite inquiry. He opened the palms of his hand in a gesture of not knowing.”I actually think she’s dead this time. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have her journal. On the other hand, if in a few years’ time somebody said they’d seen in Nuzeeland I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”The Captain sat back and considered this. Then her eyes opened wide, and she stared at Andrew.”Wait. You said that officially she was a hundred and five. Yes?” Andrew nodded. “How old was she really?”Andrew took a moment to think about his answer and then decided to tell her the truth.”My grandmother was one of the original Tellies in North America. She happened to be far enough away from the main site that she wasn’t killed in the nuclear attack.””Holy Shit!” The Captain studied him for a moment. “You’re serious, aren’t you? That explains why you’re so strong.” Andrew decided not to tell her about his grandfather. Captain Greaves studied him in silence for a bit longer and then shook her head. She pulled up the latest map of the frontlines that had a computer displayed on the wall to the left.”This is the situation at the moment, as far as we can tell. Intelligence on foot is almost impossible, with their mentalists spotting anyone almost immediately. Drones keep getting eliminated as their cyborg’s lasers can knock them out at several kilometers range if they spot the drones.”Andrew moved slightly and turned his head so he could study the map better, which allowed Captain Greaves to study him in profile without him realizing. His face looked leaner and harder than it had when she had sat next to him on the train.

Sorry – went away for a week and forgot to post last week.

“So, how did you come up with the idea of grounding the shields?” She asked finally.

Andrew shrugged and trotted at the same story he told everyone else.

“The magical shields are essentially no different to the padded protection we used in football training. They couldn’t stop the big, tough tacklers any more than the ungrounded shields could stop the rifle bullets. All they did was protect you somewhat from being knocked over. I tried to think up a way of making them less likely to be knocked over and came up with the idea of digging the shields into the ground. They have a very narrow profile, like a slice spell, so they can be worked into the ground quite deeply fairly easily, even through concrete or tar, although I did suggest to the Corporal that people being trained to dig their shields in should be warned about not doing it in built-up areas.” He grinned at the captain at this point, and she found herself smiling back at him involuntarily.

“I see. Or at least, I don’t see. I’m afraid I find the link between the two rather vague. Is that really where you got the idea?” It was just a stab in the dark because the story sounded too trite even though it was probably the truth, but she saw the slight flinch and smiled. “It was a good story to tell Corporal Sanchez, but it wasn’t the truth, was it?”

She leaned forward and stared at him. Damn! Andrew thought. Should he stick to his story or tell the truth?

“What other techniques do you know?” She asked after a moment.

Andrew thought quickly. He hadn’t realized they didn’t know about grounding shields, and there were probably other techniques, as she called them, that they didn’t know, but the problem was he didn’t know what they didn’t know. He smiled as he wondered if that even made sense.

“You think it’s funny?”

“Ah, no, sir. I was just thinking about techniques and the fact that I don’t really know what the others don’t know that I do know. Does that make sense, sir?” He could feel himself blushing for sounding so stupid.

She studied him balefully as if he was trying to pull her leg. He knew he was looking nervous as the silence dragged on while she just sat and stared at him. Finally, she leaned back in her chair.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, sir. I might be able to do magic, or techniques I guess we’re calling them now, but I’m not psychic, sir. I know what I know, but I don’t know what you don’t know.”

“And how do you know so much, soldier?”

Okay, time to tell the truth. She’d get really annoyed if he kept pulling interesting techniques out of his arse. Besides, he still thought she was cute.

“I have a journal my grandmother left me, sir.”

“A journal your grandmother left you. And it contains mentalist techniques?”

“Yes, sir. Although in a lot of cases, she just mentions the spell, she calls them spells, sir, without any explanation of what she’s talking about or how to achieve the effect. I’ve managed to guess some, but many of the journal references are just too unclear to determine exactly how she was doing what she said she was doing.”

Progress is happening on Kyron the Mercenary. That will be followed by A Far Federation which is genuine Space Opera.
After that will be Taroniah at Marsea the Kyron the Magician. Beyond that is still a little murky but probably The Princess and the Spy.
Ostraya will be finished in the next few months – edited – sent to Pam Uphoff for approval and hopefully will be out before the end of the year separate to the regular publishing stream.

and….

Taroniah at Peace is live
The war might be over, but for Taroniah life goes on. Follow her through her semi-exile back to Alcitran where she needs to turn her magical abilities into enough money for her, Kauriga and Rengard to live on while continuing her magical studies. Her peaceful existence is interrupted by the Assassins Guild, reacquainting with old friends, experiencing the joys of motherhood, and trying to keep up with her booming business interests.

Backus Marsh was reached just as the sun was going down, and the supply driver very kindly dropped him at the headquarters shack in the base just outside the town proper. From there, he was directed to a house just beyond the wire-protected base area. He knocked on the door before walking in. The lounge room had been converted into an office with two desks. There was a male Corporal behind one at a female private behind the other, both looking at him.

“I’m supposed to report to Captain Greaves.”

“You’ll be our new mentalist then?”

“Yes, Andrew Harris.”

“Right. Just a moment.”

The man’s face took on a distant expression, and Andrew could feel him doing something mentally. Then the Corporal snapped back into a normal expression.

“The Captain will see you straight away. You can leave your duffel there.” The man pointed to the left of the door Andrew had come in through. “Through the door on the left.”

“Thanks, Corporal.”

As per the military etiquette he was taught in training, he knocked and then entered without waiting for permission as he was expected by the person inside. Captain Greaves was sitting behind the desk that was directly opposite the door. Dressed in the sand and brown camo and with her hair tied up, she looked completely different from the girl on the train. Andrew marched forward, came to attention, and saluted, which the Captain returned.

“Sit.” She said, waving a hand at the chair standing a little to the right of the center of the desk.

Sharon watched him sit, studying him and her expression became more puzzled by the second. She knew he had power, she’d picked that up on the train, and she knew he was apparently quite strong, but he was showing little more glow than an ordinary person. Damn, that was an impressive shield he was holding, seemingly automatically. Well, they’d been looking for another powerful magician apart from her, and it appeared they had found one. He and his squad had been sent to the front after an accelerated training program which she wasn’t entirely happy with after the disaster the first group of magic recruits had been subjected to, but she wasn’t in overall command, so she could only do the best she could.

She had read the report from Sanchez with some interest. Harris’s suggestion about grounding shields was simple but clever, and she had passed that idea on to the other mentalists in the army. Such as they were. Reading Sanchez’s report, there seemed to be little that Harris needed to learn in terms of mentalist skills, which surprised her as she thought she was quite well-trained. Her grandfather had been a very powerful magician, as they used to be called, and had taught her very well once he’d realized she’d inherited his magical ability. She was still puzzled by her father’s lack of apparent magical ability, but she put it down to one of those genetic quirks that happened every now and again. The power gene must have been recessive in her father, which seemed a bit odd but was not unheard of, apparently, according to her grandfather.

“Right. Outside Karen will have your assignments ready for you, so for now, dismissed.” He stood, came to attention, and saluted.

They all came to attention and returned the salute before turning to start filing out.

“Andrew Harris? Can you stay behind, please?” Reynolds said, scanning the faces as he did so.

Andrew nodded and eased back out of everyone else’s way. Reynolds spotted him standing back and nodded. The Captain sat down and waited for the others to exit the room, which took a while as they each had to tell the Corporal out front their name and be given their assignments. Ciccone was the last to exit, and he looked back and gave Andrew a wink before exiting the room. Andrew nodded, heaved himself off the wall, and came over to stand in front of the Captain.

“Sir?”

“I have a personal request to assign you to the strongest mentalist we have, plus a report from Corporal Sanchez saying that you are the most capable mentalist he has ever seen. Yet I can barely feel you, which means you must have very good shields.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain studied him for a moment and then gave his head a small shake.

“So, do you know Captain Greaves?”

“We sat next to each other on the train I took from the Gold Coast to training camp. We didn’t talk for most of the trip, sir.”

“I see. Well, she’s requested you to be her understudy. She is currently at Backus Marsh. See the Corporal out the front for your new orders. You should be able to pick up the transport heading that direction fairly easily. Dismissed.”

Andrew snapped to attention and saluted, to which the Captain replied, and then he stepped out of the room to find the Corporal holding up an envelope that no doubt contained his orders.

“Any idea of how I should get to Backus Marsh?” he asked with a smile.

“Head over to the supply section. They’re in the southwest corner of the camp. They’ll have someone heading out that way pretty much every hour or two.”

“Thanks.” He said, pocketed his orders, grabbed his duffel, and headed in what he hoped was the direction of the supply depot. There was a lieutenant on duty there who seemed to be in charge, and after he had shown the lieutenant his orders to proceed to Backus Marsh, the lieutenant checked his delivery list but informed Andrew that there was a truck heading that way in an hour or so.

Andrew found out where the mess was from the Lieutenant and headed in that direction to get something to eat. They were offering some sort of stew that proved to be quite tasty, and he polished off a bottle of water as well before heading back to the supply section to wait for his ride. No one else was traveling, so I got to sit in the cab with the driver as the truck made its way south. There wasn’t much other traffic on the road, but at one stage, they got stuck behind a small convoy consisting of a command vehicle, three trucks, and two transporters with tanks aboard. It was nearly twenty minutes before they finally got to a spot where they could get past the convoy.