Chapter One

The middle-aged man in the smooth suit studied Sid, Dan and Kit across his desk, deep in the bowels of the Defence Department headquarters at Duntroon, Canberra.

"I've heard about you," he said, and his smile was the kind of empty that made Sid's teeth ache. "And about your troubles, out at the Eucla camp, with Colonel Parkes."

"And?" Dan said, and he sounded as angry as Sid felt.

They'd been held captive by Colonel Parkes' small, brutal magical team, and Sid had been tortured, out in the middle of the Nullarbor. Sid had some unresolved anger about the incident, something that he'd like to have a chat about with Colonel Parkes one day, preferably while he was holding something ballistic with the safety off.

"It's not acceptable, of course, that we knew so little about what the Colonel and his little team of researchers were up to. I've read the briefing paper, and there are bigger issues here that have only been hinted at, things we had no idea about, and that Colonel Parkes never felt the need to enlighten us on, like the existence of other magical systems."

"That's because the Colonel and his hack technicians are moronic magicians," Sid said. "And I'd be careful about how you use the word 'magic', since you have no idea what you're talking about."

The man in the suit, Mr. Johnson according to the name badge on his desk, nodded. "And you can help us?" His eyes shifted to Sid, taking in the smeared dirt on Sid's T-shirt. "The three of you?"

Kit, who was Sid's younger cousin, and was just as grubby as he was, pushed her wild, dark hair out of her eyes and shifted her fox, Marlowe, on her lap, then fixed her gaze on Mr. Johnson. Kit might be nineteen years old, and covered in fox hair, but she had the kind of power and skill that made Sid look like the hopeless fool he was.

"Right," Mr. Johnson said. "I think the best thing is to get the three of you enlisted and covered by some solid secrecy provisions, before we talk any further."

"Re-enlisted," Dan said. "I was a corporal with the 6th Battalion, supporting the 7th Brigade, until I was wounded and de-mobilized."

"Welcome back, soldier," Mr. Johnson said. "How do you feel about being an officer this time around?"

"If you make me an officer, I'm not signing up again," Dan said. "Let's be quite clear about that. I'm an enlisted man, and never will be anything else."

"I'll be an officer," Sid said. "That would be cool." He turned to look at Dan. "What does an officer do?"

"You get to tell people what to do," Dan said. "You'll be good at it."

"Excellent," Sid said, grinning. "Kit, do you want to boss people around, too?"
 

Continued in First Section