Chapter 10: Dorman’s Doom

Six months ago:

Never underestimate your enemy. It’s normal human behavior to hold your hated enemy in contempt and regard them as stupid, as less than your exalted self. May I never make that error—or the opposite of regarding my enemy as God.

There I was on a planet visited by a Sa’arm scout team. My mission was partially completed when Arc Dios destroyed the small fleet of three scout ships. It was child’s play—much like three 19th Century sailing steamers running into a 21st Century cruisers in a night encounter at over-the-horizon distances. The three Sa’arm scouts were space debris without reacting to Arc Dios’ presence.

There’s always “however.” We detected a lander sitting on the surface and dispatched a reinforced squad under Major Williams, the company commander, with a platoon in reserve.

“Tomcat, dear,” Lilith was seated between two cheetah, her hands stroking their heads, and flanked by two of her Marine guards. “I want you to go down and retrieve an artifact. It’s not a human artifact. Under no circumstances can the Sa’arm take that artifact with them. You will need Fenster to help find all of the Sa’arm eggs. If not for their poisonous blood you’d be accompanied by Darkwater. Eating those eggs would kill the cobra. Fenster will sniff them out for you. You’ll be armed to destroy them. When your new weapon hits them, they’ll burst into flames from the inside.”

“I hear and obey, Goddess,” I bowed to Lilith.

“Don’t forget your Super Smatchets. Take four of them.”

“I hear and obey, Goddess.”

“You don’t know how much I love it when you say that, Tomcat.”

Just call me Tom Kiss-ass!

In a few hours I was on the surface with Fenster—a European wolf—watching as the squad got mobbed by the Sa’arm on the surface near their destroyed lander. It was over in seconds because tactical infantry formations are designed to provide all-around observation and fire and those formations coupled with adequate weapons work very well. I didn’t need to join in—the squad had it already. Score—Sa’arm 0: Marines 27. Yes, it was a small, weak gestalt. It would be crass to claim that those 27 Sa’arm units would have routed a human infantry company—the standard 5.45x39mm and 5.56mm NATO are rated as too weak to kill Sa’arm units (armor, size of grizzly bears) and that’s what most infantry companies arm up with. Oh, a few 7.62mm NATO or 7.62x54mm-R machine guns, some mortars, rockets, armor-piercing cartridge grenades, and possibly armored fighting vehicles or technicals with 12.7mm and 14.5mm heavy machine guns and bigger weapons. Note that the mortars would have reduced effectiveness against the heavy exoskeleton--

Yes, I geeked out on you.

“We still have to deal with eggs,” I announced, “but good job, Marines!”

We also had to recover an artifact—and for the moment I have to tell you readers that it’s bigger than a breadbox but smaller than a foot locker. It took Fenster only a few minutes to locate one cache of eggs.

“Security!” I barked as the squad moved into position to incinerate the eggs. “Always pull 360 security—or keep the enemy off balance so that--”

I didn’t know that they could cram so many Sa’arm in a lander! They not only erupted from the ground but a Confederacy interdiction field went up, cutting the squad off from reinforcements or support. Super Smatchets have a lot of features including force blade edges and thrusters—I could fly the four Super Smatchets using my interfaces as I zapped them with the Patent Pending Sa’arm Blaster. Fenster ran interference for me and together we overwhelmed the gestalt.

Fenster located the interdiction field generator and I shut it down. The eggs were relocated and incinerated. We recovered the artifact and dealt with the Sa’arm lander. Leave no trace.

“Action team to Goddess,” I messaged, “did we miss anything?”

“There’s one more cache below ground.”

Dammit!

“Fenster, seek,” I said. I needed to pay attention to math—powers of three! It was important that the Confederation know that one Sa’arm gestalt had interdiction fields. Perhaps it was only one gestalt—but I imagine that my personal AI was dispatching messages throughout the Confederacy about the Sa’arm having acquired new Confederacy technology.

It was good that the planetary environment was hospitable to both Sa’arm and Human—unlike some hell worlds. This meant, of course, if the Sa’arm left a clutch of eggs on the planet, eventually there would be a Sa’arm colony. Made me think—had the Sa’arm seeded other worlds?

“Focus, Tom, focus,” I told myself. Fenster found a rabbit hole—wait a minute. “Fenster, halt!”

I consoled the wolf, formed a picture of the window he crashed through so long ago in my mind.

“That hole is too small for Sa’arm and just right for Marines. It’s a trap. Never enter a funnel. Make an alternative.” I picked up a Sa’arm force blade—it was like handling a two-man chain saw. “Show me where to make the hole, Fenster.”

The Storm from the William Tell Overture ran through my head as I used the force blade to burrow down where Fenster led me. I dropped through the ceiling into a chamber--

--and the utter chaos of close combat. They were ready for me.

NOT! I dispatched the first six immediately—and the chamber grew hot as those six Sa’arm units burst into blue flames. I was fortunate that I was armored or I would have fried with them. As it was I felt the heat—fighting at close quarters precluded using my Sa’arm Blaster because of minimum range and blast radius issues. Fortunately the Sa’arm force blade was rather clumsy in close quarters compared to Super Smatchets—and they could fly.