Chapter 64

Dear Ensign Signifer Murphy,

Wow, I try to tease you a little and you seem to freak out. I'm your sister, I'm not allowed to just say a simply congratulations, especially when you are doing so much. Maybe you are starting to take on too much. Actually, check that, from everything you tell me you are taking on way too much. Heck on Wadi where we don't have enough troops and want to be harassing the Sa'arm all the time everyone stands down regularly. Continuous duty results in people making really stupid and often fatal mistakes.

I can understand how you'd feel like the job you worked to earn means something. Erica and I talk about that after a mission while we wait for the landing craft to return us to Trinary Island. There has been talk of promoting us and having us become trainers, but we both feel like we do so much good where we are that a promotion would end up feeling like punishment. Fortunately Commander Fabio understands that and he's gone into meetings and expressed that to command. So we are allowed to remain part of the company and doing what we love to do.

Erica and I did go over your updated technical drawings. I love that you keep trying, but we both realized that someone needs to update your files with all of the battlefield notes. The two large areas on the sides that you want as auxiliary magazines are way too vulnerable to fire. In fact, we've asked for those voids to be filled with some anti-ballistic polymer packs. The Sa'arm weapons aren't powerful, but they can penetrate, and having extra layers in those areas is something every tanker on Wadi has requested multiple times. I'm afraid if we had explosive ordinance there we'd just be turning our tanks into roman candles.

The drones do work though, its just that most of the time their range is too short to make them all that effective. The skywatchers are a threat when they are miles away and can see things. Up close they are just an inconvenient speed bump for a tank. What we really need is a better way to deal with some of the sonic and vibro weapons the Sa'arm use. They are definitely modified mining instruments, but they can also put out what is effectively a ballistic shield. It's part of why attacking a fortified Sa'arm position results in high casualties. If they can set these weapons up first, you have to close to melee range and at that range, they win, every time.

We try to hit their positions from multiple directions and only after they've started to move, to limit the availability of those bloody things. It took a long time to notice that they used them, and we still don't know what they look like exactly. The only one we are sure we saw was that huge unit that took six Sa'arm to move around. That one has a range of about one hundred yards, but can pulverize anything in that range. We've learned to scatter if we see one, but unfortunately, we learned that after a squad of infantry was wiped out by one. There were no corpses to recover, it was like the men were erased from existence and a huge pool of blood and gelatin was left behind. At least that is what we've heard. Erica and I did not see that.

Hearing about the transport arriving with damage surprises me. I'll admit I hear most of the ships that visit here have combat damage, but some of it is more than a year old. I guess Borneo District has been hard pressed and the ships are almost always on missions. Missions mean encounters with the Sa'arm. Encounters mean battles. Battles result in damage. No one talks too much about that. It's hard to think that your friends might die in a fight.

Of course, that does mean that pirates are very unlikely around here. I don't know the full roster of ships in the area, but Wadi-at sees a combat ship come and visit every couple of days. Most only stay for a few hours before leaving the system, but a couple have stopped for a day to rest crews. It was surprising, but it turns out that Char, the women in charge of the Roughnecks is very good friends with a couple of the Corvette commanders. I haven't asked for the story, but what little I have heard suggests they knew each other before they were picked up, but were separated once they left Earth.

We don't really do a lot of trading here. I guess it's the nature of our planet. We are a combat world, facing a current Sa'arm infection and expecting more. (I'll explain more later on that). Commander Fabio and Lieutenant Jase did suggest that we offer people the opportunity to swim in our lagoon if they have something to trade. And before you suggest that they were looking for more concubines to nookie, After the last two big battles and the losses to the infantry and the other two companies there were so many unowned concubines that Colonel Frost actually showed he doesn't have a frozen heart. (His chief concubine Wynter is an ice-hearted bitch though.) He asked every man in Third company to accept a new concubine into their household. Erica and I protested that we already have two extras, but he included us. We have since taken in Jennifer, a seventeen year old girl who belonged on one of the dead infantry men, and Alexis, a twenty-one year old coed who had belonged to a boy who was the loader on Commander Stuart's tank and died with him after the jungle fight I wrote about. Both are shy, pregnant and need a lot of loving support. Fortunately, Larry and Louisa have been around all the time and have learned a lot about both young ladies. I feel worst for Jennifer, the infantry squad she belonged to effectively pooled all the concubines of the members. From what Erica and I have been told, she felt betrayed, but couldn't do anything. A huge part of her wants to be relieved that the squad was killed and her owner hadn't remembered to file a will. But of course, that makes her feel guilty. Hopefully we can stabilize her and pull her out of her depression, otherwise I'm afraid she might decide to try swimming in the ocean, and you've heard about the fish we have out there.