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.