Glowing Recommendations

We were dispatched to a planet where the Sa'arm had only started to shred the inhabitants, and, given the fact that this particular planet had very nice oceans, we operated from submersibles.

As a Marine, we tried to get between the original settlers and the Sa'arm but that wasn't helping much though it was handy that we'd be listened to.

One thing I never understood about the Confederacy is that the races involved weren't the kind to enjoy water. Hell, I was miffed that many of them avoided rivers, too, but, then that would tend to cut down on damage from extremes of weather.

Extreme weather, however, is something that few of the most settled Confederacy worlds have.

So we were on a world the AIs pronounced as, roughly, "Chiv'n", orbiting a G type star named Chiv'nat. The Navy submersibles were designed to be as self-maintaining as possible and to last for a very long time with minimal re-supply.

These boats didn't tie directly into the planetary transport grid because we didn't know whether the Sa'arm would, this time, figure out how to navigate it.

The good news is that we could operate for extended periods without the Sa'arm noticing us. The bad news is that we had to put up with the squids running the boats-- and they were all in bad moods given that they'd all preferred space duty.

I was told that the Navy's space fleet was already postured to maintain the blockade on this system, SOP for any discovered Sa'arm incursion. There was always that dread we shared that there must have been incursions we didn't know about... yet.

One of the nice things about the transport network nodes was their tendency to avoid attention, even when active, and it was especially easy to deliver grenades into a cluster of dickheads if you've got a gate in the "right place".

It's funny, now, how you can weaponize such an innocent piece of technology, especially when you ensure that it's a one-way gate.

And, really, it's fun to use one. Toss a grenade or, better yet, a bouncing betty through, and... the dickheads don't-- or can't, as far as we can tell-- notice it until it's gone off. If you don't send anything at them until after they've finished their reflexive "What The Fuck?" sweep, then they're open to the next weapon to be delivered.

And, as an officer, I keep hoping we'll be able to learn how to overload the Sa'arm gestalt by doing these kinds of attacks across a wide area all at one time.

But, back to submersibles...

Dickheads, we have discovered, cannot swim, much less breathe water. They don't tend to see the oceans as something they can get any use out of.

But, at the same time, we humans can get a lot of mileage out of an ocean.

First off, the submersible I was assigned to is also a factory, usually taking minerals directly out of the water using nanosieves and fabricating the food, tools, widgets and weapons necessary to keep this war going. Some things we can't make, but there are other ways to get the materials.

Second, the dickheads don't even look at water, it seems, the oceans-- and, to a lesser extent, lakes-- are a blind spot to them.

Thirdly, even though the various races within the Confederacy avoid the water, the Sa'arm don't hesitate to take up locations near water.

So we're able to provide for a lot of guerilla forces for a long time.

We have connections to ships in space-- well, within range of the transport nodes though there are booster sites in orbit to help us along-- as well as the other submersibles.

Best of all, we've several submersibles whose only job is to mine the water and the bottom to manufacture more of them. All we need is enough humans.

We stay submerged and only scouts and fighters rise to the surface. We've even used Bolos for a short time but these only really work well in the beginning to attract attention and focus the Dickhead's attention, get a huge party to cluster up for an attack... and blow themselves up to take down the "autonomic response" to threats the Sa'arm seem to have. The best response to our Bolos we've seen so far is the Sa'arm's choice to do their best to ignore our Bolos. We've pressed on them... and they can't be liking it.

Then a squid suggested something new. He'd been a nuke, back in the US Navy, and had worked in a nuclear power plant before the Confederacy power sources started to take over the electrical grid. He suggested a weapon that we could get plenty of from Earth.

Have you ever wondered where a lot of the highest/hottest radioactive waste, especially "spent" fuel rods, has gotten to?

Yup, we are getting it. We Marines are the ones, though, who have to wear the special rad suits to put the rods up as a fence line-- of just the rods-- spaced around Sa'arm hives. They don't connect these rods with the units dying of radiation sickness. I don't think they can recognize radiation sickness for what it is, either.

Oh, sure, the Sa'arm have fusion reactors, but they didn't come by it any more honestly than us humans. I've heard that the theorists think that the Sa'arm stole fusion tech from a race that visited their home world.

Since the Sa'arm never had to go through the "fission" phase of nuclear engineering, they didn't have any appreciation for some of the by-products. Radiation-- hard gammas and neutrons-- is invisible, even to them, and, since they have no experience, they collect enough REDs ("Radiation Equivalent Dickhead" instead of REMs) long before they even can notice the fence poles... and the exposed units die of radiation sickness. I have no idea what the gestalt might think about these events but I really hope it gets to feel nausea.

It's a pity we don't have enough spent fuel rods to really take the planet back, but, then, along with grenades, we also toss "harmless" (i.e. "nonexplosive") pebbles of sealed nuclear waste, that will do a job of irradiating the dickheads that walk "safe" corridors. So far they don't pay these "lumps of glass" any real attention and I'm not sure the gestalt can cope with the necessary level of attention needed to navigate this kind of a threat environment.

I suspect the Confederacy's AIs are capable of anxiety after seeing the glee we humans express when we try out new methods of killing. As a marine, there are times when I want to see how I kill them, but, I have to admit that the joker who has us delivering the rods and pebbles was making it easier for us to avoid being shot back at.

The good news? Between all of our techniques, we have been using the Sa'arm SOP of pushing against a challenge to keep them focused AWAY from the rest of the planet, so, to some degree, we've bought the locals some time to evacuate.

I've also been briefed in that we have to avoid making a challenge too high for the dickheads, too, so they won't give up and go elsewhere.

So we don't have a perfect way to rid the planet of the Sa'arm. While they ain't invincible they're also not likely to be completely killed off, either, short of wiping the planet... and we don't want that.

We do know that the Sa'arm's gestalt has some bandwidth limits, given the paucity of "brain power" in the individual units, but we do know that we occasionally do get them all confused which has paid off... here and there.

There are times when I prefer the pleasure of shooting one myself.

There are other times when we're putting up another fence or littering one of their "safe lanes" with pebbles when I savor the fact that I'm not being shot at.

And, that, my friends, is a much more comforting strategy.