A Soldier's Education (short story)

A Soldier's Education was the seventh short story published in Twelve Angels Weeping.

Plot
Strax, in the first seven minutes of his life, is exposed to the Sontaran Subliminal Education Matrix and, through data entries, given the Sontaran perspective on many subjects, particularly the Doctor.

Characters

 * Strax

Worldbuilding

 * Strax is of the Seventh Sontaran Battlefleet.
 * Sontarans find gender confusing.
 * According to the Education Matrix, 0.0000000000000000000042 of the universe is empty space.
 * Strax is given Mark VII Battle Armour, complete with a Mark VII Tactical Helmet.
 * Rheon carbine are metal rods which fire charged streams of rheon particles.
 * Sontarans also possess tank-mounted Rheon cannons.
 * Commandant Stroll of the Sontaran Special Insertion Forces attempted a scouting mission on Earth during Christmas and was mistaken for an elf.
 * The Sontarans consider themselves more honourable than the Daleks, and mock the Cybermen for their constant need to "upgrade".
 * Unconfirmed reports from the Regalis Sector indicate the new presence of the Thirteenth Doctor.

Continuity

 * Strax is created in a cloning pool. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
 * Titles of Matrix entries ignored by Strax include "Nurses - Necessary or Cowardly?", (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) "How many fingers do you possess? A career in Special Forces could be for you!". (TV: The Invasion of Time)
 * The Matrix teaches of the ATMOS Stratagem, in which Stall the Undefeated used Luke Rattigan to create a device to drown Earth in gas similar to the liquid of cloning pools. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem, The Poison Sky)
 * An old Sontaran saying is "Kill things with a rheon carbine". (PROSE: The Two Doctors, Lords of the Storm)
 * Other Sontaran weapons include fragmentation grenades, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion) the Skyhammer, (COMIC: The Age of Ice) and the Warsong, which can rewrite the surface of entire planets. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)
 * Drop-pods are painted a bright and reflective silver. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)
 * Enemies of the Sontaran Empire exist from the Medusa Cascade (TV: The Stolen Earth) to GalSec Seven. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)
 * The Education Matrix suggests that the Time Lords may have changed the history of the Sontarans, that "perhaps Sonatarans have even stood and fought on Gallifrey itself, only to have the memory of those victories stolen away", (TV: The Invasion of Time) and that "perhaps there is a universe-spanning war going on just out of sight... fought in the space between one second and the next." (TV: The End of the World, Dalek)
 * The Education Matrix has information on Osmic projectors. (TV: The Time Warrior)
 * The Sontarans' first encounter with the Doctor was when Linx of the Fifth Sontaran Army Space Fleet was stranded on Earth. In his report, Linx gave the Third Doctor the title "the Time Warrior" for his martial art ability. (TV: The Time Warrior)
 * The Sontarans' second encounter with the Doctor was when Field Major Styre met the Fourth Doctor. Regeneration was unknown to Sontarans at the time. After this, the Doctor was designated a "Class 2 Nemesis of the Sontaran Empire". (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)
 * The Education Matrix briefly describes Staal's encounter with the Tenth Doctor. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem, The Poison Sky)
 * Archival military reports suggest Sontarans have faced multiple versions of the Doctor at once. (TV: The Two Doctors)
 * Sarah Jane Smith is mentioned as one of the Doctor's "pets". (TV: The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment, The Last Sontaran)