The Three Little Sontarans (short story)

 was the fifth short story in Time Lord Fairy Tales.

Publisher's summary
In an epic battle against a lone Rutan three Sontarans take up very different strategies to defeat their interminable nemesis-once and for all.

Plot
During a battle between the Sontarans and the Rutans in the Klovian Cluster, the Rutans, despite suffering many heavy casualties, are gaining the upper hand over their enemies, forcing them to retreat.

On one of the planets in the Klovian Cluster, Sontaran Marshal Vrike orders his comrades to establish defensive positions so they can have the strategic advantage if they force the Rutans to the offensive. Major Kyre decides to have the Sontarans split up into seperate fighting units, an idea that Commander Starn agrees with, having fought in the more battles than Vrike and Kyre and received a scar off the rim of Landseer.

The three Sontarans survey the landscape in an attempt to locate the ideal route through the woodland to take them to the surviving Rutan. Vrike decides to lay ambushes in the woodland. Both he and Kyre will hide until the Rutan appears while Starn watches from the valley as they kill the Rutan. Starn salutes and says that he looks forward to Vrike's plan.

As Vrike and Kyre depart to set their trap, Starn secures the power plant. Vrike decides that surprise is important for the trap, so he uses some foliage to create a camouflage area where he can hide in wait for the approaching Rutan. A short while later, Vrike sees a grean glow, meaning that the Rutan is beginning to approach him.

Just as Vrike aims his blaster, the Rutan seemingly disappears. Vrike thinks that the Rutan is hiding and leaves his cover to search for it, soon realizing that the Rutan may have scanned for a heat trace of the Sontaran's warm blood. Angered, Vrike reaches for his blaster, only for the Rutan to emerge from the foliage and pull his gun away.

The Rutan kills Vrike by electrocuting him with its tentacles, which attracts the attention of Major Kyre. Kyre's plan is similar to Vrike's plan, but his defenses are more robust than the latter's. He uses his osmic projector to slice through the trees to make crude planks of wood that he uses to create his own stockade from which he will launch a counterattack while the Rutan is attacking the wooden walls.

As the sun sets, the Rutan approaches Kyre's stockade while Kyre looks on in anticipation. The Rutan inspects each wall of Kyre's stockade before moving onto its weakest point, the wall that's opposite the door. Listening for the Rutan's movement, Kyre hears a grating sound. He confidently opens the wooden door slowly and leaps out to shoot the Rutan, but it has seemingly disappeared.

After searching around the stockade, Kyre returns to the inside of the wooden structure, only for the Rutan to emerge from the floor and kill him, destroying the stockade in the process. Commander Starn notices the explosion from the power plant before putting his helmet on.

As the Rutan approaches the power plant, it has difficulty locating any heat signatures due to the thick concrete walls that Starn is hiding behind, so it decides to stay in the trees so the green glow doesn't attract the Sontaran's attention. Eventually, the Rutan enters the power plant through a damaged door which has not been rusted where the door was damaged.

Starn readies his blaster and his two scissor grenades, but the Rutan slithers up the wall towards the roof where it was previously unable to survey from the cover of the trees, soon coming across a ventilation shaft which it enters with the belief that the damaged door is a trap. However, the Rutan is soon proven wrong as Starn steps out of the shadows with his weapon primed.

Starn tells the Rutan that the damaged door was not the trap, but the ventilation shaft is. The Rutan retorts that Starn cannot destroy him, to which Starn replies that he doesn't need to before activating the device he has in his hand to explode the scissor grenades beneath the Rutan, destroying it. After brushing the Rutan's remains off his armour, Starn marches away triumphantly.

Characters

 * Marshal Vrike
 * Major Kyre
 * Commander Starn
 * Rutan

Continuity

 * Starn appears. (AUDIO: Silent Warrior)