CHAPTER 8

THE RIGHT WAY: CAPTURE AND SECURE

I can’t tell you how many times I was able to secure a swift victory by leading a crack team against an opponent’s headquarters or capitol. It’s amazing how many people will give that order to stand down and surrender when they have a weapon pressed against their vital parts.

In order to even carry out an operation like that, though, you first need to have a contingency within your plans to capture the enemy rather than just kill him. Don’t get me wrong, killing is still very necessary in war. But a general who seeks to minimize the bloodshed isn’t weak; he’s doing his job. After all, killing requires effort. It requires risk. You expend too much energy, or you take too many risks, and pretty soon the law of averages kicks in and something goes wrong. That’s why we’re called soldiers or warriors instead of butchers.

You went on a killing spree and kept going until the humans rose up and stopped you.

They did so because you pushed them to it. Let this sink in: you slaughtered the humans presumably to intimidate them. But what you really did was motivate them to fight on. This is one of those ironies that the universe likes to use to tease us.

Earthlings would call it “bass ackwards thinking.” It ends up motivating the enemy. And let’s talk about what it does to your own troops. If they have any souls, or just professional pride, it will demoralize them. If it doesn’t bother your troops, you have an even bigger problem. That means they’re a bunch of undisciplined crapheads. And you can’t rely on crapheads when things get rough. I’m assuming you don’t want crapheads in your army. You want guys who are tough, disciplined, and smart. Blasting helpless civilians and empty buildings proves you’re none of the three.

You want your troops to be motivated. If possible, you want them to have only two options: fight or die. That way, they’ll fight harder.

You want the reverse for your enemy. You want them to have a million options that don’t involve fighting. Because chances are they’re going to choose one of them. Fighting wars is a dirty, lousy business. I love it. So do the other top mercenaries, like Sardonus Jek. But I freely admit that, as a group, we’re not right in the head. Any sane being, regardless of what planet he’s from, is going to avoid a nasty fight if at all possible. Make no mistake: you want to be intimidating as all hell on the battlefield. But what’s the point of being intimidating if your opponent has no way out?

Had you given the Earthlings that possibility back when you first invaded, they might have taken it. Some of them would have thought that life under the new regime wouldn’t be that bad.

As I stated earlier, things are different now. The Earthlings know you’re out there, and they know you mean them ill will. What they don’t know is why you keep trying to attack a world that has done nothing to you. The humans used to ask that question. Most on Earth now assume when you come it’s to exterminate them slowly and painfully. Earth means business. You invade again, you’ll be in for a fight from the start.