Friday, April 26, 2013

CHAPTER 12

THE RIGHT WAY: MOVE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE

You don’t want to crawl. You want to sprint.

Every attack has the same purpose, to end the war as quickly as possible. Once the assault starts, you want to cover as much ground as possible, as fast as possible.

Speed is your friend. It creates havoc and confusion in the enemy. It demoralizes him. It makes him think that, even if he can fight back, there’s no point, anymore. Not with your forces everywhere.

Strike fast. Seize everything of value before the enemy can even blink.

You shouldn’t just be fast in combat; everything should be running as fast and as crisp at headquarters as in the field. Are you mighty generals, or fat slobs loafing around and stuffing your faces with Zindaran anchovies? You’d better be zipping around the control room, on top of every detail, and getting answers from everyone. Speed is a function of your level of aggression. If you’re slow, you’re in a passive mode. And I have no idea why the hell you would be passive when you are in the middle of a large scale battle.

Everything in war is urgent. If somebody needs to relax they can do it when they’re off duty. That’s why we have these distinctions.

There’s on duty. There’s off duty. There’s being alert. There’s being asleep. There’s being active and seizing the initiative. There’s criminal laziness.

Do you understand this concept?

General Dronn knows where a lack of urgency can lead.

During his invasion, a patrol got ambushed by an Earth resistance cell with a new weapon. It turned out to be the computer virus that shut down their energy shields. The patrol was wiped out, but it was able to get a message off. Their immediate commander, though, didn’t think it was important. He thought his men were just exaggerating and that there nothing to worry about. He decided to wait for them to return and get a full debrief then. He didn’t send out a team to investigate. He filed a non-urgent report.

That report got kicked upstairs to central command. It got read by some staff officer who really didn’t care. The staff officer decided he had more important things to do like get his rocks off with a Cytaran hooker he ordered.

Somehow the report made it to Dronn, but he didn’t read it. As far as he knew, the war was already won. He didn’t want to read about one lost patrol. He was getting ready for a victory celebration.

The next day, the Earthlings attacked with their new weapon, and the entire invasion force was wiped out. Some celebration, right? Those guys wanted to take it easy. Now a lot of them are really taking it easy, because they’re dead.

Slow equals dead. The problem is you can’t conquer Earth that quickly, anymore. Their planetary defense network is vast and protected. It’s designed specifically to slow you down to a crawl. Quick victories are no longer possible. The Earthlings have planned for a number of scenarios, including fast moving attack craft.

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