How I Conquered Your Planet (8 page)

They started calling me the “Camp Bully”, or “Bully Burly”. I
didn’t mind. Hell, I was a bully. Might as well face facts.

Finally I was called in to the Captain’s office. He told me
that I had been observed bullying the men on several occasions.

“
Yes sir. Fifty occasions.”

He counted the reports and nodded. Yes, it was fifty.

“
Will that be all, sir?”

“
No!”

He told me that the reports indicated that this bullying had
been successful.

“
Yes sir. One guy’s face fell off, but aside from that…”

“
Army regulations strictly prohibit this kind of bullying,
Private Burly.”

I saluted. “Will that be all, sir?”

“
No!” said the Captain. “Because Privates are not allowed to
discipline the other soldiers, I’m promoting you to Acting Corporal. Then when
you bully the men you will be acting according to the rulebook.”

I was going to ask if that was all, but I decided not to. I had
been burned twice before. So I kept my mouth shut.

“
That’s all, Corporal Burly.”

“
Thank you, sir.”

I began training the 20 troopers assigned to me with great
enthusiasm. Now we could get something done! I didn’t really know how to train
a platoon, but I figured I could pick it up as I went along. The important
thing was to show leadership at all times. I paraded the men up and down the
drill field, shouting commands never heard before or since: “Different
directions…march!”, “Come back… ho!”, “Both directions… now!”, “Up march!”,
“Down go!”, Platoon… fly!”

The men hesitated to follow some of my stranger sounding orders
at first, but I taught them to obey without question. Army men aren’t used to
being poisoned or burned at the stake by their own leaders. So that got their
attention. They learned to fear me.

One rich snooty recruit didn’t like the way I kicked him
around. I said I didn’t care whether he liked it or not. I liked it, and that
was all that was important. He said he would have me shot if I kept it up. And
you know what? He did!

After I got out of the hospital I was kind of afraid to go back
to my platoon, but I found out that the rich kid had deserted by then. I didn’t
go look for him. They said it would be a black mark on my record if I didn’t
find him, but I said I liked black. So that ended that argument.

After a couple of weeks I had my men trained well enough so
that they would obey my orders to the letter without thinking. This sometimes
resulted in them marching off a cliff, or somehow leaving the planet’s thin
atmosphere. Then I had to ask the Captain for more recruits. He didn’t like
that, and neither one of us liked all the additional paperwork that had to be
done, but I always ended up getting my new recruits. There were plenty of them
available. The war was very popular at this point because no one had gotten
hurt yet.

Even with all the mistakes I was making - all the unexplained
deaths and clumsy cover-ups, and all the damage I was doing to the army base -
my platoon was progressing while the others in camp were getting worse.

Respect for authority was on the decline in a lot of the
platoons. The words “Ah shaddap” were frequently heard after an order was
given. The troops thought the officers were “squares”. They had to be taught
that maybe being a “square” was “cool”. They asked how that could be. I said
that I said “MAYBE”. Besides, I told them, maybe it’s “hip” not to ask
questions. Maybe it’s “hip” to do what you’re told. To be obedient. And docile.
To not have a mind of your own. Maybe that’s what’s “hip” these days. Most of
the troops hadn’t thought of that. It was a new and false sounding idea to
them. I think that helped me keep the men in line – talking so crazy like that.

Since my platoon was plainly the most professional in camp, the
higher-ups promoted me again so I could bring my brand of “Burly Discipline” to
more platoons.

As my confidence in my leadership abilities grew, I no longer
bothered drilling the men myself. I left that to underlings who knew what they
were doing and could tell their left feet from their neighbor’s left feet,
while I concentrated on the larger issues. I taught the men in my battalion to
be just like the Old Man (me). I taught them to be tenacious, self-absorbed,
single-minded, and tough. And, of course, I inadvertently taught them my
weaknesses: to be petty and obnoxious, to panic in a crisis, to be late for
work, everything I knew.

I taught my men to go straight towards their objective, over
any obstacle, no matter how high or how easy to go around. (“The Burly
Maneuver”) That way we didn’t need maps or strategy or sense of direction of
any kind. Feet is all we needed. Good old Martian feet. It’s an easy strategy
to remember, and it also saves on map printing costs. When you’ve got an army
to run, you’ve got to worry about everything.

With each batch of men I successfully trained, I got more men,
and a new promotion.

On April 30
^th
at 6 am, I watched proudly as my men marched across the
tarmac, climbing over luggage carts and airport workers, and boarded their
saucers for the invasion. An invasion which was to be commanded by General
Xxpmpt, Air Marshal Rrogyx, and Lance General (recently promoted from Buck
General) Burly – that’s me.

It was an impressive invasion fleet that was being assembled on
that field. Our saucers not only contained thousands of highly trained fighting
men, their cargo bays were loaded with all kinds of scary sounding battle
machines: Galaxy Smashers, Earth Shatterers, and Life Snuffers. And new wonder
weapons like the Soldier Thrower which could hurl a fully armed soldier two
hundred yards towards the enemy, and the bigger version of the same machine:
the deadly General Launcher.

As I watched the last Planet Pincher being rolled aboard, I was
surprised to see Arthur Gremlin appear at my side. I hadn’t seen him in a long
time. And according to my brainwashing, had never seen him. I tried to
reconcile these two facts, but my brain was just making cuckoo clock sounds.
(Again!). Gremlin told me he had been assigned to be my staff assistant and
would be there to help me and watch me wherever I went and whatever I did. I
welcomed him aboard. It always helps to have someone watching you to make sure
you do the right thing. That’s the first thing they teach a young Martian like
me. He hissed his way on board and sat down in the seat next to mine.

Now that I had been living on Mars for awhile, it was easy for
me to see that Arthur Gremlin was different from other Martians. It was a
subtle difference, but it was there. As we were waiting to take off, I asked
him about it.

“
I notice you’re different from the rest of us Martians,” I
said. “Bone structure or something. And the shade of green is a little
different.”

“
Yes. I’m from ‘the country’.”

I didn’t see what difference that would make. Then I realized
it was probably a euphemism.

“
Oh, I get it. You’re a member of an inferior race.”

“
Well I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”

“
Too complicated a thought for your people to understand?”

“
Not really.”

“
Maybe if you just tried harder you wouldn’t be so inferior.
That’s what I do.”

“
Yes. Thank you. Could we launch the attack now please?”

I nodded and gave the signal to lift off.

Our mighty invasion fleet hurtled through space. It was the
most magnificent array of battle machines Mars had ever assembled. No matter
what you think an alien spaceship should look like, we had one of those.

Inside my flagship spirits were high. The troops were singing
anti-Earth songs like “We’ll Hang Joe Earth From A Sour Apple Tree”, and
stirring Martian anthems like “Here We Go, Martians, Here We Go!”

Some of my troops were passing the time by reading my memoirs,
which told of my impoverished youth on Mars and my rapid rise to General,
adding a number of exaggerations and falsehoods to make it sound better. (I
didn’t invent moveable type! I forget who did, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t
me.) Also included in a special section of this book were the famous quotes
attributed to me (but actually they were just quotes I vaguely remembered
hearing back on Earth). Quotes like: “When Things Get Rough, The Rough Get
Things”, “Never Meet A Man That You Don’t Like”, and “Loose Lips Lookout
Below!” The troops would repeat these quotes to each other and then say to me:
“Good quote, sir.” And I would smile. I tried to encourage this kind of
brown-nosing in my outfit. It was good for my morale. I made a mental note that
if I ever needed my ass kissed for any reason – it might be a medically-related
reason or some other reason - these were the boys to do it.

As we got deeper into space and the long confinement and the
usual war nerves started to get to some of the men, rumors started going around
that the enemy would be using real bullets, not just practice bullets like the
men were used to. And that our Generals were pompous buffoons who were leading
us to our doom. And that Mars didn’t have any real quarrel with Earth, we were
just pawns of those bastards on Neptune. And that there had been a shakeup in
the Army’s ranking system and Privates now outranked the King.

I listened to this for awhile, then started a rumor that
everybody had better shut-up. They did, but they weren’t happy about following
orders from me now. The rumor was, I was a pompous buffoon.

As they lapsed into a sullen silence, I felt it was time to
launch into the stirring speech I had prepared. The one that began: “I think it
was Benedict Arnold who said…” I was hampered in my speech-making by the fact
that I had come down with the Martian Flu the day before we took off, and it
was getting worse by the hour. I kept coughing on my audience, which they
dutifully applauded along with everything else that came out of my mouth, but I
could tell it was lessening the overall effect of my speech. Things really went
downhill though, when I got past the opening jokes, and the pointing out of the
prominent enlisted men in the audience tonight, and got into the meat of the
speech.

“
Many of you won’t be coming back,” I began.

There was great alarm at this. What was this all about? Nobody
mentioned not coming back before. I guess I shouldn’t have said that. They
thought we were all coming back. Now they weren’t sure they wanted to go. Not
if they weren’t coming back. I had to get back the ground I had lost. I did
this by lying.

“
You didn’t let me finish. What I was trying to tell you was,
many of you won’t be coming back empty-handed!”

“
Yay!”

“
You’ll be coming back with pockets full of cash!”

“
Hurrah!”

“
No, wait men. Not yet. Wait for the order. We’re still up in
space someplace.”

My troops stopped trying to yank open the doors and sat back
down, rubbing their hands at the thought of all the money they were going to
make on this deal. I tossed the rest of my speech away. The men were fired up
enough. From then on I kept my speeches short, false, and money oriented.

As we got within a half million miles of Earth, we tested out
the ship’s guns and got in some target practice by destroying several probes
from other galaxies that were on their way to Earth with good news for
everyone. We probably shouldn’t have done that, now that I think about it. But
you’ve got to have targets if you want to have target practice.

With its guns primed and ready, the mighty Martian fleet raised
its battle flag, crossed its fingers, and dove into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Here is where I should say I had a plan to save the Earth, so I
guess here is where I’m going to have to be honest. I didn’t have a plan to
save the Earth. I was attacking the Earth, me and my Martian buddies.

At a radar tracking station in Honolulu, the aged radar man who
had ignored the approaching Japanese fleet at Pearl Harbor, noticed the
approaching Martian fleet, and ignored it. It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize
the danger, it’s just that he had a reputation to uphold.

Moments later, everyone saw us. Regular broadcasting was
suspended and live television broadcasts zeroed in on the Martian saucers
streaking towards Earth, guns blazing.

Anxious news-anchors appeared on camera, trying to make the
invasion sound more interesting than it was. Some said our death rays might be
infected with smallpox. Others worried that we might be bringing the dinosaurs
back. They all had their own frightening, ratings-raising theories.

“
So this is the end,” said one. “Many of us here in the newsroom
felt the world would end this way. And now it’s happening. Just in time for me
to win my bet.”

Earth leaders were mystified by this sudden attack. Urgent
messages went out on all frequencies to try to establish contact with the
mysterious invaders.

“
Attention invading fleet,” asked a calm measured voice. “Aren’t
you going to give the Earth some kind of warning? Because we’re used to getting
warnings first.” Then, after there was no response, a more hysterical sounding
radio operator, with a higher pitched voice, was brought in to repeat the
question.