Tactics of Mistake Read Online Free PDF

do,” said the Exotic. “But we’re short-handed these days and the local flora grows back fast. We’re trying to variform an Earth grain or grass to drive out the native forms, and plant it alongside our roads—but we’re short-handed in the laboratories, too.”
    â€œDifficult—the services and supply situation,” jerked out Eachan Khan, touching the right tip of his waxed gray mustache protectively as the command car came unexpectedly upon a giant creeper that had broken through the bonded earth of the roadway from below, and was forced to put down its treads to climb across.
    â€œWhat do you think of the dally gun?” Cletus asked the Dorsai mercenary, his own words jolted from his lips by the lurching of the command car.
    â€œWrong sort of direction for small arms to go…” The creeper left behind, the car rose smoothly onto its supporting air cushion again. “Nagle sticks—dally guns—ultrasonics to set off, jam or destroy the components in your enemy’s weapons—it’s all getting too complicated. And the more complicated, more difficult the supply situation, the tougher to keep your striking forces really mobile.”
    â€œWhat’s your idea, then?” Cletus asked. “Back to crossbows, knives and short swords?”
    â€œWhy not?” said Eachan Khan, surprisingly, his flat, clipped voice colored with a new note of enthusiasm. “Man with a crossbow in the proper position at the proper time’s worth a corps of heavy artillery half an hour late and ten miles down the road from where it should be. What’s that business about ‘ … for want of a nail a horseshoe was lost…‘ ?”
    â€œ ‘For want of a horseshoe a horse was lost. For want of a horse a rider was lost…‘ ” Cletus quoted it through to the end; and the two men looked at each other with a strange, wordless but mutual, respect.
    â€œYou must have some training problems,” said Cletus, thoughtfully. “On the Dorsai, I mean. You must be getting men with all sorts of backgrounds, and you’d want to turn out a soldier trained for use in as many different military situations as possible.”
    â€œWe concentrate on basics,” said Eachan. “Aside from that, it’s our program to develop small, mobile, quick-striking units, and then get employers to use them as trained.” He nodded at Mondar. “Only real success in use so far’s been with the Exotics, here. Most employers want to fit our professionals into their classical tables of organization. Works, but it’s not an efficient use of the men, or the units. That’s one reason we’ve had some arguments with the regular military. Your commanding officer here, General Traynor—” Eachan broke off. “Well, not for me to say.”
    He dropped the subject abruptly, sat up and peered out through the open window spaces in the metal sides of the command car at the jungle. Then he turned and called up to the driver on the outside seat.
    â€œAny sign of anything odd out there?” he asked. “Don’t like the feel of it, right along in here.”
    â€œNo sir, Colonel!” called the driver back down. “Quiet as Sunday din—”
    A thunderclap of sound burst suddenly all around them. The command car lurched in the same moment and Cletus felt it going over, as the air around them filled with flying earth. He had just a glimpse of the driver, still holding the dally gun but now all but headless, pitching into the right-hand ditch. And then the car went all the way over on its side and there was a blurred moment in which nothing made sense.
    Things cleared again, suddenly. The command car was lying on its right side, with only its armored base and its left and rear window spaces exposing them to the outside. Mondar was already tugging the magnesium shutter across the rear window and Eachan Khan was