“How could this happen?!” Screamed the General Secretary of the UGN.

The rest of the UGN cabinet was equally shocked to hear that their Scorched Earth policy had not, in fact, halted or even slowed the advance of the oncoming AGC military.

“YOU! Answer me! How did such a masterful strategy fail to work?! They shouldn’t have made it here! Their supply lines should have been stretched to the breaking point just to get a few systems away! No army can do without supply lines, so how the fuck did they make it to the Core Worlds?!”

“No clue.”

“None.”

“Absolutely no idea.”

“They must have the devil helping them.”

The aides being questioned were nothing but yes-men and thus would not and could not say the truth. All of them were career brownnosers and suck-ups, and not a one of them had enough a spine to tell the truth. All of them were cowards and sycophants to one degree or another, but there was one exception to the norm. A single person among them had enough of a spine and big enough stones to tell the truth, even though it would likely ruin him.

“Sir, to be frank, that policy had no chance of succeeding in the modern times to begin with.”

Eyes drilled into the diminutive man who felt the weight and fury of over eighty glaring faces and the anger of just as many.

“Explain. Why was my perfect strategy not going to work, you dimwit?”

“Well, here goes nothing.” The man thought as he cleared his voice.

“Sirs and Madams, the usage of Scorched Earth requires that a military be mostly ground based and requires that they need to supply themselves over terrestrial landmasses without use of space, air or naval transports.”

“And?”

“And because the modern militaries use Hyperdrives they can easily bypass any system that is unusable by simply ignoring it and jumping to the next one. Therefore, rather than bog them down and extend their supply lines, all that has been done is the razing of our own worlds that could have supplied us until their eventual fall while delaying the enemy even longer than they currently do.”

“And why then,” the young General Secretary asked with a look of absolute rage in his eyes, “did you not bring this up earlier?”

“You never asked for our opinions, and even if you did you would not have listened to them. After all, it is as you and the rest of the Cabinet have repeatedly said, ‘We dimwits don’t know any better and need smart people like you to lead us.’”

At those final words, the General Secretary pulled out a heavy plasma pistol and shot the brave man through the chest. The only yes-man to grow a spine in the darkest hour fell to the ground as smoke rose from the wound that had carved out a good chunk of his ribcage and what was beneath it.

“Fucking ingrates! All of you, remember that you can and will die if you don’t agree with us! We ARE smarter than you, so don’t backtalk or disobey our orders. Understand, dimwits?”

“Yes!”

“Certainly!”

“Of course!”

“Uh-huh!”

“Yeah!”

“Yep!”

Putting the pistol on the table, the General Secretary stared daggers at the rest of the people in the room before the conference began again. Unfortunately, all the deliberation and childish idiocy in the world would not save them from what was coming. In fact, by killing off dissenters and those who had courage enough to voice objections, all that was done was the further elimination of any chance for the UGN to even start to turn the tide. Even as the children, teenagers and young adults that had been placed in positions they should not have continued to act like spoiled rich kids and refused to face the facts, Arcadia continued its relentless advance.

…

One Core System in particular saw what happened when the OCS orders were followed to the letter by those who had malice in their hearts for their own government/ corporation. It was a bit of what one could call, ‘Malicious Compliance’. As an AGC fleet arrived in the system, the men and women aboard the OCS vessels there realized that this was the perfect opportunity to screw over the company that had treated them like expendable and idiotic slave labor. As the UGN ships in the System Defense Fleet moved out to engage the AGC fleet, the OCS ships hung back in orbit of the main planet and acted as though nothing was happening.

As the two fleets clashed, Arcadia began to take the advantage in numbers, tech and strike craft support, pushing the UGN ships to the brink of destruction. Once, twice, thrice they called for the aid of the OCS fleet, but the corporate fleet did not budge and when OCS fleet did respond, they asked what enemy was being fought, and when they got their answer they would always respond with, “So it a made-up foe, then?”

The smart ones among the UGN fleet broke and ran, getting far enough away from the battle to make an emergency jump to Hyperspace to escape the carnage. The AGC fleet then advanced past the rapidly expanding debris field that they had made and closed the distance to face the OCS fleet.

Much to Arcadia’s surprise, the OCS fleet did not acknowledge their existence, and even as they landed troops and took control of the planet, then the entire system the OCS ships and military personnel simply stood by and watched. It was a bit surreal for the Arcadians to have to deal with a force that did not seem to notice them even when they were physically touched, but that just meant that the planet could be taken that much more easily.

It turned out that the OCS personnel were ‘simply following orders.’ They were still under the same orders that they were issued during the Proxy War. They were still obeying the mandate of Corporate HQ to ‘not acknowledge the AGC, because they can’t do anything to interfere with OCS and UGN objectives.’

Despite the contrary being true, the OCS forces in the system were engaging in the act of complying to the exact wording of their orders and, just like their bosses wanted from their subordinates, not showing initiative to act without new orders. The Arcadian invasion forces actually managed to not only disarm and round up the OCS forces due to them ‘not really being there’, but also seize control of the OCS ships as well.

All in all, it was humorous for both sides of the conflict in the System, in some ways more so for the OCS forces than for the Arcadians. After news of the disaster reached the appropriate ears, a counter invasion fleet tried to retake the system, spreading the already scarce military even thinner. Alas, they were crushed utterly, and many were taken as Prisoners of War. When a member of OCS senior management found herself in the same POW camp as the ‘traitors’ and demanded to know why they acted the way they did, they answered in a polite and matter-of-fact manner.

“Well, Kair-yn, you distinctly ordered us to not acknowledge the AGC, because it could not do anything to us. You never gave us any orders beyond that, and you ruined people who showed initiative and acted without orders. We merely acted as you would have wanted us to, so we are not to blame for this. Your words and lack of foresight caused this, Kair-yn, so now we all reap what you sowed. Oh, and Happy Birthday. Also, we quit.”

“Why are you quitting?! Don't you value the Family that our Company is for you?! You have nowhere else to go!”

“Kair-yn, not only is the OCS a highly disfunctional 'family' that treats its members like disposable garbage, the AGC companies have benefits. ACTUAL! FREAKING! BENEFITS! Not to mention they also pay a living wage and have overtime pay, paid time off, sick leave, AND paid maternity/ paternity leave. What does the OCS have, Kair-yn? Oh, yeah; Mindless tedium at below minimum wage with no benefits and no holidays off. Sorry, Kair-yn, but we are seeking greener pastures. I am sure that you can, like you have said many times before, do all our jobs by yourself because you don’t need us. Have fun!”