The Sylvan goons foolishly subscribed to the belief that just pointing guns at your enemy rendered them helpless. After all, that’s the way it worked in countless plays and stories, and in every movie and video on the high-tech worlds they’d visited. In reality, a good opponent can almost always draw a weapon and fire before a man with a gun pointed at him could shoot. The process was first outlined by Colonel John Boyd, an early warrior science pioneer in the mid-twentieth century. He called it the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
Thus, the OODA loop for the early stage of this battle went something like this:
Melville and Fielder “Observed” and “Oriented” when Broadax began to lower herself. They “Decided” to draw and shoot, and began to “Act” when she dropped.
The goons began their OODA loop when their opponents began to draw their weapons.
—Observe: “Dey’s doin’ sumfin. Watar dey doin? Dey’s drawin’ guns!”
—Orient: “Dat’s dangerous! Sumbuddy could get hurt!”
—Decide: “I’m gonna hafta shoot ’em!”
Then, just as they got this far, before they could Act, a new data point came into play when Broadax fired her shotgun and landed on goon four’s shoulders, and the goons began a new OODA loop.
—Observe: ” . . .” (Pause a beat here to be stunned by the sensory overload caused by the noise, concussion, smell, and flash of the shotgun blast.) “Wot da hale wus thaat!”
—Orient: “It came from ober ter!”
—Decide: “Bedda look!”
—Act: “Looky der!”
Then a new OODA loop began as they processed this new data.
—Observe: “They’s a giant red monkey on ‘is back!
—Orient: “Where da hale did dat come frum! Now we’s got two problims! Do I kill da one up der, or the ones out der? Wottel I dew? Wottel I dew?!” (Note that the more options you have to consider, the longer it will take to complete the Orient and Decide phases.)
—Decide: “Bedda kill da ones out der!”
Again, just as they were getting about this far, and before they could Act, several of the goons’ OODA loops were interrupted by .45 caliber chunks of lead going into their brains or guts. Even those who weren’t hit were distracted, and they had to begin a new OODA loop, initiated by the gunshots. “Dey’s shootin’ us! Dey can’t dodat!” And, if they happened to be looking in the direction of their falling comrades, there was a further distraction and yet another OODA loop, “Oops, der goes Og. An’ he owed me money!”
Sometimes this whole process was referred to as an “action-reaction drill” and the person on the “reaction” side of the equation almost always lost. Additionally, the effects of tunnel vision meant the goons were figuratively “looking through a toilet-paper tube.” A target making a rapid lateral movement, as Melville and Fielder were doing, could quickly cut out of the field of view and literally disappear off their narrow “radar screen.”
Goons one and two were busy cogitating upon the bullets in their guts. However, much to Fielder’s disgust, they had body armor on. Even with good body armor, a .45 will still knock the wind out of a man, but they were only temporarily distracted and even managed to get off a few wild shots.
Goon three was suffering from a massive, ax-induced, prefrontal lobotomy.
Broadax was sitting on goon four’s shoulders. She’d punched the hot, empty shotgun barrel in her left hand through his lips and teeth (“Crunch!”) and ground it deeply into his mouth, muttering, “Suk on dis, big boy!” Then she yanked the shotgun to the side and was having a fair degree of success at unscrewing his head with it, while flailing unsuccessfully at Aunt Madelia with the ax in her right hand.
Great Aunt Ondelesa was in deep shock, and she didn’t have a weapon anyway. Goon five was understandably distracted by a spray of buckshot going into his feet, but he managed to get off a few wild shots. Goons six and seven thought whatever final thoughts a brain thinks as a bullet goes through it. Then they died without getting off a shot.
Goon eight was the only one capable of accurate fire, since he was the only one without any major distractions. Unfortunately for the goon team, he chose to fire at the two bystanders, since they were the targets directly in front of him. In an ideal world, all of the goons would have killed the targets directly in front of them. This was their “assigned sector of fire.” But the sudden, violent action taken by the Westerness officers threw an eight-legged monkey wrench into their plans.
The feeble fire from the stunned Sylvans failed to hit the two Westerness officers as they dodged into the alcove to their left. Melville pulled Hayl with him, while the profoundly frightened Hayl left a trail of unnecessary body mass behind him. Both Melville and Fielder fired a few more wild shots as they ducked around the corner, and like all wild shots they accomplished little. The monkeys on their shoulders didn’t have to deflect a single bullet, satisfying themselves with a defiant “Eeek!”
The two innocent customers to their right, fellow humans whose only crime was to witness what was occurring, were both hit. One took a bullet through the heart and the other received a blast to the gonads that made the officers’ eyes water in sympathy. Both of these individuals tried to stagger mindlessly after them into the alcove. The man shot in the groin didn’t make it far before he was debilitated by the pain of his wound and fell to the ground, coiled around his private pain. But the luckless customer shot through the heart had five to seven seconds before his body would lose hydraulics. He used that time to stumble into the alcove. Crouching on the floor beside the dying human, Melville and Fielder edged around the corner of the alcove to cover Broadax’s retreat.
Goons one and two, shot in the gut but saved by their bulletproof vests, were ready for them. “They’re wearing body armor,” grunted Fielder in disgust. Melville and Fielder each picked one off with a bullet in the head, their monkeys blocking incoming bullets with an “Eeek!” of protest and terror. Meanwhile Broadax used her legs, one apelike arm, and the leverage from the shotgun shoved in goon four’s mouth to finish unscrewing his head with one vicious jerk, “snAAP!crack-krunch.” Then with a kick of her legs she spun to his front and dropped to the floor as her victim toppled backwards. She broke her fall by plunging her ax into her victim, ripping him open from sternum to crotch as she fell, spilling his innards out onto his feet as he fell back.
Melville noticed that the big goon didn’t look any better on the inside than on the outside. Yep, he hated his guts.
Aunt Madelia and goons five and eight fired at Broadax as she made her exit. Her monkey stood backwards on her shoulders, shaking its fists and screaming its outrage as it blocked the shots. Then it mooned the goons as the marine officer scampered into the alcove.
Hayl lay looking at the face of the dead bystander. “He’s awful still,” the boy said cautiously. “Is something bad happening to him?”
“Could be,” answered Fielder distractedly. “He’s dead.”
By this time Broadax had joined them, her monkey still sitting backwards to cover the retreat.
“Gosh,” said Hayl, still fixated on his first dead man. “I’m sorry that happened.”
“Now that is a view which I’m sure he shares,” said Fielder. “It could be worse,” he added. “It could be me.”
“But this is all wrong,” whimpered Hayl. “We were taught that the Sylvans were a noble race. Wise and fair, with fluid laughter and a wonderful, subtle sense of humor.”
Broadax and Fielder’s belt buckle exchanged quick glances. “I think ye must be thinkin’ about diff’r’nt Sylvans,” Broadax said slowly. “We jist seem ta have the udder sort here,” she added, as she broke open the shotgun, ejecting two smoking 12-gauge shells (“Click, tiiing!, thum-thump”), and inserted two more and slammed the breech shut (“thuun-thuung, Chung!”).
These sound effects made Hayl jump and twitch, as his recently expelled body fluids continued to stain the leg of his trousers. Then he apologized with an abject, embarrassed, ” . . . sorry.”
” ‘S okay, lad,” said Broadax kindly. “We’re all a bit jumpy.”
“Except him,” added Fielder, nodding at their dead, unknown companion. He used the momentary lull to conduct a tactical reload, ejecting and saving a mostly empty magazine while slamming home a full one, all with his left hand in a smooth, fluid motion, while keeping the gun up and ready in his right hand.
“Mr. Hayl,” began Melville, conducting his own tac reload. “You need to know that the Sylvans engage in some very dirty dynastic infighting. Knives, subtle poisons, and arranged accidents are common. You’re correct about the laughter and subtle sense of humor though. They have been known to use quite hilarious booby traps involving numerous needle-sharp spears in the nether regions. Direct confrontations like this are rare, but not unheard of.”