Adam let out a heavy sigh as he walked towards the office he was granted to conduct private research. It was mainly just stalls with computers in a giant room but the security that it provided was vital for those not wishing to be spied on. Walking inside, Adam's green eyes looked around all of the computer terminals to find a remote area where he could choose a random terminal and sign himself in.
The computer startup was still faster than Adam could believe, the sheer power of modern processing throttles people had talked about in university was real.
Logging into his account, he had a couple of messages in his inbox which of course he checked to glean any useful information out of.
One of them was thankfully an email containing a file about his slave for him to look back on after the lesson. The other two were effectively denouncements from the official officers on the ship, giving Adam failing grades when it came to drill and combat training in spite of the fact he wasn't meant to see combat.
All Adam could glean from those messages was that the officers may try something in the future that he should be ready for. After that though, he returned to his actual work. Messaging Azadin so that the alien would go to an appropriate station, Adam returned to the document for the male's training.
"Azadin, could you please tell me your physical capability? You keep getting pulled away when I ask about it but I need to know how much of your physical regimen I can get rid of."
It was only be a minute before the recruit got back to him.
"A 4 on the general scale."
Finally, though he could see why the recruit would be embarrassed to say that. The average was 7, and even taking into account his race that was still low. It complicated things for Adam as he needed the male to be 6 in order to be physically capable of handling a tier 2 ship.
"Understood. You'll be the least ready for the exam out of everyone with your physical capabilities."
"I still doubt any of us could pass in two months."
"You wouldn't pass any other exam, but I will make sure you become pilots in two months. It doesn't matter if you're a one-trick pony; for now, all you'll be doing is piloting a fighter."
"So how will my schedule be changed?"
The text appeared on Adam's screen right before he clicked off to change the schedule he would be giving to Azadin. He clicked back to the message application to send a reply.
"Could you give me a couple of minutes to double-check things? It's hard to inconspicuously send requests to appropriate staff without telling them I'm the one doing it."
"Always cutting into my free time."
It seemedAzadin was far more snide when he couldn't see the person he was talking to, but that could be because Adam was like a predator to him and the alien could actually think straight when they weren't face to face instead of working through his fear.
Adam finished up the changes within two minutes and sent them to Azadin to let the fly alien go about his business. He had finished the basic setup for all four of his recruits despite the fact that Rutemia was still trying to find ways out of it.
With his personal requirements out of the way, Adam began to surf the net for some stories. He was able to use the internet as a premium member due to his rank and the lack of ads on everything just made it so much easier to find anything he wanted, but also had him risk getting addicted to what he found.
"So what have you found so far?" Adam could hear a Vanid close by, most likely talking to a companion while not noticing someone was in listening range... or not caring.
"The male ape doesn't seem to have any insubordination in his troops yet Miss, so he is either keeping a close eye on them or no one has tried to recruit there yet. Junam's connections have struck the human in his slave's septic tank," the soft, high pitched voice of the creature went on. It seemed this was one of the janitors, a small-scaled creature who used high pitched sounds to avoid detection from others.
"Seems she beat me to it. Having the human be the cause of such a disgusting spectacle will isolate him even more. I need to congratulate Junam on being able to conduct it so quickly."
Adam heard the skittering move further away and let out a sigh.
"Well, seems I'm stuck here for a while, if they catch me it'll only be trouble," Adam thought out loud, looking at his timetable only to see he had lessons in five minutes... Fuck. Adam took the chance as the two moved away to sneak out of his cubicle and rush to the lesson. Halfway through his mad dash he could see the Vanid casually scuttling towards him, knocking him over in the process.
"Now recruits, we will be testing some exercises to see your basic knowledge of tactics. Recruit Blake, is there any reason why you are late?"
It seemed it was once again Alluris' turn to teach the recruit officers, and Adam couldn't get there in time. He was panting quite heavily with his hair slicked to his head from sweat, but he took a seat at the rear.
"A small disturbance Ma'am, I apologize for my tardiness," Adam managed to get out as he recovered his breath, not even taking a chance to breathe and separate his words, "I'm ready for the exercises."
"Well, at least you were here for the important part. I'll be docking you for this, Recruit Blake, you didn't even salute me when you entered the room."
This caused Adam's heart to sink. He needed as much goodwill as possible and being late would just add up. Fuck's sake, why did he need to get distracted by the petty politics of that Vanid?
Adam could hardly hear Alluris begin as the creatures around him snickered.
"Now I know the inferiority of the other species may be funny to those here, but if you impede my lesson you will be cited just like Recruit Blake," Alluris stated firmly, causing all of the behavior to stop other than that of the Vanid, who were all doing menial things as they waited for the projection to come up with their problem.
"The first question regards taking advantage of an enemy's weakness. Before you is a fleet interface allowing you to determine the results of the battle. You have defeated the enemy decidedly but they are fleeing to the warp gate closest to them. You are in border space so jumping after them could cause chaos depending on the reinforcements that could be deeper into the enemy's territory.
"Knowing all this, you have one last shot of your capital ship's main canon but it is likely to destroy an enemy battleship instead of preventing their escape. You also have a few scout ships around the entry points to ensure you will be able to detect enemy fleets incoming and escape in time. What do you do?"
This was a tough one. For all intents and purposes, the enemy fleet had enough debris from the fallen ships to hide within that a chase wouldn't be possible. That was likely the first option everyone looked into, as getting as many enemy ships to stop moving as possible was their main goal. The large canon would rip through the debris but the other ships were weak enough that any valid target would be destroyed by the shot.
Adam was working on an idea for his answer when a Vanid stepped up.
"Ma'am, send a call over to the enemy ships granting the employees of the other ship freedom if they betray their commander. If they turn on each other then we will spare them, it will get them to fight amongst themselves and let us close in. If there are too many traitors we could always dine on some of the less fortunate new recruits," the Vanid said confidently.
"That is an interesting plan. Knowing your tendency for conquering and controlling, your words would have more weight than another species that will be more likely to have their desires overruled. That is an admirable answer. You even took into account the likelihood of too many traitors."
Which was true, but the flaws were obvious.
If the enemy believed it to be a lie they'd flee anyway, and civil war in the opposing fleet could cause many more casualties.
"If only there was some way we could disable that damn jump gate!" The female beside Adam grumbled to herself, going through many attempts to shut the thing down. The only ships close and fast enough to get to the gate in time were the scouts... Wait a second!
Adam began quickly getting the blueprints of the jump gate and checking them, testing where there were important locations. Other creatures came forward with their plans, some involved using the scouts to determine the safety of chasing the fleet, others about maximizing the escape damage.
When Adam finally sent his answer. he could hear Alluris speaking, "That's it, all- Nevermind it seems we have one more attempt. Could you explain your answer while we watch it take place Recruit... Blake?"
Alluris was a little surprised at it, why give attention instead of having it reviewed afterward?
All creatures were staring at Adam as he stood up and began to explain his plan while it was in motion.
"Well, the primary obstacle in capturing all the ships is the jump gate, so to take it out with what resources we have we need to temporarily disable it."
This caused some sniggers or what equated to sniggers throughout the audience; that idea was easily shot down.
"So I checked the most vulnerable spot of the jump gate and flew my scout towards it," he said as the scout was nearing its destination.
"This is the main processing core of the gate; one malfunction here and the whole thing goes down, no backup will stop it from not working. So I just," the scout ship blew up then, with the jump gate powering down, "turned off the gate, and left the opponents without a way to escape."
The silence was almost deafening after he finished. Adam sounded confident at the end but as no one commented on his actions he grew more and more nervous. Was he wrong? Did it not work?
"That is... a brilliant idea, Recruit Blake. If the jump gate and scout ship are not your property then you will have to rebuild them. Then it comes to finding someone stupid enough to go on that mission and risk death, but if it worked you would be guaranteed all of the salvage in that sector. If a more intimidating fleet didn't arrive, of course."
Adam sat down at that. Hearing Alluris tear his idea apart hurt, he thought he had figured a way to get everything to work. He had tried to find a great loophole in the problem but with a few ideas, the perfect plan had turned into a dumpster fire. Adam would need to think more critically about his answers if he wanted to get ahead.