Alluris walked into Gramu's office after finishing her officer's training. She hated the fact that she had to train officers. Her silent footsteps would have meant that her commanding officer wouldn't have heard her coming if not for the audible hiss as the doors to the office which ensured Gramu wouldn't be caught off guard by anyone.
"So how was today, Alluris? This is your first time training Vanid after all. Is the program good enough to fool the Vanid?"
Gramu was quickly typing on a piece of paperwork, the clicking sound of her using the specially designed keyboard the only sound in the room as she waited for Alluris to collect her thoughts.
"Yes, Ma'am. The Vanid appear to think we are praising them and allowing them to have fun on their future ship," she said with an edge to her voice. Neither of them liked the Vanid doing whatever they wanted, but she had no cause to question Gramu yet.
"At least we found a workaround to our lying problem. I can meet with Vanid now to talk to them about their futures."
"Don't you think we should do more testing? If the Vanid finds out you're lying everything could fall apart before we even get a chance to pull your plan off."
Gramu could tell Alluris was fearful at this moment; this plan was a bold and rebellious one. If they didn't do it right they would likely be killed before the end of the two months.
"It would be more peculiar if I refused to interact with the Vanid officers. We will continue our course as planned."
"Well, then would you like my opinion on the progress of the officers?" Alluris asked, giving Gramu little time to focus on her personal work.
"That would be most helpful. Knowing what sort of state I will be leaving the fleet in will help my successor when they take over."
"Other than the Vanid that are focused more on personal politics than actual military training, the batch of officers we have received have been of good quality. The officers in training have all been handing out discipline to their recruits and training them appropriately."
Alluris then began to list off some of the shining examples of the recruits to give Gramu a well rounded understanding of the situation at hand.
"Well, we have some good candidates. Why are we keeping the slug though? All they're doing is whatever their Vanid mistress desires. Their marks are subpar at best and they haven't talked to their recruits after the first meeting."
"She will be rejected after the proving time is over, as well as the uncooperative Vanid. We cannot remove her at the moment because you decided to approve petty politics between Vanid."
"Ah that. I see you still don't see the value in training our successor in the ways of political movements if you're still calling it petty."
The snickering of Gramu annoyed Alluris even more.
"It's an affront to the discipline and quality of our leaders!" Alluris stated in irritation, stomping her foot on the floor to try and release some of the anger she was feeling, "These Vanid are corrupting every other member of the fleet! Soon they will all only be thinking about who they should support and trying to keep their job by being obedient!"
"Isn't the job of a soldier to listen to their superiors and carry out their duties as best they can?" Gramu said plainly.
Alluris was taken aback by how similar her accusations and the truth sounded.
"I know you have a distaste for the Vanid and how they run things, Alluris, but if you let your dislike for them cloud your reasoning you will become hypocritical," Gramu berated Alluris firmly. She was the one who would be guiding Adam forward when he became CEO, Gramu needed Alluris to be at her best.
"Yes Ma'am," Alluris stated with a dejected expression.
She hadn't made such a rookie mistake since her early days as a new officer, It gave her a moment to rethink how she had been acting. The stress of being caught had made her far too impulsive lately.
"Well, how is our recruit behaving so far?" Gramu changed the subject before the discussion could get too bogged down in Alluris' failings.
"He's definitely peculiar," the right hand of the Steel Soul fleet let out with an expression that conveyed more complex emotions than when she was thinking about how to deal with the Vanid.
"I met him to give him the slave today and he openly joked about the bad treatment he received during downtime from his other officers."
"At least he knows how to take injustice without causing unnecessary fuss. Did his comedy appear to be hiding fear of his treatment?"
"No, he seemed merely casual about the whole thing. I hypothesise this is due to either social incompetence in humans, or that he didn't care about the number of people who were turning on him."
"Interesting. With the number of predators facing him, he should be experiencing fear from the prospect of one of them going against protocol to attack him. How was his slave?"
"He appears to be kind, expressing a wish to take the armor off his slave so that they would be more comfortable. The recruit has also been looking into the slave fittings in his private time to ensure that he can do so even if we refuse him."
"Even after he looked over the slave manual?"
"He has taken those into account, but it seems he still desires to treat his slave well. He may have trouble when it comes to the slaving nature of the Empire in areas other than the Vanid."
"Understood. Change his next free session to a slavery instruction lesson, he needs to be able to handle slavery if he is going to keep his supporters happy."
"Understood, Ma'am. I'll make sure it is done. Is there anything else you would like to know?"
"In fact, there is. You were teaching the group today, how did Adam go on the fleet command tests?"
"His confusing nature has only become more so from the results," Alluris stated, bringing up his answer to the first question on the screen before them.
"So? This is a basic assessment to gauge the skill, diplomatic talent, and organizational capabilities of the examinee. How can one result cause that level of confusion?"
"For this reason," Alluris started, using her control over the simulation to direct the focus of the view over to a small set of scouts near the jump gate, "instead of deciding to work using the main fleet, he looked at the outlying vessels to solve the problem."
"So? After the recruits realize the faults of all the reliable options to capture the enemy fleet they of course turn to the outer ships to try and gain an advantage. What's so peculiar?"
Alluris seemed to get annoyed as Gramu cut off her explanation and firmly retorted, "If you would let me finish my explanation then you'll understand."
Only after she had spoken did she realize what she had said and backed down, "Sorry M-Ma'am."
Gramu looked at Alluris with an incredulous look, but sighed and waved Alluris off after a moment, "Keep going."
"Thank you, Ma'am. Now, The unusual aspect is not his use of the scout ships, but what he used them for. He brought one over to the jump gate and blew it up."
"He did what?" Gramu almost got out of her seat at this. Looking at the simulation, she could see the ship blowing up and the jump gate powering down. What she was confused about was why he would do it.
"In his explanation, Recruit Blake said the fleet would be unable to escape and would have to surrender or face death, using the damaged gate and the blown-up scout ship as a warning to the enemy of what he was willing to do."
"But what about the damages? That was self-destruction, how was the jump gate left so unscathed?" Gramu was trying to find something off in the simulation, Adam's entire plan went off too smoothly.
"That is the brilliant part. He spent most of his time researching the jump gate and chose to detonate the ship on the heavily armored program core. The explosion was weathered by the core but the wiring was damaged, leading to the thing short circuiting and shutting down."
"So he purposefully hit the most armored part to deal the least amount of damage to the jump gate?"
"Exactly. He not only figured out the least cost-effective way to trap the enemies, but he also did it in a way no one would predict."
"Aren't those scout ships manned?"
"That is his one problem. Adam failed to realize that no species would go on a mission to blow themselves up."
Gramu sighed. It was almost too good to be true, it probably was still too good to be true.
"It seems humanity does have a thing for not caring about their own lives if this is what Adam thought up. Though it is still surprising that he's the only person I've seen who would destroy his own property to accomplish his goals."
"It seems so."
"He is definitely a wild canon." Gramu finally admitted in exasperation.
"You can go take a break now. I need time to think."
"Yes Ma'am," Alluris finished as she left the room.