9 M1 - Term: 1, Round: 1 (1/2)
Attendance at Fortescue Military Academy M1 Y:2142
House Thoth, Squad Zero
M1 Rank: ?/1275, Tier 3 M-Rank: Null
Term: 1, Round: 1
The scene repeated itself, Master Nader exited her office and called, ”Vannier, my office now.” Her metallic voice making all the cadets jump out of their skins.
Vannier stood and walked into her office as if walking to her own funeral.
”I still haven't worked out if it's a man or woman,” Barran stated as if he was fascinated.
”She's a woman,” Daedo supplied.
”How do you…,” Barran started and waved his hand, ”wait I don't want to know.” Before he looked shocked, ”you weren't in there very long!”
Axelzero moaned, ”Oh please.”
Mace asked, ”did you scan her?”
Daedo nodded, ”this suit is very good.”
Axelzero beamed, ”you really have a handle on it, how did you process the scan? Did you use your implant and review the data?”
”Yes, I have the suit linked, and I reviewed the data while sitting here,” Daedo lied. What would take a human hours, unless they were an expert in the suit, which he was not, only took Myrmidon a few moments to analyse. Myrmidon had been playing with the suits features since they got it. It would have relatively a thousand hours of experience in the few days.
Axelzero leaned close inspection down his back before moving to his other side, ”you did get everything didn't you,” she said touching his suit in different locations.
”Well, I noticed you have a couple not available in the store,” he replied.
”There are some perks to being the owners of the company. When we get a break, I'll get yours upgraded,” she offered.
”What are the mods on yours, I couldn't make them out?” he asked.
She made a funny face at him, ”of course you couldn't make them out by looking at them. My brother and I have the next gen sensors, memory glands for increased local storage of data, an improved camouflage system and thermal conditioning vanes to assist with an exosuit heat exchange. Too tiny to make a difference to a mech, but it gives the heat dissipation of an exosuit a twenty percent boost.”
”Vannier, sit,” Master Nader indicated the chair which instantly appeared from the floor before she went around the other side of the desk and sat.
Master Nader pretended to look at something on an invisible screen before looking back to Vannier, ”I had you pegged as the leader of this group,” she began. ”Your profile is excellent for your current age, empathy, ego, behaviour calculation, all very good.”
Master Nader paused allowing the room fall silent. She had no visible eyes to stare Vannier down, but Vannier felt them in any case. ”You failed abysmally at your very first test. The boy, your most talented squad member, needed you to believe in him, and you did not. I wanted to ask you, why?”
”Ah,” Vannier spluttered, ”I … he … it was impossible,” she finally finished.
”Yes, I see. So what would have happened if you had lied and shown faith in him and then it turned out he had lied? Hmm, did you think of that? Did you think it through?” Nader drilled into Vannier.
Vannier was almost in tears, she was not stupid, but she only realised it when Nader pointed out how stupid she had been. Even if it was impossible, she could have supported him and even if he was lying, what would have happened? Nothing. She would have just been wrong and at worst gullible. Either way, she would have shown faith in him and built a bridge between them.
”Yes, you see. Now, today is your first day, so I will go easy on you and just tell you it straight. If, and I mean a big if, you end up being squad leader, you need to think things through. And many people say that without knowing what it means. So I will be clear in my explanation.”
”What thinking things through means is you think of the next step after your words are spoken and the next and the next. You think of each and every response, you look at the repercussions of that response, whether its verbal or another reaction and you work out your next action or reassess your initial words or action,” Nader instructed.
”Leadership takes as much computational effort as a tactician in a battle, especially for one as inexperienced as yourself. After years of experience, you will find history repeating itself, and you will have already mapped your course for many situations.”
”Now, if you had gotten this right I would have been sure you would be squad leader, but now I am not so sure. We will wait and see how you handle the next couple of weeks and I will make a decision at the last minute,” Master Nader informed her.
”Dismissed,” Master Nader said and started to ignore Vannier, turning back to an invisible screen, one which only she could see in her HUD.
Vannier walked out, she was dejected at first, not because of the dressing down but because of the idiotic mistake she had made. After a brief self-assessment, she also gave herself a fail. Master Nader had made one mistake, assuming she had a burning desire to be squad leader. She just liked to be liked, and she liked to be helpful.
She walked back to the table and sat down mutely. The body language of her walk, the way she sat and the look on her face conveyed that of one in traumatic shock.
The seven sat in silence for a full thirty seconds before Axelzero asked, ”soo…?”
Vannier shook herself as if waking from a dream, ”I think it may be best if what happens in Nader's Office stays in Nader's office. Unless of course, the casualty feels the need to share. I have a feeling this may become a regular occurrence.”
Silence befell the seven again. The five who had not been summoned began to feel both lucky and apprehensive at the same time. The fear of the unknown started to creep up on them, where Daedo did not seem drastically affected, the look on Vannier spoke volumes.
”We are group zero, we have the house Master camped in our quarters, which implies we have been selected to be the subjects of an intense training program. My assessment is this is just the beginning, and we should prepare for a plethora of moulding and training techniques to be applied to us,” Daedo informed the group, grasping the situation quickly and for the first time sharing with others. Others who weren't his AI companion.
”We should eat,” he said standing and approached the kitchen facility, engaging the dashboard to release it from under the floor.
The dashboard was not a physical entity, it was accessed as a local popup through your own connection using your preferred device. Daedo just asked Myrmidon to raise and configure the kitchen by default. Some people used a hud delivered through one of many types of head devices, or a portable screen, arm pad or a helmet like Master Nader. There was even an old-school touchscreen control panel on the wall.
Nader was extremely busy, it only took a small portion of her time to monitoring everything the seven from group zero said and how they reacted to each other and her interventions. Nothing surprised her up until Daedo took charge, when he assessed the situation and informed the squad, then proceeded to destress the entire group by preparing and eating a group meal. She was not only surprised she was impressed.
She had two hundred and fifty-five cadets, who wrongly thought of themselves as students, to forge into combat engineers, warriors and leaders. She had to utilise the thirty cadets from U1 who had shown unrealised leadership potential. That took her total to two hundred and eighty-five lumps of ore to forge into a finely pressed titanium plate.
She was monitoring the other thirty groups and sending instructions and taking holo-meetings with her mentor cadets. They were also House Thoth and would split from their charges for classes, U1 activities and a small amount of free time. Otherwise, they were her proxies. Only group zero did not possess a proxy. She was free to bring one in if she desired and she had the perfect candidate on standby. She would play that card at the appropriate time.
Although she was busy she revelled in her task, she was optimistic that some of her ore lumps could become the finest mech pilot-engineers in the world. There was not much time left, this batch would be one of the last to reach the sixth year before the foretold events came to pass.
”Twenty-seven,” she called through her comms, ”encourage that sentiment. You have an opportunity to create common ground in opposition to you. You may even have some fun achieving this end, but do not overdo it, they still have to listen and respect you in the end, and that will not be achieved with fear alone.”