War Fleet: Resistance

the Arstan and Foorint top officials and neglected to research your new superior officer before your posting here. Then there’s what Admiralty have told you about me, and also your first impressions. All this, I want to know.”
“Sir, the intel Fleet Command has on you is strictly confidential.”
Before he could reply, a blip came from the screen to indicate that the Extractor had selected a location. Olsen looked up at the rectangle that the display had drawn around an island. From the current elevation, it looked no different from the other islands. Eventually he’d catch sight of Fleet Admiral Frega’s mansion on there, but for now, it was much too small to be visible.
Olsen turned back to Novak and took a long deep breath. “Okay, so I’ll let you know the reason for this meeting. You need to understand something, Novak. Out here, sometimes we need to make quick and tough decisions. We often don’t have time to contact Fleet Command for assessment. You need the capability to act and to act fast.”
Novak cocked her head. “Are you alluding to the Grashorn incident, sir?”
“So you do know about it?”
“I know that it was one of the greatest blunders in military history. On the Wilson, we studied where it went wrong and why it was necessary to introduce better measures. Now the system is flawless.”
Captain Olsen swallowed a hard lump of air. He’d been the rear admiral responsible for the small fleet then, while stationed on the Grashorn flagship — one of the most advanced dreadnoughts of the time. In short, they’d been ambushed above the sandy planet of Makorest, which had contained a relatively new human colony. The Arstans had managed to intercept communications from the Grashorn, and so he couldn’t get a channel open to the captains of his surrounding ships. The result had been chaos. Every ship had acted for themselves, with rogue, uncoordinated maneuvers.
Some ships charged in to attack. Others decided it best to defend. Some fled into FTL-warp. Some did nothing, waiting it out until communications could be restored and frantically trying to contact the Admiralty.
Eventually, the comms came online, albeit unreliably, and Olsen had managed to fire off some orders. But many of these were misinterpreted due to static on the line. Captains argued with the XOs about what the orders actually meant. This led to even more confusion, as well as delayed decisions while Arstan ion-cannons and high-powered laser turrets were unleashing fire upon the human ships, turning their hulls to shrapnel.
In the end, the Grashorn had no choice but to also retreat into FTL-warp, hoping others would follow. Many did. The rest got annihilated by the Arstan fleet, leaving the human Makorest colony at the mercy of the Arstans. Thousands were slaughtered. Thousands more were sold into slavery.
Olsen had realized his mistakes long before they had a chance to get documented in the military textbooks. His captains weren’t prepared for the scenario and undrilled in coordinating actions among themselves. They waited to get orders, wasting precious moments in the heat of battle. His recommendation had been to give the captains even more autonomy so they could hone their own intuition. Instead, top brass had gone the other way, stripping the captains of control and centralizing decisions with the invention of Admiralty AI.
Only the most strategic decisions would be left up to the fleet admirals. The rest was merely tactics to be handled by machines, though it often seemed to Olsen that the only strategy the admirals had to deal with was politics between the Navy and the ambassadors on Earth. The AI dictated the rest.
But now he had Novak, Admiralty’s next version of an AI. She was trained in the latest protocols and, Olsen suspected, would report anything that she interpreted as a violation to Brownstone and the other fleet admirals. She couldn’t be modified or compromised, as Rob could, but she’d been programmed on the Wilson—some would say brainwashed—to behave just like a machine.
Olsen let out a deep breath that he’d been holding and turned back from the screen to Novak, who had been silent, watching him as if assessing as he remembered the scenario. “To some, it was a blunder. To others, a circumstantial scenario that we hadn’t anticipated.”
“And now we are prepared,” Novak said. “With protocols that relieve the burden on local command.”
Yes, thought Olsen, because we can’t trust people in command to act on their own initiative. They must follow protocols and orders to the letter. “And so those protocols they gave you on the Wilson, what happens if they prove to be outdated?”
“My duties involve regular study of the latest terms of service agreements from Admiralty AI. Protocols are frequently updated according to recently encountered situations, and so I’ll always know the most recommended course of action in any scenario.”
“Novak, I’ve seen things out here that you or the Admiralty can’t possibly imagine. Even the crew members behave in unexpected ways when so far from home.”
“Which is why Admiralty recommends you report any findings, no matter how minor, to Admiralty AI.”
“Very well, I’ll do that. But meanwhile, I want you to remember that I’m captain on this ship. Unless you find me unfit for duty, you cannot override my decisions, despite your protocols. And despite my age, my medical reports have found me fit as a gazelle — both physically and psychologically.”
Novak held Olsen’s gaze with vacant eyes. “Very well, sir. Please remember I’m only here to advise on the situation at hand.”
Another purple rectangle had appeared on the viewscreen, tiny compared to the ever-expanding green one that represented the island. The new rectangle surrounded a building set inside a dense wood, so that only a small portion of the roof was visible. Still, the image had a sixty-four-times zoom, and so the Extractor would need a good ten minutes or so until it landed.
“Sir,” Santiago said over the intercom, “I think you’d better come to the CIC.”
“What is it, Santiago?” Olsen replied.
“The defense station is further around