The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3422

Chapter 3422: Sovereigns of the Seas

"Permission to come aboard, sir."

"Permission granted."

A CFA officer shook off the slight physical discomfort that always came after routine teleportation.

He had exercised his body as of late in order to increase his tolerance of frequent exertions. He also exchanged a hefty amount of CFA merits to optimize his genes and increase his endurance to unnatural levels.

All of these augments along with his vastly improved work ethics over the years provided a reasonable explanation why he was able to shoot up the ranks all of a sudden.

In order to make the best possible impression on the first day of his new assignment, he especially grew a neat, tight-cropped beard.

It was not as flamboyant as the exaggeratingly curled gray mustache of the captain of this fine warship, but the commanding officer already showed indications of greater appreciation.

It was small moves like these that helped to accelerate a junior officer's career.

The two officers first completed all of the official procedures. The former executive officer of the Nudamu Striker received a promotion after two decades of diligent service and moved on to greener pastures.

That left a serious hole in the hierarchy of the fairly modern armed destroyer. Many ambitious officers coveted this position, not just because it was an excellent opportunity to transition to an independent command, but also because the Nudamu Striker was about to be reassigned to the Red Ocean!

Practically every ambitious CFA officer wished to go on deployment to the dwarf galaxy. An entirely new wave of distinguished and proven frontline combat spacers emerged from the invasion that started over half a century ago and already made waves within the organization.

The Red Ocean War also exposed a lot of incompetence. A lot of officers who slowly managed to move up the ranks by relying on nepotism and peacetime achievements performed quite disappointingly in the heat of the action.

Many CFA officers who had long remained stuck in the lower end of the hierarchy saw hope of breaking through the inertia of their stalled careers. They weren't cut out to work quietly for several centuries and slowly make their way up to a senior command.

Compared to keeping the peace in the relatively quiet Milky Way, it was a lot better to take part in the action in the Red Ocean!

In past eras, such incompetence could still be brushed aside by maintaining a network of backers, but the introduction of the neutral, objective and impartial Independent Evaluation System changed everything.

The days where an old boy's network of closely-acquainted officials could hand out juicy assignments to their friends and family were over. Not humans, but a vast and incredibly powerful calculating intelligence monitored and judged the performance of every spacer in real-time.

Through a combination of both objective measures and comparisons between others peers, the IES was able to make thorough judgements of an officer's actual performance. This methodology completely disregarded the subjective and often biased evaluations of human superiors.

This was how a CFA officer with a relatively poor track record until recently managed to get back on the fast track. He understood quite well how the IES made its judgements, so it was easy enough to game its algorithms!

After a hard struggle, a certain reformed member of the grand Novilon Spaceborn Clan managed to earn the spot.

Once Captain Parvus Onterey fully keyed his new executive officer to the Nudamu Striker, he finally loosened up to an extent.

"Walk with me, commander."

The two left the bridge of the powerful destroyer and moved to an observation chamber that provided an augmented view of the surrounding space.

The two gazed at the distant greater beyonder gate that was bringing hundreds of privately-owned capital ships to a distant dwarf galaxy. Although the Nudamu Striker was situated too far from the marvel of engineering to provide a clear view of the portal with the naked eye, the displays automatically patched into a remote feed that provided a closer and far more detailed view.

"Let me be plain to you." Captain Onterey spoke up after a while. "I preferred to see a different candidate take up your assignment. I argued hard to put a younger and more promising man under my wing. He is younger, but has already shown brilliant performance. Unlike you, he hasn't squandered his first chances and has always put his all into completing his tasks. His only fault is his relative lack of experience, but that is what my mentorship is supposed to rectify. In just one or two decades, I would have been able to provide the CFA with another high-flying captain. Instead… I have you, Commander Zonrad Reze. Your mixed record leaves much to be desired."

Commander Reze did not let the captain's judgment affect his mood. He continued to maintain a polite smile.

"We all work at the behest of the Common Fleet Alliance, sir. As far as I am aware of, there are no exceptions to the judgments of the Independent Evaluation System. Since its introduction and continued updates, the overall efficiency and productivity of our entire organization has risen by 7 percent on average. This is a massive gain that has allowed us to become more competitive to the Mech Trade Association."

Everything the newly-appointed executive officer said was true and factual. Yet the underlying meaning and intention of his message was not as benign.

Commander Reze knew what he could get away with. In order to beat every competitor and earn a coveted spot under one of the more famed and renowned mentors in the CFA, he offended plenty of patrons by squeezing aside their preferred candidates.

So what? The only backer that junior officers like him needed to please was the Independent Evaluation System.

Though fleeters weren't religious as a rule, if they were, then they would certainly worship the IES as their god!

Its continued success and all of the benefits it brought had led to a rising trend of outsourcing more decisions to AIs.

Although the grand admirals of the Common Fleet Alliance were careful to maintain human control over all of the critical levers of power, there were plenty of situations where human intervention was clearly inferior to automated decision-making.

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