The Adjutant and the A.I.

Inside the space battleship above Earth's atmosphere, the Adjutant is furiously writhing about like a large child.

"HOW ARE THEY THAT INCOMPETENT?" He yelled in his own language. He then pointed at one of his smaller assistants of a different alien race.

"You, I understand. You aren't fit for battle. Your planet was enslaved as simple servants."He paused and looked at the screen that said his three deployed units were lost. "But, those pugilists were born and bred for battle. Half of their population was lost before the emperor was able to make them submit to his rule."

He paused and raised two of his nearly spherical fingertips to the side of his oversized head and began pacing.

"Maybe they got complacent. I need to keep the replacements battle-ready. Regular combat training to keep them on the edge."

He stopped and closed four of his six eyes.

"I really, really hate dealing with my people. We all have nearly the same intelligence from birth. But when we disagree…" His last few words seethed with rage.

"Master?" A servant raised his hand. "What does that have to do with the fighting ones?"

Fighting ones was a simple term used among the servant race to refer to the alien race that love fighting more than life itself. They often controlled the commander units out in the field.

The Adjutant scrunched all of his eyes in disapproval of the question. He let out an exasperated sigh before continuing.

"The reason my kind does not work well together is that we all have our different ways. We may all share a nearly identical intellect, but our tastes, preferences, and methods differ. Whenever I get new recruits, I have to retrain them from the ground up."

He knelt down to the tiny life-form that was only about as tall as the Adjutant's knee. He smiled and moved closer and closer. He then asked,

"Does that answer your question?"

The servant smiled shyly back and happily nodded while slightly backing away.

The Adjutant slowly reached a hand around the back of the servant until he made physical contact. His face transformed into pure fury. He then gripped the tiny creature and lifted him off the ground before violently thrusting him onto a nearby control panel. A flash of green electricity lit up the dark room temporarily.

The control panel was destroyed and the only thing visibly left of the servant was a glob of green goo.

"NOW…" The Adjutant yelled. "Are there any more questions?" He said with the same smile he had before decimating the servant.

The other dozen or so servants either shook their heads no or went back to their original tasks.

He then grabbed the skin on the back of the neck of the nearest servant. He lifted the servant up off of the ground just enough to turn him to face the Adjutant. After putting the servant back down, he put his evil smile back on.

"Find someone to repair this panel." He pointed behind him where the green goo was now dripping onto the floor. "Then, have someone ready my war armor. I want to personally deal with this rogue A.I. before the others return."

He then tapped his fingers together and showed a grin even more evil than the first.

After a moment of daydreaming, he noticed the servant was still standing there in front of him, raising an eager hand.

"What? What is it? Why are you still here? Shoo, shoo!"

"Um… Sir? Your war armor was disassembled at your request for parts. Sir…" The servant trembled as he spoke.

"Whaa? Ach, no I… did I? I did…" He let out a strained sigh. "How long?"

"Sir?" The servant asked, confused.

"How long will it take to rebuild it?" He opened one eye to stare down at the little assistant.

"Oh, uhh, about twenty of this planet's day cycles."

"Then remake it. And make it better than before. Add some of my favorite flair to it as well."

The servant ran off after a quick nod.

——————

Anna stared back at the large strange eyes that were narrowed by a mechanism reminiscent of a camera shutter. A loudspeaker screeched for a moment before a voice came through.

"Are you our contact? Are you… Wolf?" A young male voice asked.

Anna attempted to press the button that would normally activate the speakers on the outside of the mech. However, it refused to toggle on. She knew the only real course of action would be to open the cockpit and hope for the best. Besides, staying inside might only make the mech target practice.

She lifted the lever to force open the cockpit. Under normal circumstances, Wolf would open it for her. He still hasn't responded to Anna or Stephanie. While Anna watched the cockpit slowly open up from the inside, she hoped that Wolf didn't just short circuit and die off.

Once the opening was large enough, Anna stepped out beyond the door and stopped at the edge. A fall from this height, even as the mech was in a sitting position, would be deadly.

The eyes of the humanoid mech rotated and shifted from thin slants to open circles. It began to rise up out of the water and at the same time, step closer. Two more robots of similar makes but with slightly different styles began to emerge further away at the beach.

"So, the intellect calling themselves Wolf that we've been talking to was a girl? Interesting." The voice said over the speakers again, still coming ever closer.

"No," Anna shouted. "I'm not Wolf. He's..." Anna began to wonder about a few things. If Wolf didn't reveal his identity, was it for a reason?

"So, you aren't Wolf? Is he still inside?" The young man asked.

Anna nodded because, technically, yes, he is inside the mech.

"You look a bit worse for the wear. Let's get you to our base of operations." The humanoid mech turned around and motioned for the other two to approach. Before the others could start attaching mechanisms for transporting the mech, the voice finally emerged from his own cockpit in front of Anna. He wasn't nearly as built as Anna had imagined based on his voice, but he had a comfortable air about him. He was confident and had a great smile.

"You like 'em?" He asked.

"Them?" Anna responded.

He raised his arms before gesturing to the giants that were working behind her. He then turned around and gestured to his blue mech.

"We built these. Before your friend released his data on the internet. Granted, they have had vast improvements since then, but these guys are our pride and joy. The only things we couldn't upgrade were the weapons, as you saw from the battle. All we could do was provide a smokescreen." He paused and looked back at Anna.

"But that weapon you fired..."

A strange buzz came from behind Anna.

"Errr-is techno-no-no-nology off-limits to hu-hu-man-man-mans for what should be obvio-us-us-us reasons. I c-can't just give out secrets-ts-crets like that to a race that's con-const-stantly at war over self-selfish reasons." Wolf had interrupted the young man's thought. "You must be-be-be-be-be Wrench."

"Wolf..." Anna sighed. "Your speech got worse. What happened to you?"

"I had-ad-ad a-a faulty bl-block-lock-block of memory. I had to quarantine-tine that area. It hopef-full-pefully won't happen again-gain."