Field report
Commander,
The young lieutenant is mostly keeping on top of her duties. She’s been doing most of the logistics supervision herself, and has done a very good job of it – it’s obvious that she’s got an agile mind and a strong appreciation of how tenuous our supply situation is.
Orders of battle have mostly been delegated down to group leaders, but she’s kept an eye on who’s performing and who isn’t and has mostly been successful in maintaining our battle-readiness. In the absence of a proper engagement with Boscan forces, it has been impossible to judge her performance under fire.
Discipline has been problematic; her age has led several soldiers to openly challenge her over command decisions, and she has frequently failed to actively assert her authority in these situations; I suspect that she is having difficulty adapting from consensus-driven decision making to our hierarchical model. Junior officers have followed through on these breaches, but her soft approach leads me to believe that insubordinate behaviour and attitudes will not abate; in the absence of strong disciplinary action, the troops will continue to take liberties with their young and untested leader. All issues to date have been low-level, but I have made several security arrangements in case my models are inadequate and we find ourselves facing open dissent.
She has had initial difficulty interacting with unaugmented civilians and Boscan soldiers, which is to be expected given her insulated upbringing and training. After the first week, however, she has managed to acclimatise herself and has learned to exaggerate her body language when conversing with subjects unable to interpret her empathic projections.
I have not been able to compromise the security of her reports to you, and I have therefore attached my own estimation of our force’s disposition, including details of supplies, maintenance, personnel and forward scouting operations. Given the lieutenant’s history in the regular army, I do not expect any inconsistencies between her report and mine, but I nevertheless recommend reviewing both of them.
In the absence of any serious misconduct, I will maintain my surveillance and continue reporting to you. I have composed a shortlist of junior officers who I would consider capable of replacing her should she lose her nerve at a critical moment; with your permission, I will be selecting one of them to groom as an acting commander of our force if I am forced to relieve the lieutenant.
Report concludes.