Robert Watts
"Please wake up."
I groaned.
"What?"
I didn't recognize the voice.
"Who is this?"
"I apologize for hacking your communications, General, but you have problems."
Video turned on and I watched as one of my spies sold me out.
"You have one week before our mutual enemy finds your current location."
"Who are you?"
"Officially I do not exist but I used to be a scientist of some skill before the UNSC tried to forcibly recruit me, before they killed my family, before they left me to die. I'm sorry, I'm just a little bitter and completely enraged but I managed to keep access to quite a few backdoors so I escaped and managed to rebuild my life's work."
"Can I have a name?"
"Doctor Monk."
The Front managed to survive by being flexible, and this wouldn't be the first time an asset fell into our laps.
"What do you want?"
"I think it is very unfair that the UNSC has a supersoldier program and not you, I want to even the odds on a lot of things. Before they attempted to murder me I was working on something called project Athens, I've since completed and perfected it. I will send you the coordinates of a drop of my little project, enough for 30 men. Send someone expendable, take it as a gift. Once you know I am legitimate I will contact you again."
"I thank you."
With that done I showed the file to the others and we were able to evacuate in time. The others in the Front were worried that this was a trap, but I silenced them with a simple fact: I was too valuable to simply give up. And if Doctor Monk was legit? Well, then it wouldn't hurt to hear him out. The crate of goods was found on a small empty world without issue, and volunteers were called.
The instructions were simple: inject the drugs over a period of days. The results spoke for themselves. The men gained psychic powers. Telekinesis, a body forcefield that made them harder to kill, the ability to freeze and burn enemy, electrocute them with the power of their minds or create a swarm of bees.
As I watched the first test subjects of project Athens I smiled: this was the counter to the Spartan program that we dreamed of. So, of course, the dear doctor would spoil the mood a week later by calmly informing me of the upcoming alien attack... but life does give one lemons and, even if this was not ideal, I had plans to make a lovely lemonade.