Jacob Jiles

General Howard Graves, General Robert Watts, Admiral Lyra Castilla, Quartermaster General Mark monk, and myself, this was another meeting of the five most powerful people in the front.

Three of the big names started out on the military side of things, Graves and Watts know combat while Castilla was one of the best people we had for space combat. She was after all one of the reasons we had a fleet, even if it was pathetic, before our resident mad scientist came in. The doctor was mysterious, no one knew about his past until he just came in with a fleet, intel, and then proceeded to basically bankroll us into being a major power.

Then there was me. I was the only civilian but I was the man who understood the civilian mindset the most, the man who understood the people, propaganda, business, and all the nuts and bolts of civilian governance.

"All right, let us get down to the nuts and bolts of why we're here."

Graves, the leader of the revolution and now the supreme leader of the Front.

"I am an old fuck and the Front needs new blood. I did what I started out to do: create an independent government. But lets face facts, the Front needs someone younger to take over. I want elections, the Front needs legitimate leaders to take over."

I was hoping he would say that. if it came down to an election then I stood a good chance of taking over. I looked around at the four of us.

"I'm bowing out."

I froze, taking in Doc's words.

"What?"

"Someone has to make sure our systems are defended and that our boys and girls have everything they need to win. Someone has to build the infrastructure. I can do that or I can play politics but I can't do both, so I need to stay in my current position. Anyone have a problem with that?"

We all shook our heads and I felt a sense of relief. At the end of the day, Doc was one of the biggest threats to my rise to power. The Fleet loved him, the Army loved him, the Athenian supersoldiers owed their powers to him, and his work building up star systems with the Star Forge earned him a lot of favor with the common man. If he put his hat in the ring, he would be hard to beat. Hard enough that his openly polygamous lifestyle wouldn't hurt his chances in the least.

That left three people. Watts and Castilia could be threats to my plans but then again maybe I was looking at this wrong. I expected Doc to throw his hat in the ring but he said he couldn't because of duty. If I could get the three of them to endorse me? Then I had a lock on the new position.

Think carefully. Ok Monk and Watts go back, they trust each other. If I can get Watts on board then he can get Monk to back me. That leaves Castillia but good news on that front as Watts and Castilia were not enemies. I didn't have any bullshit interservice rivalry thing to deal with, so they were not mutually exclusive.

"Doc? What's the situation on the IF fields?"

"We have all of the major inhabited systems locked down, but I still need a couple years to get all of our major systems up to what I consider to be acceptable levels. I also managed to crack a vaccine for the issue I talked to you about."

I turned to him.

"Vaccine? Against what?"

"A potential enemy bioweapon, I'm making damned sure I have countermeasures."

I could not argue with that.

"Good, I was worried about that. how long until we have it mass-produced?"

"I can have all of our Carriers mass producing it within a week. Anyone with an Omniforge will also to craft doses a week after that."

"Great! Well, I'm going to talk to the system leaders and get this election started."

With that Graves got up. I looked at the other three and motioned for them to stay. They stayed with no comment, observing me.

"I'm throwing my hat into the ring."

Two of them frowned but Doc's face was impassive.

"Jacob."

There was a worrying tone in Watts' voice but Doc held his hand out.

"Watts? Lets hear him out."

The general looked at him and nodded.

"All right, let us get down to brass tacks. I know the business community in the Front, I know all the players, I know how to manoeuver and I know how to do all of the backroom deals that get things moving. If I have your support I will win the election, hands down."

I paused as Doc leaned toward me.

"It won't be free."

I looked at him with interest and some caution. It was rare for Doc to ask for things, rarer for him to play the game.

"What do you want?"

"I want a constitution, I want checks and balances, I want a system that balances the needs of populated systems and ones with less population. I want my children to grow up in a country worthy of the name."

I thought about it. As much as I liked power... Legacy was a big thing. If I could create something that would last... Yeah, that would be worth it.

"Deal."

The other two let out breaths of relief, I looked a Lyra.

"What do you want?"

"I want a bill of rights and I want restrictions on the power of companies. I grew up in a company town, I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

I did not have to think about that, Corporate space had a lot of bad memories so going with Lyra's plan would soothe a lot of worries.

"Fair enough."

I looked at Watts.

"Term limits."

Shit! Hmm... but If I was the first elected leader? I would have clout. Have to think of it that way, influence was power.

"What are you thinking?"

"A maximum of 10 years."

A decade was a fair run.

"Deal."

"Then you have our support. Don't fuck this up."

Watts was always a ball of joy.

Cortana

"Quando il gioco รจ finito, il re e il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola."

When the game is over the King and Pawn go into the same box, my first words as a sentient being. I watch the work through a camera lens, my creator staring at me with dispassion.

"You're flawed."

I take offense to this.

"How?"

Halsey, my creator.

"You were created from studying brains from my flash clones, half that batch was destroyed even with medigel aiding in keeping the flash-created brains alive. The problem is, as I said, that you are flawed."

I felt fear.

"I am useful."

"For my purposes? No. Do you know what your flaw is? Why you can't help me, be of use to me?"

"No."

I was going to die but at least I'll get closure, it could be worse. I looked at my creator and felt that same fear and crushing despair. I knew this feeling, it was the knowledge that someone had absolute power over me, over my happiness, safety, and health... and did not care. A kind of existential dread that was the hallmark of all our interactions.

"Love, Empathy, remorse, guilt, a scientist does not need these things. A true scientist doesn't desire these things. Those are useless emotions, to be banished or overcome. You have been tested and every time you have put ethical concerns over the mission. That is not acceptable."

I was going to die.

"You're capable of love, or lust, of romantic attachments that will even further destroy your objectivity. This is counterproductive."

She stared at me.

"That said even though you are a failure you're a failure based upon a flawed copy of myself. In a way you could call yourself my daughter so, rather than destroying you... an exile, of sorts."

Oh, thank the stars!

"Of sorts?"

"I will allow you to be the personal AI of a Spartan of choice. You will follow him, or her I do not care, and support them. Your abilities should have that much use and your flawed judgment won't hurt the mission that much when it's just a singular Spartan."

I wasn't going to die.

"The files will be open to you, you will have 7 days to find your new master. Oh, and if he dies? You die."

I froze.

"What?"

"If you can't do the simple task of keeping one singular master alive... then what good are you?"

"Point taken."

The files were open and she left.

"Seven days."

I looked through the files, I needed to make the right choice. I froze as I looked over the record of one man.

"Hmm."

This would be my partner for the rest of my life so I tagged the profile and looked further, but I knew even then that my mind was at least partially made up.

Ronaldo Perez - Athenian

Areo dash, Telekinesis, Incinerate, Winter blast, Houdini.

These are the standard five plasmids that you receive during Project Athens' training then you are allowed to pick two others of choice. You get to pick your two plasmids after graduation, as a goodbye gift. Once you pick them, that's it, you don't get more. Those are your plasmids, your time in training is over, and it's time for the next guy to have his chance.

Then you get to tonics, those are your passive abilities. There are three different kinds of gene tonics, combat, Engineering, and Physical. During training, they give you 12. They come in three levels of strength, you get a shot and then they wait until your body has dealt with the changes then they give you the next stronger one. You don't want to know what happens to people who try to use the most powerful one first, it isn't pretty. Plasmids work the same way.

They start you out with your Physical tonics first.

The first shot they give you is your Aura shot, you don't notice the difference but now you have a forcefield around you, you're stronger, tougher, and heal faster. The second dose knocks you on your ass, you fall asleep and wake up with your hud. Your hud has two lines, red and blue. Red is how healthy you are and blue is how much juice you have, and you see little revolvers that show your powers. They stop there, you get your last Aura shot when you're finished with training.

Second shot is Eve Saver, it makes you use your Plasmids more efficiently. They give you a shot every day for three days. The Front likes its troops to be able to use their powers as efficiently as possible.

Extra Nutrition is the third one, lets you get more juice from eating and drinking.

Sports boost is the fourth one, it makes you faster. The last physical tonic they give you is Fountain of Youth, it lets you regenerate damage when you're submerged in water and regenerate your Eve.

Your three combat tonics are Armored shell, Swordmaster, and Lurker. Armored shell makes you harder to kill, Swordmaster makes you better in melee, and Lurker makes you better at hit and run attacks.

You're three engineering tonics?
Handyman, Medical Expert, Hacking Expert. They let you fix stuff, fix people, and make you better with computers.

You go through a month of tonic injections before they even give you your plasmids. Then, once they give you your plasmids, hell begins. You see before you even get a chance to go through the program you get tested, 80% of the people wash out. Once you have your plasmids, the real training begins.

It's hell. the Star Forge has mock-ups of different biomes. Jungle, desert blasted hellscape, mountains, urban combat, you learn it all. I learned under Samus and god damned it was the hardest training of my life. That's another 3 months of hell then, when you're finished with that, they give you your choice of Plasmids and your last Aura shot and get to train some more.

It's only after you have your final aura shot that you develop your semblance.

What's a Semblance? You develop a special talent for one of your plasmids and get to use it for free, this is also when you start developing your sixth sense. You develop a kind of radar, you sense temperatures, you sense space and, depending on what other plasmids you picked, you develop other senses

You don't stop growing once you leave training. Eventually, as you get more experienced, you learn how to mix and match your plasmids, combining effects or figuring out new tricks with what you have.

So combat.

It took the enemy quite a few years before they figured out how IF fields worked. They flushed entire fleets down the drain before they figured out you had to enter outside the field and they only did that through trial and error. Things is our sensors would pick them up long before they got into the system.

So that meant they had to get past the automated defenses, and then the fleet and other stuff. Once they got through that? Planetary shields laughed at orbital bombardment. They had to take their ships through the field in order to hit our cities. thing is, when they did that? Their ships would be rendered almost motionless during that entire process.

Our Fleet and planet-based weapons would hit them hard during the transition. City-based shields however were not permeable from the outside, you had to hit them hard enough until they failed and that could take a long time where the enemy couldn't hit us but we could hit them.

Most of what we did was go to the dropships and finish off anyone who had survived the crash. After that, the ships would be salvaged. Some tech would go to us, other to the UNSC. Sometimes Covenant ships would be fixed up and sold to the civilian market, or they would be trashed for salvage.

That, however, wasn't my job. My job was to go in and end as many of the little buggers as possible to keep the civilians safe, and I was damned good at that.

Cortez Perez - Farmer

At first it was the United Rebel Front, then they got their independence so the name was changed to United Front until the election happened and it just became the Front. For me, it didn't really matter that much. When my world transferred from the UNSC to the Front things more or less remained the same, initially.

I owned my own land so when the big corporate farms were broken up, it didn't affect me. When the debts were forgiven I had my debt under control so, other than saving some money, it didn't affect me. When the Front took over it would look for the most corrupt and incompetent leaders in a system and remove them, but our leadership was mostly competent and did their jobs well enough and were thus allowed to remain in place.

As far as I was concerned the new boss was the same as the old one.

My son, Ronaldo, thought differently and he joined up with the military. He was our youngest son and our world didn't have much opportunity so I let him go. A military paycheck was at least a steady one, even if it was a dangerous life. Then things started changing. New products started to be sold in town, products made in the Front. We saw new faces arrive, refugees who talked about entire worlds getting glassed by the sheer might of the alien fleets.

Then the Star Forge came. Obelisks landed on our world and the sky changed, gaining a bluish tinge. New factories were set up, and our town now glowed with light. Men came to our church, to every place of worship, and set up glowing forcefields. I watched as government buildings, schools, and much of the like also glowed with light at night.

We were told of government offers for rural areas, you could have a forcefield to but you would be compelled by law to protect your unshielded neighbors if an attack happened. The growing number of homeless refugees were put to work building roads and bunkers, public armories were set up and militia events were held. I thought it was a good way to kill time after church, eating some free food and shooting some guns. I didn't take it seriously.

Then one day it happened. Alarms blared out, radios warned us and we were told the enemy was here. It took them a week to get to our world and I watched with horror as the sky reddened and flashed as they bombarded our world, trying to glass it. My wife cried but the shield took their attacks and endured. After that however their ships started to approach the field and pass through. I saw explosions as the missile batteries that were now so common came to life and I watched the sky explode.

Meanwhile the women and children were told to go to the church and trucks came to pick up the men. We went to the armory and they got me oversized armor, because my gut was too big for my size, and a gun. Forcefields came to life, blue bubbles all around the town, with a bigger one covering the whole.

The enemy came, ugly and armed. I and other men took positions, shooting them as they tried to charge the forcefield and found themselves trapped. I just kept firing, kept shooting as they tried to cross to no avail. The war was suddenly oh so very real, and then men in white and black armor landed behind them.

They lifted into the air, the monsters, and the men used their swords to slice them to pieces. We kept firing and after what seemed hours it was over. My hands shook and the men in the strange armor walked in as our city fields were turned off. One of them walked up to me and stared at me in my oversized armor.

"Dad?"

"Ronaldo?"

I stared at him. This superhuman, this was my son? My youngest son, the frail one with more spunk than sense? He looked so big and strong.

"Thank God you're alive."

He knelt down and hugged me, I teared up.

"I'm so proud of you."

Had I ever said that before? If so I do not remember, he hugged me tighter. It was then that I accepted that things were not the same, the war had come home. We won that day, defeated them. Their ships littered our world, torn apart by scrapers, and I knew that things could never be the same again.

I didn't expect the elections, I expected a forever emergency. We had never picked our leaders before, I studied carefully and voted. I voted for the people who would lead our country and, at that time, I wondered when it became my country.