A mental alert flashed across Cossus’ vision and he frowned. There were only a few topics that he had set to auto-alert him with an update and all of them were important. He looked around his office and sighed. The week had been a difficult one.

Syndicate ships were raiding shipping lanes between Venus and some of the refineries around Mercury. There were rumors of a rogue AI causing trouble on Neptune. Members of a genetic cult had penetrated some of the highest levels of the Titan planetary government. The Empire always seemed to be one catastrophe away from destruction.

He had been able to pass the more routine matters to his successor, Aelia, but she still had far to go in her training. That left the lion’s share of the Empire’s crises on his plate. He still had a dozen reports to screen before he could even think about going home and he wished his steel-eyed apprentice were nearby to assist. Unfortunately, he had sent her off to Neptune to assist the intel operatives against the rogue AI.

He pulled up the alert and transferred it to the vidscreen on his desk while checking the time.

2000 IST. Shit, he thought. The wife is not going to be happy.

This would be the fourth day in a row that he missed dinner. The thought immediately spawned a sharp pain in his temples. He opened his desk and pulled out a bottle of minor painkillers. He opened it and palmed one of the pills. He took a long draught of cold coffee and tossed in the pain pill in preparation for reading the report. When he choked the bitter brew down, he picked up his vidscreen to scan through.

“Well that’s interesting,” he mused. It seemed that their subject, an Andros Aeton, had almost escaped en route to Ceres. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Even if the Hodesian had managed to threaten the pilot or tried to pilot the IIS Searching Orb himself, he would’ve quickly been blown out of space by one of the nearby orbital defense platforms around Ceres. Still, that would’ve been a waste of resources on top of the loss of life.

The Director didn’t feel a full measure of pity for the agents that had died. He quickly pulled up the surveillance footage at the time of the attack. His agents had clearly grown complacent. As far as Cossus was concerned, the Hodesian had done him a favor. If those fools had managed to elevate themselves into higher office, there was no telling what harm their collective idiocy could and would have wrought.

He quickly drafted up the next of kin notifications and affixed his name to the bottom. It was a task that he had become proficient in. They were vague, useless things but important in preserving the image of the Empire. He also approved medals for the fallen agents, had them entered into their personnel files, and then physical copies shipped to the families of the deceased. If the Director had his way, he wouldn’t have even given them that for their extreme lapse in judgment. However, recruiting efforts were down and the medals would help boost the perception of the Intelligence Department with the common people. Administration work done, he turned back to the task at hand.

Thankfully, the remaining pilot had been intelligent enough to stun the captive and then render the medical aid necessary to keep him alive until they landed on Ceres. Cossus made a note in the officer’s file and approved another award. He had done well enough when the entire situation had gone to shit. Hopefully, the sign of approval from the Director of Intelligence would help whatever trauma he had experienced. The Director wasn’t immune to the fact that the Hodesian had turned the ship’s cabin into something suitable for a slasher film.

Cossus had just gotten to the part of the surveillance footage where Andros was beating his fists against the shield when he stopped the video. He rewound the video and watched it multiple times as he pursed his lips. By all known Imperial metrics, the Hodesian shouldn’t have been able to disable the shield that way. First, just touching the damned thing should’ve sent enough volts through his body to incapacitate him. Second, someone could shoot at the shield for days on end and nothing would’ve happened to the integrity of the barrier.

There’s more to this, he thought.

His instincts were tingling and he had been in the game long enough to know when he should listen to them. The incident stood out even more because the initial medical screening of the Hodesian had turned up exactly nothing. The man was in perfect health, the only thing unusual about that was the perfection itself. Based on combat droid recordings, he had taken dozens of stunning shots and from the footage from the Imperial Marine, half of his body had suffered 2nd-degree burns, and then he had been thrown through a building.

At the very least, the environment in which he had lived should’ve shown the signs of poor nutrition or ancient disease. Beyond an extremely low body fat percentage, he had been in peak condition when he was taken aboard the Expedition. Even after a week of regular food chocked full of doctor-approved nutrition supplements, Andros had maintained his low body fat.

Hell, he should’ve had a calcium build up on his bones from old breaks or scars on his flesh from old wounds. The Director grumbled.

None of that had been found in the full medical diagnostic and that was the most curious part. The Empire had the best diagnostic technology in the entire system. A genetically enhanced individual that could fool those tests was an intriguing idea. Cossus imagined slipping super-operatives into enemy factions and they could remain undetected. As it was, he had to send normal agents into places where he knew their enhancements could be detected.

With that thought in mind, he pulled up Andros’ medical file and screened it one more time. There was nothing to indicate the man was anything more than the average imperial citizen. The only thing they had discovered was that his body naturally adapted to UV exposure over time. When he was exposed to the sun, his skin and hair would grow darker. Even his eyes would change from gray to black. When he was without sunlight, his hair would lighten to blonde, his skin would become pale, and his eyes became steely gray. That was interesting, but it didn’t reveal anything useful. Imperial citizens could already change their looks with a quick trip to a gene sculptor. With a frustrated sigh, he dismissed the file and then summoned the footage of the Hodesian’s time in the brig. He watched it at twenty times speed and stopped the recording when he found what he had been searching for.

There.

A sense of excitement accompanied his discovery. Unveiling secrets, solving mysteries, and outsmarting the Empire’s enemies was the type of contest he liked to engage in. Forget gene treatments, the great game is what truly kept him alive all these years.

He watched as Andros started punching the forcefield that led to his cell. The initial hits hurt him. Granted, they weren’t nearly as debilitating as they should’ve been. They were based on the same directed energy technology that most of the Empire used as weapons. So it was conceivable that his earlier exposure had built up a resistance. Cossus felt his mouth turn into a grim line as he watched Andros become less and less affected by the shield as time wore on. By the end of the first day, the shield didn’t appear to harm him at all. By the end of the week, he was able to generate visible irregularities in the shield matrix.

The amount of effort required to cause enough damage that the energy field had to draw power like that was, in a word, staggering. Comparing the two recordings, it was no wonder that he had been able to break into the cockpit. The real question was how. He set the widescreen down on his desk.

We know a few things. He heals radically faster than the average human aver. All the general wear and tear over a lifetime of hard living is non-existent. All the injuries he sustained in his brief stint with the Empire have been healed or mitigated, and now he was able to get to the point where shields were ineffective. There’s a chance that he’ll grow even stronger, Cossus approached the last thought with a measure of awe. Andros’ potential was truly unlimited.

Changing tracks for the moment, he checked all the medical diagnostics on the other Hodesians that had been placed in stasis. He ran the data through an AI and searched for the same anomalous biology as Andros. The query came up clean. The rest of his people had all the normal maladies of a low-tech world.

I need more data. The reality of the situation was that more data wouldn’t be forthcoming. Andros’ people had been the easiest enclave of normal humans to capture. They were isolated and lived on a chain of islands. Sure, they were safe enough from the gene-regressed population, but they had been relatively easy to capture from the sky.

The other Hodesians were far harder to find and capture. Most of them had gone underground or were hiding in equally difficult places to reach. Cossus had needed to mobilize two full battalions of Marines before he felt confident he would capture the rest. He still had another two weeks for them to be relieved from Mars and then reassigned to the Afrodull system. In the meantime, he wasn’t sure what he should do with Andros.

Some form of advanced genetics was taking place. The fact that they fooled a medical diagnostic made it even more interesting. He needed to find a way to test the Hodesian’s resiliency without letting him know what was happening. If he realized the potential power he held within his genes, he might be able to organize an escape. That wasn’t something Cossus was willing to let happen.

No, I need something more subtle.

His fingers glided over his desk as holo screens popped into life and responded to his typed commands. With a gesture, he pulled up files from all the known operatives in Imperial Intelligence. A swipe of his fingers and he had shortlisted the ones that could be quickly reassigned to Ceres or that were already stationed on Ceres. Next, he removed the ones without combat experience. After that, those without advanced infiltration training were gone. Finally, he narrowed it down to five individuals who had the best training, experience, and cybernetics that money could buy. On his list, there was the only man left that was also a skilled psionic.

There. That’s the one I want, Cossus smiled as he thought.

The agent in question had been alive for a little under a hundred years. He was young for an operative of his caliber. He had served in three military engagements where he had performed with distinction. He had also infiltrated a burgeoning machine cult on Callisto, prevented a terrorist bio-attack on Ganymede, and had single-handedly assassinated a planetary government when they had displayed ambitions, not in keeping with the goals of the Empire at large.

Having found an agent, Cossus went about the routine work that went alongside a successful covert operation. The Support Directorate was tasked with creating him a new identity while the Science & Technology Director was directed to craft him a disguise. The latter was a painful process but a necessary one. Having one’s body and face resculpted was unpleasant, but Cossus had already received confirmation from the desk on Ceres that as soon as the agent arrived they would be ready.

Cossus was satisfied as his work quickly guided the destinies of Andros and his agent. Now, it was time to inform him of his new assignment. The Director sent an Onyx-priority request to the agent. Within minutes, it had been accepted and the holo-emitters in the ceiling whirred to life. They created a full 3D representation of the man in his office with lifelike detail.

He was above average height at 1.88 meters. He had a large frame that looked like it had seen better days. His clothes hung off of him like he was an ancient scarecrow. A scruffy brown beard covered his face, and long dank hair fell to his shoulders. He looked like a farmer on an agro-world which was perfect because that was exactly who he was pretending to be. Despite his slovenly appearance, his green eyes were sharp and focused.

[Director Sita, it’s an honor to appear before you.] the man didn’t salute or otherwise look as if he were standing in the office of one of the most powerful men in the galaxy. He looked like he was lounging in the sunlight, propped against a cheap fab-barn.

Cossus smiled at that. Even now, his agent was maintaining his cover and it was a pleasure to watch a professional in action. These were the kind of agents that ought to be promoted.

Perhaps, after this mission is accomplished, he considered.

[Agent Caecus,] Cossus greeted. [You’re being reassigned.]

A spark of interest lit the man’s eyes but he otherwise remained unmoved.

[I appreciate the opportunity, Director. I won’t pretend this assignment has been an interesting one.] A sly smile crossed the agent’s face. To any passerby, he could have been enjoying a pleasant breeze.

Cossus laughed. [I imagine that after your career, pretending to be a farmer has to be somewhat dull.]

Caecus slightly shrugged, barely a motion of his shoulders. [I go where the Emperor wills, Director. It appears he saw fit for me to learn how to drive a tractor.]

The men shared a good-natured laugh. For Cossus, it brought back many memories of the times he had been asked to do something inane in the pursuit of Imperial security. It was moments like these that he missed being in the field.

Where does he need me to go next?], Caecus asked.

Cossus appreciated the agent’s candor and his loyalty. It confirmed the things he had ascertained from the agent’s file.

[You’re going back to Ceres.] He waved a hand in dismissal before the operative could respond. [Don’t worry, not for some bullshit training. I have something more interesting for you to do.] When Cossus finished he forwarded the mission parameters to the agent over his SECNET.

Caecus’ eyes grew distant as he studied the file. When he finished his eyes cleared. [You’re right Director, this does sound interesting. Anything special that isn’t included in the brief?]

Cossus tapped a finger against his chin in thought.

[Yes,] he replied after a moment.

[I want you to make this man the most powerful warrior in the universe. The trick is that he can’t know it. I want you to befriend him and turn him to the Empire’s side. Not only will he be a weapon for the Emperor, but he could revolutionize the entire way we wage war.]

Cossus’ eyes hardened as he looked at Caecus. [This is quite easily the most important assignment you’ve ever been given.]

Caecus nodded his acceptance before responding, [I’ll be on Ceres within two standard hours.]

The Director returned the nod and then ended the connection. There wasn’t anything else that needed to be said between the two career intelligence officers. Ceacus understood the mission and he would accomplish it or die trying.

Cossus settled back into his chair with a sigh. He knew he was taking an extreme risk, but with great risk came great reward. He hadn’t gotten to the position he held by playing it safe. He only had one more decision to make before packing it up and catching a late dinner at home.

Should I give Andros cybernetics?

That was the real question. If he authorized it now while the Hodesian was incapacitated, then Andros would never know of the changes. Their addition would allow the department to collect even more detailed diagnostics. There was a small chance that they could provide data that wasn’t easily gathered through a medical evaluation.

Plus, the warrior could grow into them while they explored the full extent of his advanced genetics. He had already shown extreme adaptability with just a class I intranet link. Who knew what else he could do once he had the same enhancements as say… a Pale Guard. He smiled at the thought.

Of course, he would need multiple ways to keep the man in line. The first was easily done. He included a Class V Deviance Inhibitor in the package of enhancements. The small devices had a profound effect on negative and positive emotions. It was a type of behavior training employed against the highest echelons of Imperial service. Loyal behavior was accompanied by a rush of positive psychological responses in the body while disloyal behavior caused negative physiological responses. It was a subtle way of conditioning loyal servants of the Empire. A Class V inhibitor was the highest class available.

Cossus was well aware that the Hodesian’s genetic makeup would likely counter the inhibitor over time, but first impressions were the most important. Plus, none of that would matter if the kill command was remotely activated. The Hodesian’s brain would be slagged and then his body could be directed for further study.

That was the last resort. So far, Andros had been the only one of his kind, and Cossus refused to waste that type of potential. However, there was still much to be done with regards to his loyalty. From the man’s conversations with Commander Varus, Cossus was able to ascertain that he cared about his family.

A quick look through his intranet link identified his children and from there he was able to find the identity of the mother. He sent an order to the Science & Technology Directorate to create a deep fake of the family and begin growing the AIs necessary to take over the identities. The entire family would remain on ice until they had discovered the full extent of Andros’ abilities. After all, if that same ability had been passed along to his children, they were conceivably more valuable to the Empire than he was.

It was common sense that super-soldiers for the empire that had been raised from a young age to be loyal to the Empire were far more preferable than the father. For now, he could use the deep fakes to make it appear that the Empire had hostages and that they were enjoying their new life on Ganymede. If the gene warrior decided to act rebellious, then Cossus could pretend to punish them. Andros would never know the difference.

Leverage out of the way, Cossus focused on the type of enhancements that would be useful for the next generation of super-soldier. None of the physical ones made sense. The Hodesian would likely be able to increase the potency of his senses on his own. The reasoning held true for any ocular improvements.

There were plenty of biologics analogs to magnification, x-ray, thermal, and infrared vision and it would be interesting to see if Andros could develop them without technology. The other benefits like aim assist weren’t compelling enough and too obvious to Andros that he had been modified in some way.

First, a nanite hive was approved. The nanites would supplement his already powerful healing ability. They powered themselves from the piezoelectricity generated by his body. The next time he got shot in the chest, they would be able to bring him back from the brink of death. After that, his natural regeneration would help him recover and likely be more resistant to that type of damage in the future. Hopefully, that would offset the bizarre side effect that caused his body to consume his body fat for energy. They also had a host of other benefits like fighting off disease and optimizing performance in a variety of ways.

The only other enhancement that Cossus deemed useful was the one that would make Andros a truly frightening monster. The Director signed off on a Class V Neural Enhancement Package. The enhancement would rewire the way his brain works. Synapses would fire faster, communication between the mind and body would be quicker. If and when he developed psionic abilities, they would be more powerful, and he would have an instinctive ability to use advanced technology.

It was the final point that Cossus knew would be of the most immediate use. Without a basic intranet link, the experiment had figured out the mechanics of how to use a rifle if not the specifics. With an intranet link, he had been able to devise a way to defeat a forcefield, use a pistol to great effect, and almost succeed in taking over an Imperial Intelligence vessel. There was no telling the ingenuity Andros would be able to use if he had an instinctual grasp for the technology of the Empire. It would catapult him from a backwater warrior to an advanced warfighter.

After finishing his orders to Ceres, Cossus finished the dregs of his coffee and sat back in his chair. He let out a sigh of contentment. Good work on behalf of the Empire had been done and he felt satisfied in its completion. Once again the Empire would go through some revolutionary changes, and he would have made it happen from behind the scenes. It was a game he loved to play. It was a game he loved to win.