There was no more time for self-pity and waffling. The die had been cast, the Rubicon crossed, the bell rung. I was now an active participant in this crime against humanity.
I needed all the keys to success that I had cultivated in my prior life. I needed three things to win. The first was an understanding of my situation. The second was a plan to improve this situation. The third was an evaluation of how others will try to stop that plan.
I knew my situation well, at this point. Both in large scale and in small. What I needed was a plan of action, consisting of firm goals, with metrics for success and measurable failure states.
What did I want to achieve, I mused at my desk, paging absently through a list of personnel allocated to my program.
Above all else, I wanted this travesty to never occur again.
The best pathway to that was… difficult. It was tempting to think that acquiring personal power would allow me the influence to prevent such a thing, but that would be in stark contrast to the economic laws that ruled reality.
This supersoldier program had been born of desperation for an effective answer to one of the stickier pickle jars in military doctrine – how to handle dispersed infantry in dense locations you could not afford to bomb. No amount of personal power would change the fact that expensive, highly trained, elite trigger-pullers were still the least bad solution to that problem. Sooner or later, the incentives would entice some individual into the same horrible place as ONI.
If I only had FTL communications, then I could go for a cultural victory and successfully convince the wider culture that such things were unacceptable. Alas, no such FTL communications existed, or the Insurrection would have never been born.
Similarly, inventing some kind of superior option to the tactical question of dislodging infantry would simply provide militaries with a more effective and horrific tool of murder – another step on the perpetual arms race of existence, rather than an end to a disgraceful and disgusting methodology of child soldiers.
No, the only way that I could solve this problem would be a partial cultural victory: changing the minds of the select few who would have power to influence a wider area.
For example, convincing HIGHCOM of the sheer evil of child soldier programs would require me to convince no more than twenty individuals, which was vastly easier than convincing twenty billion. Of course, HIGHCOM was composed of the highest ranking individuals in the UNSC, which made influencing them both difficult, and expected. They were wise to manipulation, given how much of it was directed at them.
But… what of the children themselves?
The original paper had hinged on inculcating the children into loyal soldiers. I'd written several paragraphs dedicated to the unavoidable fact that enhancing an individual to such a high level of physical, intellectual, and psychological performance would be utterly suicidal if you could not guarantee their loyalty.
Potential rogue supersoldiers would not be so stupid as to open fire on their comrades on a battlefield, and be gunned down in turn. They would have been educated on insurgency and counter-insurgency tactics, and would be the greatest potential spies and saboteurs – fully trained and equipped with everything they needed to perform grievous damage, and implicitly trusted enough by dint of the UNSC's commitment of resources to them. They would be clever, hiding their actions, casting doubt upon others, worming their way through the chain of command to gain even more power.
David Meyer had advocated for using children in our drunken research paper because of the potential heights that they could reach. I'd cautioned for the need to ensure loyalty because those same heights could easily be negative rather than positive.
Now, obviously, I didn't want to make super-Insurrectionists. Their ideology was united only in opposing the UNSC, and in nothing else. If they had been the dominant force in the galaxy, they would have been even worse rulers and created even more problems than the UNSC's occasionally harsh grip.
But the same tools used for sabotage could also be used for influence. Knowing which targets to focus on, which to avoid. Training for specific missions with the appropriate tactics, regardless of their nature. Gathering as much intelligence as possible to effectively leverage into desired results.
I'd had already planned, in the original paper, for these children to become officers, leaders, champions, and not just replaceable grunts. This was a simple extension of that idea. Great officers rise higher and higher, meaning more and more influence. Given that I was starting with children that were easily in the highest percentile of humanity in various metrics, it was inevitable that they would be great officers, if they were given the chance.
And who better to pursue a policy of opposition to child soldiers than people who had, themselves, been child soldiers?
Granted, there was an incredibly high chance of perception bias that would have to be rooted out and purged before it could set in. The logic of "I was a child soldier, it wasn't so bad", when they had been treated as valuable cadets to be educated, rather than replaceable meat shields as was historically common for child soldiers.
Of course, we'd already intended to educate the children about many things, including psychology, so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to educate them in that exact perception bias, and 'forget' that they could apply it to their own situation and realize how unnatural it was.
Yes, I decided, as I stood from my desk, shut down my workstation, and prepared to face the literal representatives of my sins. That would be an excellent plan.
ONI and I had stolen these children from their parents. I was supposed to be their distant overseer, but that did not rule out a more… maternal role. After all, what mother did not want to see their children grow, improve, and become better than they, the parents, were?
My shoes clicked in the hallway, and I nodded to the occasional UNSC military personnel I crossed on my journey to the auditorium.
It could be argued that this was my weregild, my repayment to the children. It would be their inheritance. I would turn them into generals and admirals, lords and ladies. I would crown them with laurels, if only so that the next time someone proposed an idea like mine, the deciding voice would be theirs.
I entered the auditorium. It was still empty. I walked down the staircase, my eyes lingering on the seats. It was a smaller room than the HIGHCOM briefing amphitheater that I had stood in with Vice Admiral Keeler, but it was the largest of the five auditoriums within my new compound. It would seat perhaps a hundred people, which made it perfect for the seventy-five children that were the candidates for Project Orion-II. I've got to do something about that name, I thought, scowling internally. It just didn't have the right ring to it.
I ascended to the stage, and set my tablet down on the podium where I could read from it.
There were others present, though I had ignored them on my walk inside, so consumed with my thoughts. Gunnery Sergeant Wentworth, the quartermaster for the project, stood at the top of the auditorium with several of his men, awaiting my signal to bring in the children. Chief Petty Officer Mendez, the head trainer for the children, was with them right now, along with his seventy-five handpicked men, one for each child.
I sucked up my courage, and nodded to Wentworth. It was time.
The children entered the auditorium slowly.
I watched, furious but helpless, as they were nudged along by the stern-faced soldiers looming over them. They stumbled their way down the auditorium's stairs, down to the very bottom, lower than the stage's floor. They would be forced to look up at me, in the harsh contrast of the illuminated stage against the darkened rows of seating.
They were so young.
I'd been that young three times in my lives. The most recent one, in this life, had been consumed by a firm work-ethic to improve my lot in life. I'd acted like a salaryman from the start, grinding away at the millstone without complaint or comment, piece by piece. The middle one, perhaps the most influential of them all, had been consumed by the terror of knowing what a hellish world I had been born into. I'd been born a victim, and had desperately chosen a path away from victimhood, towards agency, but instead, my decision had doomed me.
But my first life? In my first life, I'd been consumed by the simple joy of being a child. I'd been born a child, an innocent being that experienced each new day as if it were the first touch of a cuddly animal, the first glimpse of a new landscape, the first smell of freshly laundered clothes. I had delighted in the sights and sensations of the world. I had been fascinated by the smallest of details. I had been so overwhelmingly happy.
These children had likely been the same, experiencing the world anew each day, playing with their friends and family. Now they were locked into a pre-ordained life. They would spend ten years in the same valley, only seeing the same dozen buildings, only interacting with the same hundred people. Their free will, their freedom to choose, was forever robbed from them.
They weren't even allowed the individualism of whatever clothes they'd been abducted in. Every child had been stuffed into a dark blue uniform jumpsuit, and barely visible across their chests was a number. No names, no other identification.
They had numbered the children.
I fought down my fury, and clenched one hand in my pocket, around a thin, rectangular keepsake. I could not lose control. Not here, not now. Not because ONI would see, but because this was the first impression that the children would have of me. This was the most important time to establish a relationship with them, and I'd have to do it with seventy-five children, without the ability to deal with them one on one.
The last of the children were gently pushed into seats in the first few rows, and I found myself staring at the painfully confused faces staring up at me. They were sleepy, some rubbing at their eyes, and some still yawning. Behind them stood the military trainers that would mold these children into supersoldiers. They were cold men, special operations veterans. The rare kind of man that would be comfortable with this barbarity.
I looked down at my podium. I had notes written, the paltry efforts of my attempts. It didn't seem adequate, but I had little else. At the very least, I could be honest with them. They deserved so much, and honesty was the smallest of those things, but it was, for now, the only thing I could give them.
"As per Naval Code 45812, you are hereby conscripted into UNSC Special Project Orion-II," I read from my notes, looking up at the children. I swallowed, hoping that the movement was not noticed by the staring eyes. "You have been called upon to serve. You will be trained… and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies."
I couldn't stand the eyes. I stopped speaking. My notes paused on the autoscroller, hanging on the next line about the good they would do, the lives they would save. My throat was stiff. Perhaps, if I was less honest with myself, I'd say I had a lump in it, or that I was dehydrated, but I refused to lie to myself. I was afraid. I was regretful. My body was merely in tune with my mind's hesitation.
My shoes clicked on the stage as I stepped away from the podium. The children watched me as I moved to the edge of the stage. I descended the steps, coming closer to their level. I paused for moment, as the smart-lights adjusted, a spotlight following me.
"You can never go home," I said, directly to the nearest child, a brown haired boy with bright blue eyes. His head had been cut short, military-short, and his forehead was wrinkled with confusion, but he listened with careful attention. I turned my gaze, and addressed the next child in the row. "You can never see your families again."
I shifted my gaze again. A slim young girl, with an identical military haircut, who looked shifty, anxious, agitated. Then a taller boy with sandy-blond hair, who was struggling with his trainer's oppressive hand. Another, with blood-red hair and emerald-green eyes, nearly motionless, her eyes tracking every motion I made.
Finally, my gaze settled on a girl in the second row, who was staring back at me with an intense gaze. She, alone of all the children, seemed to understand the barest hint of the situation. There was a tremor to her hand, but her expression was rock solid. She sat at attention, back stiffened and straight.
"You will work for the United Nations Space Command," I said. "You will be soldiers. The training will be hard, but you will endure. You will be trained by the best that the UNSC has to offer, and you will become better than them."
I looked around, trying to meet their eyes. The children didn't meet my eyes back, shying away as I looked at them in turn, save for the first boy, and the final girl.
The trainers didn't move. Their hands were on the children's shoulders, keeping them from standing up. I spent a moment looking at them as well. It felt like there was nothing I could say to make this right, not without revealing my true feelings in front of the UNSC's trainers, hardened men that would not hesitate to report me to their superiors.
"Your training starts tomorrow," I told them, stepping back. "Your trainers will take you to the mess hall, and after you eat, show you to the barracks."
I nodded to the head trainer, Chief Petty Officer Mendez.
"Cadets! Fall out!" Mendez barked out.
Naturally, most of the children didn't respond. Some of them stood slowly, and only one or two managed to stand up in enough time for Mendez. The first boy and the final girl that I'd looked at. Mendez's mustache twitched, and visible distaste crossed his face. He made a gesture to his training staff, and then took a deep inhale.
"Cadets, when I say 'fall out', you stand up!" Mendez roared, as the trainers grabbed the remaining cadets by their armpits and hauled them up.
I wanted to turn away, but I couldn't. The Chief Petty Officer snapped out more orders, and the trainers frog-marched their captive children up the stairs and out of the auditorium. They left the light of the stage and marched off, into the dim dusk, off to their new lives.
I should leave, the logical side of my brain whispered. I had work to do, preparing a similar speech to the scientists tomorrow. I had a training plan to organize.
My feet stepped forward, guided by some unknowing hand, and I followed the children out. A few of the trainers noticed, and glanced at me, but my face was stern and still, and they redirected their attention to their charges.
The line of children and trainers streamed ahead of me, a train of humanity, with myself as the caboose and Mendez as the engine. The Chief Petty officer led the procession up the emergency stairs, avoiding the elevators. It was a long walk, up five flights of stairs, and out an emergency door, into the darkness of the late evening. The trainers kept tight grips on their assigned individuals, and the children were too confused, too tired, and too awed by the sights to make the most of this opportunity to escape.
This far up the Highland Mountains, it was brisk and chilly, but the children showed little awareness of the temperature. They gasped, oohing and aahing as they witnessed the outside world again. Their heads turned wildly, gazing all around at the cedar trees, the mountain peaks both near and far, and the regulation gray buildings of the compound illuminated from below, rendering them mysterious and grand rather than bland and boring.
Most of all, they stared up at the stars. I didn't know their origins, their backgrounds – such things had never been a part of my paper – but I imagined that almost all of them had lived in cities, statistically home to most of the population. Few if any would have lived in the more remote areas of their colony worlds, where light pollution was nonexistent. For all that Reach was the private military playground of the UNSC, a well-populated world of industry, this mountainous region was sparsely populated. The stars were out in force, and they glimmered like jewels in a dragon's hoard.
At the head of the procession, Mendez threw open the doors to the children's mess hall, and bright light spilled out into the pathway like liquid gold. It was welcoming, and the enticing aroma of delicious food wafted out, across the grounds. The children were drawn to it, and I followed them inside.
The mess hall was filled with low tables and benches, enough to house everyone in the compound. For now, barely half were needed. Trays of prepared food lay in wait for the children on the tables, each accompanied by a tall bottle of water. They'd pulled out all the stops – the food was steak, grilled to a fine sear, accompanied by twice-baked potatoes slathered in butter, sour cream, and chives. Roasted baby carrots and small mounds of peas rounded out the meal.
Already, the children were setting themselves upon the food with ravenous hunger, the combination of their young bodies need for nutrition and the after-effects of a long period in cryo-sleep. The clatter of cutlery filled the air, and the trainers stepped back, leaving the children alone to eat. One of them shut the mess hall door behind me, and many stationed themselves around the children in a loose circle, while others peeled away to eat their own meals.
What an extravagant meal, I mused to myself. I walked to a bench situated at the outskirts of both groups, inside the quarantining circle of trainers, but which had been left alone. I sat down, and started eating. The food was, quite honestly, some of the most delicious that I'd ever had, and it was hard to recriminate myself for enjoying the fruits of my crimes when it tasted so good.
I'd discovered in my briefing packet that Staff Sergeant Swanson, the uncomfortable non-com from my earlier meeting, was to be the head of our human services section – meals, laundry, cleaning, and other necessary requirements for human habitation – but I'd not expected him to be quite so good at it. Perhaps this was why he had been so uncomfortable; an excellent chef, but not a veteran, blooded special forces operator like the rest of the personnel here? It was a fine dinner, and I ate it swiftly.
Still, there was an undeniable tension in the air. The children ate greedily, but they did not talk to each other. Why should they? They were surrounded by total strangers, and they had just had their world irrevocably altered. Perhaps a boisterous, stupid child would power through that by dint of arrogance and youthful ignorance, but none of these children were stupid. The selection criteria had been incredibly specific. The cream of humanity's crop, the statistical outliers at the extreme edge of the bell curve.
The sound of footsteps came from behind me. I turned my head and saw CPO Mendez standing there, looking down at me.
I met his gaze, and raised an eyebrow inquisitively. He said nothing, but joined at me at the table, sitting down across from me, taking one of the untouched trays of steak, potatoes, carrots, and peas. He ate with precise motions, and said nothing.
We sat there and ate together. I finished before him, and wiped my mouth with a napkin, before looking to him.
"Do you need something, Chief Mendez?" I asked.
"Tomorrow's schedule is light," he said quietly, as if making an idle observation. It was not, of course.
"It is," I agreed, waiting for him to say more.
He had spoken very softly, such that no one could hear us speak. Was this some kind of private doubt? Perhaps, but I thought it unlikely. Mendez was an experienced non-commissioned officer, and he knew that trainers would be watching him talk to me, even if they didn't know what about.
Was this a test, of some kind? Asking me to justify my decisions to see if I really knew what I was doing? To see what kind of leader I would be? I found that more likely, but I couldn't know for sure.
Mendez frowned, his mustache wrinkling and unwrinkling as he chewed a bite of food.
"A gradual ramp up," Mendez said. "That's the plan? With these… games mixed in?"
"Physically, yes," I confirmed, patiently. "We have ten years to train their bodies, and I have full confidence in your ability to do so. Most of that work will wait until they are more grown. The more difficult task is to train their minds and spirits. They must be a cohesive, coordinated unit. We must drill that concept into them from day one. They will win as a team, or they will lose alone."
"You'll be teaching them?" Mendez asked.
"Some days, but not tomorrow," I said shaking my head. "The educational A.I. will handle their first lessons. I will be busy with the science teams."
Mendez took the final bite of his meal, and nodded.
To the side, the trainers started hustling the children up from their tables, and off to their beds.
I wished to follow, to reassure them, to ensure the trainers were not too harsh with them, but I could not. I had already deviated from my plan, lured by the emotions within me, and I could not risk sabotaging the future salvation of these children for such things.
I stood, nodded to Mendez, and headed back to my office. I had more work to do.