Chapter 5 R&D Lab

While this internal dialogue with his system was taking place unbeknownst to Luck he was being watched from a hidden camera. The bio technical department head Asclepius was watching everything while deep in thought. "Looks like test subject 9037 was a unexpected success." "Using the remaining cell mass from the creature known as Jenova we successfully fused its DNA from a rare mutated human primarch that yielded a useable result at last."

Thousands of experiments over the decades using Jenova's DNA have given him nothing but mindless monsters and utter failures and now he finally had something to show for all his effort. "Shame that was the last of the Jenova cells but that doesn't matter anymore. Simply amazing" he mutters. "I must go see this specimen and collect its DNA and then start testing to see what it's limits are. Then I can start the next batch of experiments."

As Dr Asclepius got ready to leave his office the door bursts open. In came a squad of imperium soldiers. At the head was Colonel Rico, a tall man 6"4 with light brown crew cut hair, dark tan skin wearing a ceremonial dress uniform smothered in campaign ribbons and medals. He had a saber on his right hip and a pistol on his left. His

Black and gold commodore hat tucked under one arm and a deep frown on his face. Following him from behind was 6 heavily armed elite guards. All of them were wearing power armor and carrying assault rifles and a blend of other weaponry.

Colonel Rico was the empires liaison with Dr Asclepius biological weapons testing research and development lab. This was one of many top secret research facilities the military funded, due to the nature of what was done here everything was kept hidden from the public, even most of those in the government didn't know of its existence. As human experimentation was illegal, at least publicly.

The location of the base was buried deep inside a asteroid in a barren sector of space in the NZD53 system. NZD53 was at section of space that sat the edge of humanity's territory.

Just getting here took a decent amount of time and effort because there were no teleportation devices allowed on the base due to the energy waves released when one was activated. They emitted a specific energy signal that could easily be picked up on by almost anything that happened to be looking. Even the nearest jump gate is at least a months travel away from where the hidden base was at currently in part because the asteroid it was positioned in was in the middle of a large asteroid belt. This ancient space rubble was one of the main reasons humanity stopped expanding further in this area due to sheer size of the asteroid belt.

"Greetings doctor, on behalf of the Imperium." Before Dr Asclepius could respond in-turn the Colonel continued without missing a beat. "Now that greetings are out of the way, I'll be blunt - as you know the Imperium is always fighting multiple wars on hundreds of different fronts across thousands of planets all throughout the universe. Constantly expanding our territory and protecting humanity from the hordes of xenos that would kill or enslave us all." "While we are holding our own for now, scientists like yourself and your contributions to the war effort are what enables us to continue this fight. However we don't want this war to just go on forever. We fight to win, for humanity's absolute supremacy over these filthy aliens that threaten us."

Dr Asclepius knew that the Colonel was a war hardened veteran that spent the majority of his life fighting on the front lines in various covert operations, to make matters worse - he was also a special kind of lunatic who only felt alive when he was in a battlefield living life on a razors edge in some hellish nightmare zone that any sane person would avoid at all costs.

By virtue of always being on the front lines and miraculously not dying he was often sent here to check up on the lab and report back to the higher ups, as well as make delivery's to the station whenever he had collected some rare xenos corpses or their equipment that needed studying.

Sometimes he came by to pick up and field test any new weapons that were developed when he was between missions or on his way to a new battlefront. As Dr Asclepius was about to respond the Colonel continued, "What do you have for the Imperium?"

Without waiting for a response Colonel Rico starts roaming around the office, flipping through various files sitting on the desk. While this annoyed the Doctor, he didn't let it show on his face, after all he was a non-combatant and he knew the Colonel himself or any of his guards could kill him as easy as breathing.

After not hearing the Doctor speak up after a minute of rummaging around had passed, he says "Don't tell me you have nothing? It's been a long time since this base has provided anything truly useful, a full decade in fact." He looked up flashing a cruel smile that made the doctors blood run cold. "What would all the good tax paying citizens think of such a waste?"

The truth was that the lab really didn't have any completed projects and Asclepius was thinking what inconvenient timing this was, as all he really wanted to do was to collect (Specimen 9037) and get its genetic information to start his next round of experiments. He couldn't care less about humanity or its wars. As long as he could carry out his research nothing else mattered.

To get the equipment and technology he needed though he had to make a agreement with the military, never mind the vast amount of funding he required. The military is the only ones who could provide him with rare xeno samples and materials that were critical for his research. Without that even if he had the funding he wouldn't be able to anything.

He knew the Colonel knew this about him, however he also knew the Colonel was just a psychopath that was only interested in killing. They both had their roles to play, but Asclepius felt he was morally superior since he was a creator and the man before him was nothing but a killer.

Looking over at the Colonel who is now sitting in his chair behind his desk, Dr Asclepius remembers the cell feed from (Specimen 9037) is still playing on his monitor and the full report from the successful fusing process using Jenova cells is still sitting on the desk. "No, I absolutely cant let this military dog take away my only success after decades of work."

Thinking quickly Dr Asclepius remembers his biomechanics team had acquired a rare model Android. Who cares he thinks, "I can just give him that and send him on his way. "You know genius can't be rushed Colonel, making a new scientific breakthrough requires vast amounts of time and resources with painstaking effort mixed with genius and luck." However we have been working around the clock nonstop and we have a new type of combat Android that is nearing completion that I think would be of great interest to you."

The Colonel shoots out of the chair like a fired gun before walking directly in front of the Doctor. It's clear the mention of a new toy got his attention. "How many androids are ready? "What is it's capability's and what makes it special from any other battle mech?" Dr Asclepius is pleased to see he diverted the mans attention away from the monitor and thinks "as expected anything that can be used in war gets this apes blood running hot."

"Colonel if you will please follow me to the biomechanics workstation. I will let the project lead and his team know your coming. "They will know the details far better than myself since biomechanics is not my area of expertise after all."

The Colonel says nothing after one last look around before nodding his agreement and signals to his escort to follow the Doctor.