21

A child could be seen walking into a standard issue house that had countless identical designed houses neighboring it. The home was a two bedroom, one bathroom, small kitchen, and even smaller living room.

Clearly this house would be considered a luxury towards scavengers and they were simply given the home for free. Minus the requirement of working during the stay of course.

"Sara I'm home!" The boy yelled out as he closed the front door and immediately moved towards one of the bedrooms. Inside was a sickly looking young girl who had a pale face, beside her was a floating droid monitoring a few devices.

Hearing the sudden loud voice caused Sara to awaken and when she saw her older brother she weakly smiled and spoke.

"Hi Adam… How was the assembly? What was it about?" The boy who was now identified formed an upset face in which Sara noticed.

"Just some bad people being punished, the Archon himself even showed up to personally punish them." Sara suddenly had 'sparkles' in her eyes at the mention of the Archon and started asking questions.

"Really? What was he like? How tall… was he? Were his eyes really golden like people… say?" Sara wanted to continue asking questions but she suddenly started coughing violently with a small amount of blood coming up along side it which caused the droid in begin injecting a fluid into her IV.

A soft voice then came from the droid as Adam begin worrying.

"She needs to rest, the medicine can only keep her stable but such sudden movements can cause the minor symptoms to return again." Adam hearing this wanted to cry for his sister.

'Sara should not have to live like this… The Imperium is rapidly improving but how long will it take for them to create a cure for her? She would have passed away already if she was not taking the medicine provided by the Imperium…' Suddenly a very loud knocking could be heard coming from the front door.

This caused Adam to recollect himself and gave Sara a look full of worry before finally heading towards the door.

When he opened the door he found something he would not have ever expected to see at his home. What awaited Adam was a Sith War droid and once the door was open completely a red scanner emitted from its 'eye' and scanned Adam's face.

As quickly as it happened, the droid began walking away leaving a confused Adam staring towards the departing droid.

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Onboard the 'Reclaimer' Marcus was reading a file related to Adam which was kindly provided by SN-21 and quickly learned about the child's situation. Dead parents, sick sister, loyalty towards the Imperium, rage towards those who may harm the Imperium.

Marcus could not help but smile at this and a thought appeared in his mind.

'If i cured the sister would he not become absolutely loyal? I could pull a Dr. Halsey and grow him into the first super soldier… I need the RND department to hurry up Project: Marine…'

As if on cue, he then recalled the details related to the project. Individuals would be subjected to genetic alterations and remove genes unfit for the program.

In reality the child would not necessarily be the 'first' super soldier as Marcus already created one. Unfortunately the subject passed away within seventy-two hours after the 'transformation'.

The subject experienced rapid aging From the prime age of 21 and a few days later being in his 50's. In the hopes of rapid compact muscle growth the subject was injected with a 'cellular booster' which basically turbo charged his very being.

A simple days worth of exercise would amount to years of the same process being done repeatedly. However this also damaged the cells rapidly resulting in the hyper age growth followed by unbearable pain.

The pain was so bad that the subject began smashing his skull into the wall which resulted in the death.

Marcus just sighed out as he wanted Super Soldiers who could fight in the oncoming war, not soldiers who would expire the very moment it began…

Even with the subject dying they acquired valuable intel which would be used to develop the program further than ever before.

Naturally, the individual who Volunteered had no family or friends left and with a promise of being granted access to the God-Emperors kingdom within the afterlife in case of anything going wrong was good enough for him.

Honestly, Marcus thought that for a first experiment, the whole thing went incredibly well. The subject could have died on the spot or failed to adjust to the serum. Hence the job went well.

This however was only the first step, he would still need to develop implants for more combat specialty and so on.

He then set aside the reminder as he spoke to SN-21 who was standing nearby.

"Wouldn't the medical gel cure the girl? From what I've experienced during my uses, the gel was capable of regenerating damaged tissue as well as vaporizing cancer and other harmful cells." SN-21 nodded her head as Marcus continued to read about the sick girl.

"Even I feel bad for the child... I'm just curious about how she contracted Ascomycetous Pneumoconiosis..."

Marcus remember reading about this disease, In a galaxy peppered with every imaginable climate and environment, it was wise for the intrepid galactic traveler to take precautions. Carry a fully charged blaster, keep a medkit to hand, and when possible even when the air is breathable for your species wear a mask. This was never better advice than when on humid jungle planets like Drongar. Here, the very air is a threat. Carried in microscopic spores that are easily inhaled, Ascomycetous Pneumoconiosis (also known as Fester Lung) claims its victims silently, infecting to the point of death by raising body temperatures to such a high level they're practically cooked alive in their own juices.

He then thought back to how the children were supposed to be sold by pirates and could only believe that one of the said pirates passed it on to her somehow.

"I want you to prepare a sterile environment with a medical bay, while you are at it I want you to find everyone who has had contact with the girl and boy and make sure they are not infected. The last thing I want is to find myself in the middle of a pandemic again... Already had to deal with Earth..."