The LEBERECHT Project

'The LEBERECHT Project
DATE OF OPERATION: 29th December 2549 - 19th January 2553
HEADQUARTERS: BOD Building Gecko, Erikson City, Tasman, New Utrecht
OFFICIAL OBJECTIVE: 
- The development of several new individual combat weapon systems for use with the LVF, and BOD's ordnance disposal teams.
- The development, testing and integration of future passive defensive modules onto LVF vehicles, body armour and equipment.
OFFICIAL PROJECT SUMMARY, WRITTEN BY WARRANT ADMIRAL ROBERT MALHENNY, COMMANDER OF 1ST BOD ORDNANCE DISPOSAL SQUADRON.
The LEBERECHT Project is one of the Bureau of Ordnance Disposal's most controversial projects to ever see the light of day. Debated over its ethicacy and legitimacy in not only civilian but BOD circles, the LEBERECHT PROJECT was an attempt to recreate and improve upon the success the UNSC Found in their ORION/SPARTAN-I projects, which resulted in the deaths of over 350 Lanuan civilians, the destruction of several military installations, and the overall repair costs to private and publicly-owned buildings in excess of 500 million guilders.
In what started as a simple attempt to increase the combat capability of the soldiers of the Lanuan Volunteer Force, under the oversight of the now deceased Colonel-Captain Harriet Van Hackett the scope of the project ballooned into the supersoldier calamity we now know. As the new Head of the BOD, I am shocked and appalled that we could have let something so terrible happen on our own doorstep, and I am disappointed in myself in not knowing of the project in time to have stopped it before it caused so much damage to Lanua, and the BOD's reputation.
Greenlit in December 2549 by the then-head of the BOD, Lieutenant Admiral Karl Safranovicz, LEBERECHT was originally pursued to develop domestic weapons designs to replace our overreliance on UNSC equipment, in the event of the fall of the UNSC and Covenant victory. For the first year, this went well, with several new designs for smallarms and light mobility vehicles were created, and eventually began to be produced in adequate numbers. However in August 2550, the leader of the LEBERECHT Project, Captain Van Hackett, was alerted to the existence of the UNSC's SPARTAN supersoldiers, and the existence of the previous ORION Project. Whilst the SPARTANs were considered to be too far out of our capability to reach, the ORION Project was seen as a reasonable goal to attempt to attain by Van Hackett, who began funneling funds away from weapons R&D and replacing people on the project with those she could trust, along with genetic scientists, biologists and chemical weapons experts.
This had the adverse affect of massively ballooning the program's budget due to the new manpower and constant development of biochemical augmentations for the project, explained away by Van Hackett's insistence of their development of several new weapons systems that would come to light in several years. After personally investigating the budget, Admiral Safranovicz found the truth of the project, but rather than expose it he gave permission for Van Hackett to continue, covering for any financial anomalies and requests of personnel transfers.
The LEBRECHT Project's first set of augmentations would be considered ready for use and injection in February 2552, on a candidate that had been selected from the Curacao Planetary Militia, who gave permission for the BOD to augment him with the biochemical enhancers. On the 28th of February, the candidate underwent the process, receiving augmentations to his perception, reaction time, strength, intelligence and overall awareness. It was a complete success, as the candidate had no medical issues in the weeks following the procedure. Over the next three months, nine more candidates would be augmented, all successfully undergoing the process with no issues. As a full fireteam had been assembled, they were to test their worth against a LVF outpost on Jimala. The fireteam was briefed that the LVF forces there had rebelled, and they were to neutralise all targets on base, some twenty-three soldiers and five civilians.
The operation was pursued on the 29th of June, successfully killing all twenty eight occupants of the outpost with no casualties, all within the span of fifteen minutes. Van Hackett considered her project a complete success, and began readying the next round of candidates for the process. This, however, was when issues began to be noticed within the augmentee's behaviour.
They began to act irrationally, often snapping at handlers and the other augmentees. They would grow restless and detached, with one candidate destroying her quarters completely. Marked up as stress, attempts to calm the trainees would fail as they all began to exhibit nerve damage. When one candidate began to attack a BOD handler, attempts to subdue them with TTR rounds failed as the subject appeared to feel no pain or impact of the cartridges.
On the 16th of October, the months of issues finally culminated. Whilst angered and violent, the candidates seemed to have retained their cognitive skills, as they planned and successfully executed a breakout of the military base they were being hold on as they grew more violent. Killing seventeen guards and analysts, they broke into the bases' armoury, stealing smallarms and explosives. They then made their way to the nearest settlement, the town of Diemen. Upon arriving, they would go on a killing spree, destroying buildings, equipment, infrastructure and killing civilians. The local garrison fought back to no avail, as they lost thirty soldiers to only wound one enraged augmentee, who was only made angrier by the wound.
As evacuation efforts began to get the civilians out of harms' way, the decision was made to utilise Falcon gunships to subdue the deserters forcefully, and if necessary, lethally. The pilots of the squadron dispatched chose the lethal method, firing ANVIL missiles and chainguns into the augmentees, killing all but one. The last was finally taken out by a side-gunner on one of the Falcons, who fired an M41 rocket launcher into his torso.
The attack at Diemen ended with 350 dead civilians, 54 dead soldiers, and the destruction of the main road. Investigations led the LVF and federal police to the BOD, whereupon a raid was undertaken on Gecko Building which uncovered evidence of the LEBERECHT Project. Admiral Safranovicz and Captain Van Hackett would be arrested, along with eighty nine other members of the BOD and thirty civilian contractors.
This report condemns the attacks on civilians, LVF forces and the destruction of civilian and governmental property. As I have written this report myself, I cannot be impartial as the new head of the BOD, but I will endeavour to return a semblance of respect and morality to the organisation, after Van Hackett and Safranovicz's actions which have killed hundreds of fellow Lanuans, in an attempt to recreate the ORION Program, a costly and morally-questionable program enacted by the UNSC's Office of Naval Intelligence.