The beast gurgled in distress, shuddering to try and shake off the assailants. With Rareth’s help, Thebes managed to regain his footing and haul Carthage some of the way out of the beak. Her suit was battered and sparking from where the jaws had crushed it. But try as they might, she wouldn’t come free entirely. The beak had locked in place, with just her head and torso protruding.

“My legs are stuck on it’s teeth!” Carthage yelled, just as the creature’s body dropped dramatically into the sediment. Where before they had to climb up the beast to get to the mouth, now it was level with the lakebed. Thebes looked around him and shot at a couple of tentacles. “We’re sinking.” He concluded grimly. He turned back to Carthage. “You’re going to have to eject your suit. I’ll carry you to the surface.” She nodded, and her suit started flashing red. “I’ll give the fucker something to chew on.”

It was Thebes’ turn to nod. He looked at Rareth and then back to Carthage. “On three, we’ll haul her out and then get clear. One, two, three!”

The creature fell further into the hole it was either sitting on top of, or busy digging, as the front of Carthage’s suit peeled neatly away. A cloud of bubbles erupted out and up to the surface as she lunged forward, pulled towards them by both arms. She wrapped her legs around Thebes midriff, and he savagely kicked the empty shell of her flashing suit. It fell fully into the creature’s mouth, and the beak sealed shut.

“Go, now!” Thebes called, turning and firing at the tentacles as they all rushed forward. Carthage pulled his sidearm out and joined in. Thebes set his jet pack to use everything it had and pushed off toward the side of the lake, near the top.

The propulsion unit kicked in, shooting them through the water above the creature like a missile, milliseconds before tentacles collided where they’d been standing.

Rareth had already cut through enough tentacles by this point that she wondered how many the creature could have remaining. Though, given that it was such a massive organism that was integrated into the land itself, she supposed she should not hold out on it running out of them. In any case, Thebes was weighed down by carrying Carthage and would need her assistance during their escape.

While the pair of Humans were surface-bound, Rareth went after the tentacles threatening them with even more speed and fury than she had shown on the way down. The creature had no answer to the sword’s cutting power, no way to keep her from severing limb after limb except to move them out of her reach. Whether she cut its tentacles or forced it to hold them back, either case would still give the soldiers their opening to escape.

To observers above the water, the detonation of Carthage’s suit came suddenly, and violently. The sound of the explosion echoed throughout the sunken basin, along with its pressure wave. A plume of water shot up from the center of the lake, reaching even above the height of the cliffs at its highest point. Based on where she was and how fast she had been moving, it would have seemed that Rareth would have been caught in the blast radius before she could escape. Yet, after a few moments of silence and stillness after the water settled, she could be seen walking out of the lake from beneath the surface on the nearby shore, her armor undamaged.

“Report. Are any hostiles still active?” Rareth asked right away.

The creature fought a desperate rearguard action to keep the energy blade away from its body while it tried to escape. It’s fleshy body warped and elongated as it gradually wiggled down a tight hole underneath it. Eventually, it detached from the gigantic river delta tentacles that fed into the lake bed on either side, and completely disappeared.

What followed was an enormous explosion from Carthage’ suit self-destructing, which forced a jet of superheated vapour back up through the hole and into the air above the lake.

---

“We’re operational. The trees stopped moving just before that explosion. What was down there?” Knossos asked, helping 595 to her feet while he replied to Rareth. The Sacred Band were mostly looking out at the lake, and the giant plume of water.

The tree trying to bludgeon 595 to death had frozen in place, it’s tendrils loosening enough for her to slide right out onto the floor. She looked back at it; it had been an impressive specimen at the start of the fight. Now, targeted carbine shots from Nirann, still standing in the perfect centre of the group, had stripped it back to little more than a stump with a few core branches. They had held onto her for dear life, trying to choke their prey. But, they’d ultimately met their match in the Agent’s state of the art lightweight combat armour.

“Nothing good.” Thebes responded to Knossos’ questioning out loud, emerging from the lake in a cascade of water with Carthage still tucked around his waist. “But we got her out.” Carthage gasped for air, then grinned wolfishly and athletically uncoupled from her team leader. “Cry your filthy heart out, you alien bastard!” She roared triumphantly, dacning ecstatically around in a circle before spitting a big wad of phlegm into the lake. She then grasped Thebes’ arm in a respectful gesture, and pointed at Rareth. “Thank you both. For saving me.”

Carthage’s olive skin was covered in exquisite skin art, from neck to toe. Her short dark hair had lain pinned to the back of her head but now hung in wet clumps to her forehead, ears, and nape. Her eyes were jet black and she wore a tight navy-issue crop top, shorts and sole-covers.

595 helped Dr Ngata back to his feet. “Thank you, for helping.” She said, by way of reconciliation. He nodded solemnly, dusting himself off. “I’m sorry - for earlier. You were right, i..-” 595 put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, we’re all okay.” She was still angry at the scientist, but had to be careful with her emotions in here.

“Show us the feed. I wanna see.” 595 called, striding back towards Nirann and the rest of their gear.

Although the team’s relief was understandable, Rareth was, as always, focused on the mission. She deactivated her sword and returned her arm to normal, then went straight to drawing her fusion cannon once more and turning her gaze to the path ahead of them as soon as she could. She acknowledged Carthage’s gratitude, but Rareth was not a woman easily distracted from the tasks in front of her. The trees had stopped their attacks, which suggested the path ahead of them was clear. It seemed likely that the creature had perished, but there could be no guarantees in this place. It would be best for them to move on in a hurry. She scanned ahead to try and see if the trees ahead were still active, but with only limited points of reference to work with, it was hard to say.

“You can watch while we are moving.” Rareth commented to the agent. “We should not linger here. The creature may be dead, or it may not. We cannot know its true size, and this is a strange place. Besides, we still have a long walk ahead of us, and only limited time to make it. We need to get through this forest, and out of this basin.”

Nirann had picked up on Rareth’s determined attitude before she even spoke, so he had already returned his weapon to its compartment and picked back up the cargo he had been carrying. He grunted and groaned as he hoisted up the heavy load, despite lacking any form of strain on his mechanical frame. “Getting on in a hurry are we? I’d suggest we at least raise a toast to our victory, but I didn’t bring my wine glasses…or any drinks…or a digestive system.”

Carthage took her SMG back from Thebes; he’d kept it safe for her after she’d vacated her suit. She checked it over while walking to where all the gear was stashed. Athena met her in the middle - the sniper’s faceplate peeled back to reveal sparkling green eyes, an angular dark brown face and a relieved smile. Carthage and Athena locked hands and touched foreheads briefly. “You can’t get rid of me just yet.” Carthage grinned.

“The Datius is right. Get mobile everyone, we’re behind schedule.” Thebes concurred, moving to stand near Rareth with his rifle raised. “You should recon the waterfall, we’ll catch up.” He suggested.

“Nice tats.” 595 commented, moving to the centre and picking up the cargo she’d dropped during the firefight. Carthage looked at her. “Thanks, spook. It’s mood ink, so i actually can wear my heart on my sleeve.” The soldier stuck her tongue out, and 595 noticed it was separated for a few centimetres down the middle, like a snake. She glanced at Carthage’s whole body tattoos again and grunted with surprise.

The intricate artworks were all slowly moving around her body. An ancient bireme was sailing across choppy waters on her left arm, toward an enormous city of white buildings on a hill with a palace on top across her chest. A sea monster with too many limbs engulfed a lighthouse on the other arm. On that wrist, there was an anatomically correct Human heart, beating very rapidly.

“Very nice. You ok with your load?” 595 asked, shouldering her pack. “Yeah, i’ll be fine.” Carthage huffed, grabbing up some of the equipment but Athena took it off her. “You’re travelling light, we’ll share your load.” Memnon backed toward them, still training his repeater at the trees nearby. Athena hooked some of the webbing onto his armour.

595 looked at Nirann, who was all ready to move. “Good shooting back there. Are you at carrying capacity?”

Nirann too gave a quick look over Carthage. “Emotion-based patterns? I like that touch. I used something like that for a while. Marae just loves how creative I can get with my avatars. I can go a lot more crazy than just colors and patterns like most Rothians. I just decided to go the more ‘natural’ route for my avatar in this expedition, so I wouldn’t be too distracting.”

When 595 questioned Nirann, he chuckled as he gestured forward to her. “What? Do I not look like enough of a pack mule already? No, I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I’ll probably be carrying some of you by the time this all is over. But it’s up to you to fight over who gets to ride on my shoulders.”

Rareth, as expected, ignored much of the banter behind her and pressed forward as soon as they had gathered up all of their cargo. She agreed with Thebes’ strategy, though she still did not stray too far from the group until they were beyond the trees that had been surrounding them. There was now no doubt that this place was dangerous, so she wanted to be in position to provide assistance at all times, should something unexpected happen. Once they neared the far side of the basin, however, Rareth ran ahead to scale the cliff near the waterfall and see what she could scout at the top. The climb itself had the potential to be more difficult than before, given the proximity to the waterfall, but the rocks were not too wet to climb as long as they kept as much distance as they could. Rareth herself had no issue rapidly scaling it without a load to carry, but the others would need to be more cautious. In any case, she used her vantage point at the top to observe as much of the area as she could, especially what was ahead. They had been on their hike for almost an hour by this point, but there was still many kilometers of walking to go to reach the beacon in the distance.

“Me too, droid! My armour can match what’s on my skin, but it’s forbidden during operations.” Carthage sighed, hefting her murderous little weapon and walking on. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Nirann. Let’s get going.” 595 chuckled in response to the imposing metal figure.

They advanced through the lakeside forest in dead silence. They were tightly packed together to avoid being picked off, apart from Rareth, and kept their weapons trained at all trees within a few metres of their formation. However they needn’t have bothered; the tree all remained perfectly statuesque, not taking the slightest bit of notice.

As they neared the far end of the basin, the trees thinned out. The team clambered carefully up a rock fall and then scaled the sheer cliffs two at a time. A slight breeze was wafting the humid air when Thebes completed their ascent.

They were on the right side of a rushing rapid. White foam coursed along the top of the water as it careened down a sharp slope and into the basin below. The path they were on wasn’t heading directly at the bright light on the mountainside, but there weren’t any other options immediately available. Smooth canyonsides loomed up on either side. “Let’s go.” Thebes ordered.

Rareth naturally wanted to take the lead as the team moved ahead. She kept as far from the river as she could, though the path was not too wide. At the very least, there did not seem to be too many angles they needed to check for threats, but as they had learned, threats in this place would not always come from the most obvious of places. They just had to be ready to react, swiftly and efficiently.

Since she was now less well-protected, Rareth insisted that Carthage stick closer to the center of their group, along with Nirann and the scientists. Even without her suit, she was still a supersoldier, and still capable of easily outpacing the civilians, so their overall pace forward did not diminish. As they could all see, though, there was still along walk to the beacon, and there was not necessarily a direct route.

“So, for the Cradle experts here…” Nirann began, still keeping all of his sensors alert to their surroundings. “…is this what you would call…normal? I mean, I’ve read the report that some Cradle creature talked to Vreta and some others, and now we have some kind of intelligence that clearly does not know the meaning of the word ‘overcompensating’, with the size of that worm it sent after us. I know you and your people want to keep your secrets, and that’s fine, but are you sure there isn’t anything else you might know about Cradle intelligences? Just so we know what we might be getting into.” He asked, looking more specifically at the agent.

“There’s nothing normal about this.” Dr Wetherall grunted, watching Thebes’ video feed from underneath the lake. “Some of the fauna here is definitely outsize, but why?” Dr Ngata mused, watching the same footage. “It could be a combination of factors - perhaps an arms race at the top of the food chain? Or a big surplus of energy being used up, maybe? All just guesswork at the moment.”

Dr Wetherall nodded sagely before jumping back in. “Biology aside, I’m afraid we’re ill-equipped to analyse the ‘intelligence’ of that worm or any of the other creatures just now. All our artificial intelligence experts are stuck in the real world. I’m just a Systems tech who didn’t have the killer instinct to become a Terraformer or the connections to make it as a Builder.” Dr Ngata put an arm around his colleague. “He’s too modest! You also make a great cup of camomile tea, don’t you?” Dr Wetherall chuckled wearily, patting Dr Ngata on the back. “If you’ll stop dropping tissue samples in them, yes!”

595 kept quiet, but she could feel some type of external intelligence right at that second. It presented as more of a feeling than any discernible readout. Some icy presence cupping her face with their hands and staring into her eyes. Hungry? Yes... She looked around at the other members of the team; none of them appeared to have noticed. The icy hand turned her head back so it faced forward. Why do i see you, alone? 595 deactivated her implants and squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a couple of seconds. When she opened them again, the presence was gone.

“Speaking of which...perhaps we should work on the language divergence problem some more while we walk. What do you say? Could help us bring in more help when we set up camp.” Dr Wetherall asked Nirann, pulling up the latest workings on his suit’s wrist interface.

Nirann mimicked the sound of breathing a laugh through a non-existent nose. “Oh, I’ve had subroutines running iterations on that since we left. Combat programming doesn’t take up that much processing power, so I can multitask. I’ll give you the update on my progress.” He said before sending Dr. Wetherall the data with a partial reconciliation.

Rareth might have objected to losing any focus on their surroundings, but ensuring their safe return was vital. Between her sensors and the Sacred Band’s, Nirann’s were likely redundant. He could afford to put more focus into solving the problem, if he needed to. In any case, Rareth kept leading on up the only path they could follow for the moment. Though, she was looking out for alternatives. They needed to take the most direct route they could.

“Hmmm...interesting.” Dr Wetherall grumbled, tapping the part of his faceplate in front of his beard as he scanned the ocean of symbols. “No wonder our gear isn’t working properly. We’re only using about seventy percent of the code base correctly. Well done on this conversion architecture, old boy! I’m going to save a copy and try a few things I thought of while dangling from that tree back there.”

They continued following the rapids for another hour in relative silence, except for a few exchanges and observations between the scientists. After a little while, the Sacred Band lowered their weapons and assumed a quicker march than before, meaning they made up some of the lost time. Carthage easily kept up without losing breath, often jogging backwards and encouraging the civilians to hurry.

Eventually, the river slowed to a languid crawl. The incline levelled out steadily until they rounded a corner onto a flat ledge. Off to their left, the river disappeared inside a cavern attached to the side of a towering mountain. The bright light they were headed to was distantly visible above the entrance. In front and below them, the canyonsides fell away to reveal a huge valley nestled between four mountains, shrouded in gloom. “There’s a path here.” Athena peered over the edge of the ridge. “We could scale down it, find another route through this mountain range on the other side of the valley.”

“That’ll take all day." 595 replied, then pointed to the cavern. “That’ll take all day. This river must lead somewhere; we could shave hours off our journey.” Thebes shook his head. “I don’t like it. Lots of tight corners and not a lot of exits.”

Despite the discussion and debate among the others, Rareth had made her determination pretty much right away. She did not hesitate to speak up right after Thebes. “We cannot know for sure where that cavern leads, or if there even are any other exits that a person can fit through. But more importantly, it is too dangerous. We have already seen that life in this place can be titanic; easily capable of collapsing a cave right on top of us.”

Rareth moved over to the edge of the ridge and looked down into the valley. The visibility down into the valley was not exceptional, but it was still much easier to see the path ahead than it would be in a cave. “If we encounter difficult terrain, I can move ahead of the group and try to quickly scout our best path forward.”

Nirann sighed, followed by a chuckle. “At this point, I’m wishing we could have just rode there on the back of that worm.”

“There may be something even worse down in that valley! And besides, even without Carthage’s armaments, we have enough munitions between us to blast through any tight spaces.” 595 countered, exasperated. She glared out across the valley; patches of water glimmered in the very faint light. “Look at it, the whole valley is sodden. If we go down there, it’ll take hours to go the long way around this mountain. At that rate, we’ll need to make a camp out in the middle of nowhere. Is that really what we want?”

595 surveyed the waiting group. She knew that if ordered to, the Sacred Band would follow her into the jaws of hell. Most were surveying the area through their weapon scopes to avoid looking at her. Athena was even laying on the floor with her sniper rifle fully deployed to scout the valley. It was the Rothians and Human scientists she needed to convince. “If we set up camp, Nirann and I could try to fully reconcile the code base and bring in reinforcements, so to speak?” Dr Wetherall offered nervously.” 595 snapped right back. “True. But who knows what kind of attention that’ll attract? We could be spawning them right into a trap.”

“Our mission is to bring everyone back alive, ma’am. Our close quarters element is without a suit. The Sacred Band are conditioned for long nights; we can keep watch. If we can get this transit station online, there is always the option of pulling out too.” Thebes advised, assuming a non-threatening stance. 595 breathed in deeply, trying to control the onslaught of borrowed feelings. It wasn’t hard to feel like the group was ganging up on her.

“Regardless of the ordinance we have available, there are no guarantees it would be faster. And we may accidentally collapse it ourselves with the explosives. If the cave does not end up bringing us close enough to the other side, it may be slower to blast through it than to just go around. With the information we have, staying outside is our best choice.” Rareth reasoned.

This time, it was actually Nirann that spoke up with an objection. “Well…we could go about it in a way that would make sure we don’t collapse it ourselves, at least. I know the echolocation hardware you Datius have is top-notch. If you’re pinging the surroundings while we’re going through, not only could you map out the cave system, but I could analyze that data to get a pretty good picture of the structural integrity of any part of the cave. That is something we could work with.”

Surprisingly, there was something of a long delay from Rareth as she weighed the pros and cons of each option. One path would certainly be safter than the other, but they were in a hurry. If it was just herself and the other soldiers, the choice would be clear, but they had the civilians and their equipment to worry about, and all of it was essential.

“I can scout ahead myself.” Rareth finally continued. “I can move far more quickly alone than we can together. I can go into the caves and seek out an exit on the other side, mapping the cave system as I go. Based on the size of this mountain, it should not take me long to get through, unless the caves are particularly difficult to traverse. And if that is the case, we certainly should not use them. Whether I find a path or not, I can be back within an hour. You can use that time to rest, recover, and continue your work.”

“Good plan! I’ll go with you.” 595 asserted firmly, looking between Nirann and Rareth. “You might need some backup, if you’re right and some hideous creature lives in there.” She quickly turned to point at Thebes, who was still attending her. “Have one of the Sacred Band scout the mountain path down into the valley; no longer than an hour though. We may need to move fast if we find something inside this cave.” Thebes nodded, before turning himself to elect someone to go.

Rareth turned and looked down at the agent skeptically. “Do you have comparable capabilities to these soldiers? I would be fastest alone. One of your Sacred Band may not slow me down too much, but you…you lack their augmentations, do you not? Unless there is something you are hiding about yourself, I would be delayed too much by taking you with me.”

Though her words might have been harsh, Rareth was intending to make use of her full capabilities. She would not be holding back as she had been to allow the others to keep pace, so any help would need to be able to keep up with her.

595 grimaced behind her visor; she’d need to be very careful about giving away too much on this expedition. The Rothians were doubtless building a profile on her, as she was with them - the less detail they had the better. 595 had already used up a lot of political capital at the Institute after that stunt in Boycott Park. If they learned she’d given up state secrets to the Rothians as well, she was as good as finished. A large part of her wanted to take this opportunity to concede and let one of the Sacred Band go instead. But her pride and urge to feed just about stopped her.

“We may have different toys, but i can hold my own.” 595 replied to Rareth. She then looked at the Human scientists and Nirann. “See if you can get the mast working at the very least. We could really use intel from our teams in the real world. Keep an eye out and stay on comms, we’ll be back within an hour.” She turned back to Rareth. “Lead the way, I'll bring up the rear.”

Rareth approached the Agent, looking down onto her with a stern expression. “I intend to finish this quickly, and I will not wait on you. I trust that you will be able to map the cave system as we move through? If you fall behind, return to the camp and wait for me. Otherwise, follow my path and keep watch for any dangers.”

With that, Rareth waited no longer. The rest of the Human soldiers were setting up their camp’s defenses, while the scientists were finally able to rest their feet. Even if nothing else was accomplished here, this break would help the civilians to keep up their pace once they started to move again.

Rareth followed along the edge of the river, into the entrance to the cavern, and just as she promised, she was moving quickly. In such tight quarters, it was not as if she could move as fast as her body was capable, but she had still not been lying about the fact that her pace would be difficult to keep. They did not have to go too deep for the ambient light from the outside to fade. She could illuminate their path with lights built into her suit, though even in complete darkness, she would have had no trouble navigating. Her echolocation implant was even more effective within the cavern than it was outdoors. The pulses of sound traveled far down the cave ahead, tracing out all the potential paths ahead long before she could see them. She could decide ahead of time which way she wanted to go, without stopping or slowing her pace at any point.

“Not as readily as you. But i can follow your IFF just fine.” 595 lied, unholstering her pistol and holding it in her right hand, finger off the trigger. She set off at a sprint after Rareth, taking a dose of stimulant immediately via her suit. It infused her with so much energy that it’d be harder to stop running than carrying on.

Her vision adjusted to the complete blackness almost immediately, before partially refocusing when Rareth activated her suit lights. 595 peeled back her visor and sniffed the air; the cavern smelled damp, with hints of vegetation and other organic matter.

The river flowed through the middle of the cavern, while rocks protruded into the narrow path on either side. 595 vaulted over a few formations in quick succession, using her free hand as the lynchpin to acrobatically clear obstacles without losing speed. She kept a close eye on Rareth's back and tail, wiggling in front of her, while also surveying the area with her equipment and senses.

“So... that was a pretty impressive maneuver you pulled in the lake with that creature. Are all Datius units equipped like that?” 595 sent in a private comms channel with Rareth.

Rareth was mostly ignoring her eyes, instead focusing on the map she was creating as they went of the path ahead of them. They had not yet come to any divergence in the path, but if they did, she might slow down somewhat to give her sensors a chance to map them as well; at least as far down them as the echoes would be discernible.

”A Datius is as equipped as they need to be for their task, but it is not our technology that makes us.” Rareth replied. “A Datius is the…apex, excepting only for the Rahn’Saki. Not all of us are soldiers, but we are all the most capable in what we do. I will merely say this: there is a reason the Rothian special forces team assigned to this mission consists solely of myself.”