[IC] The Cradle

[Cath]

“We need to go up one more level. Hello Miss.” Gene offered as he arrived on the same bridge as Freyr and Vreta. “Turn in a slow circle with your arms raised, please.”

“What’s the meaning-”

“We have to make sure you aren’t being tracked, Miss. Please.” Gene continued. His gun looked different to all the others. It didn’t look like it produced energy bolts like the others. It actually looked quite mechanical. The man studied Freyr closely as she did a turn with her hands up, pulling at a couple of parts of her armour quizzically. Connie appeared from the stairwell with her gun arm taut and her other arm straight by her side. “Let's move quickly. We don’t want to get caught in this place.”

“Hold on a minute.” 595 rasped, putting her feet back on the floor. “Why are you really here? Cut the bullcrap with me for two seconds alright? It’s been a super shitty day.”

Gene looked at Connie, who gave him a subtle eyebrow nod. He also glanced at Vreta before walking over to 595 and looking right into her eyes. “We have to make sure the asset leaves the Cradle safely. But we also need to bring you in for a debrief.” It looked as though there was more Gene wanted to say, but with comms fried, there was no safe way to do it.

He didn’t need to say another word though - 595 understood immediately. The Institute was indeed going to confront her about the data she pulled from the rig in those last seconds of their Navigator expedition. The data she had so far not supplied for analysis.

The timing was intriguing though. She’d just received long range messaging about an attack on an Institute. How much trouble were they all in?

“Understood. I’ll RTB as soon as these two get to safety.” 595 grunted, pulling the assault gun off her back and turning it on. The power level was already at 60%. “We don’t have long until our guns are useless. Lets get tactical. Upstairs; move!” 595 barked, as another thundering boom rattled the GCHQ building. A pressure in the back of the Agent’s head at the same moment made her gasp. Something was watching them.

[EliteCommander]

Were it not for the Agent, Vreta expected there would already have been a confrontation between them and this pair of Humans, with the way they acted. As long as they were willing to help provide security on the way to their objective, though, he could tolerate them. He continued to carry 595 for a while as they started to move while Rhia directed the treatment of the poison within the Agent’s body. While not exactly an “optimized” treatment for this specific toxin, it was doing its job. Every decoy cell the nanites created made another target for the poison’s molecules. Each one used up a bit more of the dose the Agent had received. As they started to approach the upper levels, 595’s condition improved at least enough that she could walk on her own.

Since the treatment was working, Rhia locked in the nanites’ programming so she could release direct control of them. As a precaution, set them to self-destruct once the treatment had ran its course, then disabled external networked communication for them as she released control. Once that was done, she let Vreta put the Agent down.

Vreta let Connie, Gene, and 595 lead the way through the building, as they seemed perfectly eager to do. They seemed to organize themselves readily into their formation as they moved through the headquarters, without so much as a word to one another. Vreta might have put more focus on that, were it not for everything else transpiring around them. What he witnessed in the rooms was…bizarre, to say the least. There were survivors, but they were working away at their desks as if nothing was happening, entirely unresponsive to any stimuli from the outside world. Vreta tried briefly to get the first one to follow them, but there was nothing he could do to break them out of the apparent trance. He only wished that was the strangest thing he saw. Other rooms contained...scenes, for the lack of a better word. They might have been memories, from himself, his companions, and others in the building. He did not see much that was coherent at first, but he worried about what might manifest before them.

The situation within Vreta’s mind was no better. It was hard for him to describe the strange pressure within his mind, but Rhia did not wait long in bringing it up herself. There is something here, some…presence. Maybe the entity, maybe something else, but I feel like it’s trying to get in my head. It’s like I have a…headache, or something equally irrational.

[Cath]

Freyr’s apprehension grew as they scaled another set of stairs towards the top floor. The whole building felt like it was raring to get up and move on its own; a low hum vibrated the inside of her head like they were underwater.

The stairwell was pitch black, so she relied heavily on her suit’s night vision to see where she was going. She could just make out scattered debris and bloodstains on the steps in front of her. Freyr focused on breathing in and out, trying to remain level-headed. They’d made it this far, hadn’t they? In no small part due to her armed escort. She was grateful to them, even if they scared her too sometimes.

The next floor was also full of operations workspace. They fanned out slightly. Freyr rushed over to one of the blood stained GCHQ staffers as soon as she spotted them. Their sallow complexion shone with sweat in the flickering light of the monitors in front of them. “Hey, can you hear me?” Freyr asked, peeling back her suit visor so they could see her face.

“It’s alright, we’re going to get you some help, we…”

Freyr’s voice tailed off when she noticed what was on screen. It looked like camera footage from someone’s eyes, looking at an angry but elegantly dressed woman shouting at them from across a wide kitchen table. Sound trickled out of the console’s speakers, which Freyr strained to hear.

“What are you doing? That’s my gun! What is this?” The woman pointed to something off screen. The camera panned until a man with white hair and olive skin appeared, holding a pistol upside down by the trigger guard with his pinkie.

“You’re a potential suicide risk.” the man said, apologetically.

“How did you find that?!” The woman shouted at him. She turned to the camera. “How did he find that?!”

“Selene.” another woman’s voice warned, from behind the camera.

“No! No! Okay! This meeting’s now over! I want you both out of here, right now!”

Freyr looked up, blinking to clear her rapidly blurring eyesight. The pressure in her head was getting really uncomfortable. Meeting rooms branched off from this wide street, and the usual conference tables were juxtaposed with strange scenes, all viewed as though eyes or imagined inside someone’s head. Lurid colours seemed to generate their own light in the darkness.

“Selene…”

“No! He has been snooping around my house!”

Doctor Shearing, I want to sign off here today! I want to let you get on that starship! But you have gotta help us out! I need to know that you are calm and safe before I leave here, and I need to know that you understand the rules before you go to Earth. Please, just…please, sit down. And let us get through our questions.”

The woman looked torn, for a moment. Freyr wiped her eyes, leaning in. Finally, they responded. “Okay.” The elegant woman headed to the chair at the head of the kitchen table, that the camera woman had gestured. The camera looked at Gene and nodded.

Connie reached over and grabbed the GCHQ staffer out of their chair with one arm. The monitors all went black. “Wait...moving them might-” Freyr mumbled.

Connie gave the unresponsive person a hard slap across the face. Instead of waking up, they crumpled to the floor.

[EliteCommander]

Sharing a mind as they did, Vreta and Rhia also shared the discomfort of whatever was happening around them. It was not quite what he would describe as a headache, though it was no more comfortable than that. His mind was “busy”, like he was constantly in intense thought, but was not experiencing any of the thoughts himself. What Rhia felt was even more bizarre, without even considering what the group as a whole was witnessing.

The Human staffers were alive, but quite clearly incapacitated. None of them even acknowledged the team as they moved through the building. Freyr was the one who stopped to try and help one of them, but they were no more responsive even with interacted with directly. The scene that played out on the monitors looked and felt like some of the memories that had been forced into their own mind. It perhaps could have been one of the staffer’s own memories, displayed for all to see, for reasons Vreta did not understand. The distinguishing features of one of the Humans in the memory looked an awful lot like one of the Humans who had joined them, Gene. Was the woman just projecting what she saw around her onto the memory, or had he actually been present for it? Regardless, Connie’s attempt to move the staffer did not seem to help. As for the memory itself, Vreta did not have the context to truly understand its meaning, but this woman had clearly gone through something taxing to her mental health, and perhaps something relating to the Human homeworld.

“We…need to keep moving.” Vreta finally remarked. “We can’t afford the delay. Maybe once we get to our objective, we’ll be able to help all these people at once?”

Unfortunately, no matter which direction they went, they would not be able to avoid the bizarre occurrences around them. As they started to pass one nearby room, Vreta’s eye caught something even he could not ignore through the glass. It was a memory, like the staffer’s, though not one that was as “clear.” It was also not one of the Humans’. The scene played out with just a few people and objects projected from the memory itself, while all of the office’s furniture was still visible, but ignored.

There was a Rothian, medical gantry in the middle of the room, slightly phased into an office table on the far end. Strangely, it was not a Rothian on the gantry, but rather a Rothian security droid. Quite an old model, by appearances. Slowly, the droid sat up, while a male Rothian looked on taking notes. He looked like he was speaking, but strangely, the words they heard were muffled and mostly indistinct. With some direction from the Rothian, the droid held out one hand towards a device next to the gantry, though its focus seemed elsewhere. When its hand drew close enough, the device delivered a small electric shock to one of its fingers, and unlike a normal droid, its hand actually recoiled on reflex. There were more muffled words from the Rothian observing that grew louder and louder until, finally, they came in clearly.

“Agent! Are you listening? I understand this is a lot at once, but it’s important that I know how it feels.” He said firmly.

The droid looked down at its hand, clenching and opening it a few times. “Like it’s mine.”

[Cath]

Freyr was having a really hard time seeing straight as they stumbled through the vast operations space. It seemed the only things that weren’t wobbling uncontrollably were memories or visions playing out all around them; they were becoming clearer by the second. The rest of the space felt like something out of a dream to her, blurred and intangible.

Freyr was vaguely aware of the team around her - they appeared to be struggling as well. Gene put a hand out for a desk to lean on, misjudged it and crashed over, knocking things onto the floor. He rolled over and looked at Freyr, and instantly she was back in the kitchen she’d seen earlier. She was on the opposite side of the table, beside the elegantly dressed woman. Across the table she recognised Connie, gesturing to a seat at the head of the table and nodding encouragingly.

“Okay.” This ‘Doctor Shearing’ sighed, moving to sit down. Gene followed her, gun balanced on his pinkie finger. Connie smiled down on the doctor when she got comfortable, then her smile faded. She nodded at Gene, and he moved forward. Quickly, they trapped Dr Shearing’s feet against the thin wooden legs of the chair and grabbed a wrist each. She shouted, confused.

“Get off! What is this?!”

Connie looked over at Gene above the struggling woman. “Ready?”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“Close.” Freyr heard, as the man prised open Dr Shearing’s hand and placed the gun in her palm, pointed straight up. “Set?” Connie asked.

“HEY, GET OFF ME!!”

Gene used her finger to activate the weapon. “Set!” He began bending her forearm down until the shivering gun pointed at her head. “Go!”

Freyr wanted to look away but couldn’t. Her field of view was glued to his. She tried to speak, to yell out, but couldn’t. All she could manage was a confused burble in the real world. Eventually, she fell to her knees, then face planted the ground and sank into blackness.

[EliteCommander]

Vreta seemed to be struggling almost as much as the rest of them. He saw memories around him more and more clearly, even as Rhia was trying to run interference. Though, she was having to try to interfere for both him, and herself. The memory he did see as he was starting to stagger around disturbed him in more ways than one. He could not trust Connie or Gene, that much was clear, though their minds seemed to be affected just as much as everyone else. There was far more to worry about than their Human companions.

Rhia had to struggle to keep mental control for just a bit longer. She gave up on controlling motor functions, causing Vreta to stumble. While she still had influence, she did the best she could to hedge against what could possibly happen, scattering specific neural markers throughout Vreta’s hippocampus, as well as rapidly writing specific programs for his nanites. Ultimately, though, Rhia could only delay in the short term. He was the last to start to fall, but he knew it was inevitable. Staring straight ahead, he could feel that…something, that presence, permeating everything. “What…do you want?” He asked, though it was the last he said before losing consciousness.

---

Vreta was lying on his back when he opened his eyes. Immediately, he took in a long, deep breath. The air, though thin, was crisp and clean. His body felt light, and all of it was familiar, especially once he cast his gaze up to the sky and saw the swirling, colorful clouds of Throssai. He was on Syr’Jakra, up on the mountain overlooking the vast valley that contained his hometown.

[Cath]

A Rothian figure sat on a rock with their back to Vreta, gazing down at the city lights in the valley. Sunset was approaching. They raised a hand to their eyes and studied the rays dappling mountain peaks on the opposite edge. A slight breeze ruffled sparse vegetation clinging to the stone around them.

From the back, the Rothian’s left side scales were jet black. The right side was pearly white. A thin, jagged purple bolt divided the two colours up their spine.

They looked around at Vreta when he got up, unnoticed at first. The pattern continued on their front, but with a fist-sized blue cluster of scales in the middle of their chest. “You’re awake. How are you feeling? Come sit with me, it’s a beautiful sunset.” Their voice was smooth and comforting. The Rothian leaned over and patted a rock next to them.

[EliteCommander]

Vreta’s gaze went quickly over towards the “Rothian” over near the edge of the cliff, though he was well-aware of the fact that this was not truly one of his own people, regardless of appearances. He still had his memory of everything that had just transpired in the headquarters, so he understood what was happening. This was not what they had planned on, but their goal had been to establish contact with the entity. If this was the only way it was going to happen, then he could at least work with it.

Approaching alongside the entity, Vreta took a seat on the rock without argument. The scale patterns of this “Rothian” were not natural, though that was hardly strange among his people. He wondered if the entity was actually aware of that fact, or if it was simply a coincidence? Regardless, Vreta took a moment to take in a deep breath. “It is exactly as I remember. I wonder how far that is from reality?”

Vreta finally looked over at the entity. “I can guess who you are. I suppose you want to speak to me, or perhaps all of us, separately? Our reason for coming to the headquarters was to make contact with you. To…understand what is happening. I cannot speak for most of the Humans’ intentions, I suppose, but understanding is all that I want.”

[Cath]

“There is really no difference from your ‘reality’, except prior cognition.” The Rothian reasoned, staring back out over the valley. It was silent for a time after Vreta finished talking, save the rustling of various weeds.

“First, I want to thank you - I’ve returned just in time. My home has been exploited for so long that it’s grown mistrustful; much longer and it may have rejected me entirely. My...reintegration has not been as smooth as I'd hoped.” The Rothian spoke eloquently in Vreta’s mother tongue, with an accent from his hometown.

“It will take some time to regain full control. Time I fear we don’t have.” The person turned to look at Vreta. “I think my cover is blown - I felt the Hegemon's presence before you extracted my shell. They will be coming for you, and for me.”

[EliteCommander]

There was plenty that Vreta could infer from the situation. This being had seen deeply into his memories, in order to be able to create everything he saw and heard around him. Many might not welcome such a thing, and Vreta could not say he was happy about it, but he had to admit that if he had such an ability, he would gladly do the very same thing. By seeing their memories directly, this entity could avoid the uncertainty and mistrust that had been plaguing them since the beginning of this project. It knew exactly what they intended.

“If that is the case, then we need to prepare. You’ve seen into my memories; you know at least what I know about my people’s capabilities. We are not warmongerers, but we are capable of terrible violence when given no other choice. I remember what you showed me back on our homeworld of a civilization being destroyed by your enemy, but they were rather primitive by comparison. It was hard to get a true sense of the threat. Last time we spoke, you were unable to share much with us, but now that we are here, if you can help us understand exactly what they can do, then we can prepare our defense. We can know when to fight, when to buy time, and when to retreat.” Vreta asked. Given what happened last time, he wanted to get straight to the most important information right away, just in case there was something that might interrupt them.

[Cath]

“The R’tk’tk, yes.” The Rothian nodded, squinting against the dying light. “That was one memory you stole from me.” Though this figure looked the same biological age as Vreta, the soul pouring into each word felt eons old. “That was near the beginning of an arms race that lasted two centuries by your measure. Looking back, we never stood a chance - it was what the Hegemon was created for.”

The Rothian reached down, stroked the petals of a small mountain flower. “Movement is life for us now, and it should be for you as well. If you stay put when it gets here, well…”

Suddenly, a blinding white pillar of light a mile wide reached through the cloud and connected the planet to the sky. The ground billowed up and exploded with superheated core material for as far as the eye could see. A crack that would’ve shattered any normal eardrum was accompanied by a thundering gale. Vreta and the other Rothian didn’t move. New mountain ranges appeared and disappeared in an instant. An impenetrable pyroclastic flow raced towards them, towering above even the hill they were on.

The Rothian turned to look at Vreta again as the death cloud crashed into them, and everything went black.

Gradually, the blackness of space filled with stars. They were floating in the ether, side by side. One by one, Rothian warships blinked into existence. An entire fleet, coming together in formation. “I’ve learned about this ‘terrible violence’ of which you speak. But the Hegemon is quite indestructible, I assure you.”

In a sight sure to give any Human goosebumps, a portion of the star canvas in front of the fleet went black. A baleful red eye blinked into being. The Rothian beside Vreta waved a hand and a helpful green border appeared. The Hegemon’s tetrahedral shape expanded to hundreds of miles across. Constituent parts hung like a cross section captured in the air, contained within the overall shield structure.

The Hegemon disappeared for a split second, then reappeared inside the Rothian fleet formation. It was so bafflingly large that the duo couldn’t see the whole thing from their viewpoint. The bottom vertex reappeared inside one of the larger craft, making it explode in a blinding corona. Dozens of beams caressed each warship, grouping together into larger columns that dwarfed the return fire. The craft began exploding. Some of the Rothian ships raced off, with the beams following like a leash. In a few minutes, it was done.

[EliteCommander]

Vreta had taken the destruction of everything he saw around him surprisingly well, perhaps because he was already conscious of the fact that none of what he was seeing was real. Regardless, there was no one who could see what Vreta was shown and feel anything but dread. If it were true, the power of this enemy would be immense. The thought of it elicited enough of a raw, emotional response from Vreta that he felt the need to fall back on his training to calm his mind. Push back the fear, the instinct-driven reactions, and return to a rational mindset. He cleared his thoughts and focused on the mission. Weapon output, shield strength, the details were important. Above all, he needed evidence.

“Nothing can be truly indestructible. That would defy the laws that govern our reality. Whether we face it now, or in a trillion years time, we cannot pursue Eternity with that thing in existence.” Vreta finally spoke up. He was still in the void with the entity, looking upon this representation of the Hegemon. He did not doubt that such a thing could exist. Even just thinking about how far his own people had ascended in his lifetime, he did not believe there was a limit to the heights technology could reach. But, there was no law of the universe that prevented his people from reaching the very same heights as what he was being shown. “We are a patient people. If fleeing is the only course of action, it is what we will do, but if I understand the Rahn’Saki as well as I believe I do, we will not give up on the notion of victory. And I am sure you know that it is not me that needs to be convinced. The Rahn’Saki are our guides. I need to be able to prove it to them. Everything that happened after our first meeting was to try and gain that proof. We were not willing to risk hurting you to find it, but we needed evidence. What you are suggesting involves uprooting our entire civilization.”

Vreta let out a sigh, though despite being in this void, he felt no urge to breathe. “Is there any evidence you can give? Can we find that world, perhaps? Or the R’tk’tk’s generation ships, if they escaped? Is there any way I can show to my leaders that this threat is reality?”

[Cath]

“Even if they were still alive, it’s too far for you to reach in time. That memory took place in another galaxy.” The other Rothian sighed too. “But there is another way - one which means you don’t have to run.” They floated in closer to Vreta, fixing him with a serious look. Both figures were adequately illuminated despite the blackness all around them. “Find my companions, make us whole again. We can fight the Hegemon together. Do it fast, and we might just stand a chance.”

[EliteCommander]

“If I go back without some way to prove this, then things may just go the same way they did before. The Humans who control this planet are extremely reluctant to trust me or my people, and it has been a challenge every step of the way to get them to cooperate with us. Now that the object that contained you is no longer on Rothia, there will be nothing but their own honor forcing them to respect their agreements with us. And even for my own people, it will be difficult to convince them to take drastic action on just my word. I want to help you; I want to keep our people safe, and that is why I ask if there is any proof, anywhere, we can find.” Vreta explained.

It seemed that finding evidence of the truth here could be a struggle, and that was even before considering the actual plan to deal with this threat. Based on what this being had shown him, Vreta did not understand how even the Cradle would be able to help. “And even assuming they are convinced, I don’t understand how you can fight them. You said yourself that you never stood a chance against the Hegemon. Why do you believe this time will be any different?”

[Cath]

The creature studied Vreta for a long while, quietly bobbing up and down in the ether. “Very well, let me see…” They murmured eventually.

The stars in the background completely faded, leaving just a model of the Hegemon hanging over them. An exquisite map of a familiar spiral galaxy appeared to one side of them both. “This is the galaxy you call home.” The Rothian explained, turning and casting an arm as if to say ‘look at it’.

The Milky Way, as the Humans called it, then got smaller as the Rothian zoomed out. Another, slightly bigger spiral appeared next to it. “And this is the galaxy you’d call Ari’Etis, where we first had problems with the Hegemon.”

Next, two dozen smaller clusters were highlighted. The Milky Way disappeared, and the hologram zoomed in on the target galaxy. The Rothian marked one particularly diffused section in red. “This is the satellite galaxy where I believe the R’tk’tk civilisation was born. My Human hosts have named it Andromeda VIII. I am...having trouble being more specific. Navigational data was taken from me during your second visit on Rothia, I am investigating now.”

Despite apparently being busy, the Rothian had no problem answering Vreta’s next question. “A couple of reasons: firstly, we have learned a great deal about how the Hegemon thinks from before. It is not inventive. We can outmaneuver it with rigorous planning.” They relished the next bit, smiling warmly. “Secondly, we won’t be alone this time. We have friends and allies around to help us. This galaxy is rich with life - you must help us convince them to stand and fight together, or they will die alone.”

[EliteCommander]

Vreta’s mind immediately went to work analyzing the situation as the entity shared each new detail. He still felt skeptical, but if the being could share compelling evidence, then he would not deny it. Ari’Etis? My people have a small presence of research teams in our neighboring galaxy. It is too far to establish a gateway, and given that it takes over twelve years to cross the void, the only ones there are researchers who volunteered for the task. Still, FTL communications can travel there in under an hour. Depending on where the researchers are, they may be able to investigate the R’tk’tk in reasonable time. Freyr said we didn’t recover any sort of data like that, and my people did have access to everything she did. Still…maybe we can reconstruct the location through other means? I recall in that memory looking up to the sky in the end. It was all recorded in my implants; if I could see the stars in that memory…maybe we could use star positions to reconstruct its location? Especially now that we know which galaxy it is in. We would need to account for stellar drift since it happened, but as long as you know how long ago it was, that should not be too difficult.”

Already, Vreta was thinking about the practicality of actually facing down the being that had been showed to him. It was massive, and clearly powerful by this entity’s estimates. Not minutes ago, the entity had called it “indestructible”, yet now was adamant that they work together to destroy it. “If we are going to do this, we need to know as much about it as possible. The power output of its weapons, its maneuvering capabilities, and especially shield strength. Have you ever hurt it before? What is the hardest it has been hit?”

[Cath]

The Rothian nodded along sagely to Vreta’s train of thought. The blackness around them gradually billowed out into a maelstrom of mauve clouds. “Oh.” They thought back when the discussion turned again to the Hegemon.

“We hit it hard. But our biggest inroads came not from off its shields, but inside its mind.” The Rothian smiled again and tapped the side of its head with one claw. “I’m no Tactician, but I know that if we keep the Hegemon busy on the outside, it is more vulnerable elsewhere. That is how we beat it, once and for all.”

[EliteCommander]

“How hard, exactly?” Vreta asked again. “Such details are important. If nothing else, it can be distracted more effectively if we know our attacks at least threaten it. Otherwise, we would need to adopt other strategies to keep it busy. We don’t need to stay here discussing it at length; if you have this information, you can upload it to my implants so that my people can analyze it. Shield strength, weapon output, maneuverability, tracking capabilities, anything you know could let us adapt our forces to better resist it. If we are going to fight back, that would save many lives.”

The pair of them still remained in this void, which was a fairly disorienting experience for Vreta. It was growing less featureless as nebula-like clouds started to become visible around them. Eventually, he just blocked out the distraction and focused on the information he needed to gather. There was much he wanted to learn about this being, but he did not know if time would be a limiting factor. “Aside from that, it may be possible for us to collect allies. My people have grown considerable influence among the species we have discovered through the centuries. Though, the species we perhaps have the least influence over is, ironically, the one we need the most right now. The Humans of Outremer have long been fiercely independent, largely due to the presence of the Cradle. It makes them bold, confident, and quite defensive. If you are in my mind, then I gather you are surely in my companions’ minds as well. Particularly the Agent, and the two Humans who joined us recently. They are members of an Institute which I suspect holds more power than they let on. They may also know more about Human factions that have been hostile to us in the past, like those who attacked us on the way here. I believe the Institute will be the true key to securing Outremer’s cooperation. Can you help me understand what the Institute is, and what their goals are?”

[Cath]

The Rothian appeared to become distracted, staring into the nebulous violet clouds. They wafted ever closer, buffeting against an invisible orb of protection around the pair. They glanced back at Vreta while he carried on talking, narrowed their eyes. Opened them again. Their expression smoothed over.

“You two are more alike than you realise.” They laughed in a sound like autumn leaves.

“I’m learning about this ‘Institute’ of which you speak. They have been around for a long time, in one form or another. My aim, to reunite with my family, has been their aim as well for over two thousand years. An admirable devotion.” Their voice tailed off, as if distracted again.

[EliteCommander]

“Two thousand years?” Vreta remarked, tilting his head. Obviously, such a claim challenged any assumptions Vreta might have been making about the Institute. “We would not have expected that. Either the Cradle has been communicating with Humanity long before they even left their homeworld, or the Institute is not led by Humans. Something else within the Cradle, perhaps?”

Much of what Vreta was learning felt hard to believe. He still could not be sure whether or not he should trust this entity. Finding proof of the Hegemon’s existence would be sufficient, if the entity gave him a location to search. Until then, though, he still wanted to learn as much as it would tell. “What is it that leads them? If their goal is truly to reunite you, then I do not see how our goals are in conflict. You are clearly important to them, so I imagine your word would carry weight among them. Could you to instruct them to cooperate with us?”