Cath

The Cradle

Freyr didn’t know what to think when Vreta addressed her. If what 595 had said was true, part of her hated both of them for getting her involved in this skulduggery; frankly she wanted no part in it. There was also a part of her that simply didn’t believe 595’s narrative. Freyr didn’t know anything about her, or the mysterious Director-General who was apparently was in charge of them both. Their evident commitment to the Cradle appeared to dwarf even hers, and she wasn’t clear why yet. She vaguely remembered claims of assassination being flung around in that fateful meeting a few months ago. But here 595 and Vreta’Sori both stood, being perfectly cordial with each other. She just couldn’t make sense of it.

For now, she just had to focus on getting through this conversation without slipping up. Freyr partially returned to her senses when Vreta said something about her not being a soldier. “Yeah, I umm, I wanted to learn how to defend myself. Seemed appropriate, considering everything that’s happened.” She glanced at the time, she’d been here a while already, but couldn’t think of any good reason to leave, so she nodded. “I can carry on..” She looked at 595, who nodded strenuously.

“I’m not going anywhere - this is far too much fun. Shall we make things a bit more interesting?” She fiddled with the interface for a few seconds and the targets began moving quickly in all directions downrange. Freyr's eyes grew wide when she saw the speeds the targets were moving at “Err...this is my first time on the range, i’m not sure i’ll be able to-”

“You’ll be fine! They won’t bite you, just watch their path and try to anticipate where they’ll be when you fire.” 595 chirped, heading back to her booth before raising her massive assault rifle and laying waste to half a dozen targets at once. The noise was deafening, which made it all the harder for Freyr to focus on shooting her own targets. “I hope our feeble selection of Human weapons doesn’t disappoint your Rothian sensibilities, Vreta?” 595 asked in the short pause after her gun stopped to cool down.

The Cradle

“Do you not think it strange that Vreta was at an abandoned facility, snooping around a crime scene when those things attacked? And now, he’s miraculously been appointed as a liaison on our top secret mission to investigate Cradle activity on Rothia. The alien can’t stay away from you, and I'm sorry to say it’s not because of your sparkling personality. It’s because you’re one of our top scientists working on the Cradle.”

Freyr looked into the agent’s beautiful grey eyes, dumbfounded and slightly angered by what she was saying. “Vreta’Sori is a spy, Dr Lang. All of the Rothians covet our most precious asset. And now our own administration has given them direct access to it.” 595 spat the last few words with such vitriol that Freyr involuntarily took a step away from her.

“But...Vreta said he was selling Rothian components to human companies to test in the Cradle. That’s why he was there...and at the meeting the Ambassador said-”

“Freyr, for fuck’s sake open your eyes! The whole Rothian establishment is in on it. They’d say just about anything to protect their agent. Just like we’d do anything to stop the Cradle falling into the wrong hands.” 595 moved toward Freyr, assault rifle cradled under one arm. "Vreta'Sori isn't your friend. The lines are going to continue to blur, I can't stop that. But that doesn't mean we should forget who we both work for. I apologise for my delivery, but I need to make sure you understand."

Before Freyr could answer, they were interrupted by the sound of Vreta entering the booth. "Vreta'Sori! We were just talking about you." 595 smiled sweetly, taking the lead. "How are you?"

The Cradle

Freyr followed the man along the width of the room, past soldiers in combat with each other or against AI. He finally stopped in front of a set of smaller, empty, rectangular boxes in the corner of the room. The guy hit a few settings on the interface before turning to her. “Okay, Doc. This one is easy; target shooting. There’ll be a rack of standard issue weapons in there - choose one and the instructor will walk you through firing it safely. Enjoy.” He gave Freyr a wink and started the simulation before walking away again.

Freyr stepped inside the box and her surroundings totally changed. She was now in what she could only describe as a firing range. A row of booths looked out on a long empty space with targets at the end. Behind the booths, a dizzying array of weapons sat on a rack. After quite a lot of deliberation, Freyr asked the instructor what weapon a civilian might carry. The AI directed her to a small, plain pistol. She decided to try that.

The calm instructor's voice told her how to check the weapon was ready to fire, how to stand and how to aim. It also politely informed her that she was eligible for an upgrade to her implant network that would allow a superimposed crosshair. Apparently it increased lifetime accuracy by 35% on average. Freyr politely declined and began shooting. The pistol spat tiny bolts of energy down range, but very few hit their target. The instructor soon generated a physical avatar that adjusted Freyr’s posture and she started hitting a couple more.

Freyr quite enjoyed the satisfying thud her bolts made as they impacted the back stop. For a while it was just her, the targets and her pistol. That is until a message came through on comms. Freyr supposed it could be one of her team requesting her presence, but it wasn’t. It was from Vreta, asking to run a few thoughts by her. She answered in the affirmative and pinged her location over. She was about to resume shooting when a nearby voice made her jump. “Who was that?”

Freyr whirled round and found Agent 595 leaning against the back wall of the sim-box. “The person you were messaging. Was it Vreta’Sori?” Freyr hesitated, caught completely off guard. “Hi.” 595 smiled. “It seems you and he are firm friends now. That’s nice. May I join you?” Freyr nodded. The agent selected a heavy assault rifle from the rack and walked into the booth next to her. “Sorry i missed you yesterday. There was still a lot to organise and I gather you got an early night.” The targets began disappearing all along the width of the firing range as 595 hit them; a deafening staccato of energy pulses filled the box.

“You’re his mark, Freyr. We’re certain of that now.” Freyr stopped shooting, lowering her pistol. “What do you mean?” She asked, confused. 595’s head poked around the side of the booth, a grave look on her face.

The Cradle

Freyr said good night and made her way to the cabin she’d dropped her luggage in. As far as she knew, all the sleeping quarters were identical; she had a small bunk, a dining/sitting area, an all-purpose entertainment system and an ensuite bathroom to herself. It was small but cosy. Freyr collapsed on the bed, despite her instinct to unpack and have a shower first. She projected holo-pictures and videos of her family into the air via the entertainment system. They circled above her head like a mobile until she eventually fell asleep.

---

She woke in a dark clearing. Spindly, dead trees presented an impenetrable barrier all around her. Familiar blue-purple veins slashed the sky. A sickly orange light illuminated the clearing from above, revealing two people she recognised instantly. David and Amy, her husband and daughter. Laughing and crying with relief, she ran toward them.

As she drew closer, David’s body suddenly changed. She could now see a giant insectoid carapace connected to his face. His eyes were pitch black and his mouth was bent into an unnatural, U-shaped smile with too many teeth. A purple tendil, shaped into a serrated blade at the end, circled around her motionless daughter and pressed against her bare throat. She skidded to a halt mid-run.

“Please…” She pleaded, holding her hands out in front of her. “Don’t hurt my daughter.” Other-David tilted his head to the side, moving close to Amy. “You must bring her to me!” His voice was deep and wet, like seabed boulders crashing together. She paused, confused. “What do you mean? I don’t know where she is!” She sobbed.

David growled and the tendril-knife pressed against Amy’s jugular drew back as if to stab the girl through the heart. “No!” she yelled, leaping forward.

In the blink of an eye Amy was in front of her, but instead of hugging her mother she fell to the floor, a sanguine patch spreading across the front of her white dress. She looked down and saw a long dagger in her hand, stained with blood. She screamed with no sound, dropping the dagger to grab her daughter but her legs wouldn’t move and-

---

Freyr woke up instantly upon thudding onto the floor. She quickly rose to her knees, heart pounding, and looked around her cabin. The light suggested it was morning. She couldn’t quite remember what she felt so bad about as she massaged her bruised eye socket.

Freyr washed, got dressed and left her cabin to find everyone was already up. Most of the team had already eaten breakfast and were testing out the new lab. She put on a smile and joined them, temporarily sharing their excitement. She logged into the division’s shared workspace, but couldn’t concentrate at all. After answering a few messages and trying unsuccessfully to focus for about half an hour, she got up and left the lab.

At first, Freyr had no idea where she was walking. To begin with it just felt good to stretch her legs. After a little while she opened her map of the ship, and one relatively accessible area caught her eye. Setting a waypoint, she descended a few levels and traversed the maze of corridors until she was greeted with a set of blast doors labelled ‘Combat Simulation C-53’.

It was loud inside. Freyr discovered it was a large open space, subdivided into many clearly partitioned boxes. Inside the occupied boxes, she could see a variety of simulations running, from hand to hand fighting to field hacking.

“You lost, Doc?” A muscled soldier asked after turning from the knife-fight he was spectating. “No, I erm...I want to learn how to shoot.” Freyr responded. The man chuckled. “Right you are then, Doc. Come with me.”

The Cradle

“That kind of climate sounds ideal!” Masgard grinned, popping a slice of steak into his bearded face. “I don’t know, I prefer gentle warmth to blistering heat. I might request a cool-suit or an implant if we’re going to be there a while.” Freyr mused, gathering up the last of her salad with her fork. Masgard downed the last of his Tullusk and yawned expansively. “I’m gonna need to take a rain check on the beach tonight though. Seventy-two hours of no sleep is catching up to me.

“What’ve you been doing for three days straight?” Freyr asked, stifling a yawn of her own.

“Oh, you know, fixing stuff for our new boss.” Masgard eyed her levelly. “I expect he’ll call us at any minute.”

“Well, I hope he can wait until morning, because I’m exhausted too. In fact, I think I'm going to retire to my quarters. Perhaps we can hit the beach together some other time, Vreta? Please don’t let us stop you investigating it tonight though.” She stood up from her bench, grabbing her tray. Masgard did the same.

The Cradle

Freyr nodded appreciatively, chomping down on a mouthful of salad. It made good sense for a cold-blooded species such as the Rothians to take the guesswork out of doing the things they enjoyed, like keeping warm. “Speaking of which, are you comfortable on the ship? I realise now that you must feel a little cold.” She noticed Masgard’s eyes glazed over as he consulted an implant, but after a moment he was back. “As i thought, there is actually a ‘beach’ room on the ship. They have them on civilian liners too; it’s supposed to put people at ease and give the impression of a warm planetary environment. Warmer than the rest of the ship, at least.”

Freyr perked up at the mention of ‘beach’. She’d lived near potentially the best beaches Angjusk had to offer during her childhood. Some of her happiest memories stemmed from a warm day and water lapping around her toes. She’d been sad for a long time that Babylon sat in the middle of a large continent, meaning the sea was a couple of hours away rather than at the bottom of the garden. “Oh, we should check that out at some point! I love the beach, but never had much of a chance on Outremer...Are there beaches on Rothia?”

Halo: Aegis Team

Tar woke suddenly to the sound of rending metal. At first she didn’t recognise where she was. The carefully ordered interfaces of the Phantom’s control dashboard were gone, replaced by a twisted forest of metal shards, jutting out as if trying to touch her. Blue energy sparked between the shards, feeding fires in all corners of the nose cone. “Vol!” Tar choked as acrid smoke wafted into her face. “Vol!” Carefully negotiating a long spike pressed against her exposed neck, she turned to look at her co-pilot.

Even through the smoke, Tar could see Vol had been impaled through the abdomen by another metal blade. His upper body was slumped over it, arms pointing to the floor. Tar let out an anguished roar and quickly slid out of her seat toward him. Her right arm caught on something jagged, but the sharp stab of pain barely registered. Tar carefully hoisted Vol’s body into an upright position and tilted his face toward her. “Prax Vol, can you hear me?” She tried one more time. No response. She growled and let his face go. Vol’s body slumped forward again.

Tar got up and rushed from the nose cone, choking from the toxic fumes as she grabbed her Storm Rifle from where it now lay on the gangway. Moving through to the troop bay, she heard someone shouting to her from outside. They must have been pulling on the side doors, because the mechanism was making a sharp screeching noise to try and keep them closed. Smoke hovered just above eye level and fingers of blue lightning played across the inside of the Phantom’s hull.

Tar hit the emergency manual door release and the screeching stopped. The door was still stuck though, so she rushed over and kicked the side door with the bottom of her foot. The entire section crashed to the floor; Tar raised her Storm Rifle to deal with whoever was on the other side. She was a little relieved to see a Spartan in reddish armour, but she didn’t show it. She walked down the ramp the side doors had created, smoke billowing out of the Phantom all around her, weapon raised.

“Warriors!” Tar bellowed, pointing. A gaggle of Brutes, mixed rank and armour, were charging through the mess of boxes toward them. She supposed they’d seen the Spartan isolated, making a lot of noise, and wanted to catch him unawares. Behind them, she spotted a whole load of URF spilling out of a nearby entrance to the Forerunner structure. They looked to be trying to cut them off.

Tar rushed past the Spartan, firing a whole battery into the closest charging Brute until her rifle overheated. Turning it sideways, she savagely broke the rifle over his head, crumpling him to the floor. The next Brute was on her instantly, the shot from his Mauler raking her shields almost to breaking point. Tar forward rolled under the Brute’s outswung arm, got up behind him, activated her energy sword, turned and plunged it into his abdomen as he turned around.

Pistol rounds hit her shield from behind, breaking it. Tar smartly stepped back behind the impaled Brute, using her sword to keep him upright while turning him between her and the hail of bullets coming from the direction of the installation. “Shield recharging!” Tar shouted, kicking the dead Brute’s Mauler behind cover about ten metres in front of her. She grunted from the pain and effort of holding the Brute up as a bullet skimmed her exposed leg.

Moving them both forward a couple of metres, Tar peeked out and saw humans taking cover behind the same boxes she was aiming for. The remaining Brutes hadn’t committed yet, content to stay back and spray them with spikes and plasma. With her shields recharging now, she shouted “Transitioning! Cover me!” before sliding her sword out of the Brute and running for the boxes and the Mauler she’d kicked over. Humans and Brutes fired at her from the other side.

The Cradle

Freyr came to the long table with benches on either side holding a colourful chicken salad and a glass of water. She was feeling quite dehydrated following the scotch and didn’t feel like drinking any more alcohol tonight. It was important they slept well and had a productive day tomorrow. They were in a spacious dining area adjoining the auto-dispensary and a kitchen area, in case the team were feeling the urge to cook for themselves. Three corridors split from this common room, leading to small but comfortable bedrooms for each of the team.

Freyr sat down facing Vreta across the table. Masgard sat down next to him. “I must admit, my work has not often taken me away from Outremer, so I don’t know.” Freyr said, tucking into her salad with a fork. “The facilities are pretty good though, so far. I guess they want us at peak performance.” She could see Masgard had chosen a lot of different meats, like Vreta, and paired it with a bowl of Tullusk, a soup known for its calming qualities. “Am I right in thinking the facilities on Rothian worlds are all of a pretty high standard?” He asked as he demolished his food like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

The Cradle

All of the scientists watched Vreta intently as he spoke, but none spoke out with any immediate questions. Freyr thought they looked tired, just like her. After a pregnant pause, she jumped back in. “Thank you, Vreta’Sori. Now, I'd imagine you all want to find your new quarters and unpack your luggage. As a matter of fact, i’d quite like to know where we’re staying too…” Freyr looked behind her at the lab. Just two technicians were left, fixing a wall divider/storage unit.

“Excuse me?” Freyr called to them. They didn’t respond, so she tried a bit louder. They both looked up. “Where are our quarters?” The standing one pointed over his shoulder, to another set of blast doors on the other side of the lab. “If you have a comms implant , the ship should feed you a map, ma’am.” One of them offered helpfully. Freyr thanked them and turned back to her team. “Let’s get settled in and start fresh in the morning. Thank you all.” The scientists began drifting off toward the blast doors with their luggage in hand.

A sudden hunger pang in Freyr’s stomach reminded her that she’d hardly eaten today. “Have they shown you your quarters yet? I’d quite like to find some food.” She asked Vreta, pulling up a map of the ship using her new clearance code to look for the nearest dispensary. “It seems our dorms have hot food and a dining area. Masgard?” Her lawyer shrugged. “I’m exhausted, but i suppose i could eat.” Freyr grinned sleepily. “That’s the spirit! Vreta?”

The Cradle

“Come then; we can pick this back up later.” Freyr got up and led the way out of her office. The cacophonous racket from the builder drones had subsided now. Just a couple remained now with Human technicians to make the finishing touches to their new lab. At a glance, Freyr could see many of the main pieces she’d asked for. The captain had done very nicely in the short time available.

Freyr traversed one of the primary walkways around the edge of the lab from her office to the exit, Vreta and Masgard in tow. She could see a few of her team had already got stuck into the equipment, hooking up data pads and continuing as normal. However, the majority of the new arrivals had congregated in a break-out area with sofas and potted plants. So she called out to attract everyone’s attention. “Good evening, everyone! Welcome to the OSC Barbarossa. Could i please speak with you all over here please?” The scientists in the lab area obediently dropped what they were doing and made their way over.

Freyr waited until everyone was in front of her before speaking, standing in the walkway with Vreta and Masgard at her sides. She smiled. “It’s good to see you all in person for a change. I trust you made it here without incident?” A few people nodded their heads, but most were just waiting patiently for what she had to say. A few eyed up the tall lizard alien next to her. “We’re about to embark on a two week journey to Rothia, to follow up a lead on a potential exo-Cradle object. I know some of you have family at home, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making this sacrifice. I wouldn’t have asked you if it wasn’t vitally important to the whole of Outremer.” Freyr’s throat was bone dry after the scotch, so she gulped to try and moisten it. Most of the scientists had figured out this was going to be an extended trip, space voyages often were, but none of them would’ve known their destination until now.

“To help prepare us for our time on Rothia, we have Vreta’Sori with us. He’s going to coach us on Rothian culture, capabilities and overall condition over the next two weeks. Once we’re on Rothia, he will be our primary liaison with our Rothian co-researchers. Any questions so far?” One of the more junior scientists piped up immediately. “Does that mean we’re supposed to share our research with the Rothians?” Masgard’s hand quickly touched Freyr’s arm, prompting her to stop with her mouth half-open as he answered. “Right this moment, that won’t be necessary. But once we know what we’re up against, we’re to collaborate with the Rothians on any details that may be pertinent to the potential...exo-object.” Freyr nodded quickly and turned to Vreta. “Vreta’Sori, would you like to say a few words?”