Cath

The Cradle

The tentacles swept across the lakebed, coming at Thebes and Rareth like wrecking balls travelling at the speed of sound. Under the water and this close to the source, they didn’t fully unfurl. Instead, they packed together like fleshy fists, trying to kill its prey before eating it.

Thebes used his suit’s propulsion unit to juke left out of the way of the initial crushing blow, but another smaller tentacle tripped him up. He dragged his energy dagger along the side of it on the way down; blue-black ichor sprayed all over Thebes armour, the tentacle wiggling frantically away.

Floating back to his feet, Thebes was buffeted by the mace coming free of the lakebed beside him. Jetting above the writhing tentacle mace, he unholstered his rifle and shot down at the mass with one hand. It reacted quickly, flicking up at him. The mace clipped his legs, sending the soldier spinning head over heels toward the beast’s mouth.

“Rareth, keep it occupied; I’m going to free Carthage.” Thebes ordered, firing at the creature’s mouth whenever his spinning trajectory granted him a line of sight. Another of the tentacles rushed in to grab his floating form, so Thebes activated another little burst on his projector pack, shooting him out of the way. The current took him perfectly to the top of the creature’s main body, where he had to pump the brakes to avoid crashing into the thing’s beak.

He clunked over to Carthage, who was trapped in the corner of the mouth, firing up at the tentacles ranging to attack them. “Carthage, assessment.” Thebes called, turning to fire upon the tentacles as well. “My suit legs are all messed up. This thing is chewing them.” Carthage grunted. “There’s a spot in this thing’s throat that it doesn’t like getting shot, but i can’t do that and move away.”

“Understood, let’s do it together.” Thebes said, just as another tentacle returned from the surface of the lake and smashed into both of them from above. Thebes considerable heft bounced against Carthage’s suit, giving her the shove she needed to dislodge. “I’m falling!” She yelled alongside the system alarms pinging in his ears. Thebes quickly bent down and grabbed her hand as she fell in. The beak grinded up against Carthage’ suit, trying to crush her. She yelled out.

The same tentacle that had done the damage tried to finish the job, jabbing Thebes to remove him from the mouth area. He held on, anchored in place by his grip on his teammate.

The Cradle

Athena was already bounding through the fireball when Thebes gave the order. Her railgun had collapsed down into its most compact version and now operated as a shotgun. Instead of firing one tungsten round over vast distances, it burst it into a dozen pellets with devastating stopping power. She pushed Dr Wetherall down onto the floor and crouched over him. “Steady on! What’re you doing?!” He asked, trying to look up at her. “Stay down.” She commanded, shredding an oncoming vine, and then another.

Knossos crashed through a wall of branches moments after it closed shut, separating the Sacred Band from 595 and Dr Ngata. The tree which had grabbed the agent was on fire and weakening fast, but it seemed determined to finish off the Agent. It was waving her around like a rag doll, with the xenobiologist desperately hanging onto her legs. “It can’t throw us both in!” He shouted.” 595 had riddled the bough with her energy pistol, but still couldn’t wiggle free. Knossos ran over, ducking under a branch which threatened to knock him out, and grabbed onto the limb holding the Agent. “Ngata, pull her in 3, 2, 1!” He grunted, heaving with all his might.

Thebes crashed into the murky water, dodging the tentacles which seemed to lose sight of him and head ashore to attack his team instead. “Watch out, big branches coming from the water!” He called. “Copy that, I’ve got em.” Memnon replied, hefting his sap-covered repeater and opening fire on the tentacles while branches tried in vain to lift him.

Getting back to his feet, Thebes shared a quick nod with Rareth before diving under the water. He struck out powerfully from the shore, heading quickly downwards toward the bottom. It took a few seconds for his vision to adjust, and he had to take a moment to assess what was actually there once he could see.

An enormous sea creature that struck Thebes as a fleshy, off-white lotus flower sat at the bottom of the lake. It’s main body looked a couple of hundred metres in diameter, and it had dozens of thick arms protruding from the sides of it’s body. These arms split into hundreds of smaller limbs that dug into the earth on both sides of the lake. “It must be controlling all those trees.” Thebes realised out loud as they both plunged down towards it. “There she is. Carthage, come in!” Her suit lights flailed in the deep darkness, right next to a gaping beak filled with sharp teeth. “GET OUT OF HERE!” The female soldier yelled, just as energy rounds from her SMG arced across the creature’s mouthparts.

Circling the monster’s maw were eight long, thick tentacles. Three of them had already risen to the surface to destroy the humans up top. The remaining five jostled for position to knock the human it had tried to eat into its mouth. Carthage had lodged herself in the corner of the thing’s mouth, and Thebes thought it looked to be trying to force her fully inside. “Hold on, we’re coming!” Thebes snapped, falling like a stone toward her. Just then, three of the tentacles stopped circling Carthage and rocketed through the water toward them.

The Cradle

Dr Wetherall fell out of the tree and clattered to the floor at Carthage’ feet. She drew her knife and slashed at a few oncoming branches. Wary now, they stayed just out of reach, the blue orbs studying her and Rareth. Then, the entire tree lunged forward, swatting Rareth away and scooping up the slender Human soldier in its clutches.

It rose back up to full height, creaked backwards, and shot Carthage out like a rock from a slingshot toward the lake. Just as she flew into the air, the charges she’d primed detonated inside the mess of tree branches, creating a massive fireball that cauterised the site. The entire valley seemed to reverberate with angry screams.

Carthage gracefully sailed through the air, preparing to plunge feet first into the shallows of the lake. That is until a long, fleshy tentacle with the same pale colour as the trees burst from the depths and grabbed her. “Uh oh.” She had time to say, before the tentacle vanished back into the water with her secured to the end of it.

“Carthage, come in!” Thebes called, savagely slicing through razor-sharp vines in the middle of the ruckus. “Athena, secure Dr Wetherall! Knossos, help Dr Ngata! Rest of you, Focus fire on the trees! I’m going after her.” He burst through the swirling mass of branches, some of them on fire, onto the ‘beach’ of the lake. As if to greet him, three more large tentacles emerged from the choppy water and rushed toward him. “Oh shit.” He growled, diving to one side.

The Cradle

“Why did you do that?” Dr Ngata complained, looking at the agent as she holstered her pistol. “I was watching it, and that creature wasn’t going to attack us; believe me. If anything, it was trying to-” 595 quickly rounded on the scientist, cutting him off. “Let’s get one thing straight, ok? If you see something, ANYTHING, moving in the area, you let the rest of us know. Not after you’ve had a chance to study it, not once you’ve added it to your codex, right-a-fucking-way. All our lives depend on it. You got that?”

“I’m trying to help us all out, you crazy bitch! Analysing the fauna before you shoot the fuck out of it will give clues as to what other kinds of organisms might live here!” Dr Ngata shot back, violently poking the agent’s breastplate with one suited finger. “Or would you rather we all traipse around here with our thumbs in our asses and no idea which way is up?” 595 slapped the man’s finger away from her. “Don’t give me that; It’s our job to keep you safe! And in a place like this, we can only do that by assuming everything is hostile until proven otherwise. And now we need to add the trees to that list too!”

“Umm, guys...what are these trees up to?” Dr Wetherall interrupted. 595 and Dr Ngata both looked at the other scientist. He was in between Carthage and Athena, with his back to both of them. They were all looking at one of the trees. A noticeable creaking, rustling sound hadn’t stopped since the plant had grabbed that winged beast. Now, all of it’s blue luminescent orbs had turned to face them. The branches weren’t droopy anymore, but rigid and alert, like the tree was shocked to see them. Scanning the area, 595 noticed all the other trees were doing the same.

“We need to move. Now!” Thebes barked. 595 drew her pistol again as they began jogging raggedly in formation. They only made it a few dozen steps, passing a couple more of the trees before all hell broke loose.

Four trees, one on each point of the compass, all lunged forward as one. Their branches engulfed the team, grabbing at arms, heads, legs, weapons, everything. Comms erupted as everyone began shouting at once, and gunfire exploded in 595’s ears.

Right in front of her she saw two strong branches grab each of Dr Wetherall’s ankles, pull him off his feet and drag him out of formation towards one of the trees. Carthage leapt forward and grabbed one of the scientist’s hands as the branches pulled him off the floor and into the air. With her other hand, Carthage shot wildly up into the tree limbs.

Another offshoot wrapped around 595’s midriff and her suit’s pressure alarm blared. She shot her pistol straight down through the branch as it dragged her backwards toward the water. Gouts of blue flame rushed past her face from Memnon’s arm cannon, setting the tree behind her ablaze. A shrill squealing sound filled the whole basin, emanating from the tree as the orbs burst and from the lake. The grip around 595’s waist lessened, but didn’t give way.

Dr Ngata wiggled free of the thin stem wrapped around his wrist and ran for the agent, diving to grab her feet and slow the drag down. “SHOOT IT!” He screamed at her. “I’m fucking trying! Grab the knife from my right thigh!” 595 shouted back, pumping energy into the bough around her body.

The Cradle

Well...the water probably won’t kill us..” Dr Wetherall concluded, peering at his suit’s readouts from the water experiment. “At least not right away. It’s chock full of microorganisms and minerals, but nothing innately poisonous to Humans or Rothians.” He sent the results to Ngata’s suit, who stooped over his left arm’s holo-readout to see for himself. “Perhaps i will have that swim, after all.” 595 smirked. “Maybe they’ll have some bathing suits where we’re headed.”

“Focus up.” Thebes ordered, the sight of his energy rifle scanning the land, water and cliffs in front of them.The trees rustled, as if whispering to one another. They advanced in an uneasy silence for a few minutes, keeping an even distance between the water’s edge and the cliff faces around the basin’s border. It wasn’t until they’d made it halfway round the lake in peace that a loud flap and an animalistic scream disturbed the uneasy quiet. Acting on impulse 595 turned, locked her legs, pulled her pistol out and fired up at the object she found barrelling toward them. Several others from the team fired as well.

A bundle of leathery wings fell from the sky. 595 stepped in front of Dr Wetherall, shooting at the object a couple more times as it rapidly approached them. However she didn’t get to see the results of her handiwork. Almost too fast for the eye to see, one of the nearby trees exploded into action, snatching the creature out of the air as it lost altitude. The fibrous tendrils of the tree engulfed it entirely, until something crunched loudly. The tree trunk then rocked back and forth, and the boughs ejected the crippled creature straight into the cold dark of the lake with a splash.

The water quickly submerged the ailing creature; it squealed as it was sucked down under the surface.

Halo: Aegis Team

Tar growled at the order to retreat. It didn’t seem like a strategy that was conducive to catching fleeing prey. However, while she wasn’t under this team’s direct command, she guessed the Spartan outranked her. And while being discharged for disobeying orders was one way to escape Sarcophagus, Tar needed to keep her military options open. It was by far the most efficient vehicle for continuing her search for Tarkr ‘Mdalakai.

Before Tar could reply, there was a roar from somewhere on the opposite side of the room. Fire grenades and spikes began raining down on her position from above. “I’ve found the trap! Brutes, above us!” Tar roared, turning to shoot up at them, pushing her back to the stack of crates she had hidden behind. Her pistol clicked empty, and she quickly flicked the magazine out to replace it with her spare. She peeked around the side of the crate, spikes stuck in her shield, to see more Brutes rushing toward her.

Tar swore; it was now or never. “Moving!” She called. Ducking out of cover into the lane between crates, Tar fired at the oncoming Brutes while carefully walking backwards toward their position. They didn’t take cover, instead electing to trade fire with her. Tar ducked back behind another crate closer to home and immediately peeked back out to continue firing. One of the Brute’s shields burst and Tar shot him in the head, but the rest kept coming. A fire bomb crashed to the floor just in front of her as her pistol clicked empty again. Leaping backwards, Tar burst into another lane of crates, knocking some over as she stumbled for cover. “I need pistol mags!” She called, switching to her Mauler.

The Cradle

“Right works. Sacred Band, get set.” Thebes intoned. The Sacred Band had been picked for this mission because of the convoluted command structure. They were an endlessly resourceful combat unit, used to asymmetric warfare. Taking suggestions from a Rothian was definitely not the strangest thing they’d had to do in their history. Thebes had noted the Outreman agent had been unusually quiet once they’d entered the simulation. She had scarcely shut up outside of it. She was...different somehow.

"We don’t have our full-fat lab gear with us - that was coming with the second wave of our colleagues. But our CRD suits do have limited water testing facilities; kind of like we’re carrying our school chemistry sets with us.” Dr Wetherall snorted derisively. The suits were in fact reasonably advanced, but the scientist was confident that given more time and less politics, he could design something better. “Allow me.” He gingerly stepped over to the body of water next to Rareth, crouched down and dipped an aperture in the hand of his suit into the murky liquid. Carthage aimed her SMG at the same spot of water and held onto the back of the man’s suit.

After a couple of seconds, Dr Wetherall stood up again, closing the aperture. “Let’s get moving shall we? Needs a moment to analyse.” He started walking around the right-hand side of the lake, and everyone moved into formation around him. “These cliffs look like good nesting grounds. Whatever is making that noise could be warning us from it’s home.” Dr Ngata offered optimistically in response to Nirann’s question. He stared up at the first tree as they passed it. Similar to willow trees on Earth, these had light dozens of blue pods attached to the drooping branches. “Let’s pick up the pace until we’re out of this basin.” 595 grunted, lightly patting Ngata’s suit from behind to stop him gawking at the tree.

The Cradle

Thebes nodded at Rareth’s suggestion. “Saddam and Athena, with me. Memnon, Knossos, Carthage, take some of the load and follow Rareth.” Half of the Sacred Band took bundles of equipment from Nirann and deftly followed the Datius up the sheer rock face. The other half, along with the scientists and 595, turned their backs to the wall and surveyed the incline they’d just climbed. Another screech sounded from somewhere up one of the sides of the canyon, a little closer than before.

“Clear.” Knossos confirmed once the first group had reached the top. “You four, go.” Thebes pointed at the scientists and spook. 595 and the Rothian droid practically flew up the wall, but the Human boffins were a little more ponderous. “Wow. Pretty.” 595 commented when she saw the enormous lake, surrounded by softly glowing trees and sheer cliffs on all sides. “There’s a waterfall on the other side of this lake; we might be able to scale up to the water channel above.” She remarked. Fascinating! I wonder why they dammed this fjord…” Dr Wetherall looked about in wonder.

595 turned away from the stunning vista and scanned the canyonsides looming over the way they’d just come. She couldn’t see any movement. Once the second group were safely up the wall, Saddam and Athena turned from rearguard duties and began scaling. Memnon turned to provide overwatch in addition to the agent. Finally, Thebes made his way up to complete their ascent as a group. “So...which way? I’m certainly not swimming to the other side.” 595 asked. “It looks like the left-hand side has a wider strip of land, but denser tree coverage. Right is the opposite.” Carthage assessed. “Lots of unknowns either way. These trees are messing with my optics.”

The Cradle

“I think it would be a mistake to assume the life forms in here operate a rational food chain.” Dr Ngata countered. “In the Cradle, we recorded almost three dozen different mutations. They varied drastically in physiology, but were for all intents and purposes part of the same organism. Sometimes the different elements would attack each other, like an autoimmune disease in Humans. But for the most part, they were unified in removing foreign bodies from their host. Namely, us. That’s my theory, anyway. Even if the worm said it didn't have 'direct control' over what may lie ahead, that doesn't mean they don't share common programming."

The scientist hopped over a small boulder. They were moving at a fast walk, and while the regular environment suits handled 90% of the exertion, Dr Ngata was still beginning to breathe heavier in between sentences. “It's a shame we didn't get a chance to study the creatures we've found so far in more detail. It's a major development that they harbour a facsimile of intelligence, but we need to study where that intelligence really lies. With them? Or somewhere else.” A distant screech punctuated the xenobiologist’s theorising. All the soldiers raised their weapons slightly closer to a firing position. “Let’s cut the chit chat. Everyone keep your eyes on a swivel.” Thebes ordered.

They continued walking up the steep dried out riverbed, in silence, for thirty minutes. Eventually, a high, steep cliff face blocked their way, with the sides of the canyon blocking either side. “There are handholds; we can climb this.” Thebes confirmed. Dr Wetherall palmed the wall. “I don’t think this is natural. Something built it.” He looked back the way they’d come, at the steep riverbed. “If it’s meant to keep us out, it’s not doing a good job.” 595 surmised, looking up the side of the sheer face. “Lets scale it. We’re sitting ducks out here.” She grabbed the first hand hold and hauled herself up.

The Cradle

Thebes didn’t take long to consider his answer to Rareth’s request. The Sacred Band was trained for all manner of movement configurations. In this scenario, the heavy gunner was ideally placed to take on more weight, as their role primarily involved moving comparatively little and providing fire support in all directions. “Memnon, take a load; you’re in the middle.” The towering figure retired from his covering firing position and took a bundle of webbed equipment parts from Dr Ngata. And then another.

After a short interlude, they were all ready to go. The Sacred Band formed a tight formation around the unarmed scientists, with 595 positioned behind Rareth but in front of Thebes. After double checking nothing had been left behind, the expedition followed the valley into a pass between two hills. What looked like a dried out riverbed granted them access into a steep uphill incline which headed roughly toward the bright light on the horizon. Short, black, stunted tree-like objects dotted the passage.

After a short while, a rumble from behind them highlighted that the worm had disappeared beneath the earth again. 595 looked around, trying to substantiate her feeling that they were being watched. “Stay sharp.” She murmured. "If the worms are docile, imagine what the nasties could be."