Cath

The Cradle

“Maybe.” 595 shrugged quietly, next to Vreta. They stopped in front of a downed pillar’s splayed segments when he addressed the whole room. The Agent listened with everything she had, but could only pick up the howling wind and ten thousand wings fluttering overhead...

Wait! What was that? “You guys hear that?” 595 hissed. She moved past Eti, vaulting the pillar to utterly focus on the soundscape. She could have sworn she heard two people whispering in the back of the hall somewhere. “Come on out! We just want to talk to you!” The Agent called, visor slithering off her face. Her naked voice echoed around the chamber, and the sickly blue light of her eyes shimmered off the masonry close by.

She inched forward slowly, gun half-raised in front of her.

---

“Not yet.” Freyr soothed Marae in the hypnotic voice a mother assumes with their fussing baby. She never took her eyes away from a dual display of the Rubezahl’s trail through the mountain and video from the ground team. “They’re alright for a few more minutes. Just let me know if the field changes in any way. Dr Zimmermann, initiate contact with the underside of the cube, please.``

“Very good.”

“Marae, I’ve defragged some of the data from that hotspot you found. You’ll want to take a look at this.” Dr Wetherall crackled from below deck.

The Cradle

595 hauled her cargo up the stone stairs, pistol raised to cover a gap between two of the Rothian soldiers. The bottom edge of the spectrometer bashed against each step with a muffled *thud*. No one made a sound; each of them were completely focused on their surroundings.

The rig’s lighting didn’t penetrate the temple interior. Apart from a few long shadows in the doorway, the contents were bathed in blackness. The Agent let her Cradle-tech augments adjust to the changing conditions as they crept inside.

The place was a mess. The roof had been torn clean off, and great chunks of masonry had fallen into the grand rectangular hall. Most of the pillars on either side of the central causeway had collapsed, with the few that remained looming out of the dark like watchful sentinels.

“This will do.” 595 murmured, putting the spectrometer down on the floor a few metres inside the temple. She pulled her main gun off the magnetised holster on her chest and turned it on. Ever so slowly, she brought it up to her eye, scanning up where the walls used to meet the roof. “You sense anything here with us?” She asked over comms.

---

“Hmm, maybe. There is a strange energy profile in the back. Can you check it out?” Freyr replied, a consolatory ‘I want to talk to you about your interesting idea’’ finger raised to Artek. She then looked at the ceiling while addressing the whole rig. “Any chance we can clean this feedback up, guys? It’s all over the place.”

Freyr watched the grainy video coming in from Vreta and 595 for a few seconds, before turning back to Artek. She spoke quickly: “But why not use this energy in a more useful application? Why build a temple instead of, say, teleporting the first expedition right to it, rather than have them trek cross-country? Why did it even need to see them in-person anyway? It was likely speaking through that worm, couldn’t it have explained the situation there and then?”

The Cradle

595 awkwardly changed course in line with the rest of the team. Part of her wanted to investigate the patch of snow Marae had warned them of, just to see what happened. But she restrained herself, and tried to focus on the mission. She had been tasked with running interference on this expedition, but she could sense there was still so much for her to learn from the Navigator. This might be the last chance she got, before handing over to the Institute back on Outremer…

---

“Sorry, ‘traps’ might not be the best word for them in this context.” Freyr chuckled over comms, closely watching Rübezahl's progress on the holo-map at the same time. Their creation was trickling through the mountain structure, heading towards the underside of the cube - the part Freyr suspected wasn’t being protected. It had detected a couple of symbiotic organics inside the mountain, which were causing low-level vibrations they’d been querying. “There are just a few spots we can’t access that we’d best steer clear of for your safety.”

Freyr then switched to the rig-only channel, to avoid distracting the ground team. “Marae, can we isolate those dark pockets with your program, to avoid messing with them?” She looked at Artek, who had joined her on the bridge to work more closely on the alien structure. “Any thoughts on the architecture? It looks different from the recorded video, right? Damage excluded.”

---

The temple ruins loomed over them in the blackness. The roof had collapsed, and 595 saw piles of debris through the open entryway. “Woah…” She whispered, when she noticed the mess of vine-like growths winding their way over the masonry. The temple had lost its clean lines and classical shape, to become more...organic. They made their way toward the front steps. "Are you seeing this?"

Song Reference time

You want me to forget you?
Ok, forget me too
You tell me you hate me, baby
Yeah, I bet you do

The Cradle

595 shuffled through the snow in formation with the others. The transit station on her back and the spectrometer in her left hand were heavy and unwieldy; she had to lean slightly to her right to maintain good balance. The Agent could probably have moved faster if she’d gripped the sensory equipment in both arms, but then she wouldn’t have been able to wield her sidearm.

At any rate, her load became noticeably easier to bear once they crossed onto the top face of the cube. Either something was making the objects she was carrying lighter, or something was making her suit stronger. 595 smiled under her visor and pressed on with renewed vigor.

“Ground team, can you read me? Come in, please.” Freyr crackled and hissed over comms, kept open purely via the cables connected to Vreta and 595. “I read you.” 595 answered, looking at Vreta to check he’d heard it too. “Good. We’re getting readings from the spectrometer now too. Proceed to the structure - we’re going to check the field for booby traps.”

“Copy that. Good work on the countermeasures, boys. Keep it up.” 595 purred, looking up at the fingers of light stabbing the chaotic swarm of creatures above. A few of the things had peeled away from the pack and were flying about frantically at a lower altitude, seemingly confused. 595 observed that they definitely weren’t bats. She’d never seen anything like them before.

“Is your gear still working?” She asked the team around her.

The Cradle

The noise outside was eerie after the reassuring hum of the lab. The wind and snow howled, and a loud ‘ftftftftftfft’ sound swooped and ducked around them in the dark.

Keeping her cool, 595 jogged heavily to the cable housing, just off-centre from the rig’s vast front elevation. She put the spectrometer on the ground, unfurled a thick cable from one of the massive reels, firmly spun Vreta around so his backpack was facing her, then plugged the cable into his transit station. She then motioned for him to do the same to her, while she dealt with the spectrometer.

Once she’d received the green light from the bridge that all the equipment was working, 595 pulled out a thinner cable from the cable housing and handed it to Vreta. “This one goes in your butt.” She explained, before retrieving another cable which went into the small of her back, just underneath the transit station backpack.

595 had already created a sterile compartment for the video and sensory data to run through, taking out all metadata from her suit or biology. She gritted her teeth when the cable went in, with her suit fighting to reject it. “Enough!” She hissed under her breath, overriding its complex defense mechanisms. “Got to play nice with the friendly Doctor, haven’t we?”

Once everything looked functional, Dr Chanthara took the lead. “Ultrasonic package primed. Search lights?”

“Standing by.” Knossos confirmed, standing by an external control panel which gave him control of the rig’s large work lamps. He looked up the enormous swarm of flying creatures in the air around them.

“Ok. Deploying.”

The Cradle

“Yes, of course. Once you’re happy with the program, we’ll set it ready to go in if the cabling doesn’t work. Fortunately, there’s miles of the stuff in storage. We can feed it through to reels on the front of the rig.” Freyr explained, taking a holo-pad from its mount to check inventory. She deftly scanned through and selected the necessary cabling, along with a spectrometer and two mobile transit stations. “Nirann, can you activate the cargo conveyor and send that down to the team please?”

“Rübezahl ready to launch, Doctor.” Zimmermann reminded her. Freyr looked up quickly from her holo-pad. “Launch it.”

---

595 firmly thrust her sidearm back onto its mag-plate after checking the battery and looked over at Vreta, a sly look on her face. “Really, Vreta’Sori…Your reverence is flattering! But I’m afraid I'm just as clueless as you, sweetie.”

The agent flexed her fingers, arms and neck vigorously at this point. Strips along the thinner points of her armour pulsed the same blue colour as her eyes. Electricity crackled softly between her digits, and 595 inhaled deeply through her nose while biting her lip. “Ooh, wow…These upgrades are magic...”

The loading bay lights switched from bright white to deep red. Klaxons sounded from everywhere as the equipment around them was brought online. A compact conveyor belt began whirring frantically in one corner of the room.

Freyr’s voice crackled over the team chat. ”Loading bay - you should see the spectrometer and transit stations arriving now. Take it. In a couple of minutes we’re going to lower the ramp. Head outside and hook up to the cable housing.

595 moved over to the conveyor belt as a few bulky objects appeared. The first was the spectrometer, a spherical device contained within a lightweight metal cage with a handle on the top. The other two were modified transit stations, with handy arm straps. She grabbed a transit station and bashed it against Vreta's chest so he took it off her. Then she strapped the other station on her back and held the spectrometer in her off-hand.

"Ready."

The Cradle

“Hoo fuckin rah.” 595 purred through a wide smile. Her Cradle-light eye augmentations switched on, bathing Vreta in a sickly blue glow. “Lets deploy from the bow loading bay - I’ll head down there now.” She turned and clanked down the ladder they’d arrived up, holding both handrails with her gun magnetized to her chest.

Freyr looked up at the ceiling, mulling over her low-tech solution one more time before voicing it. “Marae, how confident are you we can open a hole without triggering any potential countermeasures? The thought has occurred to me that we could try physical cabling to capture the data and tandem the transit station with the rig. Might leave less of a footprint on the cube?”

The Cradle

“This is the brain scan.” Freyr replied levelly, gesturing with an open hand to the holographic cross section. “You can see here...activity on the cube’s top face, but that’s obfuscated by this dome-like field.” She used a finger to highlight what she was talking about, sketching the dome which sat next to their rig.

“I predict the rest of the cube’s faces won’t have this kind of field. Why bother, when this mountain acts as a natural firewall, with no permanent connection to the object? So, we need Rübezahl to trace a path through the mountain system and create a strong connection between us and the cube. From there, we can gently nudge the being and hopefully make contact in some way. We won’t be modifying it, just observing and talking.”

Freyr paused and thought for a moment. 595’s plan did actually have a lot of merit. Outremer’s high command had forbidden their top scientists from leaving the rig, where they could be extracted at a moment’s notice. The Sacred Band had also been explicitly ordered not to leave them alone. But as far as she knew, this mandate didn’t extend to 595 and Vreta.

It also got both of them out of her hair for the most crucial part of this mission. The part where Freyr planned to search for evidence that this entity was telling the truth about its origins and the threat Humanity faced.

The two of them might even find something useful on the top face of the cube. Freyr supposed they would be more discreet as well; there was always a small chance an abrasive anti-jammer like the one Marae was creating might set off unknown failsafes. They could keep it in reserve as a Plan B, perhaps…

“Ok, i don’t hate the idea. But what about the swarm outside? We haven’t analysed their biology yet, but creatures of that profile may be waiting for some of us to separate from the group before striking as a swarm.”

“Well, I actually had a plan for them.” 595 asserted. “Now hear me out...we use Vreta as bait! While they’re busy eating him to death, I could make a run for it.” The Agent grinned broadly, winking at Vreta. Freyr could hear a couple of suppressed chuckles from her team before they muted themselves, and a raucous belly laugh from the Norse.

“What about some kind of sensory overload? If they operate with sonar, we could prepare a package that disorients them. Or we could try bright lights to scare them off?” Dr Chanthara suggested - 595’s joke had been lost on him.

“Or, uncle Kjartan can just shoot them all!” Kjartan boomed from the swiveling ball turret on top of the rig. “With coordinated fields of fire, we could suppress or kill enough of them to clear a way through.” Thebes chipped in - it seems this had become a free for all.

The Cradle

“Rübezahl becomes part of the mountain. Looks for an underground path we can use to make contact, zo to speak.” Dr Zimmermann replied in a thick Swiss accent, which Freyr always found charming when she considered that he’d been a citizen of Outremer for much longer than her.

“Mmhmm.” Freyr actively confirmed the scientist’s assessment, then tagged on the end. “We can keep the integrity of whatever this object is intact. Rübezahl Three has instructions to be delicate on its mission.”

“Ja. It is ready, by the way.” Zimmermann reported. “Excellent. Prepare for launch. Marae, how are you getting on with the front door?” Freyr looked vaguely into the air while communicating with invisible colleagues.

“Hold on, i still don’t like this.” 595 walked over to Freyr. “Why don’t I just go and take a look around with my own eyes first? Maybe the...avatar is still functional? That way, we can avoid using any safecrackers.”