Cath

The Cradle

“Me too!” Freyr exclaimed, eyes searching the room as she pieced together her experience. The orderlies helped them out of the harness - she felt really wobbly and had to grab one of them and sit down again. “It knows where my family is, they’re alive! It’s going to rescue them for me!” Freyr had found out a great deal more than that, but this is what floated to the surface of her memory first.

After a moment, Vreta’s own words sunk in. “Andromeda?” Freyr’s eyes were like saucers. “I remember the...Navigator saying that's where it spent most of its time, with its...family? I guess? My theory is that they have a deep symbiotic relationship with the Cradle. It's their home, hospital, interstellar craft, laboratory. In return, they-”

“Sorry to interrupt. Dr Lang, Vreta’Sori, you’ll want to see this.” Freyr looked past the orderly and saw the bald Facilitator standing in the control box through the observation glass. A technician at the console desk there was holding down the intercom button. The anonymous man motioned with his head for them to meet him outside the harness room door. “What about them?” Freyr asked, pointing to the still-sleeping 595 and Osman.

“We’ll keep an eye on them. Come with me.”

---

“Welcome back. We’ll debrief shortly, but I thought you’d want to see...” The Facilitator continued as they exited the harness room and followed him down a different hallway from the way they’d come in. This one went to the main observation lab, instead of the entry gate lab.

“After some initial chaos and turbulence, the asset appears to have bonded with the Cradle and we managed to close the seal. It seems calmer now.”

They entered into a slightly larger rectangular lab, with three banks of consoles facing a big viewing screen. The whole team appeared to have migrated in here while they were under. A few of them waved - there was a palpable excitement in the room. Freyr vaguely noticed that there were significantly fewer CraSec guards in this room, though a few extra suits with compact weapons had appeared.

When Freyr saw what was on the screen, she gasped, clasping one hand over her mouth as a tear of happiness rolled down her cheek. Her weakened legs nearly gave out, so she grabbed hold of a nearby table, supported by the Facilitator. “It’s...beautiful.” She eventually blabbed. Despite everything that’d happened in the Cradle today, she couldn’t help but be ecstatic. One of her life’s dreams had come true.

The picture-perfect screen depicted the Cradle in all its magnificence. Fifty-two metres in diameter, composed of an indescribable pearly white alloy. It hung motionless in the middle of the Vault’s central void. And around it flew the deep black octahedron they now knew as the Navigator. Freyr watched for a few seconds, as the smaller object looped around the Cradle sphere as though it were a shoulder sash, slowly turning on its own axis at the same time.

The Cradle

As Vreta gradually disappeared into the bed of black quicksand, a bright light shone through the clouds above. The Rothian doppelganger began floating up, like an angel of heaven. He stared down and sighed again at Vreta’s pained expression.

“I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I didn't want to do this. I can tell you want to help, but I can't trust you to follow simple instructions when it matters. You have all evolved too far.”

The Navigator surveyed the Rothian agent as the black tar sucked up past his chest and lapped around his neck. His lizard head was all that remained, tongue noisily tasting the air.

“It’s alright. We can fix that together, can’t we? Dispense with the other intelligences and bring life to the universe, side by side...Shhhh. Sleep now.” The Navigator soothed Vreta as he disappeared into the Cradle forever.

---

Freyr choked herself awake in the big Vault harness. The harsh ceiling lights were partially blocked by someone running diagnostics on her panel. “These two are back. It’s ok, you’re safe.” Freyr kept breathing heavily, trembling softly.

She looked round and found Vreta, staring into space but otherwise awake. Freyr looked in the other direction - 595 was still asleep in her pod, as was Major Osman. “Where...where are we?” Freyr asked, confused.

“You’re in the Vault, ma’am.” The orderly confirmed, mechanically releasing all their inserts.

“Drink this water, you’re very dehydrated.”

Water splashed down Freyr’s front as she eagerly quenched her thirst. Eventually, she turned her focus back to the Rothian. “Are you alright? Where did you go? Back there…”

The Cradle

“After a fashion...yes.” The Rothian grunted, gritting their jaws together. The transformation gripping its body spread from its chest, crawled up its neck. Black and white scales flipped to a new dark green and yellow pattern in a matter of seconds. They spread their hands out to either side and looked up, closed their eyes.

“Raagggghhhh!” Their head was enveloped, flipping and folding like a paper ornament. Both fists clenched while their body floated in the ether across from Vreta. Then all at once, it was over. Both Rothians landed softly on an invisible floor, and two identical Rothians stood facing each other.

“I...Navigate.” The entity breathed a sigh of relief. “You are Vreta’Sori. I am you, and you are now part of me. Together, we are going to do great things.” The Rothian smiled warmly, encouragingly. The floor beneath Vreta began sucking him down into the blackness.

The Cradle

“We’ve inhabited your galaxy for hundreds of millennia. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that one of us controls the Institute.” The Rothian mused, tapping one claw against its chin while watching Vreta. Its surface crawled as scales changed patterns like pixels changing on a screen. It was turning from black and white to green. “At any rate, you all have parts to play in the fight ahead. Cooperation won’t be easy at first, but I'll do my best to bring you together for the greater good.”

Halo: Aegis Team

Tar swore as her Spectre creaked again, trying to fly away in the howling wind. She was taking on a worrying list; her engines whined as she turned the front into the wind and squeezed every ounce of power from them. “Lean into it or we’ll go over!” She bellowed at her passengers. Rain splashed directly into her face off the front hull of the Spectre.

“We should find shelter. This is the rainy season - the worst could still come!” Tar knew all too well the perils of braving events like this, especially on the exposed plateaus where they were headed. Many Sangheili had spilled their blood on the rocky outcrops below.

She frantically cast her eyes around for somewhere they could go while trying to control her Spectre. Visibility was almost nil outside the basin they had been riding through. Then Tar saw the dark green vines plastering the forest floor on one side. She knew immediately what that meant. “Up on our left! There’s a cave system!” Tar called, pointing with her free hand.

The Cradle

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.

The Cradle

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.”

The Cradle

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.”

The Cradle

“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.”

Song Reference time

And you smell like
How angels oughta smell
And you look like
You're ready to go

So hold my hand
I'll take you everywhere
Anywhere
You wanna go