EliteCommander

Halo: Aegis Team

Vael 'Virisusai and Tasuma

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While Grikgar had not had much time to take his shots,the jackal shield had at least bought him enough time to be able to put one on target. The first sailed over the top and exploded on the far wall, but the second struck the barricades directly. It did not entirely destroy the barricades, and the rebels behind them were able to duck for cover, but the machine gun emplacement was caught in the blast. Ryker would still have to deal with armed resistance, with better cover, on the upper walkway, but there was no heavy gun to keep him pinned.

Some of the rebels had retained their bearings well enough and had managed to retreat out from the smoke cloud in the center of the room to form up behind the cover of the support struts on the far side. They had no heavy emplaced weapons, but they were well-armed on their own and had good sight lines. It would still not be trivial to displace them. If Ryker and Grikgar could claim the upper walkway, they would have a position on the high ground, at least.

Amid the smoke, Vael stalked the rebels who had not escaped like prey. Using motion trackers, or simply the sounds they made to track them, Vael weaved between the crates to deal with them up close and personal. From the outside, one would see nothing until he came close enough to a target to flick on his energy sword, which illuminated the thick smoke in a blue glow. It was generally followed by a short burst of gunfire, then the scream of a Human.

Tasuma did not make light of its own injuries, but in any case, it still moved into the smoke cloud as well. It was concerned less with killing stragglers as it was positioning itself to handle the rebels defending the far side of the room. The smoke would dissipate eventually, so it moved to find enough of a stack of crates that it could use for cover, instead of relying wholly on its armor for protection.

The Cradle

Rareth had no further questions, nor any other reason to delay. She felt it best not to keep this entity waiting, She too joined in assisting the scientists with disassembling the mast and transit station, and readying the rest of their equipment to carry. Nirann needed only to give Rareth the schematics for her to understand how to disassemble the devices properly. A normal Human could carry the parts, though for this journey, Rareth wanted the scientists to be as unladen as possible. They needed to make good time to their destination, and the unmodified Humans were already going to be the greatest limitation to their pace.

“Thebes, one or more of your team may need to help carry our equipment. I recommend one who will be traveling at the center of our formation, and who is most comfortable fighting at a distance. We certainly do not want this equipment damaged.”Rareth suggested. Nirann, of course, was going to be the one carrying the greatest share of the burden, including the heaviest parts of both the mast and transit station. His robotic frame had great strength compared to a Human, and he would not experience any measure of fatigue. As long as he was still faster than the slowest of the Humans, he would not be slowing them down no matter the weight he was bearing.

Once they had packed away their equipment, Rareth drew her fusion cannon once again and set it to its automatic firing mode. She, naturally, moved to take point as she looked out towards the beacon of light in the distance. They would not know the topology of the landscape, but at the very least, it would not be hard to know if they were going the right way. “Let’s move. No reason to waste time.”

The Cradle

Rareth too shared the unspoken concerns of the Humans, but she could “read the room”, as it were, and they had little choice but to play along for now. Even if they could kill this worm, it would ruin any chance of a peaceful resolution. This creature clearly had the power to attack them here and now, which, if anything, would be the safe option for it. If what it was saying was true, and they were going to meet it in person, then it would only be putting itself at greater risk. Hopefully, they would be able to reach some understanding with this being. Being able to question an intelligence from within the object could potentially teach them more in a few minutes than Humanity had learned about the Cradle in centuries. At least in terms of the objects’ functions and purpose.

“Very well; we will do as you ask and come speak to you. I take your words to mean that we may need to defend ourselves against anything that may attack us. We will be ready for it.” Rareth answered before turning back towards her allies. “Let’s get everything packed up here, then get moving. Try not to leave anything behind. I am getting the impression that we should not allow the local villagers to access anything of ours.” She said, gesturing towards the Simrothians.

The Cradle

Rareth would have interrupted the scientist, had 595 not already done so. An emotional, panicked response was far from what they needed at the moment. Fortunately, for most of the Humans, they were able to keep cool heads and maintain their composure. Rareth, as their de-facto spokeswoman so far, spoke back up in response to the entity. “So it is not allowed to use your power? I understand, I will make sure anything else we use, we can power ourselves. We will do as you say and come to speak to you in person. Do you want all of us to come to you, or may some of us remain here? I promise they will not use your power. I would like for them to send a message back to where we came from to explain what is happening. Otherwise, there are others back in the physical world that may disturb us before we have finished speaking.”

Nirann felt that he was on the same page as Rareth, as an idea had come to mind for him shortly after they lost power. Stepping up alongside Dr. Wetherall, Nirann placed a metal hand gently on his shoulder. “Calm down; we can deal with this. What are the exact power requirements for this thing again? This frame of mine has a pretty good fusion core inside it.” He said before establishing a connection with Wetherall’s holopad. “Just help me finish off this analysis. I still have all the data we’ve been collecting, so we shouldn’t need to turn it back on to write a patch. When it comes time, we can power our equipment here off of my fusion core, apply the patch, then we’ll have our way back home.”

The Cradle

Rareth answered quickly, but calmly. “If it would not normally be permitted, then I would like to ask your permission for an exception. I give you my word that it is of no threat to you. These are tools we need for our purpose here, to help learn about you and this place. There are a few here, with different functions. May I ask what you would not permit in this place, and what you would not want us to have? If there is something you would rather not be here, I can make sure we do not bring anything like it in the future. I feel that I should ask these sorts of questions now, before we go further, as I do not know your customs, and I do not want to accidentally offend you.” She explained, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, without either lying, or giving away too much at once. Most crucially, she wanted to learn more about this thing and what it expected of them.

Nirann had noticed the events unfolding around him, given the sensor suite in his frame, but it was true that he certainly did not act like it. “I know, I know. Just keep working and leave the giant worms to the giant worm experts. I think I might be close to some answers here.” He responded to the Human.

Halo: Aegis Team

There was some delay in the response from the enemy. They waited behind cover on the far side of the room, only giving token return fire as they waited for their attackers to take the space they had given up. However, Aviza did not give the order to advance, and the delay would give some time to try and retreat back to her position.

When it became clear that their attackers had, for the most part, not taken the bait, the Chieftain let out a roar. Right away, Brute stalkers, four at least, emerged from active camouflage on the walkway directly above the team’s position. They did not have an angle to shoot down on Aviza or those who stayed back, but Tar and Yalu were within their sights. Two opened fire with spikers, while the other two tried to throw incendiary grenades to block their retreat. It was, indeed, an ambush, though it was far from ideal for the Brutes, as both of the Sangheili were still fairly close to Aviza’s position. In any case, the Chieftain’s roar had been the signal for an all-in attack. The Brutes started charging from far across the room through the crates, while the Human rebels positioned themselves to provide supporting fire. Although, they did have a fair amount of ground to cover to cross the entire length of the room.

The Cradle

In this case, Rareth was glad to be wrong. Evidently, something had been examining their communications since they arrived, and it was finally getting around to translating them. Whichever language it had learned, Rareth’s translator could understand it, which meant she could respond. “We have come to investigate; to learn about this place and its inhabitants. We come from the physical world, outside this digital world. We came prepared to defend ourselves, but we have no intention to harm you. We have been inside another object like this one and have been attacked, but we would rather speak peacefully. We may be able to help each other.”

As soon as he had been able, Nirann had returned to work on the transit station. He did take a fraction of a second to further modulate the shield so that it would not block visible light coming from the outside. It allowed him to see what was happening outside, though anyone looking in would still only see blackness. If the titanic creature had it sights set on crushing their transit station, he would prefer to be able to see it ahead of time. In any case, the majority of the processing power in his frame were running analysis on two different data sets: one collected from outside the simulation, and the readings gathered inside. They were both being compared to Cradle data to identify the points at which the object’s internal language had diverged from the Cradle so he could make the necessary rewrites to the transit station’s code.

The Cradle

It was times like this that Rareth most benefited from her training. As soon as the mast was moved to safety, she left she shield to see this heat signature. She was not influenced by her amazement, nor delayed by any uncertainty or doubt. She made swift judgments based simply upon the facts available. The creature had an unknown temperament with an unknown intelligence level. It was a titanic lifeform; if it existed in reality, it would be among the largest known individual creatures. Dr. Ngata, down at the bottom of the ridge, was also dangerously close to its point of emergence. Even if the creature did not directly pay attention to him, collateral damage was a distinct risk. Its mouthparts and large, front-facing eyes were consistent with a predatory nature, which further heightened the risk. Comparing what she could observe with the known abilities and equipment of herself and her allies, she judged that the beast could potentially be of some danger.

Rareth did not hesitate to run and put some distance between herself and the transit station, though she did not move towards the creature or Ngata. Rather, she moved perpendicular to the beast, along the top of the ridge. Once she was far enough away, she stopped in place, alone at the top of the ridge and far from cover or her allies. She spoke through their comms channel to inform the others of her plan, “Dr. Ngata, you are too close to the creature. I will draw its attention to me; everyone else, stay back. Ngata, try to move away from the creature quickly, but without being noticed.”

Rareth left few opportunities to argue with her plan, as she soon began shouting up at the massive lifeform. It was not unthinkable that even such a monstrous beast could still be intelligent, so for now, she did not do anything overtly threatening. Though, she did change the firing mode on her fusion cannon to a single-fire, high-explosive plasma burst, as well as marking potential weak points as targets for micro-missiles. “Are you intelligent? Can you understand my words, or at least that I am speaking to you? We have come here peacefully, but should you attack us, I will be forced to kill you.” She shouted. Of course, Rareth highly doubted that she would get anything even resembling an answer, but that was not the point. All she needed was its attention to give Ngata a chance to get away.

The Cradle

“I think you might be right.” Rareth remarked as she looked out into the distance. Whatever the source of the light and sounds, it was far more likely than the local villagers to actually give them meaningful answers about this place. They needed to act as quickly as they could, but nothing could be done until they dealt with the problems plaguing their transit station. She had been keeping track of what the scientists had been saying inside the shield, so she knew they were not in a position to move yet.

Nirann dug in his heels and pulled against the tug of gravity to try and keep the mast up on the ridge. He had unrestricted robotic strength in the body he was inhabiting, so he was certainly able to put in his fair share. They made slow progress at first, but after a few moments, everyone holding on to the mast would suddenly find that it felt much lighter. Rareth had moved into the shield and lent her muscle towards their combined efforts. Though, in truth, it felt like she might have been able to do it on her own. In any case, she did not allow time for rest once they had dragged the equipment to safety.

“We need to prioritize getting the transit station safely operational as quickly as possible. Nirann, how long will it be?” Rareth asked directly.

Nirann stood slightly hunched over with his hands on his knees, miming as if he was out of breath despite the fact that his body neither breathed nor fatigued. “I can’t say for sure, but I’ll start running the data through my processors to see if I can close the gap between the object’s programming and what the station expects.”

Still wasting no time, Rareth immediately opened the team’s comms channel to attempt to contact the junior Human scientist. “Dr. Ngata, do you need assistance, or can you make it back up on your own?”

The Cradle

Nirann quickly got both hands onto the comms mast once the shaking started to get worse. A soldier came into the shield to help, which would hopefully be enough bodies to make sure nothing ended up broken. “Okay, yeah, let’s get this thing on the ground, gently. We can put it back up when the ground is less angry.”

Outside the shield, Rareth made it back up the hill and rejoined the others. Her neural implant had managed to fully adjust to the low-light conditions by mixing in ambient light from the non-visible spectrum, so she could see much better than at the start. Still, that did not reveal what was causing this disruption. “If they can’t run from it, I doubt we’ll escape either, unless we get the transit station up. So, we hold. Just be ready, but still don’t shoot until we know we are under attack.”

While they still had no true answers as to what was happening, the sounds Rareth heard did provide some hints. They were not natural; they were synthetic. From some electronic source, most likely. She supposed she did have to allow some uncertainty, as she did not truly know what kind of creatures might be found in a simulation, but it did imply something with more advanced technology than what these villagers had shown. It could be a genuine threat. Rareth had three firing modes to work with on her fusion cannon, plus the micro-missiles. She decided to leave it on its fully-automatic firing mode for now, as it was the most versatile.