EliteCommander

The Cradle

Vreta moved forward steadily along with 595. Following their cue, the soldiers kept close as well, weapons at the ready. The creatures flying above were still a concern, so they paid particular attention to any openings through which they might fly should they decide to attack. They would still do whatever was needed to guarantee their safety, but Vreta was still ultimately the one leading them.

“Be careful. That may not be who we want it to be.” Vreta whispered to 595.

---

Briefly, Marae turned her attention to the data Dr. Wetherall sent her. She ran a program to assist with quick analysis, but it did not take much to identify the basics of what it was: a conversation. It was an exchange of words, but not in any language that she could identify. They had brought along with them a sophisticated translation program, and plenty of reference data for it, but it was not yet identifying much beyond the fact that it was a language.

“Nera, I’m sending you a copy of some data we just uncovered. It seems to be a language, but our software can’t make sense of it. See what you can do.” Marae announced quickly to her team’s linguist. However, she did not divert her attention long from Dr. Lang. Despire Freyr’s insistence that they press forward, Marae answered back firmly. “I am going to have to disagree. Our people’s safety is paramount, and I will be giving my recommendation.”

Marae wasted no more time in contacting the away team. “Be advised, there has been some discussion, and I cannot give any guarantees that the jamming field is not physically affecting you in any way. For the sake of safety, It is my opinion that you should return to the lab until we can study the field in greater detail.

---

Vreta stumbled slightly when a tremor shook the ground. He could not see its source from his angle, but there was a column of blue light shining up from the ground just behind where the entity’s throne used to be. Though, Marae’s warning was a concern he took seriously. Vreta quickly turned his head towards 595. “What do you think?”

The Cradle

“Do you think it was the storm that collapsed this place?” Vreta commented as they moved inside the temple. It was a large, open space, though Eti was still keeping them in a tight formation. While 595 was setting up the spectrometer, Vreta knelt down and picked up a small piece of the rubble in his hand. He did not know exactly what could be gained from studying the temple, but recording in greater detail could help someone else figure out the kind of damage the building had sustained. “This place didn’t exactly seem to be poorly built last time, so it must have been quite a strong storm. That, or the stonework wasn’t the only thing holding it together.”

After a moment, Vreta stood back up and started to walk slowly towards the energy profile Freyr had mentioned. “Our host, are you, or your avatar, still here? Can you hear me?” Vreta shouted through the temple.

---

Artek tapped one claw to his cheek as he stared for a few moments in silence at one of the consoles. “Hmm, I can’t really guess at how much energy it would have taken the entity to construct it. It’s possible that it was trivial compared to teleportation, but…I can’t think of why it just wouldn’t speak through the worm, you’re right. There would had to have been something that would motivate it to want to bring them to this spot, specifically.”

As soon as Freyr had brought up the point, Marae had paused in thought herself, and Artek only strengthened her suspicions. Eventually, she interjected. “We…don’t really know much about this jamming field, do we? It is jamming our comms, but that well could be a side-effect, rather than its primary function. We should pull back the away team. My initial readings haven’t revealed anything dangerous about it, but we should study it more before we let them expose themselves to it for an extended time.”

The Cradle

With a flick of his wrist, Artek moved a screen showing the structure just in front of him. You are right about that. “These vines, they’re not just growing over the structure, they’re…becoming a part of it. Normally I would have to try to get past the plant life to learn something about a ruin, but the same rules might not apply here. The building is part of the simulation, of course, a part of the world around it. The difference between the ground, the vines, and the stonework is simply in how the code makes it appear, and there is no rule here that prevents one from becoming the other.”

Artek brought up several more images comparing areas from the previous expedition’s recording to what their away team was seeing now. He seemed no less than enthralled by observing every detail of every carving or crack in the stonework. “Ruins, historic buildings, their form and structure usually tells many stories about what it took to bring them into existence. Especially for large, intricate buildings like this, it normally takes not just a person, or a team, but a society to create them. It takes people with both the means to construct, and a reason to want to build. It takes many different people with different capabilities, personalities, and goals. A lot of moving parts to consider. The story of a building is the story of the client or organization that ordered its construction, the architect who has to balance their artistic vision with the limitations of technology, time, and budget. It is the story of the workers and craftsmen who build it, and of the artists whose self-expression is carved into the stone through the lens of the desires of the client who commissioned the work. That is the story I usually try to uncover, but this…this may be different.”

Pausing a moment, Artek pushed away most of the images, save for one. He brought Freyr’s attention to the most complete image they had of the structure, as it was during the first team’s encounter. “What do you notice about the structure in this picture? I’ll tell you, it’s in great condition. Pristine, actually. Like it had just been built. For a building of this size, construction through normal means would take many years for the type of civilization we have witnessed in this simulation, and it would be quite an unlikely coincidence for it to just happened to have been finished shortly before we arrived. The logical assumption, then, is that it was the entity itself that created it. Not through mining and carving stone, but through manipulating its own power over the simulation. If that is true, and I will say ‘if’, since I cannot give guarantees, but if it is, then that means the story of this structure is the story of the entity itself. It did not have to worry about budget, paying workers, or…physics, for that matter. The entity is the architect, is the builder, is the artist, and so on. Even if it barely put any thought into what it was making, it is still a creation of its mind and a reflection of its own self-expression. What we can learn just from this building tells a story about the mind of this entity we are trying to understand.”

Marae, through it all, simply grinned and allowed Artek to talk. She had her own task in front of her. She continued tweaking her program in an attempt to make it as subtle as possible to avoid tripping failsafes, though she always made sure to keep a stable build on-hand and ready, in case the away team needed it.

The Cradle

Vreta gripped his rifle tightly, his eyes scanning the area ahead of him. While the structure had not been reduced completely to rubble, it was still in much worse shape than the recordings he had seen. Unless this was a particularly elaborate ruse, it did seem like the entity was genuinely at risk. Whatever the truth might be, they needed to play this very carefully, not only for their own sakes, but fore the sake of the mission as a whole.

The soldiers, naturally, had their attention more on the living parts of the simulation. Eti herself was focused on the path ahead, while the others she directed to cover other angles. “Mar, eyes to the sky. Kelest, you’re on ground-level threats. This energy field is interfering with comms. Seems like we can still communicate over short distances, but I don’t want to risk a blackout at a critical moment, so we’ll need to do things analogue. If something attacks by surprise, shoot first and defend yourselves. Same goes for you two. I know you’re both trained, so I’m not expecting to have to pamper you like hatchlings.” She said in an even, commanding tone.

Before the group could move too close to the structure, Marae quickly interrupted. “Wait! Hold on just a…moment. I’m getting something through the spectrometer just under the surface ahead. Hard to say what it is, exactly, just from this data. Still, probably best just to go around, to be safe. Here, let me plot you out a route to avoid the anomalies.”

With a brief acknowledgement, Eti changed her course, then continued to press ahead. Since Rhia was taking care of watching for danger, Vreta focused more on the mission itself. “I don’t like this. If there are actually traps, then we clearly would not be welcome here. Perhaps we should call this off?”

The Cradle

Lacking an actual explanation from 595, Vreta took a moment to figure out what to do with the cable. Rhia performed a quick scan, then adapted a compatible input on his suit. Though, any data sent back to the rig was first filtered by her to cleanse it of anything they might not want to share. With a nod from Vreta, Eti started to lead the way towards the ruins of the structure.

Vreta followed the plan closely. He kept up a slow, steady pace and took particular caution not to allow the cables to become caught on anything. The other two members of Eti’s team moved close on either side of himself and 595, trailing just slightly behind them. Like Rareth, the three of them towered over the pair, and they had far more than just their eyes with which to keep watch on their surroundings.

High above them, the swarm of creatures were starting to fly more erratically. The rig had started to shine its lights to the sky and deploy ultrasonic countermeasures. Vreta even had to tune his own echolocation sensors to use a much different frequency for them to continue functioning. However, with the measures that they were using, none of the creatures seemed to be flying any closer to the group, even as they moved farther from the rig. With all that was disrupting their senses, it seemed that they had not actually been noticed. At least, not yet. They still had to complete their objective, and make the walk all the way back.

The Cradle

The Agent was certainly a curious one, but Vreta saw through the facade she tried to put forward. Friendliness, levity, it was a mask she wore over her true self. In many cases, that was exactly what Vreta himself did through the course of his missions, so it was easy to recognize his own tricks. Of course, it would be naive to expect that she could not see the same in him. Indeed, he supposed it was funny, in a way, that they were both obligated to continue to lie to one another in ways that both of them were aware were entirely ineffective.


After a few minutes, the loading ramp lowered to allow them outside, once Marae was able to finish her work. Vreta deployed his helmet, then stepped out just behind the Agent. Rhia monitored every sensor available to him to keep watch for danger. The flying creatures were still certainly present, but as of yet, they were not making any moves to approach the rig. Once the pair were outside, Eti and her team jumped down from the walkways far above to join them. Their suits’ thrusters slowed their falls to a safe descent to set them down gently, and without too much noise.

“We should make this as quick as we can. Your concerns about the creatures are valid. I will take point, and my team will form up around you. Stay between us as we move.” Eti instructed.

The Cradle

Marae tilted her head when she looked at Freyr. “A physical cable, that…I’ll be honest, that’s not the kind of solution I would usually think of.” She admitted. Given that Rothians had the technology to solve a great many of their society’s problems, low-tech solutions did often go under their radar. It took her a moment to consider the logistics of Freyr’s suggestion, but she did end up giving a hesitant nod. “I…think that will work. Potentially. It depends on if the jamming field is designed to be able to block a signal through a wire. And provided we actually have that kind of cable. It will need to be pretty long, and I certainly didn’t requisition it. If not, we can request it be sent in, though I do still suggest waiting on me to finish this program. Just a few more minutes. We’ll want to have it as a backup, in case something goes wrong with the cable.”

Meanwhile, Vreta followed after the Agent, only mildly groaning at her attitude. He squeezed his way through the rig’s passages down to the loading bay. He was already fully equipped, so he had no reason to delay. The Rothians were taking every precaution they could for this mission; even the scientists were equipped in some measure of combat armor. Vreta’s armor was of mostly the same quality as that of Eti’s team, just fitted to his smaller stature. His shield strength was not quite as good, since the power source and emitters were smaller, but it was not a great difference. He was armed with a standard issue Rothian rifle, a sidearm magnetized to the holster on his thigh, and a plasma sword holstered on his hip. He and the Agent still had to wait for their transit station to be prepared, so they simply stood across from one another in the loading bay for the moment.

“We’re in the loading bay at the moment. Do you want to join us with your team, Eti?” Vreta asked.

“My team is still up top. We’ll join you on the ground once you’re outside.” She answered.

After a few moments, Vreta finally looked up from checking his rifle to make eye contact with 595. “So, what do you expect us to find? Your Institute is supposed to know quite a lot about the Cradle, yes? Is there anything in the Cradle that might be similar to this entity?”

The Cradle

Vreta found himself unsurprised by 595, though he could have done without Rhia laughing inside his head. He let out a brief sigh, then gave the Agent a brief pat on the back as he approached alongside her. “Why does that not surprise me? You seem to make such a habit of being so rough with my body.” He commented, eliciting even more of a laugh from Rhia.

Fortunately, most of the team were more focused on the mission. Eti’Prar was still listening in, and took only a moment to consider the situation before speaking up. “My team will join them. If your Sacred Band perform to expectations, then they should be able to protect the rig without us for long enough to ensure an extraction, in the event of an attack.” She suggested. The Rothian team was not bound by Andersen’s orders, so they could do whatever they felt was necessary for the mission.

“If I may, I do suggest waiting a few minutes.” Marae interjected. “We do have the mobile transit stations, but I can’t be sure that the jamming field won’t interfere with them. Just give me a few more minutes to finish my program. Once that’s finished, I should be able to open up enough of a gap in the field around you to let you extract if you are attacked.”

Vreta looked down at 595, this time with a more serious expression. “I can agree to that. We’ll have Eti’s team for protection, and we’ll be able to extract from the sim quickly if we need to.”

The Cradle

While the others were speaking, Marae had been devoting her full attention on her work. She had to start essentially from scratch on making a program to get them through the field, but she worked remarkably efficiently. Her own neural implants were different in form and purpose to the likes of Vreta’s, but they were specialized to the kind of work she did. She could quickly perform complex calculations, as well as craft programs with thought and intention, rather than purely coding. Much of the work was happening within her mind, though she always had four or five holographic screens floating around her with reference information.

“It progresses. I would say…ten or so minutes.” Marae answered.

Vreta, meanwhile, observed the hologram of the cube with a frown, which was only broken when he gave a sideways glance over to 595. He certainly still did not trust her, nor her intentions. He did agree with Rareth that the behavior of the institute as a whole was suspicious, but in this case, he found himself forced to agree with her. If the entity was friendly, then harming it could be an irreversible choice. “I…actually agree.” Vreta spoke up. “This object is a real unknown for us. Is it such a good idea to modify it, even delicately, without even knowing what it is? We could be prodding at the entity’s brain for all we know. Is there no way to scan from the outside first? Like doing a brain scan, instead of a biopsy? If nothing else, I could go with 595 and we could try to speak with the entity together.”

The Cradle

Vreta was glad to hear that they were at least accounting for their time restrictions, though it did not dispel all of his doubts. “I hope it accounts for all of the time we need to move it. The object will need to return to normal time for a short while after its flyby of the void star as well. Perhaps it would be best that we leave some time on that clock as well, just to be safe. Nirann, could you make sure to keep scanning and recalculating to make sure nothing changes that time limit without us noticing?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll dedicate a subroutine to it.” He answered.

Beyond simply how long they would be investigating, the method of investigation would be just as important. He had read up as much as he could on the capabilities of this rig, but in the limited time that had been available to him, it was not as if he could become an expert. Marae and her team would certainly understand it, and he hoped that she would alert him to anything that might be too dangerous to try.

“What exactly does it mean to ‘integrate’ with the object?” Vreta asked. "I find it likely that this object is related to the entity itself. It may even be the entity. It did identify itself as a synthetic being, so what the first team met in the temple may have simply been an avatar.”