EliteCommander

The Cradle

Vreta could not help but to be irritated by the state of the evacuation. Given how long the Cradle had been declining, nonessential civilians should have already been evacuated a week or more ago. The fact that there was still any meaningful number of people left to evacuate represented a failure on the part of Outremer’s government, in his mind. Soldiers were now forced to risk their lives unnecessarily.

Regardless, Rareth’Jharn was focused on dealing with the problems in front of her. “Void Company will continue to hold the Bridge until the evacuation is complete.” She remarked, watching the screen over the others’ heads from the back. “It may be necessary to send in more resources to the Bridge, but I do agree that we should be seeking to evacuate the Cradle overall. What is the current obstacle to clear communications? We need to direct any available forces within the Cradle to converge on the Bridge. Can we transit supplies or reinforcements directly to the Bridge to assist the defense?”

The Cradle

Although he was still generally disoriented, Vreta could still feel happy to hear that Freyr now had genuine hope for her family, as his smile would tell her. It seemed to rely on trusting the Navigator to help, granted, but if it was both willing and able to follow through on its promise, then that would at least be a good sign.

Vreta lacked the context to truly understand Freyr’s reaction after the Facilitator lead them to view the Cradle. This was his first time seeing the physical form of the Cradle itself, so aside from the presence of the Navigator, he was not sure if there had been any change to the Cradle to inspire her response. Regardless, he could finally see the object of so many people’s obsession for himself. It was simple, perhaps even beautiful to look at from the outside, despite the horrors that existed within. To Vreta’s knowledge, the Rothians had supercomputers of similar or greater physical size, though he had a feeling he had still not seen the true extent of the Cradle’s computing power to be able to meaningfully compare them. The size of a computer was only meaningful for similar levels of technology. He knew it could create a simulated world, of course, but even after all they had seen, its limits were still a mystery. For the sake of the people trapped in the Cradle, and those in the city above them, he hoped what the Facilitator said was true. If the Cradle did not continue to calm down, he did not want to guess what kind of harm it could cause.

To Vreta, his memories of what happened, especially in the final moments, were still fuzzy. Rhia was trying to clean up what she could, but even her normally crystal clear records seemed to have some kind of interference. It felt like a dream, but he knew better than to just discount what he had experienced. In the Cradle, even the strangest of experiences could still be meaningful.

“I think we need to focus on getting all of our people out of the Cradle. If the Navigator is truly calming it, then we do not want to interfere with our presence.” Vreta reasoned.

The Cradle

Vreta took a deep breath, growling slightly out of general discomfort. He was eager to take water as soon as it was offered, so it took him a few moments to actually get around to responding to Freyr. “I could ask the same of you. Everyone was going unconscious around me, then I…spoke to the Navigator.”

Vreta grimaced as some of the memories slowly came back to him. It was not entirely clear, at least not nearly as much as the events which had led up to it. “It spoke…more about the Hegemon. I remember it showed me some of what it could do. It believes we are going to need to work together against it, supposedly. I…it’s vague, but I think I know where we might find evidence of this Hegemon. It mentioned…you know it as Andromeda. The neighboring galaxy. The memory we saw back on Rothia happened in one of its satellite galaxies.”

The Cradle

Vreta naturally noticed the strange occurrences around him, but there was little he could do to make sense of them. In general, he had no options except simply to listen to what this being had to say. Eventually, the being’s appearance took on one resembling Vreta himself.

“What does this mean?” Vreta asked the “Navigator” with a low growl. Unfortunately, he did not have time to search for other options before he fell and his perceptions grew dark.

---

Vreta awoke with a deep, gasping breath. He recognized right away where he was, as he was back in the Vault in his harness. He felt like he had a mild headache, but otherwise was just disoriented. Right away, he had Rhia start a full diagnostics on both his mind and body as he tried to remember what had transpired.

The Cradle

“Are you saying that you will tell them to be cooperative with us?” Vreta asked, though he could not help but to admit to himself some frustration with this conversation. At every turn, it seemed, the entity was giving vague or incomplete answers to most of his questions. It did not inspire much confidence that it was trustworthy.

Vreta looked over the Rothian carefully. “If you can see in my mind, then you know I want to help. But we still need solid proof, solid answers. But my leadership will still need to be convinced. They cannot know your intentions like you know mine. Do you intend to share the data we spoke of before on the Hegemon, and help to find evidence of its existence? Having detailed information on our enemy will go a long way not only to convincing my own leadership, but that of every other species in the galaxy as well. As you’ve said, cooperation is not going to be easy, and it is going to take a lot of work to get the galaxy together and convince them to work with…well, I suppose I do not even know what to call you. Perhaps formal introductions would also be a good first step?”

The Cradle

“Two thousand years?” Vreta remarked, tilting his head. Obviously, such a claim challenged any assumptions Vreta might have been making about the Institute. “We would not have expected that. Either the Cradle has been communicating with Humanity long before they even left their homeworld, or the Institute is not led by Humans. Something else within the Cradle, perhaps?”

Much of what Vreta was learning felt hard to believe. He still could not be sure whether or not he should trust this entity. Finding proof of the Hegemon’s existence would be sufficient, if the entity gave him a location to search. Until then, though, he still wanted to learn as much as it would tell. “What is it that leads them? If their goal is truly to reunite you, then I do not see how our goals are in conflict. You are clearly important to them, so I imagine your word would carry weight among them. Could you to instruct them to cooperate with us?”

Halo: Aegis Team

Vael 'Virisusai

---

Vael took the driver’s seat of one of the spectres himself. It was going to be a long drive, so he wanted to be sure that each one was taken by an experienced driver. He did not want any delays in getting to their objective ,if they could be avoided. Although, he did still decide to defer to Tar to lead their convoy. Being a local, she had more intimate knowledge of the environment and terrain, especially surrounding the keep. He believed it would be wise to take advantage of her experience.

”Check your maps. Our objective is located on a plateau in the mountains near the keep. Once we come close enough, we will proceed on foot up the mountain. We will establish the communications jammer for the Human construct to use to cut off the cannon’s guards from the keep. Should we be detected, we must ensure there are no survivors to report our presence.” Vael explained as he prompted Tar to take the lead.

---

Although they had to move through a forest, the spectres were maneuverable enough that the team started out making good time. Once they came to a small river they could follow, they were even able to press on at full boost for over ten minutes straight. Naturally, the closer they came, the more cautious they would need to be.

However, before the cannon’s defenders could even begin to be a problem, there was another obstacle manifesting around them. The rainstorm surrounding them did not subside. Far from it, the storm grew ever stronger as time passed. Heavy rain turned into a torrential downpour, deafening thunder followed cracks of lightning every few seconds, and winds picked up to the point that the rain was falling near horizontally. The storm was strong enough that the spectres started to tilt in the wind. Vael had to turn his vehicle into the wind at an angle just to keep going straight, which only added to the issue of poor visibility. Vael could just barely make out the glow of the gravity propulsion drive of the spectre ahead of him. For those on the turrets, and especially the side passengers, it would be a struggle just to hang on.

The Cradle

“How hard, exactly?” Vreta asked again. “Such details are important. If nothing else, it can be distracted more effectively if we know our attacks at least threaten it. Otherwise, we would need to adopt other strategies to keep it busy. We don’t need to stay here discussing it at length; if you have this information, you can upload it to my implants so that my people can analyze it. Shield strength, weapon output, maneuverability, tracking capabilities, anything you know could let us adapt our forces to better resist it. If we are going to fight back, that would save many lives.”

The pair of them still remained in this void, which was a fairly disorienting experience for Vreta. It was growing less featureless as nebula-like clouds started to become visible around them. Eventually, he just blocked out the distraction and focused on the information he needed to gather. There was much he wanted to learn about this being, but he did not know if time would be a limiting factor. “Aside from that, it may be possible for us to collect allies. My people have grown considerable influence among the species we have discovered through the centuries. Though, the species we perhaps have the least influence over is, ironically, the one we need the most right now. The Humans of Outremer have long been fiercely independent, largely due to the presence of the Cradle. It makes them bold, confident, and quite defensive. If you are in my mind, then I gather you are surely in my companions’ minds as well. Particularly the Agent, and the two Humans who joined us recently. They are members of an Institute which I suspect holds more power than they let on. They may also know more about Human factions that have been hostile to us in the past, like those who attacked us on the way here. I believe the Institute will be the true key to securing Outremer’s cooperation. Can you help me understand what the Institute is, and what their goals are?”

The Cradle

Vreta’s mind immediately went to work analyzing the situation as the entity shared each new detail. He still felt skeptical, but if the being could share compelling evidence, then he would not deny it. Ari’Etis? My people have a small presence of research teams in our neighboring galaxy. It is too far to establish a gateway, and given that it takes over twelve years to cross the void, the only ones there are researchers who volunteered for the task. Still, FTL communications can travel there in under an hour. Depending on where the researchers are, they may be able to investigate the R’tk’tk in reasonable time. Freyr said we didn’t recover any sort of data like that, and my people did have access to everything she did. Still…maybe we can reconstruct the location through other means? I recall in that memory looking up to the sky in the end. It was all recorded in my implants; if I could see the stars in that memory…maybe we could use star positions to reconstruct its location? Especially now that we know which galaxy it is in. We would need to account for stellar drift since it happened, but as long as you know how long ago it was, that should not be too difficult.”

Already, Vreta was thinking about the practicality of actually facing down the being that had been showed to him. It was massive, and clearly powerful by this entity’s estimates. Not minutes ago, the entity had called it “indestructible”, yet now was adamant that they work together to destroy it. “If we are going to do this, we need to know as much about it as possible. The power output of its weapons, its maneuvering capabilities, and especially shield strength. Have you ever hurt it before? What is the hardest it has been hit?”

The Cradle

“If I go back without some way to prove this, then things may just go the same way they did before. The Humans who control this planet are extremely reluctant to trust me or my people, and it has been a challenge every step of the way to get them to cooperate with us. Now that the object that contained you is no longer on Rothia, there will be nothing but their own honor forcing them to respect their agreements with us. And even for my own people, it will be difficult to convince them to take drastic action on just my word. I want to help you; I want to keep our people safe, and that is why I ask if there is any proof, anywhere, we can find.” Vreta explained.

It seemed that finding evidence of the truth here could be a struggle, and that was even before considering the actual plan to deal with this threat. Based on what this being had shown him, Vreta did not understand how even the Cradle would be able to help. “And even assuming they are convinced, I don’t understand how you can fight them. You said yourself that you never stood a chance against the Hegemon. Why do you believe this time will be any different?”