The smart-dressed man peered over at Vreta from the holo-pad he’d been tapping on, his face bathed in blue light. The cutter rattled and shook slightly as they plunged through the black clouds. “See for yourself.” He split the pad in half and strode the intervening distance to hand a part each to Vreta and Freyr. He then stood in front of them with his hands clasped behind his back, adjusting his footing to the cutter’s rapid maneuvers.

The pads showed a basic timeline map of the Cradle’s terraformed surface, from six months ago to the present day. Key settlements and points of interest were labelled and annotated with key metrics. As time progressed on-screen, areas on the fringes became crisscrossed with red lines. “Encroachments by Cradle denizens.” The man explained, watching the visualisation upside down. Before long, the entire border was on fire with red lines, and sections began turning completely dark. “That signifies our terraforming being rolled back and the area being returned to a wild state. So far we’ve lost 25% of our territory, though we are endeavoring to restabilise captured sectors before this happens.”

This wasn’t news to Freyr, who accessed the same model every day. She looked up at the man, who was holding onto the top of a jumpseat for stability. “Where is the rest of my division right now? Are they still in New Antioch?” The man nodded. “No ma’am, they were evacuated along with all other non-essential personnel today. Some are set up by the Vault, others are at your physical headquarters.”

The cutter exited cloud cover, and sheets of rain clattered against the windows. Freyr could just about see the Babel edifice in the grey distance. An enormous tower in the centre of the city of Babylon, continually built upon throughout Outremer’s colonisation, Babel guarded the entrance to the cave system containing the Cradle.