Vreta was not as familiar with the Cradle’s normal state to recognize immediately what was wrong, though Rhia was already drawing comparisons between current observations and saved data on both the Cradle and Object. Even if she could not draw any conclusions at the moment, she still needed to try and consider the possibilities. With so many unknowns ahead of them, any edge she could manage to give would be valuable. She supposed they could potentially see if Vreta’s idea about living things had merit, as they needed to cross through one of the parks to reach the entrance Freyr pointed out. Naturally, nothing would stop the Cradle beings from simply chasing them, but if the Cradle was unable to suddenly overtake the plant life, as it often did with inanimate materials, then that would provide at least some advantage. 

Vreta quickly grabbed Freyr’s hand to encourage her to follow along as they stepped out onto the grass. He made sure to [i]specifically[/i] grab the hand holding her weapon so she could only open fire when he allowed her to. His shields had recharged by this point, but he was growing more annoyed by his shields consistently taking…unnecessary damage in the midst of the fight. If they all made it through this, he was going to be quite insistent on her getting more practice in a simulator. 

Keeping close together, the team started to move as quickly as they could to reach the headquarters. Whatever they found within, they needed to reach it as soon as they could.