[IC] The Cradle

[Cath]

Even as the alien grabbed Freyr’s leg, she could still feel them being dragged across the floor. Slower than before, but they were nonetheless being dragged inexorably toward Osman and the door. However, when the alien whacked one of the tendrils, it seemed to twitch instinctively, giving Freyr enough slack to shake her left leg free. With both of them now being dragged by just one tendril, the creature seemed unable to take them any further. Under heavy fire at the front, it also seemed to lack the presence of mind to reaffirm it’s grip on Freyr. Instead, it released her other leg as well, freeing it up to charge at the Major.

Osman backed up to the wall and fired till the last moment before turning her gun sideways to help deflect any sharp jabs. But instead, the creature turned at the last second and barrelled into her with the full weight of its abdomen, crushing her with it's whole body mass. Osman cried in pain before her head slumped against her chest.

With the immediate threat neutralised, the creature's tendrils wrapped around the door Osman had just emerged from, presumably to prise it open. From her crumpled position on the floor, the torch lying just out of her grasp, all Freyr could do was shout. "Hey, leave her alone!" Her arms were in pain from the fall, but she managed to lever herself into a standing position.

[EliteCommander]

At the moment, it seemed like Vreta was the only one in a position to actually react. He regained his footing quickly after freeing the first Human woman, so he could still do something. The soldier took a hard hit. Vreta did not know if she still lived and was just incapacitated, but he could at least make the effort to save her.

Vreta’s own saving grace was the fact that the creature did not immediately shift its attention to him. He kept low and rushed to the soldier, putting one arm around her to help drag her back away from the beast while its attention was on the door. In his other hand, he grabbed her rifle, but focused mostly on putting some distance between the beast and the two of them, though that only lasted a few seconds.

When the Human shouted at the creature, Vreta had to make a choice. Ideally, he would just want to let the thing run away and leave them alone, but if one soldier had found them, then there were probably even more outside. They would likely shoot on sight, and the creature would duck back indoors, even if it did get the door open. This was probably not going to be as easy as just letting it run away, so Vreta had to act.

Vreta removed his arm from around the soldier, then threw the cutting torch he had been holding at the creature’s feet. As it flew through the air, he quickly transitioned to taking aim with the rifle with practiced speed. The weapon itself was small and somewhat awkward in his hands, but he still held it as one with familiarity with firearms. As the cutter hit the ground, he opened fire on its fuel tank, turning it into a makeshift incendiary bomb and coating the creature’s underside in a layer of burning liquid fuel.

[Cath]

The creature issued a window shattering shriek, its face turned toward the ceiling. It’s tendrils all went taut, pulling the door clean off its hinges. Without turning, the creature threw the door over its head, straight at the lizard alien, who was bathed in light from the creature’s flaming underside. “Look out!” Freyr shouted, picking up the torch and running forward. She wasn’t sure what she could do to help; the workstations nearby were packed with tools but shining the light on them gave few clues as to what might be used as a weapon. In the end she left them all and ran instead toward Osman, who lay crumpled near the feet of this mysterious alien.

---

With the door removed, the creature quickly crushed itself through the opening, it’s tendrils trailing behind it like the string from a bunch of helium balloons. Inside this staff room, it found more humans entering through the opposite door, lights shining from the end of their weapons. It didn’t like confined spaces, and desperately wanted to get out. Making itself as big as possible, it charged at them.

---

Freyr heard a cacophony of gunfire and blood curdling screams erupt from inside the room the creature had just entered. One shot fizzed through the doorway and took a divot out of the stone flooring nearby. Freyr rushed the remaining distance to where Osman lay and knelt with her back to the doorway to protect the Major. “Osman, can you hear me?” She shouted over the gunfire, slapping the soldier lightly on the cheek a few times. She seemed to stir lightly, batting her eyelids and opening her mouth.

“She’s alive!” Freyr called, just as three points off in the gloom of the warehouse flashed with small explosions. She could see bright lights spilling through them, and recognised CraSec soldiers running into the cavernous space.

[EliteCommander]

Vreta did his best to duck down as the creature tossed the door at him, though it did strike him on his back. It was more of a glancing blow, though it still knocked him flat on his face. He slammed his snout on the ground hard enough to knock out a few front teeth. He likely would have been shouting obscenities, were it not for the fact that the impact also knocked his breath away. Regardless, he was not hurt badly enough that he could not push himself back up to his feet, especially as he could remind himself that none of the injuries were actually “real.”

By the time Vreta had collected himself, the creature was already running away, and it sounded like the other soldiers were dealing with it…or at least attempting to. At any rate, for him and the other two Humans, he felt that their part in this fight was firmly over.

Vreta staggered over to the pair of Humans, approaching the wounded soldier from the opposite side as the other woman. “Come on, we just need to get out of here. If we get her out of the Cradle, she’ll be fine. Just help me lift her up. We’ll take her to your other soldier friends outside, then we’ll all get out of this nightmare.”

[Cath]

Freyr nodded numbly. The gunfire, explosions and screams were ringing in her ears, blocking out most of what the alien was saying to her. She understood what he meant when he began picking Osman up, and grabbed one of her arms to help. The Major groaned and began murmuring something when they finally got her upright, but Freyr couldn’t make out what she was saying. “It’s okay, we’re going to get you out of here!” Freyr reassured her.

She glanced across Osman at the alien awkwardly holding her other arm, seeing him properly for the first time, dimly lit by the Major’s flickering chest lamp. It appeared to be a large bipedal reptile, dark green in colour with yellow stripes down its neck and sides. She vaguely remembered seeing an alien like this before. “Thank you, for saving us!” She shouted after a few seconds. The gunfire had grown a little quieter now, as if it’d moved outside, but it was still very loud.

The soldiers who’d blown their way into the warehouse were much closer now. They’d spread out in a long line, their torches sweeping the area before them. When they spotted the three of them, a dozen soldiers quickly surrounded them, while the rest pushed on past. Most of the soldiers who had stopped had their guns trained on the alien. “Identify yourselves!” One of them shouted. “I’m Doctor Freyr Lang, I was investigating the abductions! This alien, well, he saved Major Osman and myself.” Freyr responded shakily, her free hand raised above her head. Even blinded by the bright lights attached to all their guns, she could tell they were unconvinced. “She needs urgent medical attention, or an extraction from the Cradle.”

Freyr felt a gun poke her back, and a strong hand slide under Osman’s armpit, taking the strain from her. She let go of the Major and took one step away; several of the bright lights followed her. She put both of her hands up. The soldier in front of them pointed his gun directly at the alien. “What’re you doing here?”

[EliteCommander]

Vreta gladly let the other soldiers take charge of the injured woman. As long as they were somewhat competent, they would remove her from the Cradle as quickly as they could, which was exactly what Vreta wanted for himself as well. He was sure there was a great deal more he could learn about the Cradle from this creature, but it was far too much of a risk to stay without proper armaments.

Wiping away some of the blood from his mouth, Vreta answered the soldier. “Right now, I’m trying to get out of the Cradle as fast as I can, which is exactly what you soldiers should be doing too. Before that creature crushed this woman’s chest cavity, I saw her empty a dozen or more shots from her rifle into it, then I caught it on fire with some tools that were laying around, and all of that just seemed to make it angrier. Unless you want more people to end up like her, or worse…” He said, pointing to the Major. “…then you need to evacuate this area. Come back with heavier ordinance if you really want to kill it, but that rifle of hers wasn’t very effective. Now, my name is Vreta’Sori, official representative of the Zuraxi’Synkuur corporation to all of its business partners on Outremer. I’ll gladly answer any of your questions about what I saw once we’re out of the Cradle. I’m a guest of the Synastar Hotel, and I will stay there to wait for you.”

[Cath]

The lead soldier was very still for a moment, presumably as he weighed up this alien...Vreta’Sori’s account. Freyr saw light reflect off a set of cuffs that one of the grunts behind them had pulled out, but the leader motioned for them to stop. He looked at Freyr. “Is this true, Doctor?” She nodded. “As far as i know. The bit about the creature certainly is.” An abrupt sound of rending metal stood out from the gunfire in the distance. Freyr looked in the direction it came from but could see nothing in the pitch black. Several of the soldiers turned to scan the area as well.

The lead soldier considered his options. Grabbing a large, high powered comms device with an aerial off the vest of the soldier next to him, he called into it. “Cradle Actual, come in, over.” Silence. “No good Sarge, Control is still dark. Some kind of interference.” The soldier he’d taken the device from reported. The sergeant groaned, changing tack. “Dagger One, this is Dagger Nine, we have wounded and a UAL, heading back to the rally point now.” He gave the comms device back.

“Ok, we’ll escort you to the trucks and raise Control from there. Don’t make me regret not cuffing you.” He directed the last comment squarely at the alien. “Lets move, eyes on a swivel!” He shouted, turning around. As one, the soldiers began making their way back to the hole they’d made in the side of the warehouse. An automated, hovering stretcher bearing Major Osman passed by Freyr. Soon after that, a firm hand encouraged her to move forward with them.

About one hundred meters from where they’d stood, a large rent in the metal wall of the warehouse had been blown open. They climbed through it all together, the soldiers in formation around the stretcher, Freyr and the alien. They turned left, and headed in what Freyr could only assume was the direction of the office buildings.

She could still hear gunfire, but it seemed more distant now, and muffled somehow. She glanced at the alien. The poor thing seemed to have lost some teeth, and was bleeding from its snout. Now the initial shock had passed, Freyr’s mind drifted back to the beginning of the encounter. She shuddered as she remembered the creature’s composite construction. What did strike her as odd, now she thought about it, was what the alien and the creature were doing together, when she first poked her head around the door. “When i came in...were you talking to that thing too? I heard noises. What did it say?” Freyr asked.

The soldier in front of her tried the massive walkie talkie again. “Dagger One, this is Dagger Nine. What is your status? Over.” This time there were static, and low warbling noises. Then suddenly a faint voice. “krrrrrfall….gotkrrrrrrrr...run!” The comms device went dead again. A few of the soldiers looked at each other. “Pick up the pace!” The sergeant urged.

[EliteCommander]

Vreta kept his quite alert the entire time they were walking. Though, the gunfire did leave little question as to where this creature was going. He could at least take some comfort in the fact that they were getting farther away from the sounds. Hopefully, the vehicles were close, and they would be able to get out before the beast could possibly catch up to them.

While he did give a quick glance to the woman when she questioned him, Vreta still mostly kept his eyes on their surroundings. “Yes, when I saw that thing in the warehouse, it was doing something to that device in there. As soon as it saw me, it let out this scream and did something that knocked out the lights. It did talk to me, but it didn’t make a great deal of sense. At first it used a child’s voice, but that changed by the time you came in. I’m willing to talk about it after we get out of here. Surviving is my priority right now.”

In this case, Vreta was in complete agreement with the sergeant and started to rush along with the others. Once they got to the vehicles, they could probably outrun it and get away.

[Cath]

They moved at a steady jog through the darkness between two warehouses. The soldiers advanced with their guns up, torches scanning all around the group. Freyr’s chest began to burn; she’d done almost no proper exercise since being put on leave months ago. Even at a time like this, she admired the Cradle’s attention to detail. The alien’s response didn’t make much sense, but Freyr’s mind was also too scrambled to understand anything right now.

One of the soldiers tripped and fell suddenly. The whole group paused; several took a knee and aimed out into the dark. Shining her torch down on the floor, Freyr could see it was a cable access box jutting a couple of feet from the group that’d caused it. Another soldier helped the fallen man get up. “Is it just me, or has visibility gone to shit?” One of the grunts asked, adjusting the sight on her longer range rifle. “Same here.” Someone else called.

This set alarm bells ringing in Freyr’s head. She had the timings of regular Cradle storms memorised for the next ten years in her head. Even in this frontier sector, there shouldn’t be one for another few months. She shone her torch straight up in the air. “Let’s move, the trucks aren’t far.” The sergeant hollered. “Wait!” Freyr cried. “Look!” Large particles like snowflakes were floating through the torch beam in the air directly above their heads. “These flakes peel off the Border wall...but they shouldn’t be this close…” Freyr murmured, confused. “Sarge, we’ve got a problem!” Another voice yelled. Several of the torches moved to cover the side the voice came from.

A cold chill shot up Freyr’s back when she saw it. They were in a crossroads between four testing sheds. Visibility had reduced significantly, but even then she could see the multiple lights trained down the road hitting what appeared to be a solid surface. Except it wasn’t. She could make out the familiar purple arteries running across it, and the gentle ripples moving from the ground up into the sky. It was the Border, come to greet them. It filled the entire road between two of the warehouses, and Freyr could see it slopping over the roofs like the sea encompasses a sand castle. It was barely fifty metres away.

Just then, a shout issued from the Border, and before their eyes a CraSec grunt, helmet removed, emerged from its depths. His eyes were wide, and he appeared to be weaponless. He sprinted toward them as the soldiers all aimed their weapons at him. “Behind!” He screeched, as a long, slick appendage with a spike on the end shot from the Border and impaled him. Everyone, including Freyr, seemed to let out some kind of involuntary sound. For a split second, the soldier was just standing in front of them with the spike protruding from his chest, before it violently opened into an ‘X’ and pulled back, lifting him off his feet and back through the Border.

“RUN!” The sergeant bellowed, pointing the way they’d been going. “Everyone to the trucks right NOW!” Freyr wasted no time as all hell broke loose, grabbing Osman’s stretcher as she began running, to speed it up.

[EliteCommander]

“Damn it…” Vreta muttered as his gaze quickly jumped between the border and the trucks. He did not come from this direction originally, but he was fairly certain the border was not supposed to be here. He could hardly see through the “weather” that had rather suddenly manifested, but like everyone else, he was able to make out what happened to the soldier that emerged from beyond the border. Vreta certainly did not require the sergeant’s order to start running. One way or another, he was going to get out of here.

Just based off of his biology, Vreta probably could have been the first to the trucks, but he doubted it would go well for him if he tried to drive one away on his own, in the long run. He needed to make sure they left as quickly as possible, which meant speeding up the slowest among them. The Human woman, Freyr, was trying to push the injured soldier to the trucks, and that was something Vreta could speed up.

Freyr would hardly have gone a few meters before Vreta ran up alongside her, grabbing a hold of the stretcher as well. He was larger with much longer legs, and frankly, was in better shape than her, so he could get the stretcher to the trucks faster than she could. “Just run!” He shouted to Freyr.

[Cath]

Freyr looked up at the alien, Vreta, she vaguely remembered his name was, and nodded numbly. “Move move move!” the sergeant shouted, shooting at something behind them as Freyr broke into a run, torch shaking across the ground in front of her. Several of the soldiers soon overtook her, their guns up and scanning the path between two more warehouses in front of them. Freyr could just about make out the racks of strong lights mounted on top of the CraSec vehicles a few hundred metres in front of them. They were parked outside the office buildings they’d started their investigations in. That all seemed like a very, very long time ago now.

A few seconds later, a cacophony of gunfire, shouting and other unnatural sounds joined the sporadic shooting from the rear of their group. It was coming from up ahead. In the back of her mind, Freyr knew she’d heard that transition from muffled hum to translatable sounds before. People had just passed back through the Border. Sure enough, she could see numerous torchlights and muzzle flashes from around the corner of the next warehouse. The gunfire and screaming increased as they ran towards the action, until sure enough, it erupted out right in front of them.

About two dozen CraSec soldiers spilled out into the crossroads in front of them from the left hand side and were immediately overrun by a swarm of creatures. They looked like muscle-bound, bald hunting dogs, except for the thin purple tendrils sprouting out all over their bodies. Dozens of them ran amok in the crowd of soldiers, jumping up, all teeth and black eyes, to pull them screaming to the floor.

Freyr skidded to halt as the action exploded across the road in front of her. She could see the Border had advanced even closer to the crossroads here too. Sitting halfway through the opaque surface, she caught a glimpse of a huge, bulbous sack of flesh, covered in purple appendages. It appeared to be pulling itself out of the Border wall by way of these tentacles. More hellhounds ripped their way out of the sack with their teeth and charged into the group. Freyr froze, her hands to her mouth and tears welling in her eyes.

It didn’t last long, as one of the canine-like creatures leapt at her, only to be blown to pieces at close range. “Doctor Lang, follow me!” A man shouted in her face. Freyr realised it was Lieutenant Rowe, holding a bulky shotgun. He turned, shot another canine running at him from behind, dropped the shotgun and shot another with his pistol before being plowed into the floor by three more. Freyr ran through the gap he’d created, toward the halo of lights by the trucks, hands covering her ears. Screaming and shouting mingling with staccato gunfire and in-human snarls on all sides. “Back to the trucks! Back to the trucks!” She heard someone yell nearby, and held onto them as they pushed through the melee. She looked desperately for Major Osman and the alien, both who had saved her, but couldn't see them.

[EliteCommander]

Unlike some of the others, Vreta did not lose focus on his destination in his sprint towards the trucks. He was quick on his feet and could see well, even in this strange fog. His hearing might not have been as sharp as the Humans’ but in this cacophony of gunfire, screams, and howling, that was not terribly relevant. He just had to keep his objective in sight and avoid panicking. Were it not for the hovering, frictionless stretcher, Vreta likely would have been forced to abandon the wounded soldier, but as it stood, pushing her around did not meaningfully slow him down. Besides which, even incapacitated, she still did have a use or two to him.

The arrival of the hounds had been a moment of genuine fear for Vreta. Until that point, salvation had been ahead of them, with death chasing behind. He just had to let the soldiers fight and get to their escape. Now, creatures were swarming everywhere, including the path ahead. Now, there was much less certainty for him and his own survival. He could not guarantee, or even somewhat ensure, his own safety. For a Rothian, there were few things more terrifying than the loss of their eternal lives. It was only due to his training that he did not panic. He still had a way out; he just had to make sure he reached it.

For most of his dash towards their escape, Vreta steered clear of the soldiers and let them take the attention of the growing horde of monsters. As fast as he was, he was among the first to reach the trucks, but he was not alone. The hounds were quick, and some were moving to cut them off. One climbed over the roof of the very truck he wanted to enter, while another started to circle around from his right. Fortunately, that was where his first use for his injured charge came into play. From the holster on her hip, he grabbed her sidearm and quickly fired a burst of three rounds at the hound on top of the truck. It was a fast draw, and at least one shot found its mark on center mass, but the second of the hounds was already barreling towards him as he was transferring his aim to it. The beast leaped at him, going for his throat, so Vreta guarded himself with his arm. The hound bit down hard on his forearm, but Vreta kept his composure enough to press the barrel of his pistol against the creature’s own neck and pull the trigger.

Vreta managed to avoid getting knocked off his feet and dropped the dead hound to the ground. He grimaced at his bloody arm, but with his adrenaline pumping, he would not feel it. Yet. The greater concern would be his escape. As he moved towards the driver side door, he realized another problem. These trucks were primitive compared to Rothian vehicles, and he had seen them driven enough in his time here that he had every confidence he could drive them as well. However, he had not yet driven one, and the thought came to mind that he did not actually know how to start their vehicles. He had no doubt that he could figure it out, but it would be much quicker for a Human to do it instead.

Letting out a growl of his own, Vreta moved up to one of the rear doors of the vehicle and turned around, shouting in his distinctive voice and holding his pistol ready to fend off anymore hounds that came his way. “Over here!”

[Cath]

The soldier Freyr had latched onto was big and burly, and used his mass to crash through waves of the snapping creatures. One of the canines cut through the thigh of his suit and drew a fountain of blood, until Freyr kicked it off and followed up by stamping on its head. An energy pulse fizzed past, searing the flesh all the way up her left arm. Freyr screamed in pain and stumbled on, falling over a pile of canine corpses. She couldn’t find a purchase on the slippery bodies, until a hand grabbed her armpit and hauled her to her feet. “Time to go, ma’am!” Rowe shouted at her, covered in blood. “I thought you were dead!” Freyr shouted, as they suddenly burst out the other end of the throng.

“Not yet ma’am!” Rowe yelled, sending two rounds through a dog wrestling with the soldier Freyr had been following just moments before. He grabbed the man up off the floor and pushed him toward the trucks. “Bishop, take Doctor Lang to the trucks and get them started right now!” Rowe then worked to free another soldier, firing shots into the skull of a dog with it’s tendrils wrapped around them. “Copy that. With me!” Bishop boomed, pushing Freyr ahead of him as they started to run.

They passed a ragged line of CraSec soldiers, who had managed to free themselves and were now holding back the tsunami of horrors careering toward them. Sprinting now, they passed a thin stream of soldiers variously supporting or dragging other people towards the trucks. Some had smashed helmets and their faces half bitten off. Others were just screaming into the air, their eyes wide. “Back to the trucks, let's move!” Bishop yelled, picking up one of the wounded to free up the soldier dragging them to fight on.

Freyr’s vision was so blurry from running and the Border fog that she didn’t notice Vreta and Osman until Bishop shouted “Who the fuck is that!?” and pointed his pistol at the alien with one hand. He was understandably on edge, with everything going on. “Don’t shoot! He’s with me!” Freyr called as they finally reached the trucks, taking a gamble on the alien’s gender. Bishop didn’t seem entirely convinced, but a scream like fingernails running down slate quickly stirred him back into action. “Ok, move move move!” He shooed Vreta away from the back door before opening it up and securing the wounded soldier inside, before going to the stretcher for Osman.

Freyr looked back toward the cacophony of gunfire between the warehouses. She could see about a dozen soldiers making their way back to the convoy. A desperate rearguard action, led by Lieutenant Rowe, was being brutally pushed back by hordes of hellhounds. Freyr ran over to support the closest of the soldiers, quickly marching them over to another of the trucks. Upon opening the passenger door she was staring down the barrel of a pistol held by Karos Childermass. His hands were shaking and his face was white. Freyr snatched the handgun out of his hand, turned away from the door and was instantly pinned against the side of the truck by one of the hellhounds. It jumped up, it’s dripping jaws snapping at her face. Her gun hand was stuck just holding its teeth away from her throat.

“Oh fuck, It’s back!” Bishop shouted from the other side of the truck, pointing to the corner of the office building they were backed up against. The human-faced insectoid creature had just emerged from the darkness. Just behind it was the Border, now creeping forward at a walking pace. Bishop fired his assault rifle at the creature from the hip, shouting and swearing at the soldiers pouring in around him to get strapped into the vehicles.

[EliteCommander]

Inwardly, Vreta wished they could just get the trucks moving. One of the soldiers had gotten it started, but they were probably going to wait as long as they could get away with to save as many of their people as they could. Without a doubt, Vreta was not going to be able to dissuade them from that; there was no point in even trying. The best he could hope to do was to speed along the process.

Vreta climbed up onto the open back of the truck. There were plenty of seats in the back, but he did not try to squeeze into any of them just yet. He remained standing in the back, alternating between firing off shots at any approaching hounds and helping to hoist up soldiers into the back with him. He did not much like putting more stress on his injured arm, but he just kept reminding himself that it was not his actual arm.

If there was one thing Vreta could be relieved about with these hounds, it was that they would actually die when shot, which could not be said about the first creature they saw. He had not been terribly impressed with these soldiers so far, but now that they were being backed into their final “corner”, into these vehicles they had to defend, their desperation was inspiring a decent defense. As they were loading up the trucks, soldiers in the back joined in laying down fire on the advancing hounds. The situation was far from “good”, but it was actually seeming somewhat better for a time…until it very suddenly became much worse.

The first of the creatures, the monstrous insect that had simply refused to die, had returned. “Damn it…we need to leave!” Vreta shouted, though he would not be surprised if he was not heard in the chaos. At the very least, there was something new he had to work with, this time around. All of the trucks had a mounted turret on top, and they looked stronger than the standard rifles. His truck was nearly full in any case, so Vreta quickly transitioned from helping up the others and moved behind the turret. He might not have been the most familiar with their vehicles, but he had spent more time learning about their weapons. The turret’s controls were intuitive enough, so he traversed it left until he could bring the muzzle to bear on the insectoid. From there, he opened fire with no intent to stop until something was dead. The heavy energy projectiles were larger, brighter, and certainly sounded more hefty than those of the rifles. He supposed he would see soon if the extra energy was actually meaningful.

[Cath]

The insectoid nightmare issued the same nails-on-a-chalkboard scream under the hail of concentrated energy, and charged the front truck that Vreta occupied. Lieutenant Rowe, now one of the final surviving soldiers to have not got into a vehicle, saw the creature’s approach and began running toward it. “Get out of here NOW!” He yelled, grabbing a limpet charge from the back of Vreta’s truck just as it began turning to leave the compound. On the run, he shot two canines in his way before dropping the empty pistol and attaching the charge to his chest. With hellhounds diverting their attention from the bright lights of the truck to chase him, Rowe met the charging insect creature about twenty metres in front of the trucks and detonated the limpet. He vanished as a deafening directional explosion sprayed blood over the bonnet of the first truck. The creature was bounced directly through a glass window on the adjacent office building’s first floor.

The force of the explosion knocked Freyr, and the canine trying to bite her face off, to the ground. She could feel the truck she’d previously been pinned against rolling off behind her. She managed to wrestle her way on top of the struggling hound and put a bullet in its snapping snout. Staggering to her feet, she turned around and saw the convoy quickly turning in the car park space, to face the compound exit. Soldiers were standing up in the open back of all the trucks, firing behind her. Their faces were yelling at her to get aboard, but her ears were still ringing from the explosion. She had no idea how to get aboard now they were all in motion, but fortunately, the passenger door of the third truck swung open and she could see Bishop leaning across the seats with his hand outstretched, his dark face slick with sweat inside his helmet. She ran to the side of the truck and grabbed his hand. He immediately hauled her into the cabin, where she managed to tuck herself in and slam the door shut.

With the first truck having completed the U-turn, the four-vehicle convoy sped up considerably, motoring toward the compound exit with canines flooding around the skirts. Freyr realised she was hyper ventilating when she got sat down, and tried to calm herself. The sound of the energy cannon above them was ear-splittingly loud, but she could just about hear Bishop’s bellowing voice as he peered through the rear view mirror. “The Border is coming! Move it!” He shouted, leaning on the truck horn.

[EliteCommander]

As they began to accelerate, Vreta turned his turret around and swiveled it to focus on hounds running at them from the side. The insectoid monster, if not dead, was at least prevented from reaching the trucks. The soldier’s sacrifice, he felt, was a brave one, and perhaps necessary for their escape. Despite how quickly most of the rest of these soldiers had crumbled under the pressure from these monsters, he had done well. Vreta had wished it had been another of the soldiers to make the sacrifice; their leader would have been more useful to keep around than any of the others.

The heavy turret Vreta was using could essentially blast apart one of the hounds in a single shot, but even with several of them firing, they could not deal with all of the beasts swarming them. Not before a few of the trucks at the rear of the convoy had hounds reach them and start climbing up the sides. With Vreta’s truck being at the front of the convoy, though, there was little he could do to help. There would be far too much risk of damaging either the trucks, or the people in them, if he tried turning his turret on them. There were still plenty of armed soldiers in the trucks, though, so they would just have to deal with the beasts themselves.

The hounds were not going to be reaching the front vehicle once they were up to speed, so as long as they could continue to outrun the border, it finally started to seem like they had a clear escape ahead of them. He had run out of targets to shoot from the angles available to him, so he was finally able to just lean back in his seat and catch his breath. They were not out of danger yet, but he was feeling calmer…which meant he was also starting to feel some of the sensations his mind had been repressing. His arm was slowly filling with a sharp, burning pain that had him wincing. The bleeding was not alarmingly severe, but it also had not yet stopped. For a moment, he intended to ask someone to bandage him, but looking around the back of the truck, he saw a few Humans that were…far worse off than he was, to put it mildly. For now, Vreta just kept quiet and held one arm under the other to keep pressure on the wound.

[Cath]

Freyr could hear the hell hounds scrabbling at the armour plate doors above the din of the energy cannon. But she barely saw them in her rear view mirror; her eyes were glued to the rippling Border wall. The lights were out on the road they’d powered onto, but the convoy’s floodlights traced the purple arteries running up that black curtain of night. Gradually, she could see canines appearing in the rearview mirror too, as they failed to keep up with the speeding trucks. The Border caught up with them, sucking them in.

“It’s reclaiming this whole site.” Freyr murmured, fascinated despite everything that was happening. She’d never seen the Cradle react in such a way, no one had. “Cradle Control, come in. We could really use reinforcements at our nearest transit station, over!” Bishop called into his comms unit. “Dagger 7, we’re receiving-”

“Bishop, look out!” Freyr shouted over the reply.

The Border surged forward suddenly, rushing up and swallowing the fourth vehicle in their convoy. For a moment it looked like they may be able to outrun it, but the Border kept gathering speed and enveloped them. Once inside, the sound muffled considerably, and the atmosphere filled with thousands of white flakes. Freyr’s lungs felt the pressure right away, as the Cradle began reducing the oxygen programmed into this previously colonised area.

After a couple of seconds, the truck began alternating between regular engine noise and a shrill whining sound, as though systems were failing. The halo of bright lights around the sides of the truck flickered and died, leaving just the headlights and gun lights. “No no no no no!” Bishop yelled, hitting buttons on the dashboard. “Are we slowing down? What’s happening?” A soldier called in through the hatch separating the cabin from the turret and troop bay. “Yeah! Something is messing with us. I think I can at least get the lights back on!” Bishop replied.

Still peering through the rearview mirror, Freyr let out a surprised yelp when the lights came back on. A large, pale, long-legged beetle with the now synonymous purple tendril extensions was perched on top of the truck behind them, ripping the helpless soldiers aboard it apart with its pincers. Freyr could see several of the tendrils flailing around inside the cabin, grabbing at the driver. The truck veered off the road, into the uncharted ground alongside.

“They’re under attack, shoot that thing!” Freyr shouted, her face stuck up against the side window. “Fuck that, we have more incoming!” The soldier on the turret yelled, firing at four more of the beetles as they raced out of the swirling storm of flakes at blistering speed, two either side of the convoy. “How are they going that fast?!” Bishop exclaimed. “Tiger beetles are built for speed!” The biologist in Freyr forced her to answer.

[EliteCommander]

It was just never going to end, was it? One crisis after another, a new threat every time one fell. At this point, Vreta was not sure he wanted to know anything more about the Cradle. His growing opinion now was that it was a nightmarish hellscape, and its processor should be glassed from orbit, but that sentiment was not going to make any progress towards his escape.

In the fog beyond the border, it was easy to panic. Several around Vreta were doing just that, and he understood why. He nearly fell into that trap himself, but again, it was his training that saved him. He tightened up his expression, closed his eyes for a moment, and took in a breath. The air was thinner here, though it was not all that different from the mountain air back on Rothia. Just breathe in. Breathe out. Focus. Enemies approached, he still had a gun turret in front of him, and he was reasonably sure it still worked. That was what he could control. That was his task. The monsters were not the true enemy here; panic was. Panic was what he had to push from his mind.

Opening his eyes, Vreta traversed the turret left. It was more sluggish now, as the powered controls were not working quite correctly, but he had the strength to make up for it. He just focused his eyes on the sights, focused on firing when they lined up with the beasts in pursuit. They were quick and the trucks were moving, but that did not matter. Vreta’s steely-eyed visage carried an unusual calm as his only focus went to lining up the sights and firing his weapon.

[Cath]

“I can see the transit station!” Bishop pointed, other hand guiding the steering wheel. Freyr turned to look and could see he was probably right. Though the Border was mostly opaque from the outside, they could still see out. Around a bend in the road, a mile or two away, was a mess of flood lights, marking their exit clearly on the landscape. “All Dagger teams - auxiliary power is in place, we’re ready to receive you.” A voice sounded on the comms set.

“They should be out here getting u-” Bishop began complaining.

“Incoming!” The soldier on the turret shouted.

The driver’s side door clicked open and two thick tendrils entered the cab. One wrapped around Bishop’s neck and the other around one arm. They would’ve pulled him cleanly out of the truck, were it not for his seatbelt. Bishop’s other arm frantically went up to his neck, so Freyr leant over and grabbed the unoccupied steering wheel before they crashed. “Bishop, listen to me. Keep your foot on the accelerator! Take this!” Freyr called over the din, her voice hoarse and croaky. She passed Bishop the pistol, which he used to start shooting the tendrils, his lips pursed and eyes wide. “Fucking die!” She heard someone behind them yelling, as the energy cannon overheated.

Keeping her eyes on the road, Freyr gasped and yanked the steering wheel as another of the beetles rocketed in from their left side, taking fire from the first car, and barreled straight into the second truck. It lurched sideways off the road, a huge dent in the side. “Karos!” Freyr shouted as the vehicle caught something on one of the tires and began flipping over and over through the air. Scraps of metal from the crash flew into the windscreen as Freyr somehow managed to maneuver their speeding truck around the pirouetting wreck. They bounced over something substantial along the way, which Freyr presumed must have been the beetle.

Still leaning over, Freyr used her free hand to activate the truck’s comm unit. “Car in front, help us get this thing off! Please!” She pleaded.

[EliteCommander]

The chaos around Vreta was only growing worse the longer this chase went on, and the number of survivors was starting to dwindle. A loud crash and the sound of twisting metal accompanied the truck that lost control and was sent flying. However, one observing Vreta would find him seemingly unfazed by it all. His expression remained constant, and his eyes focused.

There was just a moment where Vreta spared a thought to a part of the training he had received nearly a century ago. He had never been a soldier, but he had received much of the same training for his role in the Rahn’Masser. One aspect of his training had taken place at a facility high up in some of Rothia’s tallest mountains. It was a landscape that was covered in snow year-round, and only even survivable for his cold-blooded body due to a heat-generating implant inside him. The place had seemed much more like a monastery than a boot camp, and the instruction he had received there made him feel more like a monk than a soldier. Yet, they were some of the most important lessons he could learn for his career, far more than any amount of marksmanship or martial arts. Words spoken to him there still echoed in his mind across the centuries.

”In our galaxy, we have discovered half a dozen sapient species, with countless millions of stars left to explore. Some, through wisdom or fear, will maintain peace with us. And some, through greed or desperation, will wage war. They expand and multiply, their numbers unchecked, and their ambitions insatiable. We have been forced to war in the past, and it shall happen in the future. They are many, and we are few. If you are called onto the battlefield, you may face legions with no more than the few at your side. Your enemy may call your fight hopeless, but I tell you…hope is a lie. Hope is the idea that the universe may grant you a miracle to save you. But we are Rothian! We are not given miracles, we create them! Your survival will not be allowed by fate nor chance; it will be guaranteed by your own hand. Our enemies may be legion, but we are Rothian. We do not break, we do not rout, and we do not fail. I will teach you how to forge your mind into a weapon greater than any fusion rifle. No matter your enemy, no matter their number, no matter the chaos around you, I can give you one weapon that will not leave you:…”

“...Focus.” Vreta said under his breath. His lungs breathed deeply of the thin air, and did not struggle for it. One truck had crashed, but he put it out of his mind. It was not important to the task in front of him. His mind grabbed onto only what was important for him, like the pleas for help he could hear over the radio just behind him. He could see the insect latched on to the side of the truck following them, and the radio confirmed they could not deal with it themselves. To kill it was Vreta’s task. Both trucks were moving quickly, sometimes weaving left or right unpredictably, and his turret had enough power to deal serious damage to the truck. Potentially, a missed shot could disable its engine and doom its passengers. He could not fire recklessly. Instead, he traversed the turret to be in-line with the beetle, then waited a moment. He focused on the sights and simply allowed the truck to drift to the side until he found the moment where the sights lined up properly, then fired a single shot straight down the top of the beetle’s head.