Cath

The Cradle

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.

The Cradle

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.

Halo: Aegis Team

Tar 'Mdalak

---

Once everyone on the mesa had boarded, Vol closed up the grav lift and Tar activated the internal comms system. “Lock in tight, things could get bumpy.” As she said that, the shockwave from the Brute cruiser crashing into the valley behind the base hit the Phantom, buffeting it backwards. Tar gunned the engines and pushed them swiftly forward while Vol plotted them a course.

Their objective was to insert the team on a flat staging area beneath the main Forerunner structure. Enhanced stills Vol had taken while Aegis was boarding showed it was littered with large crates and lifting vehicles. Between them and this landing zone were an assortment of Brute drop ships and Banshees. However, they were distracted by the teams of Phantoms currently attacking the walls of the compound. There were also a handful of lethal AA guns around the compound, devastating any airship it could find. However, one had just erupted into a towering jet of flames, opening up a gap in their coverage. Tar pointed to it. “That’s the entry point, adjust our approach solution.” Vol obeyed with a cursory “Yes, commander.” They were working well, considering this was their first time together, Tar noted.

Maintaining a breakneck speed, they dropped down to just above the height of the walls and roared past the destroyed AA battery. The courtyard and the IFF tags for the rest of Aegis team zipped past underneath. “Fuel rod round, front left side!” Vol called, pinging it on the nav dashboard. Tar hauled the controls to the right, and the Phantom drastically tilted, throwing them against their harnesses. The round fizzed by close underneath their Phantom. “Can you get a shot off?” Tar asked. “No, they’re above us. Coming in hot!” Tar tugged the controls up and to the left, and the top of their Phantom crushed the wings of the Banshee above. A titanic scraping, clattering sound echoed through the troop bay, the banshee sliding along the length of their vehicle and falling off the end.

Tar cooled the engines slightly as they approached the landing zone. Vol marked a clear space near the ramp up from the courtyard and together they brought the Phantom in. Vol reactivated the grav lift and opened the side doors while Tar addressed the bay’s occupants. “Green light to disembark, go go go!” They both surveyed the area as Aegis team quickly headed out of the Phantom. The landing zone was very hot, and they were taking small arms fire from practically all directions. They only had twenty seconds before someone with the right armaments took notice. “Rockets! Right side!” Vol hollered. “Everybody out NOW!” Tar shouted, tugging the controls sharply. Vol closed the side doors up to increase their protection. If Aegis team hadn’t jumped already, they’d be coming on this evasive maneuver with them.

The Cradle

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.

The Cradle

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.

The Cradle

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.

The Cradle

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?”

The Cradle

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.

The Cradle

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.

The Cradle

Freyr gulped, looking into the black eyes of the beast. It had stalled just outside of the glow of the torch she had aimed at the floor, and appeared to be waiting for her to do something. Shifting the light ever so slightly upwards, she noticed exposed cartilage between the top of its legs and the thorax, which presented a potential weak spot. She also observed significant scar tissue around the edges of the human face looking straight at her. It was like the face had grown from the insectoid head not long ago, in a not too pleasant transition.

She vaguely registered the scaled alien talking somewhere in the dark. But none of that concerned her right now; the only reason she was face to face with it was to ask one thing: “David?” she ventured. Her voice was wobbly and high pitched. “David, it’s Freyr. Is...is that you?” She took a few steps toward the creature as it tilted its head to one side. “Who...is David?” A wet, crunchy voice replied to her. “He...he’s my husband. Your face reminds me of him.”

After a couple of seconds, the creature laughed. Freyr could hear tools rattling on a shelf nearby. “They’re mine.” It replied. A glow of hope lighted in Freyr's head, mixed with incandescent anger. She rushed forward, until her torch clearly illuminated it’s large ant-like frame. “You let them go!” She screamed. The creature growled, revealing sharp knife-like teeth. It's black eyes bore directly into hers. “I have a better idea.” It squelched. Freyr felt the tendrils grasping the back of her legs a split-second before they pulled her off her feet. The ground rushed up to greet her as she fell over, her outstretched arms taking most of the impact.

Suddenly the warehouse was lit up by energy rounds, with dozens impacting the creature before it reared up on hind legs and screamed. Slithering round onto her back, Freyr spotted Major Osman behind her. In the flashing glare she could see her shouting, but it was drowned out by the deafening ‘drdrdrdrdr’ of her weapon. The creature charged toward the Major, stepping over Freyr but then dragging her behind by her legs.