Cath

The Cradle

“That kind of climate sounds ideal!” Masgard grinned, popping a slice of steak into his bearded face. “I don’t know, I prefer gentle warmth to blistering heat. I might request a cool-suit or an implant if we’re going to be there a while.” Freyr mused, gathering up the last of her salad with her fork. Masgard downed the last of his Tullusk and yawned expansively. “I’m gonna need to take a rain check on the beach tonight though. Seventy-two hours of no sleep is catching up to me.

“What’ve you been doing for three days straight?” Freyr asked, stifling a yawn of her own.

“Oh, you know, fixing stuff for our new boss.” Masgard eyed her levelly. “I expect he’ll call us at any minute.”

“Well, I hope he can wait until morning, because I’m exhausted too. In fact, I think I'm going to retire to my quarters. Perhaps we can hit the beach together some other time, Vreta? Please don’t let us stop you investigating it tonight though.” She stood up from her bench, grabbing her tray. Masgard did the same.

The Cradle

Freyr nodded appreciatively, chomping down on a mouthful of salad. It made good sense for a cold-blooded species such as the Rothians to take the guesswork out of doing the things they enjoyed, like keeping warm. “Speaking of which, are you comfortable on the ship? I realise now that you must feel a little cold.” She noticed Masgard’s eyes glazed over as he consulted an implant, but after a moment he was back. “As i thought, there is actually a ‘beach’ room on the ship. They have them on civilian liners too; it’s supposed to put people at ease and give the impression of a warm planetary environment. Warmer than the rest of the ship, at least.”

Freyr perked up at the mention of ‘beach’. She’d lived near potentially the best beaches Angjusk had to offer during her childhood. Some of her happiest memories stemmed from a warm day and water lapping around her toes. She’d been sad for a long time that Babylon sat in the middle of a large continent, meaning the sea was a couple of hours away rather than at the bottom of the garden. “Oh, we should check that out at some point! I love the beach, but never had much of a chance on Outremer...Are there beaches on Rothia?”

Halo: Aegis Team

Tar woke suddenly to the sound of rending metal. At first she didn’t recognise where she was. The carefully ordered interfaces of the Phantom’s control dashboard were gone, replaced by a twisted forest of metal shards, jutting out as if trying to touch her. Blue energy sparked between the shards, feeding fires in all corners of the nose cone. “Vol!” Tar choked as acrid smoke wafted into her face. “Vol!” Carefully negotiating a long spike pressed against her exposed neck, she turned to look at her co-pilot.

Even through the smoke, Tar could see Vol had been impaled through the abdomen by another metal blade. His upper body was slumped over it, arms pointing to the floor. Tar let out an anguished roar and quickly slid out of her seat toward him. Her right arm caught on something jagged, but the sharp stab of pain barely registered. Tar carefully hoisted Vol’s body into an upright position and tilted his face toward her. “Prax Vol, can you hear me?” She tried one more time. No response. She growled and let his face go. Vol’s body slumped forward again.

Tar got up and rushed from the nose cone, choking from the toxic fumes as she grabbed her Storm Rifle from where it now lay on the gangway. Moving through to the troop bay, she heard someone shouting to her from outside. They must have been pulling on the side doors, because the mechanism was making a sharp screeching noise to try and keep them closed. Smoke hovered just above eye level and fingers of blue lightning played across the inside of the Phantom’s hull.

Tar hit the emergency manual door release and the screeching stopped. The door was still stuck though, so she rushed over and kicked the side door with the bottom of her foot. The entire section crashed to the floor; Tar raised her Storm Rifle to deal with whoever was on the other side. She was a little relieved to see a Spartan in reddish armour, but she didn’t show it. She walked down the ramp the side doors had created, smoke billowing out of the Phantom all around her, weapon raised.

“Warriors!” Tar bellowed, pointing. A gaggle of Brutes, mixed rank and armour, were charging through the mess of boxes toward them. She supposed they’d seen the Spartan isolated, making a lot of noise, and wanted to catch him unawares. Behind them, she spotted a whole load of URF spilling out of a nearby entrance to the Forerunner structure. They looked to be trying to cut them off.

Tar rushed past the Spartan, firing a whole battery into the closest charging Brute until her rifle overheated. Turning it sideways, she savagely broke the rifle over his head, crumpling him to the floor. The next Brute was on her instantly, the shot from his Mauler raking her shields almost to breaking point. Tar forward rolled under the Brute’s outswung arm, got up behind him, activated her energy sword, turned and plunged it into his abdomen as he turned around.

Pistol rounds hit her shield from behind, breaking it. Tar smartly stepped back behind the impaled Brute, using her sword to keep him upright while turning him between her and the hail of bullets coming from the direction of the installation. “Shield recharging!” Tar shouted, kicking the dead Brute’s Mauler behind cover about ten metres in front of her. She grunted from the pain and effort of holding the Brute up as a bullet skimmed her exposed leg.

Moving them both forward a couple of metres, Tar peeked out and saw humans taking cover behind the same boxes she was aiming for. The remaining Brutes hadn’t committed yet, content to stay back and spray them with spikes and plasma. With her shields recharging now, she shouted “Transitioning! Cover me!” before sliding her sword out of the Brute and running for the boxes and the Mauler she’d kicked over. Humans and Brutes fired at her from the other side.

The Cradle

Freyr came to the long table with benches on either side holding a colourful chicken salad and a glass of water. She was feeling quite dehydrated following the scotch and didn’t feel like drinking any more alcohol tonight. It was important they slept well and had a productive day tomorrow. They were in a spacious dining area adjoining the auto-dispensary and a kitchen area, in case the team were feeling the urge to cook for themselves. Three corridors split from this common room, leading to small but comfortable bedrooms for each of the team.

Freyr sat down facing Vreta across the table. Masgard sat down next to him. “I must admit, my work has not often taken me away from Outremer, so I don’t know.” Freyr said, tucking into her salad with a fork. “The facilities are pretty good though, so far. I guess they want us at peak performance.” She could see Masgard had chosen a lot of different meats, like Vreta, and paired it with a bowl of Tullusk, a soup known for its calming qualities. “Am I right in thinking the facilities on Rothian worlds are all of a pretty high standard?” He asked as he demolished his food like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

The Cradle

All of the scientists watched Vreta intently as he spoke, but none spoke out with any immediate questions. Freyr thought they looked tired, just like her. After a pregnant pause, she jumped back in. “Thank you, Vreta’Sori. Now, I'd imagine you all want to find your new quarters and unpack your luggage. As a matter of fact, i’d quite like to know where we’re staying too…” Freyr looked behind her at the lab. Just two technicians were left, fixing a wall divider/storage unit.

“Excuse me?” Freyr called to them. They didn’t respond, so she tried a bit louder. They both looked up. “Where are our quarters?” The standing one pointed over his shoulder, to another set of blast doors on the other side of the lab. “If you have a comms implant , the ship should feed you a map, ma’am.” One of them offered helpfully. Freyr thanked them and turned back to her team. “Let’s get settled in and start fresh in the morning. Thank you all.” The scientists began drifting off toward the blast doors with their luggage in hand.

A sudden hunger pang in Freyr’s stomach reminded her that she’d hardly eaten today. “Have they shown you your quarters yet? I’d quite like to find some food.” She asked Vreta, pulling up a map of the ship using her new clearance code to look for the nearest dispensary. “It seems our dorms have hot food and a dining area. Masgard?” Her lawyer shrugged. “I’m exhausted, but i suppose i could eat.” Freyr grinned sleepily. “That’s the spirit! Vreta?”

The Cradle

“Come then; we can pick this back up later.” Freyr got up and led the way out of her office. The cacophonous racket from the builder drones had subsided now. Just a couple remained now with Human technicians to make the finishing touches to their new lab. At a glance, Freyr could see many of the main pieces she’d asked for. The captain had done very nicely in the short time available.

Freyr traversed one of the primary walkways around the edge of the lab from her office to the exit, Vreta and Masgard in tow. She could see a few of her team had already got stuck into the equipment, hooking up data pads and continuing as normal. However, the majority of the new arrivals had congregated in a break-out area with sofas and potted plants. So she called out to attract everyone’s attention. “Good evening, everyone! Welcome to the OSC Barbarossa. Could i please speak with you all over here please?” The scientists in the lab area obediently dropped what they were doing and made their way over.

Freyr waited until everyone was in front of her before speaking, standing in the walkway with Vreta and Masgard at her sides. She smiled. “It’s good to see you all in person for a change. I trust you made it here without incident?” A few people nodded their heads, but most were just waiting patiently for what she had to say. A few eyed up the tall lizard alien next to her. “We’re about to embark on a two week journey to Rothia, to follow up a lead on a potential exo-Cradle object. I know some of you have family at home, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making this sacrifice. I wouldn’t have asked you if it wasn’t vitally important to the whole of Outremer.” Freyr’s throat was bone dry after the scotch, so she gulped to try and moisten it. Most of the scientists had figured out this was going to be an extended trip, space voyages often were, but none of them would’ve known their destination until now.

“To help prepare us for our time on Rothia, we have Vreta’Sori with us. He’s going to coach us on Rothian culture, capabilities and overall condition over the next two weeks. Once we’re on Rothia, he will be our primary liaison with our Rothian co-researchers. Any questions so far?” One of the more junior scientists piped up immediately. “Does that mean we’re supposed to share our research with the Rothians?” Masgard’s hand quickly touched Freyr’s arm, prompting her to stop with her mouth half-open as he answered. “Right this moment, that won’t be necessary. But once we know what we’re up against, we’re to collaborate with the Rothians on any details that may be pertinent to the potential...exo-object.” Freyr nodded quickly and turned to Vreta. “Vreta’Sori, would you like to say a few words?”

The Cradle

“Fifty two metres in diameter.” Freyr answered as she saw Vreta working it out. “It floats, we don’t know quite how, and it’s completely impossible to move. Believe me, we’ve tried. Which means that for all intents and purposes, the Sphere is weightless.” She stared up at the hologram above her desk, taking in the object’s featureless, off-white exterior.

“We think it actively counters all signals we fire at it, like some kind of defence mechanism. I believe the only way the hypothesis about organic matter came about was by analysing the signals that leak out of it every decade or so. They're so faint that you’d miss them unless you monitor the Sphere all hours of the day like we do. But they're rich with incomprehensible data when we unpack them. I used to think the team in the Vault were overly dramatic for describing the signals as ‘wails in the night’, but now with everything else I've seen, I'm not so sure…”

“Freyr, the rest of your team just showed up. ” Masgard jumped in while Freyr was mulling over the next of Vreta’s questions. He was looking over his shoulder at her from where he stood at the window. “Ah, great. I should address them.” Freyr looked back at Vreta. “How do you want to do this? Do you want me to introduce you now, and give you a chance to explain your role in the team?”

The Cradle

Freyr discreetly checked her watch as Vreta spoke; the evening was drawing steadily on. She noticed through the glass windows of her office that half a dozen more people on her team had just arrived in the lab, luggage in hand. Some of the people already working in the lab rushed over to greet them. She should probably address the team soon.

“Well, a full debrief would require data visualisations that i haven’t prepared for Rothian consumption yet. But you’ve already seen first-hand what the Cradle is. It’s a practically infinite virtual landscape, with varying geography just like in the real world. As we all know, it’s not a particularly welcoming environment, but nonetheless we’ve cultivated and occupied an area of the Cradle’s surface for many years. We’re able to tap into the Cradle’s processing power, and use it to power all kinds of things in the real world.”

Freyr took a last gulp of her drink and placed the tumbler gently back on the desk. “What you may not know much about is the physical form of the Cradle complex.” She cleared her throat again; the scotch sediment was irritating her mouth. Communicating with the lab’s database via her comms implant, Freyr pulled up an archive photo of the Sphere and projected it in 3D above the middle of the desk. “It’s buried deep beneath Babylon. We think there is organic and synthetic material inside, but it’s almost impossible to pin down. The Sphere distorts all our scanners and the exterior alloy is practically indestructible. Even if we were able to get inside, with everything that depends on the Cradle...It’d be like conducting brain surgery in the dark.”

Freyr leaned back and massaged the bridge of her nose. The scotch was making her sleepy, which was probably a good thing as she hadn’t properly rested in days. “That creature pinging a precise spot may have just been a mistake. But you can’t help but wonder if there are more of these objects floating about.”

The Cradle

Freyr frowned and cleared her throat, invoking a surprisingly pleasant aftertaste from the scotch. She leaned forward slightly, cradling her tumbler in both hands, and smiled sweetly at Vreta. “By the end of today, there’ll be twenty of the foremost minds on the Cradle aboard this ship. I’m privileged to lead them. Between us, we have about four hundred and fifty years of hands-on experience with a machine intelligence that’s almost certainly older than both our civilisations. The rest of my division is just a conference call away; at least another six hundred years of experience to apply to this problem. If anyone is going to be ‘catching up’, it is your team.”

Freyr leaned back and took another sip of her scotch, arms resting lightly on the arms of her seat. Masgard gave her an approving look from where he leaned against the plate glass window. “Your improved understanding of the natural world will come in useful, for sure. It may be that working around the Cradle may yield some kind of breakthrough. But let’s be clear - while the Cradle environment shares similarities with the outside world, it’s also infinitely more complex. We underestimated it before, and it took my family. I'm determined not to underestimate it again. We should prepare for all possible outcomes to this expedition. What kind of resources do we have at our disposal while on Rothia?”

The Cradle

Freyr shared a quick glance with Masgard while Vreta was just finishing his piece. He gave her an ...ok look before reaching for the bottle of scotch again. Freyr absently opened the top left drawer on her new desk, and was rewarded with the sight of four durable Navy tumblers tucked away in there. She quickly pulled three out and slid them across the metal desk toward the bottle and Masgard’s outstretched hand. “I mean, it is the weekend. And we’ve had something of a day.” Freyr explained to Masgard, her hands raised at her sides while she nodded to Vreta. Her lawyer grinned guardedly, his head tilted downward as he poured a double measure in each glass.

“I hope you are able to figure the Cradle out.” Freyr replied solemnly as she got her glass back, filled now, from Masgard. “Because, there is a distinct possibility we’re travelling all this way for nothing. But on the off-chance we do find something, it could change our relationship with the Cradle forever. Our saving grace, if we don’t find anything, is that we’ll still be able to work on the Cradle problem from our new lab. We can call it a very expensive cultural exchange mission.” She took a drink from her newly charged glass, and recoiled at the intense mix of flavours. “So, what would you say we need to keep in mind for our interactions with Rothia in general?” Freyr asked when she had recovered.