Cath

The Cradle

“Wait a second. Let me see that, please!” Freyr interjected, hand outstretched just when Nirann made to disappear again. Using one hand, she moved aside constellations of data points like she was searching for a puzzle piece within a vast stack. With her other, she placed her overlay glasses back on her nose. The throbbing notification in the periphery of her vision subsided.

Eventually, Freyr found what she was looking for. A dizzying pattern of symbols that her glasses instantly drew connecting lines between and created a hologram for the rest of the group to see. “This sequence contains the co-ordinates we found in Vreta’Sori’s DNA. The set that led us to find this object. Your program must have picked it up inside somewhere.” Freyr scratched the top of her shoulder through the open neck of her environment suit. “What are you saying?” 595 asked, standing next to her.

“I don’t know, yet. Can we see any patterns between any of the data surrounding this sequence that may correspond to Rothian genetic makeup? See if we can isolate a life form.” Freyr asked, fairly openly to the group.

The Cradle

“Yes, to give us options we’ve queued up a Hunter Gatherer. It doesn’t induct via the harness like yours will; it instead relies on the object taking the bait and responding to a handshake from outside. It will then hopefully find a way in and begin reproducing.” Freyr stopped herself from explaining all the intricacies of the program and looked at her team. “Are we in position?” She got a unanimous nod in return. She looked back at the Rothians. “Let’s begin.”

---

“Nothing, it’s not taking the bait.” Freyr sighed, taking her glasses off again and rubbing her eyes. She was leaning in to study one of the holographic displays on the conference table. “Did you regain a connection?” She asked across the table to Nirann for the third time. “What about if we try to pull what we can back out again and retrieve the data that way?” People were beginning to shuffle uncomfortably where they stood or sat. This operation with the programs had been dragging on for nearly two hours, and there was very little either team could do once they were deployed. That is, apart from watching and waiting.

The Cradle

During the intervening time, Freyr ordered the requisition of a Hunter Gatherer program from the Barbarossa. A potent sim-virus, it had been specifically created to survive in Cradle space, and send translated data to the outside. Freyr made sure to remove all traces of Cradle learnings data from this iteration of the program, to ensure there wasn’t any cross-contamination.

Freyr also supervised the final touches to a pre-load template file. Once the team were confident it could work in an environment like the Cradle, Freyr put her best systems engineer in charge of building out files for the Human elements of the entry team.

They had planned for an ‘in-person’ eventuality, which meant it didn’t take 595 long to muster the Sacred Band. Six super soldiers clanked into the lab behind the agent, the leader of whom Freyr had already seen at the initial meeting between the Human & Rothian teams. This light-blue armoured titan strode over to her station with 595 while the others hung back slightly.

“Sacred Band, reporting for duty, ma’am.” He snapped smartly to attention. His voice was deep, measured and accented. “I’m Thebes, Fireteam Leader. Captain Andersen has put us at your disposal. Where would you like us?” Freyr glanced at 595, who looked slightly irritated but put on a brave face when she caught Freyr looking. “Don’t say i never get you anything.” 595 winked; Freyr ignored her. “Over there, by the harnesses for now please.”

Freyr turned away and headed to the briefing table. An assortment of Rothian & Human scientists, along with some other conspicuous characters, were assembling. She took her overlay glasses off and let them hang around her neck - a huffed silence fell. “So, are we ready to proceed?”

The Cradle

“That’s quite alright. I think you’ll be able to scan what you need using existing Rothian tech in the lab. We’ll just send you a template of the file for you to fill for each member.” Freyr explained. “I suspect we’ll be fine with the amount of harnesses we currently have in stock, but thank you anyway, Nirann. If you’ll excuse me, I need to check up on my team.” She smiled politely and turned away.

595 peeled off with her. “I’ll liaise with the captain and muster the troops; make sure we have all the gear we need for the expedition here on the ship.” The agent updated. “Good idea, buzz me if you have questions.” Freyr replied, cold as ice. 595 gave her a quizzical look, before they separated to go to their separate consoles.

The Cradle

“Ah yes, so we’re currently working on a solution for this.” Freyr replied. “The standard harnesses we use to access the Cradle are not equipped to generate non-organic matter. They just give you an ID code, which is used to provide you with authorised gear milliseconds after you spawn in. In the early days, this was simply because we didn’t know enough about the technology to pre-load assets. Now, this two-step process has been baked in as a failsafe to keep track of people and stop them bringing dangerous items in. Obviously the Skinner’s Guild found a way around this, as they brought a bomb.” Freyr explained, momentarily thinking back to that haunting camera footage of the would-be terrorists.

“That gave me the inspiration to start building a pre-load packet system. A kind of executable file which means we can specify the gear we want to bring with us before actually logging in. This does assume the object uses all the same language as the Cradle, But the notation we found in Rothian DNA is cause for cautious optimism. We can send you the process for scanning the items you want to assign to each member of your team as soon as it’s ready. Some members of my team are just finishing up the design.”

The Cradle

The moment the holographic Rothian mentioned a bet, Freyr communicated one again with the Agent via comms. “Do not take that bet, i am warning you! I will get the captain down here.” 595 shot her a wry look and stood quietly while the two aliens bickered. ”You love it.” Freyr ignored her, instead smiling politely and sympathetically at Marae’s exasperated aside. She knew how she felt.

“That sounds like a good strategy. Ultimately, the safety of the Human science team is my responsibility. I know Captain Andersen is committed to the success of the mission, but I will consult her on the use of any military personnel and materiel. And of course, top of everyone’s mind is the safety of Rothia. We are guests on your beautiful planet, after all. Any eventual course of action will be conducted with extreme caution.”

"Don’t roll your eyes." Freyr sent immediately after, without looking.

"I would NEVER!" Was the response.

“If it came to it, have you got a team ready to go into a simulation?” Freyr asked Marae.

The Cradle

Freyr ran a hand through her hair to help her think; it was getting quite long. “Again, this thing could be completely different from the Cradle. But… the only real ‘upload’ we’ve managed would be Human consciousness using the harnesses. Pretty much everything else requires a link to be established from inside the environment first. It’s definitely worth a try though. In fact, we have the latest iteration of our Hunter Gatherer program in stock. It was showing promising results in Cradle data translation trials.”

“Perhaps we should run both programs at the same time and see which one does best?” 595 offered, picking at her teeth with a tiny sliver of plastic. Freyr glared at her and snipped a message over privately. “What are you doing? It’s not a foot race, Agent.” 595 grinned, showing off pearly white gnashers. ”Just trying to keep things interesting, Doctor.” Freyr turned back to the Rothians. “Please excuse my bodyguard. She means well.”

595 scoffed. “So i’m just a bodyguard now?” Freyr turned back to her. ”Please, be quiet. I am running things here.”

“That’s my girl! Now; say that to the Rothians.” Freyr gritted her teeth. The Agent was really starting to wind her up today.

The Cradle

“Yes of course, how stupid of me.” Freyr muttered. She’d been finding it hard to focus since the news of Dr Hou’s sudden death. He had been one of her most trusted colleagues and advisors; she didn’t understand how she’d neglected to notice he was unhappy. Her nights had already been fraught before this, now they were almost unbearable. Still, there was a lot riding on this expedition; Freyr wouldn’t allow it to fail on her account.

“We could try an AI. However it’s proved a very unproductive, unethical, dangerous method in the past. They’ve always gone rogue and either disappeared into the Cradle or tried to destabilise us; going after the biosphere et cetera.. All their readouts go dead immediately upon making contact. From what we can gather, the Cradle is a little too good at manipulating other machine intelligences; that’s why we had to go inside to set up shop ourselves.

Freyr turned to look at the hologram of the new object again. “We can test out the other communications packages our teams have collaborated on too. Like you say, there’s no guarantee it shares any similarities with the Cradle. I’m just going off what I know.”

Halo: Aegis Team

Tar 'Mdalak

---

From her position behind the crates, Tar had a slightly better view of the elevated platforms above them. She couldn’t see any hostiles peeking out just yet. “I can’t see anyone on the platforms; will keep an eye out.” Tar reported, just as the box she was hiding behind began shuddering from a hail of bullets. Cover was particularly poor this close to the near pillars; Tar needed to get into the grid of crates to stand a chance.

She noticed her left leg was starting to hurt; blood trickled slowly from a gap in her armour plating. Could that bullet she’d felt while holding up her Brute cover outside have gone through, rather than grazed her? She wasn’t sure. Tar probed the gap with one of her fingers, mandibles clamped together. She couldn’t find an entry wound. She’d need to leave it be for now and look once the fighting had stopped.

Tar peeked out from behind the crate she hid behind. A couple of Brutes and Humans had been dealt with, and part of the room was on fire. She could see shapes flitting between the stacks of crates toward the back of the room. It looks like they’d abandoned their previous position. “Our foe runs! We should press the attack.” Tar called, shooting between crates at two Humans as they scrambled for cover. One of them fell over.

Tar had never actually killed Humans before now. There’d been no need to; her time with the Silent Shadow remnants had been exclusively focused on killing Brutes. She found these Human warriors to be quite disappointing so far. She’d simmed against ODSTs and other Human elements in Paxopolis, but that’d been in a carefully controlled environment. This was real.

“Moving!” Tar announced, mostly out of necessity. The crate she’d hidden behind had practically fallen apart. She got up and stepped into a ‘corridor’ between two rows of crates leading to the other side of the room. She spotted a Human with a SAW at the opposite end of the corridor just as they opened fire. Tar only made it forward one row before ducking back behind another stack of boxes. “I'm pinned, how is my right side looking?” Tar asked, partly to herself as she peeked around the other side of the box and partly to Aegis team, who would have a more holistic view.

The Cradle

Freyr walked over to Marae’s side from a nearby console to study the hologram. “Interesting. It’s a different shape and size to the Cradle.” She grabbed her AR glasses from where they hung around her neck and put them on. “Could be the same material profile. Hard to tell without a closer look. Have we detected any signals from it?”

Freyr then turned and called to a short, barrel chested man in a white lab coat on the other side of the lab. “Apalkov, any luck gaining access with the harness?” There was a short pause; the members of Freyr’s team with parts to play were all deep in concentration. “I think we’re getting close! I just need to make some adjustments to the chemical mix.” A murmur of excitement spread through the lab - Freyr just nodded, thoroughly in the zone. “Good, once you’re confident, i’ll go under and see if we can interface with it.”

“Definitely not. You’re too valuable to this mission; I can't allow you to go under. We have no fucking idea what's in there.” 595 sniped, moving so she stood right in Freyr's way. "What other options do we have? I'm not prepared to risk the lives of anyone else on this ship." Freyr retorted, more quietly. "Why don't I go? Let's face it, nobody cares if I live or die." 595 murmured, a sheepish smile on her face.