Cath

The Cradle

DeWinter nodded rigidly, lips locked together. “The people of Outremer will require evidence. We cannot just move to a war footing without tangible evidence of this threat. It is my understanding that this creature didn’t actually provide us with anything we could corroborate?” Freyr fielded this one too.“That is correct, Madame President. The team asked, but it became too weak to provide any reference points.”

Freyr turned to address the majority of the Rothian delegates next. “We should consider providing it with alternate sources of power. It could be able to use them, meaning we can attempt a safe re-entry in a couple of days. It may be willing to give us the rest of the answers we need.” Another person jumped in almost immediately from the screen. “That would be a poor substitute for moving the asset back to Outremer right away, Dr Lang. Giving it power on Rothia provides no guarantee that it will be well enough to help us with these facts.”

Freyr remembered that voice, but couldn’t place it to a face. She searched the sea of visages to try and find someone else she recognised. “Well, yes. Potentially. Who am I speaking to?” Another face appeared where one of the anonymous silhouettes had been seconds before. He had short, well-groomed grey hair, a timeless complexion and bright augmented blue eyes. Her stomach clenched, seemingly on it’s own, at the sight of him. “Director-General Smith, of The Cradle Institute. I’m pleased to see you again, Dr Lang.” He smiled.

The Cradle

DeWinter interlinked her fingers and looked gravely at the gathered congregation. “It deeply concerns us that we’d be risking it all on this entity’s plan when it may not work. What if it disappears with the Cradle and this Hegemon still attacks us? You will know already that most of our military and our defensive infrastructure is coordinated indirectly through New Antioch. There is a good reason that - the Cradle has limitless computing power and is essentially impregnable. It means we’ve been punching above our weight for centuries.”

DeWinter reached for a glass of water and looked at someone off camera. Lord Hale took over from her. His voice was storied and gravelly. “That’s correct. And it pains me to say this, but without the Cradle, we will be reliant on Human instinct for months while we rebuild our entire system. Any hope of an optimised resistance against this unknown enemy will be thrown into complete disarray. Our Navy is one of the finest in the galaxy, but without the Cradle, our response will be scrappy and inefficient to start with, at best. We cannot risk it.”

DeWinter nodded, placing the glass back down again. “Dr Lang, is there any way we can keep the Cradle in position on Outremer if we do return this creature to it?” Freyr blinked rapidly and sat up in her seat; she was starting to feel the strain of 36 hours with no sleep. “It’s hard to say, Madame President. We do not know the Cradle’s corporeal capabilities.” She thought for a moment, well aware of all the eyes on her. “It is possible we could convince this entity to stay with us if we agree to, um, join its cause. But we have to consider its other ‘comrades’ as well; something tells me it won't be well disposed to us if we don't retrieve them too.”

The Cradle

President DeWinter glanced at someone off camera, her eyes flickering as if reading text. Souza’s eyes glazed over briefly when he got a message via implant. Lord Hale just loomed into the conference room with an icy, unblinking stare. DeWinter eventually replied. “We have a lot of different opinions on recent events. The Cradle and it’s origins have been subject to robust political debate ever since we found it, three and a half centuries ago. Some of us are naturally suspicious of it, and assumed it would land us in trouble one day. And some of us are willing to lay down their lives to protect Outremer’s greatest asset.”

An aide came over to whisper in DeWinter’s ear again, but she shooed him away. “If the creature is to be believed, we could be in danger of joining a war we didn’t start, with an enemy that may be more advanced than both our civilisations. I believe the decision we need to make is whether we value our connection to this creature enough to risk peace and stability in the galaxy.”

Song Reference time

Her boyfriend,
He don't know
Anything about her,
He's too stoned,
Nintendo ()
I wish that I could make her see
She's just the flavor of the weak

It's Friday night and she's all alone
He's a million miles away
She's dressed to kill, but the TV's on
He's connected to the sound...

The Cradle

While waiting for the SCC to convene, Freyr had thrown herself at the problem again. The team rapidly filled five physical drawing boards with workings out and ideas. It eventually became clear that Outremer’s high command was unwilling to hold an audience with her while the Rothians were listening in. So Captain Andersen sent a shuttle to collect her, and Freyr answered dozens of initial questions on the short ride back to the Barbarossa. After they were satisfied, Freyr requested the craft turn around so she could return to her team.

When it came time to assemble, Freyr led her delegation into the cavernous conference room and sat in the middle of one of the square table’s sides. Most of the attendees currently in Outremer elected not to use the holographic function. Instead they displayed on a huge screen opposite her as rows of heads and shoulders in boxes. A couple of people even declined to send a video feed, so their box featured a nondescript silhouette of a head in their place.

Around half of the people Freyr had recently debriefed in the shuttle were present. She found President DeWinter, head of the armed forces Group Admiral Lord Hale and Director of Defence Intelligence, Benoit Souza among the sea of faces. They were the people she primarily had answered to before. They were all now in formal dress and looked extremely serious. When the Speaker arrived, an aide appeared in the President’s window to whisper in her ear; one of her eyebrows raised slightly.

After a little while, absolute quiet descended on the hall and the various shufflings stopped. Outremer’s president began transmitting sound to formally greet the room, her face growing larger to fill half of the screen. Her voice was smooth, melodious and stateswomanlike. “Hello. Thank you for joining us this morning. I appreciate the effort many of you have made to be here at such short notice. These are not the circumstances I would have chosen to meet so many honourable members of Rothian society for the first time. However, we must play the cards we are dealt. This is a situation with the potential to affect us all, but i am confident we can come up with an agreeable plan of action. As we are in your chamber, perhaps you would care to fire first?”

The Cradle

The Human science team and Sacred Band piled into a cramped conference room next to the lab. Freyr played Rareth’s recording via the room’s main holographic projector, with viewpoints and sensory data piled up on various other displays. She spooled through at a quick pace, stopping when people had things to add or something interesting was happening. There were a few exclamations and shivers at what the team were put through.

Freyr deftly chopped up the data into dozens of different workstreams and divided them up between her subordinates. They were tasked with analysing everything from the simulation’s geology to the path this entity may have taken before crashing on Rothia. With the precision of a master sculptor, Freyr cut the expedition tape down to a manageable fifteen minute clip complete with all the important annotations.

It was at this point that 595 stumbled in, freshly woken from her seizure and trailing two of the medics. The Agent insisted a few moments were redacted from the final version. Freyr reluctantly agreed, providing 595 plopped down on a free seat and let the medics finish tending to her.

Within two hours, everyone was up to speed and a dossier containing a summary of events, possible scenarios and potential next steps had been created. At this point, Freyr dismissed the Sacred Band and the Drs Ngata and Wetherall to get some downtime. She tried to dismiss 595 too, but she impolitely refused.

Freyr ultimately called Captain Andersen and the Security Council delegate to update them on the whole story. She followed up by sending the Captain an encrypted copy of the dossier. “My god.” Andersen muttered, once she'd finished.

“This is classified Top Secret. I want you to send this to the rest of my team at CRD, and request an emergency session of the Special Circumstance Committee. Tell them the Rothians want to meet within one Outremer day, and that they’re going to want to watch the video first.” The delegate nodded. “Consider it done.”

The Cradle

“Great! Send it to me; i’ll make sure it gets into the right hands.” Freyr smiled distractedly, watching Thebes walk over to them out of the corner of her eye. She focused her attention back on Rareth. “I’ll do my best. I hope you like crowds; because you’re going to get one when this mission gains the administration’s attention. Freyr politely excused herself from the two Rothians and turned to Thebes, who began speaking right away.

“Ma’am, I want to put something on the record. Memnon died a warrior’s death. The entity we encountered said it might be able to bring Memnon back. We want our comrade back, but only if he’ll be able to fight alongside us now. If there is any chance he won’t make it back out in one piece, we’d like you to refrain. It’s what he would have wanted.” Thebes nodded, having finished his piece.”

Freyr stared up at Thebes, flabbergasted. “It said it could...bring people...back?” Thebes nodded again. “Yes ma’am. It said it could try.” Freyr felt almost overwhelmed with joy, which boiled down to steely determination. “Then consider it well and truly noted.” She said, giving the soldier’s forearm a squeeze. “If I can, I'll bring Memnon back. I’ll bring them all back.”

“Dr Lang - Captain Andersen is requesting a debrief.” One of the lab techs called over from the banks of consoles. Freyr nodded her head vigorously, suddenly experiencing a rush of energy she hadn’t felt in months. “Good, ok. All of you, conference room. Now, please!” Freyr gesticulated at the assembled Humans. “That means you and your team as well.” She patted Thebes’ breastplate, rushing past him. “We all need to watch this mission back, right away.”

The Cradle

“How intriguing…” Freyr murmured in response to Rareth. She blew out her lips as she thought of it, her eyebrows raised. “This changes things completely. I won’t take up any more of your time with questions right now, Datius. I’ll watch the recordings and talk to Wetherall and Ngata as a first step.”

Freyr smiled at Nirann once he appeared. “I’m glad to see the consolidation was successful! What’s up?” She listened to his proposal, nodding a few times. “Yes, I think I agree with you. I’m not sure the other people you have to convince will see it that way, though. Put it in a written proposal anyway, and I'll present it as one of the options. Please include how long you’ll need to get the destination gate in-situ. I assume you don’t have all the parts available on Outremer? You’ll need to repurpose an existing one or something?”

The Cradle

Freyr listened closely to everything Rareth said with her arms loosely crossed. Her mouth dropped fractionally open at some of the details. “Wow, Ok. Thanks, we’ll definitely need to watch that through. You’ve no doubt made history; I wish I could've been there.” She pouted, a tinge of disappointment in her voice.

Freyr chewed intently on the knuckle of her index finger for a second, drinking in all the facts. “This just got a lot more serious. I need to regroup with my team and then debrief Captain Andersen and the other leadership. Can you have your people put together a plan for fully excavating the shell and bringing it to the surface? It sounds like there’s no time to lose, and we have to assume the entity will allow us to move it.”

Freyr thought of another thing almost immediately. Her brain was already beginning to parse the new facts and present new questions for her to answer. She raised her index finger in front of her face as if to regulate her train of thought. "Hold on...did it say why it needed the Cradle to repair itself? Does that have anything to do with the trouble we've been having in the Cradle itself?"

The Cradle

595 didn't reply, vibrating from head to toe, face muscles rigid and rippling. “She’s having a seizure, get me the nanites. Medic!” Freyr shouted, slowly but firmly freeing 595 from the harness and head gear. She snatched a microrobot delivery system from one of the lab techs. “Hold her down!” Freyr snapped, leaning over the shaking woman and injecting the nanites into her neck while some others stopped the Agent from moving.

After a few moments, the jerking movements stopped, Freyr straightened up, chucking the empty syringe down on the table. “Make a hole!” The medic called, barging through on the opposite side of the harness bed from her. Freyr reeled off any potentially important information points she had at her disposal, then let the medic roll 595 onto her side and into the recovery position. She looked at Rareth, who was watching on. “What the hell happened in there? We established contact for about two minutes before getting cut off again.”

She momentarily diverted her attention to glance across the bay. The Sacred Band were already up and had gathered around the harness containing Memnon. They were all grasping his arms and legs and had lowered their heads in solemn respect. Dr Wetherall and Dr Ngata were receiving fluids and an exam from another Human medic.