Cath

The Cradle

“It will be done.” The grey-suited representative nodded. He then turned to Freyr, speaking out loud.

“I have marked the location of your transportation on the network. We are wheels up in thirty.”

“But why such a rush?” Freyr asked quietly, but to no avail - the hologram blinked out of existence. She turned back to the mass of people.

News of a miniature vault had struck the science teams like a lightning rod. What had begun as an insistent murmuring had grown in volume until colleagues had to shout to be heard. Some had given up entirely and were just messaging each other via implant, sharing looks with each other.

Once again, Freyr knew a meeting she had called to restore peace was now well and truly out of her control. For a moment, a white hot anger bubbled to the surface; her mouth and fists clenched. Then she sighed, and raised her voice to be heard.

“Everyone pack up your gear - lets go and find out what is happening together!”

The Cradle

“My apologies. It is not your responsibility to inform the Outreman elements - we assumed you were busy.” The hologram responded sniffily.

“Rareth’Jharn.” Another disembodied voice prompted the Datius. Her physical body was present in another virtual meeting with some of Outremer’s naval high command. One of the faces on the screen was Group Admiral Zihdren, a shrewd hawk of a man and close associate of Group Admiral Hale, current leader of the interim administration.

“Next item - our scanners in the Gulgar system on the Levantine Rim are picking up similar signatures to the machines which attacked you last week. We’re sending a carrier strike group to meet them and would give you the opportunity to present a united front. That system supports approach vectors for both Rothian & Human worlds.”

Both Rothian & Outreman officials had been preoccupied over the last couple of weeks with a matter of dire importance and utmost secrecy to most of society. Huge automated ‘combine’ ships had been showing up from the dark void between galaxies and making their way quickly towards various Rothian worlds and Outremer. Powerful yet unco-ordinated, these craft looked cobbled together and totally unfit for biological life forms of any description.

The Cradle

Freyr didn’t respond directly to Marae, instead speaking out loud to the light blue hologram, gesturing as she went.

“Our people are still recovering from a traumatic ordeal - I’ve only just woken up after sustaining a head injury. Surely, we can attend from this ship and-” The muttering slowed to listen into her side of the conversation.

The hologram interrupted, maintaining a private channel. “Your entire department is required to operate in close proximity with other elements of the new CRCI taskforce from the OSC Barbarossa. Gunships will be docking at the Faultless Spear momentarily - please make your way on board.”

“You can’t keep treating us like this - look at what happens!” Freyr retorted loudly, pointing to the scientists who had just left.

“It is regrettable, but I'm afraid time is not our friend. No one is irreplaceable if the need is great enough.”

The Cradle

“There is no stopping this thing!” Dr Kwelix called , shaking her head as the group of rebels strode off up the field. Freyr wanted to call again after them, but didn’t know what to say. The esteemed particle physicist may have been right.

“All is not lost; I’ll talk to them.” Dr Wetherall whispered in her ear from where he’d sidled over to support his boss. Dr Lang nodded, returning the gaze of this blue-tinged avatar in a grey suit as the scientists gathered around whispered among themselves.

Immediately, they sent a private message to both her and Marae: “You are required to attend an emergency session of the Committee for Friendly Relations with Cradle Intelligences, scheduled for tomorrow morning. Beforehand, you must present a full report of your team’s findings and undertake a psychiatric evaluation. Dr Lang, you must make your team ready for immediate transfer to the OSC Barbarossa.”

The Cradle

“We do have a lead!” Freyr answered, raising an index finger matter-of-factly. “Plenipotentiary Wallace told us that a nanobot swarm has been eliciting behaviour very much like that of the Cradle when it was searching for the Navigator. Hijacking some factory system to ping other planets. They-...what is it?”

Freyr stopped mid flow as loud muttering was rising from the crowd. Another junior member of her team spoke up. “Plenipotentiary Wallace? Who is that? Just another shadowy asshole who doesn’t care if we live or die?”

“No, um, she’s an ambassador to the Rothians!” Freyr protested, shaken.

“And why is she the one leading this team? What have they got on you, Dr Lang?” The woman talking to her stepped forward slightly. Dr Kwelix, physicist, one of the new intakes.

“They don’t have anything on me! I’m just trying to…” Freyr tailed off as a blue, semi-transparent avatar approached their group from up the hill towards the tent. They blinked in and out of existence as they flashed through the field, moving forward ten metres at a time. The avatar stopped at the edge of the group, and looked expectantly at Freyr with hands clasped behind their back. They were in formal dress with no markings.

Dr Kwelix and the others followed Freyr’s gaze. “Of course. Here comes your latest handler, come to tell you what extraordinarily dangerous and frankly opaque project we’ll be working on next. You know what? I’m done. I have a family - I can't work like this.”

“Please don't go! I have a family too - I know how you feel.” Freyr reached out a hand, but Dr Kwelix was already walking away. Several others followed her.

The Cradle

“We can’t possibly do this alone.” Dr Kim spoke up from the crowd. “You said the Navigator’s colleagues, family, whatever - they could be anywhere in the galaxy right? We’ll need a scientific expedition on a scale never seen before. Not just the Diaspora and the Rothians, but other species too, surely?”

“My dear boy - most of the rest of the Diaspora is not exactly well disposed to Outremer.” Dr Wetherall chortled from the sidelines by Vreta. “Somehow I don't see them helping us.”

The Cradle

The muttering spread out through the group. Freyr scanned some of their faces and saw an array of different emotions on display. Some looked afraid, a few looked angry. She pressed on.

“This other entity is called the Hegemon. Another synthetic - the Navigator illustrated how it enslaved biologicals for some purpose. It said the Cradle, and its four…occupants-” She glanced at Marae. “-tried to stop it. That is why we keep witnessing these signs of damage. The Cradle seems to be some kind of transport, and barely escaped. The Navigator appears to be fixing some of that damage now. We’ve all seen the data - even though we’re down to a skeleton crew, productivity is through the roof in there.”

Freyr realised she was gabbling. She didn’t fully know how much her team had come to these conclusions themselves, but she decided on the spot that they deserved to know everything. They’d been operating on an Institute-mandated ‘need to know’ basis for too long.

“When did you learn about this…Hegemon?” one of the Human scientists asked.

“On our second visit to the Navigator’s temple.” Freyr admitted. This elicited a few, more angry mutters.

“Did it tell you the Cradle was going to start killing my friends?” Another junior scientist asked, stepping forward.

“What? No, of course not! It said it was going to stabilise the Cradle, stop it from malfunctioning.” Freyr protested.

Halo: Aegis Team

Being shook about proved to be too much while impaled by a sword. The Hunter Killer let out one last ragged breath, then his eyes closed and the struggling stopped. Gusts of wind drove sheets of rain across Tar’s back and the dead Sangheili under her. Purple Lightning crackled all around the weapons platform as the stormfront rolled over. The black clouds sucked all other light out of the sky.

The sound of her teammates in her ears died away to just a dull echo. Tar pulled the sword out of her opponent’s side and changing position, sawed through his neck. Yanking on his helmet, she tore the Hunter Killer’s head from his shoulders. Clambering to her feet, Tar took a short run up and threw the head as hard as she could off the side of the platform.

There was no stopping the wave of pent up rage now. She turned her head to the obsidian clouds, puffed out her chest and let out a bloodcurdling roar, talons grasping thin air out to either side of her body.

The Cradle

Freyr returned Marae’s hug in kind. It was good to see her - their bond had been forged mainly through a mutual love of science. But the main thing that drew Freyr to the pre-eminent AI specialist was that she wore her heart on her sleeve.

“Thank you. Yes, very good job.” Freyr beamed, eliciting smirks from a few on her team.

“Let's go and stretch our legs.”

As a loose group of incongruously dressed individuals, the scientists exited their big tent and meandered through the shaded field, talking quietly among themselves.

After a minute or two, Freyr found herself on the edge of the river. Well, it was quite thin for a river at this point. More of a babbling brook that washed over a bed of smooth stones. Some of them shone in the artificial light…

“Boss?”

Freyr woke from her reverie. She realised she must have been staring into the water. She turned and found everyone gathered around. Some were looking round at the scenery but most were focused solely on her.

For a few moments, she didn’t know what to say. So she just started and hoped it would come to her.

“Some of us have worked together for a long time. The Rothians here won’t know him, but before he was killed in the Cradle, Dr Childermass and I had known each other for some eleven years. Some of you have been experts in the field since before I was born.”

A little girl laughed, somewhere far behind her. A man called that girl’s name. Freyr looked round, but couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Just the water. Nothing moved on the other side of the river. She looked back around to face the scientists again.

“Together, we’ve applied learnings from the Cradle to problems that exist in our reality. How do we…communicate, across the vastness of space? How do we provide long-term energy sufficiency to new and remote colonies? How do we shield space-faring vessels against harm? All of these advances in technology were catalysed in this…thing, we found underground.”

All faces were watching her now. She studied them.

“But now, the problem is the Cradle itself. It has killed thousands of innocents. The entity buried on Rothia - the Navigator - It says it was running. Running from something it says is even more powerful, and unfriendly. It wants our help, but I swore to protect you when I took this job. And I can't guarantee safety anymore. I don’t know if anyone can.”

The Cradle

“That sounds like a plan.” Freyr agreed.

The large tent was bereft of much heavy equipment. Instead, a dozen holos projected mountains of data visualisations onto whiteboards, the walls and even the ceiling. Academics of both species stood around talking, sitting quietly and running through simulations in their head or writing out structures to make sense of it all. The groups were more mixed than before, but there was still quite a clear separation between the Rothian & Human cadres.

Most of the Human team greeted their leader returning with relief. They’d been to her bedside earlier, but the doctors had ushered them away to let Freyr rest. She did notice though that some people didn’t come and say hello. They clumped together in pockets throughout the space and watched her with interest.

Eventually, quiet fell in the tent when it became clear Dr Lang wanted to address them.

“Hi everyone.” She began, searching for the words. “I think we all need to talk.”