EliteCommander

The Cradle

The chaos around Vreta was only growing worse the longer this chase went on, and the number of survivors was starting to dwindle. A loud crash and the sound of twisting metal accompanied the truck that lost control and was sent flying. However, one observing Vreta would find him seemingly unfazed by it all. His expression remained constant, and his eyes focused.

There was just a moment where Vreta spared a thought to a part of the training he had received nearly a century ago. He had never been a soldier, but he had received much of the same training for his role in the Rahn’Masser. One aspect of his training had taken place at a facility high up in some of Rothia’s tallest mountains. It was a landscape that was covered in snow year-round, and only even survivable for his cold-blooded body due to a heat-generating implant inside him. The place had seemed much more like a monastery than a boot camp, and the instruction he had received there made him feel more like a monk than a soldier. Yet, they were some of the most important lessons he could learn for his career, far more than any amount of marksmanship or martial arts. Words spoken to him there still echoed in his mind across the centuries.

”In our galaxy, we have discovered half a dozen sapient species, with countless millions of stars left to explore. Some, through wisdom or fear, will maintain peace with us. And some, through greed or desperation, will wage war. They expand and multiply, their numbers unchecked, and their ambitions insatiable. We have been forced to war in the past, and it shall happen in the future. They are many, and we are few. If you are called onto the battlefield, you may face legions with no more than the few at your side. Your enemy may call your fight hopeless, but I tell you…hope is a lie. Hope is the idea that the universe may grant you a miracle to save you. But we are Rothian! We are not given miracles, we create them! Your survival will not be allowed by fate nor chance; it will be guaranteed by your own hand. Our enemies may be legion, but we are Rothian. We do not break, we do not rout, and we do not fail. I will teach you how to forge your mind into a weapon greater than any fusion rifle. No matter your enemy, no matter their number, no matter the chaos around you, I can give you one weapon that will not leave you:…”

“...Focus.” Vreta said under his breath. His lungs breathed deeply of the thin air, and did not struggle for it. One truck had crashed, but he put it out of his mind. It was not important to the task in front of him. His mind grabbed onto only what was important for him, like the pleas for help he could hear over the radio just behind him. He could see the insect latched on to the side of the truck following them, and the radio confirmed they could not deal with it themselves. To kill it was Vreta’s task. Both trucks were moving quickly, sometimes weaving left or right unpredictably, and his turret had enough power to deal serious damage to the truck. Potentially, a missed shot could disable its engine and doom its passengers. He could not fire recklessly. Instead, he traversed the turret to be in-line with the beetle, then waited a moment. He focused on the sights and simply allowed the truck to drift to the side until he found the moment where the sights lined up properly, then fired a single shot straight down the top of the beetle’s head.

The Cradle

It was just never going to end, was it? One crisis after another, a new threat every time one fell. At this point, Vreta was not sure he wanted to know anything more about the Cradle. His growing opinion now was that it was a nightmarish hellscape, and its processor should be glassed from orbit, but that sentiment was not going to make any progress towards his escape.

In the fog beyond the border, it was easy to panic. Several around Vreta were doing just that, and he understood why. He nearly fell into that trap himself, but again, it was his training that saved him. He tightened up his expression, closed his eyes for a moment, and took in a breath. The air was thinner here, though it was not all that different from the mountain air back on Rothia. Just breathe in. Breathe out. Focus. Enemies approached, he still had a gun turret in front of him, and he was reasonably sure it still worked. That was what he could control. That was his task. The monsters were not the true enemy here; panic was. Panic was what he had to push from his mind.

Opening his eyes, Vreta traversed the turret left. It was more sluggish now, as the powered controls were not working quite correctly, but he had the strength to make up for it. He just focused his eyes on the sights, focused on firing when they lined up with the beasts in pursuit. They were quick and the trucks were moving, but that did not matter. Vreta’s steely-eyed visage carried an unusual calm as his only focus went to lining up the sights and firing his weapon.

The Cradle

As they began to accelerate, Vreta turned his turret around and swiveled it to focus on hounds running at them from the side. The insectoid monster, if not dead, was at least prevented from reaching the trucks. The soldier’s sacrifice, he felt, was a brave one, and perhaps necessary for their escape. Despite how quickly most of the rest of these soldiers had crumbled under the pressure from these monsters, he had done well. Vreta had wished it had been another of the soldiers to make the sacrifice; their leader would have been more useful to keep around than any of the others.

The heavy turret Vreta was using could essentially blast apart one of the hounds in a single shot, but even with several of them firing, they could not deal with all of the beasts swarming them. Not before a few of the trucks at the rear of the convoy had hounds reach them and start climbing up the sides. With Vreta’s truck being at the front of the convoy, though, there was little he could do to help. There would be far too much risk of damaging either the trucks, or the people in them, if he tried turning his turret on them. There were still plenty of armed soldiers in the trucks, though, so they would just have to deal with the beasts themselves.

The hounds were not going to be reaching the front vehicle once they were up to speed, so as long as they could continue to outrun the border, it finally started to seem like they had a clear escape ahead of them. He had run out of targets to shoot from the angles available to him, so he was finally able to just lean back in his seat and catch his breath. They were not out of danger yet, but he was feeling calmer…which meant he was also starting to feel some of the sensations his mind had been repressing. His arm was slowly filling with a sharp, burning pain that had him wincing. The bleeding was not alarmingly severe, but it also had not yet stopped. For a moment, he intended to ask someone to bandage him, but looking around the back of the truck, he saw a few Humans that were…far worse off than he was, to put it mildly. For now, Vreta just kept quiet and held one arm under the other to keep pressure on the wound.

The Cradle

Inwardly, Vreta wished they could just get the trucks moving. One of the soldiers had gotten it started, but they were probably going to wait as long as they could get away with to save as many of their people as they could. Without a doubt, Vreta was not going to be able to dissuade them from that; there was no point in even trying. The best he could hope to do was to speed along the process.

Vreta climbed up onto the open back of the truck. There were plenty of seats in the back, but he did not try to squeeze into any of them just yet. He remained standing in the back, alternating between firing off shots at any approaching hounds and helping to hoist up soldiers into the back with him. He did not much like putting more stress on his injured arm, but he just kept reminding himself that it was not his actual arm.

If there was one thing Vreta could be relieved about with these hounds, it was that they would actually die when shot, which could not be said about the first creature they saw. He had not been terribly impressed with these soldiers so far, but now that they were being backed into their final “corner”, into these vehicles they had to defend, their desperation was inspiring a decent defense. As they were loading up the trucks, soldiers in the back joined in laying down fire on the advancing hounds. The situation was far from “good”, but it was actually seeming somewhat better for a time…until it very suddenly became much worse.

The first of the creatures, the monstrous insect that had simply refused to die, had returned. “Damn it…we need to leave!” Vreta shouted, though he would not be surprised if he was not heard in the chaos. At the very least, there was something new he had to work with, this time around. All of the trucks had a mounted turret on top, and they looked stronger than the standard rifles. His truck was nearly full in any case, so Vreta quickly transitioned from helping up the others and moved behind the turret. He might not have been the most familiar with their vehicles, but he had spent more time learning about their weapons. The turret’s controls were intuitive enough, so he traversed it left until he could bring the muzzle to bear on the insectoid. From there, he opened fire with no intent to stop until something was dead. The heavy energy projectiles were larger, brighter, and certainly sounded more hefty than those of the rifles. He supposed he would see soon if the extra energy was actually meaningful.

The Cradle

Unlike some of the others, Vreta did not lose focus on his destination in his sprint towards the trucks. He was quick on his feet and could see well, even in this strange fog. His hearing might not have been as sharp as the Humans’ but in this cacophony of gunfire, screams, and howling, that was not terribly relevant. He just had to keep his objective in sight and avoid panicking. Were it not for the hovering, frictionless stretcher, Vreta likely would have been forced to abandon the wounded soldier, but as it stood, pushing her around did not meaningfully slow him down. Besides which, even incapacitated, she still did have a use or two to him.

The arrival of the hounds had been a moment of genuine fear for Vreta. Until that point, salvation had been ahead of them, with death chasing behind. He just had to let the soldiers fight and get to their escape. Now, creatures were swarming everywhere, including the path ahead. Now, there was much less certainty for him and his own survival. He could not guarantee, or even somewhat ensure, his own safety. For a Rothian, there were few things more terrifying than the loss of their eternal lives. It was only due to his training that he did not panic. He still had a way out; he just had to make sure he reached it.

For most of his dash towards their escape, Vreta steered clear of the soldiers and let them take the attention of the growing horde of monsters. As fast as he was, he was among the first to reach the trucks, but he was not alone. The hounds were quick, and some were moving to cut them off. One climbed over the roof of the very truck he wanted to enter, while another started to circle around from his right. Fortunately, that was where his first use for his injured charge came into play. From the holster on her hip, he grabbed her sidearm and quickly fired a burst of three rounds at the hound on top of the truck. It was a fast draw, and at least one shot found its mark on center mass, but the second of the hounds was already barreling towards him as he was transferring his aim to it. The beast leaped at him, going for his throat, so Vreta guarded himself with his arm. The hound bit down hard on his forearm, but Vreta kept his composure enough to press the barrel of his pistol against the creature’s own neck and pull the trigger.

Vreta managed to avoid getting knocked off his feet and dropped the dead hound to the ground. He grimaced at his bloody arm, but with his adrenaline pumping, he would not feel it. Yet. The greater concern would be his escape. As he moved towards the driver side door, he realized another problem. These trucks were primitive compared to Rothian vehicles, and he had seen them driven enough in his time here that he had every confidence he could drive them as well. However, he had not yet driven one, and the thought came to mind that he did not actually know how to start their vehicles. He had no doubt that he could figure it out, but it would be much quicker for a Human to do it instead.

Letting out a growl of his own, Vreta moved up to one of the rear doors of the vehicle and turned around, shouting in his distinctive voice and holding his pistol ready to fend off anymore hounds that came his way. “Over here!”

The Cradle

“Damn it…” Vreta muttered as his gaze quickly jumped between the border and the trucks. He did not come from this direction originally, but he was fairly certain the border was not supposed to be here. He could hardly see through the “weather” that had rather suddenly manifested, but like everyone else, he was able to make out what happened to the soldier that emerged from beyond the border. Vreta certainly did not require the sergeant’s order to start running. One way or another, he was going to get out of here.

Just based off of his biology, Vreta probably could have been the first to the trucks, but he doubted it would go well for him if he tried to drive one away on his own, in the long run. He needed to make sure they left as quickly as possible, which meant speeding up the slowest among them. The Human woman, Freyr, was trying to push the injured soldier to the trucks, and that was something Vreta could speed up.

Freyr would hardly have gone a few meters before Vreta ran up alongside her, grabbing a hold of the stretcher as well. He was larger with much longer legs, and frankly, was in better shape than her, so he could get the stretcher to the trucks faster than she could. “Just run!” He shouted to Freyr.

The Cradle

Vreta kept his quite alert the entire time they were walking. Though, the gunfire did leave little question as to where this creature was going. He could at least take some comfort in the fact that they were getting farther away from the sounds. Hopefully, the vehicles were close, and they would be able to get out before the beast could possibly catch up to them.

While he did give a quick glance to the woman when she questioned him, Vreta still mostly kept his eyes on their surroundings. “Yes, when I saw that thing in the warehouse, it was doing something to that device in there. As soon as it saw me, it let out this scream and did something that knocked out the lights. It did talk to me, but it didn’t make a great deal of sense. At first it used a child’s voice, but that changed by the time you came in. I’m willing to talk about it after we get out of here. Surviving is my priority right now.”

In this case, Vreta was in complete agreement with the sergeant and started to rush along with the others. Once they got to the vehicles, they could probably outrun it and get away.

The Cradle

Vreta gladly let the other soldiers take charge of the injured woman. As long as they were somewhat competent, they would remove her from the Cradle as quickly as they could, which was exactly what Vreta wanted for himself as well. He was sure there was a great deal more he could learn about the Cradle from this creature, but it was far too much of a risk to stay without proper armaments.

Wiping away some of the blood from his mouth, Vreta answered the soldier. “Right now, I’m trying to get out of the Cradle as fast as I can, which is exactly what you soldiers should be doing too. Before that creature crushed this woman’s chest cavity, I saw her empty a dozen or more shots from her rifle into it, then I caught it on fire with some tools that were laying around, and all of that just seemed to make it angrier. Unless you want more people to end up like her, or worse…” He said, pointing to the Major. “…then you need to evacuate this area. Come back with heavier ordinance if you really want to kill it, but that rifle of hers wasn’t very effective. Now, my name is Vreta’Sori, official representative of the Zuraxi’Synkuur corporation to all of its business partners on Outremer. I’ll gladly answer any of your questions about what I saw once we’re out of the Cradle. I’m a guest of the Synastar Hotel, and I will stay there to wait for you.”

The Cradle

Vreta did his best to duck down as the creature tossed the door at him, though it did strike him on his back. It was more of a glancing blow, though it still knocked him flat on his face. He slammed his snout on the ground hard enough to knock out a few front teeth. He likely would have been shouting obscenities, were it not for the fact that the impact also knocked his breath away. Regardless, he was not hurt badly enough that he could not push himself back up to his feet, especially as he could remind himself that none of the injuries were actually “real.”

By the time Vreta had collected himself, the creature was already running away, and it sounded like the other soldiers were dealing with it…or at least attempting to. At any rate, for him and the other two Humans, he felt that their part in this fight was firmly over.

Vreta staggered over to the pair of Humans, approaching the wounded soldier from the opposite side as the other woman. “Come on, we just need to get out of here. If we get her out of the Cradle, she’ll be fine. Just help me lift her up. We’ll take her to your other soldier friends outside, then we’ll all get out of this nightmare.”

Halo: Aegis Team

Vael 'Virisusai

---

Under the cloak of his active camouflage, Vael moved along with the other two towards the base of the central structure. There were a few ramps leading up to the roof of the structure, which was where they would be regrouping with the rest of the team. Ideally, they would be able to remain undetected until their team could be dropped in. It was about when Vael reached the ramp that the battle group dropped out of slipspace in the sky above them, and for a moment, Vael’s gaze went upwards.

As planned, their battle group included far more ships than were necessary to deal with the small Brute fleet, so as to guarantee there would be no losses. Two Autumn-class heavy cruisers, including the Chorus of Thunder at the very front, three Strident-class frigates, as well as a CCS-class battlecruiser and three SDV-class corvettes from the Swords. An alarm sounded across the compound and the rebels started to mobilize right away, but for the Brutes in their ships far above, it was already too late. The Chorus already had its MAC cannon charged and ready. Meanwhile, the Brute ships were in such a state of disrepair that most did not even have shields.

The firing of the Chorus’ MAC certainly gave meaning to its name. The near-deafening sound echoed across the landscape, and the pressure wave that accompanied it allowed one to feel the power behind it in their very bones. Without shields, the Brute cruiser on the receiving end did not stand a chance. The round ripped straight through the ship’s hull like paper, tearing the ship in half. When the two halves fell to the ground outside the structure, the ground itself shook and a massive cloud of dust was kicked up over the whole area, sweeping over the compound like a sandstorm.

Visibility had dropped rapidly, but since he knew where to look, Vael was able to spot the vague silhouette of a phantom descending on the mesa with the rest of the team. ”It is time. Detonate the charges.”