EliteCommander

The Cradle

Rareth would have interrupted the scientist, had 595 not already done so. An emotional, panicked response was far from what they needed at the moment. Fortunately, for most of the Humans, they were able to keep cool heads and maintain their composure. Rareth, as their de-facto spokeswoman so far, spoke back up in response to the entity. “So it is not allowed to use your power? I understand, I will make sure anything else we use, we can power ourselves. We will do as you say and come to speak to you in person. Do you want all of us to come to you, or may some of us remain here? I promise they will not use your power. I would like for them to send a message back to where we came from to explain what is happening. Otherwise, there are others back in the physical world that may disturb us before we have finished speaking.”

Nirann felt that he was on the same page as Rareth, as an idea had come to mind for him shortly after they lost power. Stepping up alongside Dr. Wetherall, Nirann placed a metal hand gently on his shoulder. “Calm down; we can deal with this. What are the exact power requirements for this thing again? This frame of mine has a pretty good fusion core inside it.” He said before establishing a connection with Wetherall’s holopad. “Just help me finish off this analysis. I still have all the data we’ve been collecting, so we shouldn’t need to turn it back on to write a patch. When it comes time, we can power our equipment here off of my fusion core, apply the patch, then we’ll have our way back home.”

The Cradle

Rareth answered quickly, but calmly. “If it would not normally be permitted, then I would like to ask your permission for an exception. I give you my word that it is of no threat to you. These are tools we need for our purpose here, to help learn about you and this place. There are a few here, with different functions. May I ask what you would not permit in this place, and what you would not want us to have? If there is something you would rather not be here, I can make sure we do not bring anything like it in the future. I feel that I should ask these sorts of questions now, before we go further, as I do not know your customs, and I do not want to accidentally offend you.” She explained, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, without either lying, or giving away too much at once. Most crucially, she wanted to learn more about this thing and what it expected of them.

Nirann had noticed the events unfolding around him, given the sensor suite in his frame, but it was true that he certainly did not act like it. “I know, I know. Just keep working and leave the giant worms to the giant worm experts. I think I might be close to some answers here.” He responded to the Human.

Halo: Aegis Team

There was some delay in the response from the enemy. They waited behind cover on the far side of the room, only giving token return fire as they waited for their attackers to take the space they had given up. However, Aviza did not give the order to advance, and the delay would give some time to try and retreat back to her position.

When it became clear that their attackers had, for the most part, not taken the bait, the Chieftain let out a roar. Right away, Brute stalkers, four at least, emerged from active camouflage on the walkway directly above the team’s position. They did not have an angle to shoot down on Aviza or those who stayed back, but Tar and Yalu were within their sights. Two opened fire with spikers, while the other two tried to throw incendiary grenades to block their retreat. It was, indeed, an ambush, though it was far from ideal for the Brutes, as both of the Sangheili were still fairly close to Aviza’s position. In any case, the Chieftain’s roar had been the signal for an all-in attack. The Brutes started charging from far across the room through the crates, while the Human rebels positioned themselves to provide supporting fire. Although, they did have a fair amount of ground to cover to cross the entire length of the room.

The Cradle

In this case, Rareth was glad to be wrong. Evidently, something had been examining their communications since they arrived, and it was finally getting around to translating them. Whichever language it had learned, Rareth’s translator could understand it, which meant she could respond. “We have come to investigate; to learn about this place and its inhabitants. We come from the physical world, outside this digital world. We came prepared to defend ourselves, but we have no intention to harm you. We have been inside another object like this one and have been attacked, but we would rather speak peacefully. We may be able to help each other.”

As soon as he had been able, Nirann had returned to work on the transit station. He did take a fraction of a second to further modulate the shield so that it would not block visible light coming from the outside. It allowed him to see what was happening outside, though anyone looking in would still only see blackness. If the titanic creature had it sights set on crushing their transit station, he would prefer to be able to see it ahead of time. In any case, the majority of the processing power in his frame were running analysis on two different data sets: one collected from outside the simulation, and the readings gathered inside. They were both being compared to Cradle data to identify the points at which the object’s internal language had diverged from the Cradle so he could make the necessary rewrites to the transit station’s code.

The Cradle

It was times like this that Rareth most benefited from her training. As soon as the mast was moved to safety, she left she shield to see this heat signature. She was not influenced by her amazement, nor delayed by any uncertainty or doubt. She made swift judgments based simply upon the facts available. The creature had an unknown temperament with an unknown intelligence level. It was a titanic lifeform; if it existed in reality, it would be among the largest known individual creatures. Dr. Ngata, down at the bottom of the ridge, was also dangerously close to its point of emergence. Even if the creature did not directly pay attention to him, collateral damage was a distinct risk. Its mouthparts and large, front-facing eyes were consistent with a predatory nature, which further heightened the risk. Comparing what she could observe with the known abilities and equipment of herself and her allies, she judged that the beast could potentially be of some danger.

Rareth did not hesitate to run and put some distance between herself and the transit station, though she did not move towards the creature or Ngata. Rather, she moved perpendicular to the beast, along the top of the ridge. Once she was far enough away, she stopped in place, alone at the top of the ridge and far from cover or her allies. She spoke through their comms channel to inform the others of her plan, “Dr. Ngata, you are too close to the creature. I will draw its attention to me; everyone else, stay back. Ngata, try to move away from the creature quickly, but without being noticed.”

Rareth left few opportunities to argue with her plan, as she soon began shouting up at the massive lifeform. It was not unthinkable that even such a monstrous beast could still be intelligent, so for now, she did not do anything overtly threatening. Though, she did change the firing mode on her fusion cannon to a single-fire, high-explosive plasma burst, as well as marking potential weak points as targets for micro-missiles. “Are you intelligent? Can you understand my words, or at least that I am speaking to you? We have come here peacefully, but should you attack us, I will be forced to kill you.” She shouted. Of course, Rareth highly doubted that she would get anything even resembling an answer, but that was not the point. All she needed was its attention to give Ngata a chance to get away.

The Cradle

“I think you might be right.” Rareth remarked as she looked out into the distance. Whatever the source of the light and sounds, it was far more likely than the local villagers to actually give them meaningful answers about this place. They needed to act as quickly as they could, but nothing could be done until they dealt with the problems plaguing their transit station. She had been keeping track of what the scientists had been saying inside the shield, so she knew they were not in a position to move yet.

Nirann dug in his heels and pulled against the tug of gravity to try and keep the mast up on the ridge. He had unrestricted robotic strength in the body he was inhabiting, so he was certainly able to put in his fair share. They made slow progress at first, but after a few moments, everyone holding on to the mast would suddenly find that it felt much lighter. Rareth had moved into the shield and lent her muscle towards their combined efforts. Though, in truth, it felt like she might have been able to do it on her own. In any case, she did not allow time for rest once they had dragged the equipment to safety.

“We need to prioritize getting the transit station safely operational as quickly as possible. Nirann, how long will it be?” Rareth asked directly.

Nirann stood slightly hunched over with his hands on his knees, miming as if he was out of breath despite the fact that his body neither breathed nor fatigued. “I can’t say for sure, but I’ll start running the data through my processors to see if I can close the gap between the object’s programming and what the station expects.”

Still wasting no time, Rareth immediately opened the team’s comms channel to attempt to contact the junior Human scientist. “Dr. Ngata, do you need assistance, or can you make it back up on your own?”

The Cradle

Nirann quickly got both hands onto the comms mast once the shaking started to get worse. A soldier came into the shield to help, which would hopefully be enough bodies to make sure nothing ended up broken. “Okay, yeah, let’s get this thing on the ground, gently. We can put it back up when the ground is less angry.”

Outside the shield, Rareth made it back up the hill and rejoined the others. Her neural implant had managed to fully adjust to the low-light conditions by mixing in ambient light from the non-visible spectrum, so she could see much better than at the start. Still, that did not reveal what was causing this disruption. “If they can’t run from it, I doubt we’ll escape either, unless we get the transit station up. So, we hold. Just be ready, but still don’t shoot until we know we are under attack.”

While they still had no true answers as to what was happening, the sounds Rareth heard did provide some hints. They were not natural; they were synthetic. From some electronic source, most likely. She supposed she did have to allow some uncertainty, as she did not truly know what kind of creatures might be found in a simulation, but it did imply something with more advanced technology than what these villagers had shown. It could be a genuine threat. Rareth had three firing modes to work with on her fusion cannon, plus the micro-missiles. She decided to leave it on its fully-automatic firing mode for now, as it was the most versatile.

The Cradle

Rareth shrugged her shoulders with a glance towards 595. “I think if these villagers really wanted to stab each other, they would do it with or without our knives.”

What proceeded was abrupt chaos. Between the thundering sound that echoed across the landscape and the shaking of the ground underneath them, Rareth had already drawn her fusion cannon from her back. She deployed her helmet quickly, then scanned her surroundings, both visually, and with every sensor her body possessed. Rareth started making her way up the hill back towards the others, but she did take note of how the locals behaved. “I’m beginning to think these villagers are not the biggest fish in this pond, to borrow one of your expressions. Look at how they submit themselves; they know what is coming.”

Meanwhile, inside the shield, Nirann raised up one hand and took a hold of the communications mast. Even among a veritable earthquake, his chosen body did not struggle to hold up its weight. While its main purpose was just to be a vessel for his mind, the droid was still a military model. “I got it!” Nirann shouted. “Would it really have hurt you people to make this thing more stable? Wider base? Maybe just make the whole thing a box? What if I just lay the thing down gently on its side? Does it really need to be standing straight up right now?”

The Cradle

The light was noticeably bright even to Rareth, but the locals seemed to particularly hate it. Given how dark and dreary this place was, it did not take much thought to figure out why. If they had been here long enough, they would have evolved for low-light conditions, and unlike Rareth’s ocular implants, their eyes could not block out sudden bursts of light.

In place of words, Rareth did her best to wear her emotions as openly as possible in her expression and body language. Many of those were instinctual among Rothians, so if she could not communicate ideas, she could at least communicate a feeling. She showed confusion and concern, then looked back towards the transit station and shouted back to her companions. “The locals really don’t like that light. Maybe try…modulating the shield generator to block energy in the visible spectrum? It will be a small uptick in power usage, but it shouldn’t amount to anything major.”

Rareth’s suggestion would cause the shield to become noticeably opaque, so hopefully that would indicate to the villagers that they had done something about the problem. Until then, Rareth had the knife that Memnon threw to her, and a gift like that could go a long way to convincing them their new guests’ intentions. For primitives like them, knives were common tools used in everyday life, so such a gift would likely be seen more along those lines than as a weapon. Rareth still was not completely sure who was the leader among the villagers, or if there even was one, but she recognized the one that had been most willing to approach her. She laid the knife, still in its sheath, across her palms and bowed her head and she extended her hands slowly forward to present her offering to them.

Nirann raised up his head slightly to try and peer over the ridge down towards the source of Rareth’s voice for a quick moment. “Locals? So you found intelligent life here? Exciting; let’s hope we can get this fixed quickly.” He commented to Dr. Wetherall as he started to assist with moving the equipment. “I brought diagnostic equipment, and also a mountain of data and technical manuals in my memory banks. I know I’m not your usual engineer, but I think we can handle this. I have a lot of reference data from your Cradle, as well as all the readings we’ve been taking from the outside. If we compare our readings, your readings, and the Cradle data as a reference point, we should be able to make the right adjustments to the transit station’s software.”

The Cradle

Rareth tried to enunciate her name more clearly, but she was not going to dwell on that detail for too long. It was more important that she establish her intentions than that they get her name right. Her translator was still not returning results, but at least things were not going too badly. They had staved off violence so far. It certainly helped that they seemed to be closely related enough that they could look like they were of the same species. Rareth was a giant compared to them and wearing strange armor, but her face was at least familiar to them. To the villager who reached out to touch her, she offered her hand, palm down and with her fingers curled inward so as not to present the claws on her armored hand.

After a moment, Rareth glanced back towards her Human allies, mostly to signal to the villagers that she was speaking to her own companions, rather than them. “I don’t suppose we have anything that could be given as a gift, do we? Something that isn’t a gun? I think that might help signal our intentions.”

Nirann’s appearance was met with a few seconds of signal errors on half of his sensors, along with what felt an awful lot like a headache. Fortunately, a quick reboot of his body’s systems seemed to do the trick. Seeing as he was still not terribly familiar with the Human harnesses, they decided it was best to scan a body in, rather than try to program a new one. Less could go wrong that way. He had uploaded a copy of his neural network into the processor of one of the ship’s security droids. It was essentially a more militarized version of a police bot, so it was built in the form of a Rothian, though it lacked synthetic flesh. Rather, he had an armored outer shell consisting mostly of matte white metallic plates. To give him a bit of extra processing power, he had taken the processing unit on the computer he had appropriated and essentially shoved it into the droid’s storage compartment then quickly rigged it to be accessible to the unit’s internal network. It might not have been a conventional solution, but it would work. It came with enough extra storage space as well to give him a library of knowledge on ancient Rothian civilizations and customs, as well as the technical data the Humans elected to share.

Nirann’s eyes lit up with a soft blue glow once his optics came online. Although, he found himself far from impressed when he started to look around. Even after he switched to low-light vision, the whole area still seemed dark and bleak. Regardless, he did not stay distracted long. He spoke up as soon as he noticed the Human scientists near the transit station. “Okay, I’m here and…this place is weird. By the way, don’t send anyone else back through. The one you did send back…she didn’t look so good last I saw her. Something is going wrong with the transit station, or how it's interacting with this particular simulation, and we need to fix it.”

It did not take long for Nirann to scan the area around them, and with thermal sensors, his scan immediately revealed the crowd of villagers that had descended upon Rareth. “Also, wow, that’s a lot of heat sigs nearby. Is that, uh, something I need to be worrying about?”