EliteCommander

The Cradle

Vreta naturally noticed the strange occurrences around him, but there was little he could do to make sense of them. In general, he had no options except simply to listen to what this being had to say. Eventually, the being’s appearance took on one resembling Vreta himself.

“What does this mean?” Vreta asked the “Navigator” with a low growl. Unfortunately, he did not have time to search for other options before he fell and his perceptions grew dark.

---

Vreta awoke with a deep, gasping breath. He recognized right away where he was, as he was back in the Vault in his harness. He felt like he had a mild headache, but otherwise was just disoriented. Right away, he had Rhia start a full diagnostics on both his mind and body as he tried to remember what had transpired.

The Cradle

“Are you saying that you will tell them to be cooperative with us?” Vreta asked, though he could not help but to admit to himself some frustration with this conversation. At every turn, it seemed, the entity was giving vague or incomplete answers to most of his questions. It did not inspire much confidence that it was trustworthy.

Vreta looked over the Rothian carefully. “If you can see in my mind, then you know I want to help. But we still need solid proof, solid answers. But my leadership will still need to be convinced. They cannot know your intentions like you know mine. Do you intend to share the data we spoke of before on the Hegemon, and help to find evidence of its existence? Having detailed information on our enemy will go a long way not only to convincing my own leadership, but that of every other species in the galaxy as well. As you’ve said, cooperation is not going to be easy, and it is going to take a lot of work to get the galaxy together and convince them to work with…well, I suppose I do not even know what to call you. Perhaps formal introductions would also be a good first step?”

The Cradle

“Two thousand years?” Vreta remarked, tilting his head. Obviously, such a claim challenged any assumptions Vreta might have been making about the Institute. “We would not have expected that. Either the Cradle has been communicating with Humanity long before they even left their homeworld, or the Institute is not led by Humans. Something else within the Cradle, perhaps?”

Much of what Vreta was learning felt hard to believe. He still could not be sure whether or not he should trust this entity. Finding proof of the Hegemon’s existence would be sufficient, if the entity gave him a location to search. Until then, though, he still wanted to learn as much as it would tell. “What is it that leads them? If their goal is truly to reunite you, then I do not see how our goals are in conflict. You are clearly important to them, so I imagine your word would carry weight among them. Could you to instruct them to cooperate with us?”

Halo: Aegis Team

Vael 'Virisusai

---

Vael took the driver’s seat of one of the spectres himself. It was going to be a long drive, so he wanted to be sure that each one was taken by an experienced driver. He did not want any delays in getting to their objective ,if they could be avoided. Although, he did still decide to defer to Tar to lead their convoy. Being a local, she had more intimate knowledge of the environment and terrain, especially surrounding the keep. He believed it would be wise to take advantage of her experience.

”Check your maps. Our objective is located on a plateau in the mountains near the keep. Once we come close enough, we will proceed on foot up the mountain. We will establish the communications jammer for the Human construct to use to cut off the cannon’s guards from the keep. Should we be detected, we must ensure there are no survivors to report our presence.” Vael explained as he prompted Tar to take the lead.

---

Although they had to move through a forest, the spectres were maneuverable enough that the team started out making good time. Once they came to a small river they could follow, they were even able to press on at full boost for over ten minutes straight. Naturally, the closer they came, the more cautious they would need to be.

However, before the cannon’s defenders could even begin to be a problem, there was another obstacle manifesting around them. The rainstorm surrounding them did not subside. Far from it, the storm grew ever stronger as time passed. Heavy rain turned into a torrential downpour, deafening thunder followed cracks of lightning every few seconds, and winds picked up to the point that the rain was falling near horizontally. The storm was strong enough that the spectres started to tilt in the wind. Vael had to turn his vehicle into the wind at an angle just to keep going straight, which only added to the issue of poor visibility. Vael could just barely make out the glow of the gravity propulsion drive of the spectre ahead of him. For those on the turrets, and especially the side passengers, it would be a struggle just to hang on.

The Cradle

“How hard, exactly?” Vreta asked again. “Such details are important. If nothing else, it can be distracted more effectively if we know our attacks at least threaten it. Otherwise, we would need to adopt other strategies to keep it busy. We don’t need to stay here discussing it at length; if you have this information, you can upload it to my implants so that my people can analyze it. Shield strength, weapon output, maneuverability, tracking capabilities, anything you know could let us adapt our forces to better resist it. If we are going to fight back, that would save many lives.”

The pair of them still remained in this void, which was a fairly disorienting experience for Vreta. It was growing less featureless as nebula-like clouds started to become visible around them. Eventually, he just blocked out the distraction and focused on the information he needed to gather. There was much he wanted to learn about this being, but he did not know if time would be a limiting factor. “Aside from that, it may be possible for us to collect allies. My people have grown considerable influence among the species we have discovered through the centuries. Though, the species we perhaps have the least influence over is, ironically, the one we need the most right now. The Humans of Outremer have long been fiercely independent, largely due to the presence of the Cradle. It makes them bold, confident, and quite defensive. If you are in my mind, then I gather you are surely in my companions’ minds as well. Particularly the Agent, and the two Humans who joined us recently. They are members of an Institute which I suspect holds more power than they let on. They may also know more about Human factions that have been hostile to us in the past, like those who attacked us on the way here. I believe the Institute will be the true key to securing Outremer’s cooperation. Can you help me understand what the Institute is, and what their goals are?”

The Cradle

Vreta’s mind immediately went to work analyzing the situation as the entity shared each new detail. He still felt skeptical, but if the being could share compelling evidence, then he would not deny it. Ari’Etis? My people have a small presence of research teams in our neighboring galaxy. It is too far to establish a gateway, and given that it takes over twelve years to cross the void, the only ones there are researchers who volunteered for the task. Still, FTL communications can travel there in under an hour. Depending on where the researchers are, they may be able to investigate the R’tk’tk in reasonable time. Freyr said we didn’t recover any sort of data like that, and my people did have access to everything she did. Still…maybe we can reconstruct the location through other means? I recall in that memory looking up to the sky in the end. It was all recorded in my implants; if I could see the stars in that memory…maybe we could use star positions to reconstruct its location? Especially now that we know which galaxy it is in. We would need to account for stellar drift since it happened, but as long as you know how long ago it was, that should not be too difficult.”

Already, Vreta was thinking about the practicality of actually facing down the being that had been showed to him. It was massive, and clearly powerful by this entity’s estimates. Not minutes ago, the entity had called it “indestructible”, yet now was adamant that they work together to destroy it. “If we are going to do this, we need to know as much about it as possible. The power output of its weapons, its maneuvering capabilities, and especially shield strength. Have you ever hurt it before? What is the hardest it has been hit?”

The Cradle

“If I go back without some way to prove this, then things may just go the same way they did before. The Humans who control this planet are extremely reluctant to trust me or my people, and it has been a challenge every step of the way to get them to cooperate with us. Now that the object that contained you is no longer on Rothia, there will be nothing but their own honor forcing them to respect their agreements with us. And even for my own people, it will be difficult to convince them to take drastic action on just my word. I want to help you; I want to keep our people safe, and that is why I ask if there is any proof, anywhere, we can find.” Vreta explained.

It seemed that finding evidence of the truth here could be a struggle, and that was even before considering the actual plan to deal with this threat. Based on what this being had shown him, Vreta did not understand how even the Cradle would be able to help. “And even assuming they are convinced, I don’t understand how you can fight them. You said yourself that you never stood a chance against the Hegemon. Why do you believe this time will be any different?”

The Cradle

Vreta had taken the destruction of everything he saw around him surprisingly well, perhaps because he was already conscious of the fact that none of what he was seeing was real. Regardless, there was no one who could see what Vreta was shown and feel anything but dread. If it were true, the power of this enemy would be immense. The thought of it elicited enough of a raw, emotional response from Vreta that he felt the need to fall back on his training to calm his mind. Push back the fear, the instinct-driven reactions, and return to a rational mindset. He cleared his thoughts and focused on the mission. Weapon output, shield strength, the details were important. Above all, he needed evidence.

“Nothing can be truly indestructible. That would defy the laws that govern our reality. Whether we face it now, or in a trillion years time, we cannot pursue Eternity with that thing in existence.” Vreta finally spoke up. He was still in the void with the entity, looking upon this representation of the Hegemon. He did not doubt that such a thing could exist. Even just thinking about how far his own people had ascended in his lifetime, he did not believe there was a limit to the heights technology could reach. But, there was no law of the universe that prevented his people from reaching the very same heights as what he was being shown. “We are a patient people. If fleeing is the only course of action, it is what we will do, but if I understand the Rahn’Saki as well as I believe I do, we will not give up on the notion of victory. And I am sure you know that it is not me that needs to be convinced. The Rahn’Saki are our guides. I need to be able to prove it to them. Everything that happened after our first meeting was to try and gain that proof. We were not willing to risk hurting you to find it, but we needed evidence. What you are suggesting involves uprooting our entire civilization.”

Vreta let out a sigh, though despite being in this void, he felt no urge to breathe. “Is there any evidence you can give? Can we find that world, perhaps? Or the R’tk’tk’s generation ships, if they escaped? Is there any way I can show to my leaders that this threat is reality?”

The Cradle

There was plenty that Vreta could infer from the situation. This being had seen deeply into his memories, in order to be able to create everything he saw and heard around him. Many might not welcome such a thing, and Vreta could not say he was happy about it, but he had to admit that if he had such an ability, he would gladly do the very same thing. By seeing their memories directly, this entity could avoid the uncertainty and mistrust that had been plaguing them since the beginning of this project. It knew exactly what they intended.

“If that is the case, then we need to prepare. You’ve seen into my memories; you know at least what I know about my people’s capabilities. We are not warmongerers, but we are capable of terrible violence when given no other choice. I remember what you showed me back on our homeworld of a civilization being destroyed by your enemy, but they were rather primitive by comparison. It was hard to get a true sense of the threat. Last time we spoke, you were unable to share much with us, but now that we are here, if you can help us understand exactly what they can do, then we can prepare our defense. We can know when to fight, when to buy time, and when to retreat.” Vreta asked. Given what happened last time, he wanted to get straight to the most important information right away, just in case there was something that might interrupt them.

The Cradle

Vreta’s gaze went quickly over towards the “Rothian” over near the edge of the cliff, though he was well-aware of the fact that this was not truly one of his own people, regardless of appearances. He still had his memory of everything that had just transpired in the headquarters, so he understood what was happening. This was not what they had planned on, but their goal had been to establish contact with the entity. If this was the only way it was going to happen, then he could at least work with it.

Approaching alongside the entity, Vreta took a seat on the rock without argument. The scale patterns of this “Rothian” were not natural, though that was hardly strange among his people. He wondered if the entity was actually aware of that fact, or if it was simply a coincidence? Regardless, Vreta took a moment to take in a deep breath. “It is exactly as I remember. I wonder how far that is from reality?”

Vreta finally looked over at the entity. “I can guess who you are. I suppose you want to speak to me, or perhaps all of us, separately? Our reason for coming to the headquarters was to make contact with you. To…understand what is happening. I cannot speak for most of the Humans’ intentions, I suppose, but understanding is all that I want.”