"It's like a tomb," was the first thing that came out of Kaidan's mouth after passing through the corridor. There were piles of scrap off to the sides of a cleared walkway next to abandoned camps from Quarian scavengers among the rubble. After cocking his assault rifle, he clicked on its flashlight to illuminate the way for himself and Liara. Ahead, Shiro's omni- tool made it visible enough for Kyo to see clearly while following the guided map.

"Goddess, this smell," the doctor groaned as a hand moved to cover her mouth and nose while making the universal face of being disgusted by the odor.

"There were a lot of varren on the way here. Maybe they have a nest somewhere," was suggested by her companion. The sound of a low growl echoing off the stone and metal walls caused everyone to stop.

"Varren…do not make that noise," Shiro warned while keeping his attention on the map's flickering bright red dot. "We need to just keep walking straight into the next chamber. The tower controls should be in the center of this place."

"Yeah, that's if the Quarians didn't already strip it down for parts," Kaidan negatively added, but was disagreed with.

"No, look ahead," the agent pointed forward. "It doesn't seem as if the Quarians made it this far into the base." He then turned to point at the rocky path behind them. "See, back there even the floor is stripped, but in front remains untouched."

"Now we have to wonder what stopped them from continuing," Liara sighed, not liking the looks of things. The group took a few more steps forward, but stopped again as the caverns shook. Fortunately, it was only a few brief tremors which caused light dust and debris to fall from the ceiling.

"Earthquakes, maybe? They said it was unstable here," Kyo wondered out loud as he moved ahead on his own to kneel and touch the flooring. "You think this place was built on a fault line?" but was shrugged at as the group pressed onwards. The structure itself was enormous and hollow, even before being built upon by the Geth. There were several markings on the walls to suggest it had originally been a temple of some sorts before it was converted into a giant server and radio tower. The ominous smell also continued to grow, but it wasn't completely unbearable just yet.

The next stop was due to another door, similar in design to most of the technology surrounding them. After minimizing the map screen, Shiro stood in front of it like he did with main entryway. With an open palm pressed against the chrome, his omni-tool began to hack its way into the tight security matrix. "This should just take a moment," he said as he focused on reading the scrolling lines of code that had begun to appear. Kaidan nodded before turning around to keep an eye out. Kyo did the same as the ground rumbled yet again.

"Another quake?" he asked, but Kaidan looked startled.

"Not this time! Defensive positions! Protect the door!" Dropping to a knee when called for it, the light-barrier was positioned to protect the center. To his left, the fearless leader found cover behind a metal pillar while Liara took shelter near a small bounder with her Scorpion pistol exposed to the right.

"Fuck off!" the sergeant cursed at a large hound as it rushed his shield, only to be frozen upon it. The animal fell stiff as a board and shattered into meaty chucks as it was knocked away by a melee attack. For some reason, they were suddenly in the middle of a stampede as the pack ran from a hidden tunnel in the shadows and out the freshly opened doors into the light. It was the few who had noticed the intruders that had broken off to defend their territory.

Liara placed a biotic field in front of Kyo to levitate the ones attacking his glowing barrier. It was easy target practice afterwards as he knocked them back with ease. Unfortunately, one of the bodies was had gone a bit too far and landed in the dead center of remaining monsters. Slowly, at least thirty or so turned. "Uh. Opps," he laughed nervously while aiming his pistol.

"Nice going there," sarcastically remarked Kaidan as he came out of cover. His body was lit up as he glanced back at Shiro, so focused on breaking the security codes that no one else was sure if he had noticed an attack at all.

"Kaidan! Look out!" Liara exclaimed from her hiding spot. In that brief second, they had been nearly overrun and there was a single varren in particularly who leapt for the major's throat. An arm revved back as the spectre's biotics radiated while preparing to toss the beast back into the darkness just before its head exploded mid-air. It collapsed as several more shots were fired from an unseen upper balcony. Kyo's shield shattered the remaining hostiles before looking up towards the ceiling with his handgun.

"Who the hell is that?" he asked while viewing a male figure dressed in a bright red and white Alliance armor through the scope. The sniper returned the look, scoping the same way before lowering the compact rifle from the eye lens of his helmet. The sergeant lowered his reluctantly as well, losing sight of the figure as it disappeared once again. "Fuck."

"What?" Kaidan asked as he stood next to him and tried to peer through the darkness to get a glimpse, but saw nothing.

"It looked like some…guy. Possibly a merc, but I didn't see any markings on the armor. Just stripes." When Liara squinted her eyes to confirm the sighting, the lock on the large door behind them buzzed loudly.

"Finally," sighed Shiro as lowered his hand. "That took longer than expected."

"Um, did you not notice the massive group of verran and possible mercenary attacking us? Like, at all?" he was questioned by his friend.

"You're perfectly capable of saving yourselves," he smiled deviously. "Unless you need to me rescue you every time there's something wrong?"

"…I don't need to be rescued," Kyo muttered then as he turned away to hide a forming blush as Shiro banged on the doors with a single, charged fist to open them. The dent formed was also an obvious display of power as he looked over his shoulder to meet Kaidan's continued glare. Inside was sterile metal room, clean and gleaming. The mild vacuum suction also meant it hadn't been used or stepped into for quite some time. If nothing else, the lingering stench had also dissipated almost entirely from the party's noses. Everything was pitch-black with the exception of a few patterned, red, blinking lights chasing each other as they climbed the walls. The agent didn't seem to mind the darkness, easily finding and began to fiddle with an inactive control panel.

"And…done." As he typed in the last line of code, the overhead lights began to turn on one circular row at a time starting from the bottom up. No longer in the dark, the team found themselves surrounded by hundreds, possible thousands of Geth ground units. Each row contained dozens of hollow robotic shells, no longer occupied by their software AI counterparts. Kaidan broke away from his team so he could walk towards one of empty vessels. Upon arrival, he stopped to stare through its protective glass with a solemn face as he spoke.

"You know, in a way, I feel sorry for them. They were created, hunted, enslaved, backed into a corner, freed, helped fight a war, and then were wiped out so the rest of us could live." Liara smiled, albeit sadly, in his direction as she moved to stand next to him.

"I'm surprised to hear you say that after what you've been through. You weren't as quick to trust Legion as Shepard was." But he shrugged, still looking closely at the model in front of him almost as if he expected it to spring to life at any moment.

"Shepard opened my eyes to a lot of things," he said as he looked to her. "But it's not like you didn't already know that." She gave a hurt look in response before looking at the inactive Geth herself.

"Yes, I suppose your-," but was cut off by a strong tremor. Shiro had managed to active the control tower, but in doing so, it also began a chain reaction of other large power generators. As one clicked on after another, the room only shook harder before the ground cracked and began to fall apart despite the metal flooring. The screeching made by the twisting and scratching of collapsing beams only made it worse. Underneath his own feet, Kaidan watched as a thin, jagged line suddenly grow into an increasingly larger gap. Without hesitation, he grabbed Liara and tossed her towards Shiro and Kyo. She hit the ground on her side, hurting her arm noticeably from the impact. As she was quickly tended to by the other two members of the group, her eyes widened as Kaidan's body vanished down into the newly formed pit. However, he didn't go alone. Out of the shadows, the sniper's clocking disengaged as the previously unnoticed stalker jumped in after him.

Kaidan now dangled from the hand of the complete stranger who had just saved his life, much to his surprise. The other red-armored hand of his savior was hanging onto a ledge of a recently exposed cavern from the quake. Looking around, he could see the several underground tunnels which had also been pulled apart by the tremors. It looked as if he was in the middle of what he would imagine a giant art farm to be like on the inside. Before he could say anything to his rescuer or about the situation, he had been pulled up to the ledge where he managed to grab on. Both men struggled to climb up, resting on their hands and knees afterward. Over the ledge from above, Liara called down.

"Kaidan?!" she called in desperation. "Kaidan! Answer me!" He looked up and calculated in his mind that the depth which he had fallen was too far much for a quick biotic teleport, especially with a passenger.

"I'm fine! I found our mystery merc too!" He looked down to the man, smiling as he offered a hand out. "And he sort of saved my ass," he mumbled politely. The polite gesture was looked at, but quickly smacked away. "Ow, hey! I was just trying to help!" Nothing was said as the sniper opted to stand up on his own and quickly dusted off the scratched, candy-striped armor. Everything seemed standard issue, but the helmet had a dark, black-tinted faceplate to leave his face unidentifiable and the sniper rifle sported a crudely painted on N7 logo. These were the latest models that had been used in the war by the new branches of these so-called N7 recruits. It was the same bunch freshly grunts which Kyo belonged to. "Are you with the Alliance? N7 even? More importantly, what the hell are you doing out here?" The helmet turned to stare blankly for a few seconds before typing something on the omni-tool. The message was sent and dinged for the major to open his mail.

"I was minding my own damn business before having to save your ass." His face cringed he turned the screen off.

"Why would you send me a message…Can you speak? If there something wrong with your helmet's audio?" As he reached for the head covering, he found himself pushed away by a prompt shove.

"Don't touch me. You might want to be on your helmet too. The toxins we're going to have to walk through to get you out of here will tear up your insides if you breathe them in too much." Though there was sighing at having to wait for and then read the second message, Kaidan did what he was told just the same.

"I guess you mean that smell? Figured it was just varren," he shrugged and stood still as he was moved in on close enough to see the map the other man had pulled up. There were tunnels that ran through as he had seen like a maze, but a route had been plotted out to a heat duct which lead back outside."I see," he nodded but looked confused just the same. "But how is this accurate? This place hasn't been touched in who knows how long?" The map was tapped away so a third message could be written.

"Stay here or follow me. Your choice." With that, he watched the other man enter the mouth of the cave, but lingered to give him a moment to make up his mind.

"Sergeant? Come in."

"Sir?"

"I don't really know who this guy is, but he says he's going to lead me out through the tunnels. Updating your map now…Got it?"

"Yep. We'll meet you outside at the exit point. Be on your guard, Kaidan. There's something about that guy that doesn't sit right with me. Shiro's all antsy too." Kaidan looked towards the sniper, trying to make a judgment on his own.

"Ha, roger that. Alenko out." Ahead, a digital VI drone had been summoned by the supposed merc to be used as a make-shift flashlight while he waited ahead until he was jogged up on. His body language was impatient and it made his new partner laugh. "Yeah, yeah. I know I kept you waiting. Sorry, alright? Let's get going."