Mass Effect 3: Aftermath

“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 the cleared walkway next to the abandoned camps from Quarian scavengers among the rubble. After cocking his assault rifle, the Major then clicked on its flashlight to illuminate the way for himself and Liara. Ahead of them, the light from Shiro’s omni-tool made it at least visible enough for Kyo to see clearly as well while following the guided map.

“Goddess, this smell…,” Liara stated as a hand moved to cover her mouth and nose as she made 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?” Kyo suggested. Suddenly, everyone in the group stopped walking at the sound of a low growl that echoed off the stone and metal walls.

“Varren don’t make that noise...,”Shiro warned, but then turned his attention back to the map that flicked with a bright red dot upon his wrist. “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 added with a negative tone to his voice. Shiro only shook his white hair in disagreement.

“No, look ahead,” he pointed forward. “It doesn’t look like the Quarians got 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 the front of us 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 that lead to light dust and debris to fall from the ceiling.

“Earthquakes, maybe? They said it was unstable here,” Kaidan then suggested as he moved ahead to look at Shiro’s map. “You think this place was built on a fault line?” Liara only shrugged in response as the group finally pressed onwards. The structure itself was enormous and hollow, even for being built over by the Geth. There were several markings on the walls to suggest that this place had been originally an ancient Quarian ruin 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 Geth technology that surrounded them. After minimizing the map screen, Shiro then moved stand 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 then 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 again.

“Another quake?” the young Sergeant asked, but Kaidan looked startled.

“Not this time! Defensive positions! Protect the door!”

“The door? You mean Shiro, right? Oh, fuck off!” Kyo had dropped to a knee when Kaidan had called for it, manifesting the large, orange digital shield to protect the center. To his left was Kaidan, who found cover behind a metal pillar, while Liara was behind a small bounder with her Scorpion pistol exposed to the right. The Sergeant’s cursing was directed at a large varren, who had rushed his shield only to be frozen upon and shattered from the impact of it being used as a weapon.  For some reason, they were suddenly being attacked by several large hounds which had run from a hidden tunnel to their right and were dipping off the ledge to the left in a stampede. The few who had noticed the group at the door had then broke off from the pack to rush them.

Liara placed a Biotic field in front of Kyo to levitate the few more that turned to attack Kyo’s shield. It was easy target practice for the Paladin, who knocked them back with ease. Unfortunately, one of the bodies was thrown a bit too far and landed in the dead center of the tail end of the stampede. Slowly, at least thirty or so hounds turned their attention to the party. “Uh. Opps,” nervously laughed Kyo as he took out his pistol.

“Nice going there,” sarcastically remarked Kaidan as he came out of cover. His body was lit up in blue as he glanced back at Shiro. The ex-Agent was entirely too focused on breaking the security that Kaidan wasn’t even sure if he noticed the attack at all.

“Kaidan! Look out!” Liara exclaimed from her hiding spot. In that brief second, they had been nearly overrun, but a single varren in particularly had stampeded its way over to leap onto the Major. It was if time had slowed down as Kaidan prepared to toss the monster back into the darkness just before its head exploded in mid-leap. The body collapsed instead as several more shots were fired from an unseen upper balcony. Kyo shield-shattered the remaining hound before looking up towards the ceiling with his scoped handgun.

“The hell? Is that a human?” Kyo asked out loud as he viewed a male figure dressed in a dark red Alliance armor through the scope. The Sniper seemed to be looking back down through his own scope before lowering the compact sniper rifle from the eye lens of the helmet.  Kyo did the same, losing sight of the figure as it walked down the catwalk to the left. “Fuck.”

“What?” Kaidan asked, standing next to the Sergeant as he tried to peer through the darkness to get a glimpse, but saw nothing.

“It looked like some human guy. Possibly a merc, but I didn’t see any markings on the armor.” Liara tried to peer up as well, but all three turned when the lock on the large door behind them finally buzzed.

“Finally,” sighed Shiro as he tapped away his omni-tool screen. “That took longer than expected.”

“Um, did you not notice the massive verran attack and possible merc Sniper that attacked us? Like, at all?” questioned the Major as he moved to stand close to the other Biotic with an intense gaze into the green eyes. The eyes under suspicion returned the look before shifting to peer at the pile of dead hounds.

“You’re perfectly capable of saving yourself, Spectre Alenko,” Shiro smiled deviously. “Unless you need to me rescue you every time there’s something wrong?”

“Save me or finish me off?”

Shiro had to laugh at the question as he banged on the doors with a single, heavy fist slam charged with bluish-green Biotic energy so that they would start to open. It was also an obvious display of power. “I have nothing against you, Spectre Alenko. Why wouldn’t I help you?” Kaidan continued to glare, but then turned towards the opening doorway instead. Inside was sterile metal room, clean and gleaming. The mild vacuum suction from the door opening also meant that this particular room hadn’t been used or stepped into in quite some time. If nothing else, the lingering stench had also dissipated almost entirely from the party’s noses. It was, however, pitch black inside with the exception of a few patterned blinking lights that climbed up the tower itself. It seemed that everyone had at least put aside their differences to gather at the controls now, watching Shiro tap away at the only active console.

“And…done.”

As Shiro typed in the last line of code, the overhead lights began to turn on one circular row at a time around the room, 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 Geth shells, no longer occupied by their software AI counterparts. Kaidan broke away from his team so that he could walk towards one of the units. Upon arrival, he stopped to stare the empty shell through its protective glass. He looked upon it 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 Kaidan’s 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.”

Kaidan 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 before turning his hazel eyes upon the Asari. “But it’s not like you didn’t already know that.”  Liara gave a hurt look in response as her face was stared upon before she looked at the inactive Geth herself.

“Yes, I suppose your…,” but her words were cut off by another strong tremors. Behind her, Shiro had managed to active the control tower, but in doing so, it also began a chain reaction of other large power generators to be turned on as well. As one clicked on after another, the room only shook harder before the ground itself began to crack and fall apart, despite the metal flooring.  The screeching made by the twisting and scratching metal beams only made it worse. Underneath his own legs, Kaidan watched what started off as a thin, jagged line suddenly become an increasingly larger gap. Without hesitation, he grabbed Liara and tossed her towards Shiro and Kyo. The Asari 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 stealth shield broke from a human male dressed in red armor as the previously unnoticed follower jumped in after the fallen Major.

It was surprising to everyone, especially the Biotic himself, who was now dangling from the hand of the complete stranger who had just saved his life. The other red armored hand was hanging onto a ledge of a recently exposed cavern from the quake. Looking around, Kaidan could in fact see several tunnels that had 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 look like on the inside. Looking up, he finally spotted a compacted rifle attached to the man’s back, which made it safe for him to assume that this was the same mysterious Sniper from before. Before he could say anything, Kaidan felt himself being 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 up top, Liara called down.

 

“Kaidan, are you alive?” The Major looked up and summarized in his mind that the depth which he had fallen was too far much for a quick Biotic teleport. Also, he didn’t have the power to make the jump and take his rescuer along for the ride.

“Yeah, I’m fine! I found our mystery Sniper too!” He then looked down, smiling as he offered a hand out. “And he sort of saved my ass…,” he mumbled politely. The Sniper looked to the hand, but quickly smacked it away. “Ow, hey! I was just trying to help!” Instead, the Sniper opted to stand up on his own and quickly dusted off the red armor that looked like it belonged to the Alliance. Both the helmet and body coverings looked like standard issue, but this helmet had a black tinted lens over the eyes. Still, the sniper rifle on his back sported a crudely painted on N7 logo. Kaidan had seen weapons like these before. 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 that 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 at Kaidan before a static, almost robotic voice spoke from it. “I was minding my own damn business before having to save your ass.”  Kaidan’s face cringed as he was forced to listen to the rough sounds that reminded him of his grandfather’s old radios.

“Geesh, what’s up with your audio simulators? Take off the damn helmet, at least.” As Kaidan reached for the head covering, he found himself pushed away as the Sniper gave the Major a prompt shove.

“Deal with it. You should put on your headgear anyway. 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.”

Despite questioning these so-called toxins, Kaidan reached for his helmet and put it on anyway. “Toxins? What toxins?”

“Didn’t you smell it up there? It’s coming from these caves. Look.” Moving just close enough to share his omni-tool map, the Sniper pulled up a screen. “Look, these tunnels run through the bottom like a maze, but they all stem from this middle tower. If we follow this route, we can exit through a heat exhaust grate that leads outside.”

“I see…but how do you know that?”

The Sniper tapped the map away and headed past Kaidan towards the side of the opening in front of them. “It’s how I got in. Now, let’s go and keep quiet. There are…things in here…and you talk too damn much.” Kaidan watched the other man enter the mouth of the cave, but lingered a moment to talk through his earpiece to Kyo.

“Sergeant? Come in.”

“Yes, 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 merc that ain’t right…”

Kaidan looked towards the Sniper trying to make a judgment on his own. “Ha, roger that. Alenko out.” Ahead, the Sniper waited as a digital VI drone had been summoned up to be used as a make-shift flashlight that floated up over the Sniper’s left shoulder. There he waited a few feet ahead until the Major jogged to meet him.

“Let’s go,” he then said softly, despite the static, and began to lead the way into the void.