<span style="color: Blue">Its possible that they took one of the others.</span>Firas said to Milenya after her statement about the freighter's other present crawler.<br/><br/>Ashana watched Milenya advance toward the door, surprised at her eagerness to proceed. Though, the archaeologist actually cared about what was on the other side of that airlock. Ashana only cared as much as it would answer the questions that had been raised by the bullets being sent her way for the last week. Her mention of survivors seemed like a fair point of concern, though given how unusual everything was, Ashana hadn't been planning on letting anyone they encountered too close.<br/><br/>They followed Milenya up the stairs toward the airlock into the site. Sorv chuckled slightly at Darion's horror movie remark.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Yeah, and you three ladies should probably be on the lookout for any tentacle monsters.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">You're right.</span>Firas agreed with Darion.<span style="color: Blue">Freighters like that have guns on board, but not many. A full compliment of crew on a ship that size would be what... 50? 60?</span>He looked at Sorv who nodded in agreement.<br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrange">A little on the high side, but sounds about right.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Yeah, definitely not enough guns to go around.</span>Firas continued, stopping his progress as they reached the airlock.<br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrchid">Well that's a small comfort.</span>Ashana added.<br/><br/><span style="color: Blue">Yeah...</span>Firas muttered and keyed up the airlock.<br/><br/>The doors, while much smaller than the doors outside were still large enough to move freight through, giving the team enough room to pass through without worrying about space. The airlock didn't cycle, instead the seal lock began turning immediately as Firas triggered it - indicating that the atmosphere within was already clear. Firas and Sorv readied their weapons, half raising them as the inner airlock opened, allowing them to enter.<br/><br/>As the team filtered in, Ashana kept her position in the relative middle of the group, the sense of being surrounded by allies with guns making her marginally more comfortable.<br/><br/>Firas activated the outer door and fell back into formation putting himself on point. As the airlock seal turned, he kneeled down, keeping his rifle trained on the door, ready for anything.<span style="color: Blue">Alright... this is it.</span>Ashana tensed fluttering her fingers, ready to throw something biotic at anything that may be waiting for them.<br/><br/>The airlock opened, the doors sliding apart to reveal... nothing. Ashana blinked. The chamber beyond was pitch black. The light from the airlock cast out into the darkness, revealing a grated walkway outside the airlock leading out to a descending ramp. The light only suggested shapes any further, barely silhouettes in the blackness.<br/><br/>Firas stood, clicking on the light on his rifle and shining it into the darkness. He pointed it straight out, feeling an uneasy sensation in his stomach when it didn't hit anything close enough to brightly illuminate it. It was like a void. Or a massive cavern.<br/><br/>Firas stepped out cautiously onto the grate sweeping his rifle through the darkness. In the distance he saw more silhouettes, some with sharp edges, others seeming unrefined, rounded or broken. He shined his light over the walkway, locating edges on either side. He shined his light down over one, at last seeing something in the gloom. The walkway, was raised at what looked to be nearly fifteen feet above the ground level. Firas scanned his light across the immediate area. The black rock below was largely empty of anything notable, though one immediately close area was marked off, a broken, pitted and clearly ancient shaft of rust colored metal protruding, and splaying out into the surface of the rock, like the remnants of some long decaying support for a structure that had existed here millennia ago.<br/><br/>Sorv panned his light around, then looked back, scanning it across the seals of the airlock, green lights on it indicating it was operational. He moved his light along the obsidian and volcanic rock wall, pausing as he saw the rippled patterns across it, the work of a mining pulse laser. He took a brief moment to check the air readings. They all came up safe, and the temperature comfortably livable.<br/><br/>He continued to pan then paused as he saw a standing floodlight against the wall. He walked up to it to determine why it was non functional. A quick pan confirmed another light like it on the other side of the door, flanking the airlock. Nothing about them was out of order, or would explain why they weren't working.<br/><br/>Firas scanned his light, seeing erected patricians and walls that disappeared into the darkness. Ashana followed the light with his eyes, seeing what Firas was, but remaining silent in this place that was so completely unknown to her.<br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrange">Hey.</span>Sorv called, causing both Ashana and Firas to look. Sorv panned his light across the flood lights then down to the walkway. Cables ran from the lights down under the grating. Sorv followed them with his light as they disappeared through a doorway in an erected wall.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Power cell?</span><br/><br/>Firas thought for a moment, then nodded.<span style="color: Blue">Worth a shot. No way these lights are going to let us get a good look around.</span>He nodded to Darion and Maethia, then started for the ramp down to the ground level.<br/><br/>Firas kept his light panning around them, looking for anything unusual. The HUD motion detector on his visor continued to read only the team. On either side there were patricians and walls erected, beyond the windows and doors were either more relics of the structures that had once been here, or more constructed facilities for whatever archaeological team had been present.<br/><br/>They neared the end of the ramp, the grate continuing forward on the ground through the site ahead. They stepped off, heading back along the walkway on the ground to where the cables ran off into the site. Firas kept his light moving, noticing more cables running across the ground as they got closer. A good sign that they were heading toward a power nexus of some kind.<br/><br/>They passed by the standing pillar that Firas had seen from above. He gave it only a once over with his light before continuing on after the cables. Anyone taking a moment to observe the ancient and decayed protrusion would note that it didn't share many commonalities with other recorded Prothean structures and design.<br/><br/>They located the cables to the flood lights , having now circled back to the ground level below the walkway out into the airlock. Firas started after them, Ashana keeping closer, uncomfortable with being surrounded by so much blackness. If there was something out there with them, they wouldn't be able to see it coming in the darkness.<br/><br/>The cables ran along the ground, a few other cables that disappeared into other parts of the site joining them as they went. As they moved into the constructed rooms, hallways, and patricians that had been erected in the site, Firas noted that the erected walls that had been set up were no more than ten feet high, separators more than walls. Some of the areas were complete workstations and labs, while others that they passed were little more than walls and windows surrounding relics and remains of the ancient structures being unearthed. It had become tight quarters, the walls always around the team as they progressed. The only open spaces were dominated by more relics, some pieces spanning large areas, comprised of many long dead and decayed mechanical apparatus.<br/><br/>What living and work spaces they did pass, though, almost exactly mirrored the ship. Empty, untouched. Nothing overturned, nothing amiss. The consistency of the absence of anything was digging into Firas' mind, making him as angry at their continued ignorance of what happened as it concerned him.<br/><br/>They stepped up onto a grate walkway, the number of cables running across the ground growing to large enough numbers that the slightly raised walkway had become necessary to walk safely. The cables led through a doorway, and as they entered, and scanned the room, they saw the generator. It was a large machine, completely dominating one of the walls of the room. Sorv approached it to determine its condition while Firas continued looking around. The room had several desks with powered down computers and monitors. It was likely a power monitoring station.<br/><br/>Sorv examined the generator closely.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Well, nothing broken.</span>He assessed, then attempting to determine why it wasn't functioning. After a minute of looking he mumbled something angrily, not seeing anything out of order. After a moment he paused.<span style="color: DarkOrange">It couldn't be as simple as...</span>he muttered, finding a large protruding metallic handle. He grasped it and turned, hearing a loud clank as he turned it vertical. He pulled the power cell from the machine, letting the heavy cylinder clank onto the grating covering the ground.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Its dry.</span>He said, turning it over.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Run down, and not replaced...</span><br/><br/>He pointed his rifle, scanning around the room, stopping as he saw a line of similar power cell handles in the wall with no apparent mechanical purpose. He pulled one of them out, and grinned behind his visor as it's indicator's glowed brightly blue.<span style="color: DarkOrange">We've got power.</span>He picked up the cell and walked it over to the generator.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Alright,</span>He said, positioning it to insert.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Everyone get ready. this is usually when the monsters start attacking.</span>He pushed the cell in and locked it. After a moment the generator started blinking again, the lights all coming back on as the circuits were closed and powered again.<br/><br/>It blinked for a moment, then suddenly popping sounds echoed from within the sight as circuits began reactivating and lights began turning back on, illuminating the darkness. Ashana blinked as the light painfully overtook them. The monitors in the generator room blinked on. She looked up, the room like the others they passed having no ceiling. High above was the ceiling of the cavern, its obsidian surface ribbed by the pulse lasers that carved it.<br/><br/>Firas waited, watching the exits of the room and his motion detector. Still, nothing happened.<span style="color: blue">Sorv, was there anything wrong with that power cell?</span>He asked.<br/><br/>Sorv shook his head.<span style="color: DarkOrange">No. It looks like it was just left on until its charge died.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: blue">Like no one was here to change it out...</span>He muttered. He lowered his Revenant and checked his omni-tool for the atmosphere. It read normal, no pathogens, no toxins.<span style="color: blue">Alright... let's get this done... Milenya, go ahead and start looking into all of this.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrchid">I'll go with her.</span>Ashana volunteered, looking away from the high cavern ceiling.<span style="color: DarkOrchid">We should still not go anywhere alone.</span>She popped the seals on her helmet and pulled it off, taking a breath of the site's recycled air. She looked at Milenya expectantly.<span style="color: DarkOrchid">So... is there a head researcher or database or something in places like this?</span>She asked, following Milenya.<br/><br/>Firas looked at the others in the room. Sorv, looked at the computer monitors and sat down at one.<span style="color: DarkOrange">I'll patch us into their comm system.</span>He said, opening the console and starting in on the systems. After a moment he paused and looked at them.<span style="color: DarkOrange">Don't worry about me. It won't take long... and if I get jumped by some alien I'll scream really loud and shoot at it.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: blue">Alright.</span>Firas said, looking at Milenya and Darion.<span style="color: blue">I'm going to head back up to the airlock. That walkway looked like it was elevated above the site, get a good look at the place.</span>He started out of the room then turned, looking back at them.<span style="color: blue">And hey, keep your helmets handy.</span><br/><br/>Firas headed back out the way they had come, the illumination now giving him a much better understanding of the environment. Milenya had been right, someone was expecting profit from this, or they were incredibly generous with their money. The installation wasn't some cheap assortment of bargain materials to save costs. It looked state of the art. He paused and looked into the lab they had passed. There were relics of a similar colored material to the pillar sitting on the examination tables, a fair amount of valuable equipment within.<br/><br/>He exited back along the raised walkway to to the airlock and started along the ramp. The walkway, went on along the ground for quite some distance, once its descent was complete. He turned and headed back up the ramp, looking around as he rose steadily higher. When he reached the top he looked around in awe. The site was massive, the patchwork grid of walls and patricians spreading out before him in dozens of rooms of varying size. Two large atmosphere processors rested against the wall of the cavern to his right, their outgoing vents feeding into two of the magma tubes that had run through the magma flow before it was excavated into the cavern.<br/><br/>At the far end of the cavern was an array of scaffolding with massive cables running up to mounted mining lasers aimed at the cavern wall. Firas looked out across the site, counting the constructed rooms, and asking himself just how many workers would it take to manage something like this.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Taseer and the other crew had managed to clear the smaller cargo from the large crate that was occupying her attention when the lights in the hold flickered then turned on, illuminating the hold. Taseer blinked and raised to hand to shield her eyes from the sudden onslaught of light.<br/><br/><span style="color: navy">Yeah... yeah it worked.</span>She replied to Kala waiting for her eyes to adjust to the sudden shift.<span style="color: navy">Good work, now get down here and give me a hand.</span>She switched off her head lamps and looked over the large crate.<br/><br/><span style="color: navy">Shira, see if you can get this open from.. wait no, I've got it here.</span>She said, looking over the crate for its access locks. She flipped them, each clicking as they opened.<span style="color: navy">Alright, come on, come on!</span>She ordered the crew to help her remove the side of the large crate to take a look inside.<br/><br/>As the panel came loose and the group got it under control and walked it from the crate, setting it against another of the stacks, Taseer stared inside, and covered the mouth of her helmet.<span style="color: navy">Well I'll be damned.</span>She grinned broadly behind the visor.<span style="color: navy">Its a damn mining laser!</span>She almost giggled in excitement. She ran up and touched it, stroking it as she inspected it.<span style="color: navy">Brand new... haha! Captain we've got a jackpot! Brand new mining laser! And probably not even the only one! These damn things can go for 100 K on the black market!</span>She looked at the crew, who looked on at the device with new appreciation.<br/><br/><span style="color: navy">If there's one there might be others, lets get 'em found and load these bad boys! And when we're back on board, we party! Its payday!</span>She shouted, ecstatic. Cheers went up as a renewed vigor filled the crewmen, who quickly set into the cargo bay to find like treasures that would line their pockets.<br/><br/>As Kala was making her way out of the access way, for the briefest of moment a sound could be heard behind her, deeper within the ship. Like a knock on a metal surface. But it was so quiet and brief that it could very well have been her imagination.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>