[b][i] Esailia's group [/b][/i]

As the squad and GEAR advanced through the tunnel, Esailia's HUD brought up a display to the bottom left of a map streaming in from Christa. But before she had time to find where they were in the winding system, Naida grabbed Esailia's shoulder and slammed her against the closest wall a moment before machine gun fire riddled holes in the tunnel wall opposite them.

The feline nodded slowly in thanks as she took a breath, motioning for Naida to take point and to hold position before swiping her finger across the front of her HUD, pulling the map to the center of her vision. "Alright," She muttered in a low tone over proximity chat, facing the group so they could see the map on her HUD. "We're coming up on a small bulge in the tunnel. It looks to be some sort of storage section before it loops around back to the bigger cavern. Naida, what does it look like?"

The heavy weaponry fox peeked around the corner very slightly for a moment before yanking her head back at the fire she attracted "Makeshift barricade, captain. Looks like something me and Ed made when we were kids. Bet you a rocket could blast it to bits." Esailia blinked "Makeshift? That doesn't make much sense...A makeshift barricade would fall at a single shot from a GEAR, moreso from anything a foot soldier would have. Why wouldn't they have a GEAR down here as well if they HAVE them? Also, not all the weapons fire match the signatures we got while in the Crawler..." As Esailia thought aloud, Edward pipped up "Ma'am, maybe they aren't bandits, but are miners that holed up when the bandits came? During the initial fight, they used the tunnels to their advantage, flooding parts and collapsing others to restrict entrances, winning some weapons from the bandits all the while. Then concentrating their defense on one of the few entrances left until help arrived?"

Esailia nodded slowly, but looked to Aidan and Nawlins. "That's my thought, what do you two think? We don't want to kill civvies, but we don't want to be too cautious."