Muskrat Falls - The secrets within



Muskrat Falls- The secrets within.

Players: Laserbeak, Marauder

From above, there doesn't appear to be much suspicious about the dam at Muskrat Falls. Looks fairly typical as far as dams go. However, the Decepticons already know that there's a suspicious amount of black vehicles going into and out of the dam, disappearing into some structure on top of the dam that couldn't possibly hold as many vehicles as went into it. And more importantly, there's a secret entrance hidden precariously between two turbines that may lead inside the dam!

Laserbeak perches on high, his systems are on full surveillance. Cameras, traffic routes, sentry patrols, he takes it all in. By now, it is quite late... 3 AM, late enough that shifts are quiet, less commotion from outside vehicles...and a chance to get this full sized assistant into the darn place. Any radar systems are noted, but for now the two are following Autobot Radar protocols. Staying in clustered areas, low to the ground. The Bots would have a hard time finding them, let alone the humans, still, take no chances. Current Objective: Find Marauder a way into the base.... Perhaps the loading dock?

[It is fortuitous that I selected a Terran alternate mode,] Marauder says to Laserbeak on an encrypted frequency. Flying through the air, before he actually reaches the base, he must transform into that mode, landing in a wooded area. There, he begins to apply a type of paint, changing him from his usual green and purple camouflage, to a basic black, so he can better match the vehicles picked up on surveillance photos. Once he's done, it seems to be quick drying paint, he will transform into that mode. [Laserbeak, I need you to inspect my chassis to ensure that the paint application covered.] Lowering to the ground, Marauder transforms into a M1A3 Abrams.

While there doesn't appear to be much security on the surface--at least not what would be abnormal for a dam--Pounce did report hidden patrols at the perimeter of the dam. That would be something to be careful of.

Laserbeak 's yellow eyes gleam, they were never red, that was an animation error. He scans Marauder for inconsistencies in his paint job for several seconds. Greenlight. Which is about as much as Beaky discusses things that doesn't involve laserfire. The patrols are a concern, of course. It was going to be quite hard to get Marauder in there.

Marauder emits, [Acknowledged] and sets off. He tries to keep to the main road. It's three A.M., so there are few drivers on the road, and if he's going to sell this, he's going to make it seem like it was planned. He passes a large Construction Crane going the other way, probably on the way to some jobsite while traffic is nonexistent, and for a brief moment, he wonders if that might have been Hook. The colour was close enough, but it's hard to tell in this light.

[Redlight][Redlight] He swoops in front of Marauder before he gets too far...if he doesn't stop...well the vulture wasn't about to play chicken. He'd better hurry if things were proceeding like this. Laserbeak checks out the set of buildings outside the plant. Target: Security rooms. If he can find a security room, they're not too hard to find, just look for the antennas that really don't need to be there, he can forge his way into the system to schedule a late night 'delivery' of an extra tank.

There is indeed a security room, or rather, two checkpoints guarding both routes to the dam. Laserbeak will note that the security guards staffing these checkpoints don't fit the norm for human civilian security--that is, overweight, somewhat older... asleep. These guys seem to mean serious business. Nevertheless, if Laserbeak can gain access, there are some computers in here likely hooked up to the security system.

The M1A3 Abrams Main Battle Tank comes to a stop. It's a good thing they're still a fair distance from the base. The communications array on top moves, rotating, and he makes a connection with whatever mundane Satellite might be up there. It's a big facade, but hopefully it's a convincing one. He seems to receive a transmission about some kind of purple dinosaur.

The vulture skulks outside one of the checkpoints. Sentries, only two, but still two more than he'd prefer. Laser fire would be...exquisite but he didn't want the EDC to know he was ever here. It might change their plans. Spotting one of the cameras in the area, he pauses. Both guards were outside at the moment, but the camera was an issue. His eyes glow slightly, not enough to fry the receptor, but enough to get it staticy. Infrared works wonders against such primitive things. He silently glides inside the shack, then transforms. Transformation noise not withstanding, an innocent tape lays on the ground beneath the bench. With the flash drive adapter he's equipped with, he starts to process information, forging information for the tank's arrival. The same info will be sent to Marauder as well, best he know what the plan was. 'Late night security detail addition. Beefing up forces due to Autobot activity. Abrahms to be kept in secondary storage bay.' That should do it, if it gets that far, he'll just slip on out, and rendezvous with Marauder.

The guards are carefully watching the road for signs of activity. If anything approaches that they're not prepared for, well, their response is likely to be a little overenthusiastic.

Upon receipt of Laserbeak's information package, the M1A3 Abrams begins to move again, but at a normal speed. He doesn't want to do anything ordinary, or to draw more attention to himself than a tank already would. A few minutes later, he'll meet up with the first checkpoint. The tank will slow before it approaches, and parks near the guard tower. He identifies himself, without anyone getting out of the tank, and uses a southern drawal. "God, I hate these balls to eight shifts. Staff Sergeant Anthony Wayne, here to drop off a M1A3 Abrams MBT to the Secondary Storage Bay. Seems you boys wanted to beef up the security thanks to the mess o' Autobots hang'n about."

The guards eye the tank suspiciously as it approaches, and exchange a glance. "I haven't heard anything about some damn tank," one of them says. He pulls out a small PDA, and stares at it. "Huh, what do you know. Okay, Staff Sergeant, just pop the hatch so I can see your ID real quick>"

A familiar voice emenates from the radio system. In truth, Laserbeak is doing his best to imitate their C.O., and using a microburst, just enough for them to hear but not the base itself! "Higgins, McCoy..." (Thanks for the personell info.) "Why am I staring at goddamn armor before you report in? Get it inside already. No time to waste, can't have the damn thing out of cover more than absolutely necessary. ****ING Cross. Going to ruin this enti..." the voice trails off. A signal is sent to the Abrahms, [Countermeasures needed, frequency 30.2]

The two guards grimace collectively. "Dammit. Alright, head on in," one of them says, and as the guard barrier raises, they wave the tank on. The door leading into the building where all the black vehicles have been driving into opens invitingly.

The hatch on the tank begins to pop up, yeah, he's really yanking their chain, but before they can see anything inside, it begins to close as they insist that he heads on in. The tank starts up, and heads through the first check point, and when a door opens, presumably to the Secondary Storage Bay, he follows it on in. Another encrypted message is sent to Laserbeak, [You have my compliments, Lieutenant.]

Laserbeak returns to vulture-mode, then slips out of the gate a bit as the tank rolls by, zapping the camera again for good measure. Certainly the troops will be watching that impressive Con armor...despite it having a purple symbol on it. The vulture can squeak out in good fortune. After Laserbeak rendezvouses with Marauder, he returns to cassette mode, hiding now...of all places, in the tank's barrel. Admittedly it is a bit of a scare. If Marauder knew half the things Laserbeak generally knew...well...its best not to dwell on. Inside the base, it was back to surveillance work, the rafters would do a wonderful job here to scope out the place. The job was get get that tank into the 'secondary garage' he mentioned in the orders. There was bound to be a lot to this place, but he gambleda bit that there was a second garage. If not...well the military messes up occasionally. They DID hire Cross, after all. If garage/elevator directions are found, they are transmitted to Marauder, who can stroll on through as if he knows exactly where he's going.

And as it turns out, there was indeed an elevator in this building! There's a flashing yellow light in the room, followed by a sharp tone to warn personnel that the elevator that it's going to descend, then the elevator gradually lowers them down... and when the elevator opens, the next room appears to be an underground parking lot, with plenty of black vans, cars, and some military vehicles. There's two more guards down here, but they're clad in black armor and armed with grenade launchers. Their faces are also concealed. They appraise the tank as the door opens.

"M1A3? Pretty good tech for its time, but not compared to what we have now," one of them says.

"It's got a 120mm cannon, that's what the new disintegrator shells use. Probably why Cross requested it," the other one says.

Marauder transports Laserbeak. No one would notice a cassette on the inside of the barrel, and if they did look there, well, it would be too dark to see the cassette, or. . . considerably worse things would happen to them. The elevator is quite spacious, enough that the tank could turn around, but fortunately he does not have to. It's always a pain when they design these things for such manoeuvres. Once in the lower hanger, Marauder again must check in, "Staff Sergeant Anthony Wayne delivering an M1A3 MBT, where d'ya want this thing?" He's already looking for empty berths, and hoping that he might get one around the corner, somewhere secluded.

Laserbeak notes the mention of disintegration rounds. As the massive tank is parked, the barrel rotates around. After all, the tank faces forward when its parked. During that time frame, he slips out of the barrel, back behind the black van nearby, shifting into bird mode. Internal security seemed to be person based, which is good. Constant camera fizzles would be a warning, if the security team was competent. He takes to the top of the hanger, again using Marauder as a distraction. He starts mapping out the possibility of using the turbine waterfalls as an exit strategy. For now, however it was time to get snooping. Cables and conduits were attached to most ceilings, which gave him ample cover as he looked for a vacant security room or armory. Marauder just needed those guards gone so he could slip away as well. To perform that, Laserbeak needs security access...

The two guards think for a moment. "Park in D2." That would be the labeling for the parking spot. However, if Marauder wants seclusion, it might be difficult, here. It's a wide open parking lot, but still, D2 would put Marauder next to some other, rather large military equipment, like a transport truck and a battle walker.

Marauder begins driving through the open air parking lot until he finds D2. He tries not to park too easily, doesn't want to throw the guards off in case they're still watching him. Once he gets himself inside, and angled at such a way that he maximises the cover provided by the transport truck and the battle walker, he rotates his turret, adjusting it really, to add to the effect. He'll then play a prerecorded sound of footsteps, walking away. It's quiet, but hopefully the guards will think that he simply wandered off. With Laserbeak off, he'll simply stay there for now while he thinks of a way to get rid of the guards.

A red line leads off to the armory! A blue line leads off to security, and an orange line leads to "Labs." Guess R&D wasn't... fancy enough? And there is indeed a wi-fi connection. However, it's very heavily encrypted.

Marayder begins analysing the cryptographic algorithms for vulnerabiltieis, backdoors, and anything he can make use of. It's not very inspiring, but some war is unseen, unheard, but still, very much real.

Marauder manages to break the encryption, and gains access to the Wi-Fi network!

Transmission:[FORCE ACCESS OF NETWORK. REQUEST LAB UPGRADE.] With Marauder here, things were simpler as they were more clumsy. The skulker noted that he needed an impressive array of radio comms as well. Perhaps when Marauder perished, he'd get himself a fancy upgrade, until then. Excellent, things were progressing properly. He'd follow Marauder into the Armory if there was an aerial way, if not, a tape will clatter atop the great armor and hitch a ride. Things were progressing easily enough. What awaited in the Armory?

The armory is currently deserted, once Laserbeak finds his way inside. And there seems to be something of a goldmine here, as there are rows upon rows of shells stacked on top of each other, and what seem to be energy weapons of varying sizes. Many of them seem to be built for a human to carry.

Marauder's first order of business is to learn the system, where things go in, where they go out. In a fashion similar to the raw Matrix, he watches, studying it as Laserbeak busies himself with hardware. Once he feels comfortable, he begins to explore in greater detail, looking for anything of value, but careful to ignore anything that looks too good to be true. He does not want to get caught, and obviously doesn't immediately pull up General Cross' personnel file.

There's a lot of information in the systems about the experiments being run here. The EDC seems to be perfecting the weapon, minimizing power draw and heat production as much as possible, resulting in the energy rifles Laserbeak saw. There's mention of a "Hard Deadline" by which the weapons must be done. There's something about a "City Buster" in the system, and finally, one report cross-references another, saying something about how the other report mentions the disintegrators won't work on Dinobots, but Marauder would have to crack the other file to find out why. Seems its security is a bit better. Laserbeak is near giddy with anticipation. He starts applying data to Marauder's receptors almost immediately. As if Marauder couldn't see the disintegration shells, the retrofit upgrades and the like. Any cameras in the area are set to static, perhaps he was a second slow on that, but who can blame the buzzard for enjoying himself? He investigates the area. Certainly there were some security systems, but this wasn't quite R&D either. Those files were on a separate mainframe no doubt...and hopefully on turbocassette recording. He records all that he can see. When he is satisfied, he perches on Marauder's shoulder to examine the other data at hand.

For the moment, Marauder leaves that file. He will continue to explore further, while keeping that file in the back of his mind. He tries to figure out why the disintegrators won't work on Dinobots. If he can learn that vulnerability, perhaps the Decepticons can modify themselves, or form a specialised team to the deal with them. Afterwards, he'll try and find information on the Hard Deadline, and then the City Buster.

Marauder transmits to Laserbeak information regarding the file, [When I hack into this, I may require assistance.]


 * TO BE CONTINUED***