Pouncing Muskrat Falls

IC Time on Earth: Fri Aug 24 16:28:13 2033

Meeting Hall

A large rectangular table sits squarely in the middle of the room, a Decepticon symbol engraved in purple in the center. Chairs large enough to fit your average Decepticons surround the table, including a huge throne at its head. The walls are bare except for Decepticon banners hanging down from the top to the bottom. Arranged on some of the walls are various pictures of Cybertron and the great battles of the Decepticons.

Contents:

Pounce

Obvious exits: East  leads to Trypticon Main Hallway.

Contrail idly scrubs at her hands while setting at the large rectangular table in the middle of the room. She can't quite get all of this bronze paint that was dumped on her off. It's a minor concern but vexing nonetheless. What brings her to this room, however, is a much greater concern and, hopefully, its possible solution: the EDC superweapon.

It had seemed like the kind of mission Pounce lived for: at least no one else in Intelligence had publicly announced their intention to check out Muskrat Falls. Cowards, the lot of them: once again, it would be Pounce, further cultivating his own mystique and reputation. To that end, he arrives early, wanting to get the scoop on the situation and then go from there. "Commander," he greets, at least being polite around the superior ranking personnel as he approaches the table.

Contrail looks over Pounce warily. The thing about her division is that absolutely everyone has his or her own agenda, moreso than usual. Also, they have no yet found the leak (if there is one). Pounce could be the leak, for all she knows. However, Contrail cannot allow 'what if' to paralyze her. The Empire is direly threatened, doing the wrong thing is probably better than doing nothing. Probably. She greets with a nod of her head and says, "Pounce. Your initiative is pleasing, but how well do you understand the situation? Sum up what you know, and I'll fill the rest in for you."

"Granted, I haven't had long to peruse the information that's available, such as it is," Pounce admits, clasping his hands behind his back. "It would have helped if Wingspan could have been pried away from whatever information he's looking into. But from the look of things, the EDC have a new toy that's... shall we say, cause for concern." Tact is sometimes a good idea, especially when being blunt can get one shot. "It's already seen use, but now there's something bigger in the wings... directed-energy weapon to a full-scale bomb, from what little I could gather."

"It disintegrates us alive with a new form of radiation," Contrail says bluntly, "Nearly killed /Motormaster/, and that was an early version. The EDC has been going out of its way to try to capture Decepticons alive, likely for experimentation, though they've been going after pieces, too. The EDC is willing to kill their own troops to keep this technology secret, and they tend to boobytrap these weapons with explosives, so that we cannot steal them intact. /If/ Muskrat Falls is a real EDC research site, it is going to be heavily guarded and boobytrapped, and should you falter and be captured, well... there is a reason I'm offering you a cortex bomb for this mission, should you want it. However, there is a further complication: during the Olympics, there is a 'truce'." She does airquotes and grimaces. "So don't be detected at all, but if you are, you need a perfectly innocent excuse why you were there."

"However. Muskrat Falls may be a trap. If it is, knowing that it is a trap is still valuable, but I hope you understand why I must emphasise caution."

Can it get any worse? Or, in Pounce's case, can it get any better? A small, thin smile appears on his face. "I admit to some curiosity," he finally says, "as to where humanity managed to obtain such weaponry? I seem to recall that they were pushing it for just transformable exo-armor not too long ago, and now suddenly they have something like this. The Autobots have always been big on not sharing the technology for subspace or weapons... so where did it come from?" He shrugs after a moment. "That little bit of curiosity aside, I'm game. Personally, I don't plan on leaving Wingspan alone any time soon, and leaving my dead body for them to dissect is equally unappetizing a prospect. Though... the bomb could prove useful for utilizing a distraction, just in case."

Contrail explains, "The EDC has a new general, Franklin Cross. We're still trying to find more information on him. He seems to have rather impressive prowess with technology, however, and he may have reverse engineered some of the weaponry we used during The Long Night. At any rate..." She withdraws a very small, round object, and places it on the table. "I also want you to stop by Engineering and grab some wide spectrum radiation detectors. There is /some/ kind of radiation associated with this technology, but we aren't entirely sure what. Now. Get out there. Find out what you can. Get back. Understood?"

Pounce chuckles quietly. "Absolutely," he replies. "I'll grab two, just in case." He salutes, and once cleared, he'll turn to depart and get the gear he needs.