Feb 23 11:08:12 108 PA - Return from Recon

From Chronicles

Feb 23 11:08:12 108 PA.

CALI'S GARAGE: ATTIC - VIXEN'S SPACE

A little while after the trip, it's meeting time again. Everyone having a few days to collect themselves and what they've heard and seen. The place is, again, the conference room and a casual spread is there again. Vixen will let people in as they come and everyone will have some time to get themselves settled and comfortable before she begins.

As might be expected, Gabriel's military efficiency has him at the door right on time. Not that he's marching around and saluting, of course. Just ready to sit down and get to business, offering Vixen some quiet conversation as he finds a place to seat himself along the long side of the table, depositing his light snow gear, and retrieving his pad and pencil.

Among the first to arrive this time is Sage as she comes wandering into the place with her notes and metal drink container for the hot beverage she brings with her. She nods to Vixen, but chooses to leave most discussion for when the meeting begins. She selects her place at the table and settles in.

Leonard is likewise on time, which is less common for him than some others. If not for the steaming paper cup of coffee in his hand, he might have arrived early. His customary seat near Vixen is taken.

Vixen finally settles at her usual chair and leans back. "Alright. We all got back in one piece, no big trouble. That's a big win so far. Don't worry about the ATV. It was a throw away vehicle. I'll see what Cali can do with it, but I'm not so concerned with getting it fixed up right now." She leans forward and says, "We got good footage inside the city and we got some good names." She looks to Gabriel. "Why don't you lead us off," she says. Then she looks to Leo and Sage, "Then you guys and we can decide what we have here. And what to do about it."

Gabriel settles himself better in his chair, leaning forward and flipping slowly through his pad before looking up at the others. "This shouldn't need to be said, but I'll say it. Something big is happening at, near, or around Whykin. I don't know what they're doing, unfortunately, but I do have some details." He holds up a hand and ticks off points on his fingers. "First, they're bringing in lots of materiel. From soldiers, to concrete to generators. Everything that you'd want to have, if you were in the military and building something. All of this is falling under something called 'Operation Tantrum' and they've brought in a general who is apparently some kind of specialist at rapid advance and holding that ground." He flips two pages back in his notebook. "Rheevus, a two-star. Pulled him off of the Tolkeen Front, put him in charge of the *entire* Whykin area. Guy's a major player."

Sage glances to Leonard as she listens to the observations of that the older gentleman mentions. She takes up the recorder she's been given and slides it over towards Vixen. "The stuff being built around Whykin isn't even near being ready. Seems to be more of a distraction if you ask me. Bored guards complaining seem to have let the cat out of the bag." She nods to the recorder, "The real action is a base 25 miles closer to use from Whykin where most of the material is apparently being re-directed to..." She takes out the rough map she's sketched and slides it into the middle of the table. "...and from what we could tell, its much closer to being operational."

"Rheevus..." Leonard considers, nodding to Sage. "I think that we heard that name, along with Plotkin. Another officer and one who's overseeing some of this construction, I'm assuming. The larger, closer base, or whatever it is to be, may be unknown to Rheevus, from what we overheard. There are numerous other locations, spread out to the south of the city in even increments, but they're nothing more than cleared land." With the help of whatever map was obtained of the area, he'll indicate the locations to his best recollection. "There's also a village, here, that seems to be filled with psychics, but has somehow avoided problems with the Coalition. From what we were told, most of the residents leave and hide when the patrols come through. It's still very strange."

Vixen leans forward a bit when Sage slides the map over, but she leaves it out to be seen by all. "Do you know what it is for?" She then nods to Leo and says, Plotkin.. we heard his name." When Leo starts pointing at spots on the map, Vixen reaches over to try and steal Gabriel's pencil for a moment so she can mark those spots. She'll give it back, if she can get it. "So a big something that's almost done, some cleared spaces, strange psychics and a build up in Whykin with a big name and.. a name I'll have to sniff around about." She purses her lips faintly, considering the full range of it all for a few moments.

The Kentuckian readily gives up his pencil, as it holds no special emotional attachment to him. Gabriel stands slightly and leans forward over the table. "Seems to me that if the psychics were in the way, the CS soldiers would have found some what to get rid of them by now. Either they don't care, which seems unlikely, or maybe for some reason they aren't in the way?" He looks around and shrugs. Then, using his pencil-pointer, he describes a perimeter around the entire blob that indicates the walled city of Whykin. "Those small ones, everywhere, or just on the south side, here? And... why would this big base, as you call it, be a secret to the area's own officer corps?"

Sage nods to the recorder that she passed across towards Vixen. "Play the recording. The first bit is the villagers but the second bit is the talk of the guards that seemed to have nothing better on their time. We didn't exactly wander up to them and start asking questions." She comments, "Sounds like it might be the staging point..." She offers.

Leonard shrugs to Gabriel on the reason, and it's easier to let the recorder repeat what they overheard. "I don't know if they surround the entire city, but it was referred to as the 'Mongrel Line,' and the sites are named after dog breeds. They could be checkpoints or defenses of some sort." He considers the village again. "The villagers were polite, but concerned. They scanned us almost constantly, but I can understand their paranoia. How they've managed to elude the patrols that they claimed had increased..." Another shrug. "Either they are careful, lucky, or there's more going on than we learned."

Vixen seems easily inclined to believe the staging point suggestion from Sage. She leaves the recorder on the table for now and says, "Staging point is the most likely idea. The more I hear, the more likely it is I feel. And if they're almost ready, then we need to get this info to the government. They may be locking down Whykin to make it a full fledged strong point. Which is bad news for Kingsdale." She leans forward then and checks the PDD Recorder for a few moments before she sets it to play the contents of the disc inside. She settles back then to listen.

After some brief comments about the villagers giving relatively unhelpful information the recording pauses before it starts up with a second session... Grunting as the microphone gets closer, then words become clear. "Yeah, this a shit job. I mean, it's great because I don't have to do anything, but still, just fuck-all going on around here, Johnny." Another voice. "Oh? Whadda want, Zat? You got caught with your dick in the Captain's daughter. Lucky you're alive. Lucky you're alive and have a dick." Return to Zat, apparently. "Oh, fuck you. You wouldn't know a vagina if you saw one." Scuffling noises. "Okay, okay... hold hold. Fine. You know what I want? I wish I'd been assigned to Plotkin's unit. He's not trippin' around with this chicken-shit stuff. God, I could take a piss and hit Whykin. What's the point of expanding your borders if you aren't actually expanding your borders? They say that Plotkin's got something goin' on deep. Like, twenty-five miles closer to those fucks in Kingsdale. *He* knows how to get things done." The other voice. "Yeah, but that's a secret, asshole. He's siphoning men and materiel, even Rheevus doesn't know about it. I dunno, man, I don't think I wanna get into it. Twenty-five miles south, you say? " "Yeah. Kingsdale way. Huge spot. Can't miss it. Don't know how Rheevus hasn't seen it. Plotkin must be plugged into the aerial patrols."

Gabriel can't help but smirk, commenting, "Yeah, that sounds like disgruntled sentries all right. Guess some things never change. If it's a secret, though, it's a strange one. The officers I spoke with didn't - apparently - know anything about this Plotkin doing anything special. In fact, they didn't mention any 'Plotkin' at all. But a bunch of grunts know? I think someone's trying to screw someone over, but not being as clever as he or she thinks that he or she is being. Or these guys are lucky. You never know. Enlisted men know how to keep things from officers, particularly if they don't like 'em." He pokes the large base position, then waves to the smaller ones. "How far did you say the little ones were from the walls?"

Sage simply lets the recording do the explaining that she likely wouldn't be able to do herself. "Well, here's my best figuring..." She comments taking a look at the map. She points to the village they were in. "We went from here to about here..." She comments, sliding to a spot on the map near the building they noticed. "Estimated the walls are about..." She glances to the scale before mentioning the figure. "Didn't get an exact measurement, but that should be good enough for our purposes."

"Ten miles... I think?" Leonard is going mostly from memory and distances relative to points other than Whykin, itself. "Some kind of power game between officers wouldn't surprise me at all, either. Whatever this will be," he taps at the larger spot, "it seems the biggest worry. It's closer, has priority, and will be the first to be completed, as far as we can tell. If anything stands out as a single target, that would be my choice." He looks to Vixen and nods. "One thing in our favor is that the proof is visible and obvious. All the council needs to do is go and look."

Vixen is quiet and thoughtful through the recording and after the second part, she stops it. She listens to the others with a lingering thoughtful air. "I think that we have one clear path that might prove fruitful," she opines. "We blow the lid off the secrecy. If these two are at odds, we might be able to have the both of them tear each other apart. If we can do it that way, then we could take this thing down without firing a shot.. or at least make it easier to go in and finish the job.. hopefully for Kingsdale's forces. Only question is just how."

The older man shrugs once more, then regains his seat, nodding as Vixen speaks. "If I had to guess? Based on past experience? This Plotkin person is trying to make a big play, one large enough to impress people even higher than Rheevus, so that he lands a promotion despite pissing-off his immediate superior officer. Anyone catch what rank Plotkin is? Help us know what kind of a jump he's looking for, and what kind of siphoning of materiel he'd more likely be able to command." Gabriel holds out an explanatory hand. "You can be the most enterprising lieutenant in the world, but if you're a first lieutenant trying to make a big play, someone's going to swat you, and hard. The really tough thing, though? Sometimes secrecy ends up working for the one being screwed. Guy finds out about it, can now use it against the other guy, now pull off the special whatever on his own, he comes out looking good, but the lower guy was there to take the fall if it turned bad." He then goes quiet, glancing the map, and at the others around the table. "Secrecy's a bitch."

Sage takes a moment to sip from her beverage as the people share their opinions on the matter. She isn't much for military intelligence or the like. She can only look at this from her point of view. "Well, if they're just trying to have a 'who's is bigger' contest, I guess things could fall apart if it things were revealed." She comments, before pursing her lips. She glances to the older man. "As for the rank, if its not on the recording... I don't think I'd know it. Best I could do is offer to try to capture a vision about this person."

Leonard resumes eying the largest circle on the map and takes a large gulp of coffee. "I'm still fond of using large amounts of explosives. Maybe that could accomplish multiple possibilities at once?" He quirks a brow and glances around the table. "A ...construction accident would slow or stop their progress, and draw a great deal of attention. Attention from the CS forces, Kingsdale, and anyone else in the area. Even if the scrutiny doesn't cause enough reaction, the construction would still be hampered." It seems very win-win in his opinion.

Vixen shakes her head slightly. "I don't remember," she admits. "But we don't want a bigger head taking over this operation. We want one of them to tear it down, rather than let he other keep it." She nods slightly to Leo and says. "Better if we can make it look like internal sabotage. A stack of Coalition standard fusion blocks in the right place would do it. But it would have to be done without a hint of outside interference. Which is a tall order."

Gabriel taps the eraser-end of his pencil on his lips a few times, listening to the others. All interesting thoughts, perhaps maybe even good thoughts. Then his eyebrows quickly jump up, his pencil stops tapping, and he freezes for a moment. "Hey, Vixen, you're the communications goddess. If you were trying to build something right under someone's nose, but keep it quiet, you wouldn't use any radio, right? But if you did need to communicate with something, it'd be directional, right? I mean, you probably wouldn't just put up an antenna, tune in your favorite AM station and start broadcasting, would you? Even if it was secure and encoded?"

Sage clears her throat lightly at the mention of a radio, "That reminds me... there is a radio in the village Inn that they just leave on because the light is pretty. It was making some staticy noises and it seemed to start about the time that the Coalition began moving stuff in." She comments, "But, if you set up shop in there... you should avoid having any e-clips... or people using magic around a certain young boy that seems to suck up energy like nothing." She comments, "Wasted some clips of mine."

"Yes, there was the radio," Leonard nods. "If it's related, it could be a coincidence? Maybe they are using frequencies normally ignored or reserved for something else?" He's making mostly uneducated guesses and looks to Vixen for help. the topic of the boy brings a smirk. "I wonder if him being there actually helps the village... The draining might make the magical harder for the CS to detect?"

"Secured transmissions can be caught. And traced, even if the message itself isn't broken," Vixen says. "If I had to have instant communication, I'd go directional. With unmoving positions, it's easier than if you're mobile. But runners would be better if you had some discreet, trustworthy people to do it. Slower, but quieter if you do it right." She pauses and considers Sage and Leo then. "Or they might be using old Morse code in the static.. did it have a regular sound to it? The static noises? Long and short sounds?"

The older man muses, "So, if something were in the way, then people could use all the radio they wanted, in the shadow side, and not be heard. But if they wanted to talk to Whykin - if they wanted to - they'd need some kind of line-of-sight." Gabriel turns his head look to Sage and Leonard, then continues, returning to a brief statement. "I can't say this much for certain, but if you have an operation of this size, something that actually deserves a name, and a line of whatever the things are that deserves a name - you're not going to put it off much by exposing it. In fact, if I were in charge of this 'Operation Tantrum' thing, whatever it is, and if it has anything to do with Kingsdale, I'd speed it up. The whole thing. But you don't know what's going on in this guy's mind." He reaches out to tap the map, the large clearing as indicated. "He could even be seen as a hero, if it came out that he were in the advance. Personally, I'd just destroy the damn thing. Get the two governments involved, the two armies involved, could be bad. But you know the politics better than I do."

Sage purses her lips as she considers the static noise. "No, I didn't notice any patterns... but I may have been distracted by the kid screaming at Leo to do a magic trick." She comments before giving a shrug. "At any rate, we didn't get a chance do much investigation before the kid started to swell like a balloon and I found some of my e-clips drained." She comments. "As for the second base, there might be some hidden within the mountain..." She comments, tapping the terrain marker near where she's placed the site of the base. "Might get tricky.. but that's not really something I know much about."

Leonard hrms at the radio talk as Gabriel taps the map. The specifics are over his head, but the concepts are not so foreign. "The site was at the base of a rise, some of it dug into the ridge... and on the far side from Whykin. I assumed it was to make it more defensible, but that would also shield it from easy sight from the city. That might be why others in the city don't know about it."

Vixen frowns at that. "It's half in a mountain? That makes things harder.. can't recon it expect from the inside. And inside work is hard. Especially when you don't have the home field advantage and I would expect they're going to have stronger security than most places." She is quiet a few moments before she says, "The shipments. Maybe the best idea is to try and slip something volatile into the shipments. If we can get a timed fusion block into a load of other ammo and explosives.. set it to go off in a day, set it inside with the rest of the gear just before it's taken out.. if we can swing it, that'd do a lot of damage."

Still tapping his pencil against his lips, Gabriel asks, "How big a boom does one of these fusion blocks do? I mean, if this place is as large as you say it is, you're going to need a large explosion to do more than destroy whatever kind of immediate area you managed to get it to set itself off. Need to be kind of lucky too, not that it couldn't work." He shrugs again. "Sorry, I really am listening to you guys, but I'm just brainstorming options. Find this Plotkin person's identity, where he or she is, and just fucking assassinate him. Maybe that big base still keeps being built, maybe not. But even if it does, it'll damn well move a lot slower. Just another thought." The man's eyes are truly scanning the ceiling as if considering theoretical opportunities.

Sage sits back into her chair as things stray from her knowledge area. Blowing things up? Might as well ask Sage to fix an engine. She takes up her beverage and indulges in the tea within as she listens to the comments.

"There won't get any arguments from me if someone wants to take a few shots at him." Leonard smirks. "Please, feel free. Shoot him /and/ detonate the work site. I'd just as soon disintegrate everything they've built there," he sips more coffee, "if I could, now."

"Wouldn't just be one," Vixen notes. "Like I said, it'd be in a weapon shipment. Which means a lot of other blocks, grenades, clips, everything. And it would get packed in with the rest of the volatile gear." She leans forward a bit. A big, nasty boom that should hollow out anything within a hundred feet pretty good.. maybe less, but it'll take out a lot. Maybe we try and make it look like Rheevus got word. Slipped the block in there to sabotage Plotkin. That ought to get some fur flying, yeah?" She smirks a little at that. "And if that doesn't work, we can try and put a hit out on those two." She pauses, then adds, "Though I like the ideas, we should see what Kingsdale might do first. We might be able to pull off our plans. But it'd be good to have backup. And maybe see if this info is worth some creds to the officials. It's worked before." She grins idly. Then she leans back and says, "Alright. So, I'm going to do the council thing. I've dealt with them before so I have a toe in the door. What I need to know is what each of you can and want to do while I'm doing that. I'll put my ear to the ground too, but we should all be doing whatever we can."

Gabriel folds his notepad closed, but doesn't put it away, shaking his head, but saying nothing. "Just how audacious do you want us to be, Miss Vixen? I mean, if I wanted to, I could put on my 'Conway Twitty' outfit, try to grab a ride on a caravan, and roam around Whykin again. I'd rather not. I do know my weapons though, so I'll talk to the merchants, see if any arms sales have elevated. Also -" he pokes a finger around at the others "- check on these explosives you're talking about. Blowing things up properly and effectively is not as easy as people think it is. You're using the wrong thing? Doing it wrong? Waste of time. I'm afraid though, that I can't think of any other way that I might be useful right now. If you guys do, just tell me."

Sage hms softly as she waits for the topic to continue, "If the point is for the two Coalition folks to start fighting each other... don't necessarily need to blow up anything. Smoke tends to be rather noticeable if there's enough of it." She notes, before shrugging faintly. "Someone would be bound to take a peek, perhaps." She purses her lips, "I could try to take a psychic angle on this matter if it would help... but, I would need something to focus on." She pauses to consider other options.

Leonard considers his own contributions. "I'm afraid that I can't do much without direct observation; something or someone, in hand, to study. Until I can learn to shield myself from the damnable packs, I can't exactly stroll to the gate to ask questions, either."

Vixen shakes her head at Gabriel. "I don't want us getting too close to the place before we have a plan. And if you do go, another face would be better than an old one. But yeah.. learning up about fusion blocks is a good idea. Though if you blow up enough things at once, they'll do some damage." Then she considers Sage. "I don't think we got anything.. I can give you a lot of pictures of the grunts and some officers. I have images of the city, some of the emplacements and security measures. Not too many, the security in there as tight." She then nods to Leo as well. "Not sure how close Edgar could get to the big base safely, but a little more about it might be good to know."

The Marine nods at the suggestion of aerial reconnaissance. "Yes, we do need a better picture of that large area. I'm not entirely sure from your description just how much it is or isn't finished, and what it's intended to be used for. All of that makes a big difference in how to handle things." Gabriel nods at Vixen. "We have some ideas right now, we have some options on the table. Perhaps even if we can simply find more about Rheevus, Plotkin, and any relationship they may have, that would at least be something. I'll see what I can do about that." He then shrugs and looks to the others. "That's all I got."

"I may be able to focus on the base we found and see if it would give anything of note... but it's far from being a straight forward thing." Sage replies with a shrug, "Anything else could be helpful, though." She adds before shrugging faintly.

"We can try to get a better look," Leonard nods to Vixen, "but I'd prefer to be careful... and Edgar concurs. If you have pictures, I might be able to see snippets of what the individual is doing, at that moment, but it is very brief. I don't know how much help that would be." He concludes with a shrug.

Vixen nods to Sage and says, "I'll make some copies of the images I took and send them to you." She nods to Leo then and says. "We'll go over things and you can pick out some to try." She sighs and leans back. "Alright, thanks guys." She leans forward again then and snags the map. "I'm going to make a few copies of this, then get it back to you," she says to Sage. "Hang on to it, if you can think of any other little details, mark it up some more." She nods to Leo. "You too." She says to Gabriel, "Figure out the explosives thing. I wouldn't mind taking down as much as possible if we can't do something more elegant. If anyone gets anything new, let the rest of us know. And try to keep it on the low. Last thing we need is Coalition spies getting wind of this."

The older man packs his notepad into one of his pockets and begins to rise. "Loose lips sink ships and while there's no clever rhyme for us infantry, it works the same way. Just so that I know it's been said, the only specifics ever mentioned only get mentioned here. You talk to anyone else, you have to be vague and coy about it." When Gabriel's upright, he begins to pull on his light snow gear. "If there's nothing else, folks, I suppose I'll get out of here. I've a job to get to, I'll poke around when I can. Adios?"

Sage nods faintly to the other woman. "Alright, I'll wait for the pictures before making an attempt then." She replies before nodding to the other woman's comment about the map. "Sure. I may meditate on it to be able to focus better." She replies before smiling softly. "Glad everyone came back unharmed. Take care until I see you again?" She offers them in general.

The group disperses.