Justev nervously watched the clock. Soon would be make or break time, and his heart raced.

"I agree with the count. A man on the inside would be a great asset, we just need to figure out how to talk to him without anybody else knowing."

In reply to Tolman Jackstadt (msg # 68):

"So, there's this fellow who is inside the dome we wish to -- for lack of a better term -- break into," Vonon adds in, "and he says he feels so much like a prisoner that he's planning to escape from the dome. In fact, he was planning to escape the dome, even before he learned about our little escapade, and now wonders if we wouldn't mind picking him up and giving him a lift out of there, since we'll be in the neighborhood."

Vonon looks around, then continues, "Now, I'm not usually one to look a gift bottle of oxy in the valve, but I have just one question...if we're gonna rendezvous with this oh-so-convenient inside operative, then, shouldn't he, maybe, tell us where the friggin dome is, first?!"

Sharik had given Tolman a helping hand.  Not being the strongest of individuals didn't seem to phase her or hinder her ability to port the limit number of items involved.

She simply listened to the Samantha's summary nodding to the salient details.  Shar smiled slightly as the Count then Vonon voiced their opinions.  Both were correct, and Samantha appeared to be the one with the information.  So, the dark-haired dilettante simply looked to here for any answers that might be forthcoming.  Of course, their contact might not have had the chance to give all of the information that they would have liked - if he was being monitored and not on a secure channel.  And this man, Justev,  might not have the same level of past experience in espionage that some in the room might have had.  Allowances had to be made,

Her curt nod and intent expression made her agreement with Vonon rather apparent.  The timing for any rendezvous couldn't be accurately estimated if a search was involved.  But, presumably, Sam had more information on the dome location, if she was entertaining that level of coordination; she held a hand up and placed it on the rather animated vargr's shoulder bicep in a calming gesture to give Samantha a chance to speak.

Considering that access to the underwater dome is via submersible, it's probable that those in the dome, except maybe Shenarra herself, don't know the actual location of the dome. Why would they? It's not like it has a street address--32006 Coral Reef 823 West.

In any case, the location can be determined from Justev's cell phone calls.

"Has this person said why he wanted to leave in such a hurry?

That he knew our employer would suggest that he is connected to this project we need to secure. After all this is what she is interested in. And that he has to leave so fast on the day before the project has to be turned over can't be a coincidence.

Any way, is there a chance he can bring the stuff we need to get with him?"

The Count adds, "Concerning my conversation with the guy that took the fall for the company, he was well compensated and didn't mention much that would help us practically, mostly what we already knew. However, Del Vinian did mention a few things that add to the puzzle;

1. The dome would be in fairly shallow waters.
2. The R&D project, Shenarra, involves grendels somehow, perhaps pertinent with their longevity. So, that implies that the dome would be near a large grendel population.
3. The other simple logistics thing, he mentioned a sort of military shore leave program, meaning...like clockwork, small groups of workers go out for a week, come back, party for day or so, and then back out. maybe something as simple as checking police records for consistent weekly fights in local bars near a marina?"

Looks over at Khea, "Did I miss anything?"

Thinks about it..."Well of course there's always barfights near marinas, but, if we look at consistency, that might boil it down to a specific marina, especially one with submersibles."

"I realize these all seem disjointed, but, if we factor all these independent pieces together, maybe that will point us to a small search area."

Smiling, "Or we just track the location of our inside man's communications."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:46, Sun 08 Mar 2015.

Sam looked around as various people commented.

"It was a call for help, not a long conversation,so location wasn't discussed. I think he assumed we knew where he was. Comms is going to be a problem with him, without alerting anyone else. I think we could probably try one more contact with him, but we'll need to communicate in a code which sounds like plain english, and which we haven't agreed mutually already, so thats gonna be hard. SO I think we need to keep it simple. I don't think we can ask one man to do a job that she thought would take half a dozen of us, even if he is already inside. I favour just asking him to help us get in, and then take it from there. He could certainly help guide us to the location. And, um ahem" Sam coughed a little sheepishly "I haven't traced the call, but we could probably try that now"

She paused.

"Before we get onto Grendals, I think we need to agree what we ask this guy to do and how to do it. Then we can move onto the Counts information."

"Concerning Sam's guy, 1st priority is we need to set up a trace-line, with the ability to find his location...between those of the group with those skills and our own equipment, I'd like to think that's doable...Mr. Tolman's local contacts and expertise might come in very handy. "

Glances around the cabin, "Well, about the message itself...difficult considering the circumstances....no serious previous contact, no established protocols, and trying to maintain a 'cover'."

Leans back, pulling out a flask to take a small sip, "Reminds me of a part I played, an agent dropped behind enemy lines without any prior coordination, but, I and the oppressed people had the same desired end result. He wants to get out and we want to get in, same concept."

Tapping the top of the flask rhythmically, somewhat in a offhanded manner..."Ahh, I remember, morse code...anyone involved in maritime operations knows morse code...If we alert him to that in code somehow, we send a message, in the background."

The Count gets motivated for a moment, "Alright, this must be a audio or video message... you're his girlfriend and his dog Morse is sick and dying, lots of tears, sobs and breasts...that's a distraction for the censors...music is playing in the background...."

"Or something like that."

Actually, the info that was passed to Samantha was that Justev wasn't actually supposed to have his comm unit at all. His primary problem was simply getting caught with it. He was attempting to talk in code in case he was overheard, and he could then claim innocence. Apparently he wasn't there by choice.

Calling him wasn't an option. Not that you don't have the number, but since you can't know what his status is at any given moment, he's not likely to be able to answer you. At the very least, his comm will be in silent mode.


Getting the location from which he called requires hacking the comm satellites and determining the reception vector.


Del Vinian merely suggested a rotation would be used to get the people out of the dome for a short period of time to avoid cabin fever setting in. It's not likely that any of them would be allowed out to a bar. Time at the base, without the ever-present water overhead, would be sufficient, with maybe a chance to go 'into town' to visit a convenience store. Escorted, of course.

Sharik scratched her head for a moment, causing a lock of hair to fall in front of her face for a moment.  She didn't know what to make of Darrel's plan.

However, Sam's remark about location made sense.  "I can probably help with getting that comm signal triangulated..." the diminutive dilettante offered to there Samantha, "just let me verify your p-comm ident information."  She was well aware that the networking on Beowulf was  not quite at the Imperial Standard™ which she could only hope would make it easier to infiltrated.  Shar had to trust that it wasn't so far off of spec that things swung back into the more difficult realm.  In any case, in theory, she should be able to get in and use the local global positioning data from multiple satellite relays to give them a pretty good idea of where the dome must be.  Cross-indexed with the topological maps that she had publicly available to her.  Well, Sharik could only hope that it would be enough.

And she hadn't really had the time to dwell on it.  If they were going to get going, then they needed to know where they were supposed to be headed.  So, Sharik set to work.

[OOC:  Trying the comms things... if no one else is going to try...

  22:36, Today: Sharik Kaagira rolled 10 using 2d6+3. Comms/Int Check: Comm System Hacking and Triangulation (+0 Comm, +2 Int, +1 Program).

*crosses fingers*  No difficulties taken into account...]

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

quote:

Mr. Tolman's local contacts and expertise might come in very handy.

Am I supposed to have contacts here? Because I don't think I have. And my expertise is more centered on shooty stuff rather than "techy" stuff.

---

Tolman ponders the situation, studying what the rest of the team proposes. "Now that I think of it, can we be sure that this man is truly on our side? He could be trying to lead us into a trap." He crosses his arms. "Perhaps it might be safer to not rely on him at all and go in by ourselves, maybe even give him erroneous information about our team's details."

He clacks his tongue a couple of times, and continues: "About that "shore-leave" system... Could that be an easy, stealthy way to get in? Perhaps pass ourselves off as one of the submersibles that carry the workers back inside the dome? Of course, for that we'd need to find the location, but I am confident that our specialists will be able to trace the call."

Walter listened to Sharik talk about triangulation to find to dome and helps her with it. "We should be able to do that. I have not used it to triangulate on a planet surface since school. I am more use to doing it with spacecraft and other objects in space." he said, looking over her calculations.

OOC:Not sure if there is an aid function but it might help increase her chances. If not Comms, use Computer as it is also at 1.

14:55, Today: Walter Zeller rolled 12 using 2d6+2. Comms/Int Check: Comm System (+1 Comm, +1 Int). 

Khea leans back onto the submarines hull crossing her arms and says in a resigning voice while letting her tail hang motionlessly.
"What good is a code everyone knows about. If JustevWredrav can figure out that there is a coded message inside the transmission so can others.

Not waiting for a reply she continues.

"So in the case we find out the location, what are we going to do with it? We hardly have time to find out if there are any workers scheduled to come back even if we knew where to start looking for that information.

She sighs and speaks towards CountDarrel "You don't happen to know an ehm.. assassin? we could ask how to proceed?

OOC:Couple of quick notes, hhhmmmm.... I believe Mr. Tolman (when he was an NPC) was "connected", meaning he had contacts either in the local security folks and/or in the people dealing with them.?.

My personal belief is that given time, we could figure all this out, the one final determining factor, we don't have time. So, we need to act on our best judgement given the information we currently have.



Khea's question to Darrell is like a ice cold shower, "We're not killing anyone.!. That's a non-starter for me, I'll have nothing to do with something like that."

At that point, the Count stands up and moves away, trying to figure out how we have gone from "innocent" industrial espionage to murder.

Sits in a isolated corner for a moment pondering, "I must have misunderstood something, or be confused, damn it, Khea is Aslan but not bloodthirsty."

After a moment, Darrell returns to the group, "Please explain the reasoning behind the need for an assassin?"

In reply to Tolman Jackstadt (msg # 78):

Vonon pointed at Tolman, but spoke to Walter.

"Y'know, Sir Walter, this 'moke may have a point about the inside guy being a set-up."

Vonon turned and spoke to the group, "When we went to the other marina to speak with the Security Guy who got canned, he didn't react the way we expected. He seemed content, almost happy with the way things had worked out. We were expecting a disgruntled man who was resentful of being made a scapegoat, but instead, that guy had nothing but good things to say about his former employer. In fact, he even implied that we were wrong to even hold any suspicions about his former employer."

"When we left, we, uh, kinda left a little bug behind, and what we heard those guys saying after we left pretty much convinced us that it was a set-up. They weren't there expecting us, specifically, but they had been ready for someone to come around asking questions, and they did then report our snooping around to someone off site."

"Shar'r, you still have a recording of what the commdot picked up, right? Well...um...Sam, right? Uh, Sam, at what time did you first make contact with this guy in the dome? We should compare it to when the guys at the other marina reported on us. If dome-guy called after we were reported, then he just might be a set up."

Vonon tried to give the canoid equivalent of looking sheepish.

"Not that I wanna throw another bone into the dog pile, and slow us down even more..."



OOC: I'm not really asking for a specific timeline, Star*Master, I only care if the guy in the dome made contact with Sam before or after Vonon & Co. left the other marina. And, if he did call after, was it long enough after there may have been time to set something up with dome-guy?

Popping his head up from the data that he was reviewing, Walter dropped his pen and looked towards Vonon with a quizzical look. "That is too much of a coincidence." he said. "A timeline would be a good idea. The meeting that we had with the former employee was nowhere near what we had expected. Maybe he was content but most humans, and other races for that matter, have a serious issue when they get fired for something they did not do or had no control over, to the point they get down right vengeful. The guy took it as if was nothing. If they had payed me lots of money to hush me up, the last thing i would be doing is working as a Rent-a-Cop. I even tried calling his bluff in front of the goons that showed up shortly after we did and that did not even phase him." his eyes going back to the task at hand but his ears listening to the conversation.

Sharik looked up from the display on her dataglove that both she and Walter were working with.  "Hmmm?" she noted idly, before tearing her eyes away from the screen.  It took her a moment to refocus, "Oh, yes, of course.  Give me a moment..."  And she kept her personal Intellect program continuing to spin on the decrypting the comm link information.

After a minute or so, Shar had pulled up the audio capture and pushed to everyone else comms - at least, to the individuals of the group that had given her their drop addresses.  It displayed exactly as her vargr friend had outlined.  Oolak acted and sounded more like a man still on the payroll than a disgruntled employee.  And the four men that had been 'meandering' about the marina were obviously there to keep tabs on him and whoever visited him.

Once the feed capture had been forwarded, the diminutive dilettante returned to the task of triangulating the comm signal with her fellow nobleman.

Sam checked her comm

"Hmm, he seemed genuine to me, but I think your right we should be cautious. From Memory I think it was about 20:00 I got the call" She checks her comm to confirm

ooc
GM can you correct time if I've got it wrong

And guys,  unless the GM is really sneaky, don't think he's a plant. But we should confirm that ic

Slightly irritated by CountDarrels outburst Khea continues "An assassin would certainly know how to get into the dome undetected.

But that was just a random thought in the case that you knew one on this planet which would be a huge coincidence.
An assassin for hire likely won't part with his knowledge, especially to strangers, and also likely needs more time to make a plan than we have.

Still, we could call and ask one if all else fails."

Khea's answer greatly relieves Darrell's fears and he realizes the misunderstanding, "Khea, I'm sorry that I over-reacted, in my culture, when the word assassin is used, it's generally used in connection with murder, not espionage."

Grins, "However, I do understand your point, a spy or professional thief might be useful in our task, however, I'm fairly sure that there are those amongst the group that have the appropriate abilities."

"A thief would work too but I am sure that assassin is the appropriate word. They are after all more easy to find.
Does no one of us here have a household assassin on this planet?"

Well, thinking Darrell's easy idiot guide to Aslan relations is perhaps not up to the task...
"Ahh, hhmm, ahhhmmm, well, I think that your definition of assassin per se, especially something like a "household" assassin isn't quite how things exist in our terms."


With a deadpan expression and voice, "I'd love to have one, but, you know, it's not really practical and probably against our laws. And, the less laws we break, I think the better. Don't you agree?"

On many worlds, there are still 'cell towers' that relay comm signals around the planet. On this one, it's all done by orbital satellites, so no triangulation needs to be done. The received signal's source comes with a vector, so Sharik has no problem hacking the satellite and finding out that information.


According to Justev, there are only 9 people working in the dome. It'd be impractical to pretend to be any of those, and even more so to pretend to be 'others'. There isn't likely to be a shore leave run before morning.


Tolman's local connections occurred post-career (i.e. after character generation). He's been doing freelance work on the planet... more or less biding his time, and he's got a good rep with security personnel on the planet, particularly the mercenaries.


As near as Samantha can tell, she got the first call from Justev just about the time the others were talking to the guard at the marina. Only everybody's conspiracy paranoia could possibly have made a connection between Walter and Samantha at that juncture... or else a really bad coincidence at the club. Ceruleanne just didn't seem that... careless.

Sam checked the timings and looked at the others

"My hunch is we trust Justev. I think he can help get us in and hopefully guide us to the package. We just need to let him know we're coming and that he needs to let us in.

Are we agreed on that?"