[Naked Crook]

Tye, Nighthawk, and Anaconda walked past Robertson, and walked through the door he was guarding, into the main engineering room. As they walked in, the door closed behind them, and they looked at the Stealth generator in the center of the room. Tyber: Holy crap...is that...? Jennifer interjected. Jennifer: An ONI Stealth generator. Right now, it has been shut down...but when it was active, it was the entire reason that we did not detect this base on the planet. The Trust had been using a ship-board Stealth generator to hide an entire facility from prying eyes. Nighthawk stepped forward, and whistled. Nighthawk: I will give credit where credit is due...that is pretty ingenius. Nighthawk looked around the room, amd took notice of several power conduits that were running into the Stealth generator. Nighthawk: Take a look at that. Nighthawk pointed at one of the power conduits. Tye, Jennifer, Cameron, and Anaconda looked at the power conduit. Nighthawk: This Stealth Generator is being directly powered by its own independent power source. Anaconda: Independent power source? Nighthawk: A secondary power source that is parallel to the main power conduits that run through the building. Tyber: How do you know? Nighthawk: Well, you can tell by how the surrounding walls have been cut through. See for yourselves. Everyone looked around, and noticed how the walls looked as if they had been forcefully cut through. These walls were not designed like this, they had been clearly modified. Cameron: Nighthawk is right, these walls have been modified after the fact. It looks as if these power conduits were added in after this facility had been built. Anaconda: Why would that be? Why not just build the facility around the power conduits? Nighthawk: That is a very good question. Nighthawk took a few steps to the side, and began to approach a large terminal that displayed the current status of the Stealth Generator. Nighthawk: Perhaps we can find out. Nighthawk activated the terminal, and he invoked several commands. Nighthawk: There is clearly a reason The Trust decided to power this Stealth Generator the way they chose to. There may also be no real important reason. With the Trust...it is hard to say for sure. Nighthawk managed to call up a power distribution grid for the facility. Nighthawk noticed something rather odd. Nighthawk: I think...this may have something to do with it. This Stealth Generator is not being powered by the reactor located outside the facility. It is being powered by a separate power grid that seems to be siphoning energy off the planetary geothermal grid. Tyber: What would be the advantage of this? Nighthawk: An indefinate power supply, for one. Jennifer: Why would The Trust need a Stealth generator running off of an indefinite power supply? Nighthawk: I could speculate... Anaconda stepped forward. Anaconda: Perhaps it is because of The Covenant? Everyone looked at Anaconda. Cameron: Care to explain? Anaconda: In the past, whe The Covenant have attacked Human worlds...it was a common tactic to engage and destroy planetary power sources, in an effort to cripple ground based defenses and put the local populace into disarray. The Trust may have tried to counter this tactic by using this world as a giant battery; utilizing the energy that is generated by geothermal to ensure that this facility was persistently hidden. Nighthawk snapped his fingers. Nighthawk: Persistently hidden...from the UNSC. I think Anaconda is right about this. That seems to be the only logical explanation. Jennifer: Well, the Stealth generator is no longer active. It was shut down a while ago, during the attack. Jennifer paused. Jennifer: The question is now...what do we do with this thing? Nighthawk: Well, that is simple; take it into your possesion. Get an engineering team down from The King Raven to disconnect this thing from its enclosure, and return it to The King Raven and store it away. Keep it under guard. Tyber: Would it not be more prudent to destroy this thing? Nighthawk: No...it would not be more prudent. These Stealth Generators are valuable peuces of equipment. Jennifer: Nighthawk is right...we should keep this thing. It could come in useful one of these days. Besides...I am sure Admiral Vernette would want us to salvage it. Cameron: Well, how do we get it out of this room? THat thing is way too big to carry out the front door. Nighthawk: Well, that is easy... Nighthawk turned back to the console that he was standing next to, and issued another command. EVeryone looked up when the saw a large maintenance hatch in the roof open up. Nighthawk: For the record...I seriously down that this facility was built with that maintenance hatch. That was defiantly added in after-the-fact as well. But yes...all you need is a Pelican with a cargo lift...and you are good to go. Cameron: Hmm...go figure. Jennifer laughed a bit. Jennifer: Alright...I will get an engineering team down here to disconnect this thing, and bring it back to The King Raven. Tyber: Ma'am...if you do that...I suggest we keep this from Harrison, and the rest of the fleet. AFter what happened with jacob...I am starting to doubt his CO as well. Nighthawk: Tye has a point. It would not be unreasonable to assume that more officers, other than Jacob, were compromised on The Vigorous Inferno. It is possible that Harrison may also be on The Trust's payroll. Both jacob and Harrison have similar backrounds concerning The Trust...and if Jacob could turn coat, Harrison would be more than capable of doing so. Cameron: Are you suggesting that Harrison is part of The Trust? Nighthawk: No...but I am playing it safe with the idea. There is no need to tell him exactly what we found here. Jennifer: You two may be right about that as well. AT the very least< Harrison is not ONI so he needs not know about classified ONI hardware that was found. Jennifer hung her head. Jennifer: I can't believe that Jacob turned on us. What a prick. God only knows how much he knew about our ongoing strategies and plans. Tyber: You can bet he is going to reveal everything he knows to The Trust. He is going to seriously compromise our efforts. Tye paused. Tyber: I never thought that Jacob would turn against us. Nighthawk: I dunno...he always had the potential to do it. He never liked me too much, and my very existence is defined by fighting The Trust. Perhaps I had a gut feeling about his trechery...but I ignored it. I guess we all learned something.