Sometimes you need to sneak into somewhere and neither be recognised or even seen.
At other times, waltzing up bold as brass and flashing a press pass accompanied by an extremely high limit credit card is far easier.
So when I was on the trail of a small time parts manufacturer to do a piece on their latest small chassis power plant and my contact mentioned some local loonies that dress in nothing but nappies, sandals and towels on their heads and who also ordered in makeup by the metric ton, it only took a few dozen old earth single malts to convince my guide to show me where they were camped.
Of course the power plant was a cover story, a sideline to following up a scant lead on the elusive Chroniode. When the local loonies are putting in orders for spare mech parts and paying for it in what appears to be Old Earth ancient artifacts whose carbon signature doesn't show them as being that old, then somebody is either a very good forger or those artifacts are... out of time.
It could have been worse.Unfortunately no sign of Chroniodes, but it did appear to be a splinter cell that got away when Drocha hit us last.
OK, so if they want to build native structures that's up to them. And dedicating their war machines to some ancient God? Hey, whatever floats their boat.
The fact that they have access to niode mechs, even if they are only light chassis is a concern.
That they have access to spare parts and a field repair facility is an even bigger one, especially when it is geared for medium and heavies. Just because I didn't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.
I'll keep this site under wraps for a while. No sense in alarming anyone, either friendlies or them. Don't want to scare them off. After all, if I can manage to to get all their mechs in one place, there's a lot of decent scrap to be made in Nerios and the like.
Submitted by David McCallum #701548