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The Power Leeches

The Quarantine Finally Makes Sense
csven

So the pieces finally fall into place.

Some of you might remember Howard, the restaurant owner from Philadelphia whose picture I snapped during the military dog 'n pony show during our all too memorable trans-Atlantic cruise. He and I, along with a few other passengers - including one person who lost a family member to cancer while we sat anchored in quarantine - have been trying to make sense of what happened to all of us. It's taken a few weeks, but Howard just relayed something which seems to complete the puzzle; sent to him by his brother who lives in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Here's what his brother sent, courtesy of the local Mechanicsburg press:

"Local officials, investigating last week's car accident involving State Senator Robert Norris and an underage female illegal alien, have connected Norris to an international crime ring moving into the Mechanicsburg area from south of the border. We've since learned the group, responsible for a string of energy thefts, also has ties to employees of the Naval Sea Logistics Center.

...

Civil service officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have confirmed the Navy's Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS, along with the FBI and CIA, is questioning two employees; one of whom is reportedly a systems administrator with NAVSEACEN/NAVSEALOGCEN, the group responsible for both Department of Defense and U.S. government computer network program management.

...

Rumors the Navy's Norfolk Tidal Energy Generation Facility has been compromised are circulating, and engineers at NAVSEACEN are privately saying they were suspicious when power generation records didn't align with the machinery's wear and tear.

Government auditors recently launched an investigation into the curious mismatch between low power generation records and high maintenance costs for the troubled facility. Chief investigator William Wasilak said at the time, "We're looking closely into program mismanagement and whether contractors used substandard materials or perhaps falsified documentation. The taxpayers deserve better and we'll be looking to hold people accountable."

...

Consulting maritime engineer, Martin Fry, told reporters that his firm, Nautilus Nautical Power Generation Systems LLC, had been targeted by government and military officials in the wake of the ongoing audit.

"My people have been running simulations and numbers out the wazoo for months; looking for computational errors, design flaws, incorrect material specs, you name it. If we find out someone's been illegally leeching power from that facility, I'm going to want some apologies," Fry said.

"We've even hired competing firms to go over our work. Nothing is what we've found," complained Fry,"but as a result of all this, we're losing business. Including a chance to compete for the contract just awarded to those bastards over at Energys."

...

While it's still unclear how energy thieves circumvented safeguards put in place at the tidal energy facility, some officials are privately wondering if the recent unexplained quarantine and subsequent release of a U.S. Navy task group might have something to do with the situation.

None of them were willing to discuss the matter on the record, but when informed of the possible connection between the latest news from Mechanicsburg and their recent situation, military spouses stationed in Norfolk posted their thoughts online.

"When my husband said he was coming home early so they could patrol the ocean out by the NTE, the kids and I were ecstatic. Then to have him sit anchored off the coast bc someone said they were all infected with ReDS ..... well, alot a families were pretty unhappy about that," wrote the wife of one of the sailors caught up in the recent mistaken quarantine.

"I could see some kid goofing around and sending fake emails, y'know? But now I'm wondering if maybe there wasn't something more to it. Maybe someone got them put in quarantine for a reason," posted another.

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Bingo.

Some of you will recall the circumstances; how our ship waited off the coast of Germany for inspection teams, how the English port we stopped off at was fenced off for ReDS checks, how we got supplies and training from the Navy, and how afterward a child was born, and then that newborn became ill with a respiratory disease, but not ReDS, and things spiraled out of control. So things didn't add up from the beginning.

Furthermore, the ship's doctor had told the mother he messaged the cruise line's head office of the baby's illness; no one else. So if the cruise line didn't notify government officials - and there was no reason to notify them - then how did the government even know the baby was sick?

Most of us figured the doc's message was intercepted. It would have had a priority tag attached and probably alerted half the griefers out there for an opportunity to cause trouble. After all, when the fabbers got jacked we figured all of our gear had been infected, so we concluded the message was modified to suggest the mother was a carrier of a new strain of ReDS, and the baby had been infected in utero.

This message was then either passed on to the cruise line and the real one deleted, or this version was leaked to an over-reactionary official. Or maybe this message was sent to Senator Norris who took it from there.

However it happened, the result is that our contact with the Navy helicopter crew became an opportunity for power leeches. The ships could still operate, of course, but there would definitely be a serious disruption to their routine; just the sort of disruption an organized energy theft ring might exploit. Enough of a disruption to keep the task group away from the TE facility while the leeches did whatever business it was they needed to do ... like rigging the safeguards so they reported less energy than was being generated.

However it happened, I think we now know what was behind our quarantine. And I'll be following this story to see where and how exactly that energy was diverted, because right now I can't even guess.

Nov 06
quarantine,ReDS,generation exile,Outlaw Planet,Power Struggle


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  • Freelance Generalist
    Nov 08
    an interesting tale, any news on the leeches?
  • csven
    Nov 08
    I've not had time to search for news. Odd to me that the media has made this such a low-profile story. Big news in Mechanicsburg, but nothing in my neck of the woods ... and I'm not that far away.
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