<strong>PFC Nortan 'Gizmo' Law</strong><br/><br/>Just as he thought. The signal was really fucked up. Patching in wireless was a tall order, interference from wind, rain and the proximity of any secondaries in range. Wherever they were, they were either too far away or badly damaged. The good news was that they were still there, unlike the missing main dish, and he was able to patch his computer into the colony's short range communications system, used for inter-building communications as emergency backup when direct lines were cut or the power goes out. 'South West Short Range Array No. 16'. This dish was the best he could find from his list. All the others were too out there for any attempt.<br/><br/>His scope was limited. There was only so much he could do with that array. He tried whatever he could anyway. Zeroing into the signal, he typed in the command to expand a search. The busy screen appeared for a full minute, before he was taken to familiar screens where the real info was. It was impossible to scan for life signs. He needed to connect to a bigger, more sophisticated dish to do that, or the colony mainframe. It was possible to expand the service area of the communications network from that dish however, to see which other dishes it talked to. There were quite a few and Giz switched carefully between each one. One of them caught his attention. On the civilian bandwidth, his computer detected activity. It was very messy, even after boosting the signal. He could not tell exactly from where but it generally came from inside the main building. Plugging in a wire to connect his earpiece to his computer, he tried to listen in. All he got was very bad interference and whatever the other person or persons were saying were lost in the roar of static that assaulted his ears.<br/><br/>Satisfied with what he had found, he unplugged himself when he heard the LT's radio call. It was time to move up. He had done all he could do in that small space of time, fruitful to say the least. Packing up his equipment as quickly as he had set up, he set his computer for mobile usage. The external battery he packed inside his backpack, the wire that supplied power fed out a tube into the main unit, which was strapped onto his side for easy access. He no longer needed his two dishes so he put them back where they belong. Picking up his shotgun, he was ready to go.<br/><br/>"I got something, Sarge. Civilian bandwidth from inside the main building. Someones transmitting but I cant get exactly from where. Signal's too messed up out here." He reported his findings to Sarge nearby, "Cant get much else without the mainframe in front of me. I'll need to get to it for a full signal sweep, sir."<br/><br/>As they moved out, Giz hoped that whatever he heard weren't ghost signals. He had experience with them many times before. A person could hear one thing on the radio and when they get to the transmitter, it was gone. Normally that led to a trap or a firefight, more than a confused scratch on the head. A really good hacker could trick computers to thinking that one computer was talking to another, when actually the commands came from a third computer. He did not detect any kind of foul play from his signal scanners, but that did not rule out the possibility.<br/><br/>As soon as they got to the new rendezvous, he reported what he had to the LT, making sure that everyone present knew what he knew, hearing out the intel that the LT got from FATHER. He then looked upon his next task and sized it up. Civilian access. Standard colony double doors with a lock on an external pedestal. Nothing his computer could not fix. Dropping to a low crouch next to the pedestal, he kept himself in the shadow to quietly begin his work, knowing that his fellow marines were behind him and watching him. Whipping out his computer from his belt, he opened the electronics hatch and started pulling and plugging with the wires. Within seconds, he was into the system and his tool connecting to decipher the passcode. While the half of his screen was a bunch of whirling numbers, he attempted to patch into any security camera that would show any feed of what was inside. Better safe than sorry.