Malachi is at the Observatory, slowly moving around the tree, stringing new lines of green yarn, making a new set of connections as he's wearing his normal clothes, his eyes burning with the fire that he lives with now.
* Katherine makes her way up, after asking around where he might be found. She stays clear of his work, not wanting to ruin something by accident, but clears her throat politely to let him know she's there
* Malachi looks over his shoulder at her and waves her inside the dome of the tree. "The Mother Sees you, Katherine. To what do I owe the honor of this visit?" He clips the yarn and tires it off, turning to give her his full attention.
<Katherine> Hello Malachi
* Katherine steps into the dome at his invitation, careful of all the work he's done
<Katherine> I... was hoping to talk to you about something I saw tonight that gives me great concern
* Malachi sits, and gestures for her to do they same. "Please. I'd like to hear it."
* Katherine sits down facing him
<Katherine> the raid or whatever you want to call it that happened earlier tonight
<Katherine> When I learned about it I had questions about it. Apparently Ziggy had already asked most of them, and we both got the sit down and shut up treatment.
<Katherine> Every time people think to ask questions around here, they're shut down. The impression is that you kill everything first, then try to put things together from the smoldering ashes after
* Malachi listens to her, his thoughts hard to read with the flaming eyes. "I'm not sure I agree with your assement, but I have worked in truely blood thristy places before."
<Katherine> When Ziggy voiced concerns as simple as "what are we trying to do?" he was yelled at.
<Katherine> When I asked what kind of vehicle we were looking for, I was shut down and told to just follow orders.
<Katherine> I understand that this came from the Spoke. They could have sent more information than they did, so that we weren't going in completely blind.
<Katherine> and we had days to track them. WE could have gone out and gotten a little more information, but I found out about this minutes before we left.
<Malachi> Well, he did insult my packmate.  As for that, I myself didn't know what what the goal was until it was returned.  This has been a test given to us by our allies.  Drake is here watching what we do.  By tonight the Spoke will know the story.
<Katherine> we were treated like their errand boys.
* Malachi nods. "As we have treated them like bouncers."
<Katherine> it's this compartmentalization that's hurting this place. People get information and hoard it, then get upset when others ask questions to try and get information. Tonight was just the most recent
<Katherine> I get why you didn't tell us about what was going on with Victor
<Katherine> but I've noticed a pattern of not sharing information until minutes before we leave for something. If we'd been able to have that information sooner, different preperations could have been done and things could have gone a lot smoother.
<Katherine> so this pattern has bred a culture of "sit down, shut up and follow orders blindly"
<Malachi> Well, there are times when that is very important.  The garou do operate that way.  The lower ranks have to follow the line of those more Elder.
<Katherine> but to be run off when they have the audacity to ask a simple question?
<Katherine> Ziggy left.
<Katherine> he asked if non-lethal options had been considdered.
<Katherine> he was again shut down
<Malachi> That is his failing.  The Wrymfoe, speaking through his apprentice, gave an order, operating on the information he had.  Information that was shared with those there.
<Katherine> minutes before we left, giving us no time to prepare anything. I had to canibalize part of Deathtrap on the spot to make spike strips. If we'd been given even ten minutes I could have made some
* Malachi reaches beside him, opening his sack. "I'll show you why that would have been a bad idea." He takes out a plastic folder, one that was taken from the vans. "This is what they were planning on doing." He offers it to her. "The first thing I can tell you, is that you almost missed them as it was. They only had another mile to go to their so called testing grounds."
* Katherine takes the folder and looks at it
<Malachi> The first page of the folder is a pair of pictures.  One facial and one more of a long shot.  The man is someone Katherine recognizes.  Khalis Mihal.  Its marked with the designation of Primary target.  Inside a re full blueprints of the Spartian building near the bawn, sans the underground lab, but there are some notes about possible hidden facilities.  Looking over the file
<Malachi> reveal their plan to release the near frenzing metis to kill Khalis and wreck as much havock before returning for extraction.
<Katherine> so they planned to take out the competition
<Katherine> and our work labs.
<Malachi> A lot of people could have died.
<Malachi> But we only know that now, and we'llreach out to Khalis and Aella to make sure he is protected, as is the facility
<Katherine> I'll get Harley on alert if they know about our labs.
* Malachi nods. "I'm not sure they know, but suspect. There's no indication that they know about the caern here, so Its safe to assume that Spartian, the closest the nation has to a Wyld version of Pentex, must be doing something important out here to have moved this quickly."
<Katherine> so they're panicking and we can expect more to come at us
<Malachi> This was a probe.  There will be more, yes.
<Katherine> his name is Nathan.
* Malachi nods. "Crys has already started working with him. He had his life stolen from him, and I know some will advocate killing him outright. Especially the rather large faction of the Glass Walkers in Vegas."
<Katherine> he seems like a sweet boy. Got my maternal hormones raging. I just wanted to give him a big hug earlier.
* Malachi smiles. "I know the feeling. So many of you make me feel similar."
<Katherine> and it's a little frustrating these things that I came to talk to you about
<Katherine> that anyone who does things even a little differently feels forced to leave.
* Malachi nods. "I remember when I was younger and lower ranked. Its hard to find a place to fit in and make your mark."