Samuel continues to work as fast as he can on sabotaging the backup generator. Even if Samuel finishes early, it won't be till the primary generator goes off line and the workload is shunted to the backup generator that the sabotage will manifest and damage the generator enough to take it off line for a while.

There are a few times when Samuel needs an extra set of hands and then asks Crucible to help, but the technician from outer space isn't having much difficulty with the equipment since the basic principles that the generator operates on aren't unknown to him.

Valin continues to scavenge for parts on both Samuel's list and Channelwood's list with Mitten's assistance. At the same time, Valin is paying a lot of attention to his surroundings to not miss the warning signs of any robots approaching into the scrapyard. To this end, Valin is also keeping his eyes open for places for both himself and Mittens to hide in case they must stay out of sight while a patrol walks through the area.
This message was last updated by the player at 22:28, Fri 23 Feb 2007.

For the moment, the only people Michael and observe are Valin and Mittens. Michael also keeps a look out at the two buildings which house the generators to see if there is any signs that those inside have set off an alarm, namely the rapid build up of robot forces outside those buildings.

Michael mutters softly, "So far so good, let's hope their luck holds."

Katy sets the grenade and begins heading off towards the rendezvous point. She can't help but be nervous throughout, worrying if something will go wrong. She's not used to have six freedom fighters on ANY mission, much less a simple one. The higher the number of freedom fighters, the higher the chance of being caught. But she and Joe manage to make it to the scrapyard undetected.

Blipvert is just about to arrive at the scrapyard when an explosion goes off at the primary generator. For a moment, the lights in the city go out, but they come back on within a second, thanks to the backup generator. The freedom fighters of Channelwood had tried destroying the main generator once before, but learned it was pointless since there was not only a backup, but the main generator was quickly fixed. However, Blipvert can't help but think an explosion of this magnitude must have been thanks to the newer enemy. He quickly heads for the main generator, not realising the backup generator is also about to meet it's end.

Samuel finishes his sabotage of the backup generator with around a minute to spare. This gives both himself and Crucible plenty of time to get out of the building in the same way they got into it. Ounce out of the building Samuel heads back to the rendezvous point while using his sensors to avoid running into any robots. Samuel makes a mental note to come back to Middletown at a later date to acquire a SWATBot's head so that the radio communications that he's been picking up during this mission that he didn't pick up prior to it can be figured out.

When the primary generator goes out Samuel knows that the backup generator will only last around three to five seconds before the working to provide that much power results in it frying itself due to his sabotage of the generator.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:41, Sun 25 Feb 2007.

By the time the generator failures have started, Valin has been able to get all the items on both Channelwood's and Samuel's lists. Although Valin will freely admit that this is only due to Mitten's assistance in the matter.

After having all the items on the lists, Valin starts leading Mittens towards the rendezvous point while still being vigilant about avoiding patrolling robots.

Using the binoculars, as Michael looks around, he is able to see that all three groups seem to have finished their jobs and are heading towards the rendezvous point. Michael grins as the power goes out briefly from the primary generator being destroyed and knows that the backup generator should be going out any second now.

  Another day, another deliberate disaster, another fun time with the grapple hook gun.  He expected the need for his more easily controlled grappling type object would be turning up soon enough though.  But on the bright side, even if he let someone borrow the grapple gun he's always have a spare on arm...What? On hand isn't exactly accurate now is it?

  He couldn't help but smile a bit as another example of 'explosions solve almost everything' occurred.

  It was only almost because of things such as jamming an explosives device in a potato that had already been stuffed with the appropriate ingredients NOT being a quick and easy way to make potato skins.

Katy comes in contact with the others and just as Blipvert is about to arrive at the same spot, ALL the energy goes. Katy smiles. This is why she chose morning to do this mission. Sunlight is normally an enemy for missions, considering it could mean you are spotted. But this time, since all of Middletown's electricity was getting shut off, Katy figured it'd make sense to have one giant lightbulb so she and her friends could see their way back home. If you get lost in the dark, then using the dark to hide becomes pointless since you might bump into the SWATbots that you are trying to avoid.

Seeing everyone at the meeting place and seeing that Valin and Mittens have gathered what was required of them, she points and starts leading the way out. The mission won't be completely successful until they are out of Middletown, but Katy's feeling pretty happy already. Even if they get caught, there's enough of them (and CERTAINLY enough brawn among them) that it barely matters if they run into a few SWATbots. Chances are, the com system's down too. But from her pointing and running, it's clear she still wants them staying quiet. May as well face the least resistance possible.

Benji whispers, "Well, Mike? We supposed to head back now before Sam notices we are missing from Channelwood? I don't think anything fishy's gunna happen at this point. If anyone was going to do any backstabbing, it'd have been done by now."

Michael looks over to Benji and whispers back, "Your right Benji, we don't know the range of his gadgets and we wouldn't want them picking us up on our way back to Channelwood. Let's get going." as Michael starts heading back to Channelwood via the tree branches.

Emerald hears someone whistle. She goes to the lookout and they point out Michael and Benji are on their way. Emerald goes down to the ground level in the elevator to greet them. "Did everything go OK?" she asks in an anxious tone.

Once Michael and Benji had gotten close enough to Channelwood, he leaves the trees to walk on the ground. At this point if Samuel or someone from Aquarius did notice him, it would be easy to say he is doing an patrol around Channelwood or other similar errands that need to be done around Channelwood.

Upon seeing Emerald, Michael waves. After hearing Emerald's question, Michael nods and answers Emerald's question, "Yes, everything went well, and currently Middletown is in the dark. They should be on their way back by now."

  Though a little relieved to see everyone headed home with all their limbs intact, by now the worry about anything going wrong has been replaced by the disappointment of not finding a replacement shield.  ;.;  Instead of sporting a shiny new shield, her arms are full of the smaller more delicate parts on the list leaving the heavier stuff for Valin.  :/  Mission accomplished, but kinda dull.  9.9  Mittens ponders returning to Middletown tonight during the blackout to behead a swatbot under the moonlight for a nice new replacement shield.  ^.^

  "Not that either FF group will let me," she thinks to herself, "Oh well.  On the bright side their demands are pretty simple.  'Follow orders.'  Easy enough so far.  I wonder if they have trashcan lids I could use in the mean time..."  :P

Amazingly, Katy and the rest arrive at Channelwood without any apparent incident. Equipment, mission objective and no injuries all accomplished. Katy takes her team and Samuel's up to the 1st level of Channelwood and soon, the scavanged parts are put where they belong. "Well... amazing. Mission accomplished. Without any problems that I can see." She faces Samuel, Crucible and Mittens. "Looks to me like future teamwork efforts could be quite benefitial. At this rate, not only can missions succeed more often, but perhaps even quicker. And this was just with us going about things like NORMAL... imagine, two different freedom fighter teams, lead by two different leaders. But the difference is they are coordinated enough to not only prevent screwing eachother up... but aid somehow in eachother's objectives." Katy is smiling. Her eyes are saucers. This does NOT happen often, as anyone from Channelwood can attest to.

(OOC: Sorry it took so long to post. Busy IRL)

Samuel is focusing on inspecting the items from his scavenging list as he puts them into the waterproof bags that the components will have to be in to make the trip to Aquarius. When Katy speaks up, Samuel glances towards her, but he still seems to be paying as much attention to the items on his scavenging list as he is to Katy.

After Katy finishes speaking, Samuel says, "Other than less intergroup communication than what I'm used to, this isn't very different from when Stelaras assigns multiple work crews to deal with a large project. Especially, once you ignore all the factors based on the situational environment that will always be different between to projects." Although it is clear that Samuel is not playing down the danger involved in the mission, it does leave one to wonder just how dangerous is the typical Stelaras missions can be.

If someone asked Samuel, he'd be honest in saying that he is used to working in hostile environments. However type of hostility tends to either be due to the environment itself or from hostile native lifeforms that might try to make a meal out of someone and not an army of robots being controlled by a psychotic tyrant. Samuel would also mention that due to encounters with space pirates he isn't unfamiliar with having to deal with enemies that rely on technology as much, or perhaps even more than he does.

Having only finished sorting out the scavenged items moments before Samuel started to shift them them for the items on Samuel's list. Valin thinks that either Samuel  isn't used to a 'job well done speech' after a mission goes off better than expected, or more likely that to Samuel the mission isn't over yet. 'Why do I feel that until he gets those items back to Aquarius he's going to keep on acting as if he was still in the middle of a mission.'

Valin grins a bit upon hearing what Katy says as the gorilla knows that it isn't often that Katy is that pleased with a mission. Valin also figures it will take a while to truly figure out Samuel, as Samuel continually refers to things that Valin knows nothing about.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 21:58, Mon 05 Mar 2007.

Michael listens in on the after mission 'speech' and is glad to know that nothing went wrong on the parts of the mission he and Benji were not able to observe from the distance. Upon hearing what Samuel says, Michael suspects that Samuel is probably using his work to keep his mind off other things, as Michael remembers how many people in Channelwood acted in a similar fashion for quite a while after Robotnik took over.

Michael decides to wait till the group disperses to inform Katy of what he observed since the secretive nature behind the observation would be wasted if what he had to say was overheard by the others.

Katy turns to Samuel. "Really? Wow... so we just pulled off what trained professionals not normally hindered by barely scraping for technology do?" she turns to the others. "You heard the man. Great job everyone. We are now reaching levels Robotnik feared. But this also means we need to be especially careful because Robotnik will figure this out and likely increase his countermeasures." She then looks back at Samuel. "I'm sure you want to return home asap, so whenever you are ready, feel free to head off. I'll meet with your princess another day. Today, Channelwood has a few other things to do."

  Mittens snaps to attention when Katy addresses the group.  "Glad to be of help," she says with a bow upon hearing the commendation and invitation to leave, "An honor working with you and your team.  Looking forward to doing so again."  ^.^

  Mits then turns to face Valin with a smile and bows.  :3

Samuel doesn't comment on how he didn't exactly mean for his words to be interpreted in the way Katy has, but he figures that it isn't worth his time to try and correct her.

When Katy speaks of returning 'home' Samuel responds, "I've been working towards getting back to Tanelorn with my fellow crew mates, ever since I was stranded on this planet. But for now I guess I should settle for heading back to Aquarius and making use of the supplies."

Samuel doesn't say much else other than to glance over to the others heading back to Aquarius to make sure they are all ready before Samuel adds, "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other in the near future," as Samuel starts heading back towards Aquarius but will wait at the edge of Channelwood for the others if they aren't quite ready to leave, mostly since Samuel doesn't want to deal with Shelly asking where the others are if he shows up back at Aquarius without them.

  Joe raised a finger and opened his mouth to make a comment, when Katy beats him to it.  He then shrugged and moved on with his life. Though it was amusing to know the whole 'we've been doing that with pointy sticks and rocks for years already' thing was obvious to everybody except Sam.

  Joe blinked, then realized Sam hadn't bothered to correct every tiny detail of their comments that didn't go along with his outlook for once.  Another piece of evidence the guy was just prone to sarcasm and pointing out interesting details like Joe was prone to as opposed to the guy being a jerk.

  Well, unless Joe was a jerk.  That would kind of throw things off.

Crucible turns to face the Channelwood Freedom Fighters and gives them all a nod. "It was a pleasure working with you all. Here's hoping we can go on future missions together."

Pierson looks sad to leave, but heads off with the others towards Aquarius. While the others were off on a mission, he was stuck here in town to socialize and... well he got slightly attatched. He'll want to visit for visiting sake, but he knows all too well the chances are that social visits will be rare while mission visits will be common.

Katy bids the others fairwell and then sees them off. Once she is sure Samuel and the others are plenty far from the village, she turns to the others. "This mission was a true success. Valin, get Emerald to start preparing some food. We deserve a party. Joe? Spread the word that we're all due for celebration tonight and that we're all staying up a bit later than normal. Michael... meet me in my hut and tell me what you found out." she heads for the elevator that leads to her hut's level.


(OOC: Once again, hope you all don't mind me skipping through time a little bit. And I appologise for taking so long to pose.)