"Right, got my hands busy at the moment with the device but if you can manage to reach into my side pouch, you should find a bunch of mesh tape."  If Duct tape can do so much, imagine what the STAR WARS version of duct tape can do!

  He will be done setting it up in that totally exact method of time measurement that is 'after you two post'.

"That's a big help, thanks!  Also, yay minor telekinesis!"

Matt's pouch opens and a roll of tape floats out.  If this were Tatooine, even a whole roll of tape wouldn't do much thanks to the caked-on dust.  But this isn't Tatooine so the mesh tape does the trick for keeping the panel from sagging!  Once everyone's ready, she heads for the manhole.

---

OOC: Wound up spending a lot of time thinking about how to improve duct tape.  Already has a lot of amazing features.  Perfect balance of strong yet relatively easy to cut off a piece.  Extremely strong glue, but won't superglue your fingers together.  So how do you make it stringer and stickier without the drawbacks?  Maybe if there were micro capsules of a fixant embedded in the glue that burst and mix when the tape is applied, making the tape harden and adhere to 2-part epoxy levels of strength and bond.

The moment the device is secured, Ikia hurries with the others to the manhole cover and waves them to go before her. She won't argue if anyone else starts insisting on being last, though, considering the manhole cover still needs to be placed back and she is trying to keep her force power usage to a minimum out of habit.

Once back in the sewers, she looks at the other two. "Now to put a safe distance between us and the float." and heads off.

  Matt totally lets the short lady go first, we'll let you guess when it comes to the tall one.

  "Getting out of here fast would be preferable."

OOC: Mesh Tape is "reusable" according to item descriptions, so it's got that much going for it.

Mits hurried to go first, expecting to be be more likely to encounter hostiles below than above.  And she wanted to do the fireman slide down the ladder.

"Wheee!"

Thump.  She waits for the others to catch up before taking the lead again.  The group meets no resistance, but when they exit the utility door, they find a man waiting for them with a briefcase in hand.

"Got word you succeeded.  This here's your payment."

Mits sweatdrops.  "Awfully convenient.  Don't tell me that's actually a bomb."

The guy loos at the briefcase nervously.  "It better not be!"

Ikia says, "It is fine. If it is a bomb, we will survive and everyone will know Big Shoes is a double-crosser. I doubt he would do such a thing. We'll take it from here. Thank you for the delivery."

She waits for the messenger to leave before she waves a hand to cause the briefcase to levitate to a safe distance and then she opens it from said distance using the same telekinetic power.

  "I'd ask why the drop off, but I can understand not wanting to be seen anywhere near us for a while."  Though yes, 'your payment is DOOM' had crossed his mind.

The messenger sweatdrops at Ikea's answer but nods to her and the other two and heads off, leaving the briefcase behind.  When Ikea opens it, no boom.

"Yay!" Mits cheers.

She runs toward it, hand outstretched, and it slides toward her.  Soon she returns with the promised reward and divvies it up.  Suddenly, a megaphone voice can be heard coming from the direction of the parade.

"FOOLS!  You soon will learn what happens to admitted saboteurs!  Troops!  Execute them!"

Screams ensue.  Mits looks annoyed.

"Looks like it didn't take them long to find patsies for our parade stop."

Ikia says, "Being aliens, Mittens and I will stick out. Depending on the number of armed enemies, it would be suicide to go rescue people."

She looks up at Matt. "Would you be willing to scout ahead for us and see what we are up against? Mittens and I could shadow you."

Since technically, all they have seen is the underside of a float and a general estimate of how many were around that particular float, there really is no way to know how many enemies there are. "Alternatively, all three of us could scout from the rooftops, but then we won't be in a position to strike the enemy quickly if we see the chance to."

  "I can take a look, but you don't need space voodoo to know the answer will be 'an entire parade of soldiers'"

  He will take a look though, street executions loudly announced will naturally attract even more onlookers who thought 'parades are boring and for nerds', after all.

When Matt peeks, he sees a crowd of civilians running from the few dozen soldiers who had the lead float surrounded...  but they aren't even pointing their weapons.

The angry megaphone man on the float barks orders, "What's the matter with you?!  OPEN FIRE!"

The soldiers squirm and glance at each other.  Some of them start shooting at the sky.  Others shoot the ground.  The crowd flees all the more vigorously.

"Imbeciles!  They're getting away!  I'll have the lot of your court-martialed!"

Some of the soldiers start to act like their weapons are jamming.  Mits wiggled her ears at the shouting.

"Dissension in the ranks?"

She craned to peek around the corner as well.

"..."

She slaps her hands over her mouth to try and keep from laughing.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:12, Tue 20 Oct 2015.

Ikia sweatdrops. "What in the world could possibly cause them to ignore orders?" she says to nobody in particular. She begins sneaking her way to the megaphone man.

  "Well, aside from the shocking possibility not all faceless soldiers are mindless?  They may have soldiers hired on from locally.   I mean, it's Coruscant.  It's probably harder to gun down your neighbors in the capitol planet of the Empire, than it is when you are shipped off to tatooine and you got sand in you armor and wish you were back home."

  He gives Mittens a -.- look "Please do not laugh at the lack of public executions." ...okay it's kinda funny, but the alternative is kind of a downer.

"I'm laughing at how stupid the meanie-pants is looking," Mits clarifies, "But yeah.  Probably because these guys aren't cold-blooded killers.  But they're still soldiers.  So let's stay away from them, please."

Ikia takes a look at the officer. Then to Mittens. Then returns to Mittens. "If this man is not stopped here, many innocent will die at his hands. But I suppose until we witness this, we can not punish him for a crime he has not committed."

....even if, in her mind, ORDERING the murder of innocents makes you guilty of attempted murder.

  "If they had gotten what they wanted just now, we still wouldn't be doing anything."  Sure, the job they took wasn't exactly laying low.  But getting into open combat with the Empire forces was a comparative air horn to the kazoo of sabotage.

"Matt has a point," Mits agrees, "Even if he were already guilty, we're way too out-numbered to risk taking him out."

The frustrated imperial commander raises his megaphone over his head, about to throw it to the ground.  But he reconsiders and uses it to shout, "Cease fire!  There's too great a risk of injuring bystanders!  Pursue the culprits and apprehend them hand-to-hand!"

The soldiers look relieved, sling their rifles over their shoulders, and give chase leaving the float unguarded.

Ikia nods. "We confirmed the numbers. Our purpose for being at this location is done. Now we need to make our escape. Since they have decided to choose scapegoats to chase, we simply need go the opposite direction."

Which is the direction she chooses to begin going toward.

  Matt follows along.  Walk casual and all that... Well, at least as hurried as the civilians freaked out about the recent blaster fire.

The group gets away safely.  Writer's block sets in for the narration department.  The group finds themselves in a generic part of the city.

"So...  Next stop: Join the Alliance?" Mits asks.

Ikia nods, "Still need to find them. Part of the point of coming here was to hopefully gain some of the alliance's attention to seek us out for recruitment."

  "There is that, I guess."  On that note, he glances around for anyone else who seemed as (well okay, ALMOST as) amused at the Stormtroopers not firing into a crowd as Mittens was.

Mits nods.

"The catch is that we also have to keep a low profile to keep from getting hunted down by the authorities, but yeah.  Joining the Rebels is on the agenda."

Matt doesn't spot any amused people, but he does catch sight of a group of four human men dressed in similar civilian funeral clothes standing next to a fake coffin covered in anti-empire messages such as, "The death of democracy," "Our founders are turning in their graves," and so forth.  They're listening intently to a holo-news feed about the parade incident with grim faces.

Perc check, DC: If you feel like succeeding:  One of them mutters, "We owe it to whoever it was that disabled that float for exposing the Moff's true colors."

Ikia doesn't quite hear what is being said, but she knows "obvious rebels" when she sees 'em. "...let's try those guys." and heads over to the suits. "Pardon me, sirs. But do you know where I might find a quieter place to talk with you about this incident?"

  Matt has much more relevant questions to the importance situation at hand  "Does a spooky Empire Official pop out of the coffin?"

  Toootally need to know info.