Twenty-three chapters in and I only just now realize I never gave you guys a specific timeframe- sorry :p. This is pretty much after Vision of Hope but before Call to Action, though (sadly) the Inquisitor will not make an appearance. I love his character to death (as well as several other Inquisitors :3) but he doesn't fit this story as well as I would like him to.

Disclaimer: See, I have this feeling I would have each of my disclaimers just gushing about some new feature of Season 2- because I don't want to repeat and get boring, I actually had to ban myself from doing so again- even though I love EVERYTHING ABOUT SEASON TWO AND ALL IT CONTAINS -so that I can actually get my point across that I don't own Rebels or Disney or Star Wars or anything that would make me a happy Tooka :3.

Sabine planted her last bomb, and felt disappointment swallow her heart even as she sprinted away from it and towards the nearest lift, the little packs of explosive power glinting at her from every other junction. The bombs would detonate, do their damage and get the Ghost crew's attention, like they were supposed to... but the amount of explosives Ezra had left behind and that Sabine had found wasn't nearly enough to cause the tower to fall on any one of the three remaining operational production bays. The crew hadn't left too many ops uncompleted, and Sabine felt... a little ashamed that this mission would end uncompleted as well. But there wasn't anything else they could do- it was just her and Ezra, and their mission had switched from taking out the station to getting out with their lives.

That didn't mean it didn't leave a bitter taste in Sabine's mouth.

Sabine ran to the elevator, for once glad that the stormtroopers would be too preoccupied on finding Ezra to notice her. She'd dealt with a few bucket-heads up here, yes, but for the majority she'd been left alone for her task. It just meant she could finish and get back to her teammate faster. She'd had to, however, turn off the communicator built into the helmet, just so she wouldn't have to deal with Imperial officers screaming themselves hoarse as they tried to pin down the illusive Loth-rat. Sabine entered the elevator and jammed the button for the bottom floor, almost pressing a floor below-

A floor below the ground floor? Hera's plans didn't say anything about there being an underground section... Information the Ghost crew would have to put to use later on in another op, maybe, but for now...

Sabine growled, tightening her grip on the borrowed blaster and wishing to just commence an all out attack on the facility to make up for their earlier failure. Until they regrouped, however, that was just a far-fetched dream.

Focus- Ezra's relying on you to get him and get out. With the amount of time she'd been planting her explosives, Ezra was almost certainly in his hiding place. Sabine would need to move quickly now, not just because Ezra's spot wouldn't remain hidden for long with the entire facility looking for him, but also because Morden was bound to know she had been left behind with Ezra and therefore search other areas of the facility- and discovering her bombs as a result of that. There were enough to the point where it would take a decent amount of time for any number of soldiers to defuse and remove them, but Sabine wanted to keep them a secret from the base as long as possible.

The elevator stopped, and Sabine steeled herself for the inevitable sight of dozens of stormtroopers- and was immediately thankful she'd done so, because there were indeed dozens of them running around in the base of the tower. It looked to be a high-traffic crossroads area, and Sabine realized from that that the bucket-heads had resorted to running around on a wild goose-chase in their attempts to find him. She couldn't help but grin at the thought of the trained, efficient, 'deadly' warriors running around in the hopes of stumbling across a lone child.

Much like Ezra playing with the little girl in the markets, actually...

Sabine jogged forwards, eyes darting from soldier to soldier as they ran past in teams of threes and fours, no doubt being told by their commanding officers- maybe even Morden himself -to search a specific area. Honestly, Sabine couldn't see how the Empire managed to rule thousands of worlds when this was what they operated as on the inside.

Western bay was our target exit; Ezra's hiding in the western- eastern should still be swarming with buckets, we have to leave through one of the other three; Sabine briefly looked at the labelling above the separate halls, glad the Empire at least made it obvious where the separate bays were. She moved through the crowd of white armored soldiers, feeling very much like a sly loth-wolf in sheeps clothing, and followed the flow of men down the twists and turns. She knew where Ezra was- vaguely, anyways, so it was a simple matter of getting to the right location and pointing herself out so he'd be able to tell it was her.

Left-hand side storage bay, near the back. They'd figured there wouldn't be too many stormtroopers looking in the storage bays, but once again, as the bucket-heads' search got going, Morden would not doubt be able to weed the both of them out, so Sabine hurried. The number of Imperials dwindled the further down the halls she got, until she actually started to worry about how odd she'd look without a squad running behind her.

No matter- hurry, hurry, we just need to get together and get out. That was the plan. That was all they had to do- and as Sabine slipped into the open storage bay to only be met with the sight of eight or so bucket-heads, she smirked. She and Ezra could take out eight- not with immense ease, but they could, if necessary, and then it would just be a matter of getting out without being shot.

Okay, so a little more complicated than that, but that was mainly it.

Sabine walked slower, nodding to the stormtroopers as if greeting them and walking quickly with purpose. People didn't tend to question you if you looked like you belonged- which Sabine was taking advantage of right about now. The other guards looked at her for a second, but then went back to rattling the gigantic bins of ore to see if anyone was in them.

The entire storage room looked like it was filled with rows and rows upon what resembled ladders- huge, gigantic ladders, holding filled dumpsters the size of large speeders absolutely stuffed with raw ores, other building materials, and further on what looked like already assembled pieces of machinery yet to be built. There looked to be about ten columns of the vertical storage spaces, each which held two containers of materials, and each column stretch back what looked like four or five rows. Sabine was moderately impressed by the amount of stuff inside a single room, and even more so with the knowledge that there were at least seven other storage bays surrounding the other production lines most probably containing the same amount of materials.

And the bucket-heads were probably looking inside every single bin (if they hadn't already) in vain, while Sabine knew exactly where her partner was. Well, not exactly, but close enough, to the point where she could find him in a few seconds. They didn't even know where to start looking.

Though Morden was smart to have a stormtrooper posted in what looked like every room in the lower floors. Usually the entire brunt of a search party was out and about, constantly moving from place to place, leaving an area completely alone if judged to be 'empty.' The rebels found it pathetically easy to hide from the stormtroopers during those types of searches- just stay still a few minutes, wait until they leave, and then an escape was pretty much guaranteed. If it wasn't Kanan planning, anyways.

Sabine turned out of the main center row of the bay, heading inbetween two of the vertical storage bin holders and the far wall behind them. She walked quickly, trying to keep the stolen armor from making too much noise as she headed further down. Her pace quickened further as she approached the side of the room, and Sabine's eyes caught sight of piles of broken things heaped up against the walls, joining the dirt and dust that had caked itself onto the walls over time. There were a few stacked crates as well, lined up here and there, and Sabine found herself looking past them, up and down the wall.

Gotta be here somewhere. Well, probably-

"Hey!"

Sabine whirled around, gripping her blaster tighter reflexively. She didn't aim it though- which she was glad for, because the pair of stormtrooper officers behind her weren't aiming to shoot, and though the main part of their mission was almost done, stealth would be- and was still -a large asset.

"Um, yes sir?" Sabine stilled herself, willing the large helmet on her head wouldn't wobble and give away it was at least two sizes too big.

"Where's your partner?" Uh oh.

"My- my partner? Oh, uh, he... had to... other priorities. I mean orders." Sabine leaned against a storage crate, hoping the casual attitude would throw the officers off the scent of her growing tension. It looked like a conflict was going to be inevitable, and she felt her fingers itch towards the trigger on her blaster.

"We were ordered to search for the rebel in pairs-" Probably should've kept the helmet's comm on to hear that "-so what are you doing here alone?"

The top flew off the crate Sabine was leaning on, and Ezra's head popped out.

"Who said she was alone?"

There was a silent moment of shock as the stormtroopers tried to adjust to the sudden sight of Ezra, a moment which the teen used to his advantage as he flung out his arms and pulled the two troopers together with some judicious use of the Force. Their heads snapped against each other and they clattered to the ground, now unconscious and incapacitated without ever have alerted the other guards.

"Learned that from Kanan," Eza proudly declared, hopping out of the storage box- which he'd been hiding from the troopers in until Sabine had reached him -and stretching.

Sabine shook her head fondly. "And I guess you got your timing from him as well- you and him both are impeccable. When you want to be," She added, recalling all the times Kanan would have to yell and near drag Ezra to training. He winked at her as the both of them grabbed a stormtrooper and dragged them behind a storage unit, where they wouldn't be immediately visible by the other guards if they came and searched around that area before Sabine and Ezra were done.

"I try. You finish with the explosives?" She nodded, gesturing with her head to the front of the storage bay, where the access terminal was. The two moved along the wall, creeping towards the front of the hangar and darting between the suspended storage units in order to stay hidden from the other searching stormtroopers.

"I'm assuming you also finished with the anti-air guns?" Sabine could feel the grin on his face in response to her question.

"Yup- every part. Now all we need is to detonate, wait, and we'll be good." A breath of air puffed out from Sabine's mouth as she sighed in relief. So far, so good- the hard part was done, and now it should be relatively smooth sailing back to the Ghost.

"Then let's get plugged in and get out of here." Ezra hummed his agreement to her statement. Sabine carefully peeked out around the edge of the very last ladder storage unit, motioning Ezra forwards with her head when she saw no visible stormtrooper. There was a computer terminal on the front side of the hangar, near the doors, that Sabine and Ezra were heading to- luckily, the other guards seemed to have moved on from the front and were focused on the middle sections now, so their accessing it would go largely unnoticed.

Standardly used for inventory, with a few clicks of her fingers Sabine was reading into the facility's sensor readings of the dull screen. "I hope they see this," she muttered, and shook off her right hand plate to reveal her wrist computer underneath. Ezra nodded solemnly, flicking his gaze between where the rest of the guards would be searching and the terminal. Sabine felt very small all of a sudden. There were near hundreds of stormtroopers in here, and only her and Ezra against them.

Come find us, Sabine silently prayed, and pressed the detonation control.

Immediately, there was a loud and large BOOM, accompanied by a vibration Sabine could feel even through her double-layered armor. There were shouts of exclamation from the other guards in the room, and Sabine didn't need to have her communication unit in her helmet on to know every Imperial in the facility was most likely listening to their commanders screech new orders. Angry klaxons screamed overhead as the emergency protocols kicked in. Sabine moved herself in front of Ezra, blocking him from the sight of the stormtroopers as they rushed past- which turned out to be unnecessary, as the sprinting soldiers paid heed to neither Ezra nor herself in their mad dash to the exit.

Sabine knew the buckets were panicking, but once commander Morden got ahold of all the chaos there would most probably be more bucket-heads returning to the storage-areas and every other area in the compound, to try and conduct an extensive search once more for both her and Ezra. Until that time when they came back, however, the two Spectres would man the terminal and keep an eye out for the Ghost on the tower's scanners, right until such time it arrived or she and Ezra were found.

"Um, Sabine?" Ezra asked as the doors swished closed behind the last running stormtrooper. She didn't answer him, distracted as she was by-

"My wrist-comp is still connected to some explosives..." They should have all been blown up- those few she had scattered on the upper floor had been the only ones Sabine had recovered, she hadn't been able to make more, and the rest of the stash that had been used in the op before would've been take up by the Empire. Unless...

"Yeah, and I think I found them." Sabine turned around to face Ezra, who in turn pointed at the computer console, which was flashing red. "As soon as you detonated those bombs, it went wild and started a program- AntiBlast I think it said -and it locked down-" Ezra squinted at the console, and Sabine directed her gaze to the screen as well, to see several flashing symbols that could only mean blast doors and lifts had been shut down or closed around and leading to what was now revealed as a large underground chamber beneath the entire facility, "-the basement?"

AntiBlast... It wasn't often that the Empire named their programs and codes, opting instead for a number or letter based title. The fact that the specific word 'anti-blast' had been used for such a programming, in a section of the base even Fulcrum hadn't had access to or knowledge of, and that Sabine was reading the specific signatures of her unique miracles down below them pointed to one obvious conclusion-

"Oh my god," Sabine breathed, and Ezra looked at her with a quizzical frown. Sabine looked back down at her comp, reconfirming her extra stash of bomb's location. Could it just be a developmental area instead? That would explain the lock-up once the station recognized the signature of an explosion, and that it was underground and off of Fulcrum's maps... But the specific name and the fact that it was currently housing her own explosives left Sabine with only one verdict. And she was suddenly very glad she hadn't accidently detonated all the bombs she had a connection to.

"Sabine?" Ezra asked, and she cast her gaze at him once again, knowing they had been so close to dying- again. Her gut gave an uncomfortable twinge.

"You're sure it said AntiBlast?" She asked quickly, and Ezra frowned before nodding. Sabine exhaled deeply, looking back down at her wrist comp before staring back into those blue, blue eyes. "I think... I think I know what's down there. Ezra, I think there's a developmental explosive manufacturing line down there, and that's where they took the bombs of mine that they found." Ezra's eyes widened, and he quickly looked back at the terminal before asking quietly,

"So, when they name their lock-down procedure AntiBlast..." Sabine nodded slowly.

"I think there's enough explosive power down there to take out the entire facility."