Hello once again everybody! Sorry for the delay between stories- this plot-line actually took a lot more time to hammer out than I thought, and writing even more so.

This is going to be longer than the Kanera arc and more of story-like thing, with plot and stuff, because you need these characters to fall in love. Kanan and Hera... are already space-married, so that wasn't very hard to do. But this will be different than them, because... yeah. So the romance'll come in a little bit, and it'll be accompanied by an actual story.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Bleegh- I have to do these again. Bla bla bla, Disney owns bla, I own nothing bla bla, and Star Wars bla bla bla.

"Spectre six, are you in position?"

"Gimme a few seconds and I'll be right above the office."

"Just make sure you're out of that office by the time we blow Spectre five's charges."

"Well, as long as she doesn't press the button when I'm still in here, we'll be fine."

"Just don't get blown up."

"M'kay. Hey, Spectre five? Do me a favor and uh, please don't blow me up. Happy, one?"

Kanan shook his head, sighing just ever so softly. Sabine smirked a bit, slightly tempted to call back to Ezra and give no certain guarantee that she wouldn't blow him up- however, comm-chatter was restricted to important mission-related information, not just messing around. Though pretty much everything Ezra said was messing around, something that both Kanan and Hera had tried to suppress especially for this one mission. After all, the ventilation shafts tended to echo a lot.

She and Kanan were standing outside the west wing of a mining complex; priorly owned by a private business until the Empire confiscated it for themselves just a day ago. Currently, there wasn't a single citizen soul inside of the base. When the bucket-heads had claimed the facility, there had only been the barest of security set up; a camera here and there on the walls was all. For the installment of their necessary security measures to take place, policy dictated that there be an Imperial-only presence on the base-

Which the Ghost crew was using to their advantage. Solely bucket-heads meant they could do as much damage as necessary to the base without hurting the civilians, something they refused to do. And, of course, they were using her newest prototype to do so. It hadn't been easy or painless in any way, but Sabine'd managed to nearly triple the force of her strongest grenades, making them the perfect tools for demolishing Imperial mining facilities.

She and Kanan had gone around, sneakily placing them on the western side of the base in the dark cover the night provided, planting carefully measured and distributed bombs on critical support sites and vehicles while Zeb and Hera had done the same on the east. Ezra, the smallest, had been assigned (well, forced into, really,) infiltrating the ventilation, to place several miracles in the intersections as he went along to their second target-

The apparently 'useless' archives, where the locations for the shipments of ore were stored. With that information downloaded, Hera would be able to give Fulcrum the positions of Imperial building sites, which could then be hit and raided as well. Since the entire mining facility here would be destroyed, the Empire would naturally assume that everything had been destroyed, including any and all information they had. That way, Fulcrum would be able to attack the drop-off points without the Imps having any warning.

All Ezra needed to do was get over to the archives (which shouldn't be heavily guarded), download the data into the chip they'd given him, and make his exit. Then Sabine would blow the whole place to smithereens, and they would fly away to signal Fulcrum-

"Oh karabast- Don't say anything."

The hushed whisper over Ezra's comm made both her and Kanan look at the little device in alarm. If they were supposed to maintain radio-silence with him, that meant there was someone directly below him who would hear his comm go off in the vents. He'd said he was almost to his target, so there shouldn't have been any problems...

"You two stay in here until the commander decides what to do with you. And don't try any funny business- we're watching you." The filtered voice of a bucket-head wafted up from Kanan's comm, along with the faint hissing of a door opening and closing in rapid succession. Noting that Ezra still wasn't making a sound, both she and Kanan refrained from speaking either, though Sabine could tell they were both tempted to tell the teenager to turn the darned thing off. Of course, he might not be in a position to reach his comm silently at the moment...

"I can't believe- the nerve!" A middle-aged man's voice buzzed through the comm, slightly muted because of distance. A second, younger guy spoke as well, calmer and seemingly resigned, "Hush, dad. We knew they'd do something like this, it's not really a surprise."

"But to throw us so undignified into- what, a-an office?! I've been working at these mines for over thirty years, and even you've been here a few- what gives them the right-"

"Power, dad, they kind of are the government. Come on, just sit down; they'll send someone in eventually." Further grumblings filtered in through Ezra's comm, and Sabine guessed they'd taken residence in chairs of some sort. After a few tense seconds, hesitant and stilted crackles echoed out, which they took to mean as Ezra carefully and silently moving his comm into a position where he could talk as silently as he could. Seconds later, they were proved right when he half-whispered half-breathed,

"Civilians. Right next to the data-bases. Active cameras. Trooper on door guard-duty outside."

Kanan frowned, his eyes narrowing, and Sabine cast a nervous glance at the facility behind them. They couldn't blow the base, not with civilians in there, and it looked like Ezra wouldn't be able to make his exit until they left- which could easily take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. And there was a lot of explosive firepower in there...

"Give me a minute..." Kanan closed his eyes, formulating a course of action, while Sabine ran through any and all possible solutions. Their objective had changed from getting Ezra and the data-chip out, to getting Ezra, the data-chip, and the civilians out before blowing up the base, which understandably threw a wrench in things. After all, the two men wouldn't be able to fit in the vents with Ezra and sneak out with him, nor did Sabine think they'd be willing to follow the commands of just a random teenager. They had to get out in a manageable way, without drawing bucket-head attention, getting caught, or alienating the civilians...

Mumblings that indicated more conversation was occurring between the man and his father in the base continued to punctuate the silence for a minute or two, until Kanan's eyes snapped open. "Sabine, comm Hera and tell her to go back with Zeb and get the Ghost ready for a quick fly-by pick-up. I've got something in mind, but we might need a snappy exit afterwards." She nodded, already pulling up Hera's frequency on her wrist screen. Kanan began talking as softly as he could into his comm, hopefully laying out a plan that'd get them out with minimal damage.

"Spectre two? We've got a bit of a problem."

"What happened?" Hera was quick to answer as always, leaving Sabine to guess she and Zeb had finished their side of the base as well.

"Six is above the office, but there are two civilians below him and a bucket-head out the door, with cameras. Spectre one's cooked up a plan, but he says we might need a speedy withdrawal afterwards."

Sabine could hear Hera's sigh, and something that sounded an awful lot like Zeb chuckling in the background. "Sounds about right. We finished a little while ago; we'll make our way back, but pick you up only if you absolutely need it. We still want to pull this off with some stealth, alright?"

"Got it- Kanan, she's on her way." Kanan nodded, apparently finished telling Ezra what he'd needed to, and held the comm outwards a little from his face as to not transmit any breathing noises. He half-turned to Sabine, still keeping his eyes on the little device in case any sounds of imminent chaos were broadcasted.

"Can you detonate the charges surrounding the power-grid?" Sabine blinked, recalling the layout of her charges in her minds eye, and shook her head.

"Not without causing a chain reaction and blowing the rest of the building along with them. And I specifically remember you telling Ezra not to get blown up?" Kanan grunted.

"Then maybe just one of the lone vehicles that wouldn't do much damage besides that? It'd at least draw their attention away from the security feed in that room for a few minutes... preferably one on the eastern side, so the bucket-heads won't stumble into us too quickly." After a brief second, she nodded. Yeah, that was easily doable. Kanan dipped his head, let out a breath, and whispered back into the comm, "Okay... six, you ready?"

A sort-of-affirmative grunt came through, and Kanan held up three fingers for Sabine. "Three... two... go!"

Sabine detonated the selected charge on her wrist-watch, and the faraway explosion of an ore-hauler set the entire base in motion.