Greetings— Specter7 here. We are officially on our last leg of the story. These next few chapters will be a whirlwind so each chapter will update one week after the other. I can't thank everyone who's kept up with my fic enough! Every comment makes loads of difference on my side. Thanks again! ^^

On a little side note, I ended up breaking this chapter into two since it was so huge. Plus, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to end on a cliffhanger lol. Without further ado...

May the manda be with you.

The New Mand'alore: Chapter 18: The Capture of Sundari (Part 1)

"If I am to die this night... I would see that the night does not pass quietly."

-Mandalorian proverb

Sabine was perched on the side of a skyscraper, helmet under one arm and gripping the metal frame with the other.

"This is it."

Sabine glanced at Ezra, who was positioned a few feet away from her. "Yeah," she agreed quietly. "It is."

Everything had been leading up to this moment. Every speech, recruit, clan, house, all of it. They were about to engage in an all-out war against the Empire and seize Sundari, knocking Gar Saxon off his undeserved throne. Sabine was leading the front against the Sundari Royal Palace, while Arc was leading the second front in the streets against the Imperial Supercommandos patrolling and the stormtrooper barracks. Caladonian starcruisers were heading the third front; only a hyperspace jump away at the moment, and would be raining hellfire down on the Imperial Star Destroyers circling Mandalore's atmosphere. The fourth and final front was in the tunnels—Jaxon Ordo's territory. He and the rest of Clan Ordo were backup in case Sabine's troops got overrun.

Sabine pursed her lips. The Ordos were their last line of defense. They had the most warriors—rivaled only by the Death Watch—and if anything happened to them? Sabine shook her head. Nah, she was overreacting. The tunnels were the safest place out of all of them.

A snowflake landing on Sabine's nose startled her. She looked out at the winter wonderland, quickly captivated. Fresh white powder was piled up high on the ground and courtyards, while icicles hung precariously from window sills and the metal frames of the skyscrapers. The wind moved in violent gusts, sending a barrage of flurries under the outcropping where Sabine's warriors were hiding and Sabine shivered. She combed her fingers through her choppy hair, releasing the stray snowflakes that had caught themselves in her hair back to the wind.

"Sabine."

She looked over. Bo-Katan was kneeling on the small lip of duracrete on the side of the skyscraper, eyes focused intently on the palace over a hundred feet below. When she spoke, her words were tense and clipped.

"I don't have to remind you about how much is at stake here, do I?" Bo-Katan said.

"No," Sabine muttered. She bit her lip as she surveyed the scene. Just as she had expected, the Imperials were frantic to end the unscheduled snowfall with no success for two day now. Stormtroopers stumbled around like drunkards as they waded through the snow, thanks to their heavy armor.

"In a matter of hours," Bo-Katan continued, as if Sabine hadn't spoken, "the hospitals will be overflowing with the wounded. There might not even be enough bacta to treat everyone."

Sabine's hands curled into fists. "Hey, if this is supposed to be a pep talk, you're failing miserably."

Bo-Katan shook her head slowly. "War," she muttered, "has it's costs. I can only warn you before it's too late."

She fell silent after that, and Sabine watched the woman from the corner of her eye. She saw weariness etched into her features, in the way her brows were pinched over startling green eyes, in the way she sighed softly to herself, and in the way her lips were a tight line. She looked tired of the fighting and the blood and the battles.

I am too, Sabine reckoned. She narrowed her eyes as the wind whistled in her ears. But we have to fight this last one. One last battle. To end the war.

She looked to Ezra, who nodded. "Whenever you're ready," he said.

Sabine slowly raised one hand and extended her index finger, signaling to the Mandalorian warriors perched on the other skyscrapers. Immediately, several shots went off in unison as red lasers found their marks. Ten stormtroopers guarding the Sundari Royal Palace immediately collapsed without another sound.

Sabine extended two fingers now, and there was a moment's pause before two huge, rocketing explosions imploded on the two entrances into Sundari, blocking any more Imps' from entering or exiting.

Sabine narrowed her eyes. There weren't any alarms going off yet… She lifted three fingers now, and a nearly unnoticeable jump in the static emitting from her comm signaled that Sundari's Imperial com towers had been jammed and was now openly broadcasting to the surrounding Mandalorian systems. It was an imitation of what the Ghost crew had done on Lothal, when Ezra broadcasted his transmission a long time ago. In fact, it had been the little Loth-rat's idea to attempt something like this; to broadcast Sabine's own speech to the other Mandalorian worlds.

Sabine exhaled evenly and finally splayed her hand out, all five fingers extended. Everyone was silent for a heartbeat. Then two. Then three.

Sabine slammed her hand forward, slapping the air. Instantly, her warriors emerged from Sundari's skyscrapers; from every nook and cranny in the city and surged forward, converging on the Sundari Royal Palace.

Glancing over at Ezra, Sabine found she couldn't speak. This was it. And as her warriors soared past her and her best friend was by her side, everything suddenly felt so familiar. As if she'd finally found her place in the galaxy.

"You ready?" Ezra asked her and she began to smile. He had said the same words at the very beginning of their journey, when they had left the Ghost to venture into unknown territory. That seemed like a lifetime ago. The moment Sabine had stepped off of the ramp of that ship, the Darksaber heavy on the back of her belt, she had known things would never be the same. But throughout everything that she had faced, one thing hadn't changed.

Ezra.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Sabine replied. She reached over and grabbed his hand, and Ezra intertwined their fingers.

"I know the feeling," he said quietly.

Sabine stared at him for a moment longer before gradually tearing her gaze away to look down at her warriors, battling the Imps' for the capture of the palace.

"Let's do this," Sabine said with grim resolve and she gripped Ezra's hand tighter, slowly leaning forward off the skyscraper. She pulled her helmet over her head at the last second, just as Ezra flipped the hood of his scout trooper helmet down.

Sabine swooped above the public plaza, her jetpack aiding them, and they both rolled to a stop on the snowy ground. Ezra unholstered his Mandalorian WESTAR blaster and charged up the steps, blasting any bucketheads that dared get in his way. Sabine went to follow him when she stopped cold.

There was a giant mural in front of her the size of a bolo-ball field. Abstract, misshapen figures were carved into the huge slab of duracrete. Mandalorians stood on one side and Jedi on the other, weapons drawn. They were forever frozen in combat.

The mural had been erected after the Mandalorian-Jedi War as a way to remind the public that their cultures would be forever separate. Sabine felt small standing next to it, like it was a literal representation of how tiny she was compared to the expectations her Mandalorian blood ensued. We are separate, the mural seemed to say to her. There can never be peace between the Jedi and the Mandalorians. Just as the Sun and Moon battle for control of who rules the sky, so do we.

Sabine swallowed hard. What would they say if they could see her now? What would they do if they knew how she felt about Ezra—

"SABINE!"

She ducked on instinct. Just in time, too. A laser sung overhead and hit the mural, leaving a black stain. Sabine whipped around to see a stormtrooper, blaster out.

Ezra appeared behind the man and shot him in the back, shoving the body out of his way. He ran up to her and helped her to his feet.

"What were you thinking?" he snarled. "This is war, Sabine, not an art exhibition!"

She jerked her arm back. "I know that! I just…" Her voice trailed off as she looked back at the mural. The masks of her Mandalorian ancestors stared down at her condescendingly. "Nevermind."

Ezra was looking at her oddly but he didn't argue. "Okay. Now come on. Bo-Katan's waiting for us at the palace gates."

Sabine let him leave before following. She looked at the mural one last time, eyes trailing down to where the blaster shot now marred it. A hairline crack extended from the spot, dividing both sides of Mandalorians and Jedi. Sabine absently figured that if she survived the Capture of Sundari, she'd add a few more cracks to the mural. It was time the division between their two cultures got taken down a notch or two.

Arc Wren waved the warriors forward. "Come on!" she shouted from underneath her helmet. "For Mandalore!"

Her pulse was loud in her ears as she led the charge into a stormtrooper barrack, dual blasters blazing. Except as soon as she pulled the trigger, she knew something was wrong.

"Hold your fire!" Arc ordered. When the lasers stopped going off and the smoke cleared, Arc looked around. The barrack were unremarkable; just drab gray walls and rows of unoccupied cots. And besides her and her warriors, they were otherwise alone.

"It's abandoned," Arc stated. This was the fourth barrack she found this way. All the usual military checkpoints in Sundari seemed to be completely empty.

She looked around at the masked faces of her warriors to see impatience in their tense shoulders. They wanted a brawl, and Arc was having trouble finding them one.

"Let's sweep the headquarters again," Arc said, but she was privately dubious. The truth was that every footsoldier in the city had disappeared into thin air. There were none patrolling the streets, none in the barracks, and none in the training grounds. Besides the horde that was guarding the Royal Palace (the ones Sabine was taking care of), the rest of Sundari was deserted of Imperial presence.

A courrier suddenly rushed into the barracks. He had a helmet under one arm and his pale face was flushed. "Ma'am!" he said breathlessly. "They found one! They found an officer in the tech room. What should we do?"

The rest of her warriors perked up and one called out, "Execute him!"

The warriors cheered in agreement but Arc shushed them. "No, bring him out into the courtyard for interrogation."

The courier bowed and hurried out.

The warriors shuffled their feet uncomfortably and their were a few grumbles.

"Ne'johaa," Arc snapped in Mando'a. "You'll have your blood; don't worry. Right now though, you're gonna let me do my job." She gave a few pointed glares to several of the soldiers. Not that they could even see her eyes from behind her visor. "Let's go."

Arc shoved past them and out of the barracks. The muddied snow crunched underneath her boots as she strode to the courtyard. Her warriors were already gathered in a patch of freshly fallen snow, forming a semi circle around an Imperial officer kneeling in the middle of them. The man's muted uniform was streaked with mud and his cap must have fallen off in the scuffle, exposing a head full of graying hair.

Arc took her helmet off and shoved a blaster in the officer's face. "Hey."

He gave her a disdainful look up the barrel of her gun. "What do you want?"

"Not much," she quipped and patted the side of his face with her pistol. "World peace. No more global warming. Coffee that's not expensive. You?"

The officer stared at her.

Arc knelt in the snow so that they were eyelevel. "Look, I need your help with something. All your buddies are gone and they left you behind. Can you tell me why, Officer…" Arc glanced at the nameplate on his lapel. "Dayle?"

His expression grew guarded. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Let me jog your memory." Arc raised her blaster until it rested under the man's chin, cold metal against his jugular. "Anything coming back yet?"

Dayle swallowed hard and Arc watched sweat began to bead on his hairline.

"The stormtroopers," Arc said more forcefully. "They're gone. None on the streets, none in the camps—Tell me where they're massing. They couldn't have gone out of the biodome; we blocked the entrances."

"I wouldn't betray my Empire," he sneered. "Unlike Mandalorians, we are loyal to a cause."

Arc's patience was wearing thin, and the smirk that stretched across her face was now forced. "Look buddy, I'm gonna need you to take that sentiment and shove it up your—"

"Arc," a foreign voice called. It was one of her soldiers. He held out a pair of binoculars to her. "You might wanna take a look at this."

Arc stood and came to stand next to the man, jerking the binoculars from him. "What?"

He nodded to the horizon, and Arc looked through the eyepiece. At first, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. But as the landscape slowly came into focuse and the gray blurbs in the distant solidified, Arc's heart sank to her feet.

"Holy kriff," she whispered. "Get my cousin on the comms."

Ezra's brown, synthleather jacket waved behind him as he sprinted up the palace's steps. A stormtrooper was several feet in front of him, beginning to train his blaster on him.

Refusing to be stopped, Ezra took a flying leap, stretching the normal human limitations. Aided by the Force, he landed square on the trooper's shoulders and Ezra quickly blasted him and jumped away again. And even though Ezra was making good use of his Mandalorian blaster, he could only think of how much he wished he had his lightsaber on him. But, he had left it in Arc's ship the Mesh'la A'den for safekeeping. Force knows how Sabine's cousin would react if she found out he was a Jedi.

Ezra continued to blast his way to the palace's doors and kicked them open. But his eyes widened when he saw what was inside. Many—no, tons—no, legions of black-armored troopers marched towards the palace's doors, headed straight for Ezra.

"Karabast," he cursed under his breath. Death troopers. He whirled around and looked at Sabine,who was engaging in a close-combat fight with an Imperial Supercommando, sporting the Darksaber.

Thinking quickly, Ezra closed his eyes and stretched out with the Force. For too long, Sabine had stifled his connection to it and it was refreshing to open himself up again. But Ezra didn't dwell on the fact and brushed Sabine's mind.

She was used to his touch so it didn't catch her off guard mid-fight, and she immediately knew what Ezra was projecting.

He watched as Sabine kicked the Imp' away and dug a spherical bomb out her pouch before throwing it to him. Ezra caught it and rolled the explosive into the palace, quickly closing the heavy doors.

Once Ezra felt the explosion shake the doors and nearly send them off their hinges, he opened them again and froze for a solid second before grinning.

Paint was splattered in every corner of the palace floor. Mostly purple, yet crimson and magenta stained the walls as well. But the death troopers were already stirring, some even already back on their feet.

Ezra's eyes widened and he waved to the warriors in the plaza. "Come on!" he shouted to them. "We have to take the palace!"

The message caught on and the Mandalorians flew past him, flowing through the huge doors and emptying into the palace floor. Many took the lives of the dazed death troopers while vice versa happened as well.

Ezra was about to follow the Mandalorians inside the palace when the comm attached to his belt began pinging.

"Is Sabine on this link?" a voice crackled from the communicator. He recognized the voice belonging to Arc.

"This is Ezra," he answered. He ducked as a shot whizzed overhead. "What is it?"

"Bean. Put her on now."

Ezra spotted the girl somewhere behind him, holding her own against several stormtroopers. She was a whirlwind with that Darksaber of hers. Within a matter of seconds, the troopers' bodies were in a crumpled heap on the ground. Ezra made the mistake of running up behind her and almost got a facefull of lightsaber.

"Gah!" he yelled and dodged the blade.

"Ezra!" Sabine exclaimed and pulled up her helmet so that he could see her wide eyes. "You can't just sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry, sorry! Here, Arc needs to talk with you—"

"Bean!" Arc snapped from the comm. "You said the Empire didn't have any walkers in Sundari!"

Ezra froze. Walkers? He thought. Like—

"The huge ones," Arc continued. "AT-ATs. At least four of them marching right towards us. You told me we didn't have to worry about them during the briefing. You said there are no AT-ATs located in Sundari."

When Sabine spoke, it was in a strangled whisper. "There's not…"

"Well I'm looking right at them! What do we do?"

Ezra muted the comm and turned to his friend. "Sabine?" he said softly. "What should they do?"

Her eyes were glued on the horizon, her face stricken. "Sundari is too populated," she murmured. "It's too crowded for them to use AT-ATs without major loss of life."

"I'm pretty sure the Empire has never cared about that before," Ezra said bitterly.

There were footsteps behind them and Ezra turned to see Luc. He had his helmet under one arm and binoculars in the other. He looked pained.

"Sabine," Luc said slowly. "There's something you should see—"

"The walkers," she snapped and snatched the binoculars from him. "I know."

"They're crashing through everything in sight to get to Arc—including buildings housing citizens."

Ezra could just barely see the carnage in the distance. There was a cloud of jet-black smoke rising from the destructive wake of the walkers. Through the Force, he could feel the Mandalorian citizens' terror as they attempted to leave their homes before being flattened. And what was worse was when that immediate spike of fear was abruptly cut off… and there was only silence.

Ezra straightened, grim resolve settling in his gut. He knew what he had to do.

Sabine caught his eyes and he saw recognition flash in them. She knew what he was thinking too. "No, no," she said quickly. "No way."

"I have to," Ezra responded. He went to move past Sabine but she grabbed his arms.

"You can't," she whispered furiously. "You just can't, okay? You aren't accepted here. When Arc and her warriors find out…"

She left the sentence in the air. But Ezra had already made up his mind. His choice was clear. "Let them," Ezra said. "I know what I have to do."

Sabine's lips tightened. Ezra decided he was either about to get a good slap in the face or a hug from the girl. But when she didn't do anything at all, Ezra softened and took her hands in his. "I'll be okay," he said quietly. "Trust me."

Ezra knew that Sabine was just as aware as he was that Ezra was the only man for the job. Sabine's warriors hadn't brought rocket launchers solely because Sundari had too many people and too much room for casualties. It was up to him. Ezra had to save them. He had to destroy the walkers.

Luc came up next to him and unhooked something off of his belt. "You'll need this," he said coolly and offered Ezra the handle of a sleek metal cylinder.

Ezra froze. He glanced at the item in Luc's hand, then back at Luc's face, then back down. "How…"

"You can't get anything past me, Ezra," Luc said, his face unreadable as he handed him Ezra's lightsaber.

Ezra swallowed hard and took the weapon. The thin grips felt familiar in his palm. Ezra thought back to when Luc had interrogated him when they first met and had asked if he handled a lightsaber.

"You knew," Ezra realized suddenly. "You knew from day one. Didn't you?"

"Eh," he said with a shrug, "when you're an intergalactic spy and your only job is literally to find out everyone's deepest darkest secrets… yeah."

Ezra almost laughed. He thought about all those days when Sabine and Ezra would whisper in the dark about Ezra's ability to use the Force, and how often they had tried to hide it from the rest of the crew. He felt silly now. He kept my secret, Ezra realized. He could've brought it to Arc at any moment, but he didn't.

Ezra stuck out his hand. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "I mean it."

Luc shook it and looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah," he muttered. "Now go save Arc, will you? She owes me twenty credits from a bet. Hate to lose that."

"Heh. Yeah." Ezra put his scout trooper helmet back on and prepared to Force-leap off the plaza when Sabine put her hand on his shoulder.

"Come back quick," she said. Ezra got the unspoken message and he grinned underneath his helmet.

Luc clasped his hands behind his back. "That's girl code for don't die."

Ezra hardly glanced over. Instead, he slid his arm around Sabine's waist; her attention for once fully captivated. Maybe it was the situation of it all that was making him feel a bit gutsy. Maybe it was the fact that he was probably about to die saving a Mandalorian woman who hated the guts of Jedi. Or maybe it was simply the high from the prospect of a battle. Whatever it was, Ezra's nerves were tinged with electricity.

"What?" Ezra whispered. "No kiss for good luck?"

The thin veil separating friendship from romance was suddenly tore away with reckless abandon after Ezra uttered those words.

Sabine hooked her finger underneath Ezra's scout helmet, lifting the front half until his face was exposed.

There was a smirk tugging at her mouth even as a red-hot blush crept along her cheeks. She leaned in close, eyes dancing playfully, and their lips brushed.

The moment she kissed him, the world seemed to stop spinning. The distant sounds of battle were mute to Ezra's ears. It was as if before, he had seen everything through a black-and-white filter. But now, with Sabine against his lips, everything bursted into technicolor. Her olive skin seemed to glow in the weak sunlight. Her amber eyes were striking against her lavender hair that tickled Ezra's face.

She pulled away, lips still hovering only inches below his. She looked like she was about to speak but Ezra rubbed his thumb over her mouth, silencing her. They didn't need to talk. They already knew the answer.

The best way to say I love you was when it was unspoken. Ezra had been saying it for nearly four years now.

Sabine lowered his helmet back and it clicked into place. The tinted visor made the world seem black and white again and he longed for that lucid burst of color that their kiss had ensued.

"Go," Sabine said simply.

Ezra stepped to the edge of the courtyard and looked down at the twenty-story drop. He spied a speeder approaching with an unsuspecting citizen at the wheel. Ezra turned to face Sabine and Luc, gave them a two-fingered salute, and let himself slip off the edge—back first—into oblivion.

~ PART TWO OF THE CAPTURE OF SUNDARI COMING SOON ~