Chapter 42

Ezra POV

For a guy who died yesterday, Ezra had the most wonderful dreams.

He dreamed that he jumped off a speeder and found himself swept up by strong yet soft hands. Then, he was lifted even higher before he began to fall back to the ground, but the last thing he saw was the armored form of a majestic angel flying above him, and he'd been struck in the chest by something that had surely been an arrow of love before he hit the ground, and then he fell into unconsciousness. A little while later, he woke up to see the same angel without her helmet on, leaning over him with a smile that outshone Lothal's sun, and then everything had gone dark again.

Now, as he regained his sight once again, he found himself lying on top of a sleeping bag on a cot inside a tent. Trying to determine his exact location, he sat up and instantly winced in pain, then looked down and found himself wearing nothing but his underwear while almost every other part of his body was covered in blue bacta patches.

His armor had been taken off of him while he slept, which thankfully relieved him of having to suffer through removing it from his burned skin while conscious, and it was now displayed on his stand at the end of the room, still burned and missing most of its paint.

Apparently noticing him looking at it, a voice Ezra had greatly missed over the last day suddenly spoke behind him. "I wanted to get started on fixing the paint job, but then I figured that you'd probably want to see it first thing after you woke up."

Smiling to himself, Ezra looked back and found Sabine sitting next to his bed, watching him sleep, and he affectionately greeted, "Sabine."

She returned his smile and said, "Good morning, handsome."

Ezra stretched out a hand towards her, which she leaned forward to take, and he told her, "I wouldn't have minded if the first thing I saw when I woke up was you instead."

Looking down shyly, Sabine responded, "Well, me being the second thing will have to do."

Ezra laid his head back down, still smiling, and attempted to pull Sabine into bed with him, but she stopped herself and said, "No, Ezra. I'd like to, but you've got burns all over you. The skin is still tender. Somehow, though, even though you didn't have your helmet, your face is actually the least burned part, so…" She then leaned closer down to him and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, which he gladly returned.

After they pulled apart, Ezra asked, "You still have my helmet, right?"

She nodded and said, "I would never have gotten rid of it. Still, that was some way for me to find out that you'd disappeared."

Leaning his head back and groaning regretfully, Ezra said apologetically, "I am so sorry about that. It all just happened so fast. I knew that if you heard me say goodbye, you'd try to stop me, or worse, join me. If you'd been there, you wouldn't have been able to help, and I doubt me and Kanan could've protected all three of us."

Kneeling next to him and beginning to stroke his hair, Sabine said, "Well, you came back alive, so I can forgive you this once. But… How did you survive that blast? There should've been no way that you could survive an explosion that big, especially standing in the very middle of it. We thought- I thought I lost you."

At that, Sabine began to tear up, and Ezra placed a comforting hand on the side of her head and made her look him in the eyes before telling her, "I will always return to you, cyar'ika. There is no power in this galaxy that could stop me from being with you, and that's a promise."

Sabine nodded her understanding and began to wipe her tears away as Ezra continued, "As for how we survived… I'm not really sure. I doubt either of us could've done it alone, but both of us together… Just barely."

Sabine still looked confused, but then she just sighed and said, "Whatever it was, I'm just glad you're alive. When I thought you were gone, I realized that I don't know how to live without you again, Ezra. This isn't the first time you've nearly died on me, so I won't ask you to promise not to do it again, but this one scared me more than any of the other times. I… I broke, Ezra. When I thought you were gone. I can't handle feeling like that."

Ezra thought over her words for a moment, then said, "Kanan told me about how Jedi can 'become one with the Force' after death, still existing in the physical plane even when they're not living. You don't have to understand it. I know I don't. But if there's any truth to it, you should know that I would always stay with you, even after death. You're a lot stronger than you think, Sabine, and you should know that even if you can't see or hear me, I will always be right where I belong: Right by your side."

After he'd said all this, Sabine sniffled once more and wiped away one last tear, then chuckled and said, "Your lessons with Kanan are paying off. That was beautiful, Ez."

Chuckling along with her, Ezra smirked and said, "Only the best for my girl. Now help me up. I want to see how Kanan's doing."

Sabine helped him to slowly stand on his feet, and then she wrapped his arm around her shoulders and helped him walk out of the tent. When they were outside, they saw the rest of their group gathered in a circle around the unlit campfire, sitting on their own individual stones. Kanan and Hera's stones had been moved right next to one another, and they were sitting with one another as their hands were intertwined between them and Hera leaned her head on Kanan's shoulder.

The two stones that had been reserved for Ezra and Sabine had thoughtfully also been placed right next to one another, and the two Mandalorians began to walk towards their seats before Hera suddenly stood up from her seat and purposefully strode up to Ezra and pulled him into a tight hug. Ezra winced from the strain her hug put on his bruised body, and she quickly pulled away and said, "Sorry. I just- Thank you for bringing Kanan back to me, Ezra. You don't know how much it means to me."

"I think we brought each other back," Ezra said modestly.

Hera just shook her head and said, "He told us what happened. If you hadn't jumped in with him, he would've died. I just want to thank you for saving him."

Smiling shyly at her gratitude, Ezra said, "Well, any of you would've done the same in my position. That's what family's for, isn't it?"

All of the Spectres smiled at him, and Hera suddenly said, "We should let you sit down. You need rest after that explosion."

"Honestly, I think that fighting Sabine did more damage than the explosion," Ezra joked, looking at Sabine with a teasing grin, but was surprised to see her wince regretfully and say, "Sorry."

Ezra used his free hand to take Sabine's, then reassured her, "Relax, Sabine. I was just joking. You didn't know it was me. Besides, sparring with you is always a fun experience for me. Seeing you fight all fierce like that… I actually thought it was kind of hot."

Sabine blushed at that, and Hera smirked as she said, "Alright, lovebirds. Come sit down."

The Mandalorians moved to take their seats as Hera returned to her own, and as they sat down, Kanan asked, "How are you feeling, Ezra? You slept quite a bit longer than I did, but you were definitely more injured than me as well."

Concerned to hear that, Ezra asked, "How long are we talking here?"

"Just a few hours," Sabine quickly answered, "But it'll be sunset soon, and you need more sleep tonight. I treated you the best I could, but I'll have to re-apply everything before you go to sleep, and your injuries should be mostly healed by morning as long as your body gets plenty of rest tonight."

"Sounds very different from last night," Ezra sighed, and Kanan nodded in agreement.

Looking between them, Zeb asked, "What did happen last night? After the explosion, I mean. I don't need another lecture on the mysteries of the Force."

Kanan looked over to Ezra and answered, "Well, we woke up in the crater left behind from the fuel depot. We'd both lost our lightsabers when the ground fell out beneath us, but we heard the Imperials coming in for cleanup and knew that we didn't have time to find them in the piles of ash around us."

Looking down at Kanan's belt, Hera noted, "But you have your lightsabers now."

Kanan nodded and continued, "We decided that we needed them back, and Ezra pointed out that the Imperials would probably find them in the rubble and bring them back to the governor's office. His jetpack was damaged, but he managed to restore it just enough to get us up to the dome early this morning. We infiltrated the governor's office and… Well…"

"We killed him," Ezra finished bluntly and without emotion.

Kanan sighed and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we did that."

Removing his hat and leaning forward, Ryder said, "I didn't know Lothal had a new governor after Pryce."

"Well, with Pryce missing for so long, her assistant took over in her place," Ezra explained. "Acting Governor Megus."

Ryder scoffed at that and said, "Megus? Oh, I know him. When I was governor, Megus was my second secretary before he was fired for trying to undermine my office to assist the Empire. Cowardly man, but ambitious and creative."

"Well, he was all three of those things until I put a hole in his head," Ezra said. "Anyway, enough about us. Sabine's mentioned that you guys were… distressed while we were gone. Judging by the way she looked like she was ready to go to war when we arrived, I'm guessing that means you were more than just grieving."

Chopper hummed out something uncomfortable-sounding, and Zeb said, "Well, we did get a bit… vengeful, to be honest. We were hurting and angry, and we wanted to hit the Empire back as hard as they hit us. We were planning on hitting their victory parade tonight as our first target."

Frowning, Ezra questioned, "'Were?'"

"Now that you and Kanan are back, we would rather focus on helping you get back into top shape," Hera explained, and Sabine nodded in agreement.

However, Ezra just smirked and said, "Well, I don't see why we can't still do it. The Empire wants to celebrate a victory? Sounds like the perfect place to cause a bit of trouble."

Squeezing Ezra's hand to get his attention, Sabine shook her head at her boyfriend and said, "No, Ezra. You and Kanan need rest, and we shouldn't be attracting attention to ourselves while you're in this condition. We can wait to strike back some other day."

Tenderly patting her hand, Ezra argued, "Or we can strike now and tell all of Lothal that the Empire hasn't really accomplished anything. Don't you see what they're really doing here? They want to hide their losses behind the illusion of success. If we go there, we can show the people the truth, that the Empire lost their TIE factory and their governor in a matter of hours, and they haven't really won anything in exchange. They think they killed Kanan, and seeing him there would show them that they don't have anything to show for their recent failures."

"I don't know about that, Ezra," Kanan warned. "Telling the people that we just killed their governor doesn't seem like the best move, even if many of them didn't like him. And maybe you're right, that the Empire would see me alive and be worried, but there are advantages to being dead. Maybe my survival is something that's best kept under wraps for now."

Looking down and silently wondering how he hadn't considered those points himself, Ezra sighed and acknowledged, "You're right. But I can go. I can show Lothal that the rebels on Lothal have not been put down, and even more, the Empire can't handle them. The people of this planet are going to be needing some hope tonight."

Without hesitation, Sabine quickly said, "I'll go with you, if only to make sure you make it back here. I won't be going to sleep until I've changed your bandages anyway."

Zeb shrugged and stood up tall, saying, "I never turn down an opportunity to knock some buckets."

Hera shook her head at them and said, "If Kanan's staying here, I'm staying with him." Chopper then whirred out that he would be staying with Hera, as usual.

Ezra turned to Ryder and questioned, "Ryder? We could use a sharpshooter like you, and the people could stand to see their old governor fighting for them."

Surprisingly, Ryder shook his head and said, "Much as I'd like to go with you, I'm going to stay behind and protect the camp. But if you need help, comm me at any time and I'll give you air support in the Defender Elite."

Ezra looked at Sabine and Zeb, then said, "Three people will do, especially if it's us three."

"Be back by 2200 hours, kids," Hera ordered.

"Yes, Mom," Ezra, Sabine, and Zeb all chorused together as they stood up and began to excitedly move about to prepare for their upcoming self-assigned mission.

Line Break

Sabine POV

Kneeling low on top of one of Capital City's buildings and watching the Imperial celebratory parade pass beneath her, Sabine's senses suddenly tingled in warning that there was someone behind her.

Quickly spinning around and directing one of her pistols at the figure that was indeed behind her, it took her a moment to realize that it was Ezra behind her, leaning against a metal pole and wearing his full, still-damaged set of armor. While he'd slept back at their camp, Sabine had successfully managed to repair his jetpack, so it was now attached to his back once again and fully operational.

"I was beginning to wonder when you would notice me," Ezra greeted.

Huffing to herself, Sabine holstered her blaster and said, "Well, your Force-powers make you extra sneaky. How long were you there this time?"

"Only about two minutes," Ezra answered. "Which means you're getting better."

Sabine grumbled to herself unhappily about how he had managed to stay hidden from her for so long, but then her attention shifted to looking over Ezra's armor. Deciding that the fully-colored helmet would look quite strange with the rest of the armor set if it was all clean and shiny, Sabine had left the scorch marks on the body armor to help with stealth and he had chosen not to bring his helmet on this mission at all.

"You won't be very recognizable like this," Sabine complained after a moment.

Looking down at his armor and chuckling at her words, Ezra responded, "Well, luckily that isn't the point of tonight. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

Gesturing down at the parade, Sabine asked, "Can it wait? We're just about to make our move on this Imperial target."

Ignoring her question yet answering it with his actions, Ezra said, "I talked to Zeb about this target, and he said that it was your plan."

Confused, Sabine prompted him, "Yeah?"

Stepping up to her, Ezra continued, "He also mentioned that you wanted to bomb the place without regard for civilian casualties."

Wincing at the memory and looking down, Sabine said, "Yeah, I, uh… That was a mistake. I thought you just died, and I was emotional."

Seeming confused, Ezra asked, "And you thought that targeting innocents would make the pain go away? That it would avenge me? Do you honestly think I would ever do something like that? That I would want you to do that for me?"

Avoiding looking at him out of her shame, Sabine tried to say, "I- I didn't mean-"

Ezra stepped even closer to her and took her hand in one of his, then used his other hand to grab her chin and turn her head to look him in the eyes, and he said, "I forgive you. You didn't do it. You said you broke when I was gone, and I'm sorry that you felt like you had to do something like that to avenge me. I'm sorry I left you in the first place. I understand what you were going through. One of the things my mother taught me in my childhood was how to control my emotional outbursts, but I struggled to employ that lesson. I still do sometimes. But please, Sabine, don't ever sacrifice that optimistic, beautiful part of yourself for me. I'd hate to be the reason that you became something you couldn't live with yourself for."

He leaned his head in towards her and she leaned in to meet him in the Keldabe kiss as she said, "I'll try, Ezra. Just, please, don't give me a reason to again."

He chuckled and pulled away from her as he responded, "I'll do my best, Bine. Now, shall we get on with the mission?"

Sabine nodded in response, donning her helmet once again, and suddenly they received a call on their comms, and Ezra held up his vambrace and answered it for both of them."You two better not be kissing in some alley around here," Zeb's voice said from Ezra's wrist.

Ezra sighed and said, "No, we're not, Zeb. We're ready to move." He then lowered his arm and nodded to Sabine, saying, "Now."

She returned his nod and lowered her rangefinder to aim her rocket launcher, but rather than aiming at the parade, she aimed into the clear sky, then fired. Her rocket flew up into the air with a single smoking trail, but then it split into hundreds of smaller rockets which split up and flew in numerous different directions before beginning to explode one by one into a large, multicolored fireworks display.

"Just like Empire Day all over again," Sabine muttered to herself as the crowds all looked up at the fireworks and began to gasp in awe at the unexpected sight. The Imperials, stormtroopers and officers alike, proved to be no exception as they too all looked up at the bursting lights with no sense of alarm, believing the fireworks to merely be another part of the celebration.

Once all of the Imperials were sufficiently distracted, Ezra pulled up his comm and said, "Alright, Zeb, phase one of the plan is complete. You and Sabine, move on to phase two. I'll handle the communications tower."

He turned to leave to handle his part of the mission, but he was stopped by Sabine grabbing him and pulling off her helmet before kissing him deeply, putting her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist as he returned the kiss, and once she pulled away, he asked, "What was that for?"

She just shrugged and said, "A few things. First, it's kind of a tradition to kiss under the fireworks."

Smirking, he said, "Oh, is that so? Well, then you'll have to do this particular light show more often."

Ignoring him, Sabine continued, "Also, just for being a good boyfriend."

"I believe the technical term is 'the best,'" Ezra interjected once again, and again Sabine ignored him.

"And mostly," she said, "just to tell you that you'd better come back this time."

Letting him ponder over that last sentence, she then gave him one last kiss on the cheek before donning her helmet once again before running forward and jumping off the edge of the building.

She used her rocket jets to slow herself just before landing on the ground, then stealthily moved through the crowds towards the Imperial tanks and transports floating down the street. Even if no one was really looking at the parade itself anymore, Sabine still took no chances of being spotted, dodging around the corners of the vehicles and crawling underneath their enormous, armored forms to stay out of sight. With each vehicle she reached, she planted a small, remote-controlled detonator in a concealed location on it before moving on to the next one.

She managed to stay hidden all the way up to the middle of the Imperial lines, which Zeb would also be working his way towards from the opposite direction. On the vehicle nearest the center of the procession, Sabine placed the detonator as usual, but then also pulled out a large disk and rolled out from beneath the tank to jump up onto the top and place the disk on top of the roof of the tank.

At that time, she finally got noticed by an Imperial stormtrooper, but unfortunately for him, he was already too late to stop her. When the stormtrooper saw her on the roof of the tank, he yelled out, "Hey, you! Freeze!" He leveled his blaster at her, and at least three more stormtroopers followed his example.

Sabine just stood up straight and put her hands up in a gesture of surrender, then said, "You got me, officer! I surrender!"

Just after she'd said it, she activated her jetpack and launched straight up into the sky, knowing that the stormtroopers couldn't try to shoot her here, surrounded by all these civilians. They lost her without firing a single shot after her, and after getting out of sight, she looped back around to land on one of the roofs.

On the roof right across the street from her, she could see Zeb staying low and looking at her, and he gave her a thumbs-up. She nodded in understanding and returned the gesture, then pulled up her wrist comm and said, "Ezra, everything's in position."

He quickly responded, "Alright, then we're ready to go. Both of you just pick a spot and enjoy the show."

Sabine decided that her current position was as good as any and settled in to enjoy what was about to happen, seeing Zeb do the same across the street.

A few seconds later, the disk on top of the center tank, which was actually an abnormally large, modified hologram projector, began to glow, and then it projected a giant hologram image of the Imperial Defender fuel depot into the sky, where everyone could see it.

As the fireworks had already been fading away, the crowds were instantly drawn to the new, unexpected sight of the huge hologram. The hologram placed a slowed-down reenactment of the fuel depot's destruction, foregoing little details like the walker blast that actually destroyed the depot or Kanan's presence, but it was otherwise pretty accurate.

Then, the Empire's own speaker systems began to speak with Ezra's voice, which said, "The Empire has been lying to you all. This parade of so-called 'victory' is only a cover-up for the Empire's recent loss. Last night, rebel forces destroyed the Imperial fuel depot here in Capital City, and we lived to tell the tale. The Rebellion is not gone from Lothal, and the Empire has been weakened. Ryder Azadi, the true governor of Lothal, is still fighting for your freedom, and he encourages Lothal to stand with him against the Empire. They are not invincible, and we proved it last night. But the Empire won't let you see the evidence of their failures, so we're going to reenact it for you tonight. You all may want to clear the area within the next twenty seconds."

With that, the speakers shut off as the hologram projector switched to showing giant floating numbers, a countdown from twenty. There was silence for only about one second, and then people began to realize what was happening and quickly began to scramble to escape the area.

Luckily, Lothal had a large number of side-streets, especially ones branching off the main road, and large crowds were able to get away from the street in a matter of seconds. Stormtroopers that had been ordered to keep people from leaving the parade attempted to stop them, but they were quickly overwhelmed and ran over by hordes of dozens of people pushing past them at once, often knocking the officers down and causing them to lose their riot control weapons in the flood of rushing people.

Meanwhile, the other Imperial forces fell into instant disarray. It took them mere seconds to detect the threat of a bombing, but they also realized that twenty seconds was not much time to disarm an unknown number of explosives that they couldn't even see. Some Imperials began to search the area for the bombs. Others joined in with the crowds in simply attempting to run away. Some fistfights even broke out where one Imperial tried to stop another one from deserting.

One Imperial pilot jumped on top of the center tank and picked up the hologram projector before throwing it away from the area, but Sabine knew that the disk hadn't been one of the bombs, and getting rid of it wouldn't help them. However, him throwing it away did manage to remove the countdown timer from anyone's sight, which only caused more panic as people realized that they no longer knew how long they had until the explosions started.

Luckily for Sabine, she still kept an accurate countdown in her head, and she and Zeb both ducked their heads low just as the explosions finally went off. Almost in perfect synchronization, every single Imperial vehicle on the road exploded at once, some getting tossed into the air or into one another, but all of them being consumed quickly by large flames, getting reduced from powerful siege weapons to useless scrap in less than a second. Sabine couldn't get an accurate count on how many Imperials had died in the explosions, but she didn't think that any civilians had been caught in it. Just as planned.

As Sabine looked down the road at the long line of flames, Zeb's voice suddenly came over her comm and asked, "I think one AT-DP survived. They must've gotten its bomb off in time. Anyone fancy a joyride?"

Shaking her head, Sabine said, "We just bombed an entire street, Zeb. I don't think this is the time."

However, Ezra seemed to disagree, as his voice suddenly said, "Well, I mean, we went to a lot of trouble to get a hold of it, right? We may as well use it. After all, a victory like this deserves some celebration!"

Sabine just sighed in defeat and shook her head. Then, she pulled up her vambrace and reluctantly said, "Fine, we have time for a short joyride. But don't tell Hera, agreed?"

"Agreed," both Ezra and Zeb responded at the same time.