Chapter 11

Ezra POV

For the first time in seven years, Ezra entered the atmosphere of his home planet, Kalevala. It was just as he remembered, with its large cliffs that towered above the rolling waves below.

When he had learned to fly, it had been aboard this very ship, and he had been forced to dodge and weave his way between the perilous cliff faces around him, just the way that his mother had done when she was a child.

Just for old times sake, Ezra steered the Absolution down to the cliffs once again as he flew towards Kryze Castle. He rotated the wings of his Kom'rk just before he dived down between the stones, barely missing hitting them, but his ship was built for fancy maneuvers like this, making it equally impossible to hit or to avoid when in a fight.

Smiling to himself, Ezra gunned his engines and shot forward, dipping even further to kick up the waves beneath him, then pulled back on the throttle and launched into the sky.

Once he'd gained a height sufficient for his thrill-seeking nature, he reached up and deactivated his engines. The Absolution sputtered for a moment, still struggling to gain height, then slowly tipped and began to fall back towards the ocean below. Ezra steered the ship as it dived freely, the water approaching him fast, and he waited until the last possible second to pull it back into an upright position and reactivate the engines, the back of the ship even going so far as to dip into the water for a short moment before it began to regain height.

Yet as close as he'd come to death just now, Ezra couldn't keep the grin from his face. It felt good to be back home, doing something for sheer pleasure rather than work.

He accelerated once more, heading in the direction of his home, and rose over a large cliff face before he finally got a look at his clan's fortress. It was all gray stone, with numerous towers surrounding the edges and over a dozen Kom'rk fighters positioned around it, their wings raised upwards and each of them looking just like his own. There was a small landing pad just in front of the castle, yet it wouldn't be able to hold the Absolution considering its size, so Ezra simply flew in towards the green field where all the other Kom'rks were parked.

As he approached, two Clan Kryze Mandalorians with jetpacks flew up on either side of him. Looking out his viewport, Ezra saw one of them gesture at him, telling him to land, and Ezra gave them a thumbs-up in response, acknowledging the order. He then pulled his Kom'rk around, slowing it to a hover above an empty space on the grass, then gradually lowered it to the ground.

After he'd landed, Ezra stood up from his seat, tightened his vambraces, and picked up his helmet. For a moment, he looked at it, still mystified by the new paint job that had been applied to it. He traced a finger over the jaig eyes on the forehead, then turned it around in his hands before placing it on his head. He'd appreciate Sabine's art some other time. For now, he imagined that it was about to get him in some trouble.

He walked out of the Absolution to find at least a dozen Mandalorians standing around his ship. All were armed and fully armored, though their weapons of choice and the styles of their armors varied, but they all leaned back collectively as he went down the ramp of his ship, no doubt shocked by the unusual bright colors that he wore.

After a moment, one of them stepped forward and said, "I am Axe Woves, the head of security for this planet. State your name and purpose."

Ezra stood still, not wanting to appear threatening. He slowly removed his helmet before speaking, though none of them seemed to recognize him. "I wish to speak with Lady Bo-Katan Kryze," he said.

Axe stepped forward and removed his own helmet. Ezra saw the older man's eyes flicker down to view the symbol on his right shoulder, before he said, "In twenty seconds, my men here will shoot you for invoking the name of our Lady, unless you answer me when I ask you, what is your name?"

Ezra stayed frozen. He knew that it wouldn't be wise to tell them who he was until his mother could clear things up. She was the only one here that didn't think that he was a traitor.

A few more seconds passed in silence, then Axe placed a hand on one of his pistols and yelled, "Ten seconds!" The rest of the Mandalorians present raised their weapons to direct them at Ezra. Ezra still remained quiet, but the impending threat caused him to clench his left fist, preparing to abruptly raise it and activate his energy shield.

Just then, a familiar voice called out, "Axe! Don't you recognize him?"

Ezra turned his head and smiled at his mother as she approached him fearlessly, a big smile on her face. She looked just as he remembered her, as though not a day had passed. Her green eyes still glittered with equal parts danger and kindness. Her shoulder-length red hair still fell straight, and was kept out of her eyes by a single thin beskar strip that ran along the top of her head. As she moved, one could easily tell that she was most comfortable in her armor, and frankly, Ezra had almost never seen her outside of it, barely able to imagine the picture in his mind.

She approached him and ran a hand along his shoulder plate before she smiled and said, "He's my son. And he's finally come home."

At this, Axe and his men only tensed up further. "...Ezra Kryze?" Axe questioned, tightening his grip on his pistol.

Bo turned back around and said, "Everyone, let's take this matter back to the castle. I have an explanation to give, and some things need to be set right. In the meantime, no one is to attack my son."

There was some unhappy grumbling from the assembled Mandalorians, but none dared to question their leader, and they began to break off and fly towards the fortress on their jetpacks, Axe giving Ezra one last glare before he donned his helmet and took off.

Once they were left alone, Bo lowered her forehead to press against Ezra's, both of them holding each other tightly, just as Sabine had done with her own mother. "I have missed you, my son," Bo said softly. "Then it is finished? Wren is dealt with?"

Ezra chuckled as he pulled his head back from her. "Well… Some things got confused for a bit, but yes, my mission is finished."

Bo raised an eyebrow at him and said, "Well, you'll have to explain it all to me later." She pulled away from him and tapped his orange chestplate before adding, "And… this as well." Ezra just chuckled in response and nodded to her, happy to be home.

Shortly later, Ezra stood next to his mother's throne, while she stood in front of it and gave a speech to the rest of the clan. "-and so, to conclude, my son is not a traitor. He never really was," she told them.

There was a short silence at the end, and then one of them, a woman with brown hair pulled back and two braided strands crossing in an "X" over her forehead, said, "So, what you're telling us is that your son, who we all thought had betrayed us to join the Empire for the last seven years, was actually just on a secret mission to hunt down another traitor Mandalorian?"

"That's correct, Koska," Bo agreed.

"But… why?" Axe asked, looking incredibly confused. "Why didn't you just tell us? Our clan could've done this together, and we never would've considered him Dar'manda. This seems like you went to a whole lot of unnecessary trouble just to get one of us to hunt down a single runaway Mando."

Nodding her head in understanding, Bo responded, "I know that it may seem… unorthodox, but we needed to infiltrate the Empire's ranks without arousing suspicion. I don't think it's any secret that the Empire's resources are far beyond our own, and Ezra needed them for his hunt. As for not telling you all, your reactions to his supposed betrayal needed to be real. We were trying to fool Gar Saxon, after all, not his idiot brother."

There was some more grumbling from the crowd, but it seemed to be much more agreeable now. Then, someone in the back called out, "Well, why does his armor look like that? He looks like he got high on some death sticks and decided to turn himself into a sunset!" There was a round of laughter from the assembled warriors, and Bo turned to raise an eyebrow at Ezra, gesturing with her head for him to come explain.

Ezra stepped forward slightly as his mother backed up, trading places with her. He cleared his throat and began, "Well, there's a long, complicated story for that, but the short version is that… Well, I didn't exactly kill Wren."

The room suddenly fell eerily silent. His mother shifted behind him and incredulously asked, "What? But I thought-"

"My mission was completed," Ezra explained, addressing the whole room. "But I did not kill Sabine Wren. Instead, I brought her before her family for judgment, and they accepted her back into the clan."

Hearing this, the assembly exploded into roars of outrage, appalled at the prospect of a traitor being forgiven for their crimes.

They only ceased as Bo fired a blaster into the ceiling. She then turned to Ezra, frowning, and said, "I know Ursa well. To be forgiving is not in her nature. What happened? Do we need to declare war?"

That last question made Ezra jolt in shock, and he quickly said, "No! No no! Just… no! Look, Sabine just made a very compelling case, okay? Apparently when she left years ago, it was a big misunderstanding. She was saving us all from an Imperial weapon that targeted Mandalorian beskar and superheated it!" He just managed to stop himself before he told them that Sabine had designed the weapon in question, feeling like the already angry crowd probably wouldn't be able to restrain themselves if they heard that.

After he'd described the danger of the weapon, however, the crowd began to quiet down and whisper amongst themselves, their heads turning around to look at each other in shock and horror as they imagined their primary tool being turned against them, just as the Mandalorians at the Wren Stronghold had done when informed of the same thing.

Once again, Ezra's mother silenced the room by firing one of her pistols into the air, then asked Ezra, "So Wren destroyed this weapon? Are there others like it? We must not allow them to exist."

Ezra nodded. "She destroyed it and wiped every trace of its data from the Imperial servers," he said with certainty. Not even a week ago, he wouldn't have been so positive of this fact, yet Sabine had said so, and he believed her. He trusted her more than he could've dreamed he ever would.

Bo nodded in acceptance and asked, "Then we don't need to kill her?"

Ezra's eyes narrowed in anger at the thought, and he once again addressed the entire room. "Let me make one thing clear," Ezra growled. "Anyone that even tries to hurt Sabine Wren will answer to me personally."

He continued to glare at them all, daring one of them to challenge him, but then his glare slowly faded when it received no argument and Ezra realized that they were all staring at him with matching looks of confusion and wariness on their faces, including his mother. "O…kay," Bo slowly managed to say, then told the whole group, "Meeting is adjourned. Everyone, dismissed."

The group quickly filed out of the room, but Bo stopped Ezra before he could follow them. "Ezra, what in the name of Mandalore just happened?" she asked.

Ezra just shrugged and looked after the departing Mandalorians. "I honestly have no idea," he admitted. "One minute I was fine, and the next… I just felt so angry."

Bo tilted her head at him, looking deep into his eyes like she was trying to read his soul. Eventually, she gave up and just shook her head. "Well, keep it under control," she said sternly. "And speaking of, while you were gone did you use the…"

She trailed off, but Ezra knew what she was talking about. Not wanting to worry her, he shook his head and said, "No, of course not."

Sensing his lie, Bo raised a threatening eyebrow at him until he admitted, "Well, maybe a little." Her face shifted one of concern, but Ezra quickly said, "Not very much, and not publicly! Just a little-"

"How many times?" Bo demanded.

"Just once or twice, both in the last week, ma'am," Ezra immediately answered.

His mother looked at him in a panicked sort of way, and Ezra quickly held up his hands and tried ro calm her. "But it was for good reason both times!" he insisted. "One was to save my mission and the other one was just me feeling around in other people's minds. Nothing too drastic. Although a Jedi did manage to figure out that I have it without even seeing me use it."

Bo reared back and asked, "What? A Jedi? Ahsoka?"

"Nope, no Aunt 'Sokas to speak of. The Jedi's name is Kanan Jarrus," Ezra said.

His mother had once had a good friend in a female Jedi that had helped her during the Siege of Mandalore: Ahsoka Tano. Ezra had never met the woman, being only two at the time of the Siege, but his mother had told him stories about how she was a one-woman army, tearing through rival Mandalorians like they weren't even a threat. When his mother had first met her, Ahsoka had apparently been surrounded by four Mandalorians at once, yet had killed them all before a single one could react. When he was a child, it was the legend of Ahsoka Tano that had almost made him want to grow up to be a Jedi, but now they didn't even know if she was still alive.

Bo frowned in response to his answer and said, "Kanan Jarrus. Never heard of him. Ah, well, it was a bit too much to hope to see Ahsoka again, I suppose. Now, go get that stuff cleaned off your armor and prepare yourself for dinner. We'll have a feast tonight to celebrate your return."

Ezra looked down at the orange and yellow painted plates of armor on his body, and found himself inexplicably unwilling to erase them. He then looked back to his mother and said, "Actually, I think I'll keep this paint job."

Bo looked back at him and scoffed. "The 'death sticks at sunset' look?" she questioned, referring to the Mandalorian soldier's earlier comment. "Don't be absurd. You'll be a walking target in those colors."

Ezra smiled and spread his arms as he slowly backed out of the room. "What can I say? I look good in orange!"