Chapter 24

Ezra POV

Several days after he finally managed to get his mother to stop jumping down Sabine's throat all the time, Ezra was in the Mandalorian War Council Center on Concord Dawn, sitting in his seat and idly tapping the Darksaber hilt with one finger on his lap as the surrounding clan leaders attempted to plan an attack on Mandalore.

Sabine was in the chair next to him, but she had slumped over to sleep, laying her head on his shoulder, about half an hour ago. Ezra couldn't blame her. He often found these meetings to be quite boring, and she was only here because he had to be since he was technically the leader here with the Darksaber.

If this was what his mother did all the time, Ezra really didn't care to ever lead his clan. In past years, using his hunt as an excuse had gotten Ezra out of attending the vast majority of the meetings he had been called to during his time with the Empire, but not all, and he had never enjoyed them.

He'd lost track of what anyone was saying long ago, but he struggled to stay awake through it all, as Sabine would no longer let him wear his helmet all the time, which included meetings. It was kind of unfair that she didn't wear a helmet in here but still got to take a nap, but at least Ezra got to watch her. He thought that she made a cute face when she was sleeping, sort of scrunching up her eyebrows at random times as she dreamt.

Whenever he saw her begin to grow restless, Ezra could distract himself from the meeting by using the Force to calm her dreams, which made him feel better to see her relax, and he got to do some more of his Force training.

Then, in the middle of their discussion, there came the sound of loud explosions outside, accompanied by the ground shaking. Immediately, all of the Mandalorians present were on their feet with their blasters drawn.

Having been woken up by the noise, Sabine took a few extra seconds to get ready for a fight, during which time Ezra stood protectively in front of her with the Darksaber activated in one hand and one of his pistols in the other.

A moment later, a soldier from Clan Ordo ran into the tent and announced, "We're under attack! The Empire is here!"

The Clan leaders all ran out of the tent and looked up above them to analyze the threat. Ezra put on his helmet and pulled down his rangefinder to scan the Imperial forces and told everyone else, "I count two Imperial light cruisers, multiple TIE Fighters in the air, and they're deploying four AT-ATs to the ground."

His mother ducked as a green blast of energy hit the ground behind them and said, "While those forces are formidable, our fleet should handle them easily. Why aren't they in the air?"

Sabine looked up with an analyzing eye and noted, "It's the TIEs. Our ships are currently mostly protected from above, but if we try to launch our ships they'll get shredded before they can clear the hills."

Ezra thought it over and said, "Each cruiser can carry up to nine TIE Fighters and two TIE Bombers, and about a hundred stormtroopers. If these ships were fully equipped, that means that we're up against twenty-two fighters and two hundred stormtroopers alongside their four walkers, and we can't use our fleet unless we get them off the ground safely."

"Then we take to the skies a different way!" Countess Wren called, and she launched upwards on his jetpack, followed by several soldiers from various clans. A couple were shot down, but most managed to get into the air, where they engaged the TIE Fighters in mid-air combat.

Sabine turned and nodded to Ezra, then activated her own jetpack and took off after her mother. Ezra made to follow her, but his own mother grabbed his shoulder and said, "You can help your girlfriend later, Ezra. For now, make your mother proud and handle the walkers for us, would you?" Not waiting for his response, Bo then activated her jetpack and flew up to join the fight above.

Ezra called after her, "'Handle the walkers'? How do you expect me to do that?!" But she was already well out of range of his voice.

Grumbling to himself, Ezra turned to face the four AT-ATs, which were all positioned in a single line and were walking ceaselessly forward towards the Mandalorian camp, firing their cannons at anything in sight and seeming completely unaffected by the efforts of the Mandalorians attacking their legs. Even when they fired rockets, they didn't manage to do much to it, though Ezra noticed that this was because they were hitting the strongest points of the plating.

He had studied the details of every Imperial resource during his spare time among them, and his people were currently wasting time and efforts hitting the wrong places. Rocketing forward, Ezra called out to them, "Not the sides, heads, or legs! Hit the joints!"

Hearing his command, the Mandalorians began to focus all of their fire on the leg joints of the walkers. Two rockets flew forward and hit the joints of both front legs on one of the walkers, and it immediately began to fall down, followed by cheers from the Mandalorian army.

But the fight was far from over. Almost immediately after going down, the fallen walker began to slowly get back up, and the cheers died down abruptly at the sight. The other walkers directed their cannons towards the source points of the rocket volley and fired, forcing them all to scatter.

Ezra looked around at the chaos, well-aware that they were losing ground, and muttered to himself, "No, no!" He looked back behind them, where their painstakingly amassed fleet sat vulnerable, and growled in frustration at the idea of the walkers managing to destroy all that they had spent months building.

Then he thought of his mother telling him to handle the walkers, and he glared back at them, then instinctively thrust out a hand towards one of them and called upon the Force. It was a struggle, as he had never attempted anything this big, but he clenched his teeth in concentration and pushed as hard as he could against the walker.

At first he thought it was just his imagination when he saw it actually start to slow down its progress, and then it came to a complete stop. Ezra was already beginning to feel tired, but he continued to apply pressure to the front of the walker, even as its legs dug into the ground, struggling to move forward.

When he felt his strength about to give out, Ezra let out a yell as he gave one last mighty push, and suddenly the head of the walker crushed into the body and released an explosion from the neck, like it had walked headfirst into a solid wall at high speed. The surrounding Mandalorians seemed confused, not having seen the cause of the walker's destruction, but they nevertheless cheered and redoubled their efforts on attacking the remaining three.

Just then, numerous Imperial troop transports began to fly down and land behind the AT-ATs and deploy stormtroopers by the dozens from inside them, who all ran forward to join the fight, firing their blasters at the Mandalorian lines.

Scowling, Ezra shook off his tiredness and ordered his soldiers, "You handle the stormtroopers! I'll deal with the walkers!"

He received nods of confirmation in response to his order, but as Ezra turned back to the walkers, he realized that he had no idea how he planned to accomplish his task. He was far too spent at this point to use the Force on another one of those things, meaning that he would have to improvise.

Ezra activated his jetpack and flew towards another one of the walkers, dodging blaster fire as he went, and used his grappling hook to attach onto the ventral surface beneath it, standing upside-down. He looked around for a weak point, but found nothing that he could really use. The leg joints were in sight, but he didn't have enough explosive power on him to do much to them, only small detonators and wrist rockets.

Then, he had an idea. He pulled the Darksaber from his belt and activated it before plunging it into the belly of the walker beneath him. The powerful shields of the walker did nothing against the continuous beam of energy that the Darksaber emitted, and Ezra effortlessly cut a small hole around his feet, then tugged on his line and pulled himself inside the walker through the floor.

As soon as he was inside, Ezra found himself surrounded by two stormtroopers, but he activated his jetpack and spun around in the air while firing his flamethrower, burning the two Imperial soldiers alive while they just screamed and flailed helplessly.

After they were both dead, the sound of firing rockets caused Ezra to spin around on his way to the cockpit, but he stopped upon seeing that the sound had been two Mandalorians flying in through the hole Ezra had made, one of whom was Axe Woves.

Axe held up his pistols and said, "Not bad, Kryze. Now, let's take this thing!"

Ezra nodded to him and led the way into the AT-AT cockpit, where the three Mandalorians quickly killed the pilots, bringing the walker to a halt. Axe and the other Mandalorian then moved the Imperial pilots' bodies and took the controls themselves, with Axe muttering to himself, "I've always wanted to drive one of these things!" He directed the cannons of the AT-AT towards the sky and began to fire at the TIE Fighters, bringing one down in just a few shots.

Standing between them, Ezra patted his two compatriots on the shoulders, then said, "It's all yours."

Going back out to the hold, Ezra opened one of the maintenance doors and jumped out of the walker, activating his jetpack and flying over to the next one that was still under Imperial control.

Walker number three had now noticed Axe's walker firing at their own ships, and it was attempting to shoot him in response.

Not wasting a moment and finally knowing what to do, Ezra flew on top of the walker's protruding head and cut a circle in the floor beneath him once again. He then holstered the Darksaber and drew his dual pistols before jumping down and landing on the central console between the pilots.

He shot them both in the chest at once, then brought up his shield with one arm to block a shot from one of the two stormtrooper guards while holstering his right-hand pistol, then drew the Darksaber once again and used his jetpack to rocket towards the stormtroopers. Spinning in the air, Ezra sliced the front off one of their guns and kicked the soldier away, then used his shield to block another blast from the other soldier before using the Force to throw the circle of metal from the ceiling into the stormtrooper's chest hard, knocking him back into a wall with a grunt before he dropped his weapon and fell unconscious.

I'm kinda getting the hang of this, Ezra thought to himself with satisfaction as he stopped the walker and flew back out of the ceiling. This was the first time that he had really combined his Force and Mandalorian training in a fight, unable to use it just for sparring, and it would be an understatement to say that he was having fun.

Ezra flew his way over to the last Imperial walker and didn't even bother going inside this time. He simply cut off their cannons as he flew by the head, disabling their weapons, then dived down to slice the Darksaber blade through both of the starboard side legs, and after a moment, the whole walker began to fall over sideways with a loud crash, making Ezra wince slightly as he realized that he might have overdone it a bit.

Still, as Mandalorian soldiers took over walker number three as well as number two, they turned around and began to easily mow down the attacking stormtroopers on the ground, turning the tide of the battle in Mandalore's favor significantly, and the TIEs in the sky were nearly all depleted by now.

Sabine POV

Fighting off the TIEs had been difficult for Sabine after she noticed that Ezra was still on the ground. She kept getting distracted as she watched him with worry as he pretty much single-handedly took on four AT-ATs, nearly getting herself killed several times in the process.

However, she needn't have concerned herself. Ezra managed to handle the walkers just fine, even commandeering two of the four rather than destroying them.

With her fears relieved, Sabine finally managed to focus, and as she saw one of the last TIE Fighters fly past her, she used her grappling line to attach onto it, then pulled herself in to where she was pressed against the viewport. Through the transparisteel, she could see the pilot jump in shock as she appeared on his viewport, and Sabine waved at him cheerfully before she slapped a detonator onto the glass before releasing her hold on the Fighter.

A few seconds later, as Sabine hovered back, she watched the detonator explode into multicolored paint, which obscured the pilot's visions and caused him to fly erratically. Then, due to the pilot's blindness, he crashed right into another TIE as it flew by.

Having seen the whole thing, Ezra's mother suddenly floated up next to Sabine and commented, "Two for one. Not bad, Wren."

Sabine grinned with pride, and then they heard Ezra's voice over the comms say, "Alright, everyone. We're mostly cleaned up down here, but we're not letting the Empire have any sort of victory today. The fleet's launching towards those light cruisers. Those of you in the air, just grab hold."

Almost immediately following Ezra's statement, they saw several Kom'rk fighters launching up from their camp, straight up into the air. Running high on adrenaline, Sabine used her grappling line to stick to the surface of one of the passing Kom'rks and rode it all the way up into the atmosphere.

She saw both Imperial cruisers attempting to turn tail and run, but countless yellow bolts of energy rained down upon their engines, shorting out their hyperdrives before they could get anywhere and leaving them trapped in place.

Looking behind her, Sabine saw dozens of Mandalorians that, like her, had stuck themselves onto the surface of the Kom'rks, and they were now releasing their lines to use their jetpacks to fly down and cover the surfaces of the two Arquitens-class cruisers like an army of armored, extremely enthusiastic ants.

Sabine flew down to join them, and as she saw the Mandalorians tearing into the hull of the ship and disabling its guns, she heard Ezra call from above her, "Try to keep them as intact as possible! We might be a bit short handed on crew members, but we'll still be able to use these things ourselves!"

Looking up at him, Sabine slowed down her descent slightly so that she landed on the surface of the ship at the same time that Ezra did, and then she turned her head towards him and said, "Nice job with the walkers. I saw the whole thing."

Ezra just shrugged and responded, "Nothing but good fun," but Sabine could tell that he was very proud of how well this fight was going for them.

Sabine smirked at him and teased, "I like seeing you go into war-commander mode. I think it's… sexy."

Ezra looked back at her, and Sabine wished that she could see his expression right now. After a moment of silence, Ezra cleared his throat and spoke into his comlink, saying, "Alright, Mandalorians, let's take these ships."

There was a loud, collective cheer from the army, and dozens of Mandos gladly jumped off of the cruisers' tops. Ezra ran right after them, and Sabine was close behind. They all fell down the side of the ship until they were beneath it, then activated their jetpacks and flew inside in groups, entering through the space shields in the bottom and immediately spreading out in all directions.

By the time Ezra and Sabine got inside their cruiser, the soldiers that had arrived before them had excitedly already begun their hostile takeover of the ship, and they could see numerous bodies of stormtroopers and officers scattered around the halls as Ezra led them towards the bridge.

As they passed a stormtrooper covered in dozens of char marks from repeated blaster fire, Sabine commented, "Well, our army certainly doesn't mess around."

Ezra nodded and said, "The Empire doesn't hold back, and neither do we. We're just better at it. Besides, after years of being forced to stand down to the Empire, can you really blame our people for wanting to show these Imps their place?"

Sabine shrugged helplessly and said, "I guess not. I just… My rebel family doesn't really like to kill when we can avoid it."

Ezra sighed and told her, "I'm sorry if this all makes you feel uncomfortable, Sabine. I know that the sights might not be pretty. But we are in a war, and a war's gonna have casualties. Even if your other family holds back, I advise you not to. I'd rather see a thousand stormtroopers die than see one of our own fall, if that's what it takes. Our people are strong because we do what must be done, and we still manage to maintain our honor while we're at it."

Sabine nodded hesitantly and responded, "I… I'll try. It might take me some time, though."

"Just make sure you learn fast, Bine. A moment's hesitation can mean the difference between life and death, for you or someone else, and I'm not willing to accept either."

Shortly later, they arrived on the bridge, where bodies were strewn about all over, and a line of about half a dozen Imperial officers were lined up against the wall, kneeling with their hands behind their heads.

One of the Mandalorian soldiers guarding them turned to Ezra as they walked in and said, "Sir, these are the lead Imperial techs on the ship. Everyone else has been terminated. What should we do with the prisoners?"

Ezra looked them over, then looked back at the soldier and said, "The Empire does not negotiate. Eliminate them also."

Suddenly panicked, Sabine called out, "Wait!"

Ezra and the soldiers that had been about to shoot the Imperials all looked towards her, and Sabine told Ezra, "Just… just put them in the brig for now. Please?"

Ezra stared at her for another moment, then sighed deeply and told the lead soldier, "On second thought, lock them up in the brig. We'll question them about our enemies on Mandalore."

The soldier looked back and forth between Ezra and Sabine, then nodded to Ezra and gestured for his men to take the Imperials away.

Ezra turned back to Sabine, and she tried to explain, "I can't… I'm not ready to-"

"I know," Ezra said gently. He then removed his helmet and continued, "Just… Like I said, learn fast. Really, it's no different than killing the stormtroopers and TIE pilots that attacked us today. You need to be able to stomach this sort of thing, and do it soon, because I doubt that these will be our last Imperial prisoners before this is over."

He then walked past her, leaving her feeling, for the first time, somewhat out of place among all these other Mandalorians that were so willing to kill. She didn't even know why she was trying to protect the Imperials. Ezra was right. She'd killed plenty of them before, at least hundreds. What were the executions of a few officers?

Ezra walked onto the bridge and ordered, "Put me through to the other cruiser."

Immediately, the surrounding soldiers jumped to work, following his order, and then one of them gave Ezra the thumbs-up.

Ezra stood at attention and said, "Former Imperial cruiser one to former Imperial cruiser two, do you read us?"

Quickly, Lady Kryze's voice came back and said, "This is former Imperial… We need to give these things proper names. What are these ships called?"

"Arquitens cruisers," Ezra answered. "Anyway, do you think that the Empire could attack us again? If the results of this battle are any indication, I wouldn't mind a few more rounds. Maybe they could bring a Star Destroyer or two?"

"Let's not push our luck, but yes. This battle was most favorable for us."

Ezra smirked as Sabine stepped up next to him, and he responded, "Most favorable indeed, Mother. The Empire just helped us move up the timetable for our attack on Mandalore."