Chapter 29

Sabine POV

They searched the building, but found no trace of her father, to Sabine's great frustration. The entire tower was deserted.

After she'd determined that this location was a dead end, Sabine went up to one of the top platforms, where she found Ezra in the middle of a heated argument with Kanan. Stepping up between them, she ordered, "Hey, you two! Knock it off! What's going on here?"

Throwing up an arm in exasperation, Ezra explained, "Jarrus has a problem with our victory here today."

Kanan pointed an accusing finger at Ezra and said, "No, I have a problem with how you did it. You showed no mercy, no hesitation to brutally kill all those Imperials."

"What would you have done?" Ezra asked. "Surrendered, then kindly asked them to not kill Sabine and maybe allow you guys to beg Tiber Saxon for mercy?"

"You can't give in to your emotions like that, Ezra!" Kanan said strictly.

Putting up a hand to keep Kanan back, Sabine said, "Kanan, relax. Look, I'm not so happy with the way Ezra did things either, and neither is he. But he did manage to save all of us."

"You don't get it, Sabine," Kanan told her. "A Jedi is in constant danger of giving in to their personal thoughts and feelings. The decisions we make have a greater impact on those around us due to our powers. Ezra's decision to instantly kill all those men so violently, and his apparent lack of regret for such a move put him and everyone else here in danger. That's why killing your enemies is a last resort, not a first. It's not the Jedi way."

"It's the Mandalorian way," Ezra argued, stepping closer to Kanan, but Sabine put out her other hand to stop him as well, keeping the two men away from each other. She then sternly turned towards Ezra and said, "Enough! Ezra, you will work on getting your feelings under control. Discipline yourself so what happened today doesn't happen again!"

After a moment, Ezra seemed to back down under Sabine's forceful gaze, nodding his head in acceptance. Sabine then turned to Kanan and ordered, "And you! You're a guest here, and you need to accept that we do things differently. Ezra does need to control his powers, but his instincts are as accurate as mine or those of any other Mandalorian here. Instead of getting mad at him, how about you try helping him?"

Kanan looked down shamefully, then sighed and said, "You're right. It's just… When he showed up to help you today, in the Force, he didn't feel like some heroic savior. He felt… cold. A kind of cold I've come to associate with the Dark Side. People like the Inquisitors, or Maul, or most notably, Vader. I don't want Ezra to end up like any of them."

Ezra sighed and said, "I won't, Kanan. I promise."

Kanan folded his arms over his chest and warned, "It's not that easy. I'll let this go, for now, but we will train you to overcome your emotions." Ezra just nodded in acceptance.

Just then, Lady Kryze arrived on top of the tower with the rest of her team, all of them flying in on their jetpacks. As she landed, Bo removed her helmet and greeted, "Ezra, Sabine, Master Jedi. I'm sure you've noticed by now that Alrich isn't here."

"Do you know where he is?" Ezra asked.

Bo nodded and said, "We attacked the Imperial command center and intercepted one of their transmissions. Alrich is currently being transported to Sundari… for a public execution."

Sabine's eyes widened in shock, not having expected such a bold move by the Empire, and determinedly said, "We have to stop them before they get there!"

"Your mother is already on her way to attack the convoy's defenses, redirecting it around the canyon so we can intercept them," Bo said.

Sabine nodded in acceptance and donned her helmet before launching off towards the canyons, pulling down her rangefinder to scan for the Imperial convoy. Soon later, she was joined in the air by Ezra, Lady Kryze, and Fenn Rau, the latter of whom was carrying Kanan by the hands.

As they flew, an explosion suddenly went off in the distance, along the path that the convoy would supposedly be heading. Smiling to herself, Sabine told the others, "Yep, that's my mom. Which means that that's our cue."

They began to dive down towards the source of the explosion, and Ezra commented, "Blowing stuff up definitely runs in your family."

"It's a Wren specialty," Sabine agreed.

At that moment, their wrist comms activated, and Ursa's voice said, "Sabine, we've engaged Tiber Saxon's Imperial dogs. The prisoner convoy has changed course towards the canyon."

"Then the diversion worked," Bo noted with satisfaction.

As they flew over a large rock face, Rau gestured with his head towards the ground below and said, "There!"

They all landed on the top of the cliff and looked down below, where they could see three ITTs (Imperial Troop Transports) going by in a line, filled to capacity with stormtroopers, surrounded by four speeders manned by scout troopers, and with several Imperial Super Commandos flying overhead.

Rau continued his scan and said, "I'm scanning a single passenger with no armor in the center transport. The one most heavily guarded."

Sabine thought it over for a second and said, "If we attack the lead vehicle, my father's transport will fall back, and we'll have an opportunity to sabotage the controls and bring it to a stop."

"By then, the rest of the convoy will be too far ahead to do anything about it," Kanan added.

"So who's going in?" Rau asked.

"My son will go," Bo volunteered. "He's our best shot at getting Alrich out."

Ezra shared a glance with Sabine and shrugged. "I don't like to brag, but she does have a point. I probably have the best chance here."

Sabine nodded in acceptance and ordered, "Rau, get Kanan in front of the convoy so he can attack them as they come by, then come back to reinforce me and Lady Kryze. Ezra, you attack them from behind."

Now that they all had their jobs, everyone nodded their understanding and began to take their positions. Rau flew away with Kanan, and as the ITTs got ever closer beneath them, Ezra turned to Sabine and asked, "I guess you want to give the Empire a little payback for taking your dad?"

Sabine nodded, watching the transports below with determination, hardly able to believe that her father was so close after all this time.

Ezra smirked at her and reached down to his belt before throwing something to her. Sabine caught it instinctively, then realized that it was the Darksaber hilt. She looked at Ezra questioningly, but he just smirked as he donned his helmet and told her, "Go easy on them."

Sabine smiled as she activated the Darksaber and looked back at the convoy, saying, "Not a chance."

As the transports finally came by right beneath them, Sabine jumped off of the cliff, activating her jetpack to slow her descent, and fired a rocket at the center transport, the one supposedly holding her father. However, rather than exploding with fire and shrapnel, this rocket exploded into a spray of dark purple paint, which obscured the viewport of the transport and caused them to swerve dangerously.

From behind her, Lady Kryze flew towards the convoy and began to engage the stormtroopers and Super Commandos in battle, and Sabine followed right behind her. Sabine shot a stormtrooper with one of her blasters, then hit a Super Commando in the helmet with the same blaster. However, due to his beskar helmet, the blast only managed to faze him, so Sabine quickly followed up her attack by flying closer to the Commando and making a cut along his jetpack, causing him to abruptly lose his flight power and collapse in the dirt behind the ITT convoy.

Soon after, they were joined by Fenn Rau, meaning that Kanan must now be in position and would soon jump up to join them as well, but Sabine could only hope that Ezra was handling his part of the mission, the most important part of getting her father out.

Ezra POV

Ezra was clinging tightly to the bottom of Alrich's transport, grunting from the effort as he tried to climb towards the front of the vehicle while the ground flew by beneath him at an incredible rate.

"I thought they were supposed to be slowing this thing down?" he muttered to himself. "Whatever. As long as they don't drop it on me, I'm fine."

Once he reached the front of the vehicle, he reached for the Darksaber on his belt before he suddenly remembered that he'd just lent it to Sabine. He reached to the other side and grabbed his new, other lightsaber. He pulled it forward and thrust the green blade into the bottom of the speeder above him, piercing through the controls in the cockpit, and said, "Try maintaining your ridiculous speed now, you big machine."

He deactivated his lightsaber and clipped it back onto his belt as he waited for the speeder to slow down. Oddly enough though, he almost thought that the speeder was actually getting faster now that he had severed the controls. Frowning to himself, Ezra said, "Hmm. That wasn't quite what I meant to do…"

Just then, Ezra saw the helmeted head of a Super Commando lean down from inside the transport to look beneath it. He froze upon seeing Ezra hanging there, and Ezra just gave a two-fingered salute and greeted, "Hey! Is this the taxi to the capital?"

Having effectively confused the Commando, Ezra then struck before he could react. Reaching out with both hands and rocketing into him with his jetpack, Ezra grabbed the Super Commando by the head and pulled him out of the ITT, then turned around and flew inside the open door. Immediately upon entering the transport, Ezra found himself facing only one stormtrooper guard, not counting the two pilots.

As he rocketed into the ship, Ezra heave-kicked the stormtrooper with all of his built-up momentum, knocking him right out of the door directly across from the one that Ezra had just entered from and out of the speeder. The copilot then spun around in shock to face him, but Ezra drew his lightsaber and sliced right through the back of the main pilot's chair, killing him where he sat, and then he used the Force to throw the copilot out the open doorway.

Having secured the transport, Ezra then spun around and got his first look at Alrich in years. The man hadn't changed much since he'd last seen him. He was tightly strapped into one of the seats in the hold with a metal bar with his hands cuffed onto the bar to ensure that he couldn't move it. Yet Alrich only had one question for Ezra when he saw him, and that was, "Are you with Sabine?"

Tensing up in shock, Ezra began to ask, "How could you possibly know about- Oh, wait. You meant… Um, yes. I am with her. As in, I'm here with her. To rescue you. But I'm also… Nevermind. We'll talk about this later."

Ezra ran over to where Alrich sat and held up his lightsaber, prompting Alrich to ask, "Are you a… Jedi or a Mandalorian?"

"Today, I'm a bit of both," Ezra responded as he cut Alrich's bonds off of him, then helped him stand up and walk to the open speeder door.

As they approached it, Ezra's comm activated and he heard Sabine say, "Ezra! We're almost clear out here, but you need to get my father out now! You're heading right towards a cliff!"

Surprised, Ezra asked, "A cliff? What cliff?" He leaned out the doorway and saw that the transport was just indeed about to go over the edge of a tall cliff, and the speeder couldn't turn to avoid it. "Ah. That cliff," Ezra muttered.

And then they went over the edge and began to fall. Reacting quickly, Ezra detached his jetpack and spun to attach it onto Alrich instead. Even without attaching onto armor, it would be able to go onto the magnetic plates underneath Alrich's Mandalorian clothes. When Alrich noticed what he was doing, he said, "Wait, no! What about you? We can share it!"

Ezra finished attaching it to Alrich's back and said, "Appreciated, sir, but I have one job to do today, and your daughter would kill me or worse if I did anything that could even possibly jeopardize your escape today. But don't worry, I have another way out. I think."

And with that, Ezra pushed Alrich out of the transport, watching the jetpack activate to carry him safely back to the top of the cliff.

Now comes the fun part, Ezra thought to himself. He climbed onto the top of the transport and ran backwards over the roof. Somehow, the middle transport had become the front one, which put the two other transports, now also tumbling over the edge of the cliff, between him and his own survival.

For a moment, Ezra felt doubt, but then he thought to himself, Kanan could do it. And I'm a Mandalorian. I've got this.

He ran to the edge of the first transport and used the Force to lift himself higher as he jumped off the edge. He landed on the second one and ran even faster towards the edge, then jumped once more. He landed on the third transport, but by the time he reached the other end of it, the cliff face was much further away than the transports had been from one another. Still, there was no time for hesitation. Ezra summoned all the Force power he could beneath himself and launched into one final jump…

Sabine POV

Complete denial was the only thing Sabine could allow herself to feel as she watched the three ITTs go over the edge of the cliff, led by one that was carrying both her father and her beloved boyfriend. She could only pray both mentally and in a small muttered voice that what she had just seen hadn't actually happened, that she was not about to lose two of the people she most loved in life.

She tried to console herself by thinking It's fine. Ezra has a jetpack. He can fly them both to safety. As long as he gets out before they hit the ground…

Still terrified, she flew towards the edge of the cliff, but was relieved when she saw a form fly up from the edge. Then, her relief changed instantly back to panic as she realized that it was only one person. It was her father, but as glad as Sabine wanted to be to see him after so many years, she could only pale in fear as she realized that her father was wearing Ezra's jetpack, meaning that Ezra was still down there somewhere.

She didn't know the full story, if her father had somehow chosen to leave Ezra behind and she should be mad at him, or if Ezra had tried another one of his stupid self-sacrificing stunts again and she should be mad at him. All she knew was that Ezra was down there somewhere, about to die in a fiery explosion, and she needed to save him before that happened.

She flew right past her father without giving him a second glance and dived towards the cliff edge, and that was when she saw Ezra's gloved hand appear above the edge for a split second before it began to fall back down again.

Not hesitating, Sabine made her dive even steeper, needing to twist around both backwards and upside down in midair, and flew down to grab him around the waist before she flew back up to the top of the cliff and set him on the ground.

She leaned her head against his, both of them breathing hard from the stressful moment, and slowly let themselves relax as they tightly held onto one another.

After they finally got their breathing under control, Sabine reared back a fist before punching Ezra hard in the gut, causing him to double over and groan in pain as Sabine threatened, "Ezra Kryze, I swear, if you ever do that to me again…"

Ezra just chuckled and said, "Alright, alright. Lesson learned."

Sabine rolled her eyes as she held out a hand to help him back to his feet, then laid her head against his once more and wrapped her arms around him, letting them both relax into their moment of shared affection, coming down from their adrenaline high.

However, the moment was ruined when her father's voice suddenly said rather uncomfortably, "Am I… interrupting something?"

Sabine quickly backed up from Ezra and turned to face her father, removing her helmet. Alrich looked at her for a moment, studying her, and said, "Sabine. When I got word that you had returned, I… did not believe it."

Looking back at him nervously, Sabine prompted, "And…"

Alrich stepped towards her paused for a moment before he hugged her tightly. Sabine let herself hug him back just as tightly as she heard him say, "Sabine, you are my daughter. I was pleased then." He pulled back and looked her over once more before adding, "Even more now."

Sabine shyly said, "Well, we would never leave you in the hands of the Empire."

"Oh, that was fine," her father said dismissively, like his seven-year imprisonment had been merely a minor annoyance. He then gestured to her armor and said, "I meant your artwork. You've progressed. Your use of color and line is better."

Suddenly feeling somewhat offended, Sabine asked, "'Better'? What do you mean 'better'? It's great."

Alrich winced with uncertainty and said, "It's… getting there. Your design aesthetic is still derivative of the Pre-Exile Masters."

Sabine looked at her own armor and responded, "Oh, Tojnun was a major influence, obviously, but I made it my own. I thought you had a sharper eye."

Ezra suddenly spoke up and said, "I won't lie, I have no idea what either of you are talking about, but I personally think her work is amazing, if it makes a difference. And I've analyzed every art piece she's ever made."

"That must be why you wear one of them so proudly, my friend," Alrich said, then he reached behind himself and pulled Ezra's jetpack off his back before handing it to him to put back on his armor. "I believe I forgot to owe you for rescuing me, young man. And you are?"

"Ezra Kryze of Clan Kryze, but the credit for your rescue goes solely to your daughter, sir," Ezra said as he removed his helmet.

His eyes suddenly widening in realization, Alrich pointed to his face and said, "I remember you! You were that Imperial Commando Captain that questioned me about Sabine, years and years ago. You showed great insight into my influence on her work. It was perhaps the only pleasant conversation I ever had with an Imperial. You were polite, cordial, and if I remember correctly, you promised Gar Saxon that you would torture me into talking, but you never did. You made it very difficult to remember that we were supposed to be enemies."

Ezra's shoulders slumped and he said, "To be honest, sir, I was kinda hoping that you wouldn't remember me as 'that Imperial Commando.'"

"Well, don't concern yourself," Alrich waved him off. "As I just said, I held you in rather high regard. I kept hoping I would find another person like you within the Empire, especially among our own people, but no such luck. However, I'll make the next part easier for you. Given some of the interactions I've seen and heard today, am I correct in assuming that you and my daughter love one another?"

Both Sabine and Ezra froze, with Sabine wincing in sympathy for her boyfriend. Her father could be very forward with sensitive information, causing many to be shocked into a state of unresponsiveness. It was one of the ways in which he chose to fight, rather than using blasters and explosives.

Trying to spare Ezra the awkwardness of the moment, Sabine answered for him, "Father, I'm sorry I haven't given you proper introductions yet, but this is Ezra Kryze, and he's my boyfriend. And before you ask, no, we're not married. We're just dating. For now."

Alrich raised a hand to stop her there and said, "That part I'm not surprised by. You never were much of one for convention, Sabine. So far, I completely approve of him. But one thing I must ask: Is he a Jedi?"

Next to her, Ezra sighed as he pulled his lightsaber from his belt before holding it up and activating the blade. "I am the first Force-sensitive Mandalorian in thousands of years, but I'm no Jedi, sir. I fight with their weapons, the Force and lightsabers, but I'm not one of them. Their order is all but gone, anyway."

"He's close enough to being one, though," came Kanan's voice, and Sabine's father turned around to see Kanan, Lady Kryze, and Fenn Rau arriving next to them.

Alrich looked down at Kanan's belt and noted his lightsaber before his eyes widened and he asked, "Are you a Jedi?"

Kanan nodded and held out a hand towards Alrich and introduced, "Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight, at your service, Count Wren. I'm the one that trained Ezra to accomplish what he did today. I'm also one of the four people that took Sabine in when she left your home. I suppose I kind of became her surrogate father in your absence. You raised a wonderful daughter, Alrich."

Sabine blushed behind them, and Ezra smiled over at her and winked, so she punched him in the shoulder. He just chuckled as he rubbed the soreness and put his arm around her, letting her relax into his side.

Her father accepted the proffered hand and responded to Kanan, "I can't thank you enough for taking care of her, Master Jedi."

Watching her two families connect with one another, with Ezra beside her, Sabine didn't know if she'd ever felt happier than she did right now.