Seeking Justice

by StormySky1005

Ezra is not a Bridger, but the Mandalorian heir of Clan Kryze, and also an Imperial operative. His mission: To capture Sabine Wren to answer for her crimes against her people. Sabine Wren is a Mandalorian with a dark past full of regrets, and now it's caught up to her.

33. For The Rebellion

Chapter 33

Ezra POV

For the hundredth time, Ezra complained, "But why couldn't I bring my ship?"

Groaning with annoyance as she hit her head against her control console, Sabine answered, "Because, like I told you, my other family hasn't seen the Convor yet. Besides, we don't need two Kom'rks just to travel to Yavin 4."

Frowning, Ezra said, "And I don't need three rockets in my jetpack when I can barely remember the last time I had to use a single one. That doesn't mean it isn't nice to have."

"If it makes you feel any better, I always seem to be the one sitting in the back, no matter whose ship it is," Kanan tried to cheer Ezra up.

"Is the blind guy seriously complaining about the view?" Ezra asked irritably.

"No, but he is trying to get you to stop whining about you not getting to bring your ship," Kanan responded.

Ezra opened his mouth to retort, but Sabine suddenly announced, "And… We're here!"

Ezra looked out the viewport and got his first look at the new Rebellion base on the moon of Yavin 4. The moon was largely covered in jungle, but the area that they were flying towards had small clearings with ancient stone pyramids built within them, which was what the Rebels were using as bases.

"Why do they even need this place?" Ezra pondered out loud. "We gave them three Star Destroyers!"

"Two Destroyers and an Interdictor," Sabine corrected absently.

"It doesn't matter!" Ezra exclaimed. "Either way, we gave them three massive, mobile bases, and yet they're set up on this old rock? What, did they already lose the Destroyers?"

"Well, they probably know that they can't use the Destroyers indefinitely, not having enough fuel suppliers or crew members, and the Empire would go after them if they used such large ships openly," Kanan observed. "The Destroyers are probably being kept somewhere safe, where they can remain hidden until they're needed for an attack of some sort."

Leaning back in his chair and sighing, Ezra said, "Well, clearly you guys are determined to fight me on everything today. Good to know."

Sabine reached over and patted him comfortingly on the lap, keeping her eyes front as she attempted a landing, and responded, "No, Ez. The Rebels just have a lot of experience losing, unlike you. They can't be quite as reckless as we can."

As they landed, Sabine and Kanan stood up and walked out of the cockpit, and Ezra smirked and said to himself, "Really? Well, I can fix that!"

He exited the Comvor and spotted Kanan and Sabine talking to Captain Rex over by the Rebel starfighters. Placing his helmet beneath his arm, he went over to join them, and when Rex spotted him, he grinned and said, "Hey, is that Sabine's boyfriend I see? What's your name again?"

Standing up tall to deliver his usual introduction, Ezra said, "I am Ezra Kryze of Clan-"

"Let me guess. Clan Kryze?" the old Clone cut him off.

Sabine snickered to herself, and Ezra glared at her before telling Rex, "Yes, and you would do well to remember it this time, Captain. I could easily be the last face you see."

Despite Ezra's thinly veiled threat, Rex just laughed and told Kanan, "I love this kid's attitude. What's he doing here, anyway?"

"Oh, you're gonna love this one, Clone," Ezra said. "I'm joining your Rebellion."

Rex raised an eyebrow and asked, "Really? And do you think that you can handle the strain of this war?"

"We just got back from wiping the Empire clean off the face of Mandalore, so I think I'll take my chances," Ezra told him, taking a challenging step towards him.

Sabine stepped between them and said, "Alright, alright, we get it. You're both big, tough guys. Now, Rex, we need to report to Hera. Have you seen her?"

Just then, at the sound of multiple ships exiting from hyperspace, Rex looked up and furrowed his brow in concern before saying, "If you're looking for Hera, here she comes now, coming in hot with what little's left of her squadron."

The other three of them followed Rex's gaze to the sky, where they saw several Y-Wing fighters diving out of the clouds, all of them trailing smoke and flames.

Sighing, Ezra muttered to himself, "Just once can I greet my girlfriend's family without things getting so dramatic?"

After he'd said it, Ezra stepped forward and began to fly towards the flaming bombers, hoping to save them before they hit the ground, but then a grip on his elbow stopped him, and he looked back to see Kanan saying, "Don't worry. She's got this."

Though still cautious, Ezra deactivated his jetpack and watched as the Y-Wings came in while slowly losing speed and crashed down to the ground, sliding a short distance with their momentum before stopping. The fighters wouldn't be getting back into the air anytime soon, but all of the landings had been survivable for the pilots and impressively smooth (as far as crashes went).

They all walked towards the wreck of the lead vehicle, the one marked for Phoenix Leader, but they stopped as the canopy opened and the Twi'lek pilot jumped out, removing her helmet and rushing to check on the pilots in the other ships.

Once the pilots were all safely out of their fighters and lined up together as Rebel fire crews rushed over to extinguish the small fires on the various ships, Hera stood in front of them and began to give them a little pep talk.

At this distance, Ezra couldn't hear all of it, but he did hear something about their mission intel being bad. Interesting, he thought to himself. In his experience, bad intel almost always involved spies among your ranks. As everyone on this base needed to be completely trustworthy, it was most likely that their communications were being monitored. That would have to be dealt with as soon as possible.

After the other pilots were dismissed and Hera returned to inspecting the damage to their fighters, they approached her and Kanan commented, "I've seen worse landings."

Turning around to face them with wide eyes, Hera said, "Kanan? And… Sabine! You came back. And you brought Ezra? What about Mandalore?"

"Consider the planet cleansed of the Imperials," Ezra said. "While we have some free time before we expect them back, we figured we'd come give you guys a hand with your own war."

"Right now, my family here needs me more than my family there," Sabine added.

"Well, we're glad to have you all here, and there's plenty of work to go around," Hera told them, nodding with emphasis towards Ezra, the only one of them that had not been a regular part of the Rebellion before.

From behind them, a familiar voice said, "A reunion. How nice. I hate to break this up, but Mon Mothma has requested your presence."

They all turned to face the speaker, the now former Agent Kallus. Where once he had worn the bland gray uniform of an Imperial ISB agent, Kallus now wore a dark green jacket with a deep orange shirt beneath, brown boots, and black pants with a blaster pistol strapped to his thigh in a quick-draw holster. His hair, which had once been so neatly trimmed and combed back over his head, was now longer and was simply brushed to the sides of his face, though he had kept his signature sideburns.

"Looking good, Alexsandr," Ezra greeted him.

Crossing his arms and looking back at Ezra, Kallus said, "Admittedly, it is good to see you once more as well, Captain Kryze. Or as we call you around here, 'Destroyer destroyer.'"

"No one calls him that except you," Hera argued as she walked past him.

The rest of them began to follow after her, and Kallus said, "I started it after that business over Atollon. It's catching on, slowly but surely."

"No, it's not," Hera denied.

"I gotta say, I hope Hera's right," Ezra said. "That is a terrible nickname."

"You'll learn to love it," Kallus said calmly and with certainty. Ezra didn't exactly share his confidence.

As they entered the Rebel command center, Ezra noted three figures that he recognized standing around a table. Two were Imperial senators, one former and one current. First was former Imperial Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila. Second was Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, who was present only as a life-sized hologram. The third figure was General Jan Dodonna, a famous Republic Clone Wars veteran from the planet Commenor.

As they entered, all three figures turned to greet their party and Mon Mothma told Hera, "Captain, I commend your bravery in protecting your fellow pilots."

"I just want to know what went wrong out there," Hera responded.

Mon Mothma nodded in response, but then her gaze shifted over to Ezra, and she narrowed her eyes in apprehension. "Excuse me, Captain, but who is this young Mandalorian accompanying you?"

Ezra stepped forward and began to say, "I am Ezra Kryze of Clan-"

Once again, he was cut off in the same place for the second time today, but this time by Hera as she said, "This is Ezra. He's here to help us."

Her eyes widening, Mon Mothma said, "That Mandalorian? But he… He was Imperial! Captain, did you bring a spy into our most secure base?"

Behind him, Ezra suddenly heard the sound of guns being raised and turned around to see the two Rebel guards that had been standing at the door entering the room while aiming their blasters at his head.

With a synchronized flick of their wrists, both Ezra and Sabine activated their energy shields and held them up defensively. They then also both drew their respective lightsabers and activated them at their sides as Kanan did the same behind them. Kallus placed a hand on his pistol but did not draw it, looking around the room warily like he was unsure of who he should support more. If the former agent did decide to attack Ezra, he was determined not to hold it against the man, who had become something of a friend but certainly had good reason to be cautious of spies, having experience with knowing how dangerous they could be, as well as having an obligation to serve the Rebellion that had taken him in.

Fortunately, against two lightsaber-wielding Mandalorians and a Jedi (kind of two), the rebels suddenly didn't seem so eager to attack Ezra anymore.

Hera turned back to Mon Mothma and said, "Perhaps I should've clarified. This is Ezra Kryze, or Spectre-6. The newest addition to our crew. He spent seven years spying on the Empire, after which he killed the Imperial Governor of Mandalore and captured two Star Destroyers for us, and just now returned from freeing Mandalore from the Empire's rule. And anyone who messes with him, messes with us. But something tells me that you don't want to mess with him."

Ezra was touched at Hera's seeming willingness to let her people fight one another for his sake. And she had called him Spectre-6. What did that mean? Was it just part of her story? Or was she actually trying to say that he was part of their family? He didn't know that they felt so familiar with him for that.

After a moment of silence, General Dodonna held up a hand, and the two rebel soldiers lowered their weapons, looking relieved, and walked back outside. Three lightsabers and two shields deactivated, and then Mon Mothma cleared her throat before saying, "Well, I… apologize for our less-than-warm welcome. It is good to have you here, Ezra Kryze. Now, Captain Syndulla, we need to discuss your latest mission. You say you want to know what went wrong? Well, Senator Organa may be able to shed some light on that for us."

The hologram of Senator Organa stepped forward and pressed a button on the console, causing a hologram of a large communications tower with a wide dish at the top to appear over the table. Wherever the real Bail Organa was right now, he had pressed a button to send them this schematic, but it appeared to them as though the hologram itself had actually pushed the buttons on their physical table here.

"My sources in the Senate have confirmed for me that the Empire has constructed a new communications relay in the Jalindi system," Senator Organa said. "It greatly expands their command and control throughout the surrounding sectors and enabled them to respond much more quickly to your incursion."

Looking at the hologram with annoyance, General Dodonna said, "Well, I hate to admit it, but it appears that Gerrera's rumors were true."

Surprised, Ezra asked, "You people are still working with Saw Gerrera?"

"Not very happily," Mon Mothma answered. "How do you know him?"

"He's been a minor thorn and sometimes tool of the Empire for years," Ezra explained. "They've deemed him too useful to squash out just yet. Oh, and I may have… borrowed him after the Ghost crew met him on Geonosis."

Seeming confused, Kanan asked, "'Tool'? 'Borrowed him'? What are you talking about?"

"The Empire uses him from time to time, all without his knowing," Ezra explained. "They consider him too valuable because they can get him to hit small targets that ultimately accomplish nothing except let the Empire show their citizens how dangerous rebels are. He's unknowingly been their pawn for years, ever since he failed to kill Grand Moff Tarkin and several other high-ranking Imperial officers during a meeting on Eriadu once. As for the borrowing thing… Well, I had to talk to him about Sabine after he met her, and he wouldn't exactly come willingly. So I just kinda… You know. Borrowed him."

"You mean you captured him," Mon Mothma said disapprovingly.

Holding his hands up in defense, Ezra said, "Hey, look, I knew the Empire wouldn't let me keep him or kill him. And I pumped him so full of truth serum that he doesn't remember a thing from our meeting."

"That man used to be a good friend of mine," Rex protested. He then sighed and said, "But I suppose that what's done is done. We'll have to warn him that the Empire's controlling his movements. For now, what I want to know is how Saw's ragtag group managed to get better intel than we could."

"Because Gerrera has absolutely no qualms about how he acquires it," Kallus answered.

There was a short silence as everyone processed his meaning. Gerrera was a torturer. Ezra had done many horrible things, but he wouldn't let people suffer.

Finally, the silence was broken by General Dodonna saying, "Well, what we should be deciding is what move we're going to make. We can't let this relay continue to hinder our missions."

"Perhaps there is another way," Hera said, pointing to the dish. "If we could somehow tap into this relay, we could use it to monitor Imperial fleet movements and adjust our own operations to avoid them."

Looking over the diagram, Mon Mothma asked, "Can it be done?"

"My crew and I have plenty of jobs just like it," Hera responded confidently.

Raising his hand timidly, Ezra said, "I haven't. Just saying. I mean, I probably could, but I-"

"And our ship can get in there undetected just fine," Hera added, cutting Ezra off. "We don't call it the Ghost for nothing."

Mon Mothma nodded and said, "Very well then. You and your crew may proceed, Captain Syndulla."

Line Break

Hours later, Ezra stood next to Sabine and Chopper on the Ghost's lowered ramp over the relay station on Jalindi.

"So… when Hera says that you guys have done plenty of jobs like this, how many times exactly did you jump out of the Ghost thousands of meters in the air before I gave you a jetpack?" Ezra asked Sabine.

She smacked him on the back of the helmet and said, "You know what she meant. Now stay focused. This will require skilled timing. Don't hit your jets too early, or their sensors will pick us up."

"Probably don't want to hit them too late, either," Ezra noted, looking down at the station as they flew to hover right above the dish.

Nodding and looking down with him, Sabine agreed, "I do like abstract art, but I don't really want to become it."

Just then, over their comms, they heard Zeb's voice say, "Alright, we're in optimum position. Time to fly, lovebirds!" After this comment, he deactivated the speaker, but they could still hear the Lasat loudly laughing at his own joke from the cockpit as they jumped off the ramp.

As they fell, Ezra turned to Sabine and asked, "Did we have to bring Captain Orrelios? Even after all this time, he's still laughing at our relationship. I don't think he's focused enough for this mission."

Sabine ignored his question and stayed silent as they fell until a soft beep inside the headsets of their helmets told them that they had reached three-hundred meters above their destination, at which point they both activated their jetpacks to slow their descent.

Still, their momentum carried them much faster than they wanted to be going, and they were still sliding at high speeds after they landed on the curved surface of the enormous dish. "We're still going too fast!" Sabine exclaimed.

Looking around for a few seconds, Ezra reached out and grabbed onto one of the smaller operating poles along the inside of the dish and swung around to grab Sabine's hand before she could slide past him, pulling both of them to a stop. They then managed to stand up on the still-slanted metal surface and Ezra said, "Well, that wasn't so bad."

Sabine POV

Immediately after he'd said it, the sound of a loud whirring reached their ears, and they both turned to see Chopper's small, metal form sliding across the surface of the dish as he let out a little scream of fright.

Knowing that they couldn't stop all that metal moving at that speed, both Ezra and Sabine simply jumped out of the way and let Chopper fly between them and slam face first into the metal wall at the center of the dish.

Turning to her boyfriend, Sabine asked, "Why didn't you use the Force to stop him?"

"I'm sorry, I was busy trying to avoid getting killed by a living cannonball," Ezra defended.

Shaking her head, Sabine walked over to Chopper and helped him get his bearings, asking, "Chopper? Are you alright?"

The droid grumbled out a response, and Ezra shrugged before saying, "Well, he's complaining."

"That must mean he's fine," Sabine finished for him. She then pulled her vambrace to her mouth and said, "Spectre-5 to Ghost. We made it onto the relay in one piece."

"Copy that. Now get to work on that spike. We're on the clock here," Hera's voice responded.

Sabine nodded to Chopper, and the astromech plugged into the scomp terminal at the base of the dish while Sabine moved over to help input their new bug.

A few seconds after they'd begun working, they heard Hera say, "Heads up. You've got an Imperial cruiser heading in your direction."

Sighing, Sabine asked, "Ezra, why did you have to jinx us by saying it 'wasn't so bad?'"

To her surprise, she didn't hear any response from him. Looking back over her shoulder, Sabine saw Ezra looking into the sky and staring up at the Imperial Arquitens cruiser flying above them. Knowing what would be going through his mind, Sabine returned to her work and said, "Ezra, don't even think about it."

"It would be so easy!" Ezra begged her. "It would take, like, thirty seconds to gain control of the bridge, and then Chopper could fly it back to the base!"

Shaking her head, Sabine said, "For now, leave it. We have a different mission, and we need to stay on it."

Sabine ignored Ezra as she heard him grumbling behind her. She knew that he would behave himself.

Looking down at Chopper, she said, "Alright, Chop, isolate the secondary comm circuit. Install the spike."

Chopper twisted his arm around in the terminal for a second, and then Sabine announced, "Got it! We're patched in!"

Suddenly, the communications control panel emitted the sound of a voice, one that said, "Jalindi outpost, this is Marauder. Requesting clearance to dock."

Ezra walked over to the panel and said, "Ooh. Sabine, that ship is called the Marauder. I want it."

"Not now, Ezra!" Sabine said irritably. "We must've patched into the main comm circuit by mistake. We're intercepting all incoming transmissions!"

"Jalindi outpost, your response is garbled. Please repeat."

Ezra kneeled down next to Chopper and pulled off his helmet, revealing a wide grin, and winked at Sabine before telling the droid, "Chopper, give me comm control. I have an idea."

Worried and thinking that they should probably just patch the Marauder through to the outpost commander, Sabine nevertheless just stayed silent as Ezra cleared his throat and adopted an accent as he said, "Marauder, this is Commander Brom Titus. You weren't scheduled to arrive until the next rotation. You're creating a lot of difficulties for us."

Sabine raised an eyebrow. While his plan was questionable, she couldn't help but admire the accuracy of Ezra's mimicry. She hadn't known that he could mimic voices, but he actually sounded quite similar to Brom Titus, so similar that she probably would've been fooled if she were on the other end of this system.

Unfortunately, the Marauder officer simply responded, "Is this some kind of joke?"

"No, not at all," Ezra said, "You'll have to come back next rotation, and we can't-"

"Listen here, whoever you are," the man's voice cut him off angrily. "I am Commander Brom Titus, and I demand an explanation immediately!"

Slapping his palm to his face, Ezra asked, "Really? How is that even possible?"

"Looks like you're sharing our usual luck now," Sabine told him sympathetically.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them began to shake and move, and both Ezra and Sabine began to fall over as the floor tilted beneath them. Chopper only stayed in place by locking himself down magnetically.

"The Empire's realigning the dish!" Sabine said.

They slid towards the very edge of the dish before Chopper managed to stop it from continuing to move, and they found themselves looking right into the main viewport of the Marauder cruiser, sitting on the edge.

Through the glass, Sabine could see Commander Titus using a handheld rangefinder to look at them, and then she turned her head to see Ezra next to her, holding his helmet in his hand as he smiled and waved awkwardly at Titus. He only stopped when Sabine lightly slapped his arm and gestured to him that they needed to move.

They both stood up and began to run back towards the center of the dish, but their progress was slow on the upwards incline, and the Marauder's cannons fired at the ground right behind them.

Pulling up her comm unit, Sabine said, "Ghost! We've been spotted! We're gonna need a pickup, fast!"

"Copy that. On our way," Hera said.

As they ran from the blasts right at their heels, Ezra said, "So… If we can't use this thing, we're destroying it, right?"

Sighing, Sabine said, "Fine. Just be quick about it."

Ezra threw his arms up and cheered, "Yes!"

He then donned his helmet and did a backflip into the air. Sabine was surprised to see how high he went without even using his jetpack, at least fifteen meters up, but he still wouldn't be close enough to land on the cruiser. Suddenly, as the Ghost flew over the opposite edge of the dish, a TIE Defender (an advanced Interceptor TIE with shields, one of Grand Admiral's Thrawn's more annoying experiments) flew out of the front of the cruiser to intercept it, just in time for Ezra to land on top of it and leap off once again. In midair, he activated his lightsaber, and Sabine found out why a second later when a second Defender flew beneath him and he slashed one of its wings off as he made one last jump onto the hull of the Marauder.

I have the best boyfriend, Sabine thought to herself fondly. Though she couldn't see him from here, she could see the flashing green lights of Ezra's lightsaber as he burst onto the bridge of the cruiser and began to attack the crew. Bodies began to fly out of the shattered window as the cannons firing at Sabine began to slow down their firing rate until it was practically nonexistent.

She considered flying up to help Ezra, though she wasn't sure if he really needed it, but then hatches began to open on the surface of the dish and stormtroopers climbed up with her. She activated her energy shield and drew one pistol before beginning to exchange shots with them.

As she felt herself start to lose ground against their numbers, she ordered her astromech friend, "Chopper, tilt the dish!"

Chopper beeped an affirmative response and twisted his arm inside the scomp terminal once more, which caused the dish to tilt almost all the way sideways. Sabine was the first one to slide towards the edge of the dish, followed by the stormtroopers, but with the Marauder occupied, she was able to easily just activate her jetpack after she fell off the edge. The stormtroopers weren't quite so prepared, however.

Chopper then leveled out the dish as Sabine flew back inside it, giving her a place to land. Almost as soon as she'd touched down, another ship that definitely wasn't Imperial but also wasn't known to Sabine flew above her. She could only recognize it as a UT-60D U-Wing fighter/transport. As it approached, it fired several powerful bolts at the Marauder, which Sabine knew wouldn't make Ezra happy, but it certainly helped her to trust whoever was flying that ship to see that they were attacking the Imperial cruiser.

It then flew to hover over the dish and the side panel opened, revealing the extremist rebel Saw Gerrera with several large explosive canisters.

"You rebels need a ride?" Saw asked

"Saw?" Sabine questioned, not having expected to see him here.

The large, armored man pushed the canisters out of the ship and called down, "I wouldn't think too long, Sabine Wren! Those charges are on a real short fuse."

Suddenly, she was grabbed from behind, and she looked back to see that Ezra had picked her up and was flying her inside of Saw's ship. "Yeah, well, the fuse just got a whole lot shorter!" he said, then called back, "Chopper! Get in here!"

Sabine looked over Ezra's shoulder and saw what had Ezra so worried. The Marauder was in flames, falling from the sky to crash into the dish. The sight even concerned Saw, who ran to the cockpit and ordered his pilot, "Go, go!"

Chopper just barely managed to fly inside the ship before the panel closed and he, Ezra, and Sabine all flew away with Saw Gerrera.