Chapter 39
A/N: I'm sorry.
Ezra POV
At the top of one of Lothal's cone spires on top of a mountain overlooking Capital City, Ezra clung to the tip with a grappling line and used his helmet's rangefinder to zoom in on the city's skyline in the distance. Breaking through the night sky, he could see the lights from numerous Imperial LAAT/le gunships flying over the city, their bright spotlights being used to locate and round up Rebel pilots, and he cursed himself for not killing Thrawn when he had the chance.
When Ezra had ordered that they go on with the original plan, Hera had managed to escape the planet in Ryder's U-Wing, foregoing taking any prisoners with her, and had returned with her squadron of Rebels as she'd promised. She'd even managed to break back through the Seventh Fleet blockade to reenter the planet's atmosphere with most of her squadron, despite Thrawn commanding the Imperial forces in space at the helm of his new flagship, the Portent. She'd even managed to take out Captain Vult Skerris's Defender ship, which took out an Imperial cruiser, which took out a Star Destroyer.
However, she had expended all of her tricks doing so, and after they entered the atmosphere again, they were ambushed by Thrawn's secret second wave, which consisted of hundreds of TIE Fighters. Neither Hera or any of her fellow pilots had stood a chance, and their ships had all crashed inside Capital City, where the survivors were now being rounded up, and Ezra felt guilty for it all.
If he hadn't let his connection to Thrawn overcome his determination to remove him permanently as a threat, he could've eliminated him rather than capturing him, and this all could've been avoided. It's not like anyone else would've been willing to do it, and apparently his Rebel friends had made him soft. And now, Hera was either dead or captured, and he couldn't go in there to save her.
Not to mention, with Thrawn free, Plan B had almost no chance of working, and now that Plan A had failed, he didn't know how to destroy the Defender project. Raising his rangefinder and scowling beneath his helmet, Ezra released his grappling line and activated his jetpack to stop his fall before flying back towards their temporary camp, uncaring of how much noise he made along the way. In his current emotional state, he would welcome any Imperial trying to cross his path.
Sabine POV
The Rebel group on Lothal, minus Hera and Ezra, sat around a makeshift table at their camp, with a small fire being their only source of light, and pondered their next move.
Everyone was silent, either from grief or worry. Ryder sat on a rock next to the fire, poking the coals around and keeping his hat low over his eyes. Zeb sat across the table from Sabine with his pointed ears lowered and a sad expression on his face. Despite his blindness, Kanan stood facing the distant lights of Capital City with his arms crossed over his chest, standing separate from anyone else.
They had recently received word of Hera's attack failing, and how the survivors were currently being captured for interrogation. As soon as they'd received the information, Ezra had instantly activated his jetpack and taken off towards the city, and Sabine had been about to follow him before Kanan had stopped her, and now she could only sit silently, worrying not just about Hera, but also about what Ezra may be trying to do right now.
For all she knew, he had left to personally execute Thrawn, and she honestly wasn't sure if she should be more worried that he would fail, or if he should succeed. She knew that he was blaming himself for sparing Thrawn's life, for letting him escape them, for giving the order for Hera to go on with her doomed attack, and probably even more than she knew.
Finally, after Ezra had been gone for about an hour, Zeb broke the silence by saying, "So, what now? Hera's dead or captured, Ezra's missing, and we're all out of ideas."
"Hera's not dead," Kanan responded with calm certainty from where he stood on the edge of the mountain, not turning his gaze from the city lights.
Looking up and rolling his eyes, Ryder said, "So you keep saying, but forgive me if I'm not gonna trust in your ability to use your powers to feel if Hera's alive, especially from this distance. But Zeb has a point. Our plans have all been broken. What are we supposed to do now?"
Suddenly, something slammed onto the table, and both Sabine and Zeb jumped in fright at the sudden sound. They then all turned to see Ezra standing at the end of the table, having seemingly just appeared out of nowhere, his one hand releasing the severed head of the assassin Rukh that he had just slammed onto the surface, and he said, "Now, we strike back."
Sabine noticed that he had not removed his helmet for his speech, just as he used to hide behind it when they were preparing to attack Mandalore. Every time he hid under his helmet like this, it reminded her of a Mandalorian saying: Buy'ce olar, kar'ta ogir. Helmet on, heart gone. It meant that once they put their helmet on, they surrendered any sort of personality or humanity they had in preference of becoming like a machine; ruthless, merciless, and deadly efficient.
Knowing that this would be because of his expression threatening to betray emotion and weakness after their recent loss, Sabine tentatively reached out and placed a hand on his wrist, trying to comfort him, but he hardly relaxed at all under her touch. He was frozen in a state of stony determination, and he aggressively pounded a fist on the table as he said, "They destroyed our reinforcements and captured our people, including one of our own, and ruined our plans. They hit us hard. Fine. We're gonna hit back even harder, teach them why they don't mess with us. First, we're gonna get Hera back, and then we're gonna target every Imperial we can find and turn this planet into a cautionary tale for them."
"Ezra, you're talking about targeted genocide to drive the entire Empire off-world," Kanan noted as he approached the younger man.
Ezra just nodded and responded, "That's exactly what I'm talking about, Kanan. We drove the Empire off Mandalore by being even more aggressive than our enemies, making them scared of us. That's exactly what we're going to do here."
Folding his arms once again, Kanan said, "Ezra, death and fear are not the tools of a Jedi."
Stepping up so that he was staring the Jedi in the face, Ezra said, "I am no Jedi, Kanan. I'm a Mandalorian, and I do what must be done to defeat my enemy, and I don't compromise, especially not when they mess with my family. They took Hera from us. How are you not the most angry out of all of us, Kanan?"
"Because I know when to act with emotion, and when to act with reason," Kanan said, standing his ground. "Losing Hera and our other pilots has made you emotional, Ezra. You need to calm down if we want to save her properly. If we act rashly, someone's going to get hurt, or worse."
Suddenly, Zeb spoke up and said, "Listen, chief. I'm not too keen on the idea of hurting people either, but can't we make an exception this time? Ezra's right. They went after one of our own, and if he has a plan to save her and deal with the Empire? No offense, mate, but I'm with him on this one."
Looking around at Sabine, Kanan asked, "Sabine? Can you talk some sense into Ezra? You understand how easy it is to rush into bad decisions. Can you please explain it to your boyfriend?"
Sabine looked down nervously and admitted, "Kanan… I agree with Ezra as well. The Empire has Hera, and the longer we wait, the worse shape she's gonna be in. We can't afford to just leave her."
Kanan looked to Ryder last, who sighed and said, "Well, Kanan is right about one thing. If we do this, it's pretty likely there's gonna be losses. Thrawn will be expecting a rescue attempt. If she really is alive, Hera will be heavily guarded."
Ezra drew his lightsaber and ignited its green blade before saying, "I'm counting on it."
Ryder sighed again and looked at Kanan apologetically before saying, "Sorry, Kanan, but if Ezra knows what he's getting into, I'm willing to follow him into battle. It's long past time the Empire paid for its crimes, and I figure I could do worse than to follow a Force-sensitive Mandalorian into the fray."
Kanan looked back and forth between them all, waiting for someone to change their mind, but when no one did, he just looked down and sighed. "Fine. Ezra, it looks like you're giving the orders now. I'll go along and help any way I can, but I still think this is a bad idea."
He then began to walk away with his head hung low. What for, Sabine didn't know, but she was familiar by now with Kanan's growing desire to spend some time alone before a mission.
Line Break
The next night, they were nearly finished preparing for their attack on the city. Zeb would be going in on a speeder while Ryder flew in with the Defender Elite, both of them creating distractions throughout the city. Meanwhile, Ezra and Sabine would use their jetpacks to attack Hera's position, then do guard duty while Kanan got the honor of rescuing Hera.
Due to the fact that they had already destroyed the city's perimeter defenses for Hera's squadron, they would be able to fly into the city with little to no resistance, completely unseen except for any stormtroopers that happened to be looking up. Ryder would have it easiest, blending in by flying an Imperial ship, but Ezra had insisted that he didn't care if any Imperials tried to raise an alarm against their group.
Sabine wasn't sure what to think of Ezra's new, more intense behavior. Part of her liked that he was taking charge and leading them to what she couldn't help but think was an assured victory. Ezra seemed so confident in his new plan, and Sabine had seen him pull off too many impossible things to bring herself to doubt that they would succeed in both saving Hera and driving the Empire off of Lothal.
But another part of her was worried that he was letting himself be consumed by his warrior side. He still hadn't removed his helmet once since Hera's failed attack. He had begun to set aside anything beyond the mission, including returning Sabine's affections. Hopefully saving Hera would help him regain some sort of balance.
However, she had also begun to acknowledge that maybe this version of Ezra was what the Rebellion needed right now, what the galaxy needed, regardless of how Sabine felt about it. Right now, Ezra was the kind of person that even Sabine felt a little scared of. He was a dangerous combination of both the will and the ability to destroy any enemy that may cross his path. Having once been on the receiving end of Ezra's rage, Sabine wasn't quite sure what could possibly stop him in his emotional state. If Thrawn showed his face again, Sabine decided that she wouldn't want to be anywhere near him when Ezra got him in his sights.
Ezra gave Zeb's speeder one final check, then gazed out at Capital City and said, "Alright, everyone. It's time to move. Someone find Kanan and tell him that we're-"
Suddenly, Kanan's voice cut him off, saying, "I know! I'm here."
As their resident Jedi Knight stepped into sight, they all noticed that he'd drastically changed his look. He'd cut off his man-bun and trimmed his hair short, cutting off the sides almost completely and leaving only a small amount on the top and back of his head. He'd also shaved off his beard entirely. His mask was nowhere in sight. Except for his clothes and his cloudy eyes, he was barely even recognizable.
"Sorry I'm late," the Jedi said. "I had to do something."
"I think I can guess what it was," Zeb muttered, and Chopper chortled with laughter.
"Do you know where she is?" Kanan asked Ezra.
"I'd guess she's in the central dome, but I was hoping that you could narrow it down for us," Sabine's boyfriend answered.
Nodding his head, Kanan stepped forward and stretched his hand out towards the city, then closed his eyes and concentrated. Sabine and the others gave him a moment of silence, and then the Jedi opened his eyes again and said, "You were right, Ezra. She's in the dome, in Governor Pryce's office."
"And since Pryce isn't here anymore, I think we can safely assume that Thrawn's taken over the office in her absence," Zeb added, and Sabine noticed Ezra's head tilt slightly downwards at the mention of the Admiral.
Ezra then nodded in acceptance and said, "Pryce's office is on the 157th level, D Block, on the south side of the building. Sabine. Magnetic climbers?"
Holding up a pair of climber devices in her hands, Sabine responded, "Got 'em."
Ezra silently nodded once more in satisfaction, then walked over to Kanan and grabbed the Jedi around the hips before saying, "Everyone knows their parts. Remember that while the air cannons are disabled, the watchtowers and gates are still fully operational. Move in quick and strike even quicker. Don't give the Imps a second to think, and show no mercy."
With that, Ezra took off into the sky, bringing Kanan with him, and Sabine quickly followed after them. As she flew, Sabine thought about Ezra's last few words. Show no mercy. In the past, he'd warned her that she would eventually have to abandon any sort of consideration or sympathy for her enemies, but she still wasn't quite sure if she was up to the task.
Kanan and Hera had ingrained it into her mind deeply that killing was never your first choice. There was always another way, a better way. But she was a Mandalorian, a race of the fiercest warriors to ever grace the galaxy, trained in combat from birth. Or was she? Her years separated from her people, spending time with the Ghost crew, had changed her. But had it been for the better, or worse? Had it made her a better person, or just soft? After all this time delaying the choice between efficiency and goodness, Sabine now found herself with only seconds to make it.
As they approached the city, they quickly began to be fired upon by numerous Imperial watchtowers full of stormtroopers. Sabine and Ezra quickly moved to dodge the blasts, and Sabine lowered her rangefinder to aim her rocket launcher at the top of the nearest watchtower, but she found herself unable to actually fire.
Luckily, Ezra didn't have any such hesitation, and he fired one of his own rockets, which struck the tower and exploded, instantly killing everyone inside. However, they received no reprieve from the incoming blasts, as another tower on either side of them began to fire towards their flying forms.
Sabine and Ezra split up, each of them flying towards a different tower, and Sabine once again aimed her rocket at the top of her targeted tower, but once again found herself unable to pull the trigger. The Imperials didn't stop firing at her, and she flew upwards to get out of their range as she heard Ezra's tower explode behind her.
Once she was high enough so that she was out of range, Sabine looked back down to see Kanan standing on top of the remains of Ezra's recently destroyed tower, using his lightsaber to deflect blasts from Sabine's tower, but they quickly began to overwhelm his defenses. Ezra flew down to land in front of Kanan, using his armor to stop one blast right before it would've hit the Jedi, but the force of the blast still knocked his head back.
Looking at her friends struggling and feeling unable to do anything about it, Sabine was internally in conflict with herself, two ideologies battling in her mind. She wasn't sure which of her teachings she should be following here. However, she thought of Hera, currently imprisoned by the Empire and probably being tortured at this very moment. Meanwhile, her boyfriend and surrogate father were under intense fire by that same Empire, and somehow Sabine just stood still.
In that moment, Sabine finally made the decision that she had been struggling with for months, if not years. Maybe she didn't have to be a cold-blooded killer or a merciful warrior. Trying to be one or the other is what got her here, feeling frozen with indecision. No, instead she would be both. She would be only what she needed to be. That was the part of Ezra she'd been missing, the part of him that lived between the lines and always knew when to be either merciful or merciless. It was perhaps the part of him that she admired most but had never been able to replicate herself, and now it was what was missing inside him. She would have to fix that.
However, right now she had a mission to accomplish. Finally setting her gaze with determination, Sabine lowered her rangefinder again and dived towards the Imperial tower below her, lining up her shot before she fired her rocket, not even hesitating this time, nor caring about all the people she knew she'd just sentenced to a fiery, painful demise. The Empire messed with her family, and she would gladly sacrifice any piece of her soul in order to make sure that they were protected.
Ezra POV
Ducking behind his energy shield as he heard it begin to overheat from the strain of absorbing so many blasts from the Imperials, despite him and Kanan deflecting as many blasts away with their lightsabers as they could, Ezra wondered what had happened to Sabine. She was supposed to take out this tower, yet she had apparently just disappeared.
He was comforted to know through the Force that she at least wasn't dead, but he didn't know why she had just left them. Or at least, he tried to convince himself that he didn't know.
Going into this fight, he had briefly considered that Sabine might not feel very comfortable with the plan of killing all these Imperials, but he had dismissed it from his mind. Now, he wished that he had made a different plan. They could've snuck their way into the city instead of fighting, gliding in disguised as Loth-bats or something, but Ezra had been… angry. He'd wanted a fight, and now he'd gotten it, but not even he could fight the full might of the Empire alone.
He didn't blame Sabine for leaving. He shouldn't have tried to push her into something she wasn't comfortable with. Still, he silently cursed the Ghost crew for making her so soft, and cursed himself even more for loving them anyway. Even if he couldn't survive this attack, he was a Mandalorian, and he was determined to fight to the end. Besides, he could imagine worse fates than dying while trying to save his family.
Just as he was about to launch into one last charge at the Imperials despite knowing that he'd never make it, determined to go out in a blaze of glory and take as many Imps with him as possible, a bright light suddenly fell from the sky and crashed right into the roof of the watchtower shooting at them, and the whole place exploded.
Surprised, Ezra hesitantly lowered his shield, and just then, a human shape fell from the clouds right after the rocket and flew right by Ezra at high speeds before launching a second rocket at another tower, toppling it as well. However, Ezra had recognized the figure as they had gone by him, and he smiled to himself as he cheered out, "Sabine!"
Looking out at the destruction as Sabine fired her third and final rocket to take out the last watchtower, Kanan's face turned to one of worry rather than joy and he said, "Sabine. Oh, no."
Not sure what the Jedi meant and not much caring right now, Ezra looked up and followed Sabine with his eyes as she flew back to land next to them, then noted, "You're doing what needs to be done."
"It's about time, huh?" she asked, though he noticed that she didn't seem too happy about it.
Suddenly, he realized that he hadn't been treating her too well in the last day, certainly not like any good boyfriend should. Her attack on the towers had been impressive, but such brutal acts were not like the woman he fell in love with.
He stepped towards Sabine and pulled her into a Keldabe kiss and whispered, "I'm so proud of you. I know that this can't be easy for you."
There was a short silence, then Sabine said, "I'll be what I have to be. If I can keep you safe, my soul is a small price to pay."
Quickly responding firmly, Ezra told her, "No, Sabine. I'm not willing to sacrifice your soul for anything. If that's how you feel about this, then I'll never ask you to do it again, okay? I never should've told you to anyway."
There was another silence, then Sabine pulled away from him and said, "I don't want you to sacrifice yours either. I'll do what I have to to support you in your mission, Ezra, so that you never feel like you have to stop being the man I love."
Looking down in shame at his recent behavior, Ezra responded, "I won't. I promise. And we'll support each other, deal?"
Pulling him into a hug, Sabine answered, "Deal."
Ezra and Sabine began to relax into their embrace, but then they were broken out of the moment by Kanan saying, "I hate to break this up, but you guys remember that we're on a mission, right?"
Blushing beneath his helmet as he and Sabine quickly pulled away from each other, Ezra cleared his throat and said, "Uh, yes, right. Sabine, will you help me give Kanan a lift to the dome?"
Sabine nodded at him, and they each grabbed one of Kanan's arms before lifting him up and flying him the rest of the way to the giant dome in the center of the city. When they arrived next to the protruding box that was the governor's office, Sabine handed Kanan the two magnetic climbers, then they gently attached him to the floor beneath the office.
Ezra pulled down his rangefinder and activated the infrared setting before scanning inside the room through the floor. He then raised his rangefinder and reported his findings to his two compatriots, saying, "Hera's strapped to an interrogation stand in the exact center of the room. There are two stormtroopers standing right in front of her. They're the only guards, and Thrawn isn't here."
He was a bit disappointed to report that last part, but also somewhat relieved. Not because he still doubted his ability to kill Thrawn, but because he was worried that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from going too far once he had Thrawn within his grasp, and he really didn't want to break his promise to Sabine, especially mere minutes after he made it.
Sabine turned her head to him and asked, "Pincer maneuver?"
Ezra nodded and told Kanan, "We have the guards. You get Hera."
With that said, Ezra and Sabine both took off to either side of the office, leaving Kanan hanging on the underside of the room.
Activating his comm system, Ezra asked, "Sabine, status?"
"In position," she instantly responded.
Ezra nodded and ordered, "Move in." As soon as he said it, he swiftly drew his lightsaber and plunged the blade into the wall in front of him, then quickly dragged it around to make a small hole. As soon as the hole had been completed, he flew slightly backwards before turning his body horizontally and flying into it, pushing the metal circle inside the room.
As the circle fell away, Ezra saw a similarly sized hole appearing in the surfaces of Sabine's wall as well as the floor where Kanan was, through which both of his friends entered the room at the same time.
At the sight of three lightsaber-wielding attackers entering the room from three different directions at once, the two stormtrooper guards struggled to decide which person to aim at first, but then they each silently decided to aim at either Ezra or Sabine, the two most obvious targets. They raised their blasters to aim at the two Mandalorians, but Ezra quickly raised his arm and redirected their blasters upwards with the Force, sending both energy blasts crashing into the ceiling harmlessly.
Then, their blasters were pulled from their hands as they were both lifted off their feet to clutch silently at their throats as Ezra held them up with an invisible grip on their necks, slowly choking them to death. However, as he deactivated his jetpack to land on the floor of the office, he saw Sabine give him a disapproving look, tilting her head at him and folding her arms across her chest, and he sighed before relieving the Imperials of their misery by flicking his wrist and throwing both stormtroopers out the window. It was still a horrible way to die, but at least he wouldn't continue torturing them by dragging out their suffocation, as he had planned to.
Once he entered the room, Kanan quickly got to his feet and stabbed his lightsaber through an Imperial IT-O Interrogation probe that had been floating next to Hera's head, then kicked its smoking form out of the hole he had cut in the floor before rushing to Hera's aid as the Twi'lek pilot said, "That droid really deserved that!"
Just as Ezra had seen with his scanner, Hera was propped up on a table in the center of the room, right behind where Kanan had cut his circle out of the floor, and she swayed a bit as she saw them and said, "Guys, you came for me!"
"What did you expect?" Sabine asked as Kanan began to release Hera's restraints.
"Sorry we're late," Kanan told her as he worked.
Once the last restraint was undone, Hera sighed out, "I forgive you!" and fell forward, off-balance.
Kanan quickly caught her and said, "Oh, I see! We're in a special mood thanks to the interrogation droid."
"Well, I didn't like that droid, Kanan," Hera said, still somewhat out of it.
Smiling at her, Kanan agreed, "No. I didn't like that droid either."
He attached his two magnetic climbers to his belt and turned to the broken window so they could leave, but Hera suddenly grabbed his arm and told him, "Wait, Kanan. There's something I have to tell you."
Kanan turned back to face her, and Hera placed a hand on Kanan's cheek as she said, "I… I…" Then, she seemed to realize that there was something different about him, and she said, "I hate your hair."
Chuckling, Kanan joked, "It's the best I could do without a mirror."
"Your hair hasn't been this short since we first met," Hera noted.
Suddenly, Ezra slightly turned his head as his sensitive ears picked up the sound of approaching footsteps, and he said, "Hera, we can all criticize Kanan's poor sense of fashion later. For now, Thrawn isn't here, meaning we need to go."
"Plan B!" Hera cheered, then almost fell over, still unsteady, before Sabine caught her.
Frowning at her, Ezra asked, "'Plan B?' What are you talking about?"
"If Thrawn's gone, we still have a chance to destroy the Defender fuel depot," Hera responded.
Looking over at Ezra, Kanan shook his head and said, "She's still not in her right mind from the Empire's truth serum. She's not thinking straight. We need to get her out of here."
Pointing at her Jedi accusingly, Hera chastised him, "Now, Kanan Jarrus, you know I am still perfectly capable of making rational decisions, even if I am a little…" At that, she nearly fell over once again before Sabine once again steadied her, not exactly supporting her point.
Sabine put Hera's arm around her shoulders and told Kanan, "Wait, Kanan. Maybe she isn't in the best state, but what if she's right? If Thrawn's not here, then this might be our best opportunity to destroy the Defenders. The Empire's deploying their AT-ATs to stop us right now. Plan B could still work, but only if we move fast."
Ezra was unsure of what move they should make here, and given his recent errors in decision-making, he wasn't sure if he should even be the one to make the call here.
He looked to Kanan, silently conveying that the Jedi should make the final decision here, and Kanan lowered his head in what looked like resignation before slowly nodding and saying, "You're right. Destroying the Defender project is what's best for the galaxy, so we need to do it while we have the chance. Sabine, hijack one of the Empire's gunships so we can escape, then both of you go to the fuel depot. Me and Ezra will get the attention of their walkers and meet you on top of the central fuel pod."
Sabine nodded in acceptance and clutched onto Hera more tightly before flying her out of the broken window.
Shortly after they were gone, they began to hear cutting sounds at the office door, and Ezra pulled up his comm and ordered, "Zeb, Ryder, we got Hera, but now we're going after the fuel depot. We're doing Plan B, but you guys can't help anymore. Pull back and return to the camp."
They both quickly responded to him, Ryder simply saying, "Affirmative," while Zeb said, "Roger that, Spectre-6. Good luck."
Ezra lowered his comm and turned back to Kanan, who was silently staring at the ground, and Ezra asked him, "Kanan? You ready?"
Kanan remained silent for another moment, then looked up at Ezra and said, "You're a good leader, Ezra. Both a better leader and a better warrior than I ever was. Maybe you won't ever be a Jedi, but I know that one day you'll prove to be a far better man than I ever was as well. I'm glad to have met you."
Mockingly putting a hand on his chest, Ezra sarcastically responded, "Aw, that was adorable, Kanan. Should we hug now?"
Smiling, Kanan spread his arms and said, "Well, if you insist."
Rolling his eyes beneath his helmet, Ezra stepped towards the Jedi and grabbed him around the waist before jumping up and carrying him out the open window.
Once they were out of the building, Ezra scanned the ground below for AT-ATs, specifically ones that were close to the Defender fuel depot, and quickly locked onto what he felt was the perfect target. He dived towards a walker that was only a few blocks away from the depot and was already heading in its direction.
He flew over the top of the walker and dropped Kanan right on top of the neck, before landing in the same place and impaling his lightsaber into the neck portion before dragging it to the left. Quickly catching on to his plan, Kanan stabbed his own lightsaber into the neck and dragged his blade to the right. They both jumped off the edges and slid down the sides of the neck with their lightsabers still impaled into it. Ezra reached the edge first and flew underneath the neck to the other side while using his lightsaber to cut the bottom of the neck out, then caught Kanan just as the Jedi Knight fell off the wall and carried him away.
Behind them, the now-completely cut off neck fell away, and the rest of the AT-AT quickly collapsed with it, effectively decapitating the enormous walker. The other walkers behind it now recognized Ezra and Kanan as the threats they were and began attempting to shoot at them. Dodging the first few blasts, Ezra began to fly them back towards the fuel depot.
The Defender fuel reserves were made up of seven large armored orbs surrounded by tall stone walls, but Ezra easily flew over those walls. It didn't matter. Alone, he didn't have nearly enough firepower to safely penetrate the orbs.
The orbs themselves were arranged with six of them in a hexagonal orientation surrounding a single one in the middle. Ezra flew them up to land on the center pod, and then they waited for only a few seconds before Sabine and Hera showed up, flying an Imperial LAAT/le gunship.
Sabine smirked and waved at them as they came in close, turning the ship sideways so that the two men could board it, and Ezra returned her smile as he climbed on board and turned around to see the Imperial walkers approaching. This was the most crucial part of the plan, after all, that the AT-ATs fired on them in a desperate attempt to prevent their escape, and they just barely managed to escape while the blast accidentally struck one of the fuel pods.
However, Ezra had made one fatal miscalculation. He never imagined that the walkers would intentionally fire on the orbs themselves to stop the rebels from escaping, yet that was exactly what happened. With a clear target, the walkers couldn't miss, and a single massive blast slammed into the side of the fuel pod that the rebels were standing on.
Ezra quickly processed that the Empire had just willingly destroyed their Defender project, effectively finishing the Ghost crew's mission on Lothal, and he felt a sense of accomplishment and success. However, he then realized that they were still too close to the pod without enough time to fly away, and Kanan was still standing on top of the pod itself, and it was going to explode any second, obliterating all of them.
Ezra, Sabine, and Hera all braced themselves as the pod began to erupt, rocking their whole ship, but suddenly the shaking stopped, and they all looked down in shock at Kanan, who had run closer to the blast and now had both of his arms outstretched towards the massive wall of fire, wearing an expression of pure determination as he used the Force to hold back the largest explosion Ezra had ever seen with merely his willpower.
Seeming to forget her love of flying entirely for a moment, Hera quickly jumped up from the pilot's seat of the gunship, forcing Sabine to quickly take the controls to keep them steady, and ran into the hold with Ezra to try to jump out, yelling, "KANAN!"
Sensing her distress and attempt to come to his rescue, Kanan turned his body sideways, turning his head towards her, and directed his left arm at Hera, who suddenly froze in place before she could leave the ship. She remained frozen for a moment, and then Kanan gave her a little extra push, forcing her backwards into Ezra's arms, who caught her and struggled to hold her in place.
Despite the fact that Ezra had her, Kanan continued to hold Hera in place with the Force, wanting nothing more than to ensure that she stayed safe, but still didn't seem to be struggling to hold back the enormous explosion behind him, not even as the fire began to get closer to the other orbs, threatening to increase the size of this already-massive explosion by another six times.
Unable to believe what he was seeing, Ezra pulled off his helmet to look at this miracle with his own eyes, but Kanan only had eyes for Hera, despite his blindness.
Then, as they were all silently watching, they all saw Kanan's eyes impossibly seem to heal. The fog faded out of the Jedi's eyes, revealing teal-blue irises that still looked at nothing except for Hera.
He only maintained eye contact with the woman he loved for a few seconds before Ezra managed to regain his senses and ordered, "Sabine, go!"
He saw Sabine wipe tears from her face as she spun back to her controls and began to fly them away, and Ezra ignored Hera's protests as he shoved her back into the front of the ship.
He looked down at Kanan one last time, holding back the impossibly large fire that was about to increase greatly, sacrificing himself for all of them, and he quietly cursed to himself, "Kriff you, Kanan Jarrus." His decision made, he looked back to the front of the ship, where Sabine sat, and whispered, too quietly for her to hear him, "I'm sorry, Sabine. I love you."
And with that said, he leaned out the side of the ship just before the doors closed and jumped down onto the pod with Kanan, using the Force to absorb the impact of his landing. He landed next to Kanan and stood right by him as he began to push back against the fire with all of his own strength, trying to help the Jedi to fight the explosion.
Looking over at him when he arrived, Kanan said, "Ezra? No! You shouldn't be here! I did this so that you-"
Ezra cut him off with a glare and said, "Not happening, Jedi. A Mandalorian never leaves a man behind. If you die tonight, I'm not letting you die alone."
Kanan shared a look with Ezra for a few more seconds, his blue eyes still shocking Ezra as they met his own, then nodded and returned his attention to fighting the explosion. Ezra did the same, struggling against the sheer size of it all, and closed his eyes, filling his mind with thoughts of Sabine as he sensed all of the other pods suddenly explode as well, and the fire grew to consume everything.
Sabine POV
When they landed back at their camp, both Hera and Sabine were a mess. Sabine could barely land them safely, and Hera couldn't fly at all.
They both leaned into each other as they climbed out of the ship, seeing Zeb standing across the field from them with a smile on his face, until he saw their devastated faces, Hera's in particular, and realized that Kanan wasn't with them. When he noticed, his face fell and he began to shake his head in disbelief.
Sabine wanted to say something optimistic, try to convince everyone that maybe Kanan could've survived, but she knew better. She knew explosions even better than most Mandalorians, and the one at the fuel depot had been by far the largest one she'd ever seen. As powerful as Kanan was, there was no possible way that even he could've survived that blast.
Meanwhile, Sabine tried to support Hera as best as she could while she herself was grieving, but she knew she didn't have it nearly as bad as Hera did. Shedding tears, Hera cried out, "Sabine, I- I wanted to tell him I loved him. Why didn't I tell him?"
Sabine had no answers to give, and Hera finally pushed away from Sabine to retreat inside one of their tents, clearly wanting to be alone. Sabine felt similarly, except that she was lucky. She didn't have to be alone through this. With their mission accomplished, albeit with such a massive loss, she wanted to just curl up in bed with Ezra and cry herself to sleep with him as they grieved the loss of Kanan, taking days off from any sort of work to try to get over this.
But where was Ezra?
Looking around herself as she wiped away the tears on her face, Sabine sniffled as she looked back into the ship and called out, "Ezra?"
There was no answer, and she walked back to the ship to look for him, then froze as she saw his helmet lying on the ground in the corner. Picking it up and looking into the visor, Sabine glanced around once more for her boyfriend, panic building in her heart as she considered a horrible possibility.
"Oh, please no," she muttered to herself, then began to run around the ship, looking on top, underneath it, and in the surrounding grass.
"Ezra!" Sabine yelled out madly. "Ezra, come out! This isn't funny! EZRA!"
Zeb and Ryder ran over at the sound of her yelling, and after realizing the issue, began to help her call out for Ezra. They searched for a full hour, and they had Chopper scan every surrounding blade of grass three times before they finally gave up.
Falling to her knees, Sabine punched the ground angrily and ripped her helmet off before throwing it and beginning to break down in tears. She screamed as loudly as she could to the sky and punched the ground some more, not caring as Ryder, Chopper, and Zeb all gathered around her, standing just a couple feet behind her.
"Ezra… no," she pled brokenly with a sore voice.
She hadn't meant to, but apparently her insane screaming had attracted Hera's attention, as the Twi'lek suddenly walked up behind her and kneeled next to Sabine before pulling her into a tight, consoling hug, which Sabine reciprocated. Chopper moaned sadly while Ryder and Zeb sadly looked down and shed their own tears, but no one disturbed the two women who were grieving the most.
Both Hera and Sabine knew that they looked like a mess, but neither of them cared in the slightest, for who could blame them? They'd both lost their two brightest lights.
A/N: There you have it! Chapter 39! By far the longest chapter I've ever written, and I'll be honest, I nearly cried while writing that ending. Kind of embarrassing, that I almost made myself cry, but it was meant to be very emotional, so I guess I did that alright. Either that, or I'm just ridiculously invested in my own work, which I'd also consider a good thing. Anyway, please let me know your own thoughts! Writers thrive on feedback, and I always look forward to hearing your thoughts, concerns, and recommendations. If you enjoyed, please leave a review, and thanks for reading!