The two of them were taken to the command room. Taffo glanced around nervously at the droids all around them. They were brought to the front of the ship in front of Von Sander.

"Well, nice to see you both again." Von Sander grinned. "I am quite sad at how you both managed to escape so efficiently. I can only wonder how you both escaped those Force cages with no help."

"It was thanks to you." Remla smiled.

"What do you mean?" Von Sander looked a bit taken aback.

"Well, with your injections, I started hallucinating." Remla explained. "And in my hallucination, I saw a way to get out. So I did that. I got out."

"Damn you Jedi!" Von Sander snapped. "I'm not going to bother keeping you here! Shoot them now! Blast their brains across the floor this instant!"

The battle droids started firing at the Padawans.

Taffo ducked and reached out to the Force, pulling a blaster from on of the droids. Remla rolled across the floor like a hero in a movie, only to trip over her robe and fall onto Von Sander.

"Damn you!" Von Sander clawed at Remla as they both attacked each other on the ground. Taffo fired at a droid and watched it fall to the ground, but they were running out of time. Taffo began to wonder what to do when she saw the controls ahead of her. She considered what Remla had spoke of before when a stray blaster shot burned through her robe, just missing her leg.

Taffo reacted and aimed her blaster at the controls and squeezed the trigger. The blaster shot hit the controls which erupted in sparks and flames.

"Damn you Jedi!" Von Sander roared again. Remla punched him in the face and then stabbed him in the eye with her thumb. Von Sander screeched and used the Force to push Remla away as he grabbed at his empty eye socket, blood and remains of his eye flowing over his hand.

The ship started beeping as the engines started to malfunction. They were going to crash, just as Taffo had decided.

"Run! Run!" the droids shouted, fleeing for the hangar.

"You will pay!" Von Sander roared in anger as he got up and ran for the exit.

"We can't let him get away!" Remla snapped, running after the Sith. Taffo glanced back at the view screen to see the glittering city lights of Coruscant. They were about to enter the atmosphere.

Remla ran to the door only for Von Sander to use the Force to seal the door shut.

"Die!" Von Sander glared, but didn't look threatening with an empty, bloody eye socket. He fled to the hangar.

The Padawans were trapped in the command room.

"If only we had our weapons!" Remla pushed at the sealed door as Coruscant grew closer, the alarms blaring around them. Taffo ran to the controls and scanned them to get the door open. She saw a button that hadn't been damaged and pushed it.

The controls exploded, fragments of metal and plastic spraying across the room as fire erupted from the controls. The view screen shattered and a large chunk of the ship was torn and thrown into space.

The force of the explosion threw Taffo back into the wall and knocked Remla to the ground. The ship shook from the explosion and the command room became a burning room of flames. Cold air rushed in from the gaping hole in the ship, pulling everything out.

Remla weakly got up, a deep gash across her forehead from a piece of stray shrapnel. The blood dribbled down her face as she ran over to Taffo, who was badly burned. Most of her hair had been burned off, and her robes were smoking, she was barely conscious. The cold wind pulled at them and Remla almost stumbled from the force of it, breathing in air with no oxygen as her lungs burned. Her hair whipped madly as the wind pulled at them.

She blinked against the intense heat of the fire and helped Taffo up and they stumbled to the door, which had been blown open from the force of the explosion. The roaring of the fire burned at her ears.

"Did you know what that button did?" Remla asked.

"No." Taffo laughed weakly. "But I got the door open."

They hurried down the corridors as the flames started consuming the ship. Soon they would run out of air.

They came across a room where the Force seemed to ripple. Remla recognised that feeling. This was the vault of Force crystals. Remla ran to the door and pulled it open, since it had been weakened by the heat from the flames roaring behind them.

"What are you doing?" Taffo asked.

"The Force crystals are here." Remla pulled open the door to reveal hundreds of glittering Force crystals. They hadn't been guarded that heavily.

The ship shook and Remla stumbled, leaning against the wall. Taffo almost fell into the vault, grabbing at the crystals.

"We have to leave now!" Taffo shouted.

"We need to get Anakin!" Remla snapped. They stumbled down the corridor but found that they were lost.
"We need to get to the hangar." Taffo said. "Anakin can escape. He's a Jedi Master after all."

"No, we can't leave my Master behind!" Remla cried. The ship shook dangerously.

"We have to or we will crash in this ship!" Taffo snapped.
"Okay." Remla agreed reluctantly. She stayed with the hope that Anakin had escaped. Maybe the alarms and explosion deactivated the Force cage.

The Padawans ran down the corridor as the ship started shaking and rocking as it began to burn up in the atmosphere.

They reached the hangar to see Anakin standing there. Remla was overjoyed.

"Padawan! Taffo, we have to hurry." Anakin took them to an abandoned Sith ship, enough to hold the three of them.

"How did you escape?" Remla asked, surprised.

"R2 helped me." Anakin smiled sadly. "But he was blown apart when he went to the command room from that explosion. It looks like the both of you were involved in that."

"I caused it." Taffo smiled weakly.

Anakin grinned. "Obi Wan will be so happy to hear that you're alive."

The Padawans got into the ship but Anakin hesitated at the ramp. He pulled out a belt of thermal detonators. Remla ran out of the cockpit and over to her Master.

"What are you doing?" Remla cried.

"Destroying the Force crystals." Anakin activated the detonators, and then threw them at a wall. The belt broke and five flashing detonators fell to the floor and rolled, flashing dangerously.

"Go!" Anakin pulled Remla into the ship and got into the cockpit. Remla belted herself into a seat and felt the ship shake as the engines activated and they flew out of the hangar. The detonators exploded, bright burning light lit up the ship as it exploded into burning flames. Remla glanced back and watched as the ship floated in pieces in front of Coruscant's atmosphere.

"Here, I took these from the armoury." Anakin took off his belt holding their lightsabers.

"Yay!" Remla took hers and felt the hilt in her hand. She felt complete as she held her lightsaber, not weak and vulnerable as she had been without a weapon. Remla gladly put hers on her belt.

Taffo took her lightsaber and stared in disbelief. She hadn't held her lightsaber in months. She couldn't wait to use it again, to go on missions and see Obi Wan.

"I can't wait to return home." Taffo smiled as Anakin continued piloting to Coruscant.

Next chapter: The reaction of everyone as Taffo returns, and another mission for the Padawans.