Jon struggled to get his ship back under control, as liberated force energy pounded on the hull of his ARC-99.

His deflector shields had already taken a hit by the time he slammed into a wall, but at least it slowed him down enough to stabilize the thrusters.

"Jon… hold the…" said the crackling comlink. Every piece of equipment had been overloaded by the explosion, when the violent waves of dark side essence had been released in a frightful aura of bright blue.

"Thayla?"

"Get out of there!" a man's voice called. "This arm is caving in!"

The refueling ship flew straight past him. Jon switched his headlights on, gunned the engines and followed them, suddenly understanding what was going on.

Pulse after pulse of energy rippled through the walls of the Gangrene, which were far closer to his ship than any of them had realized. Rather than inside the broad central disk, the pilots realized that the golden ship had led them into a narrow shaft, inside one of the space station's arms.

The tunnel was now collapsing in on itself. Large metal plates and chunks of debris flew past his cockpit, accelerating by unknown means. Cracking sounds rang out as sharpened bits pierced right through his weakened shields and embedded themselves in Jon's ship.

He tried to recount absolutely everything the diagrams had taught him. The targeting visor was above his head. The flare deployment switch was below the console. The scanners were controlled by a small switch on the left. He quickly turned those on and saw the readout of the space before them.

It was collapsing far too quickly. Jon could see that his engines were only working at sixty percent and he knew Thayla's ship couldn't be in much better shape, if at all.

"Jon, we can just barely make it," she told him, frantically. She looked down and saw that Darson and Mel were not convinced, but still pressed the button one last time. "We didn't come this far for nothing."

What they had done mattered, whether they died or not. Jon knew that, just as well as he knew that it was better for Jamie to have one parent than none.

One last section of the diagram ran through his mind. As the uncontrollable force energies continued to bring the walls of the Gangrene crashing down around them, he flicked the small switch below the console and held his finger over the trigger.

The battle on Shilrakaen was over, but police still ran through the streets with scanners and droids popped in and out of manhole covers.

Jamie sat on the steps of the High Council Chambers, watching everyone scurry around below her, until her eyes were suddenly drawn up.

Everyone stopped and stared as the space station that had loomed over their heads began to break into pieces and burn. Some cheered. Some held their mouths open in awe.

Jamie Vyrone was the only one who felt tears coming to her eyes, not of joy, but of crippling sadness.

The concussion grenade struck the refueling ship in the rear. Even the small boost was enough to throw them forward, finally gaining enough speed to outrun the arm's collapse and escape.

However, the same wave struck Jon's ARC-99 directly in the front and finally killed his strained engines.

The fighter flew backward, toward the crushing jaws of the collapsing tunnel, but Jon sat back and did his best to be at peace. It wasn't a feeling he was used to.

There was a sensation in the force, a tiny feeling that suddenly became a blaring alarm. It was something that can't be explained, only felt. It can't be taught, only lived.

That was what Thayla felt. That was what made her turn in her chair and reach with all her might toward Jon, the man she had grown up alongside. The man whose child she had carried. The man she had loved.

Jon's peace was cut short by his fighter being violently ripped away from the metal debris crunching around him.

Both ships flew out of the arm and into the central ring of the Gangrene, before falling back toward the planet of Centrallis.

The rest of the space station continued to contort violently, but larger and larger pieces began to break off or disintegrate. Anything that managed to stay in one piece was doomed to burn up in the atmosphere, though a few small bits and pieces did impact in the vast, dusty wasteland.

Jon might have met the same fate, if not for his desperate use of the force to hold the cockpit together. He remained in a static position, focusing all of his energy outward, as the visor above his head turned red hot.

"He's doomed," said Darson, leaning forward to get a better look, only to be violently thrown out of his seat a moment later. "What the hell?"

Mel's restraints had kept her in her seat, but her controls were quickly overridden, as D0-1T steered the ship into a steeper decline into the atmosphere.

Thayla and the two pilots could only watch helplessly and pray that their deflector shields would hold together, after taking such a beating.

A communal feeling of relief washed over them, as the red hot windshield finally began to cool. However, Jon's fighter was still spinning in front of them, with massive sections, including the engines, completely broken off or burned away.

Darson continued to be tossed around and Mel didn't dare slide into the captain's chair, for fear of having the same done to her. The ship plowed straight down, engines full blast and tearing through the sky toward their bright orange target.

Finally, at the very last possible moment, the ship's nose turned upward and D0-1T fired the magnetic refueling cable.

It snagged the orange fighter with a loud clang, slowing down Jon's violent descent.

Slowly, the two ships finally fell to the ground, the refueling ship settling down gently and Jon's fighter being awkwardly dropped upside down, with its cockpit buried in the dirt.

Darson got up, red-faced and ready to swear at the droid for its mutinous behavior, but D0-1T and Thayla were already on their way down the ramp by the time he managed to get to his feet.

"Jon?" Thayla called out, not sure if he had survived inside the burning wreckage of the ARC-99. "Jon!"

Without warning, the snap-hiss of a lightsaber rang out.

A green blade quickly cut a clean hole through the durasteel hull and Jon climbed out of the ship's underside with the wroshyr wood handle in his grasp.

Thayla pulled him out of the ship before pulling him into her arms. His face and hands were burned by the heat, but it was nothing a few bacta treatments wouldn't heal. He gladly pulled Thayla close to him and thanked the force that he was alive.

"So, we won?"

"I think so," she responded, looking up at the sky. which had been lit up by the metal still burning up in the atmosphere. "I hope so."

"Thanks for saving me."

"Actually, it wasn't just me. You should be thanking someone else." Thayla moved aside so that Jon could see the droid standing behind her, patiently awaiting Jon's attention.

He started to turn away, until he saw Thayla glaring daggers into him.

"Um," Jon awkwardly started, reaching out to D0-1T's metal dome and patting it with his palm. "Good droid."