Chapter 5

Onboard the bridge of the Resolute, Ahsoka noticed an unusual amount of ships in the space in front of them. Some were shuttles, making their way away from the battle zone. Ahsoka quickly got on the comlink. "Masters," she said to Plo and Anakin. "A few shuttles have departed from Grievous's ships. I think I can find the one the hostages are on."

"Get to it Snips," Anakin buzzed from the other side of the link. "Prepare a tractor beam. In the mean time, all pilots, do not fire on any shuttles until we've located the one those two are on. Understood?"

"Yes sir," Gold Squadron replied simultaneously.

"Artoo, you do the same. Grievous thinks we'll fall for his little decoy, well, he under estimates our…" Anakin trailed off, noticing a familiar Belbullab-22 starfighter streak across his path. "GRIEVOUS!," he shouted, veering his fighter off towards Grievous's direction, blasting his vulture fighter escort. Anakin quickly got on the comlink and said, "Master Plo! Call off the boarding ships, Grievous escaped in his fighter, I'll try to shoot him down."

"No!" Plo responded. "We have pinpointed the shuttle that those two are on, but we need help getting to it, the droids are not making it easy."

When do they? Anakin chuckled to himself, then came back on the mission, "But master, Grievous is right here, right now!" he shouted, putting less and less focus on the hostages. "I can destroy him once and for all, if I can just…"

"It's too late for that," Plo interrupted. "We'll never be able to hold out here without you and your reinforcements." The Jedi had made up his mind. "If you and your fighters don't get back here, we'll be destroyed, and fail at both parts of the mission."

Anakin made his decision as well, taking one, final look at Grievous' fighter, then veered off again towards the Resolute, "Okay, Gold squadron, follow me. We need to reinforce the others. Master Plo, we're on our way."

"Very good Skywalker, cover us from the droids, we'll take care of…"

"General Plo!" Warthog shouted.

"What is it, trooper?"

"The shuttle the hostages are on has lost control, and is spinning back into the battle zone."

Plo already saw the spinning shuttle, then he saw another just as it jumped into hyperspace, most likely with the Tactical droid aboard. Blast, Plo thought to himself. "No matter. Ahsoka have a tractor beam standing by, and prepare to receive the shuttle."

"Copy that master Plo," Ahsoka said from the other end.

Aboard the shuttle, Bolt pulled out the remains of what use to be the pilots, as Penny pulled on the throttles as hard as she could to maintain control of the shuttle. She knew absolutely nothing about piloting, except for the fact that crashing was bad. It was no use, no matter how hard she pulled or how many controls she pressed, it didn't help the situation. All she could do was dodge the incoming fighters, and hope for the best. Then, the ship lurched into an upright position. Penny looked around wondering what she did right. Some static and a deep voice buzzed from the com, "Separatist shuttle do you copy?" the voice said. Penny then realized she was the shuttle, she looked around for the button that activated her comlink. She took a wild guess and pressed a button by a speaker.

"Uh, this…is the separatist shuttle, and…" Penny trailed off, then regained her strength, talking like she was on the phone.

After a few moments, the deep voice returned, but in a much lighter tone, "Are you alright? What has happened aboard your shuttle?" he inquired.

"The pilots…uh, stopped functioning," she said, smirking at Bolt. "I'm fine, but have no clue how to fly this thing. I could use some help."

The voice chuckled before another male voice responded, "Don't worry, just sit back and relax, we'll do the flying."

"Uh…okay," she said not knowing how else to respond. The ship was steered upright by something, and was surrounded by a V-19 escort which was navigating her towards one of the Republic cruisers.

Meanwhile, Anakin had finished off the droids, clone cheers filled the com frequencies, and he was about to turn back to Grievous, but it was too late. He let out a heavy sigh when he saw Grievous's starfighter and the last of his evacuated ships jump to hyperspace. We had him, Anakin's mind screamed with anger, We could have captured that monster and been able to shorten this war. But he got away again, all for a kriffing kid. Anakin eased back, realizing what he just called her, it wasn't entirely her fault, in fact it wasn't her fault at all. If it wasn't for her they never would have come this close to catching him in the first place. Another time, Grievous, Anakin scowled. "Okay boys, good work. Mission accomplished," he said, partially.