A/N: As I watched the newest episode of the Clone Wars, I nearly choked to death when I heard that Trace's ship is called the Silver Angel. I named Padmè's ship in the last chapter, before that episode aired, but I feel like the cosmos are laughing at me now for my name choice. (Sigh) It made sense to me, and I like it, so I'm sticking with Sky Angel, but you're not allowed to laugh at me too, just saying. :P

Also, who else is bouncing up and down at the news (rumours?) that Ahsoka is going to be in season 2 of the Mandalorian? (Edit: She was!) (heart eyes)

Magnets:

Earth…

Tezza's breath caught, and her eyelids fluttered for a moment as she leaned into Cody's touch. It didn't seem to matter to her hormones that he'd just taken down a police officer. Or that he was a literal stranger that she knew absolutely nothing about other than that he was more than likely a real soldier who had a thing for Star Wars and was nice to animals. And… he wanted to protect her from unknown baddies. That is so fricking hot.

All she wanted was to throw herself into his arms and beg him to kiss her until she lost her breath and her brain turned to mush.

It was the strangest feeling to have to fight against. Because, no matter what her hormones were clamouring for, she wasn't a slut, and refused to turn into one. But, dear god, if I'm around him much longer and find even one more desirable trait in him, I'm going to lose the fight and jump him, I swear.

And then his hand dropped and the internal debate sizzled out, even as her hormones whimpered at the loss of his brief caress.

She looked into his eyes and saw the apology there, but for what, she wasn't sure. Her best guess, though, was that it was for touching her in such an intimate way without any real permission from her. She tried to explain with her own gaze that she didn't mind. Not really.

But that only made his golden brown eyes even more sorrowful, which made her own heart hurt a little. Maybe… Maybe he didn't mean to touch me. Maybe he knows there can never be anything between us. Maybe he knows he'll be leaving as soon as the authorities haul him away for… things.

She inhaled slowly through her nose, resignation filling her. She spoke out loud, because the silence was killing her. "Right. There's nothing I can do for those poor officers that you made go beddy-bye until they wake up, so I might as well finish putting CeCe away. You can follow or not. I don't care."

And with that, she spun on her heel and walked back into the barn. On the way towards her patiently waiting horse, she did what she should have done right off the bat and sent a 911 text to the police regarding a crashed PAC / starfighter thing in the sand ring of Never Too High Stables. She also added that there had been two officers who had already responded to the situation, but, due to some communication barriers with the non English speaking pilots of the PAC, the officers were now unconscious. She finished her text by stating that she didn't think the pilots were dangerous, but any further officers responding to the situation should approach carefully but not furtively.

Now standing by CeCe's curious head, she hit send on her wrist comp and received a spinning circle that indicating her message was stuck in transit. She watched the circle for a moment, eyebrows rising as the message continued to live in limbo for a bit and then finally sent. And then she remembered the D.J.'s words. Right… Some of the satellites were damaged by the wormhole thing. Sketchy internet and cell service.

She glanced at the men who had followed her into the barn, both of them unhelmeted again and looking at her just as curiously as her horse was as all of them watched her play with her wrist comp like it was the most fascinating thing they'd ever seen. The horse was understandable; the relatively stupid animal had always been intrigued by the beeping sounds her computer made with each letter she typed into the screen. But the men; you'd think they'd never seen a wrist computer before, which was absolutely ridiculous, considering they had similar, if unfamiliar, models on their vambraces.

Holy shit! I'm so stupid! The computers! Why didn't I think of that before?

Giving herself a mental face palm for a millisecond, and then with flying fingers, Tezza asked her comp to search for other computer signals in a five metre radius.

Not surprisingly, it found some. Five, to be exact. She was surprised at that, until she realized that their helmets must have sophisticated technology in them as well. Which made sense, considering the visors actually only allowed for a limited amount of real visibility and they'd put them on to track down the cops.

Smiling in triumph, she pulled up a translation program from the internet, which, thankfully was working again, and asked for Mando'a and for it to show up in Aurebesh. She might not know what exactly their native language was, but if they were such big Star Wars fans that they were willing to dress up like that, then it was a solid bet that they would also be nerdy enough to know the Mandalorian language that the clones spoke and the Star Wars alphabet that someone had invented long ago and was now used worldwide as a way for Star Wars nerds to communicate with each other 'secretly'.

Grinning to herself, Tezza typed into the program, Hi! As you know, my name is Tezza and I'm only a little slow on the uptake today, lol. Then she told her comp to connect and link the five computers in her vicinity and send the words now translated into Aurebesh to them.

Then she watched the men eagerly, nearly bouncing on her toes as she waited for their reactions.

The robot received the message first, his dome spinning a bit as he looked at her in what could only be called surprise, despite the lack of face. And then a string of Aurebesh appeared on her computer a moment latter, which the translation program very helpfully translated to English for her in only moments. Hi, Tezza! Most call me R2 and I think you are fairly clever for a human. Also, Commander Cody's programming is on the fritz because of you. It is most entertaining.

She giggled. Trust a robot to think of emotional reactions as programming. And wow, are they ever enmeshed in their roles if the robot automatically refers to Cody as Cody and not whatever his real name is. Thank you, she typed back. And I'm enjoying his fritzing programming too, to be honest.

Then she looked back up at Cody's face and did a little mental happy dance at how flabbergasted he looked. Rex too, for that matter, but her eyes quickly returned to Cody's face, drawn to him like a magnet connected their souls or something.

Cody glanced at the policeman that he'd stunned accidentally on purpose and then shrugged before following Tezza into the barn. I'll apologize when he wakes up.

Somehow.

Rex fell into step beside him and pulled off his helmet. They exchanged glances that basically said 'now what?' and 'who knows', and then Cody returned his focus to the girl who'd taken over his every thought within only minutes of meeting her.

He couldn't help that his eyes landed on her luscious rear end and stayed there, watching the gentle sway of her hips in her formfitting trousers. At the stirring of arousal in his own leggings, Cody tore his eyes off the entrancing sight and finally noticed that she was typing on her wrist computer. She never even paused when she stopped by her beast again, absently rubbing her cheek against its muzzle when the beast put its large head into her space and huffled a breath over her, which made the loose strands of her curly hair flutter.

It was possible that his heart fluttered at the same time.

Frag. She gets even more beautiful every time I look at her. That's just not kriffing fair.

He was so lost in his study of her expressive face, like the way she bit her bottom lip for two seconds in thought or how she grinned at whatever she was doing, that it took an elbow in his side from Rex for him to realize that text in Aurebesh had just appeared on the computer screen on his vambrace.

He read it, and then read it again, incredulous. Well, shab. The girl is just full of surprises. I never expected her to know Aurebesh if she doesn't know Basic, but maybe it's the computer that knows Aurebesh. Yeah. That makes sense. We must still be in our own galaxy at least if that's the case, right?

And what the kark does lol mean?

And then he was glaring at Artoo for tattling about him acting out of character, which was promptly replaced by amazement at her response. He felt like grinning like a little kid at the knowledge that she liked his attentions, but somehow kept that look off of his face out of a belated sense of desperate self-preservation.

More writing on his computer, this time from his brother. Hi Tezza. As has been pointed out, I'm Rex. It has been very nice to meet you, and I also am quite enjoying watching my brother fall all over you. Cody is sooooo overdue to be given a personality adjustment.

In what way? Tezza typed back, as Cody just barely restrained himself from smacking Rex upside the back of his head, only remembering at the last millisecond that his brother had already suffered from head trauma today and was only on his feet because of drugs and not actual healing.

Oh, he's always just so full of himself and usually so by-the-book it hurts. You are good for him, trust me.

Cody sucked in a breath and glared at Rex, promising a solid ass-whooping when they got home. Rex just grinned, his eyes twinkling devilishly.

Tezza was twinkling at him too, but he had no desire to wipe the floor with her. Rolling around on it, though… Now that was an option his body was entirely on board for. Down boy!

Before he completely died of embarrassment, Cody typed out a quick rebuttal. Hey! I am not full of myself! I can't help that I was trained to be a leader practically from day 1. And my by-the-book days are slowly but surely being wheedled out of me, thanks to our very inventive Generals!

True. Rex grinned at him.

Cody growled subtly but kept typing, then glanced up at Tezza to see her reaction to his words. Ignore my idiot brother, please. I'm so happy you figured out a way for us to talk. This is much better than trying to convey words with actions alone.

Yes, it is. I'm sorry I didn't think of it sooner. Maybe then those poor cops out there wouldn't be taking an unexpected nap.

Cody and Rex winced. Ummm. Yeah. We're sorry about that. But they were sneaking in a very suspicious way. We sort of acted out of instinct.

Tezza patted Cody consolingly on the arm before typing out, I'm sure it will be okay once we explain everything. How long will they be sleeping for, anyway?

The clones shrugged and Rex answered. Depends. Some people wake up in less than five minutes. Others, more than half an hour.

Hunh. Okay. Probably enough time for me to put CeCe out, then.

Probably, Cody answered. Just one more thing first.

Tezza gave him a raised eyebrow, then looked back down at her comp, waiting for the translated words to show up.

What does lol mean?

She laughed. I guess they don't use that in their country. Wherever it is. Lol is short for laugh out loud. It means I'm making fun of myself. You don't use short forms of frequently spoken things? For example, I almost wrote tbh instead of to be honest.

Cody raised a brow. No, we don't. We don't usually send messages back and forth like this, for one thing, when a holo call is so much easier.

Unless you're an astromech and flying! Artoo inserted, making everyone chuckle.

Rex patted the droid on his dome fondly. "Yes, buddy. That's very true."

The girl thought about the holo call thing for a moment and gave a mental shrug. From a certain point of view, I suppose that could be the case. Our society is just super enamored with texting still, despite decades old 'new' technologies. Their country must have finally moved on. I must remember to ask where they come from soon. I guess that's true. I should put my horse out.

Okay.

Tezza turned and grabbed a royal blue lead rope off of a hook on the wall and attached it the ring at the bottom of CeCe's halter. She unclipped the crossties and led her horse past the cosplayers, who stepped back a bit out of respect for the hard hoofed animal. Aiming for the back of the barn, she turned right at the hallway that led to the indoor ring in one direction and the turnout paddocks in the other.

A few seconds later, the strange parade of woman, horse, 'clones', and robot made it back out into the sunshine. Tezza led the group up a long line of individual grass paddocks, with a gleaming horse happily grazing in each of the first six out of twenty available. Indicating that her audience should stay out in the alleyway, Tezza led CeCe into an empty paddock and turned him loose by undoing the snap on the side of his halter and pulling it off of his head. The gelding squealed excitedly at the freedom and took off at a canter, neighing to his friend in the paddock next door.

She watched him with an indulgent smile as she hung the halter and rope on the gate and then latched it closed behind her. CeCe made one whole circuit of the football field sized paddock and then came to an abrupt halt and dropped to his knees, rolling in the lush spring grass with grunts of pleasure. She laughed when her food oriented horse took a mouthful of grass before he heaved himself back onto his feet only to drop his muzzle to the grass again and tear off blades like he was starving. (He really wasn't. Not even close.)

She leaned her arms on the fenceline, just indulging in watching her horse for a moment. He was so beautiful and practically her baby, since she'd been playing with him since he was a two day old foal. When her parents had purchased him for her when he was three, it had been the happiest day of her life. And then it had all come crashing down and her life would have been beyond empty if she didn't have CeCe to hug while she cried out her very soul. (At least, that's how it had felt at the time.)

Cody watched the girl with open longing. She was just so… breathtaking in her quiet beauty. The way the sun played with the metallic glints of gold and bronze in her hair made him want to see the mass released from the bun at the back of her neck. He wanted to know how long it actually was. In fact, he desperately wanted to see her wearing nothing but her hair.

And that scared him. Because he'd never felt an urge like that before in his life.

The clone Commander jumped slightly when Rex pushed him towards her. His brother jerked his chin at the girl. "Go stand with her. Talk to her," Rex hissed under his breath when Cody just looked at him in confusion.

"Oh."

"Yes, oh," Rex whispered. "Artoo and I will go keep an eye on the cops and I'll let you know when they start to stir. Go be a human for once and indulge yourself in something very few of us brothers will ever get."

"If you're sure you don't mind?"

"I don't mind. Trust me, I want you to be happy."

Cody blinked, chest tightening with emotion. "Okay."

Rex shot him an approving smile before he backed away with Artoo.

The slightly petrified clone inhaled deeply for courage and then stepped forward towards his destiny.

Space…

Anakin was mildly vibrating from the adrenaline rush of flying through the depths of the wormhole. It had fought him every second of the way, trying to toss the Sky Angel in any direction but straight forward, and he was positive that half the ship's systems were about to shut down on him at any given second based on the warning lights and alarms that had gone off at random. And… he'd nearly blacked out somewhere near the middle of the trip as an unbelievable amount of pressure had plastered him into his chair. He'd fought through it, though, calling on the Force to lend him strength.

It was literally the most intense flying he'd ever done, and considering his past, that was saying something.

As the wormhole finally spit them out with the spacial equivalent of disgust, he couldn't wait to do it again.

Just don't tell Padmè.

Oh, Force! Padmè!

Dropping the controls for a moment, Anakin let the Sky Angel drift as he leapt out of his chair and rushed back to the seat containing his beloved. Obi-Wan glared at him through a green countenance from the co-pilot seat, but refrained from speaking yet, probably because he was too busy fighting back nausea. Ahsoka, who was looking quite a bit paler than normal, but she'd also managed to stay conscious, gave him a weak smile of congratulations at keeping them alive as she unstrapped herself from her chair. Threepio had finally stopped saying 'oh dear, oh dear' in a fear filled loop and was rising from his chair to look at Dormè and Typho, who were also unconscious, but Anakin only had eyes for the woman in the purple dress.

She was slumped over sideways in her chair, but the safety straps had kept her from falling out of it, thank kriff. He didn't want to think how injured she would be if she hadn't been strapped in. He knelt on the floor by her chair and ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek in a gentle caress, sending a small surge of Force energy down their bond. "Mey, love," the worried Jedi whispered. "Wake up for me, my angel."

He held his breath as her dainty, purple shadowed eyelids fluttered, and then smiled in relief as her rich chocolate brown eyes blearily found his. "Ani," she murmured, her hand raising limply to touch his face. "Did we make it?"

He caught her slender fingers in his and kissed the back of her knuckles. "We did." He placed her hand gently in her lap and undid the safety straps for her, helping her sit up better. "Now all we have to do is find Rex and Cody, presumably on that planet just over there, and get back home again before the gateway closes."

Padmè smiled at him with the strength swiftly returning to her form, thanks to a little help from the Force and their bond. "I have zero doubts that you'll accomplish that since you always manage to do whatever you set your mind to."

Anakin smiled back at his wife widely. "You know me so well."

She leaned forward and touched her forehead to his. "Yes, I do."

They stared at each other in loving silence for a few moments, oblivious to the others starting to move around the cockpit around them and the murmur of voices as Dormè and Typho also woke up with a little urging from Ahsoka.

Obi-Wan finally brought Anakin back to the urgency of their situation by clearing his throat loudly, and then giving him a mental nudge down their bond. "Your private moment is very touching and all, Anakin, but I don't know if you happened to notice the fact that you flew us right into a fleet of unknown ships who appear to be gathering up pieces of the Reckless and are now treating us like a suspicious enemy?"

What?! Eyes widening in alarm, Anakin jumped back up onto his feet and rushed back to the pilot's chair. Obi-Wan was right; they were almost entirely surrounded now by ships of an unfamiliar design. "Kriff. I was hoping this would be simple."

Obi-Wan snorted under his breath. "When is anything ever simple for us?"

"Never," Ahsoka said helpfully and even a little bit cheerfully as she came to stand behind Anakin's chair.

He shot her look over his shoulder while weighing his options. They didn't look good. He could try and run through the ships to the planet below, but who knew what defenses the planet had if they had space capable ships. Or he could wait here and try and talk his way down onto the planet. Presumably, they might know what had happened to Rex and Cody.

Anakin did a double take as he took in Ahsoka's practically beaming features. "What has you so happy? This isn't exactly a good situation. The sensors seem to think that most of those ships have some kind of weapons locked on us."

She shrugged, unconcerned about the weapons. "I'm happy because I can feel Rex again and he's very much alive."

Anakin blinked and then squeezed her arm quickly in warm understanding. "That's great. Now we just have to get him without getting ourselves blown up into tiny pieces."

Chime! Chime!

Everyone looked at the console and the blinking light that indicated an incoming transmission.

"I think answering that might be a good way to start," Obi-Wan said dryly.

"Really? I never would have thought of that," Anakin said back just as dryly, not making any moves towards the console yet. He crossed his arms over his chest instead and gave his former Master a look of exasperation. "Honestly, you still treat me like a child."

"Only because you still act like one sometimes," Obi-Wan sent blithely back down their bond.

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

The two Jedi proceeded to glare at each other in a semi friendly battle of wills. Ahsoka snickered quietly. The ships outside moved a bit closer.

Chime! Chime!

Chime! Chime!

Chime! Chime!

"Just answer the kriffing comm," Padmè all but yelled from her chair in the back.

Anakin practically jumped to do her bidding.

Ahsoka snickered louder.

And Obi-Wan smirked.