A delightful breeze drifted through White Oaks, gently replacing strands of Bo's golden hair.

She sat on the swing on Slinky's porch, swaying ever so slightly. Her leg still throbbed from the rigorous binding she had been subject to at the Doctor's place, but at the very least she hadn't actually broken anything.

Bo stared at the cloud formations, attempting to pick out shapes. She kept her eyes open as long as possible. Every time she blinked, she was transported out of the comfort of the swing to burning cinders and thick black smoke. It was as if the images were burned into the back of her eyelids.

Slinky startled her a bit as he sat down with her, holding two mugs. He handed one to her and then followed her gaze up to the clouds. Bo sipped on what she discovered to be hot apple cider, and then smiled at her old friend.

"Thank you, Slink," she told him graciously.

He nodded cordially. They sat in silence for a bit.

"I still don't understand how I got here…" Bo said finally. "You don't suppose it was Woody, do you? I was still miles away from here. Perhaps he was worried and he wanted to make sure I was alright."

Slinky shrugged. "I really don't know Bo. Whoever got you here knew where you were going, so it might've been Woody. Nobody in town has said anything, but maybe you can ask around."

"At the very least it'd give me something to do. I hate being stuck here while he and Jessie could be in serious trouble."

Slinky placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at him. His previously dusty brown hair was thinner and more dusty than brown, and lines raked his face. Over the years he had grown much older looking. Only his droopy puppy dog eyes had remained the same since Bo had first met the man. She let out a sigh. Even her own appearance had matured rapidly due everything that had occurred. She felt much older and weighed down, especially now that the flashbacks had started again.

"Things are hard now Bo, but I have this feeling that things will start looking up real soon," Slinky said patting her on the back. She rested her head on his shoulder.

If only it were that simple. Bo had purposely left out the details of the Black Star when expounding to her old friend what had happened. She trusted Slinky with all her heart, but she couldn't bring herself to mention it. She wanted to pretend like it wasn't true.

Her thoughts swam around creating an alternate reality in which instead of leaning on Slinky, she was cuddled up against her cowboy.

In her mind the light breeze gave her chills, and the sheriff wrapped an arm around her shoulder while rubbing away the goosebumps. He played with the loose strands of her hair floating in the wind, tucking them behind her ear. She stared at the sunset while he looked at her, admiring her delicate features. She'd finally noticed his gaze and smiled warmly, brushing his cheek and continuing on to tug on the hair at the back of his neck. He grabbed her hand and leaned in closing his eyes.

Before she could do the same, she sniffed smoke… Flashes of light, terrified screams...

Bo's eyes burst open with a start. She hadn't been aware she'd been asleep. Slinky had gone back into the house and it was nearly dusk. The smoke drifted from inside the house where her old friend must have been cooking. The blonde groaned as she sat up, trying to shake the images from her head.

The peculiar thing was that the same dream drifted into the mind of a cowboy several miles away.

Woody hadn't intended on falling asleep but he couldn't help it. After XR helped him to sneak into an abandoned home, the sheriff was on edge all night that they had been discovered. But no one came to the home. The plan was to wait for XR, who was trying to figure out how to steal a ship. It was already late in the day and the robot had yet to appear. Despite his extreme anxiety about the situation, Woody was caught up in exhaustion and had drifted off to sleep.

It had felt very real.

Even when he awoke to the reality of rolling over on the dirty mattress in the dusty home, he still felt the sense of urgency to protect Bo. It took several moments to remember what had happened over the past 48 hours.

The cowboy rubbed a hand on his chin, which had grown stubbly over the past few days. He couldn't imagine how scruffy and worn down he looked, but ultimately it aided in his plan to blend in. The rest of the townspeople, from what he had seen of them through the window of the shack anyway, looked absolutely miserable. Woody wondered what the purpose of keeping them in the town was, unless Star Command was somehow utilizing them.

The minutes rolled by slowly. There was suddenly a shuffling at the front door. The sheriff scrambled next to the doorframe, ready to do what was necessary. To his relief, it was XR that opened the door. The robot jumped at seeing Woody behind the door.

"Oh jeez…" XR grabbed at his chest. "You scared the craters out of me."

"Sorry." Woody peeked out the window through the grubby curtains to make sure XR hadn't been seen, and then he beckoned the robot over to the table. "What took you so long?"

"I'm afraid they might be suspicious. They're listening in to everything that my wrist communicator picks up, or at least they think they are. I still have full control of the programs in my suit unlike the other rangers…"

"Are you sure?" the cowboy asked anxiously.

"Positive," XR stated confidently.

"Alright. Tell me everything you know."

The robot's eyebrows furrowed. "Well… unfortunately time is a luxury we don't have. As we speak Buzz is personally delivering your sister to sector 14 to a planet called Quani. It's… it's a place where-"

"Looks like we're going to be improvising a bit then," Woody interrupted. He didn't want to hear the rest. "Did you bring me a weapon?"

"Oh yeah," XR told him while opening a cavity in his metal chest. He clumsily reached inside, fished around a bit, and then produced a basic blaster. He passed it off and then continued. "I can get a ship if we can sneak through the station."

"No, that won't be good enough. Even if we do manage to get off Earth quietly the rest of the fleet will be on our tail. We've got to make sure no one can follow us." The cowboy stood up and peered through the curtains again, wheels turning in his mind.

"How?"

Woody rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "We're gonna destroy the station."

Jessie was not fond of space.

One of her qualms with the vast emptiness was that she couldn't tell what time it was in the day. Normally it would have bothered her more, but the numbness that had entered her like a poison kept her immobile and unfeeling. It was body's coping mechanism for the pain that had become so unbelievably overwhelming she almost couldn't breath.

The cowgirl hadn't seen Buzz since he had thrown her off of him, of which she couldn't stop replaying in her head. She'd been moved to a ship to be carted off, and her hours were likely numbered. But that didn't matter to Jessie anymore. Buzz was her world, and he had shut her out.

She curled up on the floor, eyes open but unfocused facing the wall. It was cold. She wasn't aware her body temperature was plummeting, and that she was shivering almost violently.

The echo of the door opening behind her didn't even draw her attention. She'd heard many sounds and none of them meant a thing. But this time footsteps approached her cell slowly. They paused for a moment, but she heard the lasers drop. Jessie closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep.

Something had been dropped on her.

She didn't dare look until the lasers returned and the footsteps were gone. Her eyes flickered open. A blanket had been placed on her.