CHAPTER VIII: The Nubian Near-Miss

Nara was not what you'd call a very good pilot.

In fact, the only piloting she'd ever seen was in Holofilms. She'd never actually flown anything before in her life. That was why Winson had programed the autopilot himself.

Unfortunately, the autopilot had failed, and now Nara found herself in a ship travelling millions of miles per hour directly towards a star system. According to the flashing red panel on her console, she was maybe thirty seconds from crashing into Dathomir. If she wanted to live, she needed to activate the emergency hyperdrive shutdown. Problem was, there were an awful lot of switches in the cockpit, and hardly any of them were labeled.

Nara took a deep breath and focused.

"Computer?" she said, hoping to hear a response. She heard a short blip, as if indicating that the on-board computer was awaiting further instruction.

"Computer, initiate emergency hyperdrive shutdown sequence," she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

"Unable to comply. Automated shutdown sequence disabled. Manual control only," said a female-sounding voice that reminded Nara of her mother.

Well, that's just great, she thought. But I'm not out of tricks yet…

"Okay, computer, then highlight the proper button sequence required for manual override," she said, and the computer responded by lighting up a series of buttons, each a different color, based on the color-numerical system she had learned as a child. The thought through the sequence as she punched in the buttons.

Okay, blue is one, red is two, yellow is three, green is four, orange is five, cyan is six, and magenta is seven. Got it!

The ship rocked and shook as it was shunted back into normal space, but hurtling straight for the planet at high speed. Nara knew better than to stand around, so she strapped herself into the pilot's chair and hit the crash-landing setting on the console. But before the she even got to the atmosphere, she was grabbed by an incredibly powerful force that she couldn't see, which pulled her to a dead stop in less than three seconds.

Nara peered out the cockpit windows, trying to see what had stopped her, but saw nothing.

But then it appeared.

The space in front of her began to swirl and shimmer, and suddenly the most beautiful starship Nara had ever seen materialized before her very eyes. Before she had time to react, her console began beeping with a message. A communication request. She accepted it.

Before her, a holographic image of a young-looking man with wild hair appeared, looking relatively frustrated.

"Hey! Watch where you're flying! You nearly hit us!"

Nara got frustrated herself at his accusatory tone.

"Me?! How the heck was I supposed to have seen you? You're freakin' invisible!"