-Three weeks later-

"Something's not right." 
"Tell me about it." The red-head chewed her lip forcefully, leaning forward from the high-backed captain's chair to evaluate the characters streaming across her holo-terminal. Behind her, the observer's brow furrowed, lines etching his worry free forehead. 
"I mean, if the slipspace drive is complaining about being overworked now..."
"I'm aware, Ethan." Neta replied, her curt tone silencing any other attempts for Ethan to contribute to the situation at hand. The captain took a glance out the viewport, streaking lines of hazy color darting around the ship in random patterns. Nothing LOOKED off, but then again, they were dealing with unknown territory and experimental technology. 
"Take the reins."
"what?!"
"You heard me, Ethan: take the ship's controls. If the ship drops from FTL while I'm looking at the drive, I'll need someone to pilot the girl to somewhere safe." She sprung from the chair, pointing at the now vacant seat, brow raised.
"Well? Now's your chance, honey. Get crackin. I'll be on the comms giving you instructions." Ethan complied with the gesture, a slight warble in his voice as he told her quietly:
"I got this." Neta had a boot out the door when the Knight asked:
"Shouldn't we let the others know?"
"No, not yet."
"Is ther-"
"Do you really want all your pals up here looking over your shoulder and worrying? If there IS an issue, we'll let them know; for now, I'm going to take a look and we'll cross that bridge when we get there." A grimace crossed her face when suddenly the cabin jostled. The vibration was normally not a cause for alarm in hyperspace travel, but with the warning messages Neta had just read, she was officially on edge. 
"I'll be in touch." Ethan gripped the double yokes, knuckles turning white, eyes cast ahead. 

Neta slunk down the hatch outside the CIC, clambering down the ladder, then another that was hidden behind a false wall in the hangar before arriving at the slipspace drive. Normally the drive was as silent as a crypt, but when Neta turned from the ladder to face the cube shaped machination, minute bolts of energy sizzled and crackled across it's silvery surface. 
"Crap. Crap crap crap." Muttering more obscenities under her breath, she darted to the left, eyeing the row of maintenance terminals that were aglow with the same messages that she was receiving in the cockpit. Keying in her credentials, her eyes flickering across the warnings and narrating them aloud to Ethan, who would be able to hear her through the embedded comm channel from the drive housing room to the cockpit:
"Ethan, we've got an issue. The drive's intelligence unit is saying that we're getting interference."
"Interference? We're in hyperspace!"
"Exactly. Someone or something is jamming the drive's ability to keep us on our current trajec-SON OF A BANTHA!" The screens flashed a crimson red in unison, ship suddenly jolting so hard that it drove the pilot forward, Neta jutting her hands against the edge of the terminal bank to avoid her head colliding with the computers in front of her. 
"NETA! WE'RE-"
"I BLOODY KNOW! GET THE CHAMPIONS TO THE COCKPIT, TELL EM TO BRING THE SHIELDS UP!"
"WE DON'T HAVE SHIELDS! HAVING TO REROUTE ALL POWER TO THRUSTERS!"
"THEY'LL KNOW WHAT I MEAN!" The pilot muttered a silent prayer to the Force and turned to leave the room when the drive blossomed with electric white sparks and acute popping. 
"NETA, WE JUST DROPPED OUT OF FTL!"
"REROUTE ALL POWER TO THE THRUSTERS AND GET THIS BIRD STRAIGHTENED OUT! I'M COMING UP!" She sprinted past the malfunctioning drive, hand gripping the bottom rung of the ladder tightly, pulling herself up as another shockwave threatened to send her sprawling to the floor if she didn't grip the rungs tight enough. She could hear Yerbol and Aria's voices squelching through now-damaged speakers as she made her way up, hoping that they would be able to help pull them all out of this situation. Neta chuckled.

It wouldn't be a Qyaari operation without near-death heroics from the kids. And her, of course. 

___

-30 minutes before-

Yerbol groaned gently, rolling away from where his partner normally laid, eyes opening gently to the pristine view of silver hull before half-closing again. He never thought he would miss Taris, but at least on his home planet, he could hear dogs barking in the distance, feel the breeze on his face, watch the regrowing foliage sway gently in the groves nearby. On long haul journeys he never felt this restless for a taste of home, but then again, they were thousands of lightyears away from the nearest planet in the known galaxy. Games of sabaac, pazaak and reading could only go so far to alleviate the listlessness of knowing that if anything went wrong and needed the back up of the Qyaari, they were sorely out of luck. Yes, they had been on death defying stunts before, but there was always some kind of support network that they could rely on in case things went REALLY south (which they always did). Now, they were on their own, pursuing two once thought of as dead Force users who were themselves chasing an evil "beyond recognition" and attempting to train younglings on the way. Thankfully there was more than enough down time to forget some of those responsibilities with his wife, the duo meditating, talking and just being together. This journey was, in a way, a breather for them that he hadn't expected and welcomed. 
"You awake?" When he didn't get an answer, he rolled back towards the center of the bed to find an empty spot. Yerbol smirked to himself as he surveyed the spot, remembering what they had done just a few hours earlier at that exact location. It was hard to keep things like that quiet on a ship, but they managed. 

The smirk grew wider as his feet connected with the floor, bellowing a yawn. 
"Might as well see where she went off to." He mumbled, pants halfway up his lower body when he fell backward, the ship rocking side to side. A sickening chill swept down his spine into his legs, a knot tightening in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. A few moments later, Ethan called out on the main comm channel:
"GUYS! GET UP HERE!" Another rocking, this time far more violent, more insistent. Managing to clothe himself through another jolt, Yerbol made his way to the cockpit, where a visibly sweating Ethan was gesturing at the viewport window. Instead of the streaking white lines of hyperspace, there was violet colored lightning that surged around the ship intermingled with white bolts of...something that collided with the hull of the ship. 
"Neta said to get the shields up!"
"That's your job!"
"I'm rerouting power to the thrusters! She said you would know what that meant!" Just then, the chaos outside gave way to the inky blank canvas of regular space, stars dotting the horizon along with...
"Unidentified ships on intercept course!" Ethan looked up at Yerbol with panic.
"Master, shields?!" 
"Kytra, Aria and I will be in the CIC. Just keep us steady!"
"And land on the first rock you see!" Neta crashed through the cockpit doorway, hair a frazzled mess. 
"I'll be up here to help Ethan, you just make sure we survive this in one piece!" 

Just like normal.