March 21st, 8252

You let out a sigh of relief. The initial charting for the Celesmore to Cloudbury warp jump route had proven flawed and required time to recalculate. Now you stare down at two sets of navigational data. One is created by the computers aboard the Night Horse, the other by Celesmore Orbit Control. It's taken a full day of non-stop automated number crunching but at last the two data sets agree.

“Night Horse to COC. We show warp jump navigation data convergence.”

“COC here Night Horse, we show the same. Three days at full warp is twenty five percent faster then the old route too.”

“We'll be taking it slower then that though. At 'pathfinder' speed it'll take us six. Night Horse requesting formal clearance to warp jump.”

“COC to Night Horse. You have clearance to proceed with warp jump. May the Gods Below shelter and protect you.”

“The same to you COC. Night Horse clear.”

You close the comm link and look around the bridge at your two Midshipmen.

“All hands to warp jump stations. Translation in two hours.”

March 22nd, 8252

The howl of the priority alarm jerks you from your sleep and has you scrambling for your void suit. That alarm in the middle of a warp jump can only mean a handful of things. None of which are good. Your mind whirls through the possible issues even as you seal your void suit and head for the bridge at a sprint. The alarm shuts off as your foot crosses the threshold. You slow down enough to drop into your captains chair instead of throwing yourself into it.

“Engineering, report in.”

“Kleinova integral warp screen fluctuations Sir. I've got it stabilized but we're running at only fifty nine percent of screen integrity at the moment.”

“Thank you Engineering. Keep an eye on it please, and don't wait on permission to hit the emergency translation button if needed. Better to be stranded and have to start making repairs then splattered half way across the galactic arm.”

“I've seen the results of a botched revision before Sir. The Tribute / Bloodfury incident. I'm keeping both eyes on this damn Kleinova piece of kludge.”

March 28th, 8252

The Night Horse makes the translation into the Cloudbury system without further incident. As has become your standard operation procedure you set course for the star and set silent running condition. You also set a modified watch schedule to leave Midshipman Huckle all the time he needs with the Kleinova systems to get the issue sorted out. The documented near-failure of the system is one of the bits of evidence you need to get the Celesmore yards to actually tear into the drive system instead of just calling it good and kicking your ship back out into the void.