Took long enough. Had to wait a whole week before the storms passed and the sensors all agreed that space was in a state that the drive would work as advertised. I get it. I understand just about everything about the Viteză Furie, the drive, everything. At the same time, it is all a bit beyond me. Talk of dimensional folding, virtual gravity shunts, and other jargon. I guess I really don't need to know all the details.
There is a difference between knowing and understanding. I know the words, but understand them all. Maybe not so much. I know what that part and that other part are. I know where they go, and I know how to tell when I need to do X or Y. That, I hope. Will be enough.
Now. I am outbound. Unlike the current drive systems, I have to get to what the techs call, smooth space. Which means I have to thrust well beyond the gravity well of the planet. Need to get out into interplanetary space. So the Viteză Furie has engines unlike anything we have ever put on a ship before. Fusion Torches is what they called them. I'm essentially riding the flame of a continuous fusion burn.
We haven't sent people beyond the gravity well in more than two centuries. The current drives let us just jump from planet to planet, but they are slow. It takes a week to get to Centar 5, only 4 light years. The new drive should let us get there in an hour. But to work, it needs smooth space. So not only do I get to be the first person beyond the gravity well in centuries. I get to break all speed records in the process. I'm doing .5c and I have only been thrusting for an hour.
It is thrilling. They say another storm has surprised them, so I am literally pouring on the speed and expect to be initiating the drive in another hour, doing just shy of .8c, and just ahead of the storm. If I didn't have inertial damper system, I'd be a smear on the back wall. Rather glad the techs seem to know what they are doing, even if I don't always fully understand what they are saying.
Got my music playing loud, despite the complaints of control. What are they going to do? I'm the fastest person ever, and there is nothing they can do now.
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