She gasped, her mouth opening into a round “O” of shock, and stumbled forward, barely catching the back of the captain’s command chair to steady herself. Behind her, she felt Ensign Lamont approach and loop an arm under hers to bolster her up, but she couldn’t seem to marshal the presence of mind to thank the woman or even throw her a grateful glance.

My God.

It was impossible, but it was the Fuielles System that floated on those screens, outlined with red and blue by the computer. The primary was a midsized yellow star with eleven planets circling it. Milla stared in shock, taking an involuntary step forward and clutching at the chair back as she tried to find her voice.

“How?” Milla’s voice was soft, floating on breath only a few feet, but her hesitant question caught the attention of Captain Weston.

He half turned and smiled at her, or perhaps the ensign behind her, then gave Milla an apologetic look.

“I should have tried to explain it to you, but suffice to say, our method of travel is somewhat faster than what you described in your story. Less pleasant, I’ll bet, though.”

“Yes, you could say that,” Milla said, her stomach still churning as the memories twisted at the back of her mind.

Weston nodded, seeing the emotion hidden in her eyes. The transition drive was one of, if not the most, disturbing things he’d ever endured. Certainly, it was the most disturbing thing outside of a battlefield. He took a breath as he glanced back around the bridge, then nodded and waved her closer.

Milla returned a few steps up to the chair that Weston had set up for her. The captain tapped a command into one of his smaller displays. A graphic appeared on it a second later, and Milla blinked as she recognized the general outline of the Odyssey from the many map plates posted about the ship.

“Our system charges every molecule in the ship with a tachyon surge,” he told her as the graphic surged with color and the ship began to break apart. “Since tachyons aren’t particularly fond of existing in this universe…”

The graphic vanished from the screen.

“What happens,” he said, “is that we are actually broken down to sub-molecular components, which flash across the intervening space. When the tachyon surge runs out of power…”

The graphic on the screen reintegrated automatically.

“…so do we, and we come to a stop. Hopefully, right on target,” he snickered, “if we’ve done our calculations right.”

Milla nodded, not really understanding the details in the slightest but following the general principle easily enough.

“I’m told that the ship actually jumps instantaneously. The effect that we see is a result of a subjective time distortion.” Weston paused a moment, then smiled. “Of course, that doesn’t make it any easier to handle the effect.”

“Fascinating,” she said, and she was fascinated. Instantaneous travel between star systems was an incredible achievement.

Beyond that, even, it flew in the face of everything she had ever been taught. It was supposed to be impossible, utterly and completely.