The Demise

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Little background (simply because I like to write background information for my stories ):

When Tamarillho ordered her helmsman to take the Vulture out, he replied with "ahead one quarter, point five m-clicks to free space,". This means that the ship accelerated to one quarter of third-degree max speed. Third degree speed is the maximum allowed speed for (civilian) ships near stations, asteroids or planets. Second-degree is for interplanetary space close to planets - up to one sector out, to say it in game terms. First-degree is long-distance interplanetary space. This explains the awful scale of SEIV systems. Third-degree max speed is 5000 kph, second-degree max speed is 150.000 kph, and first-degree is 2.5 million kph.

M-clicks are "micro-clicks". This are, again, third degree clicks. 3-clicks (for short) are 100 km. 2-clicks are 5000 km. 1-clicks are 100.000 km. 3-, 2- and 1-clicks are not directly related to the same degree of speed.

When approaching the warp point, Tamarillho orders her helmsman "Divert course one-quarter CC regarding ship's central axis.". What she said was to divert the ship's cource one-quarter of a Course Counter in "heading 000 bearing negative" to use Trekspeak. Course changes are measured along two circular planes (like the Trek heading and bearing), with each plane divided into 100 CC in both directions. Directly ahead is 0 CC, a "180" is 100 CC. CCs do not work in the same way as degrees; say, a 90-degree turn left is 50 CC left, while a 90-turn right is 50 CC right. Simple, no? This standard has been set universally (ok then, galactically) to make maneuvering go more smoothly. Also, this overcame the "cultural" difference between races in this area - you don't want to know how difficult it is to convert Xiati Try'lyin (speak: [trylian], like a single word) to Terran (OK, and Kytheran) degrees.

When the ship enters the WP, Tamarillho "blues out" as it is called in space travel. This is a result from both the gravitonic distortions when they go in, and from her being yanked into a different space-time "plane" - think subspace or hyperspace.

Tamarillho and her crew are from an Empire called the "New Kytheran Commonwealth". The original Kytheran Commonwealth originated from a Terran deep-space colony, founded by a sleeper ship. When the ship landed, the colonists would be declared independent anyway, so their spreading across the galaxy was a logical result.

Perhaps more to explain as the story progresses