Disclaimer: Joss, Fox, Universal Own em’. I’m just playing. No money being made. The situations come from my own twisted mind as do my original characters.

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AN: Here we go.... Earth

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Quest-Chapter Nine

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With a lurch, Quest popped back into normal space. Allan shook his head to clear it while Trudy ended up using the bowl Allan had given her. Allan quickly drew the Ambassador a glass of water.

“My goodness,” Trudy breathed as her stomach settled, “Is it always like that?”

“You get used to it,” Allan replied, “By the third jump you hardly notice it.”

While the former companion took this information in, Allan retrieved the bowl from the table and began to clean it. After a quick rinse, he placed it into the automated dishwasher.

“How many jumps to get to Earth?” Trudy asked.

“Two one second jumps and one of about half a second.”

“Why can't you do it in one jump?”

“The system can only keep the singularity stable for one point two seconds. As a safety measure, we only engage the drive for one second max. So far, we haven't done it that long other than in computer testing. The jump we just did was about a quarter of a second. It felt much longer but it was quite short.”

“It's amazing. I have a bit of a penchant for science but this is so far above my level of knowledge...”

“Makes my head spin a bit too. And I helped develop it.”

“It... have you named the system yet?”

“We've just been throwing acronyms around. Gravitational Displacement Hyperspace Drive. Or GDHD or just the FTL system. Both are a misnomer since in reality, the GDHD doesn't physically move the ship, it just takes a shortcut through space time.”

Most of the technobabble Allan spouted went over Trudy's head, “Why not call it the Bryant System or Drive?”

“It wasn't just myself and Sara. I wrote the preliminary theory back before the exodus. I worked on it off and on over the last twenty years or so. I got some help from River Cobb. Then when Sara was at university, she saw something I missed