Theories

Niomo looked up from his PADD for a moment to acknowledge the Fleet Captain. “9.5 will be a stretch, but we’ll do our best. That is an 18.75% increase in a warp core that isn’t really designed to be pushed that far. 9.4 might be more reasonable. It might not seem like much to an untrained person, but it’s lightyears apart. As I said, no guarantees. I’d enjoy not exploding into a ball of fire.”

He paused for a moment to kick himself over the problem of the warp cores. He should have realized it as soon as it was said. He then began to think about what Captain Kheren had suggested. “I like your idea Captain. Both the delivery and the method are much more easily controlled than what we originally had in mind. Going more into the minutia, isn’t it possible for us to pre-program the shuttles ahead of time? I’d hate to think what would happen if the Children got installed as said shuttle pilots. It would also reduce the chance of a fatality for that section of the mission. Finally, assuming the good Fleet Captain is not going to be aboard any of the ships on this operation, it allows him to control everything from the command center here at the station.”