What one must understand about Faster Than Light travel is that it is not really travel at all. It is a forced displacement using a complex application of the Theory of Relativity. Destination coordinates are punched into a grid which manages temporary access to wormhole conduits.

The connection between a physical object, the temporary wormhole conduit and the destination is only made possible by mapping the wormhole anomalies. USNE, with the help of The Synod had done so for hundreds of viable destinations over the past 4 decades. Now the JumpGates, which connected useful locations such as high Terran orbit to the nearest wormhole entry point, were the onramps to the galactic superhighway.

The one thing that complicated the whole system was the need to accelerate to near light speed to prepare for wormhole entry. Shwartz and his shipmates passed through the gate and started the lengthy process of JumpAccel. From orbital speed to jump speed took nearly 16 hours at 1.25gs.

The body hated every second.