The fundamental force of gravity was somehow involved, all admitted. The fact that most warp points occurred in proximity to the gravity wells of stars reinforced this view, in addition to being highly convenient in practical terms. But some warp points didn’t, and every attempt to formulate a general theory accounting for the phenomenon had come to grief on that irritating fact. It was a source of endless frustration to physicists, who devoutly wished that starless warp nexi didn’t exist. Li Han had moments when she felt the same way, albeit for different reasons. This was one of those times, as her flagship TRNS Taconic emerged into the starless warp nexus ZQ-147 and, for the first time in decades, she found herself in true interstellar space, without the comforting hearthlike glow of a local sun to serve as a reference point. She reminded herself that the all-volunteer crew of TRNS Goethals had been in the gulf between the stars for over two and a half standard years. No, she automatically corrected herself, about a year and a third as they themselves have experienced time, traveling at relativistic velocities.
