[h2][b]Dr. Fiona O'Connell - The [i]Immaculate Aegis[/i][/b][/h2]

[hr]

Despite McKay's apparent confidence, Fiona was still nervously wringing her hands as she checked over the readouts once again. "Yeah I...suppose so. Any kind of tests with anything having to do with slipspace is just always so nerve-wracking. For as vital as it is, slipspace is just so dangerous. Make the wrong kind of mistake with the portal, or accidentally destabalize the drive's quantum field mid-transit, and we all end up getting reduced to subatomic particles, just like that. During the battle of Reach, one of our Spartan teams used a slipspace drive basically as a bomb to take out a ship over five times this size. It would be a quick death at least, but...you're right, though. Our changes have been through billions of simulations; I shouldn't be so alarmist."

Dr. O'Connell grinned, giving McKay a quick pat on the back. "I wish I could have your bravery. I could never go out in the field like you've said you do. I'd be a nervous wreck. But life-threatening risks like this are probably just another day for you."

If there was any desire to make any last-minute alterations to the test, there would be no time for it. Within moments, the Aegis' AI finished the sequence and powered on the slipspace borer. Fiona immediately noticed that the borer was drawing almost fifty percent more power than usual, but it was not as if the ship's reactor did not have plenty of capacity to spare. From the view screens, they could see the brilliant blue and white glow of a massive slipspace portal opening in front of the ship, which the [i]Aegis'[/i] engines soon pushed the ship into. 

Once in the slipstream, the slipspace drive's power draw fell back down to mostly normal levels, and the ship proceeded without any obvious issues. Unlike what McKay might have been used to in hyperspace, there was nothing in slipspace that the Human eye could see, so the view screens showed nothing but blackness until they switched to displaying more useful information. Notions of distance and velocity became meaningless within slipspace and could not be directly measured, so they would only be able to know if their changes were successful once they arrived.