The Aftermath

The successful transition to FTL came as a much needed relief for everyone aboard. Specially Kita. He wasn't sure if the the new FTL drive could even handle the transition safely. 

Kita had read about this feature in Dr. Kbom's  notes. It was quite a revolutionary feature if Kita said so himself. 

Normally, The ships needed to slow down closer to a complete halt before they could safely transition into FTL. But the new FTL drive that Dr. Kbom developed had a special feature that let it transition into FTL while traveling at normal cruising speeds. 

This was quite a breakthrough in FTL technology and would give humanity an inherent advantage in this hostile galaxy. 

Although this feature of the drive had been tested before, But never at such great speeds. The speeds that the Jeager was traveling him was well beyond the speed that it was rated for. So Kita was really nervous about using this feature to escape. 

If by chance anything went wrong, then everybody aboard including the ship itself could be stringified or lost in higher dimensions. Nobody really knew where those ships that suffered FTL disasters ended up in. But He couldn't imagine anywhere nice. 

Now that the Jeager was in FTL and going at normal FTL speeds, They could finally take a break and rest their bodies. 

Everyone aboard had suffered some Serious G-force and that could lead to many problems in the human body. 

Although the duration wasn't too long, it was still a problem nonetheless. So Nova ordered everyone to get checked at the Med bay as soon as possible. That way, they could start treating any complications that might've arisen. 

"Give me a status report. " Kita said as soon as things cooled down a bit. 

"Ship, All status green.

Rear thrusters,

overheated.

Primary fuel tank, 30% extra depletion than projected.

Thruster conditions, Unknown.

FTL drive status, Green.

Life support....."

Kita sat there as one of the assistants read out the full status report of the ship. 

It looked like except for the rear thrusters which had been overloaded, Nothing else had been affected much during this event. 

That was good news. Kita was worried that many more systems might have succumbed under the intense pressure. 

Much of the systems of the Jeager wasn't designed to operate under such pressure. They simply weren't durable enough. And subjecting them to such insane amount of pressure were a surefire way to breaking something. 

So while, Kita was relived that nothing had completely broken down, he was sure that Hugo and his team was gonna have to perform a lot of inspections and repairs over the coming weeks. 

Speaking of them, Hugo and his team had proven essential to their escape out of the system. Hadn't he and his crew gotten up and did what needed to be done, Perhaps, The Jeager wouldn't exist right now. 

Who knew what kind of shells the border patrol might've thrown at them. So he as really grateful to Ingot, To Hugo and his team. Everyone who did their job when needed the most. 

"Maybe I should give them a raise!" Kita's eyes lit up. He was really pleased with Hugo's performance, And he was quite happy with giving him the raise that he deserved. 

He decided to revisit this at a later date. 

Right now, He needed to talk with Elena and Dr. Kbom about the recent developments. There were quite a few suspicious things about the whole situation.

There was a huge inforamtion gap at Kita's end. So he needed to find out who had sent the order and what exactly they wanted with him. 

If someone in the high-table decided to order Grills to do something like that, then they definitely wanted something from Kita.

He needed to figure out what. 

Although he had quite a good idea what it might be, He didn't want to believe that others knew what exactly he had done. 

He intended to deny it till his death. 

As he walked out of the bridge, Nova followed him from behind. 

As he approached Kita, he asked if they could talk somewhere private. There seemed to be something really urgent that he wanted to discuss with him. 

Kita nodded and both of them headed over to a secure meeting room. 

"Sir, There's rising confusion among the crew about the situation. Most of them aren't aware of what exactly happened. And why we left the borders of the Empire is such fashion. Rumors are going and some of them are really serious. I'm afraid that if we don't address this situation promptly, things might get out of hand really fast." He said in a worried tone. It seemed that he had heard quite a few of these rumors. 

Kita wondered what they were talking about. But that could wait until later. Nova was right. He needed to address this rising tension between the crew. He needed to ease their worries before they decide to do something by themselves. 

"What do you think is the best way to address their worries? We can't tell them exactly what happened right. We need to come up with a convincing enough story." Kita said to Nova. 

"Yes, Sir, I think it's best if we don't share the complete details with them. I'll come up with something convincing." He assured Kita. 

"Okay, then I'll leave it to you. Let's hold a announcement at lunch time tomorrow. We can share with the crew what happened and let them know that everything is fine."

"Okay sir. I'll get on it." Nova ended their short conversation as they both exited the meeting room. 

Kita looked around. There were people going from here to there.

He suddenly remembered something. So he quickly headed towards Elena's office. 

When he entered there, he saw Noir sitting calmly on Elena's lap as she gently stroked him. 

The scene seemed quite.... Serene? 

Kita felt a bit jealous to see this. But he didn't ponder on it for long. He walked up to her and called for Noir. 

"C'mere buddy!" He said as he motioned the cat to jump on his hands. 

"Meow." The cat said without even opening it's eyes. There was no motion in it. It didn't seem that he heard Kita. Or intended to follow it.