As a timer counted down, nearing the minute mark, a young man settled into his seat at the operations console of a small spacefaring vessel. On the screen and at the holographic station nearby, the blueprints and designs for a prototype jump drive using new principles of multidimensional space discovered while researching the strange techniques of the denizens of the planet Yardrat were visible.

Collaborating with the advanced cognitive AI that operated the research vessel his mother had left behind when she answered the summons to return to her Homeworld to give a scientific report, the young warrior had built on the tutelage he had received from his mother, an accomplished Centurion Academic with expertise in Xenobiology, Astrophysics, and Sociology, as well as being an accomplished engineer, Kotoro had managed to produce a model that had passed all the short range jump tests performed within-system without any notable aberrations in the scanner readings or falling out of spatial or chrono-synchronicity. There had been some odd readings in the mid to long range tests, jumping to the outer reaches of the star system, and to adjacent star systems, which had been corrected for in the operating parameters and had stopped appearing.

All of these initial tests of the prototype had been performed with small rocket powered drones also equipped with standard FTL drives to allow them to return if anything were to go wrong in a way that left them in a salvageable state in a proper dimensional frame and orientation to interact with. They were about to run through the same battery of tests with the drive having been engineered into the science vessel itself, and if successful they would attempt to jump to their real destination, a small planet in the backwaters boondocks of the territory controlled by the Cold Empire. Hopefully he could avoid the notice of Emperor Cold there, and come up with a plan to extract his people from the control and clutches of the evil empire.

Kotoro had managed to live a relatively normal life as a member of an elite squad of young Saiyajin trainees. The Ki restraints his mother and Epistēmē, the name of the AI operating the science vessel, had engineered had allowed Kotoro to perform at his actual peak whilst only appearing as powerful as a member of the Saiyajin Elite, albeit a fairly high-tier one.

As yet, he had been unable to master precision and reliability in controlling his physical might and the power of his ki, as he had grown in power and strength far too rapidly to adapt to the changes. Until recently this hadn't been a problem, but the appearance of Emperor Cold and the promise of mass produced Scouter Scope technology threatened to reveal the deception.

The Royal family already knew the truth, but the last thing Kotoro needed was to catch the attention of Emperor Cold. As powerful as he was becoming, he still wasn't as strong as his mother, or even a soldier in the Centurion army, and even they were not nearly powerful enough to take on Emperor Cold alone. However, if this rate of growth continued, it stood to reason that he would eventually become a force to be reckoned with, and with proper training, leaning heavily on the Saiyajin traits he inherited from his father, he may be able to accelerate his growth even more, and return to free the civilized universe from the control of this monster.

The countdown reached the 10 second mark, and began audibly counting down. Upon completion of the countdown, Epistēmē piloted the ship to exit the atmosphere, and performed the first test, a short range jump from the edge of the boundary between the ionosphere and the thermosphere to within several kilometers of the nearby moon. Experiencing this type of warp for the first time, Kotoro's senses were thrown for a loop. Even if they could be brought to understand the structure of multidimensional spacetime intellectually, mortal brains just weren't naturally equipped to handle multidimensional perception and looking out of the ship during the warp process had begun to give Kotoro a bad migraine. Epistēmē ran through the feedback of the multi-dimensional spatial sensors to ensure that no anomalies were detected, and everything appeared to be in order, so they moved on to the next test.

The second test would be a jump from the space around the moon to the edge of the star system beyond the smallest planetoids, to the edge of the farthest orbits any objects gravitationally bound to the local star would follow. A bout of nausea struck at the prospect of experiencing the odd perceptual experience again, and Kotoro closed his eyes for the duration of this test.

"All scanner readings are within tolerances, no anomalies detected, moving on to phase 3" Epistēmē said in a placid tone. This time, the process of warping would be more involved, as the ship needed to rotate further away from standard Cartesian space to align with a path through multidimensional space-time to allow what would appear to be instantaneous travel achieved by folding the ship through space in a manner similar to the concept of wormholes frequently appearing in Centurion fiction, since the destination is so much farther away. Under normal circumstances if everything works properly, the vessel wouldn't need to actually move at all. It should only need to engage impulse or standard FTL drives if something were to cause the vessel to fall out of its intended alignment or rotational path, in order to correct the positioning within multidimensional space.

As the ship rotated back into Cartesian space, the amount of light coming in through the viewports drastically increased and scanners indicated the vessel, named Techne, was now approximately 3 light minutes away from the closest star to the one Yardrat orbited. This particular star was a blue giant. The beauty of the sight and the success of the tests left Kotoro feeling a bit reinvigorated.

"Move on to phase 4 please, Epistēmē". This jump would be a much much farther distance, but it should take approximately the same amount of time to accomplish.

"5"

"4"

"3"

"2"

"1"

"Multidimensional Drive engaged"

So far so good.

"Multiple anomalies detected; Vessel has encountered severe spatial warp! Detecting dimensional tearing along the vector from original location to destination. Engaging impulse and FTL to correct path to destination"

Through the view-ports, Kotoro observed two enormous things stretching through and around and in the dimensional tear, seemingly burrowed into and across every dimension available to them. Whatever they were, they had caused a massive distortion and the vessel had inadvertently stumbled into it.

Not good, but hopefully Epistēmē can fix it.

"Returning to Cartesian space in 3...2...1" Epistēmē announced as the view shifted from painful mind bending awfulness to a view of a green, brown and blue planet with enormous oceans, a pair of polar ice caps, and generous cloudcover, and a fair amount of axial tilt. Around the planet was a single grayish moon with no atmosphere.

"This planet is consistent with all known and projected traits for our desired destination..." Epistēmē declared, trailing off a bit at the end. "That is promising. I'm sensing a 'but' coming though..." responded Kotoro. Epistēmē continued, "... however, the star-field as viewed from our current position does not match the projections based on previously mapped portions of the universe. Additionally, we cannot locate any signals from the galactic empire, or the criminal empire of King Cold, or even the star-system where Centurai and Rao should be. I'm going to pour over simulations of what may have happened, I'm turning over piloting controls to you Master Shinoto, I advise scouting out the situation on the nearby planet and finding a safe place to land. I've observed strong indications of intelligent life and a developed civilization. There are artificial satellites orbiting this world, detectable encoded transmissions in the EM spectrum, and portions of the planet not lit by starlight can be observed producing moderate amounts of artificial light."

Well...fuck, this sounded bad. Epistēmē and Kotoro and several Yardrat academics had discussed possible ways this tech could fail and what might result based on their models of multidimensional physics that the people of Yardrat had helped them cobble together from almost 9 months of intense experimentation and measurements using the various physics bending and teleportation abilities they were capable of. In addition to the multidimensional drive, Epistēmē and Kotoro had developed blueprints for a new line of ki restraint devices with a greater range and more precise configuration capabilities as well as a much higher failure point. They had also managed to build a prototype machine capable of creating and sustaining a pocket dimension. This had been installed into the ship in a few locations providing significantly more space for laboratories and fabricator equipment, as well as leisure and training areas, despite its relatively small size, having originally been designed as a very basic frontier research lab. It had been transformed into a much more capable proper science vessel. They had also developed many different techniques for avoiding detection. It wouldn't do to spend all this effort to escape Emperor Cold only to be detected in transit and have their plan foiled, had the jump drive technology failed, requiring a trip to earth using standard FTL drives.

"Might as well meet the locals until Epistēmē can figure out what happened." Kotoro thought to himself. His experiences with the various off-planet operations with his squad had shown that many civilizations were extremely hostile to contact from aliens, especially if it is the first contact they've had with life from another planet, so he decided that it would be prudent to activate every stealth measure available on the ship and to approach a coastal city from underwater at slow speeds in the dead of night to minimize his chances of being seen or detected.

After several hours of slow descent, during which the vessel's sensors had detected and analyzed a strange winged entity situated high in the atmosphere that appeared to be following them with its gaze, he reached the ocean's surface and submerged. At this point he set the vessel to locate a coastal settlement of medium size with a port and shallow bay area, and to have the non-sentient adaptive AI systems analyze the area upon arrival, with further instructions to awaken him when this task was completed and suggest locations where vessel might best burrow itself into the coastline to avoid detection while providing an accessible base camp. With these instructions entered, Kotoro retreated to the room which had served as the lab prior to the installation of the pocket dimension machines. It had been converted into a living quarters superior to the spartan bunk the ship had originally been equipped with. Taking a hot shower and changing into clothes suited for resting, he climbed onto the soft futon that served as his bed, and took a much needed nap after the previous several days of hard work and testing.