The carrier headed out past the edges of the solar system with its escort of six destroyer class ships. The entire carrier group was commanded by an admiral with the carrier as her flagship. The admiral liked to stay on the bridge so she could be in quick contact with any of the commanders of the destroyers. She knew her cargo was very precious and her mission was of the utmost importance. The cargo itself consisted of a ship a little larger than a typical patrol-torpedo class vessel and its crew of seven.

There were several strange things about the ship, the first of which was the fact that for such a small vessel it had four visible engines. The second strange thing about the ship was the offensive weaponry, there were dorsal and ventral quad pulse cannons, the largest the admiral had ever seen. The third thing that the admiral noticed was there was no shield emitters, the ship had no defensive shielding at all. When the admiral tried on her own fleet computers to find out what powered the ship and what kind of drives the ship had, she received a very quick message from fleet command that this information was highly classified and to just leave it be.

But the crew unsettled her more than the ship did. She understood the the choices for the commander and the second in command. They were both respected in the fleet and had good reputations overall. Even if the captain had his troubles when he was a cadet in the fleet academy, he had managed to overcome those problems and even turn them into opportunities and graduate with honors. The second in command held the rank of commander and was highly decorated. The third in command bothered the admiral a bit. He was a colonel from the station and planetary defense and technically outranked the second in command, but because he had no experience in vessel command he didn't have a problem taking orders from the commander. Rumour had it that he had actually designed the ship. The final four members were the two engineers and the two gunners.

The carrier group was approaching the drop point for the strange ship. The admiral watched as the carrier captain alerted the crew and every member of the crew did his or her job with the efficiency expected on a military ship.

The captain of the carrier called to the experimental ship on the carrier intercom, "Hey Hoagie, are you ready for your big flight?"

"Just get your crew to remove the main umbilical and then clear the launch bay and I guarantee that you will see some things from this ship you have never seen before."

The admiral watched the main view screen from the bridge as the experimental craft left the carrier and accelerate faster than any ship she had seen.

"Jumping cats! I have never seen a crewed ship just take off like that!" exclaimed the officer at the sensory station.

Very quickly the strange little ship generated its own worm hole without the use of a warp gate and just disappeared into the hole, leaving no trace of itself.

Admiral Lassie smiled to herself, her tail wagging in happiness as she thought "Who would have ever thought of a mixed crew of dogs and cats going to find some humans to come back to the solar system?"