The warp core pulsed rhythmically as the ship was being put through its final tests.  The smell of new was fantastic and it fit the frame like a warm blanket, and Dun reveled in it.  With white knuckles, he gripped the console before the barely contained matter/anitmatter reaction.<br/><br/>The power yield of the new dilithium matrix was a technical miracle.  In years prior, a ship was considered to be well tuned when running in the 90 percentiles.  Engineers made it their bragging rights just how much output they could squeeze out of the reaction chamber.  Then came the SDD (super dense dilithium) and everything changed.  Scientists were hoping to increase the size of reactors and volume of plasma for larger platforms, ie, larger ships with higher demands for energy.  What they did not know was that the calculations had been all wrong.  Instead of a standard worp core increasing its efficiency to closer to 100%, the numbers doubled, thus yielding upwards of 180+ percentiles point out of the same reactor.  Out of reflex, the reaction was halted fearing an uncontrollable process and destruction of the experiment.  The compilation of the raw data began.  Every time they ran the numbers, they got the same results.  Dilithium had been thought to yield xx% efficiently, but it was wrong and on a subatomic level.  That was the guess of the scientists anyways.  The reaction had such a phenomenal yield because it fused in the giga~microns first and cascaded exponentially as it continued to fuse into the macro molecular structure.  Dun didn't know why it happened and he didn't care, that's why they went to school, so they could tell him what he was dealing with.<br/><br/>Then Starfleet put 1 and 2 together and offered Ensign McGalleon, with his exceptionally high marks in propulsion mechanics, a 5 year tour upon the Da Vinci, the first vessel in the fleet to field the drive discussed above.  Then, Starfleet asked him to not only keep the ship running, but to keep it from blowing apart.  4 years later, he is taking what is a finely balanced system and trying to incorporate it into a vessel twice the size of the test craft along with trying to feed all the extra energy into systems that aren't used to the surplus.  Fortunately, this had been done once before in the Defiant.  Dun had read everything ever logged by O'Brien and his unsuspected companion Nog in their trials and errors aboard the legendary craft.  If Dun hadn't had a model of success in the triumphant little vessel, he would not have thought this ship and its layout had been remotely feasible.<br/><br/>It was, however, a brilliant and reckless, spirited, if not dangerous death trap of a space craft.  The whole of it oozed power and ferocity.  This in of it self was amazing because its mission was one of discretion and frontier blazing, not warfare like its little cousin, the Defiant.  There was such potential in the array and its design, something that had never been possible without power production so quick and ready.  The doors that would be opened and the distances traveled by the McNair would eclipse all but the little Voyager that could, and soon enough, even that milestone would be surpassed.  Dun vowed that there would be plenty o life left in her too to continue on.  He would take her from the docks, kicking and screaming and ease her to bed when her final twilight fell.<br/><br/>With his broad and calloused hands rising to his brow line and wringing his hair upon his head, he figured he could get the phasers synced before he called it a night.  Then he would work on the impulse drives...  He grumbled as he turned and started barking orders to the technicians threatening that they would not be tasting supper if they did not move at the the speed with which he desired.