Gath was bothered by the situation, "Sir, this craft was not capable of significant speed. Such a propulsion system, even if launched from an orbital facility and were able to exceed the thrust of other vehicles of similar design, it would never be able to reach even a fraction of light speed. It would be generous to say that it might have taken one hundred thousand years to make it this distance from Icarus III. Given the speed it is drifting at, we can't be entirely certain it even originated from Icarus III, but we have no idea how it arrived here. We also can't return them to Icarus III, even if we can confirm that's where they came from. It might be possible to establish from some sort of flight logs, when and where they departed, as well as what their destination was. As Mister Brennan has pointed out, there are ways we could repair their craft and place them back on course, but without shielding, they are not likely to survive the rest of their journey. We might be able to deliver them to their destination and allow them to complete their mission with no explanation of the in between time. They might be able to tell things didn't go as planned, but it will remain a mystery. It would allow them to be alive and still give them a chance to succeed or fail on their own. If we have no choice but to wake them up, I think the holodeck is the best way to isolate them, to include the equivalent of an airlock feature, securing them in that environment as a containment measure."
== The sublight calculations for a chemical rocket system are weak, but I used real world ideas to compare. If a Saturn 5 rocket (liquid fuel) were able to launch from an orbital facility or the moon, it would require much less escape energy, but still had a top speed of about 40,000 kilometers per hour. Even at more than twice that speed, it would take more than 100,000 years to travel 9 light years. Imagine that they could achieve twice that speed, it would still take tens of thousands of years to get to the location. Thus, they didn't get there on their own, or there is more to the story that we need to discover here. ==
== The sublight calculations for a chemical rocket system are weak, but I used real world ideas to compare. If a Saturn 5 rocket (liquid fuel) were able to launch from an orbital facility or the moon, it would require much less escape energy, but still had a top speed of about 40,000 kilometers per hour. Even at more than twice that speed, it would take more than 100,000 years to travel 9 light years. Imagine that they could achieve twice that speed, it would still take tens of thousands of years to get to the location. Thus, they didn't get there on their own, or there is more to the story that we need to discover here. ==