Distortion drive

Distortion drives expand space behind the ship, and contract it in front, accelerating a ship to the speed of light. Even though space is being warped in front of and behind the ship, a bubble of normal space still exists inside of the distortion field, this prevents time dilation from occurring, and keeps the ship from being torn apart by velocity. Technically, the ship never actually accelerates, only the space in the immediate vicinity of the ship.

Novium is a key component in the construction of distortion drives.

Most ships disengage their distortion drives several thousand kilometers from their destination, and make the rest of the trip with their fusion drive. This is because matter making contact with the distortion field produced by a ship travelling at the speed of light, would result in the distortion field collapsing instantly, the sudden change in velocity would result in the ship being torn apart.