She was shredded by the gravitational stresses around the Shroud.

The captain sends an official report to the central command, explaining that the offog came apart under gravitational stress.

Obviously the central command is worried about how a dog could come apart, under gravitational stress or not.

Then he said slowly, "It is under power-- and correcting for all gravitational stresses."

The gravitational stresses are creating an intense spatial distortion, similar to what is commonly found near a singularity.

"But as gravitational stresses decrease, so does the distortion effect on the cruisers' sensors."

When you change mass in a system, you could expect changes in gravitational stresses.

"That would have been the gravitational stresses of going through the time warp," said the man he had addressed as Captain.

There were gravitational stresses, where space should be clear.

It would operate equally well anywhere in space, for all of space is filled with gravitational stress.