Aero asked.

“I think so.”

Behind her floated the Wraith fleet, including the destroyer Phantasm, frigates Maia and Stalwart, and a collection of Rattlers and Vipers. Before her loomed an unnamed gate in the Van Eyck system. Though no different from the hundreds of other gates in Parallax, this bottomless abyss promised all who entered an express route to the afterlife.

In the end, three of the Wraiths, Nova, Jake, and Paws, were judged capable enough for manual gate traversal outside of sims, and none of the three used a specialized gate diving ship. Instead, they used their favorite interceptors, reconfigured to carry surveying radars instead of missile systems. By switching to the Viper, Nova's gate dive success rate spiked to sixty percent. Further practice pushed that to seventy, supposedly on par with gate divers of exploration orgs. But despite having traversed gates hundreds of times, despite practicing gate diving for hours the day before, and despite the fact that it only existed in a virtual reality game, sweat collected inside her gloves and her heart pounded against her chest. Virtual or not, the black hole before her was a reality.

Aero said,

she said.

“Affirmative.”

“Umm… Did we decide what we wanted to name the systems we found?”

Sinn said.

“Okay.”

April continued,

“Yeah, I got it.”

Aero said.

“Okay, I'll be going now.”

The many voices cheered her on.

Nova pushed her ship down toward the gate. Unlike her first simulator trials, she now accelerated toward the gate with her main engines at ten percent power. You can do this, she thought.

“Warning, gate ahead, pull up.” her Viper's system reported.

“Command, cancel warning,” Nova said. “Command, initiate manual traversal.”

“Warning canceled,” the monotone voice said. “Manual traversal initialized. Surveyor radar active.”

With the gate dominating her sight, Nova took a deep breath and pushed the throttle to twenty-five percent.

“Entering gate in three… two… one…”

Unlike the specialized Trident and Nautilus class diver ships, Nova moved the Viper as an extension of her own body. Her familiarity with the craft advanced to the point where executing any command or maneuver became instinct. She could focus entirely on the path the new gate took, and the ship danced with her will. Left turn, right turn, downward spiral, no obstacle presented by the gate could push her off course. After a minute dodging the shifting walls of the vortex, its terminus emerged, and the Viper dove into the white light.

As the glow of emergence faded, a red giant came into her view against a backdrop of a dense star cluster. Nova sighed and let go of the controls, allowing her Viper to drift forwards.

“Manual traversal complete,” the system voice said. “Van Eyck-Lucre Gate navigation data collected. Private time remaining, seventy-two days.”

Huh? Nova jerked to attention. The system already has a name? What does 'seventy-two days' mean?

“Warning, unknown contacts approaching.”

Enemies? What was I supposed to do if this happened?

Remmy Kaga, site director for the Fortune Divers at Lucre system, jumped when the unfamiliar alarm sounded. The tablet he held dropped to his desk with a loud clatter. The shrill alarm tone echoed through the halls of his mining barge in sets of three. An issue of utmost urgency had arisen.

He contacted his on duty operations manager through his wrist phone. “It's me Wes. What's going on?”

Wes replied.

“Good, make sure it doesn't leave the system. I'll be right there,” Remmy said. He marched out his quarters towards the central command room.

Wes said.

An unknown interceptor already? We haven't even been here for three weeks! Someone must've leaked the nav data, but who?

A mere fifteen players worked the mining site. Beyond the director and his managers, the Fortune Divers team included a resource surveyor, two mining specialists, a refinery specialist, and eight security personnel, the newest of whom joined three systems prior. To that day, not a single incident occurred where nav data leaked from their team before the system became public.

No. If someone wanted to leak data, the last system was far more valuable and worthy than this one. This must be an explorer, but did someone actually dive in a Viper? I've got a bad feeling about this…

Confusion mounting, Remmy stepped into the command center. “Give me an update.”

“Situation's improved,” Wes said. “Gold flight two has pushed the Viper away from the gate, and they will shoot him down if he tries an automated traversal.”

“Okay, scan that Viper. See if it's carrying a surveyor radar,” he commanded.

“Scan operator, get to it,” Wes said.

“Yes sir,” an NPC responded. “Scan complete, confirmed one survey radar and minor upgrades to other systems.”

“Damn, so it really was a gate diving Viper,” Remmy said. “Send out all the Wasps and have the flight out there guard the gate. We can't let him escape. If that nav data gets out, our profit margins here will crash.”

“Are you sure Remmy?” Wes asked. “It's four against one already.”

“Have you ever dealt with someone good enough to gate dive in a Viper?”

“Good point,” Wes said. “Flight controller, deploy Gold flight one.”

“Yes sir,” another NPC replied.

“Good,” Remmy said, “now once we shoot it down, we can get back to mining.”

They watched the action in silence. Another four Wasps launched from the three hundred meter barge to join the four Wasps already blockading the gate. They left the Viper with no route for escape and trapped its nav data inside Lucre. On the holomap, the fighters began their intricate dance of fire, evasion, and counterfire. Their Wasps charged, flinging plasma at the intruder. The Viper rolled and tumbled, slipping through the attacks. Despite the four Wasps engaged with the lone enemy, the action reached a stalemate. With seconds turning to minutes, the dance continued.

Something's not right, Remmy thought. “Is it just me? Or should that Viper be dead by now?”

“A Viper's shields are stronger than the gate divers' we anticipate, and our pilots are probably wishing we brought Rattlers instead of Wasps right now,” Wes said, “but I too think it should be downed already.”

“Sir, incoming contact request from the Viper,” the comms NPC reported. “Your orders?”

“Deny request,” Remmy said. “There's nothing to talk about.” No matter how long the Wasps took, the intruder's destruction was non-negotiable.

“Request denied,” the NPC said.

“And tell Gold leader to step up the pressure,” Remmy said. “They're embarrassing themselves.” Four minutes passed since the second flight of Wasps deployed. Any longer and he'd consider replacing the entire squadron.

“Sir!” a wide-eyed NPC turned towards them. “Another ship just traversed from Van Eyck!”

“Contact,” the system reported. “Ally transponder identified.”

Jake's voice came over the radio.

“Hi Jake,” Nova said. “Just some annoying insects that won't let me leave. They're really rude won't talk either, and I didn't want to traverse manually again. Keep evasive, I'll join you.”

The enemy Wasps had numbers on their side, but they lacked the skills to keep her locked. Had they possessed any other interceptor model, Nova would've been inundated with missiles and splashed, but Wasps only carried plasma cannons by default. As they were, their attacks and maneuvers were straightforward and easy to read, and Nova's well-practiced maneuvers thwarted their attacks.

Jake's arrival surprised the enemy as well. The flight guarding the gate couldn't react in time before he shot by their position. Now in open space, Jake turned his Rattler toward the second flight of Wasps.

“Oh, let me transmit my target designations,” she said. “Command, transfer target data. Recipient, Wraith Five.”

“Transferring data,” the ship confirmed. “Transmission complete.”

“Wow, Nova, what's with these names?” Jake asked. “You actually named them after insects?”

“Well it suits them,” she said. “Gnat and Fly are just buzzing around by the gate, so they really aren't doing much. Mosquito is like them, but every so often he'll try biting. His long distance aim sucks though, so the plasma shots won't hurt at all. And then there's Stink Bug. He shot off a ton of decoy when I got him in a missile lock. I don't even have any missiles, and they know that from when they scanned my ship. Oh, and Roach, he–”

After rolling in space to dodge plasma, Nova reached Jake and positioned herself by his tail. “Swat a bug or two, then you can go back and bring the others I guess.”

“Roger. Cicada's noisy, but he doesn't move much. He'll probably die if you sustain fire on him for a few seconds.”

The two turned about to face Cicada. As Nova observed earlier, Cicada reacted slowly and broke from fire in a predictable fashion. Jake's Rattler sent its parts flying after four seconds of sustained plasma fire.

he said.

“I don't think they get much practice. They spend all their time guarding private systems it seems. Oh, Ant is coming now.”

Ant approached them from a vertical attack vector, spraying Jake with his plasma cannons. To counter, Jake rolled ninety degrees and pushed his nose down, the exact opposite direction Ant predicted following Jake's roll.

“Ant plays really safe. I'll scare him away, but he keeps coming back.” Nova said. Her Viper faced Ant and returned fire, hitting him twice in the forward shields. As expected, Ant broke his pursuit.

“Locust likes moving straight, but he can't aim straight,” Nova said. “You'll win the joust every time.”

Jake charged in a direct line towards Locust, which the Wasp reciprocated. The two interceptors swamped each other with fire.

“Ugh, there's Ant again. Evade Jake.” Ant attacked Jake from below. This time, Jake dodged with a barrel roll, and Ant flew past him.

“I'm going to squash that Ant,” Nova said. “He's getting really annoying.”

Jake began another attack run, peppering Locust with occasional fire to draw him into another confrontation.

“Locking on him again.” Nova focused her targeting radar onto Stink Bug at full power. As before, the Wasp released a spray of decoy and pulled away.

Jake snorted.

“I've got a surprise for him. Stay on Locust,” Nova said. Ant's still too cautious. I have to make him feel safe when he's not.

The oncoming Wasp took aim at Jake's Rattler and fired a stream of plasma. Nova changed course and exposed her Viper before Ant. Two seconds away, Ant changed targets to Nova and sprayed her shields with his guns. Rather than return fire, Nova positioned herself above Ant's approach vector. At the last second, she ejected the surveyor radar module into Ant's flight path.

Ant's collision with the jettisoned radar sent shrapnel flying everywhere. While the Wasp itself remained recognizable, the impact demolished its nose and cockpit dome. Catastrophic damage to its control systems sent the Wasp spiraling away before its systems overheated and detonated.

Jake said.

“I'll take that as a compliment.” Nova watched Jake splash Locust, then glanced at the mining barge in the distance. It looks like Queen Bee isn't going to move.

“Let's fake an attack run to shoo away the bugs near the gate then,” Nova said. “If they scatter, you can traverse.”

The two Wraiths flew full throttle towards the gate. Nova targeted Roach and Gnat while Jake hit Fly and Mosquito. Either due to fear or simply a lack of discipline, the four Wasps dodged aside, leaving a gap in their gate defense.

Jake called out before he dove back into the gate.

“Now let's see if they're willing to talk now,” Nova said to herself. “Command, send comms request. Recipient, Queen Bee.”

“Communication request denied,” the ship's voice said.

Unlike earlier, all five remaining Wasps flew at her without attempting to guard the gate. Really? she thought. I guess they're just mad now.

Engaged against five Wasps, Nova danced through the hail of fire. The insects swarmed around her ship, approaching and retreating at random. Bit by bit, the enemy scraped her shields away. Without time to attack, Nova shut down her own plasma cannons and diverted their power to thrusters and shields. Just after a minute, her shield gauge turned yellow.

“Warning, shields at fifty percent,” the system reported.

Looks like four was my limit against them, I don't have a choice, Nova thought. “Command, increase generator output twenty percent.”

“Generator output increased, ninety seconds until generator overheat.”

With more power, her thrusters improved her shot evasion, and her shield decay rate fell to manageable levels under the endless assault. But, her generator became a time bomb. Once it overheated, the Viper's systems would fail in spectacular fashion.

“Warning, sixty seconds until generator overheat.”

“Command, cancel overheat warning,” Nova said, “I know that already.”

“Warning, shields at twenty-five percent,” the system said.

“Command, shut up.”

“Command not recognized.”

Stupid machine, there needs to be an upgrade for that.

Her shield gauge read ten percent.

Her overheat countdown? Seven seconds.

Where are you guys?

“Contact,” the system reported. “Multiple ally transponders identified.”

“Command! Reset generator output!” The overheat countdown halted at three seconds. A storm of missiles turned the insects into shrapnel. The Phantasm emerged from the gate with the other Wraiths in its shadow. With danger passed, Nova leaned back into her seat and sighed.

Sinn's blithe voice sang through her radio.

Jake said.

“Thanks guys,” she said.

Aero asked.

Laughter filled the comms again, and Nova's own joined the mix.

Love you guys, she thought. You're the best.

“Incoming comms request,” the Viper system reported. “Sender, Queen Bee.”

“Oh, so now you want to talk?”