PART ONE:

Wormholing (verb) – The act of completely obliterating a pod pilot trapped within wormhole space without mercy.

Wormholed (noun) – The nominative used to describe one who has suffered wormholing. Example: “Dude, you were totally wormholed.”

A new and interesting phrase I encourage you to incorporate into your regular trashtalk. I am curious to see how quickly it spreads around New Eden.

PART TWO:

3AM, my emergency chrono sounded; code red. I scrambled to my datapad, plugging into our secured intra-communications network to see what was going on.

Doc Gigawatts: “We’ve been trapped here for hours, barely keeping ahead of the Sleepers. They’re like nothing anyone has ever seen. Our entry point collapsed. We’re trapped. I’m nearly out of probes. Require immediate assistance.”

I raced to our headquarters, finding Cytral already monitoring the situation.

“What’s the plan, Cy?” I asked, unsure of what could be done. Wormhole exploration was something that many explorers had done throughout the space age, but it had only come to mainstream attention with the recent events that transpired in Evati, though not many were privy to that information. I had no experience nor knowledge of wormholes, but was concerned for my corpmates.

“Nothing to be done, Roc. They’re on their own. We have no way of getting to them, and no way of providing a point of egress for them. They could be gone for days, weeks, months; I really have no idea. We can only monitor the comms and hope for the best.”

The following hours were one of terse frustation. I paced back and forth countless times, figuring I would eventually wear a groove into the flooring. Doc had taken some of the more anxious corp members on our first “official” wormhole expedition. So far, things weren’t going that great. My own inward understatement made me chuckle nervously.

“They could’ve waited. I could’ve taken the Renegades for wing support.” It was only the night before that I had finished purchasing and fitting a new Firetail in Rens. Doc had taken some of our experienced warfare pilots along, but still, I wanted to be there.

“Shoulda woulda coulda.” Cytral said, a growing look of concern on his face. “Need you to prep a rescue team. Set your pilots to high alert standby. Have your ships fueled and ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

I saluted Cytral once, then left ops, heading for the corporate hangar bays, sending alert status notifications to the Renegades.

Quickly and efficiently, my team was assembled. It was a hurry up and wait situation. We sat and played cards to distract ourselves from the peril of our comrades, each of us thankful to not be in the situation of our colleagues, yet hopeful we would see them again soon.

An overhead speaker squelched. Cytral was relaying the message directly from our squad in wormhole space. Obvious urgency was implied.

Doc Gigawatts: “I located another wormhole. Sleepers are in close pursuit; damn they hit hard. Fleet entering wormhole … now!”

We collectively stared at the speaker, wanting more information, wanting to be there to fight side by side with our brothers and sisters. Not a sound could be heard in the hangar bay, not even of breathing.

Doc Gigawatts: We’re all through; pulling up the starmap now. Shit! Double shit!

We could hear through the speaker channel the sound of target locking, and the ominous warning being issued to Doc Gigawatts, and presumably the rest of our team.

Doc Gigawatts (heard from speaker): Enemies of the Amarr. This will be your last trespass into Empire space.

Oh hell no! I thought to myself.

Doc Gigawatts: “We’re being targetted. We’re in Amarr high sec. We won’t last long with the damage we’ve taken from the Sleepers. Require immediate assistance! Please!”

Amarr high sec, bloody hell. “You heard the man, let’s move!” I bellowed, stirring my pilots, crews, and ship workers into action. Within moments we had the all clear for launch.

Way to go, Doc. I thought to myself. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.