“EPU, O2, 100%. Check.”

“PFL, Resident A.I. control... No faults, check.”

“Suspensors, locked. S-Vectoring panels at minimal fade.”

Tessa exhaled, forced her influence further into the rig, felt it sink into the layers of programming architecture like a stone in a massive pool. In her mind, the interface was impossibly wide, deep– and then all that distance snapped back into place like an elastic suit, pulling her in, condensing around her. Reality blurred as she sank into her new body like a soul, felt the lines between living nanite composite and flesh fade to nothing. Her body flexed nimbly around her, wings shifting, reorienting, entire fuselage alive, ready.

“Kvasir, fully engaged.” She breathed, and her new body responded in turn, powerful, alive, eager, hungry for the sky. Everything came at the speed of thought, the strength of Seindrive. “Immersion complete.”

The radio burst alive with a flash of static, the voice of John Delaware crackling into the distances even as her mind filtered the signal, cleaned it to crystal clarity with impossible speed. “This is departure control. You are green for go, vector pad clear. Have a nice flight, Major.”

Wings flexed, sublight drives flared, dropped to hot standby. Nano-organic skin quivered and flicked. Priming the throttle and releasing the mag locks on the S-Vectoring panels was as simple as willing it to happen, felt as natural as life.

“Roger that, departure control.” She grinned. “Let’s see what this bird can do.”

Five seconds later, she was in the sky.

Flight felt amazing, a wash of light and sound rushing past her as she shot slick as liquid silver into the night. Sensor readings were an ever present hologram in her mind, a digital feed that overlaid reality, enhancing everything in a line of sight that stretched 360 degrees around her. It was like being God, seeing everything, feeling everything, and being alive in a way that felt like a constant rush, the warm afterglow of orgasm.

“Wow.” She managed, and her voice came loud and clear across the channel. “This thing is amazing.”

“Flies like a dream, eh?” Delaware’s corporate-grade grin was clear in his tone.

“Better than that.” Tessa breathed, spun out and dropped to level flight a handful of meters off the Hephaestus’ hull, cruising, her eyes on the stars, the distances between her and open space, between her and the Coralate armada lurking, invisible on the all too near edge of Commonwealth territory. Deep within her, something tightened, grew suddenly anxious.

“How fast can she fly?” Tessa asked almost absently.

“She can hug the line, point nine nine nine.”

Some part of Tessa blinked while her eyes stayed locked on the stars. “Any instability problems at that speed, or does she have a limiter?”

“Oh, are you kidding?” He laughed. “We had to install a limiter on the drive on this thing. One of the unfortunate side effects of building such a quick ship is that not only can she break through the Einstein/Hawking barrier, she can do it and hold it for a measurable period without flying apart.”

Deep within her steel body, Tessa swallowed. Meaning she can punch through to hyperspace and achieve super-relativistic speeds, speeds where time actually begins to go backwards. Lips parted, tightened. Breath came shaky as she forced herself to speak despite suddenly dry lips. “Impressive.” Somewhere, some part of her mind hunted for the subroutines that controlled the density of the field put off by the rig’s tachyon displacement unit, the part of the system that kept her tied to the slow, steady march of normal space/time. The system yielded itself up to her easily, almost eager to please its new master, but when she tried to access it, she found her shaky fingers locked out.

“I wouldn’t try to access those systems, Major.” Delaware’s voice crackled into her mind. “Even at the speed you’re traveling, the time differential without the displacement field would be significant.”

“Right.” She said softly, almost absently. Inside her mind, inside the rig that was her body, she withdrew into herself, forced her mind to focus on flying, on the simple movements of her rig. “I’m thoroughly impressed with this ship, Delaware. I think I’m just going to do a quick fly-by for the brass and then hang it up, so get the forms ready for me to sign. Any requests?”

”You’re the pilot, Major.” Came the grinning response. “Feel free to take the fighter through whatever maneuvers feel natural to you.”

“Whatever feels natural?” She grinned, spun the rig playfully, then shot away from the hull of the Hephaestus at a sharp angle. “This rig handles so smoothly that every maneuver feels natural.” She spun the rig again, punched the throttle, veered in and buzzed the nose of the Hok before peeling away again, flipping herself end over end into the stars. “Whew, and the grav couch. . .” S-Vectoring panels dilated, control surfaces flexed and hardened, her rig spinning faster and faster, blurring. “The compensation factor is incredible.”

“One of the benefits of a full body neurogel harness.”

Tessa grinned again. “Admiral Blavatksy, are you reading this?”

“Yes major.” The smile in her voice was strong, amused. “We’ve got you on the main viewer. That rig of yours has some nice moves.”

“We’re definitely putting a squadron or two of these things on order, Admiral.” Another grin. “This rig is so damn nimble it might just win us the war.”

“I like your optimism, Major.” The admiral smiled again. “I’m sure Mister Delaware will be pleased that his product has made such an excellent first impression.”

“I knew it would.” Came Delaware’s grinning, confident response. “The Stormfury is a fighter without parallel, and when the new Seindrive Earth Orbital Fleetyards are fully operational, we should be able to produce enough of them to show the Coralate that you don’t mess with Earth or her colonies without getting more than just a little bloody nose.”

“I like the way you think, Delaware.” Tessa flipped the rig sideways, spun it wing over wing back toward the Hephaestus. “Hephaestus control– how much data did you get off my run?”

“A mountain, sir.” Came the static-bitten response. “We should have a full report for you in an hour.”

“An hour?” Another voice cut in, and the familiarity of it caught Tessa off guard, left her hanging for a moment in memory as she pulled the rig out of a spin and brought it around to straight and level flight. She could never forget that strong, distinguished tone, the voice she’d come to associate with authority– the voice of her old C/O, Admiral Virek. “In that case, you should make your way over to vector pad thirty-six here on the Von. You’ve got some old friends down there who would like to say hello.”

“It’s good to hear your voice, Admiral.” Tessa grinned into the mike. “I heard you’ve run into a few scrapes since I left. Glad to see that you’re alright.”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle, Major.” The smile came through in his voice, soft and careworn.

“Roger.” Tessa nodded, pulled in a deep breath. Old times. “Thirty-six right on the Von. Bringing her in now.”