The group enters the Aragon system without incident, but a couple of short hours after entering, strange things begin to occur. Time begins to slow down ever so slightly, almost unnoticable at first, but at an increasing rate. Soon things seem to crawl along, and there is a bright flash of light behind the ship. Time seems to slowly return to normal, as Marduk picks up something strange on the sensors - another Jumpgate... which is currently open. Getting a visual on the second gate (which, I might add, wasn't there before these events), he discovers that there is a swirling purple vortex whirlpooling from the gate, as if something had warped the "jump area" from the center of the gate outwards. Making a quick decision, he decides to try to make it through the gate while it's open, and thus turns toward the open gate. He engages the ship's Hermes Sprinter device (which makes it go stupidly fast for a very short time) but doesn't quite make it in time, as the "whirlpool" recedes slowly and the gate closes.
Comm traffic goes slightly wild, as Charioteers, Scravers, and Hazat laying claim to the new jumpgate. Since there happens to be a very large Hazat fleet guarding the gate at the time, they proclaim that anyone approaching the "new gate" will be fired upon and the lives of the trespassers considered forfeit. These and other threats mostly silence everyone, though the silence which follows is a tense one. For the most part, commerce about the system returns to normal.