Of all the HWK pilots, I'd figure Dace sees the least use (At the very least, I've never seen anyone fly him, and I've seen all the others at the very least once) but I had a question regarding his interaction with the upcoming EMP Device.

Dace reads as: When an enemy ship at range 1-3 receives at least one ion token, if you are not stressed, you may receive 1 stress token to cause that ship to suffer 1 damage.

EMP Device reads:During the combat phase, instead of performing any attacks, you may discard this card to assign 2 ion tokens to each ship at range 1.

Now I'm almost certain I know that the answer is no, but would the following work:

Dace flies into range 1 of enemy ship(s), ends activation with no stress. When it comes to Dace in combat, he triggers EMP Device, doling out the ion tokens. Can he then trigger his ability X number of times, X being the number of ships he gives ion out to?

I'm going back & forth on this in my head, as it comes down to timing. Do I assign ion to 1 ship, decide if I want to or don't want to trigger his ability, then do the same for each other ship in turn? Do I assign all ion at once, and, because I wasn't stressed when the ionization itself occurred, then become able to trigger his ability on each ship, getting a stress for each ship that got ion?

While all the ships in range of the EMP blast would receive two ion tokens only one would take damage from Dace's ability. Once he specifies the ship to take damage, he receives a stress token and his ability is shut down. Since his card says "may" which ship is damaged is up to you.

In game play, you would assign ion tokens to a ship, decide to use Dace or not, then move on to the next ship where the decision to use Dace's ability or not is again made.

To clarify further on what Stoneface has said, you apply the ion tokens one at a time and you can make the decision to use Dace after any of those applications. But once you use his ability the stress is immediately applied and effectively shuts down any further use until you can get rid of that stress token.

Any time an ability says to apply multiple tokens or damage cards, etc, they are applied or resolved one at a time until the required number have been done.

If you had a way to strip or transfer stress as soon as it is applied, you'd have a real winner on your hands.

Even if all the ion were dealt all at once, and all triggered the ability. The first one would resolve, you choose to get the stress and the second try to resolve, and it fail to do so because you are stressed. The "if you are not stressed" is not part of the trigger condition, it is part of the resolution.