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Bodies in motion on the Slipstream.

Dreams of the Nothingness a few microns beyond the hull’s barrier field.

Are my dreams lost in the Slipstream? To forever remain in Owen Space? The old hands say as much.

I don’t know. I’m a skeptic, which is why she left me.

Yet, the old hands talk of those who dared a glimpse at the Gorgon while in Owen Space. And how after they looked, refused to talk about what they saw: and are forever changed.

“Fifteen seconds,” the Captain says on the intership. “Standby.”

I begin counting “one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand…”

And then the oh-so-familiar electric crawl runs over my skin and the accompanying burnt jellybean taste fills my mouth; time dilation sickness as our starcraft nears the exit point.

And sudden-like, a metallic roar rising in pitch. The roar emanates deep down in the bowels of the Drive Core. The sound is as a phantom screeches if I were to hear one, which I thought I did once.

Reaching a crescendo, the roar stays steady.

“Standby for Fold collapse,” the Captain says.

A pause.

A jolt.

And our starcraft slips the Void, exiting Owen Space, emerging in space-time normal.

The Drive Core’s roar begins winding down, the drive engines barely audible.

“Okay, boys, cycle seven outjump complete,” the Captain says. “Cleared it clean with a plus-or-minus twenty parsec margin.”

This is our seventh outjump in as many quadrants.

The Captain continues talking, her voice monotonic and smooth. “A.I. Betty has put us nicely within twenty A.U.s of 2100JK142. All hands complete D.C.S. checklists by top of the hour. Acquisition of the asteroid projected at twenty-two hundred mean starcraft time. Last one boys, then we’re going home.”

Cheers from the others clang in unison on the intership.

Right. Home. So she says. Her moniker is “Just One More Jump Sandy” to give you a clue what I’m talking about.

This latest outjump is our Lucky Jump because it IS number seven. This is fitting as this starcraft’s name is none other than “Lucky Number 7,” christened by our diligent Captain Sandy in honor of her seventh divorce.

“Cookie,” she announces ship wide, “make sure we get some decent grub for later, will ya’?”

I frown, then say, “Yes, Captain. But, with the limited supplies I have. Plus that fiasco on Janus Two…”

She interrupts me. “You’ll do good, Cookie. You always do.”

Cookie. She’s mocking me now.

And what of me?

I’m one of five trillion humans of no importance. I’m somewhere in the trans-Neptunian region some five hundred light years from Home Mean Directional.

I sub as the starship’s cook ever since the Janus Two fiasco, but I do hold a General Engineer rate as well as a Pilot cert with limitations. That was before they found out I cooked. Really well.

The long and short of it is this gig is good credits even though you’re out past the Rim for a year, minimum. Given what I left, this is fine by me. I do a little NAV work now and then to keep my cert current, and of course do my share of the Mining Ops.

I’ve got my percentage to worry about and shit.

The “Lucky Number 7” is a Rogue Miner Heavy Class Starcraft. We go after unclaimed asteroids and planetoids, hook up with them and extract mostly palladium and gold and iron and Dark Matter Krystals; you know, the usual inexpensive shit.

For “Lucky Number 7,” quantity is what counts. And pays the bills. We do a lot of hard mining before packaging all that junk up and pushing those Pacs via Owen Space to the nearest remote manufacturing facility.

Decades old, the “Lucky Number 7” was assembled back-in-the-day at the Venusian orbital shipyards. When we’re in dry dock, you can still see the acid marks on the outer hull where the ship kissed Venus during construction. Built back when the SkyCity of Venus circumnavigated the planet’s high cloud tops with each orbit. And you could get a decent plate of braised Longos which had earlier been caught high above the summit of Maat Mons.

And a decent glass of wine.

But that was long ago before I came to be here.

“Cookie,” she DMs me telepathically (all Captains read minds).

“Yes, Captain?”

“I need you to report to the NAV ASAP,” she says. “We’ve got a situation brewing.”

I sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”

And the crew sails merrily on and stuff.