I was never particularly good at saving money.

  So when the small slab of Telk was delivered all neatly packed, glimmering faintly blue under its protective cover. I was already making a mental list of things to spend it on.

  Connecting to the local markets was far too easy. Just one thought and a stable network link was formed and suddenly I had more windows open than a student with three essays due tomorrow.

  A lander was at the top of my list. Something rugged, atmospheric-capable, with cargo hooks and enough shielding to shrug off light storms. It would let us explore planets properly. It would let the crew walk on the planet not just watch.

  Laia floated beside me in the virtual bridge, arms folded, amusement dancing in her eyes. “What about fixing the stealth system you collected?” she offered. “If you want to observe underdeveloped worlds without interfering, we’ll need it operational.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  There were other tempting options too like a ship painting services with custom liveries, luxury installs like proper showers, kitchen upgrades, expanded fuel tanks, defensive countermeasures…

  Part of me wanted it all.

  Another part wanted me to set something aside for Kel and Lynn’s parents.

  Laia’s voice cut through my mental shopping spree with the subtlety of a scalpel. “You know you’ve only got just under a kilo of Telk, right?” she said, tone gentle but firm. I paused, mid-way through mentally outfitting the Lazarus with both a lander and a luxury galley. She was right—again. I was already spending like we’d hit a motherlode, but in reality, what we had was enough to start, not finish. A good base, not a bottomless well. “Maybe wait until we have a steady supply before designing your dream body,” she added, her wings flickering with amusement. I gave a reluctant nod.

  I couldn’t deny the old saying whispering through my memory: you need money to make money.

  I was drawing up a more modest budget, allocating grams of Telk to each possible upgrade, when the crew returned.

  They were laughing.

  Hands full of bags, eyes shining, voices overlapping with excited retellings of their day.

  I felt it, Jealousy.

  A sharp, twisting deep inside. The lights of the ship flickered

  The jealousy was not bitterness nor resentful. Just… a quiet ache.

  I’d been there. I’d felt that once. Real air, real gravity, being surrounded by things that weren’t part of me.

  It was something I’d have to watch, something I had to keep in check. I was their ship. Their guardian. Jealousy had no place in that.

  As they came aboard, Mira ran off to store her new food supplies while Stewie clutched his tools like sacred relics.

  Kel, always the one with too much energy, walked straight up to my avatar. “Hope you didn’t miss us too much,” he grinned. “Found us a job.”

  “Already?” I asked.

  “Of course. You think I spent all that time shopping?”

  He tossed a datapad into the nearest console.

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  Taxi service.

  I scanned the listing, processing the information in seconds. Slipstream taxiing—niche, but rising fast in demand. External time barely passed during a jump, at least according to the universal reference frame. It meant you could leave and arrive at nearly the same moment, shaving weeks off critical journeys.

  Slipstream was the equivalent of having a private jet while everyone else still crossed oceans in boats. And because governments or the ultra-rich controlled most of the technology, civilian-accessible taxis were rare.

  Most listings came in modest at hundreds of grams of Telk at best. But one job stood out.

  2.11 kilos.

  I blinked. That was more than double what we'd just been paid for risking our lives in an uncharted death zone. There had to be a story behind that kind of payout.

  I pulled the listing apart. No destination listed only an estimated distance, barely within our fuel range. The mission was flagged as extremely urgent, but vague enough to scream secrecy. I got the sense most ships had passed it over, spooked by the lack of detail. Which explained why the price was climbing.

  Still, the payout was too good to ignore.

  I agreed to the mission, and Kel made contact with the client.

  The man was... enthusiastic. Overjoyed might be a better word. His image flickered on-screen, lab coat askew, hair wild, talking at a hundred words a second. Definitely gave off mad scientist vibes. He felt like the kind that accidentally rips holes in spacetime and calls it a Tuesday.

  Laia floated beside me, watching the feed with a smile on her face.

  I sighed internally. This was going to be interesting.

  Lynn was the one to suggest it. To lock the kids away for the duration of the job and shut down our avatars. Seemed reasonable. We didn’t know what kind of mess we were walking into, and the less exposure, the better. The kids didn’t complain either they had their new books to read.

  Our client arrived quickly. Too quickly. Like he’d sprinted through the station the second he got our confirmation.

  He was thin, wide-eyed, and sweating through a lab coat that hadn’t been cleaned in a week. He had a briefcase that was chained to his wrist, just like something out of one of those old spy movies I used to watch. I getting invested now, I needed to know how this ended.

  Without so much as a greeting, he approached Kel and handed him a crystalline data shard.

  “This is the path,” he said breathlessly. “For the pilot.”

  Kel schooled his facial expressions and accepted it without question, passing it to one of our droids to bring to me.

  The moment I slotted the shard into my systems, I saw the route and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  The path was complicated. Not impossible, but tight. Threaded. I’d never seen a slipstream corridor this convoluted.

  Lynn stepped in before I could complain. “Partial Payment first,” she said flatly, arms crossed. “We don’t jump until something’s in escrow.”

  The man didn’t even flinch. He handed over the entire payment, all 2.11 kilos of Telk without a word. Just nodded sharply and muttered, “Hurry.”

  I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t about to disappoint the highest-paying client we’d ever had. He might have been our second-ever client but still.

  I jumped.

  Navigating that path was like threading a needle while blindfolded in a hurricane. I came dangerously close to losing the trail more than once, lines warping and reforming with every micro-shift. But we made it. Barely.

  The second we dropped out of the stream, the man barked, “Move to the moon of the 6th planet, now.”

  I complied. He was rude, agitated and abrupt—but he paid. That bought him some leeway.

  Then he demanded the cargo bay doors be opened.

  I hesitated but obeyed.

  He unclipped the briefcase, opened it, and pulled out a small, sealed drone, chrome, shaped like a spearhead. Without another word, he tossed it into open space.

  I watched it tumble, then right itself and activate.

  Weird. No explanation. No cargo transfer. No mission objective beyond this.

  The man plugged into the drone’s VR feed and went utterly still, eyes glazed. Then he started to shout about how they do exist, and that he had been right.

  Laia, ever the curious whisper beside me, floated close. “I can piggyback the feed,” she offered, voice cautious.

  I hesitated… then curiosity won out.

  “Do it.”

  The moment she tapped in, the feed lit up with colour and motion.

  Thousands of creatures.

  Floating. Drifting. Swimming through space like it was water.

  They emitted energy in the higher spectrum which was non-visible to standard sensors. Laia quickly adjusted our filters, and I invited the entire crew onto the virtual bridge.

  Even let the kids out of the room.

  When the view came into focus, there were gasps.

  Awe.

  Mira clung to Stewie’s arm, eyes wide. Kel went silent. Lynn just whispered, “What the hell are we looking at?”

  It was like watching thousands of cosmic eels, glowing and dancing through the void. Blue and green and violet trails behind them like ripples in invisible water.

  None of it made any sense.

  But it was beautiful.