Desdemona Skene hates her job. She spends each day as a glorified crossing guard for traffic through her system’s local wormhole. But, ever since she botched a flight of her own and badly injured her leg, it’s all she has left. Dez’s friends have moved on, her ex is seeing someone new, and she’s in debt to the mob. At eighty-one years old, it’s not like she’s a prime candidate for promotion.

But then Dez learns that the largest civilian ship ever designed by humanity will be passing through her friendly neighborhood wormhole. Piloted by an experimental AI, this cruise might prove computers are finally able to successfully navigate hyperlanes. Stock prices will blast into orbit, but it’ll spell unemployment for Dez and thousands of human pilots, and her little station will almost surely be gobbled up by its gigantic neighbors.

If that ship’s taking her down, Dez plans to drag it along for the ride—and make a tidy profit along the way. She’ll need to gather a crew (if her old friends will still talk to her), shake the mob, and outwit megacorps and empires both. But, if she pulls this off, she might just get to live out her dream of a quiet retirement.