A Four-Jump Miracle

I finished the last Winter Nexus site with that quiet little sense of closure you only get when an event finally stops blinking at you from the Events window. Snowstorms done. Ice holds emptied. Festive distractions neatly wrapped up and put away.

Which meant it was time to go home.

I started the usual routine in highsec—probing, bookmarking, checking signatures that led absolutely nowhere interesting. Highsec wormholes have a habit of being either wildly inconvenient or aggressively rude, and I was fully prepared for a long chain, a filament, or a very resigned sigh.

And then the universe did something rare.

Four jumps.

That’s all it took. Four jumps from the system I’d been running Winter Nexus sites in, there it was: a clean, quiet entrance that led straight into my j-space neighborhood. Not near it. Not adjacent to something vaguely familiar. Home.

I actually laughed. Out loud. To nobody.

I took the hint immediately. No dithering. No “one more site.” I slipped through the hole before the universe could change its mind, bookmarks snapping into place like muscle memory waking back up. The silence of wormhole space settled around me, familiar and comforting in a way highsec never quite managed.

Since I was there anyway, I made myself useful.

I offloaded my PI components—weeks’ worth of slow, patient planetary logistics—into a tidy drop, labeled and ready for my hauler friend to scoop whenever they crossed paths with civilization. One less thing rattling around in my cargohold. One less excuse to linger somewhere I didn’t belong.

When I finally powered down, floating safely in j-space again, it felt like exhaling after holding my breath for far too long.

Sometimes you hunt wormholes.

Sometimes they find you.

Either way, I wasn’t arguing with a four-jump miracle.