Jack of Harts

Asteroid belts are nothing like what most of us have seen in the movies. They cover a large amount of stellar real estate with a comparatively small amount of actual solid matter. What that means is that individual asteroids tend to be tens, hundreds, or thousands of kilometers away from their nearest neighbors. The fantastic race through asteroid belts, dodging left and right to avoid rocks and random laser bolts from enraged pursuers, while asteroids smash into each other and rain pebbles all over the daringly piloted ships is pure fantasy. Almost as realistic as those nice young space Viking ladies wearing strategically-placed bits of silver plastic meant to look like old Norse armor. Yeah. Where was I? Oh. Right. Asteroid belts. The Cobbles are a little thicker than most belts I’ve seen, but still nothing like the movie version. It’s rather easy to chart a course and not have to deviate from it for hours at a time to avoid some random rock. What was that? Oh. That’s Betty telling me if I think it’s easy, she’ll let me do it next time. So I think I’ll avoid calling it easy from now on. Unless you’re a skilled navigator and then you make it look easy. Yeah. If you can see her rolling her eyes at me right now, you know her well.