As the starting horn echoed across the void (sound carried strangely in the Drift, more like a feeling in your bones), racers shot forward. Neon trails zigzagged behind them. Kaelen hung back, watching. He saw the favorites—Zephyr of the Solar Sails, Grom the Iron Fin—surge ahead, battling for the lead. They jockeyed hard, cutting each other off, their ships sparking with plasma flares.

And on these waves, the craziest games in the galaxy were played.

The annual Wave Weavers’ Tournament had just begun. Racers from a hundred worlds gathered on the floating platform of Echo Station, their ships shaped like origami cranes, spiraling seashells, and glowing jellyfish. But the favorite to win was a young, scrappy pilot named Kaelen from a small asteroid mining colony. Kaelen didn’t have the fastest ship or the most expensive tech. What he had was a tarnished old board called the Humble Hummingbird —a wave-surfing vessel that looked like a piece of scrap metal with a seat.

“I did win,” Kaelen replied, watching the space waves pulse gently beneath them, like the galaxy’s own quiet laughter. “I learned that the craziest game isn’t about beating others. It’s about making sure no one has to float alone.”

Kaelen smiled. He remembered something his grandmother, an old wave wanderer, had told him: “You don’t fight the wave. You ask where it wants to go, and you go there faster.”

Kaelen made a choice.