[ WP ] Sailors have always been a superstitious bunch . In the long stretches of darkness and isolation between stars superstitions still run high . So let 's hear a ghost story from deep space .

You want to hear a ghost story from the black, huh? Got enough of those running around. 
 
 How about the Slip Zone? Not particularly spooky, the Magnam Eros is scarier, but it's quick for someone low on time and it ai n't the same damn Mundus story ( really, black holes lose their spook after a while ), so it'll do. 
 
 You ask any astronomer, historian, landside shrink. They'll tell you the stories are told. Hell, the historian might even confirm the comms piece. But none of them acknowledge the Slip Zone is more than a patch of space. But you spend ten minutes in a spacer's bar, you'll know it's there. Area about 2/3 of the way to the Magellanic Clouds form the galactic center, six light years across. No one's measured the exact dimensions, no one's man enough to get within sixteen parsecs of it. Kinda like Earth's Bermuda Triangle, I guess. But a little scarier. 
 
 Ya see, there's a deep space station around those parts. Real populated, something like ten billion people. Hey! You gon na finish that beer? *chugs* Better. Anyway, they can see ships for at least a thousand parsecs away. Great sensors, that one. Even the optics are kickass for some hunk o' junk that's been floating around for a hundred years. Only been there once, docking area feels like it'll vaporize if you sneeze. Never going back. 
 
 What was I saying? Oh yeah. Slip Zone. Well, this area, see, it's well within the station's visible range. So you'd think, you'd think, we'd be able to see in there. Well, occasionally these nutjobs decide to mount an expedition in there, see what's going on, why it's happening. So they gather at the station, they take off and they watch them go, they get close and their transmissions start getting garbled. Not in the sense of static, that'd be too easy. You start hearing other things in there, sounds like noises from the future, the past. Hell, you hear things that do n't even sound human, and it gets worse and worse until you blink and then POOF! It's gone. No transmissions. You ca n't see it. There's no black hole, it just vanishes. 
 
 They've known it's there since they started working on the station, my grandpappy told me about it first when he was floating around what would be the farming module weldin' two plates together when he looked out and saw a ship disappear innit. That's a hundred twenny-eight years ships've been vanishin', and only one ever came out. Lasted two hours, only transmissions were of garbled screams and what sounded like a mariachi band before it just up and exploded. We still do n't know. Only one piece of the wreckage was discovered, it was coated with this substance the science shrinks on the station have spent eighty-two years tryin' ta figure out. 
 
 Well, that's all I can say. Tell ya what, you wan na know more, Gerig Station's the one close to it. I hear the next civilian shuttle leaves tomorrow. As for me, I need a few more beers before getting back to the ship.
