Hop, Skip and Jump Points (Term)

Set sequence of moves using hyperspace or jump space to travel among the stars. 
To target a destination, a ship makes a very short dip into hyperspace (Hop), the astrogator checks where they emerge by zlinning  the local Beacons, and takes the ship into a slightly longer dip into hyperspace (a Skip), and if they come out where the astrogator expects, they commit to the long (often subjective days or weeks long) Jump through hyperspace. 
The more sensitive the astrogator, the more accurately they can target a destination.  The more accurately they can target a destination, the longer the hops, skips and jumps can be -- thus the shorter the duration of the trip, the cheaper it is to deliver perishable cargo, or highly scheduled business-people to destination. 
From: Easy as Hop, Skip and Jump. Speaking of the Pebble Beach; .Her phase engines were located in a spherical rear section which retracted into the main body for planetfall, but extended on slender braces when generating the Brightman effect for subspace jumping. From the planetary orbit, she'd take a hop out to about six AU's to set direction, then a skip of about a light year to make sure, and finally, a bold jump of five to ten light years..
Category:Terms