Long Haul, Slow Light

The Boreas Passage runs cold and wide between the last relay buoy and the Virelian arm, and the convoy freighters that work it carry everything from ore slurry to refrigerated med-stock, their hulls patched and re-patched over decades of the same run. You get used to the glow of other ships' engines through the porthole at shift change — it means nobody's drifted, and the nebula's just doing what it always does behind you.