The Stellar Empire employs so-called 'Hyperjumping' to travel between nearby stars in a matter of weeks. Longer distance travel involves deep space oddities, known as 'black holes', hosting 'jump gates'. The closest 'hyper' ships are on Mars: Transstellar hellerium freighters and Marsec warships, but they cannot enter gates. This is only done by the vast Imperial galleons. The Smugglers conduct their interstellar business by stealing hikes on these, by bribery, stealth or otherwise. Aside from trade goods, these ships sometimes carry Mercs, but never Star Gods themselves.