How to Jump Between Stars

This is from Aliens Crashed in My Back Yard, Chapter 20. A discussion between two main characters, Selena and Breadbox. “You are saying that you and your crew traveled from your world to ours—a distance that it takes light about 4,000 of our years to travel—in a very short time?” I asked Breadbox. “But of course we used the star jump. We didn’t actually travel all that distance.” “Wait. I don’t understand this,” I interrupted. “How does this work? What does it mean to ‘jump’ between worlds? Our science tells us this is impossible.” “I don't know how it…

Life probably has infinite diversity as we move through the cosmos. But so what? Except for the exo-biologists, we’re mostly interested in intelligent races with space flight technology. I think there’s a good argument that these folks will look a lot like us. When people ask about "aliens" I presume they are thinking about intelligent races with whom we could come in contact via travel through space (or even radio). Different environments lead to differing appearances and capabilities. But if we consider intelligent, technology-developing species that live on solid ground on Earth-like oxygen/water worlds, I'm betting that convergent evolution…