The Bainbridge Runner — Ronnie G. Anderson

The Bainbridge Runner is an asteroid tug collecting asteroids and other space matter to return to civilization to trade for food and other useful items. Tuggers, as these people were called, lived in space upon their ships. It was a way of life that entire generations lived around. When a nearby star went nova, the Bainbridge Runner jumped into hyperspace where regular space physics did not render them just so much mass to be consumed by the star's expanding plasma ring. When they returned to normal space they found their home world gone and the space around them empty. This is their story of survival.