The Billion Dollar Boy

Second in the Jupiter series of young adult novels. Shelby Cheever is the spoiled son of J. P. Cheever, one of the wealthiest men on the planet. In a compulsive act of boredom, Shelby takes a space cruise on the luxury liner Bellatrix. Too drunk and impatient to wait for a guided tour of a transportation node, he suits up and launches himself through the node unaided - and finds himself in trouble 27 lightyears away from Earth.