Charted space
Thirty lit systems. Every one of them a real star. The chart is drawn in hours, not light-years.
The chart
The landmark stations
Tau Ceti Orbital
The busy hub. Home port, where pilots fit out and come back to.
Rigel Refinery
Syndicate industry: heavy, hot and discreet.
Arcturus Waystation
Unclaimed. A stop on the long lanes that nobody owns. Never great, always open.
Deneb Freeport
The far, bright Core port, the last lit harbour before the dark.
Pollux Orbital
Where Frontier money comes to spend itself.
Alphard Refinery
Lonely, out on its own, and proud of it.
Saiph Freeport
The Syndicate's last lit harbour, the other edge of the dark.
Aludra Waystation
The registry's well-behaved answer to Arcturus.
Tarazed Orbital
An unclaimed hub with a market for anything legal-ish.
Gienah Refinery
The Frontier's own industry, rough and growing.
What a station type is, as people know it: a refinery eats ore and makes metal, heavy and hot. An orbital is a busy hub that buys everything a crowd eats and wears. A freeport is a far port that pays well for comfort and sells what the frontier makes. A waystation is an unclaimed stop on the long lanes: never great, always open.
The thirty systems
Tau Ceti
Home port. Every pilot's first berth. Loud, crowded, fair.
Vega
Registry seat. Clean docks, slow paperwork, the best hospitals on the chart.
Altair
The Frontier's front porch. Claims office, outfitters, frontier prices.
Rigel
The refinery. Buys ore, sells metal, asks nothing.
Antares
A red giant nobody can agree to own, and a desert world under it. Squatters, prospectors and nobody's law.
Procyon
A lanes junction. Repair yards and arguments.
Deneb
The far, bright freeport.
Mizar
A double star over a gas giant. The Frontier's training ground; pilots test their eyes on Alcor beside it.
Capella
Pleasure domes and gambling halls. Everything is for sale.
Arcturus
The Waystation, nobody's stop. The oldest star on the chart.
Bellatrix
Hauler retirement colony. Cheap bars, long stories, very good soup.
Castor
Registry courts and the customs college, where the Authority trains its inspectors.
Pollux
Pollux Orbital: where Frontier money comes to spend itself.
Spica
Volcanic ash, and crops growing in it that have no business growing there. Grey Genelines. The best harvests on the chart and nobody asks why. Its spirits, distilled from whatever grows, are the best on the chart too, and nobody asks what they're made from (D-19).
Regulus
A ruined charter colony being slowly reclaimed by squatters.
Alphard
Alphard Refinery. Lonely and proud.
Hadar
Registry fleet anchorage. Quiet, patrolled, dull.
Mirach
A gas giant with no dock, and the dippers' town all the same: the Raft, a hundred ships lashed hull to hull in holding orbit. Bring what you need; nobody's selling.
Saiph
Saiph Freeport.
Wezen
Cutters' country. A heavy ice world nobody wants to live on and everybody drinks from.
Naos
The Union's own yard, where haulers are built, mended and buried.
Aludra
Aludra Waystation.
Kornephoros
A storm-wrapped ocean world. The Frontier's hardest crews work the deep water.
Sabik
Brokers' moons, where deals are made that nobody made.
Tarazed
Tarazed Orbital.
Rasalhague
Medical station and quarantine, where the rift-sick go to dry out.
Cebalrai
Registry farm worlds. Orderly fields, orderly people.
Gienah
Gienah Refinery.
Zaurak
Smugglers' moorings in a dense rock field. Hard to find, easy to hide.
Ankaa
A colony that failed twice and is trying a third time.
Mizar and Mirach both come from the same old-world word: two stars the old world itself confused.
Planets have docks too (for example "Bellatrix b"). They are places, but the stations are the landmarks.
When a dock says no
A dock only takes what it wants. How it says no depends on who runs it: - Union: "Can't take it, pet. Nobody here'll buy it. Try Rigel." - Core: "This berth does not accept that category of cargo. Please consult the registry." - Frontier: "What would we do with that out here? Go on." - Syndicate: "We do not deal in that. And we deal in nearly everything." - A Tyne Deep dock, to anything from Wearside: "Wearside cargo? Not on my dock, pet. Turn it round and take it home."