Yesterday’s piece is here.
Copyright J.B. Norman
“The exit to the Pythia system is approaching, Captain,” Wembley informs her.
Kathryn nods and signals to move the Dolphin into the Starway lane bound for the gate to the Pythia System.
Passing through the gate, the Dolphin emerges from the subspace lanes of the Starway back into realspace. As always, the dimensional transition makes Kathryn feel a bit like her stomach is still lightyears behind the rest of her.
If there’s one word that comes to Kathryn’s mind as the Dolphin enters the Pythia Sytem, it’s probably “Blue.”
The starscape in Pythia is dominated by the Castalia Nebula. The looming blue-green space cloud isn’t part of the system itself, but on a cosmic scale, it’s particularly right next door, so the Ring station always has science teams eagerly observing the nebula as it slowly coalesces into newborn stars.
Pythia isn’t a particularly habitable star system. Most of the planets are either gas worlds glowing blue in the light of the system’s star, or barren rocks without atmosphere. There are mining bases on the terrestrial planets, but the major hub is the Ring, the orbital station built around the entire circumference of the system’s namesake planet.
The station was founded to oversee the mineral mining and gas harvesting operations throughout the System and as those industries turned out to be some of the most profitable in the entire galaxy, the Ring grew into one of the most
Galactic capitalism being what it is, regulation isn’t exactly a major concern for the Ring’s corporate overlords. It’s not exactly a lawless free-for-all – doing anything too illegal is bad for business. But things on the Ring can get shady if you know where to look. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate businessbeings operating on the Ring, too, and Kathryn has found that their shops are some of the best place to find obscure bits of tech.
That feeling of all-consuming Blue continues as Kathryn guides the Dolphin towards the Ring and the viewport is quickly dominated by the great blue orb of the gas planet Pythia.
Kathryn keys on the comms and hopes this goes better than her conversation with the controller on p’Taa Minor.
“Ring Control,” she begins hopefully. “This is the Dolphin.”
“Acknowledged,” a real, live person answers. “This is Ring Control.”
“We’re requesting clearance to dock,” Kathryn says.
“Transmit ID codes and confirm, Dolphin.”
Kathryn nods to Dunstella, who happily presses the one button of the panel that she has permission to press. “Transmitting now.”
“Received and confirmed. Welcome to the Ring, Dolphin. Proceed to docking bay ninety-four and await customs processings.”
“Thanks,” Kathryn answers.
“So,” Kathryn says, glancing over her shoulder to Amarantha as she takes the Dolphin in. “The Ring can be a little rough, so just stay close to me.”
She turns to her sister next.
“And you,” Kathryn sternly tells Dunstella. “Stay especially close to me.”
Dunstella rolls her eyes. “I keep telling you. It. was. an. accident!”
Amarantha’s eyes move between the two sisters.
“Do, uh, do I want to know?” the bemused Alvaraean princess asks.
Admittedly, I’m not sure if that nebula is behaving in a scientifically accurate way, but it is mostly just me working backwards from the fact that my header image has a nebula in it…
Also, I feel like this doesn’t need to be explained, but Docking Bay 94 is also where the Falcon was docked in the original Star Wars.
Now, if calling a region of Space not “the kind of place to raise your kids” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a line from Rocket Man:
Fun fact, for my high school’s Grade 12 talent show, I did a spoken word, William Shatner-esque version of Rocket Man.
And it was awesome.
My friends still talk about it.
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