Last Jump Station


Type: Airless Moon.
Function: Port.
Region: Border Regions.
Trade Route: Breakneck Run.
Sector: Yaeger Sector.
Strategic Location: At the very edge of the far end of the sector, beyond any governmental control.
Temperature: Vacuum; insulative atmosphere, as space.
Atmosphere: Vacuum.
Hydrosphere: No surface water whatsoever.
Gravity: .08% standard.
Terrain: Meteoric craters.
Mineral Resources: Substantial reserves of iron and duridium.
Length of Day: No day or night.
Length of Year: No orbit.
Sapient Species: None.
Capital City: Last Jump Station is a single subterranean city with two domed surface neighborhoods, and a number of ports leading to the central starport.
Other Cities: None.
Starport: Last Jump Station is built around a large planetary class port.
Population (within +/- 1%): 46,800, mostly transients, of many races.
Government: Last Jump Station is owned by Rihthix Kaeb, a retired Kumidai spacer, and order, of a sort, is maintained by his security force of ten Aldru and Kumidai.
Tech Level: High Space.
Major Exports: None.
Major Imports: Foods, trade goods, fuels, starship mechanics.
System: None
Star: None
Name Planet Type Moons
Last Jump StationAirless Rock0

System Capsule:

Last Jump Station: An airless rock, pulled out into the void of space, by Rihthix Kaeb, and Kothur Nathuchak, a rather inventive tech in his employ. Last Jump is now located at the edge of the Kurmaad waste, a vast, virtually empty area of space that marks the end of the Yaeger Sector furthest from known space.

Planetary Capsule:

Flora and fauna: Some silicon based life forms have apparently either been introduced, or introduced themselves though sporation or natural spacegoing abilities. Some of those species are mynocks, some small space slugs, and rock mites, which have proved a persistent pest.

Sentient Species: None native.

History: Rithix was one of those Kumidai that left Humitajj before the Empire took over. Roaming the edges of civilization in the Yaeger Sector, Rithix soon made a small fortune as a smuggler. However, he never was a smuggler in spirit, forced into that career through lack of other options. He first conceived the idea for Last Jump Station when a mindlessly persistent Imperial patrol chased him out into the Kurmaad wastes. Running low on fuel and supplies, Rithix was able to double back without the Imperials noticing, but found himself completely without food and running on fumes when he got to the nearest freeport, a Shakkur held world. Any number of smugglers had found themselves in that position, and scouts trying to cross the wastes found themselves having to stock up well before they reached the near end of the wastes, and the fuel spent getting to the wastes could not be replenished.

Rithix decided that the edge of the waste was an ideal place for a smuggler's haven. At first he planed on constructing a space station of some type, but the costs for work and material proved prohibitive. At that time Rithix was the captain of a stripped down Panther Class cruiser, the Nomad Craw, and his Ulfgar chief engineer, Kothur Nathuchak, suggested that they move a large asteroid to where he wanted his base. Kothur suggested that a sufficiently metallic asteroid or moon could serve as both a source of raw materials and as a base for further construction, but really suggested the plan for the engineering challenge it posed. Rithix chose the fifth moon of Grieos-9, a gas giant in an uninhabited system.

The crew of the Nomad, under Kothur's direction, grounded on that moon, and then virtually disassembled their craft. The high end hyperdrives were rigged to solid rock, and the hull of the ship disassembled, and reassembled as a giant accelerator tube. The crew lived in the vacuum sealed crew quarters that were buried deep in the moon, rechristened Rithix's Folly. Rithix himself spent his time ferrying additional materials to the moon in his personal freighter, the Ninth Depth. When Rithix's funds were beyond exhausted, Kothur declared the moon ready to jump. Slow, and incapable of stopping without several days warning, Rithix's Folly crossed into hyperspace. The mass shadow it created caused full scale military alerts across the sector, and several unfortunate spacers took a great deal of damage avoiding the moon at the last minute. However, it made it to the wastes before the hyperdrives exploded. Conversion of the moon into a smuggler's base was a gradual process at best, but almost as soon as it came out of jump customers started to arrive.

Protected from Imperial sweeps by the simple fact that it was lightyears from the edge of Imperial jurisdiction, and that Yaeger and New Republic monitors would see high level military movements into the waste as an attempt to sneak around the front lines and attack their rears, Last Jump Station became known as a good place to run if you wanted to avoid all governments, at least for a while. Kothur's reputation as a technical wizard was secured for all time as soon as Rithix's Folly left realspace, and his shipyards became a sufficient reason to visit the station. Its isolation made it a good place for smugglers to conduct business, and entertainers of various types followed the smuggler's cash.

Scouts bound for the far side of the wastes always fuel up at Last Jump, and Rithix's vision is almost definitely responsible for the first successful trip across the waste, Loheng Atyl's voyage to the Epoch Sector. As of now, only scouts that can afford a small convoy of cargo craft have made it to the Epoch sector, but improvement in hyperspace technology or the discovery of substantial resources will probably cause much larger numbers of ships to pass through Last Jump.

Rithix is now enormously wealthy, as is Kothur. Many of the other members of his crew have become important members of Last Jump's community, from Shar, the Aldru security chief, to Marshuk Cel Ar, the Durgur bartender and owner of the Snake Arm tavern and arena. Various criminals and crime lords have attempted to gain control of the profitable Last Jump, but their attempts have thus far been foiled by Rithix and his chosen heir, Larin Kreen, his human first mate.
text

geocities

index

Click Here!