I-234-Oliver: Spanial, Control (Hyperspace to Nonoop)
Arriving in Control, Jennie settles in to her usual Helm/Nav seat.
Oliver can stand and look over her shoulder, sit next to her in Karmen’s Conn seat, sit in his usual seat at Comm/Scan – leaving an empty seat between them, or even sit in one of the jump sets at the rear of Control, but he won’t have a good view from there and it might be weird.
She works her console for a bit then brings up an image on each of the three main screens in Control.
It’s a simple navigation map, she tweaks settings for a few seconds, hiding some features and revealing others. System dots swirl, perspective easier to see when they are moving rather than a static shot; she settles on an orientation.
“So, we just left Captree and we’re headed for Nonoop, just outside the Dominion Sphere; that’s 22.2 lights. Nonoop is inside the Separatist Jump Zone – that’s all the un-colonised star systems within maximum jump of a Separatist world and not inside the Dominion Sphere.”
As she speaks, Jennie hits a control and the distance shows up on the nav map.
“The nearest Separatist system to Nonoop is Midway, 9.2 lights, then Stepping at 9.9.”
More distances appear.
“As you probably know, all legal travel between the Dominion and Separatist space is between Newerth and Gateway. From Nonoop to Gateway is 16.3 lights.”
She pauses, allows Oliver to absorb the diagram.
“We don’t know where our passengers get taken after we drop them at Nonoop.”
She lets that hang for a bit before continuing.
“The Separatist capital is Resolution. Other than that, they seem to divide their settled worlds into Colonies and Outposts. I’m guessing that’s like our Colonies and Way Stations, but I don’t really know, and they don’t seem to make a distinction between A and B Colonies like we do.”
Jennie brings up a table on a screen.
Separatist Capital
Resolution
Separatist Interface Colony
Gateway
Separatist Colony
Neargate (Note: B star of Gateway binary system)
Promise
Opulence
Pathways
Separatist Outpost
Highgate
Redgate
Midway
Confidence
Stepping
Leap
Confluence
Soar
Progress
“Is this useful?”
Oliver will stand behind and look over the shoulder. “It is, yes.”
“You said you don’t know much about where the passengers go, do you know much about their culture or how they operate compared to daily life in the Dominion?”