An Opening

Not a fic-a-day – although I’m trying to get back to those now I’m almost done editing and publishing –  just the opening to something I’m working on…

Her Divine Majesty’s Star Station Eádínah’s Bower is built in hell, or as close to it as they could find.

Scuttlebutt says the Naval Intelligence headquarters aerostat floats amid the warm ammonia storm clouds near the dark pole of epistellar Battlefield, in Palaxias with the rest of the IN’s worlds, but no-one knows for sure – since it was built, the only way to get there is to mindcast to the right address in the ISE darknet and hope your mindprint is on the access list. It would certainly suit our sense of institutional paranoia to hide it in some other gas giant altogether, maybe not even in the Empire at all.

It’s in one, though. Fleet Admiral Sarthal has his office right at the apex of the sky-dome so he can give his briefings with continent-spanning lightning bolts in the background – and arcing to the conductor terminal right above the office. It keeps us on edge enough to suit him, I suppose.