The edge of the charted system · Baliza Confín
The outer ice belt
Kurz gesagt
The outer ice belt is a scattered, unnamed band of ice that circles the star Aurin beyond the last planet. It marks the edge of the system and the limit of exploration. At its edge stands the Baliza Confín, a post that listens for fleet movements across the whole system.
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There it is. Alone. Like everything that gets sent out this far.
What is the outer ice belt?
It is a scattered band of ice that circles Aurin, the system’s star. It lies some 45 Gm from it, that is, 45 million kilometres. That is three times the distance of Ithera, the temperate planet. Aurin’s light takes two and a half minutes to get here.
- Where. Beyond the orbit of Kaldrek, the last planet.
- Its year. It goes once round Aurin every 1,039 standard days.
- What is there. No habitable bodies. No routes cross it either.
- Its name. It has none: nobody has bothered to name it.
This is where the system ends. The belt marks the practical limit of exploration.
What is the Baliza Confín?
At the edge of the belt stands the Baliza Confín, a long-range listening post. It is the most distant of the eight strategic points. These are the places that the Zenith and the Nadir, the system’s two factions, contest on equal terms.
- What it gives. Whoever controls it detects fleet movements across all of Aurin before anyone else. They see less fog on their war map: they know more of what is going on.
- Who wants it. Its guild of interest is the Pathfinders, the explorers’ guild.
What is there to fear?
The Baliza is also the strategic point with the least traffic. That is why an incursion is slow to be detected, and any response needs time in hand. The threat can come from:
- Pirates from the Cementerio de Aura, the band of war debris between Kharsis and Ithera. They are scavengers of the void who reach remote points like this one.
- An unidentified ship that has strayed too close.
How do you get here?
Reaching the Baliza is the longest flight in the system:
- it leaves Ithera and crosses to beyond the orbit of Kaldrek;
- it passes the plane of the Anillos de Kaldrek;
- and it leaves the last recognisable light of the inner system behind.
Flight Lieutenant Corin Bask, of the Vanguard, the military guild, treats it as just another job. He is one of the few at El Bastión, the Vanguard headquarters on Ithera, who have flown it more than once.
Crossing the Anillos, Bask points out the glow of Kaldrek’s fissures. It is the heat the tide of its two moons has been kneading for millions of years. And he adds: “And even so, seen from here, sometimes I think the whole system is the same age as the war.” Once the inner system is behind him, he warns whoever is aboard:
“From here on, if something goes wrong, it takes El Bastión minutes to find out, not seconds.”
Flight Lieutenant Corin Bask, the Vanguard
His sums are right. There are at least 30 Gm between the edge of the belt and Ithera. Light needs more than a minute and a half to cover them.
What is not known?
The band’s lack of a name is a deliberate gap in the archive. Nor does the archive record what lies in it or beyond.
Aurin is the first system of Parhelion, the galaxy it belongs to. The archive leaves room for other systems, with no scope or date.
