(A popular theory is it's also how the Skeld achieve their temporal manipulations, but no one has the guts to ask on the off chance of becoming a 'test subject'.)
Oh good, time travel (or at least time distortions, which are
less absolutely insane but still nasty). That's always going to suck to deal with, if we wind up having to. I can't see why we would, but then we also really don't have the full story about whatever's going on with them.
"This is Captain Katetox Zeyuth to… I know you." The blue-skinned woman frowns 'up' at you in surprise. "What are you doing here, Anatasia Morev?"
You smile back at her, "Kate! Long time no see! How's the cat?" You really shouldn't have brought up the cat, but seeing your old 'friend' after three years the urge is so overwhelming that the words are out of your mouth before you can finish registering that the temporary exchange student—read: political prisoner—from your academy days is suddenly in front of you again and is in charge of her own flotilla of ships.
Oh fun! old acquaintances! Who seem a bit unhappy about that fact, which
might be enough of an issue to outweigh the coordination advantage of being familiar with her. It's hard to tell how much of the visible animosity is how she sees Ana, and how much is just being like that normally yet, so I figure that's something to watch out for.
"The neutron stars in the area mess with long range sensors like nothing else in the region. It's a centralized location that has easy access to every known interception point and lost convoy from both sides, and the best place to set up if you're intending to trick the Federation and Empire into a war by setting up the other if one finds you via scapegoat tactics since it's the worst contested part of the region."
On the one hand, that does sound
extremely ideal of a place to do piracy from... which also makes me think it's not there, because while it is extremely valuable it's also an obvious choice. If it's someone being sneaky, then I think they'd know better than to hide in the most "someone should hide here" spot around.
"That is… an uncomfortable possibility that I don't want to pursue unless absolutely necessary," you carefully share. "But if it is true, then we have a far larger and far deeper problem on our hands."
If that is the case, that's the sort of trouble that sits solidly in the "main plot for a good long while" territory. I'd like for it not to be, because political skulking around sounds like a pain in the ass, but if this happens then we'll be dealing with it for a
while.
[X] Milina System
it's where someone who is trying to be sneaky in the well-surveyed backyard of two major powers would put themselves I figure - Shetran is too obviously ideal for anyone with the interstellar surveys to know what it's like and the border is, I think, what we check once we're sure nobody's doing false flags.
