Alara Alara The Place

Three people come down from the ships docked at Crystal Station. Hundreds of others do the same, but these are important. Focus on them--

Stepping down from a two-man ship, which is a shuttle from the starship Rhiannon, are the captain of Rhiannon and his best friend, Rhiannon's computer engineer. Matt Pison, human, terratype, Martian, is the captain. He is tall, blond, muscular from his life in the Martian colonies but pale from little sunlight, brown-eyed. Next to him is D'mir Colotho, draine, Bcoilica. He is short, corded muscle unusual for a draine, dark hair, dark eyes and brown draine skin. They are at Crystal Station, outside the boundaries of the Web of Eyes but still within the Alliance, to relax, refuel and restock. Nobody ever told them about Crystal Station.

Wardra knows. She comes down from her one-person cruise craft. Wardra Gyuunyushiligni, farla, Evstarb, with pale green skin, an upsweep of pink hair, lavender eyes. She is tall, thin, but more powerful-looking than the usual farla, with muscles in slender cords and the electric scent of power about her. Wardra knows the dangers of Crystal Station, but she has something to prove.

Crystal Station Central is a place bustling with people. It's a huge room, with milky crystal walls and twelve doorways leading from it. They all look identical, with opaque tracker fields hiding what they conceal behind, but for numbers over their doors. Eleven doorways lead to rest and recreation areas, stores, other such things. The things that people come to Crystal Station for, braving the dangers outside the Web because Crystal Station's prices are so much cheaper than anyone else's. One doorway leads to the mazes around Crystal Station, and that's why the prices are so cheap.

If the powerful ones in the Web of Eyes or the GalConfed knew of this link, Crystal Station would be destroyed. But they don't. No one listens to the mystic Evstarb farlae. And no one else who knows can speak.

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