Ash Gap

Ash Gap

Four hops out from Khesret — Sol, Alpha Centauri, Lacera, then a Concord spur that ends where the Federation charts stop pretending every rock is a homestead waiting to happen. HIP 87937. A desert world wrapped in exotic corrosive air that eats suit seals if you treat the atmo codes like flavor text, hydro zero on the registry, population zero on the ground because nobody with options lives on a breach profile for fun.

Ash Gap is what Colonial Affairs built instead of a colony: a D-class hazard survey station hanging in orbit over pale mineral flats, probe cradles for corrosive-atmo sampling, decon locks that smell like citrus rinse and hot metal, and an upload desk where the clerk cares less about your gate approach geometry than whether you tried to paste breach chemistry on the open board. The public chart gets coordinates. The sealed appendix gets the part that keeps the next crew alive — and off the claims bulletin where mineral speculators stake jump titles on hazard data they didn't earn.

Two gas giants and a pair of planetoid belts give the spur fuel skim and ice logistics so transient hulls don't leave thirsty. Navy patrols wave on schedule. Most days the loudest thing on station is the decon cycle and open-band chatter from brokers who think an unfiled hazard world is a lottery ticket. Spacers call it a blank on the map. Colonial Affairs calls it a filing problem. Claim-jumpers call it Tuesday.