Pernella System

VNY's notes:

One of three ore-mining systems that make up the Three Ellas Run in the Freeworlds Territory. You start loading up ore shipments at Pernella, then visit Dorella, then Sorella, and then drop the load off at Tavya System, which has the good grace to be on the main spine of the Procopian Shipping Lane.

I had no business being here.

Officially, I mean.

Not even a flimsy excuse.

The truth was that I was heartily sick of the "I have memorized more facts than you" measuring contest going on between a certain Mentat Memorizer and a certain Bene Gesserit Acolyte. I tried asking them to simultaneously wipe each other's existence out of their respective memories. I tried advising them to get therapy. I tried asking each of them what the chances were that the other party could ever convince them to change opinions, and if that's a zero, why are they insisting on interacting at all. I tried giving them research projects that should have physically exhausted them past the ability to speak. I tried to get them arrested by the local Judge for "behavior likely to cause a breach of the peace". (Judge Lise Hampton snickered at me and cut the call. Tough but fair.)

So I said that under the guidance of The Force, I was working off part of my passage back toward Tavya System, and I boarded a transport scow named Narsil that was departing within the next fifteen minutes. I did not at that point care that it was going to Pernella before it swung back on the outward route.

Nice folks on the Narsil. So long as I did not proselytize, and did more than an equal share of cleanup, and did not scare the bejeepers out of the first mate while doing my morning jog through the halls looping between the cargo bays, I think I was their favorite passenger. For one thing, I did not mind scrubbing some of the corners that their maintenance droid could not really reach.

For another thing, I got that shard of granite to slide back out of their clamp without damaging anything further, but that's another story.

Anyway, my point is that I had no good reason to be in Pernella System at all. This made the locals kind of antsy, I guess: nobody just happens to visit Pernella. You don't pass through; there is no "through" to follow. People in Pernella System like to see people they already know. They dislike strangers. The friendlier someone tries to be, the more upset locals get.

"I am not that kind of monk," I said. "I want to buy a noise-cancelling headset because mine is in need of more repairs than I know how to do, and I want to buy a ridiculously overpriced bit of scrap rock as a souvenir for my teacher, and then I want to go back to the Narsil and enjoy the complete lack of teenage chatterheads in my immediate vicinity."

You would have thought I had cordially invited half of Spacers Row to kiss my backside.

I did eventually get a good scan of the system and a download of the basic nav data, but I never did find out what exactly it was in my words that grated on everyone's last nerve. I kind of think it was "monk".

Won't be the first time my uniform torqued someone off.

Geography

The system primary is Demai, a K2 V Orange Main Sequence star.

I would have expected a planet in orbit between Demai and Pernella, but nothing is there. Was it knocked into the primary? mined out of existence? or what? Worth checking old astrogation records if I find myself with spare time on Mrlsst one of these days.

Pernella is the closest orbiting planet. It is a terrestrial world, albeit on the smaller end of the spectrum. It has no natural moons but many artificial ones, including a shield projector network in case of solar storms or "other hazards".

A thick asteroid belt called the Pernella Belt, not quite the total mass of the larger Dorella System asteroid belt but close, spreads itself through the middle of the star system. A lot of mining and a little refinery work is in progress through the Pernella Belt.

Outside the Pernella Belt, two ice planets are orbiting: Daxu and A'Teda. Daxu seems to be tidally locked, which ought to be impossible for a lone "dirty ice ball" out at the edges of a star system with no gas giant or secondary star to yank it around. Something is definitely up there.

None of the three planets in this system have moons. My amateur calculations suggest that all the mass of the three planets and the entire asteroid belt do not add up to what should be orbiting a star of this age and type. Something is missing ... but the fact of my curiosity is not reason enough to make trouble for these folks. Maybe someday someone will pop up with, I don't know, a micro black hole they kept hidden from the Galactics. Or two more planets disguised to prevent outsiders from noticing their secret escape hatch.

Not that I think they have a secret route out of this system! That would put any traveller into Cadriaan Province and I am absolutely sure that someone would have already turned it into a celebrated commercial venture by now.

Natural Resources

ore mining

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- database entry updated Datunda
Shelova Week
12730

Type

Star System

Location under

Freeworlds Territory

Included Locations

• Pernella

Owning Organization

Tapani Imperium

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Thanks to donjon's Star Wars d6 System Generator for the heavenly bodies in this star system.