2
Celestia Station is about a third the size of the Slab, a spinning tube of ageing metal festooned with comms arrays from end to end, giving it the appearance of an encrusted pipe from a long-disused water pump. The only hab in the Belt capable of housing over a hundred thousand people, it’s been a CAOS member-state since the war, complete with an elected provincial government and full trading rights. In fact, it had been effectively self-governing long before then, neutral ground for competing mining corporations who needed somewhere to trade for labour and equipment beyond the prying eyes of Downside regulators. Thanks to the local authorities’ relaxed attitude to full enforcement of the CAOS Legal Code, it’s also notorious as a refuge for the Upside criminal fraternity. I could recall
