Quoted By:
<span class="mu-s">-Jerne-</span>
<span class="mu-s">-Ten Days Before the Battle of Geonosis-</span>
Jerne is a dead world between hyperlanes on the edge of one of the largest voids in the known Galaxy. The native sentients were extinct before the New Sith Wars, and the later colonists, seeking economic freedom from the Republic, had destroyed the planet’s fragile ecosystem with runaway industry and uncontrolled culls of the native wildlife. Because of their independent nature, the colonists hadn’t even introduced species which had gone feral and colonized the planet after the environmental collapse, rather they had used the planet until it became a sparse dustball, the only living things on its surface being a sprawling, soft and leafy plant which covered large swathes of the surface, a hard and horny fungus which parasitizes the plant, and small, six-legged rodents which feed on the fungus.
Yet you never wondered why your recent benefactor had chosen the world to settle on. Land claims were cheap on Jerne, legally sold by the Commerce Guild and handled on the nearby industrial world of Ciutric. Not only that, but it was hidden, out of the way, and not legally part of the Republic, despite theoretically being within the sprawling Kanz Sector. The perfect place for someone who would want to remain hidden from not only the Jedi and the Republic, but their enemies as well.
The compound on Jerne consists of a low building of golden adobe brick sealed with a glossy, resinous clear coat, with a landing pad more than large enough for the <span class="mu-i">Heart</span> off to one side, several smaller buildings which act as (as yet unused) guest houses, storage, and cover for the subterranean storage of the more sensitive materials, communications array, and shield generator, and a yard of short, non-native grasses and bushes that serve to contrast up the world’s bleak atmosphere. The compound is completely surrounded by a several-meter high wall of the same material, which is itself edged on both sides by a thicket of hardy brambles.
The view of Yernu, Jerne’s single, pale sun, setting from the main building’s third floor study is a sight you have not yet tired of. There is something simple about the nearly-monochromatic panorama of the desert and distant buttes disappearing into shadow as the yellow disc disappears below the horizon.
“Master Tarrag,” the accented, tinny voice of the compound's steward, a chrome-plated 3D-4X Administrative Droid, addresses you as it shuffles into the room. You set down the sweet cup of Onderonian malt you had been nursing and rise to turn away from the sunset to regard the droid. “It seems your inquiry has been answered, I have received…”
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