The Black Halo Supermax: CA Penitentiary Theta-19

Mandate and Position in the Between

Black Halo Supermax (CA Penitentiary Theta-19) exists to hold people the Central Authority does not want near trade lanes, ports, or courts. It sits in the Between on an offset coordinate outside standard Keth routes. Approach requires a licensed jump table and an Authority unlock phrase that changes on a set schedule. The station’s charter came after a cluster of rim prisons failed during a labor dispute and a series of hijacked transfers. The Authority needed a site with clean custody, stable power, and no local politics. Black Halo was chosen because it is hard to reach, easy to watch, and simple to cut off. The mandate is narrow: long-term isolation for high-risk convicts and secure storage for active cases. No research work. No experimental gear. No private wards. The station answers to the Authority Inspectorate and to bond courts when evidence chains pass through its registry. Every visitor’s purpose is logged, timed, and mirrored to escrow.

Build, Layout, and Power

Black Halo’s structure is an octagonal ring with five radial spines built from surplus Core hull sections, Talarq-certified reactor modules, and new-build radiator fields. The ring holds control, docks, life support, and the labor deck. The spines hold cell blocks, exercise cages, and sealed storage. Each spine can isolate from the ring with armored doors and its own air cycle. The main fusion stack sits on a reinforced keel, with a battery wall and an independent blackstart bay. Radiator fins angle off the night side and run hot to shed ice and keep the hull stable. Cabling follows marked trays and never crosses dorms. Dock corridors use double-gated stems that can jettison if compromised. The whole frame runs a low thrust posture to hold orientation against micro-drift. Nothing hangs loose. Every tool has a mount. Every panel carries a Talarq heat label or a safety stamp. Panels show Keth load charts and simple instruction bands in Human, Keth glyph, and Vellari icon sets.

Governance, Records, and Law

The Warden runs operations but does not control law. Law sits in the Registry Stack and its mirrors. The stack holds Central Authority registry data, Data Guild license mirrors, and escrow vaults for proofs, keys, and sealed orders. Synthborn auditors operate within strict contracts. They cannot alter records; they can only verify integrity and file alerts. Release orders must match three sources: Inspectorate queue, escrow key schedule, and the local mirror. If one fails, movement stops. The dock ring begins every chain of custody, and the stack finishes it. Bonded couriers move hardcopy media in sealed carriers with tamper chips. Disputes over routes, seals, or identity resolve inside the stack before any door opens. Outside governments can request access, but the Authority decides. The machine collectives are given read-only insight for safety logs when their hardware runs the station nets, and even that access is time-boxed. If a court tries to pierce the vault without all three keys, the station drops to lockdown and pages the nearest patrol.

Security Practice and Daily Rhythm

Security treats movement as risk. The station runs a strict schedule that never repeats the same pattern twice in a week. Doors open by grid order, not by person. Food carts move on fixed rails with lock stops every four meters. Staff rotate spines to block familiarity. Cameras overlap and are boxed in protective cages. Acoustic dampers kill echo and block code knocks. Signal cages screen every cell for hidden transmitters. Exercise time happens with two officers and one remote watcher. Riot controls are simple: isolate the spine, vent the corridor to low pressure, and wait. The armory holds non-lethal control gear and a small set of lethal kits for reactor defense and dock defense. The Warden’s deck keeps a live map of doors, air, and power. If an alert rises, doors lock behind the last confirmed safe point. Nothing dramatic follows; the station settles, logs the event, and files it to the Inspectorate. The rhythm is steady: wake, check, move, log, lock, repeat. It is not cruel and not gentle. It is exact.

Population, Work, and Services

Black Halo holds people who can move markets, kill routes, or wreck seals. Typical inmates include mutiny leaders, meter-seal forgers, convoy raiders, erased identities tied to active cases, syndicate quartermasters, and a few officers from failed governments. Humans form the majority. Keth inmates appear when route crimes cross their charts. Vellari are rare here due to water-seal jurisdiction; when present, their embassy observers call in by escrow. Synthborn do not serve sentences; they serve contract terms, and those contracts do not allow confinement at Black Halo except for malfunction quarantine, which is rare. Work on the labor deck supports station supply: licensed scrip press subassemblies, manifest pre-sort, and meter housing refurb under Vellari specs. Pay is low and resolved as ledger entries. It does not shorten time for supermax inmates. Services are basic: clinic, counsel call window, briefvid library, and exercise cages. Faith rooms are multi-use with fixed benches and a sealed locker for approved items.

Events, Reputation, and Present State

Black Halo’s reputation comes from quiet outcomes. A forged-manifest case once tried to pass a fake release key; the stack caught the mismatch, and the station froze the dock. Another time, a Free Company tug arrived with a damaged courier lock; the cage flags tripped, and the corridor jettisoned without loss to the ring. A syndicate cell once sent a misjump boat to ram a spine; the radiator grid took the impact, and the spine isolated. None of these stories are loud, but crews talk about them in bars and muster halls. Because of its record, insurers trust Black Halo’s logs, and ports accept its seals. The station’s staff is steady: a Warden with a clean docket, a deputy from the Talarq ranges, a dock chief from Keth routes, and a small medical team that keeps to the schedule. Patrol coverage is thin in the Between, so the station depends on design, drills, and paperwork. There is no hero culture here. There is maintenance, audit, and time. For most people, that is enough.

Factions, Standards, and Interactions

Central Authority: Owns the charter, audits performance, sets key schedules, and pays the private security contract that staffs day-to-day operations.
Data Guilds: License registry mirrors and escrow tools. Their role is integrity and timekeeping. They do not control outcomes.
Mega-Corps: Limited to maintenance contracts and supply bids. They cannot site proprietary labs onboard. All bids are public to the Inspectorate.
Syndicates: Appear in inmate rosters and court dockets. No syndicate agent holds open visitation rights. Any legal counsel follows dock rules and escrow identity checks.
Free Companies: Provide armored transfers when needed. Their contracts are short, clear, and supervised.
Machine Collectives: Maintain select subsystems under strict boundaries. Their logs go to the Registry Stack and the Inspectorate mirrors.
Species Standards: Keth charts gate approaches. Vellari seals govern water stock and meter housings on the labor deck. Talarq labels and heat rules govern the reactor and thermal loops. Caraphex fixtures show up in cut-rated doors and tool mounts due to durability. Serean storm chem is not used here; the station avoids volatile cargo. Synthborn roles stay in audit, metrology, and maintenance.

The station does not seek growth. It seeks uptime, correct custody, and clean exits. Transfers out go to Core courts, Mid ports with high security, or rim tribunals that meet Authority standards. When a case ends, the station pushes the closure to all mirrors, clears the cell, and advances the schedule. If an appeal is pending, the person stays. If a government falls, the person stays until a court with standing appears. The Between helps here. There is nothing nearby to lean on the station. It runs, logs, and waits.

Life on Shift

Shifts run twelve hours with overlap. Officers log in, draw kit, check cams, and walk the ring. Dock crews test seals and cycle air. Engineers read the load bands and walk the thermal loop. The registrar times couriers, keys vaults, and files mirror updates. The clinic handles small injuries, pressure rashes, and heat stress. Meals are simple and timed. The briefvid room runs three channels: Authority training, legal education, and a low-risk entertainment loop cleared by the stack. The Warden reviews incidents during overlap, signs off on maintenance, and posts the next day’s route line. On quiet days, the ring hums and the fins glow. On active days, the doors lock faster and the logs grow longer. Staff keep to rules because rules keep the station steady. Inmates learn the rhythm because it never breaks for one person. Crews who visit learn to keep their gear tight, their voices low, and their papers ready. They leave, and Black Halo stays the same.