Destinations: Spaceport Trident Vespa
From above, Trident Vespa lives up to its name – it looks like a vast pitchfork, with permacrete lanes forming the tines, and buildings around all the edges. Spaceships of all shapes and sizes gleam and flash in the sunlight. Even from the air, though, you can see this is no glittering commercial hub, clean, safe and corporate – it feels a bit more like the frontier.
Trident Vespa started out as a good idea: a sprawling spaceport built to accommodate cargo ships, smaller vessels and atmospheric craft, all in one spot. But in the first three months after Trident Vespa opened for business, there were three major accidents at the spaceport. Three accidents within three months at a spaceport named Trident was an irony lost on no one – and spacers, always a superstitious lot, began avoiding the port. The owners took the only option that seemed available to them: they made Trident Vespa a smugglers’ haven.