Dark Range Platform
The Dark Range Platform was an ancient space station located between the borders of the United Federation of Planets frontier and the Klingon Empire's Old Regions. It had seemingly haphazard supports stretched out like demented spider webs coiled around a confusion of life-support spheres and cylinders installed by a dozen races over the platform's millennia of service, as well as cargo bays with large metal doors and no tractor beams to guide shuttles (who have to leave under manual control) or force fields to hold in atmospheric pressure and heat. It was guessed that it might have been a transfer point for vast flotillas of starships, probably even for the Preservers. No one knew who built it, and at the same time no one cared. As neither the Federation or the Klingons wanted any claim on the station, it became a backwater refueling stop, a haven for criminals, smugglers, and cut-throats from across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, as well as a starting point for dreamers seeking fortune among the stars (who in turn would get their fortune stolen by said smugglers and cutthroats).
In 2293, Pavel Chekov, Nyota Uhura, and a woman named Jade (actually Ariadne Drake), were sent to the station by Starfleet Intelligence to investigate the sale of Klingon military hardware by renegade Klingons. Using cover names and a convincing cover story of being renegade Starfleet officers with a grudge, Chekov and Uhura were able to arrange a meeting with Kort, a Klingon smuggler, inside one of the platforms cargo bays.
As the meeting took place, Jade betrayed Chekov and Uhura and stunned them with her phaser. After discussing obtaining information about the chalchaj'qmey with Kort, she prepared to leave. Unfortunately, for Chekov and Uhura, Jade was ordered to kill them, so they were placed in the platform's launch bay where they would either be killed by her transport's thrusters or the decompression of the bay. Fortunately, the officers were rescued by the USS Excelsior. (TOS novel: The Ashes of Eden)
External links[]
- Dark Range Platform article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.