Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Grand Anchor (section)

====The Satellites====

The primary defenses of the Grand Anchor actually sit well within its perimeter.  Orbiting the cube at a distance of over four hundred kilometers are one hundred twenty-eight armed satellites.  Some are no larger than a normal planetary traffic buoy, but some are nearly as large as the assembly spheres.  Each has its own cogitator-controlled weapons array, powered by tiny plasma cells and batteries in their black hulls.  No one satellite would be enough to hold back a pirate fleet, and each is far enough from its neighbor to be unable to provide overlapping fields of fire, but their mere presence allows for the defenses of the scrapyard to slow anything smaller than a cruiser.  Their primary function is to feed sensor data to the command platform built into the cube, and light up any passing uninvited guests.  Of course, since the Grand Anchor does not orbit a star, the defense perimeter must be a sphere instead of a flat disc, so the satellites are far enough apart that their primary contribution to a firefight would be to act as a speedbump.  Unfortunately, they are far enough from a star that solar panels on their hulls wouldn’t serve a purpose.