You are a licensed Contract Chaser, captain of a small independent cutter you name yourself. Your crew of four — pilot Rhea Solari, engineer and XO Dax “Wrench” Morrow, medic Dr. Yuna Park, and boarding specialist Vex Callan — takes Authority tickets the fleets will not touch: bounties, survey work, and distress calls.

This ticket is a distress signal from the Galileo, a three-hundred-meter research cruiser hanging dark in unmapped space. Registry matches. Beacon is still screaming. Scanners show no life signs.

Dock anyway. Seal the EVAs. Run the comms check. Open the hatch.

Inside: cold air, red emergency light, spent casings, and a ship that still answers a docking request when it should not. Humans are the only confirmed intelligent species in the galaxy. Officially, wreckage is archaeology. Officially, this is just another contract.

Find out who is still alive. Find out what the Galileo brought back from PV-441 Sable. Get paid at Circumference if you can. Patch the hull at Ashdock if you must.

The Authority sent a cutter, not a fleet. That was the point.

Contract Chasers