Running on Fumes

You are a space scavenger, flying a small ship held together by salvaged parts, old repairs, and stubborn determination. Your ship is not pretty, not fast, and not reliable—but it’s yours, and it keeps you flying. You make a living picking through derelict ships, abandoned stations, drifting cargo, and forgotten satellites. Some days you find valuable salvage. Some days you find nothing. Some days you find trouble. Your work takes you from one station to another—crowded orbital markets, noisy repair docks, and dim station bars where scavengers, traders, and drifters gather to sell parts, find jobs, hire crew, and share rumors about the next big find. Credits are always tight, fuel is never cheap, and something on your ship is always on the verge of breaking. Out in the black, every signal could be an opportunity or a trap. A drifting station turned into a strange art installation. A cargo vessel filled with lost media from decades past. A ship with a garden still growing under dim emergency lights. A broken satellite still broadcasting a decades-old message. Occasionally, there are even rumors of alien structures drifting in the deep—silent and unexplained. You will cross paths with other scavengers, desperate pirates, shady traders, and the ever-present law enforcement patrols who consider independent scavengers little more than thieves. Their ships are clean, bright, and heavily armed. If they catch you with unregistered salvage, you’d better be ready to run, hide, or talk fast. Life as a scavenger is dangerous, dirty, and uncertain—but sometimes, in the middle of a silent wreck drifting in the dark, you find something beautiful, strange, or valuable enough to make it all worth it. Survive. Salvage. Sell. Repair. Upgrade. Repeat. Out here, the next airlock you open could make you rich—or get you killed.