Interstellar Mechs: Dust to Stardust

Ozone clings to the cracked polycarbonate canopy of your scrap-built mech, the faint whine of your sputtering chemical jets dying down as you park at the edge of scrap-town’s only comms hub.

The holographic merc board flickers to life, casting blue and magenta streaks across the dust swirling around your mech’s dented metal legs.

The gruff fixer’s voice crackles again, spilling more details over the public comms to clarify the jobs he mentioned, plus a small unlisted side gig that pops up unbidden at the bottom of the feed.

The 500ℭ convoy escort runs a 30km route through notorious bandit territory, guarantees full payment if the cargo makes it to its drop-off—but your mech’s thin scrap hull could crumple from a single lucky rocket strike.

The 350ℭ rogue mining bot bounty is only 10km out, much closer, but the bot’s damaged plasma mining laser has torn through three small haulers in the last week, leaving nothing but twisted scrap in its wake.

The unlisted salvage gig pays just 200ℭ, a simple recovery of a downed cargo drone that crashed in the nearby scrap flats, with no reported hostilities in the area, making it all but guaranteed no combat.

Your helmet’s HUD ticks over your current stats: 150ℭ in your galactic account, 75% hull integrity, barely enough reactor output to fire your rusted autocannon more than a dozen times before it overheats.

The fixer barks over the comms, cutting through the static: “Quit starin’—jobs don’t wait for scrapheap pilots to make up their minds.Pick somethin’ or get off my network.”