The entire system is filled with random junk, creating a navigational nightmare which would be near as bad as the Processional of the Damned were it not so well mapped. Besides the ever shifting asteroid fields are the old hulls themselves, dead and cold at the heart of the system with vulturous salvage teams slowly stripping them down to their bones. It is a place of slow death, where the great metal beasts of the stars meet there undignified end at the hands of hollow eyed indentured workers.
The people here cling to life as desperately as their pathetic hab-domes and overused emergency shelters cling to the asteroids and rotting voidships. They are broken, the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak. Most are little more than slaves, in actuality or practicality, and few have ever even know the desire for freedom. They die by the score every day; decompression, industrial accident, radiation or raiders. No one dies of old age in SR-651.
The Receiving Yard, a thirty kilometre long spindle-shaped station orbiting the Breaking Yards which lies at the core of the system, is somewhat more hospitable thanks to the wealth of the travelers who pass through its rusting, dark hallways. Here there are secure docks, habitable hotels, drinking holes and a sprawling market at which a man can buy anything he wishes – from flesh to firearms, nothing is off limits in this place.
You have been aboard the Receiving Yard for nearly six months now, having taken just over two days to reach the place after your titanic battle with the Hadarak Fell. The Frigate Fell Hand is undergoing repairs and outfitting at one of the largest and most professional dry docks in the system, its safety and care overseen by Dock Master Tamus Talmar. You have learned that while the superstitious Dock Master runs the ageing but professional facility, Floriana Winterscale actually owns most of it as a silent partner.
The dock is relatively secured from the rest of the station and while poorly trained and not exactly motivated the mercenaries Talmar uses to guard the facility are at least intimidating enough to frighten away most visitors and hawkers.
The dock has some limited living quarters but they are flea ridden at best and stuffed full of sweaty indentured workers at the worst. While Talmar has welcomed you to use them there has been no need to take up his offer.
The facility is vast, it's central hangar sufficiently large enough to take a cruiser class vessel at once; and there are two further slightly smaller hangars immediately adjacent to it. The flickering void-screen at the “open†end of the hangar is almost certainly a powerful archeotech relic; a wise investment considering that more than two thousand workers are labouring so close to naked space.
Just off the immense docksides are warehouses where starship parts are stored – engines as large as tower blocks, weapon mountings bigger than superheavy tanks, air filtration units that look like vast pipe-mazes – and there are also the beastly fitting machines; Talmar's largest mobile crane is three hundred meters tall with a fearsome looking clawed talon that could pick up buildings whole.
But you
have seen better. The operation is far from professional; the common workers dull eyed and often slightly mutated, the professional fitters are good at their jobs but needlessly surly with the visitors and there is junk everywhere – small ships, vehicles and broken gear which has been stripped are left laying all over the dry dock, wherever there is free space enough to clutter.
These six months have been busy for you all as you have dealt with the simple logistics of repairing the ship. You haven't had much chance to explore the station, though the lavish Rogue Trader Zol Cyris Estobane has been bombarding you all with invitations to dine on his ship or to visit his new facilities.
Sarvus Trask has taken the Sabre to plunder the treasure ship, Righteous Path, and sent the Fell hand here for repairs. He has sent some of his senior officers here to oversee the repairs and wait for the new captain, who should be arriving any day now. On the Breaking Yards, Tsanthos and the others have been able to hire more crew for the Fell Hand.
