The Illusion of Choice

While many, if not most of the trade hubs, refuelling depots and long  range space stations dotted around the various empires provide profit  enough to attract regular visitors both civilian and military, not all  placed space structures are as lucky.

 Many fall into disrepair,  suffer critical damage or trade simply moves to more profitable routes,  assuming such routes even existed at all. While they can be  de-constructed for their vital components, the effort of recycling the  main parts of their hulls are usually simply not worth the expenditure,  leaving them to drift in silence where they once tried to be vibrant  centres for sapience. 

 These stations can often be left for  years, decades or centuries, becoming occasional lairs and homes to  those in the fringes, and frequently accumulate value not for their  intended purpose, but for the technology, riches and curiosities that  have lived and raided these derelicts long after their abandonment. Some  may even be re-used legitimately later on, slowly reclaimed from disuse  deck by deck over the years.

 However, there is another fate  for large space structures between these success and failure. The  backwater stations. Few visit for legitimate trade, refuelling or  visitation, but they somehow cling on to life, or even come to some  semblance of prosperity. 

 Able to maintain themselves from  money raised by those that decide to remain after all the smart uniforms  and sleek ships leave, such stations can be rough and ready, or cling  onto some sort of civil order. They are rarely safe, but they can be  consider rich in diversity.. for better or for worse.

 All sorts  of people can be found in these places, living there for all sorts of  reasons. Security is rarely the clean uniformed officers that are well  trained in the art of de-escalating problems and usage of non-lethal  techniques. Often the closest one can find to official safety officers  is a small Mercenary Detachment sent to resolve problems or enact  intent, with the threat of usage acting as security for those on board.

 As  one can imagine, life on such structures can be notably less valuable  then the more propitious stations and superstructures, especially for  the less illicit societies that may be on board. 

 People go  missing, and it can oft be difficult to work out if such missing were  simply meeting their end of a bad deal with rivals, had an accident in  the abandoned sections, or found a way to sneak themselves off  station... especially problematic for those owning crew via bonded  service.

 Even more difficult is the one thing a large space  station has close to a natural process, internal space usage. The less  income a large station has, the less it's vast structure is maintained  and used. This can be a determined effort to use only more vital areas  and abandon the parts of the station too expensive to maintain in  working order to preserve them for future use against wear and tear.  Usually, however, the abandonment of sections is a reactive measure from  neglect then proactive to prevent thus.

 Even abandoned and  unsafe for habitation, such areas need maintenance. The last thing an  engine core team would want is an infestation of Fengus skittering  around their energy production haphazardly, or distracting the workers  with their needy ways. Sending smaller crew into such areas is usually  the best course: Their paws can reach the smaller components and  generally species such as Mice, Rats, Rabbits, Springhares and the like  can treat the abandoned areas like burrows, warrens and nests, sneaking  through the infrastructure to get past sealed sections and reach  troublesome parts within the workings.

 The tricky aspect  through is when the occasional tech sent in to check parts, or provide  repair, go missing. It usually happens through either incompetence or  maliciousness,though many of the old stations claim such issues on tech  and vanishings may be due to the abandoned section of the station being  haunted. Ghost lights, movement at the corner of the eyes, whispers all  around, and then a missing person or two. Those in space may still be  superstitious, claiming sections of a station may be haunted, or even  cursed. Naturally, no station master worth their salt would want to hear  such claims against their livelihood.

 How does a station  master react to this? Is the cause of such vanishing, hauntings and  cursed natures caused by biological, hostile entities, mechanical  accident, radiological or simply carbon monoxide leaks? Typically a  Mercenary Detachment is sent in to see what they can find, taking some  detectors for hazards, a respirator for environment issues, and a few  rifles to cuddle like a bullet-filled security blanket. Sensor ghosts  skittering in the works might easily be found to be em leaks and dusty  vents, communication dead spots can quickly be deduced to be small  interference pulsing from ageing components, and the odd movement at the  corner of the eye might be the expected carbon monoxide leak, or when  seen with a respirator on, possibly infra-sound interacting with the  eyeballs themselves. Tatters of clothing might be just remains from the  abandoned wash room nearby, drifting on the recycled air.

 When  such teams return with no hazards, no bodies and no aggressors, the  answer is easy to deduce: Whoever was sent down there must have simply  found an escape from the station itself. Possibly an old shuttle or  craft some pirate or criminal parked/built down there to escape in.  That, or they were picked up by arrangement mid-job to escape without a  debtor being all the wiser. It's an easy assumption, and with every  answer, the myth of superstitious hauntings and cursed station sections  can be officially dismissed.

 The trouble is when the whispers  of such beliefs remain, the occasional missing folk continue, and  reports of stations receiving outgoing ships also seemly becoming  cursed. Best for such a station master to suppress such talk along with  the station masters newly affected, and everyone can simply assume the  problem is either dealt with, or it is something they will just live  with.

 That assumption, however, may very well be the worst one to make...