Stellar Orbit

Mine deeper than your fuel can carry you, while solar flares scramble your instruments.
AEVUM EXTRACTION CO. · DEEP-CORE DIVISION
Applicant notice: your provisional assignment has been approved.

>Congratulations. You are now an asset of Aevum Extraction Co. A cheap one, but an asset. Report to the station at the heart of your assigned orbit, draw a rig from Equipment Issue, and begin your first shift.
>Your orbit is a belt of ore wrapped around one station. Company surveys rate the rock poor and safe near the middle, priceless out at the rim. Company surveys do not rate your fuel tank. That one is on you. Push out, strip the seam, dock before you run dry. AEC does not operate a rescue service.

Company-issued tooling
Your rig ships with no drill. Regulation holds that the laser and rockets already fitted are sufficient to chip ore straight from the rock, so the same weapons that keep the pirate swarm off your hull will strip the belt. Crack a rock, haul the shards in on your tractor, log the tonnage. Cargo lost to hostiles is not a reimbursable expense.

Fuel policy
Thrust consumes fuel. The belt has no depots. Dock inside the buoy ring to auto-sell your hold and refit at Company rates, then draw exactly as much fuel as your greed can justify. A rig that goes cold in the deep is logged as a total asset write-off. Oxygen is deducted from your settlement either way.

Operating hazards (acknowledged on hire)
Value and danger rise together the deeper you drift. Solar flares sweep the system on a cycle and will scramble your instruments and shear your display, as a rule while your hold is fullest. Each assigned world carries an additional signature hazard: ion storms that lock your shields, an ember forge that cooks the hull, a frost veil that seizes your thrusters, a micro black hole that relocates your vessel without consent. These are standard conditions.

Advancement
Clear a world's end-of-shift encounter and meet its quota to earn clearance for the next belt down: richer seams, worse company. Seven worlds run from the safe rim to the dying star at the core: Korrath, Sable, Oryn, Threll, Caldris, Vyne, and Morsk. Morsk is the end of the ladder. The pirate bastion squatting on it is not an AEC facility. Remove it.

Equipment
Seven certified hulls, each with a signature stat, a passive perk, and one active ability. Ladder your shield, engine, tank, and hold through Company issue. Tune your laser and rockets in the Weapon Lab. Stock consumables against the long shifts. It all runs on one currency: credits, dug out of the rock by you, for the enrichment of the Company and, incidentally, you.

Retention
AEC keeps no career records. There is only the shift: how rich, how deep, how long you last, logged as a score. Your best shifts and your clearances carry to the next hire. Everything else is written off when the rig goes cold.

Aevum Extraction Co. We mine the dying light. Asset safety is a shared responsibility. Your oxygen balance is available at any depot terminal.