This was the worst night's sleep I had. I felt odd to sleep in a dead man's bed, so after dragging and dumping his body in some random ditch nearby I went and slept in the overturned metal bin I hid in earlier.

I walked over to inspect the man's skimmer. I glanced at it yesterday in the dark, the daylight didn't improve its appearance. It had only a few chips and connectors.

Although it was more than Rhett usually found, you have to consider Rhett was only 13 years old and closer to Aqua47.

I grabbed the datapad on the skimmer to check the credits, but there was nothing on it.

Well, it looks like I had to check out his base.

His home, much like mine, sat on a hillside but was larger and held more scrap. There was a good amount I could sell, at least I found another datapad on a bench, containing only 127 credits.

Why was he so poor?

I added his balance to mine, totaling 219 credits. I looked around his home and tried to find anything hidden treasure. I couldn't understand why he had so few credits when Rhett had nearly 300.

After an hour of searching, I found some goodies and discovered why he was broke. The idiot had two water tanks, the larger one filled with alcohol. I might have found it clever if I weren't 13 years old and if alcohol wasn’t more expensive than gold here.

He likely spent most of his credits refilling those tanks.

I felt frustrated, I sorta understood him. This place was a graveyard, and he just wanted to enjoy himself. Sure, he could have tried harder to escape this dump, but why? It was relatively safe, and he was managing.

People from my past lived similarly, and I guess my annoyance came from projecting my own uncertainties and potential onto him. I exhaled deeply.

"At least he was smart enough to get a mini-smith."

This was the biggest find, something I am definitely taking to my future base. The mini-smith allows me to melt down metals and plastics, separating them into bars.

Of course, any tier 1 or 2 materials were mostly useless for selling, the handful of tier 3 materials that could be found is what I could use it for. Which will provide a nice boost in funds. He even had a small collection of tier 3 bars.

The problem I face now is planning to relocate my base, which means anything I want from here would have to be moved to my current base and then again to the new one.

No, I was better off going to find a new base right now and moving everything all at once.

I grabbed a refill of water and a large breakfast from his fridge, enjoying the variety of flavor cubes he had.

My home was located 30 minutes directly south of Aqua47, while the dead man's base was southeast of my home, placing him about an 80 minute walk from Aqua47.

I planned to travel further southeast. If he claimed this area as his own, there shouldn't be others in this direction, as they’d need to pass through his territory to go back into town for resupplies.

"Better get to it." It didn't take me long to get ready to move.

In less than an hour I spotted the dream house. Calling it a house was a stretch, as it was falling apart, but hey who wouldn’t want to live in a massive passenger ship?

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Most of the ship's outer panels were intact, keeping out the dust, and its cockpit featured large windows. The large ship stood out above the surrounding area, resting atop other ships, it was in decent condition.

As I traveled further, I noticed there was a significant amount of ships that were in better condition, there was bound to be a decent amount of material to collect.

Things were looking up.

Despite the unpleasant surprise that the older man dealt me. I came out with quite a haul. The most challenging thing was the walk back for supplies, but I now had twice the storage capacity for food and water. The mini-smith would also be significantly helpful. Along with the new rifle, I would just need to look up how to perform maintenance.

I now needed to retrieve my skimmer from where I left it, gather everything from my base and the dead man's base, and obtain the cybernetic. Fortunately, I had the larger skimmer work with now.

*****

The place was eerily quiet, with only the faint hum of my skimmer breaking the silence. I entered through a side entrance I had created with my torch, stepping into a cavernous cargo bay. The cargo ship was mostly intact.

My light revealed heaps of twisted metal and shattered crates, and my eyes were drawn to the exposed cabling in the walls. All the tier materials had been removed beforehand, but the ends of these tier 1 and 2 cables still contained small amounts of tier 3 metal.

These remnants were too insignificant to be worth the trouble for most people, but to me, they were a gold mine. I followed the cables, cutting into the walls to reach the connectors. Typically, all cables lead to a central modem, but these lower-tier ones were usually for auxiliary or emergency use.

This meant I had to track them down throughout the ship and cut the ends off each cable, but fortunately, the ship wasn't very large.

This was the third ship I'd encountered that week, and the loot out in this one was the best so far.

Poking my head into the engine bay, I saw it completely stripped, while the bridge was mostly intact. When I removed some panels, I discovered why it had been abandoned, the electronics inside were fried.

Despite this, I could still find some use for it with my mini-smith.

I had lost myself in my work when the alarm on my datapad rang, it was time for me to go.

I could have stayed longer, but I planned to return to Aqua47 the next day.

I spent the past week scrapping and settling down. Moving everything took two days; honestly, the hardest part was the extensive walking. There was just so much walking.

Every night, I managed to do some reading, focusing mostly on the Neuro Enhancers. Instead of directly looking up the brand and model of the cybernetic and risking triggering an alert, I spent hours searching through "Top Ten Neuro Enhancer" lists to find my exact model.

The ESP-1045.12 is primarily designed to enhance mental faculties, fine motor control, and pattern recognition. It would essentially upgrade my memory, pattern recognition, dexterity, ability to lie, and my skill in detecting lies.

While it wouldn't turn me into Tony Stark or Black Widow, any advantage was welcome.

All in all, it was a major upgrade.

The main challenge was installing it, although I could technically do it myself. I would have to stay awake while the cybernetic antennas burrowed into the back of my neck and the base of my skull without moving and risking damaging the enhancers.

That was highly unlikely.

I had a plan, but it would have to wait until tomorrow.

For now, I wanted to return.

Walking through the entrance and up the steps, I left the skimmer in my crafting room.

I climbed higher, reaching the bridge and looking out of the window.

It was dusk.

The red horizon stretched endlessly before me, covered in old forgotten relics and a silent faint hiss of the wind carrying particles of rust-colored dust.

I sat on a makeshift chair on the nose of the ship that had become my vantage point, staring into the starlight above, wondering how it had come to this.

I have tried to look forward, I tried to change myself. I tried to keep myself busy. Nothing worked, I just kept thinking of my mother and older sister of me, Matthew.

My old life felt like a dream now, mornings filled with the hum of city life, the warmth of laughter over shared holiday meals, and the steady rhythm of purpose.

I used to have a goal of getting a nice house, a family of my own, not exactly ambitious goals but they were substantial enough for me.

It was gone now, maybe if I had any power or even a target to get angry at, maybe I could handle it.

Maybe I could think of a way to fix it.

There was nothing I could do.

No person or entity to scream at.

No reason for my solitude.

Just me.

Crying on the wreckage of a ship, with more scattered across this forsaken landscape.

Here, on this desolate planet, there was no one to argue with, no one to love, no one to mourn me. Life as I had known it was lost, not just in distance, but in essence.

I was alone.