Plain version
The Graveyard Reef is a maze of wrecks, dead stations, shattered relays, and bad lanes.
No spoilers here—just a look at the setting, not the plot.
A hiding place can still bite
The Graveyard Reef is useful because it's miserable to cross. Debris pockets, dead stations, and drifting hulls keep authorities from looking too close.
That same mess makes every salvage run dangerous. When the base needs parts, crews head into shifting wreckage where maps lie and open lanes only stay clear because something hunts them.
Salvage is not free
A station surrounded by salvage sounds like easy picking, but it isn't. Metal has to be tracked down, hauled, cut, cleaned, and refitted before it's usable.
Every scrap costs air, heat, crew time, and unwanted attention from anyone else eyeing the same haul.
Secrecy has a shape
Cinderwake is hidden, but hiding takes work: running cold, throttling traffic, watching the sensors, and knowing when a weld is worth the light it throws.
That's the tension: the station is safer when it runs, and far more dangerous to hold because it does.
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