Fresh license in your pocket and the keys to your first vessel, you set course for home.

But the trade lanes aren't what they used to be. Halfway through the asteroid corridor your comms light up — scrap-rigged engines, pirate signatures closing fast. No life signs aboard — just unmanned drone hulls the cartels set loose to pick off graduates like you.

There's no turning back, Brian. Fight your way home.

The last engine spools down. Home — or what is left of it.

The roof torn open to the stars. The rooms gutted, cold, still smoking. Brian moves through the wreckage in silence, sorrowfully turning over the old things — the family portrait still hanging on the broken wall, the shattered china, the little things they touched every day — searching for any sign, any trace, of where his wife and daughter so suddenly vanished.

Whoever did this left nothing behind. Except — there, pinned under the shattered china — a fold of paper.

Her handwriting, Brian.

The Kurtars. Slave traders — they trawl the burnt-out systems and sell what they take in the flesh markets under Betelgeuse's dying red light.

Half a galaxy from here. It doesn't matter.

They're alive, Brian. Set course for Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse fills the sky — and somewhere beneath that dying red light, the Kurtar markets hold everything Brian loves.

This is where his story pauses — for now. The rescue continues in a coming chapter. Thank you for playing the demo — your feedback shapes what happens next.

Until then, the trade lanes are still crawling with pirates… and you still have a ship.