Author's note

The following fanfiction is a "collection of stories", that are not necessarily tied in a particular time order. The stories themselves take place somewhere near frontier space after the destruction of Earth. Being a free interpretation of the original story, it's still somewhat tied to vanilla Starbound lore, and some elements that you will see here are somewhat related to the original game. Also there may be rare spelling, grammatical and/or punctuation errors, but I hope it won't affect reading experience that much.
(Also, the original cover image belongs to Zeminio, and I want to thank him for letting me use it.)

Anyway, enjoy the story!

An old-looking shuttle descends on one of the relatively habitable planets that orbit around a bright giant star. Like on many thousands of wasteland worlds, most of this planet's surface is just a scorched desert with rare ruins of long gone civilizations. The air here is dry and heavily polluted, and even most enduring wildlife can only be seen around oases. But looks like it doesn't bother one particular Floran girl who just walked out of the shuttle – numerous branches sticking out of her head and neck are covered in tiny linden flowers, and she was desperately stretching out to scratch them.

Someone follows her out of the shuttle. A pitch-black Avian anxiously steps out of the shuttle, looking around and trying to spot anything that seems off. When he ensures that the landing site is safe – a sigh of relief comes out of his beak.

- "Need a hand over there?"

- "Yesss please, it's very itchy!"

The shuttle flew back to the spaceship, as the two of them were just standing under the scorching sun for several minutes, one scratches another...

"Here it is!" - Floran girl was so excited that she jumped a little. А junktown was stretching wide on the horizon. Massive metal walls capable to withstand any standard issue weapon were built to protect thousands of buildings, hastily constructed from whatever was scattered around - mostly from corroded metal sheets and various junk, as bricks and stones were used to protect important infrastructure like water and food storages. Two dilapidated skyscrapers in the middle of a town hosted a trading center for space traders, being the only way for the town to get complex machinery and electronics that actually worked. Surprisingly, there was even an ancient airliner wreck, refitted into a low-quality diner. A crow-like Avian finally caught up to her and asked:

- "Arbora, could you PLEASE remind me why are we even here?".

Her smile widens

- "This is the only place where you can buy the best junk in this sector! And they won't even ask you about any licenssse! Did you already forgot, Pluog?"

- "Then why did we land fifty kilometers away from it?!"

- "He he, that's a secret" - she smirked.

And their path continues, through coarse sand, toxic wastes, and intense heat...

Rust-City. Once just a camp between two skyscraper ruins where many outlaws were hiding from whoever they crossed paths with, it quickly became a lawless settlement after the destruction of Terrene Protectorate. This is the place for everything that you would need, ranging from not-so-tasty meals to illegal weapons of mass destruction. Several outer world syndicates rule in town and keep it safe from galactic law enforcements in various ways - bribes, blackmailing, red herrings, etc. Even Miniknog keep their presence low in this part of space, and it's fairly obvious that it would cost a lot for those syndicates to keep it that way. That's why punishments for troublemakers are violent and cruel - usually they put someone in debt and don't allow them to leave the planet. But sometimes debt is big enough for the shady business to come - certain Florans and pirate bands can pay out your debt in excange for "services" to provide. One ruthless, but effective way to keep Rust-City out of complete anarchy.

The sun went past its zenith. Being the most crowded time here, the streets were full of beggars, thugs, scavengers and other questionable individuals. One of them – a heavily rusted Glitch – was running a shop, where he was selling all kinds of tech. Some looked like they were just from the factory, others had even more corrosion than the shopkeeper. The only thing in common – all of those techs was stolen, smuggled, scavenged and/or robbed from somewhere or someone. Half of those were illegal, the other half had various malfunctions. That's what those two were looking for.

While Arbora was expressing every way of joy possible, Pluog leaned on the wall, keeping an eye on any possible danger.

"Like that guy. He's a Hylotl, right? I heard that Hylotls doesn't actually adore Florans. He does look kinda strange, for such part of space to wear some traditional-looking robe and whatever that pointy straw basket should be. Or that Novakid in a black duster over there, I think I saw him fighting with some bandits in the nearby bar. He looks REALLY suspicious..."

- "By your judgeful look, I'd say that you two are new here, aren't you?" - a human suddenly appeared out of nowhere, scaring the soul out of our ravenous friend. He looked like he came straight out of old mafia film holotapes – white tuxedo, stylish fedora, and a charming smile of a devil, who can't live a single day without any gamble. - "The name's Ace, pleased to meet 'ya."

- "Well... nice to meet you too Ace" - Pluog almost shook his hand, but recoiled shortly after noticing something in it.

- "So you've noticed it? What a shame, I just lost a bet on 100 pixels." - said Ace, as he took a small whoopie cushion off his hand and put it in his pocket - "Anyway, you and your friend look like you could use some work..."

Pluog looked at Arbora. Looks like she is trying to bargain with the shopkeeper, offering one of her trinkets in exchange for some strange device. Obviously, the shopkeeper was offended by such preposterous offer and politely told her to leave.

- "... and I have just the right job for you two." - his grin is getting wider, like he is going to offer something really, REALLY sketchy.

- "Sorry, but we don't want to cause any trouble here. Besides, we're already leaving."

- "Well, too bad. Guess we're gonna do it the hard way". His grin became a bit more evilish.

A gun?! When did he pull it off? How did I have not noticed that? Ace was aiming right between Pluog's eyes. Another moment, and... BAM! Ace missed just a little, hitting an old ceramic vase. His crumpled fedora fell on the ground, with Ace in it. Arbora, holding some weird ancient device in her hand (now with a brand-new dent), screamed:

- "RUN!".

The shopkeeper gave an order:

- "Angry. Don't let them get away!"

And the shop went silent. There was only frustrated Glitch and unconcious gambler left. Arbora and Pluog started running through the streets, as Hylotl and Novakid began the chase. Small, tight streets were a good distraction, but it just wasn't enough to shake them off. Novakid pulled out his revolver. A gunshot! And anoter one! He shot the whole barrel, but none of these shots hit their target. Screams of pain sounded in the crowd, and with an irritated grunt, Novakid put his revolver back into the holster.

- "Aren't there just too many people today? Can't even land a shot without someone waddlin' in sights".

Arbora finally managed to activate her intercom, and entered an emergency command:

- "Viridis, emergency protocol 9-0-5!"

- "SHUTTLE INBOUND. SENDING COORDINATES. ESTIMATED TIME: 9 MINUTES".

The Hylotl sure took the time prepairing his stuff. Several throwing knives, coated in strange, slightly slimy substance, hit the wall near which Arbora was just a moment ago. Those knives weren't supposed to hit their target - he wanted to scare those two into a dead-end just two streets ahead. But they were quickly surrounded by an angry crowd of pirates. One of them, with hastely bandaged hand, spoke:

- "Looks like you yee'd your last haw, cowboy. Now you've got some really big problems!"

- "You sure tend to get touchy all the time, amigo. It would be saving us a lot of problems if you let us go now, and save you a handful of intact fingers too".

Pirate's face became reddish from anger - "You aren't coming anywhere untill I say so!"

- "So be it then, don't say I didn't warn ya'."

Sounds of fight spread across the streets, and with that - the chase ended. Pluog and Arbora kept running towards the shuttle, and eventually escaped this hellhole of a planet...

- "Did you planned on stealing this from the beginning?!" - Pluog was infuriated.

- "He was selling ssstolen things to begin with, I am not the one who did the crime first".

She was working on the device she got earlier, and didn't want to talk right now.

- "You should have at least TOLD me about your plans. What is that thing anyway?"

- "I don't really know, actually. It seemed valuable at first, but it doesn't look like this piece of junk will do something by itself."

Pluog lost his interest completely.

- "Well, I'll leave smarty things to the eggheads. Just try not to break it, don't want to know what will happen, and definitely don't want to go through all that second time." - he said, leaving the workshop, which is also hangar and reactor room of this spacecraft.

And as the door closed, a big pile of scrap behind it was the only thing that stood out. Collected by Arbora on their way to the Rust-City, it looks like even scavengers thought that it was just a useless trash.

- "One man's trash - another's treasure" - mumbled Floran girl before continuing to work on the artifact.