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Wade Rusk
The recovery and salvage man who meets you at the wreck, decides you are his apprentice, and teaches you to weld.
Wade Rusk does recovery, salvage and field repairs. His own summary is shorter: if something around here quits moving, he either makes it move again or sells the parts that still do.
He is the first person you meet after the crash, and he is not thrilled about it. You came down on what he describes as the nicest salvage claim Holo Hollow had seen in years, and then climbed out of it alive. He mentions this. He goes on mentioning it, and has said outright that he does not intend to stop.
Where to find him
To begin with, Wade is at the Crash Site, standing over your ship and revising his estimate downward. Once you finish Keep the Change he goes back to running his own yard at Rusk Recovery on the northwest edge of town, and that is where you will find him from then on.
Working for him
Wade hands out most of the early jobs, starting by sending you to his niece Tansy Rusk out at The Jag. Once the Cargo Hold is holding he decides you are his apprentice — not a question, and not much of a ceremony either. By his account it mostly means you get the jobs he would rather not do twice.
He is the one who teaches you Welding, and he is deliberate about what he will let you put a torch to. People bring him things they cannot afford to lose twice, so you spend a long time on his own scrap before you go anywhere near anybody else's property.
At the yard
Rusk Recovery is racked salvage, stripped components, damaged work vehicles waiting their turn, and a workbench somebody genuinely uses — messy, and organised by a man who knows exactly where everything is. You can practise Welding there for as long as you have scrap, and he sells the scrap at two Credits a piece, the same as he would charge anybody.
Talking to him
Ask him about recovery work and you get the nearest thing he has to a philosophy: most of it is patience, a wreck will eventually tell you which half of it is still worth something, and he does not build anything from scratch — he makes what is already lying around work again, or work as something else.
Praise is rationed. Do a job properly and he will acknowledge it in about eight words and then move on to the next thing.