Starfield’s Surgical Strike is a Freestar Collective quest to track down Maya Cruz. After uncovering her facade at the clinic and getting blown up in the face by her explosives, it’s revealed that she went into hiding at the Abandoned Asteroid Mine in the Eklund Excavation Site CL25. So off you go with your ship to an entire different galaxy just to track her down. Though it’s not hard to pinpoint her location, the mines are dark and crawling with mine turrets, explosives, and some tricky obstacles.
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Starfield’s Surgical Strike: How to Find Maya Cruz in the Abandoned Asteroid Mine
Before handing you the steps to find Maya, just keep in mind that this area is full of crafting and gear containers. However, at the moment, it’s full of traps and deadly robots. That makes looting kind of hard.
Once you get to the bottom of the mines, there’ll be a chance to deactivate everything through a computer. Everything will still be available for looting after you’re done with Maya; just don’t forget to do a double-take later.
| Image | Step |
|---|---|
 | Dock the ship on the Elkund Excavation Site CL25. |
 | Walk past the first few doors, which can be opened using the switches. |
 | When you reach this open area in Starfield’s Surgical Strike, go down the stairs to the right. |
 | At the end of the hallway, there’s an Emergency Cuttable Wall. Heads up, this is not just decor. |
 | Shoot the yellow pins (in my case, I had to do it twice) to break them. You can also use a Cutter tool on these. |
 | Use the elevator to descend further into the mines. |
 | Clear the area of those tiny yet deadly monsters. Then, look for a Remote Robot Control Computer behind a container. |
 | Activate the Unit without recalibrating its friend/foe settings to get a robo-friend. |
 | Take down the robo-dog on the second floor and digipick the computer. This unlocks the door downstairs. |
 | Take one more elevator to reach the bottom of the mines. Why exactly Starfield’s Surgical Strike made you descend to the bottom to now climb remains a mystery. |
 | The lower floor is crawling with robotic enemies and turrets. If you’re a low-level idiot like me, use your companion as bait while climbing the stairs. Up there, there’s a computer to deactivate the mining turrets. |
 | Finally, there’s one more emergency cuttable wall to dispose of. Behind the door, there’s Maya. Bringing her down won’t be too hard if your health isn’t already depleted by those mining turrets’ relentless lasers. |
Starfield: Should You Spare or Kill Maya in Surgical Strike?
Once Maya has been taken down, she will stay on her knees, giving you a choice: should you kill or let her go?
Sparing or killing Maya in this quest doesn’t have much of an impact on the story. In the end, you get an Encrypted Slate with confidential information that’ll carry the quest further either way.
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You should choose to align more with your character’s values and background. If you’re the ruthless kind of character, then finishing off Maya in Starfield’s Surgical Strike seems like a solid option. Are you going for more of a paragon? Perhaps sparing her is the better choice. In any case, don’t expect a thank you note anytime soon. In fact, she’ll be making fun of you quite soon.
I play a character with more or less strong moral values, but her mining turrets gave me way too much trouble to even entertain the thought of forgiveness. Plus, I got some nice EXP and loot from killing her: the Arc Welder heavy weapon and some ammo for it.
