Novels2Search
Aegis
Chapter 80: Forging Onwards

Chapter 80: Forging Onwards

You consider trying to recruit more colonists from Dagda, but the governor was somewhat grumpy when you collected almost 50,000 volunteers from his people. Given the size of the eventual colony, you would be gathering no fewer than 500,000 people over the next three to five years. With Dagda's population stagnant at around five million people, being a deathworld and all, before you had a trade outpost set up, you figure he would scream bloody murder at you trying to hire a tenth of his total population.

Viking might be a viable source of warm bodies, given its more developed status, but you still need a partner to help set up and run all of the planet-side infrastructure that you are less than familiar with. Likewise, the salvaging and asteroid-mining operations are a little outside your usual skillset, and you don't feel like tethering Jace to the world indefinitely.

You decide to open negotiations with the Imperial Navy, in particular their procurement offices on Viking. They will probably claim quite a few of the Imperial Hulks, but you can't man the bulk of them anyway. And with Jace putting the ones you do get to keep back together, you figure to have a small but elite fleet. You set the dataslate aside and give Jace the go-ahead to begin pulling components to complete the Terra Incarnadine, but he wavers for a moment.

"I know that look Jace. What's up?"

"Well, We can get the components we need from hulks of purely Imperial origin, but some of the chaos hulks are considerably older, and are of considerably better construction. It would take some extra time, and a few extra blessings, but..."

"You can go ahead, If and only if you take Yasha and a platoon or two of armsmen with you. She can help you tell which bits are actively possessed, and the armsmen will help keep the rats off your back if something does pop up."

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Kudo would be better, why not him?"

"Availability. He is going to be busy sending and receiving astrotelepathic messages."

Three Days Later…

You, Zheeves, and Mu'randa are sitting around a conference table discussing the possibility of a colony in the system. Zheeves and Mu'randa will be the ones drawing up the actual contracts, and putting in all of the proper lawyer-speak bits, but you want to keep a finger on the pulse of things.

Mu'randa finally throws up her hands after tripping over the system name for the umpteenth time. "Can't we think of a better name? After all, we are colonizing the place, we should get to name it."

Zheeves shrugs, "I can set the paperwork in motion to do so. Any ideas on a name boss?"

"I'm thinking Riptide for the system, given the state of the Inner Cauldron, and Oasis for the world. I'm striking out on the moons though."

Mu'randa frowns for a moment. "If I'm getting my High Gothic right, how about Sororita for the third moon, and Helia for the fourth?"

"That works for me. Zheeves, your call on the inner two moons."

"Pancake and Waffle?"

You and Mu'randa both about fall out of your chairs laughing at the shear incongruity of the names. It's better than the world that got named 'SodAllAgain' by a bored Explorator with a broken keyboard.

Your laughter is interrupted by the strident chirp of an incoming priority message. You pull yourself together and hit the accept call button on the holoterminal. "Von Sebastion here, go ahead."

"Jace here. Were getting an automated distress beacon from the surface of NGC-2051 1-4, the ice moon. The catch is we don't have anyone down there."