You cock an eyebrow at Jace. "Do you want to lead the team, or do you want to delegate this?"

Jace throws his head back and hashes the air with his laugh. "I live for the chance to explore the unknown. I'll lead the away team."

You grin, for you know just how the allures of the unknown call to a man. For Jace it's looking for new things. For you, its finding things that mankind has forgotten. "Alright, take a couple of enginseers with you, just in case. I'll page Bosun Mabis, and have him assign you a squad or two of armsmen for protection and as extra hands.

The shuttle takes off half an hour later. You decide that you miss the Swallow, but you gave it to Zheeves along with the Aegis. You shrug, and make a mental note to acquire a replacement for the Terra Incarnadine. Two actually. One for 'court dress' occasions, full of creature comforts and the expected ostentatious displays of wealth. The second one armed and armored to the teeth, and ready for any situation that might arise. While you await Jace's results, you spend several hours with Zheeves and Mu'randa working on Oasis' Colonial Charter, and drafting (and redrafting) a missive to the local Imperial Fleet Procurement Office on Viking.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The obvious kind of colony to establish is an industrial colony, focused on extracting the mineral resources found in Riptides' Asteroids. You know the Imperial Navy is going to want to put in a fleet station to repair and re-launch ships from the massive ship graveyard in the outer system, so you include the provision that the construction and operation of such, if desired, is their responsibility. You also include a notation that the Ordo Xenos has taken an interest in the Xenos hulls in the system, and that you intend to leave them untouched until such time as directed otherwise.

Your group is most divided over what to do with the immediately salvageable hulls. Zheeves is in favor of not mentioning them to the Navy, finding crews and captains for them, and putting them into service at once. This would keep them in Von Sebastion hands, and at negligible cost compared to acquiring such a number of hulls in the future. Mu'randa is in favor of giving some of them to the Imperial Navy, as an inducement to back the colony, and to limit the immediate expenditure of Von Sebastion resources. She points out that founding the colony is likely to eat away quite a significant portion of House Von Sebastion's current profit margin, possibly as much as thirty percent. If the Navy bought in some of the hulls, that amount would go down.

You call a break for the day when Jace calls in with his initial survey report, and it is quite heartening: the beacon appears to be from a crashed shuttle. The make and model are less than clear, as it is still buried in the ice, but it is definitely Imperial in origin.