July 17th, 8254

You sit at the head of the conference table in the Ahywa Sofia's conference compartment with your tablet ready to hand. Your command staff sits around the table. XO Mac Tire sits at the far end, with Lieutenants Fish, Vickers, and Knight to your right. On your left are your new new Lieutenants.

The first is one Eli Aslett Maxim, your new Communications officer. He hails form a cadet branch of that noble house but inherited all of the pride and some of the decadence and eccentricity of a 'proper' noble. You expect minor friction between him and any 'lowborn' crew. But someone, and you suspect a relative of his somewhere, arranged for the Ahywa Sofia to receive a Navy-style upgrade to her shield generators: rapid reset modules. Word arrived on the same shuttle at LT Maxim and both LT Knight and LT Vickers were rubbing their hands in glee at the increased performance.

The next is Susannah Clark, the Ahywa Sofia's new Medical officer. Hailing from the oceanic hell wold of Naulor, famed for it's never ending typhoons and unstable tectonics, she has served in the military of the Star Empire for the past fifteen years, working her way up from private to medic to commissioned medical officer. LT Clark also hold her beliefs close to the surface and around her neck. A Star Empire Red Lion, rampant, chipped, and battered, shares a chain with her old Royal Marine dog tags. You had quietly checked her records, as true-believer Imperialists tend to also be Body Purists, but you find that is not the case with LT Clark. She also was mentioned in dispatches in engagements against the golrak on multiple occasions. You suspect she transferred to the Surveyor's Corps to stay 'in the field' instead of being moved back aboard a hospital ship or to a fixed medical installation.

Past her sits Quartermaster Easom, multiple tablets to hand and fingers tapping away composing what you suspect to be yet another report on something or other. You clear your throat and start the meeting.

“I suppose we are all here unless the Office of Ship Manning has managed to find and teleport a Gunnery Officer aboard. I'll keep this brief as I'm sure we all have better things to be doing to get this ship back in the void. I've read, or at least skimmed, all of your pre-departure reports so unless something has come up we can skip or skim that material. Questions and comments?”

XO Mac Tire asks the obvious to start the discussion.

“Do we have movement orders or a departure date?”

“Four days from today, with an itinerary of five systems for First Wave scouting.” You pause to activate the holographic map in the center of the table. “The colonization of the Clouwell system has isolated this cluster of stars here. So far they only have numeric designations, so we get the job of poking our noses in and seeing what's where. We do have naming rights when we send in the first wave reports to go with the hazard pay. Clouwell has two unexplored Warp Jump points headed in the general direction of the cluster, so we have our pick of entry points at least. Your thoughts LT Fish?”

“Scan them both and then pick one to jump from. With any luck the systems on our itinerary will have minimal inter connectivity, thus cutting down on the number of jumps we need to map and make. I doubt that we'll walk into a 'ring' arrangement, but at least we won't need to make more then twelve jumps. Looking at the distances, and assuming slow transits all around, that's a maximum of one hundred and eighty days.”

Quartermaster Easom clears his throat, “Six months is just about the limit of our standard shipboard consumable supplies. We'll need to top off in Clouwell before departure, and possibly break the operation down into phases, returning form resupply between each.”

“Heard and noted Supply. Navigation, we'll need a constantly updated 'fastest safe way home' to use for resupply. I'd prefer to keep a month of consumables in storage as a reserve, so let's plan on breaking the operation into at least two phases. Any other questions or comments?”

LT maxim raises a hand to signal for attention.

“Go ahead LT Maxim.”

“How frequently will we be sending in reports sir? Per warp jump, per system, or on return for resupply?”

“Per jump and per system I think. Per warp jump will just contrarian the warp jump information, and the system report will cover the system and any warp jump points. Should be standard template reports in general.”

“FTL comm linked to the local Surveyor's Corps HQ, of course Sir.”

“Anything else?”

You let your eyes drift around the table but there are no more questions or comments.

“Very well. Meeting adjourned.”