As Morrigan predicted, you awaken back in your private cabin aboard the Aegis with the Mother, Father, and Brother of all Hangovers. The overhead light hurts your eyes and everything is too loud, but your clock is chiming out high noon and the communications relay is blinking with recorded messages. You half stumble half crawl out of bed and head for the washroom.

One long shower, detox pill, and a fresh set of clothing later you feel better, if not your usual self, and you sit down at the communications relay to start going through your messages and the paperwork that has cropped up since you passed out last night. Flipping a mental coin, you decide to start with the messages. You reach over, dump in your password and hit playback.

"Jace here. Repairs are slightly ahead of schedule, and I've got the Life Sustainer back up and running at full capacity. Technical details are appended, but the short version is that I needed to replace and re-sanctify the water supply to the hydroponics bay.

In related news, we're ready to go ahead and install the Sunsear Laser Turrets over the next two weeks or so, and after that the Aegis should be ready for her shakedown cruise. Enginseer Primus, clear."

Excellent news indeed, if Morrigan and Zheeves can line up a crew and contract. But there are two messages left to play, so you shrug and hit next message.

"XO Zheeves here Sir. Morrigan Ni Danann has been added to the roster as your Bosun, and Jace Echo as Enginseer Primus, and both have begun to take care of their duties with alacrity.

Bosun Morrigan has requisitioned Cargo Bay 7 for the purposes of crew training, and has started to recruit department heads and so forth. I've approved the majority of them, pending background checks. She also claims to know a good Helmsman and Master of Ordinance, and I've sent their resumes and dossiers to your desk for review. Unless you disprove or their background checks come up sour, I'll hire them by the end of the day

Enginseer Primus Jace has informed me that the Life Sustainer is back at full capacity, and the shipboard air does indeed seem cleaner, and the hydroponics-grown food better-tasting. Given that the Voidsmen's quarters are ready to receive crew, I've gone ahead and inserted the conversion of Cargo Hold 1 into a Treasury room into the work orders, and Jace assures me that it will be completed by the time we are ready to sail.

In other news, you are slated with an interview with House Saurlance for both a Navigator and Astropath contract at four PM shiptime. Being a Nomadic House, they have one of each available, and a worthwhile incentive to take the two as a pair. I should have a list of prospective contracts by the end of the day as well. XO Zheeves, clear."

Well, that is a batch of good news, and you check the paperwork on your desk, quickly sorting out the resumes and dossiers for the Helmsman and Master of Ordinance, and set them in one pile. The second pile you create contains the flowery letter of introduction and sketch-dossiers from House Saurlance, alongside a relatively small intel briefing on the Navigator and Astropath in question. with that sorted, you hit the play key to hear your third and final message.

"Bosun Morrigan here Sir. Department heads are shaping up nicely and each will be responsible for filling out their own departments. Jace has managed to run up an outstanding set of augmetic fingers for me. Doc, I mean Chief Medicae Berach is ready in install them as soon as I can spare the time. Given that I'll need to re-learn how to use my left hand essentially from scratch, recovery will be a few weeks. Morrigan, clear."

Nothing particularly notable there, but the report was worth hearing if for no other reason than to assure yourself that Bosun Morrigan is on top of her new duties. With the messages done, you turn to the piles of paperwork sitting on your desk. After the sorting that you had done earlier, the smallish stack of notices form various of the new department heads, along with their readiness and efficiency numbers are easily worked through and filed away as needed, needing only a half-dozen acknowledgement signatures. The House Saurlance paperwork takes a fair bit longer, but contains a few nuggets of worthwhile information.

The Navigator in question is one Yasha Saurlance and the name pokes up memories of your trip to the edge of the Kania Maw to drag the Aegis back to port. that had been a harrowing journey, but the reward has, so far at least, been eminently worthwhile. If this Yasha was the Navigator for that trip, then your respect of her has risen notably. You quickly confirm this by checking the intel packet and decide that, unless the Astropath is thoroughly unsatisfactory, you want Yasha Saurlance as your Navigator.

With this in mind, you turn to the information on the Saurlance Astropath. Navigator houses do not usually offer the services of Astropaths, despite both being psykers. More than that is outside your knowledge at the moment, although you make a mental note to find out more about psykers at a later date. After wading through the vast majority of the background on Vir Saurlance's life, you come across an oddity that perhaps explains things: both Vir and Yasha took part in the Kania Incursion, the same skirmish that had broken the Aegis back, and Vir was press ganged into the local Astropathic choir to send the distress message out.

You decide that that particular interesting bit of information deserves more investigation at a later date, and check the clock before heading to the dresser to pick up your formal clothes. It’s time for the negotiations to begin.

Multiple hours of boring diplomacy later…

You sigh and rub your temples as you make your way back to the landing pad and the shuttle back to the Aegis. The negotiations had gone quite well indeed, and if your first few contracts prosper, you may even be able to leverage your new relation with House Saurlance for Navigators for future ships. The package deal had seemed odd, and House Saurlance was pushing it a tad too eagerly, so you had used that to score a few more concessions than you thought you could have, and pry a bit more information free in the process. It turns out that Yasha and Vir are actual siblings, not just fellow House members, and that the package deal was as much to relieve some stress from the Matron of the House as to get good value for their services. That will have some interesting implications for later, but that will keep.

Once back aboard the Aegis, you return to your cabin and sigh at the new stack of paperwork left on your desk. One is the detailed schematic of the Aegis, along with a summary for your review from Jace. The next is the Helmsman and Master of Ordinance paperwork from earlier, plus a note from Zheeves that the background checks on them have come back clean, and that Helmsman Frank Hopkins and Master of Ordinance Simo Soro have been added to the roster.

The last is a short list of prospective contracts, also from Zheeves. The vast majority are rather dull, but essential to building up a good reputation. Zheeves has also tucked a note at the end of the list indicating that other contracts are available pending the successful completion of this batch.