Once they arrived at the rogue planetoid they'd been hard at work. Uta had called the field of asteroidal debris Marée, since it was subject to tides, but its dispersed nature made building a colony both easier and more difficult.

Their ship Marita drifted amongst the planetary fragments, and far away, a streamer of drives showed that ships were coming as quickly as possible. Some of them were old friends come to help with the project, while others were new business partners drawn by the untold wealth in metals and volatiles. Still others were a danger, for Marée was a flag in the sky which called to every Corps probe and ship, as well as the fleets from the inner planets. There was money to be made in the belt, and like dogs to torn flesh, the pack would soon be growling at the gate.

In the meantime they had to build habitats for the arriving colonists from Below, match military might with an unscrupulous Earth and Corps, gather what scientific data they could from the rapidly changing field, and dream of a long term goal.

The weeks before they burst through the plane of the solar system and went above it were going to be busy. They would need all their skills to weather the coming storm.