I should have written this out when I wrote the short story, honestly.
Company Name: XHum
Founded: 2095 AD
HQ location: Reagan City, Jefferson colony
Employees: 150,000
FTL Capacity: Yes
Base Capacity: Yes
Purpose: Commercial exploration and exploitation of the Dead Worlds, with an emphasis on salvage archeology
XHum was founded in 2095 by American and Hong Kong entrepreneurs. Corporate legend asserts that the founders (Claire Hedwig and Talia Sung) bribed S/CI to transport themselves, selected employees, their families, and considerable amounts of technological and industrial equipment to Jefferson Colony. The new company rapidly expanded, eventually dominating Jefferson’s orbital and system infrastructure. In 2102, XHum was the first extrasolar megacorporation to successfully pass the criteria needed to operate in the Dead Worlds. The company openly operates on six Dead Worlds, and has grey bases on a dozen more.
The megacorp’s official purpose is to find alien technology, figure out what it does, and reverse-engineer it. It does as much work as possible on-site, both because it’s more efficient and safer for Jefferson Colony that way. Unofficially, XHum smuggles alien artifacts, just like everybody else does. The revenue streams from both are roughly equal.
XHum is considered the gold standard for working conditions in the Dead Worlds. The megacorp takes the position that human beings actually are its most valuable assets, so it is careful to provide its bases and ships with ample supplies of good-quality equipment. This includes weapons: just because there’s no sapient aliens out there doesn’t mean that the Dead Worlds are safe. Plus, training new people is expensive.