The Liyaz and Kaiduo star systems lay some distance from Bloodgate Fortress. Even a high-speed fleet traveling day and night would need four or five days to reach them. They were also important transport hubs between the heartland and frontier of the Kaitai Kingdom.
The Katai had invested heavily in development here. The military equipment and defensive strongholds, though not as heavily armed as those at Bloodgate, were still in good order.
Of course, when faced with the Outer Ring Fleet's all-out offensive, the defenders had fled without even destroying the equipment, leaving it all in Earth's hands.
With the equipment in these two star systems as a foundation, they could indeed build a defensive line. Viewed purely on a star map, it even had the makings of strategic depth.
Of course, President Kaith Nihita's ideas were by no means so shallow.
He figured that when they won the war and the Empire declared a ceasefire, if they really managed to hold these two star systems, they could at least carve more than forty star systems away from the Kaitai Kingdom, including two naturally habitable planets.
Those two inhabited planets had a combined population of less than three million, but we could immediately send ten million immigrants there. The big Katai didn't have the money to develop them, but we did. Surely that would qualify as opening up new territory? Wouldn't I, President Nihita, deserve the posthumous title "Martial"?
Mr. Nihita was quite pleased with his own reasoning.
But the officers of the military advisory group fell silent. The group consisted of four generals and dozens of officers of various ranks, and every one of them looked as if they wanted to speak, then thought better of it, then wanted to speak again—but couldn't even manage to arrange their expressions.