As a border region near the Abyss, the Blacklaurus Sector had few habitable planets, but its mineral resources were inexhaustible. It was practically made for labor camps.
And that was exactly what it was. This star sector had a mere 150 billion inhabitants, yet it supplied more than twenty percent of the metallurgical products needed by the vast, diverse heavy and military industries of the enormous Galactic Empire.
It was fair to say that the diligence of the Blacklaurus Sector's working people formed the most important foundation for the Tirillo people's expedition across the stars.
However, considering that 100 billion of the sector's 150 billion documented inhabitants were slaves—"talking livestock"—perhaps another description was more fitting. It was easy to imagine that the glorious achievements of this thousand-year interstellar expedition had been steeped in the ash of disposable lives.
Of course, the Empire's lords weren't so thickheaded as to put their important shipyards and arms factories in this border sector. Livestock could be made to mine, but they couldn't be trusted to forge swords. The Tirillo people understood that much.
In short, the roughly processed metal products from the various labor camps were sent to the Empire's industrial regions along three main routes and four branch routes. These were known as the Three Steel Roads and the Four Steel Paths.
Yu Lian had chosen Steel Path No. 4, the most winding, longest, and most remote of the branch transport routes.
Starting from the T92 Smelting System in Blacklaurus, near the Abyss, the route passed through sixteen mining and metallurgical systems along the sector's outer rim, went straight through the Diamond Nebula into the Sumoe Sector, then turned and wound its way through four more sectors before finally reaching the heavy industrial base in the Empire's home sector, Xilan.
Although it was