"That new Ero Khan is quite a talent!" Brunhild said with genuine admiration after hearing the latest battle report from Glory's Gate.
She didn't think making a wide detour through the Abyss Nebula was anything remarkable. Now that they had a new star chart, bypassing the enemy's heavily defended front was only sensible. If she were in his shoes, she might have done the same.
Of course, if it had been Jilly or Admiral Farrell, they would probably have been more cautious. By the orthodox principles of warfare, the larger the force you commanded, the less you could afford to take unnecessary risks. And even with a star chart, taking a great fleet through a place like the Abyss Nebula was still a gamble.
Pirates, gangsters, cultists, and other strange outlaw groups; unstable stellar structures and excessive cosmic radiation; and the gigantic leviathan beasts lurking in the nebula's shadows—all of them were unpredictable factors in a military operation.
And wasn't a good commander's most important task to minimize those factors as much as possible before an operation?
That man had just been lucky. This time, he'd won his gamble.
But thinking about it, King Sulwika felt she had been far too arrogant. Given the predators' circumstances, what choice did they have but to gamble?
The truly inspired move had been the sudden turn toward the Daylight Lamp 4 system. That enormous flanking maneuver had struck directly at the most important strategic point in the entire Glory's Gate sector, putting the Imperial forces in an exceedingly awkward position.
Brunhild felt that this maneuver alone was enough to make the young Ero Khan a great general. The subsequent lightning-fast assault on Glory's Gate, which had overwhelmed the small garrison in the system, was merely the work of a competent commander doing what