In the ship's command center, Shadowsun observed the state of the war across the entire sector.
The deeper they pushed into the Imperium of Man's territory, the harder it became to gather her fleets together. They often had to rely on sublight ships to garrison planets. While redeveloping those planets ensured their logistics, who could guarantee that the Imperium's scorched-earth warfare would not leave them critically short of supplies?
The first planets they had occupied were highly cooperative, and their buildings had remained intact. They became supply bases for Shadowsun's fleet, producing vast quantities of equipment.
As for the planets occupied later, she had not had enough time to transform them. She could only hastily install detectors and warning arrays to track the Imperium's fleets.
The troops stationed there were as good as dead. Everyone knew they could not survive the Imperium fleet's ferocious assaults, yet every one of them was willing to offer up their lives for the Greater Good.
That was the key to how the T'au Empire had survived and prospered in such a dangerous universe. For the Greater Good, everyone would fight with everything they had.
"May the light of the Greater Good illuminate the long road ahead of you..." Shadowsun offered her respect to the soldiers on the frontline worlds. It was an honor to live, but no shame to die. For every T'au and every allied race in the expansion fleet, she had to win.
Shadowsun studied the planets already under attack by the Imperium. Just as they had predicted, the Imperium fleet deployed far outnumbered her own. Yet it was still nowhere near the sky-darkening scale Governor Clark had described, and it relied heavily on stable Mandeville Points for faster-than-light travel.
That was why the red dots on the star map all spread