Katrine nodded slightly, but the smile died from her lips. The recent war had been as successful as any of those that preceded it, perhaps more so. The losses had been terrible, especially among the fleet and ground units that had fought the final campaign to take Heliopolis. The planet had been the strongest of the Unaligned Systems fighting the Alliance, and the most technologically advanced. The captured technology would be as valuable as the planet’s considerable resources and industry, though much of value—including the secrets of the great pulsar weapon—had been destroyed in the conquest. The weapon’s inventor had been onboard his creation, and Kat’s people had blown him to atoms along with the gun itself.

At least the fall of Heliopolis had broken the will of the other worlds, ending the war in one bloody stroke.

“There were many heroes in the campaign, Uncle. I fear my contributions have been overstated.”

Vennius smiled. “Overstated? Nonsense. If anything, you deserve more accolades, though I fear we’ve run out of honors to bestow. I have no doubt, Kat, my dearest…one day they’ll add Magnus to your name. I only hope an old man lives long enough to see it.”

Only three commanders had been granted the appellation Magnus in the sixty years since Alliance forces had burst forth from their homeworld. It was an honor beyond honors, and even the imperatrix would bow before one who held it.

Kat shook her head. “You’re far too kind, Uncle. I do only as duty demands.”

“So do all, at least they pretend to do so. Yet few have achieved what you have, despite duty and effort.” A hint of sadness slipped into his voice. “Your father would have been proud of you, Kat. Proud to bursting.”

“It is kind of you to say so, Uncle…and yet I find that as time presses on, I remember less and less of father. Indeed, most of what I know of him is from retellings, not from time I spent with him. In that regard, all I have are vague recollections. There is a lake on the estate, inland from the coast, up in the mountains, pure, cold. We used to go there when he was home on leave. I remember swimming in the early mornings, the sun just rising over the western peaks, the water so cold it nearly took my breath away. It is a pleasant memory, but it seems all too little when so much else is gone.”

“I have many memories of your father as well, Katrine. There has been no one I called brother with more sincerity than your father, though we shared neither mother nor father. To this day I’m grateful to have had such a friend for much of my life.”

“You miss him terribly, don’t you, Uncle? Even after so many years?”