Kat sat silently for a few seconds, pondering the older man’s words. They were bold, and they tread close to challenging Alliance orthodoxy. Conquest was the way, the only way. So it had been since the first days when the former slaves of Palatia burst forth to take their revenge for a century of subjugation and despair. War was the only policy the Alliance knew, military strength the unquestioned priority of its ruling class. Katrine had been brought up in that culture, and she had lived and breathed its disciplines. She understood it all…yet she respected Vennius’s intelligence, and she saw the logic in his words.

“But sir, the Confeds are far less aggressive than the Union. They’re paralyzed by their republican government, pulled one way by corrupt politicians and another by a soft and spoiled populace. Perhaps the Council is correct. If we’re able to seize half their territory, the relative size difference between the Union and us would swing in our favor. And if they’re forced to face the bulk of the Confederation’s strength, their own forces will be badly attrited by the end of the conflict. They will be weak in victory, even as we will be strong.”

“That’s the Council’s rationale. But I fear we’ll discover they are less easily defeated than we expect. They have weaknesses, no doubt, but their navy is strong, their Marines a force to be reckoned with. They’re different than us, their priorities strange to our way of thinking. We’ve paid little attention to their history, but I’ve read several accounts of the past wars they fought with the Confederation. They were outnumbered in all of them, yet they’ve survived the Union threat longer than the Alliance has existed. I believe they’ll fight to the end, and that it will be far more difficult to conquer them than the Council anticipates. And I suspect the Union knows as much. Why else would they seek our aid, offer to share the spoils?”

“Perhaps you’re correct, Uncle…and yet it doesn’t matter—orders are orders. They are to be obeyed, not questioned.”

“You speak the truth. Which is why you’re here, why I’m giving you these orders.” His tone made it clear if he’d had any other option, he would have taken it.

Kat nodded. “Very well, Commander-Maximus.” It seemed to her the acceptance of such orders should be done formally, even by one who used to call the issuing officer Uncle Taks. “I will do all I can to see these orders successfully executed.” She frowned a little. Vennius’s words were still going through her mind…and she was seeing the sense in them. And the success of her mission would bring the Alliance another war, the biggest one in its history. More dead comrades.