"This is no longer a simple frontier foothold."
"No," Aurelian replied. "It stopped being simple quite a while ago."
The elder looked from the projection back to Aurelian.
"There must be dangers hidden in all this."
"There are," Aurelian said honestly. "The Kharov are still nearby, and eventually they'll respond to what we've done. Mournveil has unstable regions and space beasts. Helion Bastion Twelve still contains sealed sections we haven't opened. There are old Vhaloric systems and technologies I don't fully understand yet, and not every awakened machine accepted the new order peacefully."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"But none of that changes what this place is worth."
Cassian nodded.
"No region worth holding has ever been free of danger."
Another military elder spoke up then. His voice was calm, but it carried the confidence of someone who had spent most of his life dealing with frontier problems.
