"..."
Everyone around Emily furrowed their brows a little deeper and lowered their gazes to the ground. It wasn't mockery, nor was it anger. Rather, it was a complicated mix of reactions—some were genuinely chewing over Zuha's words, replaying them again and again in their minds, while others clenched their teeth tightly, overwhelmed by a familiar, suffocating sense of powerlessness.
Nearly three full centuries had passed since the Empire first received fourth-grade planetary displacement equipment. In all that vast stretch of time, fewer than six hundred planets had been successfully relocated to orbit around Nihari.
And yet, among the entire economic output of all forces subordinate to His Majesty Robin Burton, the single greatest contributor—by an overwhelming margin—was precisely those six hundred planets.
The Cradle and the Grave, each boasting close to four thousand planets of their own?
