Badger is right, to an extent. In this environment nothing would be gained by making dangerous enemies, if you know there is a chance of retaliation, even from another direction it is a lost cause. Hence it would benefit us if we were to get close to someone like Lepus.
Orion isn't known for being strong even if they have many contacts, they're not enough if we're talking about allies. But, we don't actually need to do anything ourselves. As long as we make what connections we have clear, it should be enough to keep people from deliberately messing with us.