The Federation fighter jumped into an asteroid belt at the edge of the Procyon system and lied to drift to not generate a heat signature. The time when Armada or even the Vanguard forces could afford to monitor every corner of the system had long gone, but it didn’t mean that an unwanted encounter was completely impossible. Especially considering the fact that a few of the neighboring systems were under control of the Hermes Block.

Ingvar turned on the receiver and tuned it to 1420 MHz. Then, thinking it was too obvious, turned on the second one and tuned it to 9120 MHz. After preparing to receive signals, he went for a cup of tea. The wait lasted almost two hours, then he finally intercepted a cryptogram at the cesium frequency. He smiled while the receiver automatically calculated the location of the signal source to the nearest one arc second. There was a planetoid in that direction, two astronomical units away from Ingvar’s “Tiger.” Ingvar could hardly have been close enough to the pirates’ rendezvous point if it hadn’t been for the tip he’d received.

He deciphered the cryptogram and found out the time of the meeting. He still had about an hour. Ingvar turned on the warp engine and wearily pushed a few buttons. He made sure that the machinery was in order, turned on the shield and came out of warp mode at just the right place.

And just at the right time, too: the pirates and traders from the Hermes Block have already docked their transporters to each other to exchange the goods. A couple squads of pirate fighters and three merchant frigates were standing on guard. Ingvar bought himself a few seconds with a timely cloaking. It was just enough time to take out the engine of the pirate transport ship with a shot from the Gauss cannon and launch an EM missile at a Hermes Block ship.

Three seconds later, the pirates opened fire on the “Tiger.” Ingvar’s ship shook noticeably from a missile hit. He was holding his fire in favor of maneuvering; he would not have survived the battle for even ten seconds otherwise. The battle itself, however, lasted half a minute. Ingvar steered the ship away from another missile, hit the frigate, slightly damaging its shield, and at that moment space lit up with a dozen warp jump rifts. Ingvar immediately turned on cloaking mode, realizing that his opponents would soon have no time for him.

The pirates were prepared for many scenarios, but not for the Imperial warships appearing in their space. The Imperial forces took out two frigates in five seconds, and their opponents realized it was time to escape. They began preparing their engines for a warp jump, but they only managed to end up in open space. The Imperials destroyed the pirates’ and traders’ escape pods, then took the transport ships in tow. While most of them were preparing for a warp jump with the captured ships, others were stripping the surviving modules from the wrecks. Before they flew away, the Imperial commander said two words to Ingvar: “Not bad.”

Ingvar hurried to get out of the system, and then he went to the nearest bar now that his account was loaded with a considerable amount of credits. He now realized that he had been paid considerably less than his work was worth, but remembering that there is no use crying over spilled milk, Ingvar decided that it was better to be moderately wealthy and alive than to end up in one of the escape pods of the greedy traders from the Hermes Block.

---

The Emperor stood near the virtual panel and planned the operations of the special forces. He had a decent amount of forces under his control now, but far, far less than he would have liked. Yes, he’d managed to nearly double his pre-war shipbuilding speed, but another dozen cruisers wouldn’t save him when the Armada would crush Sparta. His factories barely had enough manpower, not to mention light industry products. The New Empire still outnumbered his forces and wouldn’t think of handing power over to him. The neutrality treaty with Ariadne would end in a few months. The Emperor has solved only one of his many problems so far: the Inquisition operatives may be better qualified than his current subordinates, but his special forces are far more numerous. Perhaps in a year or two the Templars will be forced to recognize his authority. Now he had to decide which of the current problems to solve first. At this moment, the Emperor was unceremoniously torn from his thoughts.

“Your Highness!” the door speaker immediately uttered after the Emperor turned it on. “Operation Gamma-190 has been a success. Would you like a report in person?”

“If it is worth my attention,” The Emperor replied coldly. “Come inside, colonel.”

Quickly reading the Emperor’s mood, the colonel proceeded to report:

“Pirate and Hermes transport ships were captured without loss of our personnel or ships. The pirate cargo turned out to be one hundred and fifty men. Almost half are of Imperial descent, more than a third Jericho. All but eighteen had college degrees, some of them engineers. Ninety-eight have volunteered to work for us. The merchants were carrying parts to sell to the pirates. The total value of the cargo is about forty thousand standards, which is much more expensive than the value of the pirate captives. Immediately afterward, we checked the pirates’ shipboard logs and concluded all but one of the captives were more of a distraction from the true goal of the exchange, a mad Jericho man. He refuses to talk to us.”

“I will question him personally.” The Emperor’s voice was calm. “Prepare cell number seven. Tell the Jericho man that he’s about to be interrogated.”

“At your orders, Your Highness!” colonel quickly responded and went to carry out the order.

Half an hour later, the Emperor entered a richly furnished Jericho-style room. The old Jericho man was not bound. He was looking up at the ceiling to where the hatches for the turrets were located, ready to put the guest in his place. The red light of the lamps barely illuminated the Jericho man’s pale, wrinkled face and glinted slightly off his spacesuit. Many of the old man’s implants were damaged, the ones in his eyes occasionally stopped glowing. The prisoner looked surprised when he saw the Emperor enter:

“You? You were supposed to die like a dog back on Earth!”

The Emperor chuckled: “Greetings to you, one of the Oracles of Bartle. I do not know your name. Behave yourself, and I may not be inclined to decide that your knowledge is useless, and you are fit only as a laborer at the iridium mine on a Bion. If you want to ask why I’m alive, I’ll tell you that I had no right to die on Earth.”

“You can’t intimidate me, Nameless one. You should know that.”

“I know how you store your memory, Oracle. I do not need you to be alive to get the information I seek. Even if you block your implants, most of the data still can be extracted from them. Moreover, I do not need Jericho to be destroyed right now. I may even let you go and not pursue if you tell me what I want to know.”

Jericho man’s wrinkled face cringed and then he coughed. “Blast it! You are not the scourge of the Direktorium. Not the ruler who has denied his name. You are General Ironside, his great-grandson.”

“I see you figured it out. So, I want to know everything you know about the Precursors. Keep in mind that if you refuse to talk, many of your brothers are likely to die, and in the end I will still get most of the knowledge one way or another.”

“You’re insane. This knowledge is not meant for the human mind. It will burn out your sanity, son of a murderer,” said the Jericho man. “And some of it is beyond perception, anyway.”

“Stop the recording,” Ironside said, but ten minutes later, the Emperor reactivated the recording protocols.

“So, for the last time, I am waiting for information from you. I’m starting to grow weary with this conversation.”

Not a muscle moved on Jericho man’s face, but the cameras picked up the change in the brightness of the glow of his eye implants.

“I will tell you of the gods. Listen, you who walks the path of ego.”