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News slowly filtered in as every ship in the system enhanced its communications systems to pick up even the faintest signals. They could receive anything that happened to be sent in their direction but couldn\'t send anything out, so it was a bit like watching a docudrama.

Max\'s mind reading was the most successful method of intelligence gathering that they had at the moment, though, as every fleet was using its own encryptions and frequencies. All of the representatives were being kept up to date on their nation\'s activities, and Max noted them all for Nico to send through to the Reavers on Rae 5.

It was late in the evening that he heard a thought that finally made him laugh at the pure insanity of the Rebel\'s plan.

[The Crown Prince has searched the Royal Palace, including the vaults. The System Intelligence isn\'t there. It wasn\'t on Kepler Terminus when we ransacked the host warehouse, so the assumption was that the Royal Palace had taken it away at some point in the past and only left the original warehouse as bait.] The Rebel leader was informed by his assistant.

They would never guess that the Reavers were in possession of such a valuable National Treasure. Max had been there when it left Kepler Terminus, and he still couldn\'t believe it. But it made sense that all of the Imperial Princes would want to gain control of it.

The Original Intelligence still had a lot of influence on System Development within the Kepler Empire, and it was the reason that simply stealing some blood to inject into the citizens of other nations didn\'t spread the System all through the human race.

If they couldn\'t find it, there was a good chance that it would turn on them and cripple entire generations by limiting the activation of their systems. In the worst-case scenario, the AI might turn malicious and convince the System to turn on any host that tried to damage or harm the Original.

Max knew that it was in the form of an autonomous mainframe, made entirely of nanotechnology, with a small humanoid robot that allowed it to interface with the outside world, but unfortunately, he didn\'t know what Mary Tarith had done with it after they left Terminus.

That made the Emperor\'s plan that much more genius. The man himself might be dead now, but his legacy would live on, with only those who had remained loyal to him and those who were allied with them gaining the favor of the System.

"Nico, you know a thing or two about the original accident that spread the system, right? What can you tell me about the warehouse?" Max asked quietly.

"Not much. It was a private lab, owner unknown, managed by a member of my family. Thought that might be obvious because we ran most of the nanotechnology development companies in Kepler. Even on Kepler 142, the branch families still work on new developments." Nico replied.

That brought up something in Max\'s memory, something about his System and Kepler 142 Station, but he couldn\'t quite recall what it was. Maybe it wasn\'t that important because the memory of changing his name, which came just after that, was still as clear as if it had happened yesterday.

He immediately dismissed the thought and focused on what he knew. If they were running the lab at the time of the accident, there was a very good chance that it wasn\'t possible to separate the Tarith Family from the System. It would explain the strange status that they held within the Kepler hierarchy. Normally a Reaver Family would be expelled from the Empire and not continue to have family branches politically active on multiple planets.

Not because of any criminality but out of loyalty concerns. It wasn\'t the greatest statement of loyalty to the Empire to have a large chunk of your family go independent without being renounced by the rest of the family\'s branches.

It would also explain why Mary Tarith got custody. The Emperor likely didn\'t have a choice if he was going to relocate it and keep it away from the Rebels.

Max just wished he could tell someone what he had realized. He could tell Nico, but her Ego was big enough that he didn\'t need to give her more reasons to be proud of her background. She might create a new layer on her "Crazy Pirate" persona that even he wasn\'t ready to handle.

As they waited, news came in that the three largest vessels of the Imperial Compliance Fleet had escaped the trap that had been laid for them, destroying hundreds of smaller vessels and disappearing through a nebula.

The hunt was on for them, as the vessels were damaged, but it hadn\'t turned up anything so far. Everyone was more focused on the initial attacks that would keep the fleet busy enough that they didn\'t rally together to establish a Military Authority that could return the Empire to the status quo even without the Emperor at the helm.

In practice, the Military ran the Empire\'s logistics and security, with the Nobility taking care of paperwork and bureaucracy that kept planets running. Today was intended to change all that, giving the Nobility the military control that would make them the true power in their territories, but Max could tell that it wasn\'t going to be that easy.

To start with, most of them were incompetent idiots who had advanced through life entirely on nepotism.

Secondly, Someone had alerted the fleet, and they weren\'t going where they were expected to. Instead, they were showing up in random systems and attacking foreign fleets, then fading away again as if they had only stopped on their way to another emergency.

The Rebels and the allied nations were putting details of every battle and fleet location up on the map of the Empire, keeping track of potential threats, while Nico relayed the details back to the Reavers.

"I have news from the Cygnus Fleet. These seventy-two systems have been peacefully assimilated." General Kirkland told the Rebels with a smile.

The Cygnus plan was ingenious. They didn\'t attack at all. They waited for the news of the Emperor being attacked and potentially killed by the Princes and then showed up with security forces in the Emperor\'s name, taking over from the local fleets and organizing the whole region under themselves as if they were simply assisting the Emperor in keeping rumors under control like any good ally should.

By the time anyone realized the truth, they would be peacefully assimilated Cygnus Citizens, and nothing at all in their lives would change except perhaps the badges on the security forces.

The plan also had a hidden upside. If the rumors were false, and the Emperor lived and regained control of the Kepler Empire, or most of it, they could play the good ally and simply hand the territory back with a generous payment for their troubles, which would help them take over their depleted neighbors.

Assuming that others hadn\'t beaten them to the punch and attacked their neighbors first.

These backwater Nobles and small nation politicians could learn a lot from Lord General Kirkland and his invasion plan. As far as Max could tell, it was nearly flawless, and Cygnus would win no matter what happened.