And so he was sure this monster move came from the Terases empire, and he was also certain more of such weird things would keep happening here.

So it was better to make his fleets be ready to support any place in any given time. "This fight will turn out to be the first man falls loses," he muttered as he had this feeling this turned to be a street dog fight; a punch for a punch, and the last standing man won!

As he responded timely to the sudden change in the monster wave attacks, another change started to appear.

"Emperor, there are many reports saying they saw strange ships attacking the merchant caravans and disappearing fast," the droid suddenly spoke after two days of stabilizing things on the monsters' matter.

James was thinking about the advancement of his fleets on the three fronts. Right now the arrow he let loose was expanding at the center of the Terases empire.

From the reaction they showed, it seemed they never saw this shot coming. That made his mood be good despite all the bad news he received about the losses caused by the monsters' outrage.

Yet when he stabilized the monsters' tide, an endless stream of merchants came again trying to raise the prices for the new monsters appearing in the newly conquered regions.

After all the newly advanced version of the cosmic monsters was something everyone was craving to get.

Their commodities started to be the best selling materials everywhere. James started to use this opportunity and just sent his instructions to squeeze these merchants dry and get the best benefit of them.

He even thought seriously about taking Islinda off her training and making her deal with this stressing matter.

So when he heard about the reports of attacking merchants, he was enraged. "This man out there… he is playing dirty," he muttered before he said: "Any leads on their bases?"

"No, everytime they appeared and disappeared using hyperjump light speed. When our forces came, they would be long gone," the droid answered.

"Hmm…" James thought for a moment before adding, "what about their aim?"

"They tried to take all the cargo, if not they would make sure nothing of the cargo is left to be salvaged later," the droid replied and James just understood what was going on here.

"Trying to hit me in the heart of my trading empire? Humph," he stood up as he added, "call Rigo and Dora, I'll get the call in the room."

"You should bring Islinda back," Dora was feeling odd that he kept calling her repeatedly recently to take her opinion about different matters. "I never thought she was handling such pressure alone! How did she do it and remain calm and collected?" she said to herself, feeling amazed towards Islinda.

"This time I'm really asking for your help," he smiled and avoided her last remark before adding, "I want to know how to catch them, you have more experience in this field."

"Oh, you mean that…" she understood his meaning as he was talking about her past life as a rebel princess. "Sure, there is always a simple way to catch those slippery sharks."

"Which is?"

"Use a small tracking device in the cargo," she said it was such an obvious thing to think about.

"But…" James hesitated.

"They will easily discover it," Rigo said before adding, "any cargo hijackers know about this simple trick and so they usually check their cargo after any theft."

"That's if they are really thieves," Dora said as she explained, "but from their attitude, they aren't."

James nodded as he said: "I also have this feeling, they came from that man as well."

"But you need to act fast," Dora warned all of sudden and her words made James exclaim in confusion, "I'll move at once, but why the hurry?"

"They aren't thieves, so with time the cargo they'll carry would accumulate until…" she paused and Rigo said: "They will throw the cargo away after each theft later on."

"Exactly," Dora nodded, before adding, "so we have a small window here. Act fast and make sure to hit them all at once, not one by one."

"I understand," James said before closing the call with the two.

"Spread my orders," he said the moment he returned to the deck, "all merchant caravans will be shipped by tracking devices provided by us."

"Should we use our stocks?" the droid asked in confusion.

"Ask Rigo," James let his body fall on the seat before adding, "he'll tell you where to get these devices, and…" he paused as he stressed over this point, "do this fast and don't waste anymore time."

The droid became nervous all of sudden and hurriedly returned to contact Rigo and understand everything calmly from him. After that he started relaying the orders to everyone, and during the next hours all the merchants received a tiny tracking device and they used these at once.

As Dora expected, they weren't thieves. When the first dozen caravans were hit, the tracking devices kept working even for hours.

"Should we attack them now?" the droid asked, but James simply waved his hand, "Not now, just track them and make sure you find their operational bases."

James kept watching their movements, and within a day most of the ships hitting his merchants were tracked.

"Strange, no central base? Then how did they get their intel about the merchant moves?" This was the thing puzzling him a lot. He thought they came with some advanced tech to track his merchants easily.

But with the lack of any base, he became more puzzled!

"Release the orders," James said, "attack everyone and make sure to get some in custody to interrogate properly," he added.

"Roger that," the droid was already preparing many ships ready to target those cruisers. The easiest thing they could make was to detonate these devices.

After all they weren't such simple tracking devices, but James refused as he wanted to take all the good stolen from these merchants.