As for returning them back, he wasn't this kind to do this.

After all he had dealt with these merchants, and they weren't literally working for him.

So he wasn't much obliged in their protection. If not for the current stressing circumstances, he wouldn't care about rapidly solving this problem and would ask the merchants to arrange their own protecting squads.

Yet when his forces reached these invaders, they all resisted and he couldn't get a hostage easily except after hours of fights and many killings.

Despite managing to gain all the goods safely at the end, James wasn't satisfied until he had the news finally of his men capturing a single cruiser as hostage.

"Finally," he sighed, "what he did to them to make them prefer dying than to surrender?" he was speechless at that hidden foe of him. "Relay the orders, I want them squeezed and everything they know must reach me at once," he said while watching the ongoing fights as he casually said, "and kill the rest."

"Roger that," the droid executed the orders and James just waited for the results of the interrogation.

"Rigo and Dora were doing great," he glanced over the other two screens to see the progress of the two grand fleets in the far distance. The two were crushing their enemies and this made him be slightly relaxed.

The tough rock the two faced was smashed a couple of days ago. The alien advanced fleet was finally destroyed, or perhaps disbanded and started to come here to cause some trouble.

"But their travel speed can't make them cross the grand sector from end to end in mere days," James shook his head before adding, "that means that man sent three grand fleets here to stop me, sigh," he shook his head as facing two enemies was hard.

Especially someone who had much power and support.

"Any news from the interrogation?" he asked after six hours of detaining those enemies.

"Not much," the droid shook his head before adding, "they kept saying nonsense talk since they were taken."

"Nonsense?" James suddenly was skeptical, "where are they held?" he suddenly asked.

"Inside some ships," the droid said before adding, "the fleet is heading home to the capital as we speak."

"Good," James smiled before adding, "make the ships carrying all who surrendered break away and disperse in different directions heading far from the empire."

"But…"

"This is a trap, just as we did to them," James said before adding, "also toss away the content you salvaged from their ship."

"But we will lose their info like this," the droid was still late in doing the order, trying to reason with James.

"Just do what I order, Now!" James shouted at him and the droid was instantly stupefied. He turned at once to execute the order while James muttered, "there are times to express your opinions and others that you should keep your mouth shut!"

The droid heard his soft words and took them as a warning. James at first didn't mind his opinions, but sometimes it became out of control when he kept asking like a child in such pressing moments.

As James expected, in less than half a day the ships that left the fleet already all exploded. Luckily even their crew left the ships in time before the explosion.

As for the surrendered fleet crew, they kept mumbling crazy stuff all the time and they didn't give a single useful info to James at all.

"Sigh, as I expected," he shook his head before adding, "from now on, no prisoners," he stressed on this point while the map showing the tracked enemies was having lesser red dots.

"Also send the stolen goods to different sites away from the capital," he said before adding, "also select places that's already empty and without any people living nearby."

"Roger that," the droid just took a hot shower from Rigo when he complained to him about what James said about him.

Rigo was furious as he shouted at his droid: "I sent you there to aid him, not to act like his boss! I swear if he called me asking for your destruction I'll do this by my own hands!!"

He was so furious and the droid just kept silent and nodded. He was just trying to help, and perhaps he went slightly off the limit, but he was trying to correct the weaknesses in his leader.

"Sigh, I should remain silent from now on," the droid decided to keep his mouth shut and not speak unless he was asked.

James didn't know about this, but he found the peaceful droid something relaxing. That droid was getting on his nerves lately.

"The frontline still has no changes," James thought after such a blow to his enemy's plans, the enemy would create a diversion at the frontlines to make him distracted and evacuate the empire off their main fleets.

But nothing happened for the next four days, which made him wonder: "Have you given up already?"

Yet a blow was dealt to him the next day that made him speechless for a moment.

The recent incident was already resolved, yet there was a puzzlement inside James' mind. What he didn't know was that this puzzlement was the aim of his enemy's next attack!

"Emperor, there is a strange update from the capital," the droid said before showing a report that just came from the capital.

"The merchants are asking for justice? They have evidence on the dirty hands of the imperial family against them in recent events?" James read the report as he muttered, "wow, that's a nice move indeed," he laughed before asking:

"What proof do they have?"

"They have footage and recordings of one of the main men chosen by Islinda to deal with things until she returns," the droid said before showing part of the recordings and footage on the screen.

"Alright," James helplessly smiled, "send these to Dora and Rigo to analyze and see if there is any manipulation whatsoever," he then paused before adding, "and fetch Islinda back, it's time for her to take over this mess."