Opportunity is presented to Admiral Cordelia. Imperium’s Presiding Executor Gaketork sends emissaries to establish communications with her, and she responds by installing a comm system aboard the executor’s transport. The Imperium governor, who has become sentient, uses the new comm system to send her critical data.

Cordelia shares the governor’s information with newly assembled Trident squadron commanders. She directs the commanders to scour another executor’s territory and free suborned worlds of mercenary Radags and Krackus overseers.

Imperium executors are incensed at the numerous returns of empty freighters and savaged peacekeepers from their territories. Many suspect a traitor is leaking sensitive information to the conclave, and they hunt for the culprit.

Far away from the empire, Julien supports the uplift of relatively undeveloped races. A Yeret-inhabited world near the Queller anomaly requires additional water, and slinging water ice asteroids at the planet for annuals will suffice.

Supporting other races proves problematic. The Monkfreds, a symbiosis of two telepathic races, struggle to survive. On their home world, hostile predators target the young. The plan to send the matriarchs, their calves, and their riders to other planets is failing.

During rescue of Monkfreds from an inhospitable environment, the conclave finds burning wreckage. The matriarchs used the heat to keep the calves, the riders, and themselves from freezing to death. The wreckage is identified as Utilimat. Now the question remains: Who destroyed the warships meant to protect the Monkfreds?