No wonder that when Lord Shindgy’s patience finally gave way and he started preparing ships to burn the pirates’ nest down, Markus rushed to Lady Agatha in the search of rescue. Taking advantage of the inimical, almost hostile relations between the Confederation and the Segunate, Markus officially joined the Confederation and so the Segunate would have to unleash a full-scale war to punish the impudent pirates.

Markus’s entry into the Confederation was enthusiastically met by many its members especially those, who still paid a tribute to the pirates’ king. From then the burden of this tribute if did not disappear completely however decreased many times – it was not advantageous for Markus to continue the open racket of his just brought to light political partners. The brigandage in the Confederation’s space began to decline quickly. Markus’s raiders even destroyed for show several privateers (of course not of those that took their refuge in Three Free Worlds). Instead, the corsairs greatly expanded their operations in the space of the Segunate and Protectorate.

Shindgy remained only to grit the teeth with impotent anger, strange though it may seem the Protectorate, on the contrary, did not make a single attempt to finish Markus’s pirates off.

Later, when Colonial Wars were flaring in full swing, many analysts held the opinion that the Protectorate special services deliberately had not touched and even “fed up” Three Free Worlds to have an extra instrument, using which they could shake already unstable situation in the Empire edge worlds. There were some rumors about a secret agreement between Markus and Circle of Advisors. In favor of this speaks the fact that Markus’s pirates made plundering raids on the worlds less loyal to Golden Hundred of the Protectorate, but none of the ships under the flag of those hundred worlds, none of their trading stations had ever suffered from the gentlemen of fortune being under command of Markus Three-eye.