When the Phoenix Declaration was issued and the truth of this estimate was confirmed in 2829, Caanon Weathers requested that the experienced analyst be attached to Strikeforce Red Whirlwind, the elite force of Knights dispatched to crush the Rebellion. Thus Rich was working with the Knights during the operations on Mars when the Cybrid Armada returned and laid siege to Earth itself. Naturally he joined the Human Alliance and continued to operate closely with Caanon, traveling with him to Venus during the "Guardian" operations to rescue survivors. Due to Venus' intense cloud cover and volatile weather which precluded the exploitation of reliable signals and imagery intelligence, Rich elected to orchestrate pickups in the region of Mercury of TDF survivors from the Mercury Watch Force. Taking the callsign "Maestro" he directed the evacuation of the remnants of the Imperial Fleet and military civilians from the area. He also came into contact at that time with a little known band of guerillas harrying Cybrid operations on Mercury, who called themselves the Ghosts of the Antipode. To Maestro's dismay, the Ghosts could not be evacuated before he departed.

He returned with Caanon to Titan and there became acquainted with Trent "Sentinal" Eptusen. His capabilities were greatly appreciated by the group termed Men in Black, and Sentinal issued him the necessary clearances to work in tandem with the team. As an intelligence expert he was obviously quite startled by the actual existence of the MIB and their incredibly advanced capabilities. Several of the team members also tried to teach him the basics of the advanced technology which they worked with, as well as basic piloting skills, but he could never attain their level of proficiency. Eventually frustrated, Maestro decided to take a leave of absence from work on Titan in order to be stationed more closely with units of the so-called 'Jovian Alliance' on Jupiter's moons, who were suffering major strain and losses due to a degraded communication network and lack of access to reliable intelligence. Joining the group known as the Tarazedi Alliance based on Europa, Maestro jury-rigged an intelligence network that proved to be elegantly simple and effective, based on old reliable Imperial tech augmented with Tarazedi equipment and expertise. Managing this intelligence system allowed the Jovian humans to completely turn around their situation and put the Cybrids to flight in battles at Venga Linea on Europa and at Loki Patera on Io. Maestro also became integrated into the Tarazedi culture and served directly with the units on the battlefield for the first time in his career, where he was affectionately dubbed "Petrax" or "the Rock" by his Tarazedi allies.

Coming away from the Io missions feeling more at peace than he had since before the war, Maestro returned to Titan and shared his newfound expertise with the MIB. Cooperating hand-in-glove with Sentinal's team, he formulated short-term security for the Dies Irae as well as longer term operations within the Solar System. It was Maestro's advanced intelligence system which allowed for the intercept of the communication drone from the destroyed ship ISS Phaedrus, wherein Captain Daniela Kelsington revealed the exact location of Prometheus' temple on Pluto, confirming that the Dark Intellect was actually present at the base which MIB had monitored for so long. Maestro assisted in the planning of the Cardinal Spear operation, but remained behind to supervise the satellite reconnaissance and defense of the TDF base at Eskandani Chasm. Before the battle he was finally formally inducted into MIB without ceremony by his friends and comrades in the unit.

After the success of Cardinal Spear and the defense of Eskandani base, Maestro continued to conduct missions which remain classified by Imperial authority. It is known that he searched after the war for past connections among the Ghosts and the Tarazedi, but was unable to locate them. Circa 2845, he participated in the long and increasingly ugly campaigns outside of Sol to permanently eradicate the Cybrid menace via reverse genocide, including his assignment to the Artemis Pursuit Armada. Eventually growing disillusioned with "the Chase", he decided to make a serious change in his life, apparently after stumbling across a lone Tarazedi somewhere out in the vastness of a remote system. After 2855 there is no record of him publicly or secretly, and to the few remaining MIB colleagues who remembered him from the time, it seemed that he had opted to drop completely out of history.