Flying dark green Hellcats and Excaliburs, the Secret Police make a VERY GRADUAL appearance in Confed space.

They are never loitering around. When you see them they are afterburning towards some unknown objective. If you follow they just say to you “DO NOT FOLLOW US!”. And if you don’t change course instantly they attack you and very likely destroy you. The face of the speaker on the vidcom is covered with a ski-mask.

Later in the game, once you have a cloaking Excalibur, then you can follow them; and what you find is that their objectives are quite mysterious. Rarely a pirate or retro. Often militas or confeds, even though they are not officially enemies of either, of course.

Even after their VERY GRADUAL appearance is complete (by 2671 approx.) they are still much more rarely seen than standard militias and confeds.