Team Fugazi was called to a mission briefing at the residence of the Mace, outside the dome of Velke City proper. Their mission was to infiltrate the Imperial Hatchetship Kraak using the identities of captured Imperial spies. The spies were engages in technology espionage on Gefe.

The Paradroid took them to the vicinity of the wormhole, suffering minor damage in the gaseous nebula while doing so. Drake, Trilby, Sharris, Treesh and Ezreal boarded the Iron Fist while Tok advised that there were mechanical problems aboard the Paradroid that required his attention. He would meet the team at Spicer VII after the mission.

Drake transmitted the stolen mission codes through the Wormhole. There was a long wait while the Imperials checked the code, but they were allowed through and instructed to dock immediately.

As they debarked from their ship, Treesh was unable to avoid hearing the psychic emanations from the four squadrons of cybernetic Dart fighters hanging from racks in the ceiling. The flight deck was filled with troop transports, including one cavernous one that was much larger than any other.

They were met on the Flight Deck by a group of three mBari, one with more elaborate tattoos than the others. His name was Mwanje. He was armed with a disk macrocannon, which Drake immediately set his eye on. The team was escorted to a stateroom, where they were locked in.

Finally Mwanje returned and took them to meet the Captain of the ship. His name was Petar Boyle. The team gave him their cover story, which he appeared to believe. He revealed that they had a Guild fighter pilot as prisoner, and told them that Mwanje had been unsuccessful getting any information out of him. Drake offered his services when he found out that the pilot was Vasil Michailov, the nephew of Guild President Val Markala.

The master plan was to make Michailov think that the team were actually a strike force from the House of Dha. They would be rescuing him from the Hatchetship and bringing him back to the Guild. In fact, they were actually Imperial spies and would turn him back over to Captain Boyle. But in fact this was a double ruse and they would rescue him after all. This, however, would ‘explain’ any suspicious activities by the team and defuse any suspicions that the Captain or his mBari security officer had.

Captain Boyle was reluctant to let the prisoner out of his cell into Drake’s custody, but agreed to let them interview him. The team was escorted back to their quarters and locked in for the night.

Meanwhile, Ezreal had stayed on board the Iron Fist, hiding in a cupboard. He heard people swarming all over the ship, opening panels, poking things with screwdrivers. He used Ghost Walk to spy on them while they worked. After a while they all left, but one solitary engineer returned after mealtime. Ezreal turned on his fear power and she fled.

During the night Ezreal emerged from the Iron Fist to have a look around. He inspected the very large transport ship, and was able to find the Cybertank-X behind a hangar door, kept sedated and dormant to protect the ship from its insane fury. He found the fuel and nutrient lines that kept the massive war machine alive, and started to plan...

In the morning, Captain Boyle advised the team that the invasion fleet was on course and on time, and would arrive the following morning. Drake told him that he wished to return to the Guild to continue spying on them before that happened, as it would be much harder once the invasion had commenced. To this end he requested that the prisoner be turned over to him. Boyle refused point blank.

The ship’s Chief Engineer requested a member of the party to work with one of his crew to look over the Iron Fist. Trilby went with him and one of Mwanje’s buddies, while the others followed Mwanje and his other buddy to the brig. Drake secretly let Michailov in on the fact that they were from the House of Dha, and entreated him to cooperate with the Imperials as much as possible. Michailov agreed to go along with the plan.

Trilby returned with good news. One of the technicians working on the Iron Fist had subtly revealed that she was unhappy with her lot. Trilby saw a potential sympathiser, but there was no indication at this stage of a desire to defect.

The team spoke with the Captain again, but this time they were not in the conference room, with its intimidating table and portraits of past Kathan emperors. Drake advised the Captain that Michailov was ready to cooperate. During the meeting Mwanje got a message, which the Captain passed on about a technician doing some routine maintenance on the force field of the prisoner’s cell. A bit of subtle mind reading by Treesh revealed that the technician in question was the Captain’s daughter.

Drake and his team retired to their quarters, where Sharris got into the computer and drew out floorplans and layouts. He pinpointed the location of the Quantum Wedge. Drake requisitioned certain supplies from the ship’s quartermaster, which were delivered to the Iron Fist. The supplies included certain weapons, some of which did not get through. However, there were some phials of certain poisons. Ezreal picked up some Laughing Poison and headed for the Cybertank-X.

When the team went with Mwanje, the technician was still there, radiating thoughts of apprehension and hope. She fled the area while Mwanje released Michailov from his cell. He was immediately manacled and led to the Engineering section of the ship, in accordance with Drake’s plan.

In the Engineering section, the team met again the technician, who shook Drake’s hand, leaving a note. The note said, “I know who you are and I know who you are not. Take me with you or I’ll betray you to my father” She also indicated that the captured pilot Michailov was part of her conditions. Drake surreptitiously asked her for specs on the Imperial plasma torpedoes, and she responded by loading a data cartridge into his handcomp.

At an appropriate moment, Treesh generated a psychic Hallucination of Trilby standing by, while the real Trilby headed for the quantum wedge. There followed an intense period of waiting while she planted the tech mites into the quantum wedge device. After a while she came back and estimated that there would be a period of perhaps five minutes before the ship’s damage control would be aware of it. Fortunately, at that time Michailov ran out of things to say and the team hightailed it out of Engineering just as Mwanje received the call. He rushed out of the room in the direction of the quantum wedge.

Drake, Trilby, the two Zin-shee, the technician Jane Boyle and the still-manacled Vasil Michailov were accompanied back to the cell block by one of Mwanje’s buddies and two Anthropos guards. As they were passing a guard post, an Anthropos on duty at the post recognised Trilby as the sports reporter for the Guild and reached for his weapon. Drake drilled him between the eyes with his blaster pistol, instantly materialised from his d-store. Sharris, reacting quickly, whipped out a hypospray filled with tranquilliser and downed the other guard. The mBari and the last Anthropos were easily dispatched by Drake and his dad’s blaster. The troop hightailed it to the flight deck just as the alarms started going off.

At that moment, Ezreal in the hangar decided that now would be a good time to act. He cut the nutrient line to the cybertank’s brain and poured the Laughing Poison in. The tank started to wake up. He weakened the hangar door with an Implosion Ball and got back on board the ship just as the Dart fighters in the launch bay were firing up for takeoff.

Jane Boyle was able to open the blast doors that stood between Drake’s team and the Launch bay. They reached the hangar without mishap, but as they were boarding their ship, Mwanje and his surviving buddy turned up at the hangar door and opened fire with disk weapons. Everyone managed to avoid the first burst of suppressing file, but Drake foolhardily stayed outside the ship hoping to get a shot off.

Drake saw, as spinning metal shards flew all around him, that Mwanje’s disk macrocannon was firing not plain disks but carefully carved spirals of metal. Miraculously he survived this withering hail of fire without being shredded, and placed a blaster shot right between Mwanje’s eyes.

As the team frantically tried to fire up the ship's engines, the hangar door that led to the Cybertank-X started to glow...

Drake used the Iron Fist’s tractor beam to drag Mwanje’s dead body on board before launching the ship and activating the cloak. Drake had his macrocannon at last.

Sharris scanned and found a convenient asteroid field that they could hide in while Ezreal calculated the trajectory to Spicer VII. The team was able to monitor comms from the Kraak, and found that the Cybertank-X had gone berserk and wrecked much of the launch bay.

Not waiting for the invasion force, the team bugged out. But they left a message:

“So long, and thanks for all the fish. Have fun with Wally. Hugs and kisses to Dalla. Love, Drake”