Major did not look impressed by this revelation. “That does not bode particularly well for your half of the operation. Luckily for you, I have done my research. Myrmidon were part of a consortium that invested in Veppecantel. The rest of them pulled out of the planet when the Holophage first appeared, or abandoned their people completely. But Myrmidon continued with a staff mostly made up of its synthetic range. It seems the only reason the blockade fleet allowed them to continue is because of the mineral they’re extracting. Its crucial for the manufacture of starship reactors or something similar. Anyway…they operate one line onto and off of the surface of Veppecantel, and that is directly below a geosync terminal in orbit above one of their cities. However, only ships with a registered Myrmidon ID transponder can make it through; the rest are destroyed en route. All the ships with an ID are automated and completely decontaminated, which stops the spread of infection. They’re all housed in this geosync terminal, so we need you to sneak aboard one, remove the transponder and bring it back so our illustrious pilot can set us down safely.”

“Or we do it the hard way, and try to bust our way through the blockade!” Bodach boomed.

“That’s suicide – they’ve got c-beams and have made orbiting rocks into homing missiles don’cha know it?” Diarmuid said jovially.