It is early August 1942 and undergoing a full debrief by Captain Ledman of MI6s Counter Sciences section are Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

El Imayid, Egypt, August 1942

Mimi Dubois looked around the command tent at her comrades, and then finally her eyes came to rest on Captain Ledman;

So all you would like us to do is sneak behind enemy lines, steal a cargo ship, and deliver it to the island of Malta which is currently under siege. And once there, not answer any direct questions from the senior officer there?

Captain Ledman slowly nodded. Mimi smiled, looked around the tent once more and saw nothing but confidence in her colleagues eyes.

Six days earlier...

Western Desert, Egypt, August 1942

Leaving the bodies of the two checkpoint guards slowly cooling in the desert night we continue to move towards the reinforced gun bunker at the mouth of the canyon. Sven pulls the tank off to the side of the trackway just over a mile away from the bunker. With the tank hidden by the curve in the road, Sven and Madeline head in to deal with the gun. Doctor Jackal follows them for fifty yards until he has a clear view of the target, he then asks what the signal will be. Madeline, just before she slips into the shadows, looks back and says;

You’ll know!

A raven lands on the barrel of the large calibre field gun nestled low within the concrete slot. The two German crew who are carrying out some regular maintenance at first don’t notice it. As the bird hops further down the barrel one of the troops looks up and spots it. The raven cocks it’s head to one side and taps the gun barrel a couple of times with its beak. The trooper nudges his colleague and they both stand there for a minute watching the curious crow do it’s thing.

Slowly, one of the troopers backs away towards one of the doors at the rear of the gun box, he opens it and gestures into what looks like a kitchen. Quietly two more troops step forwards and watch the bird. Then one of them points out that it’s been a long time since they have had fresh meat. And after all it is a large, juicy bird. The original troop picks up a large metal bucket and begins to move slowly towards the raven.

Sven, not wanting to be dinner, avoids being captured. As he flaps away he can hear the German troops mock their colleague, and his ability to catch a bird of any variety.

Sven leaves it a few minutes and then flaps back into position. The door to the kitchen is once again closed but another of the doorways is open, and it looks like one of the troopers is working in the room beyond. Sven quickly lands inside the gun box using the large field piece as cover. In a matter of seconds the doppelgänger of the German trooper steps out from behind the gun and walks towards his co-worker.

The German trooper looks up from what he is doing and is surprised to see his mate walking towards him from the direction of the gun, especially as he saw him walk into the storeroom on the other side of the gun box a couple of minutes ago. That moment of surprise is all Sven requires. He leans in towards the trooper and as he does so his jaw extends and becomes that of a large canine beast, sharp teeth sink into bare flesh. Blood flows. There is a very low gurgle as the trooper drowns in his own blood.

Sven stands up and moves towards the storeroom door. With each step that he takes he looks less like the German trooper in the storeroom and more like the dead trooper bleeding out on the floor of the gun box. As he enters the stores his comrade glances over his shoulder and smiles. It is the last thing that he does as once more someone finds out that Sven’s bite is far worse than his bark.

Madeline, who unbeknownst to Sven, has been watching from the shadows of the stores re-materialises in a state of shock. She quickly gathers her wits, and while Sven lugs a few heavy boxes to block the doors, rigs up one of the field gun’s shells and the last of the teams grenades just below the breach of the gun. Madeline then lowers the temperature of the field gun to make sure that it is brittle.

Sven transforms once more into a raven and flies out of the gun slit, once he is clear Madeline pulls the det tape on one of the grenades. She turns into a shadow and slips out of the gun slot and up onto the top of the bunker. Seconds later there is a small explosion, followed very closely by a much bigger explosion. The boom is clearly heard by Henry and myself, and we simultaneously guess that’s the signal. I run for the Panther and as Henry clambers in I start her up and drive at full speed towards the canyon.

As I race towards the reinforced concrete bunker at the mouth of the canyon a large raven lands upon the top of the Panther, and moments later Sven is clambering inside. As I approach the bunker I have to slow down slightly, during this moment Madeline slides in her shadow form off of the roof of the bunker and onto the top of the tank. She then slips into the interior of the tank and re-materialises. With the team back together and the Panther pointing towards the narrow canyon and Allied lines I once again open the throttle and accelerate away.

As we drive away from the bunker the rear of the tank is raked with heavy machine gun fire, but it is harmlessly deflected by the Panther’s rear armour. Doctor Jackal lifts the tanks radio mic and broadcasts on the prearranged channel;

Black Cat calling Welcome Wagon! Black Cat calling Welcome Wagon! Come in Welcome Wagon!

He makes contact and is issued with a set of rendezvous coordinates. As we exit the far end of the canyon into the beginnings of the Qattara Depression we are met by two of Stirling’s jeeps and a brace of Sherman tanks. We are welcomed with slaps on the back and firm handshakes, and as the two Shermans pull into position blocking the canyon exit we are ushered back into the Panther and told to follow the jeeps. We drive for an hour and put some distance between us and anything that might be following, and at midnight we make camp and all get a short sleep.

We are woken just before dawn and with the help of Stirling’s men we refuel the tank once again. The day is spent travelling as swiftly as possible across hundreds of miles to reach the base at El Imayid. We arrive just before twenty hundred hours and are directed to deliver the Panther to the armoured corps that we had trained with previously. Not being ones to shy away from the limelight myself and Madeline ride the last mile on the top of the tank and are showered with whoops, hollers and offers of marriage.

We are met by Brigadier Simpson, who congratulates us on a significant achievement. We are then quickly ushered away by Captain Stirling’s batman and driven back to our camp. Where finally we flop onto our own camp beds and sleep like the dead.

The following morning we are debriefed by Captain Stirling, who does very well to avoid asking any direct questions about how we managed to get a prized German Panther tank from a secure military base deep in enemy territory, and deliver it to the Allies. He does however tell us that he has informed Captain Ledman of our success and that he believes that our time in Africa may well be coming to an end. He is of the opinion that Captain Ledman will be recalling us to England.

That night we celebrate a successful mission and discuss what we will do once we get back to England. Madeline and Henry seem pleased that we are going home, but for myself and Sven, that happiness is tinged with the knowledge that our homelands are not free.

After a couple of days of rest and recuperation we are once again summoned to Captain Stirling’s command tent. He informs us that there has been a change of plan and that Captain Ledman is coming to us, and that he has a new mission for us.

And so, a day later, we find ourselves sat once more in Captain Stirling’s command tent being debriefed about our Panther mission. This time however, it is being conducted by Captain Ledman and it contains all of the details of our exploits, including the use of our enhanced abilities. Ledman is both impressed and somewhat shocked by our achievements, he is even more shocked when Sven gives him a close up demonstration of his shape shifting ability when he turns into a doppelgänger of Captain Ledman himself.

Captain Ledman informs us that Counter Sciences has a potential lead on where the chemicals that were being transported on the train, and that have given us our enhanced abilities, might have come from. However, that will have to wait as a critical opportunity to assist in the Malta crisis has arisen. And Captain Ledman is sure that only we can pull it off.

Malta is under siege, but what is not publicly known is that it is on it’s knees and close to falling. Something needs to be done to turn the tide. Ledman tells us that there is a cargo ship in Tobruk harbour that is due to sail to Taranto in Italy, the cargo ship is laden with a cargo that could turn that tide. Captain Ledman does not go into detail as to what that cargo is but quickly moves on to discuss the fact that the ship is Argentinian, 13,000 tons, and with a crew of possibly twenty.

The ship is due to sail in a week, and Captain Ledman says that he can get us false papers and point us to a safe house in Tobruk. He then tells us that if we succeed and get the cargo ship to Malta that we would effectively be under the command of Lieutenant General William Dobbie, and that it is imperative that we do not reveal our true nature to him. Even if he gives us a direct order. None of us seem to have a problem with this.

Captain Ledman says;

Do you think that you can do it?

I look around the command tent...