The party sign up to escort cargo on a shuttle with a mysterious Client. The Client refuses to speak but C14 Abiding Storm confirms that the mystics believe they are on the level. The cargo is a small but delicate crate and the party deduce that the cargo would be dangerous to have destroyed.
The Client, a hooded androgynous and species-agnostic figure is friendly to the party but enigmatic. They board the shuttle together and store the cargo in a cargo pod and take off. Warded Path pilots them through the system when suddenly they are attacked by a ship - The Seraph - and despite Warded Path's expert dodging and weaving they are boarded. The situation appears dire and though The Seraph detaches, the damage to the ship is great and the Client jettisons the cargo pod so it can land safely.
The cargo pod, and the ship, careen toward Ace's World and Warded Path is able to bring them to a controlled gliding crash in the wilderness. They escape Decaying Trackers and Warded Path has Endeavour intervene to bring them to the nearest town en route to where the Cargo Pod landed.
At the town, Dry Ace, the Client is insistent they move post-haste to get to the cargo, but Warded Path is convinced they need to make contact with Her Glorious Command to update on the situation. In the town they meet Jack Diamond, the Marshal working for ACE, who extorts chips out of Desiring Peace in order to use the town's buggy and communications.
Wretched Export pokes around and finds the buggy workshop where he talks to the mechanic and also meets an old starsighted woman who tells of a dream she had about birds falling from the sky and losing a golden nugget. The birds tell everyone they meet about the nugget and ultimately the nugget is stolen from the birds and the birds eaten by the crocodile they told about it. The woman advises Export not to share his nugget, and he takes this under advisement. He then proceeds to try to repair one of the other broken buggies in the town, but a mishap while tinkering results in it exploding in a chain reaction that also damages the buggy they want.
Warded Path sends a message via Diamond's communications network to get to Her Glorious Command, and the party take the (now damaged) buggy onwards. On the journey, the Client crashes the buggy into a ditch and the party is set upon by scavengers who they defeat and request fix up the buggy on pain of death. They do so and drive until they can't drive any further.
They fight off some Razormonkeys - with their elite Decaying monkey dispatched by a well-placed sniper shot from Desiring Peace - and find their way through the forest to a spooky crevasse-ridden area where a broken holoprojector is being infrequently powered and depowered by a local Ship Heart flickering between states (still a way away). The party traverse the area, but Wretched Export falls in a pit. The party swing into action to rescue Export from a group of robotic Emus that they determine were part of an ill-fated family restaurant attempt.
Export beheads one of the Emus and pockets the robot head and a coupon for kids eating free that falls out of it.
Back on the trail, The Seraph drops some more pirates into the area who the party defeat. They yell about “The Cause” but fail to elaborate further. Moving on, the party also come across a radio where they overhear a conversation between a person and a bot talking about retrieving the cargo. Desiring Peace gives away their status and then yeets the radio into the bushes.
A short altercation with some Goosehawks (Geesehawk?) later and the party make their way to the cargo where they find it is, as Path has been determining, a Ship Heart. Its container - a Shipboard Computer Integration for Organic Networking - is in a bad way and the Ship Heart itself is confused. The party quickly discover that if it makes any attempt to refer to itself or them directly then it will malfunction and emit dangerous electricity into the area, damaging itself. Moving it is a slow process, made worse by the fact that the Scavengers, Pirates, and then Security Bots from ACE all show up to try to take it. Seven Broad of ACE tries to make a deal but the party refuse, so they instruct ACE's bot army to take the Heart.
The fight continues, with the Bots not letting up, until eventually Her Glorious Command enters the stratosphere and launches a shuttle to retrieve the party while also bombarding the area from above. Missiles rain down as the party make it into the shuttle where they find X. Worshipful Portent piloting a Ship Heart mystic's dream of a shuttle. It takes off, and the party successfully exfiltrate from the area as Her Glorious Command continues to rain destruction from above.