Chuft-Captain was the Kzinti captain of the privateer ship Traitor's Claw, who led an ambush on the Federation shuttlecraft Copernicus on stardate 4187.3 in 2269. Chuft-Captain and his crew made use of an empty Slaver stasis box to divert the shuttle, manned by Spock, Hikaru Sulu and Nyota Uhura of the starship USS Enterprise, to a small icebound world in the Beta Lyrae system, in hopes of finding a powerful weapon inside a second box, which the shuttle was transporting to Starbase 25. This mission was secretly sponsored by the Kzinti government, though it would be disavowed by the Highest of Kzin in the event of its failure.