Marcus sat at the back of the bridge of the Vengeance, out of the way, but with a good view of what was going on. Hamasa sat in her now customary captain's chair. The familiar blue of jump space dissolved before them, but instead of the usual inky blackness of interstellar space, the Phayao system was full of green-tinged clouds. Marcus used the tablet attached to his chair to pull up the sensor information about the system. They were in the middle of a stellar nursery, with thin gases spread around that would eventually become fresh burning stars. What maps they had coming into Phayao showed that this nebula spanned an incredible swathe of space at the edge of the Perseus Arm. The clouds near the jump gate were particularly thick, and there was no sign of the Forge.

"All seven ships of the fleet reporting in, but no sign of the Forge on scanners, Chief." Jenkins sat at a console down the side of the bridge. "No lanes either. Just empty space."

"They're trying to make it difficult," Hamasa chuckled. "Take us in, but slowly. Who knows what they've filled this system with."

Marcus folded his arms. He didn't know why he expected it to be a simple case of hopping through the gate and taking what they needed from a station sitting conveniently waiting for them. Now that he considered it, it was far easier to deter any unwanted visitors to Phayao by making it appear remote and impassable.

"Chief someone called out from in front of him. "There are very high gravitational readings around the system. It's--it's not uniform though, I don't understand it."

"We're in the right place." Hamasa hit the armrest of her chair with her fist.

"How do you know that?" Marcus asked.

She turned to face him. "They were testing gravity bombs, so it makes sense that there's more gravity from them."

His head span with the implications. "We must factor that in. The increased pull, I mean he said.

"Better get on it then." She faced the front again. "Jenkins, get the fleet to spread out and search for the Forge. Tell them to focus on the areas with the lowest pull. The Alliance wouldn't test near the station."

"No!" Marcus jumped up. "You can't do that."

She looked surprised. "Why not?"

He ran to the station that Jenkins sat at and brought up a visualisation on the viewport of the different gravitational fields in front of them. "Our communication would be distorted by the different gravitational pulls." He drew a line for effect. "If you send the ships in, we'd lose each other fast, there'd be no chance of coordinating in a firefight." Everyone stared at him. "It's part of basic courier training." He shrugged. "Don't a message near a black hole."

Hamasa grimaced. "What do we do about it?"

"Sticking together is our best bet. It'll take longer, but we don't have an option Marcus said.

"All right." "he lent back in her chair. "Signal all ships to follow our lead and keep it tight. Helm, take us to the areas of the lowest pull, and Marcus--" she turned back to him again "--can you please try to get these sensors working?"

#

Hours passed, but the bridge crew stayed alert. The Vengeance headed deeper into the swirling clouds of gas, flanked on either side by two other vessels, with more taking up the rear. Marcus was exhausted--this was taking far longer than they had expected, but it was better to take their time than risk the ships being lost and cut off--or god forbid be pulled into a black hole. That would be a fate worse than death.

"Chief, we got a problem. The Magritte is drifting too far out of formation." There was an edge of panic in Jenkins' voice.

"Get me a link with them," Hamasa demanded.

"Link established."

"Venturelli, get back here now. You'll get caught in the pull of that--"

"It's too late, Chief," the voice sounded resigned. "We don't have the power to break free. The black hole has us."

Hamasa swore and slammed her fist on the chair. "Set the self destruct. Don't put your crew through that."

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Marcus wanted to tell them to keep trying, to do anything other than accept their fate, but he held his tongue and tried to keep back the tears. It was a kindness.

"I will, Godspeed Hamasa. Venturelli out."

Hamasa stood up. "Put me on with the fleet. All ships, check your course. Don't be idiots or you'll end up just like the Magritte." She sat back down and let out a long string of expletives.

They weren't even at the Forge yet, and they'd already lost one of their precious ships.

As time passed, Marcus grew more nervous. Part of it was the suspense of whether other ships would suffer the same fate as the Magritte, but there was something else niggling him. Any visitor to the Forge would know where it was located, but there was always the possibility that someone would stumble upon the installation, however unlikely. The Alliance were too smart to let that happen.

With a start he realised that meant the Forge could detect them before they could see it through the clouds.

"Coming up on a narrow band between two strong gravitational pulls, Chief Jenkins called out.

If he were trying to defend a station, he would set up a bottleneck. Marcus realised their mistake. "Stop the ships!"

"What do you mean?" Hamasa said.

He ran over to her. "We're talking to each other, right? The ships in the fleet."

She nodded, eyebrow raised at him.

"The Forge is a space station, they'll have better sensors than ours so they must be able to detect us. This passage--"

Marcus saw the realisation dawn on Hamasa's face. She jumped up. "Scatter the fleet!"

"Message is out, Chief." Jenkins breathed a sigh of relief. "The fleet is pulling back from--"

The Vengeance shuddered and rocked. A bright light shot across the viewport and Marcus saw it just miss one of the other ships in the fleet.

"Evasive action Hamasa yelled. The viewport showed the Vengeance spiral away from the explosion. The acceleration was so strong it overpowered the ship's dampers, almost throwing Marcus to the ground. He grabbed the back of Hamasa's chair for dear life.

"Where are they?" Hamasa said, the picture of calm and focus.

"I'm picking up the source as a hundred thousand kilometers bearing 180 mark 006 someone called out from the front of the bridge said.

"That's one hell of a powerful beam," Hamasa said. "Good thing we're far enough out of range for it to not do any damage--thanks to you." She nodded at Marcus.

"Just doing my bit," he mumbled and sat back down.

"What are your orders, Chief?" Jenkins said.

"We'll have to fly in at speed to evade that beam. Take us in, one by one."

Marcus felt sweat trickle down his back. He wasn't built for these nerves. They levelled out and were now looking directly at where the beams had come from. He needed a distraction. "Now that we know it's out there, I think I can pick the Forge out on sensors." He got to work and a moment later, and a hazy image appeared on the viewport.

"Can we magnify that?" Hamasa asked.

"Not at this distance. We'll get a better look as we approach."

"That'll have to do. Take us in full speed."

Once more the force of the Vengeance's engines forced Marcus back into his seat with a hammer blow. As he was about to black out, the acceleration dropped and the ship swung around to face their target. It was constructed of three concentric circles around a central spherical core, leaving a flat structure. There were a few hoppers of various sizes floating around. "Why aren't they better defended?"

Hamasa turned to stare at him. "You're joking, right? That's two titanic class warships and a handful of other cruisers. More than we expected."

"But there can't be..." Then Marcus' perception shifted.

My God.

It was the largest station Marcus had ever seen.

Beams lanced towards them from weapons emplacements on the outermost ring, and the small hopper shaped ships--in reality huge Alliance warships--headed in the fleet's direction.

"Get me the fleet. This is Hamasa. Spread out and take these bastards out and I'll see you on the station. Hamasa out."

The Vengeance began its attack run, sweeping around the edge of the eddies that had formed a protective shell around the station and swerving to avoid the shots coming straight at them. The viewport showed multiple feeds now, with images of the other insurgent vessels making their own runs at the Alliance vessels or the weapons emplacements. This was the first time Marcus had seen space combat from this vantage point, his only previous experience being in the brig of the Phoenix Rises--blissful ignorance compared to what he could see now on the bridge.

Beams flew everywhere, striking ships and station alike. A direct hit from the Forge's powerful beams struck one of their fleet, slicing it in two. Every shot made him take a sharp intake of breath, and sweat now drenched the back of his jumpsuit. That this small bridge crew could determine the fate of their ship, and maybe the entire independence effort, made him marvel all the more at their calmness.

"Dammit, we've lost the Bird of Prey Jenkins said as an explosion filled one corner of the screen.

"Deploy the landing craft," she said. "We've got them where we want them." The viewport showed the Vengeance's beams strike a Forge weapons platform, destroying it in a silent cloud of melted metal and decompressed air. Another one soon fell, then another. Three larger vessels in their fleet passed close to this area free of weapons and released a small cloud of small hoppers towards the hull.

"I'm so happy I could sing." Hamasa threw her head back and laughed. "Imagine the Mandrake trying to take this station--it's not possible. The Alliance bastards can't see the threat until it's shooting down the door of their most protected station!"

Before long, the Vengeance and its sister ships had destroyed all the beam placements on the Forge and were circling closer in. The smaller ships who had been slinking towards the station during the fight were now all arrayed around a section of the outer ring of the Forge.

"Now what?" Marcus asked.

"Now, we take the station." She had a manic glint in her eye.