When Marcus took the job from Chase all those weeks ago, he could never have imagined where it would take him. While Allison's revelations about his plot against the Alliance had been a bombshell, Marcus had still been a prisoner on an Alliance ship, so there was a limit to how real the insurgency felt. Now Marcus stared out the window of their hopper as they approached a vulture shaped vessel unlike anything he had ever seen before; a ship that Hamasa said had been constructed by the insurgency. It may have been from a design stolen by the Alliance, but it was still new, and the first real opposition the Alliance had faced.

"Impressive, eh?" Hamasa nudged him with her elbow. There were too many of them to fit comfortably in a hopper, so it may just have been her trying to shift position as she worked the controls of the hopper. "The Vengeance. I named her myself. Didn't want anything subtle--the Alliance will know when I'm coming for them."

Marcus remembered when they had met in the Vale. "You said you were only in this for the money?"

"Money is part of it." She shrugged. "But I wasn't about to tell you my deepest secrets the first time we met now, was I?"

"Why do you want revenge?"

"All in good time, Marcus." She leaned back as far as the space allowed and guided the hopper towards the vessel. "See those gun emplacements? The engines? Those sluggish ships like the Mandrake can't compete with a fleet of these."

"Is there a fleet?" Marcus tried to shift the weight of the unconscious Pierce beside him.

Hamasa winked. "All in good time."

A cough came from behind them. "Chief," Jenkins or Waller called out. "Prisoner is coming round."

"About time, I didn't dose him that much," she laughed. "Look out the window, Silas. This is what you're up against."

The Mediator let out a low groan. "You're... wasting your time," he squeezed out. "Won't give you... anything

"That you are here is victory enough. Now Jenkins, dose him up. Can't have him causing any issues with our escape."

With no more interruptions, Hamasa docked the hopper with the vessel. Their strange group spilled out into the utilitarian corridors beyond, Marcus too dazed to take much in, but he saw Hamasa uncouple the hopper and let it drift away. She reached out to a mounted wall panel and raised a connection with the bridge.

"Get us out of here before reinforcements arrive."

"Yes, chief." The voice came back.

"It's strange, you being in command," Marcus said, exhaustion beginning to overtake him.

"You don't know how right you are. Don't worry about that now. Get some rest--we can worry about the rest in the morning."

Marcus didn't need telling twice.

#

Marcus woke with a start. It was pitch black. He couldn't remember where he was. In a panic he swung his legs over the bed but realised too late that he was on a top bunk. He crashed to the deck, but with the bruises, his memory came back--his capture, torture, the escape from the Phoenix Rises. His rescue by--

The hatch opened, flooding the room with light. He stuck a hand up to shield his eyes.

"What are you doing down there?" Hamasa said. Marcus couldn't see her, but he was sure she was grinning.

He grunted and got to his feet before dusting himself down and noticing he was just in his underwear, so he grabbed what he had worn yesterday and pulled it back on.

This made Hamasa laugh. "You're so sensitive."

Still groggy, he wasn't in the mood to cope with Hamasa teasing him. "Will you--"

"That's one hell of a frown." She pointed at his face and laughed once more.

"Do you mind?"

"Oh don't be so precious." She leaned against the door frame. "You're running late, aren't you? Meeting started five minutes ago. No time to waste."

He staggered to the door, still half asleep. "Wait, aren't you running the meeting?"

"I'm the captain, I'm allowed to be late. You, though, can't." She turned and walked away with Marcus scrambling to keep up.

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The walk gave him a chance to wake up, for which he was grateful. It was the morning after their escape from the Mandrake. After a good night's sleep, it was like looking at this ship for the first time. While his own Compound Interest was cramped and outdated, and the Alliance warships he had spent the last month on were flashy and self-indulgent, Marcus got the impression as he walked the matte grey corridors behind Hamasa that this was a ship with pure functionality on its mind.

She led him through the compact corridors to the bridge, that unlike Alliance warships, lay at the centre of the ship's mass. It was smaller than the Mandrake's and all on one level. It was rectangular and featured a large array of screens along the front of the room and a series of stations set down its length. The captain's chair stood towards the middle, with extra seating around what looked like a table at the end of the bridge. There was nothing unnecessary. Comparing this to the Mandrake was like comparing a tank to a yacht. If only they had more, the Alliance wouldn't stand a chance.

There were only a few other crew members dotted around, and now that he considered it, he hadn't seen many aboard since he had joined. Around the table set towards the rear of the bridge, which displayed a projection of the ship, stood Pierce, Jenkins and Waller, plus another woman he didn't recognise.

"Good, you didn't start without me." Hamasa sat on the only free stool, leaving Marcus to stand behind. "Most of you know each other after yesterday; Jenkins, Waller, Pierce." She pointed at each of them. "But this other person is Napia Bronikowski. She commands one of the other ships in our little band."

"You're late," Bronikowski said. She was a tall woman, ebony skin and close shaved just like Hamasa's. She was missing an arm--that meant she had chosen not to have one of the freely available cybernetic replacements.

Hamasa waved her complaint away. "Let's not waste any more time."

Bronikowski nodded and turned to look Pierce in the eye. "I need to know where you stand. Before she died, Captain Hennessey said she had approached you, and that you weren't sold on our little insurgency."

"Why does that matter?" Pierce bristled.

"If you're an Alliance spy, we need to know now. Maybe we'll even let you live." Hamasa shrugged. "It's a one-time offer though."

Pierce sighed and rubbed her eyes. "It was an open secret on the Ezekiel that the Captain was working with another organisation to steal caxeal--most of the ship's crew were working with her. You were right that I always held back, because I didn't believe the Alliance was wrong, but that they were implementing things badly. After the Ezekiel got stormed, though..." she took a deep breath. "That changed everything. That bastard Garrick killed the captain and almost a third of the crew. They even had the nerve to throw me in the detention centre after the attack.

"So if you're asking me whether I'm ready to admit that the Alliance is rotten to its core and needs challenging, I am ready to do so." There was a sense of strength and fire coming of Pierce that Marcus hadn't seen before in the brief time they had been together. He had just considered her a frail old woman until she had saved his life. "I may not have much to offer, but I will do my bit in whatever it is you're up to."

"I don't believe you have nothing to bring." Bronikowski leaned forward and took her hand. "People said the same about me when this all began, but look at us now. You'll fit right in here." She turned to Marcus. "What about him?"

"I can vouch for him," Hamasa replied, to which Bronikowski shrugged but said nothing. "Now, to business. You may wonder why the raid happened--"

"I thought it was to rescue us?" Marcus frowned.

"That was one part of it, but we needed Silas," Hamasa said. "He's the key."

"He'll never talk." Pierce shook her head. "They train mediators for years to make them resistant to interrogation."

"We'll see about that." Hamasa grinned. "But it doesn't matter. The fact we have him is enough."

Bronikowski lent forward to put her elbows on the table. "We need the location of an installation known as the Forge, and Silas was the only person we're aware of who knows where it is."

Hamasa grinned. "If it worries the Alliance, we might get Silas to talk, they'll provide reinforcements to the Forge."

"And you've got enough informants on Alliance warships to pick up fleet movements like that?" Pierce said.

"We do," Bronikowski said.

"Admiral Allison for one," Marcus said, remembering their conversations on the Mandrake.

"I don't believe it," Pierce scoffed.

"Well you'd better, because it's true," Jenkins said. Now that Hamasa had introduced them, and that they weren't wearing helmets, Marcus found he could finally tell them apart. Jenkins had thick, black, shoulder length hair and a full beard, while Waller's blond hair was close cropped, and he was the older of the pair by some margin. "Allison's the architect of all this."

"And I betrayed him," Marcus realised with a wave of sickening guilt. "I told Silas about him."

"And we have Silas." Hamasa slammed her hand on the table. "Even if he got word out, we bought ourselves time."

"Time to get to the Forge," Bronikowski finished.

"But we don't know where it is," Marcus said. "So we're just waiting for Allison to come through? This doesn't seem like a solid plan."

"Oh he'll come through. He always does," Bronikowski said. "It gives us time to get ready. We will only get one chance to storm the Forge, so we better do it right."

"What do we want with this Forge?" Pierce said. "I've never heard of it."

"You'll see." Hamasa winked at him. "Now Pierce, we lost the commander of the other ship in our little fleet. With your experience, you're best placed to take it on, with Waller's help. He'll show you the ropes."

Pierce looked shocked for a moment before composing her face. "I'll get right on it."

"Good," Bronikowski said. "Let's get going."

Marcus made to stand up, but Hamasa put a hand on his arm. "Just where are you going?"

"I need breakfast." His stomach rumbled at the thought.

"I've got something better for you to be doing." She handed him a pad.

He wasn't sure what could be better than breakfast at the moment, but he keyed on the pad anyway. "What is this?" Hamasa said nothing, so he carried on looking. "This is insane," he was breathless just reading it. "You can't pull this off."

"Not me--us. I need your expertise. Look at the timings." She tapped the pad. "They need to work to the minute. I need you to calculate the dilation between the gates."

"Hamasa..." he started to try to tell her how there was no way he could do what she was asking, but he stopped himself. "All right, I'll help."