MÖBIUS

  TOY STARSHIP

  BOOK 2

  M.R. FORBES

  Published by Quirky Algorithms

  Seattle, Washington

  This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2026 by Quirky Algorithms

  All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration by Tom Edwards

  Edited by Merrylee Lanehart

  1

  The night was quiet.

  Harris lay prone on a slight rise forty yards from the truck, his body pressed into a shallow depression he'd scraped out of the leaf litter when they'd first arrived. The M39 rested on its bipod in front of him, the scope caps removed, the weapon an extension of his arms, eyes, and intent. The night vision goggles painted the world in shades of green, transforming the Tennessee wilderness into something both alien and familiar.

  He'd picked this position for its sightlines. From his location, Harris could see the road for maybe two hundred yards in either direction before it curved out of sight. Anyone approaching by vehicle would announce themselves long before they arrived. Anyone on foot would have to cross open ground.

  Good killing field. That's what the instructors had called terrain like this back in the day. Ground that favored the defender, that channeled attackers into predictable paths. One that turned patience into advantage.

  Harris had plenty of patience.

  In the copse of trees where he'd parked the truck, it sat in a natural bowl. Dark and still below him, the truck's cab was barely visible through the canopy. Evan was in there, on the passenger side, the effigy clutched in his hands. His eyes open but seeing nothing in this world. His chest rising and falling with breaths so shallow they barely registered.

  Seeing his body frozen in that strange half-death state still made Harris' skin crawl. The first time he had seen it, he'd nearly checked for a pulse. The second time, he'd forced himself to watch for a full minute, cataloging the subtle signs of life that distinguished the trance from actual death. By now, after two weeks of these excursions, he'd grown accustomed to leaving his friend's body unattended while his mind wandered among the stars.

  Accustomed. Not comfortable with it. Never comfortable.

  A deer emerged from the tree line to the east, picking its way through the underbrush with the casual confidence of an animal that hadn't scented predators. Harris tracked it through the scope out of habit, watching its progress across the clearing. A doe, young, maybe two years old. She paused near the truck, ears swiveling, then continued on toward the stream that cut through the property to the west.

  Normal wildlife behavior. No sign of disturbance. The forest was operating as forests did when humans weren't mucking things up. Harris let out a slow breath and resumed his scan.

  The county road remained empty. No headlights. No engine sounds. Just the wind through the trees and the distant call of an owl establishing territory. The temperature had dropped into the low forties since they'd arrived, cold enough to make Harris grateful for the thermal underlay beneath his tactical gear. His breath fogged slightly with each exhale, dissipating quickly in the dry air.

  Three hours down. Evan usually stayed under for six to eight, sometimes longer. They'd established a rhythm over the past two weeks, the sessions blending together into a routine that felt almost normal despite being anything but. Drive out. Find a spot. Set up overwatch. And wait.

  The waiting was the hardest part. Always had been, even during deployments. The actual shooting, the moment of action, was simple. Point, aim, squeeze. Physics and training took over. But the hours before, long stretches of nothing punctuated by moments of everything, wore on a man in ways that didn't show until later.

  Harris shifted his weight slightly, keeping blood flowing to his extremities. The M39 moved with him, the bipod adjusting on the uneven ground. He'd built this rifle himself from surplus parts, knew every component by feel, could field strip and reassemble it blindfolded in under ninety seconds. It was the closest thing to a partner he'd had since Marcy left.

  The thought came unbidden and unwelcome. He pushed it aside with practiced efficiency. Focus on the mission. Watch the approaches. Protect the asset.

  The asset being his friend's body, sitting vulnerable in a truck cab while his consciousness did who-knows-what on a spaceship that shouldn't exist. Harris still hadn't fully processed that part. The brief glimpse he'd gotten when he'd tried the effigy himself—the orange suit, the white walls, the pain of trying to inhabit a body that wasn't his—had confirmed Evan's story in ways that defied rational explanation.

  Aliens. Spaceships. Technology from another universe.

  Harris had spent twenty-two years in the Corps. He'd seen things that would give most civilians nightmares for the rest of their lives. But nothing in those two decades had prepared him for the casual revelation that humanity wasn't alone in the universe, and that the neighbors were apparently engaged in some kind of shadow war right here on Earth.

  He'd adapted. Marines adapt. That was what they did when the situation went sideways. You didn't waste time wishing things were different. You assessed, you planned, and you executed. The fact that the enemy wore human faces didn't change the fundamental equation.

  Protect your people. Complete the mission. Everything else was details.

  The owl called again, closer this time. Harris's eyes tracked to the sound, finding nothing in the green-lit darkness. Just a bird doing bird things. Not a threat.

  He checked his watch—02:17. The night was at its deepest, that strange dead zone between midnight and dawn when the world felt suspended, waiting for something to happen. Another hour, maybe two, before he'd need to consider waking Evan. They liked to be on the road before first light, before early risers and farmers and delivery trucks turned the county roads into something resembling traffic.

  The first headlights appeared at 02:23.

  Harris's attention sharpened instantly, the slight drowsiness of the long watch vanishing as his training kicked in. The lights were distant, maybe half a mile out on the road, moving at moderate speed. Could be nothing. A late-night driver, a shift worker heading home, someone returning from a bar or a lover's house.

  Could be nothing. Could be a complication he couldn't risk. He tracked the vehicle through his scope as it approached. A sedan, dark-colored, moving at a pace that suggested purpose rather than wandering. The headlights cut through the darkness with the focused intensity of someone who knew where they were going.

  The car passed the turnoff to their position without slowing. Harris watched it disappear around the curve to the west, the red glow of taillights fading into the trees. Ten seconds. Twenty. The sound of the engine diminished to nothing, swallowed by distance and forest.

  He let out a breath. Nothing. Just a car. Just someone driving through the night for reasons that had nothing to do with alien conspiracies and ancient starships.

  The second set of headlights appeared three minutes later. A different vehicle. A van, the boxy silhouette visible even at a distance, moving slower than the first car. Harris felt his jaw tighten as he tracked its approach. Vans meant room for equipment. For personnel. For the kind of operational flexibility that tactical teams required.

  The van also passed without stopping. But this time, Harris caught something in the scope. A face turned toward the road leading to where they were hidden. Someone in the passenger seat, looking, searching. The van's brake lights flared briefly—just a flash, barely a hesitation—before it continued on.

  They were hunting.

  The van's taillights disappeared around the same curve that had swallowed the sedan. Harris waited, counting seconds in his head. After two minutes, he began to consider his options. At three, headlights reappeared from the west.

  The sedan was coming back.

  It moved slower now, creeping along the road at a walking pace. Searching. The headlights swept the tree line as the car rounded each slight curve; the driver was clearly looking for something. For someone.

  Harris's finger moved from the trigger guard to the trigger. Not applying pressure. Not yet. Just positioning. Getting ready.

  The sedan again passed the turnoff, but this time it stopped. Brake lights glowed red in the darkness. Engine idling. The exhaust visible as pale vapor in the cold air. Someone inside was deciding something.

  Then the van reappeared from the east.

  Having driven past their position, it had continued on, found somewhere to turn around, and come back. Now both vehicles sat on the road within a hundred yards of each other, bracketing the turnoff, their combined headlights creating overlapping pools of illumination that pushed back the darkness.

  Harris's heart rate remained steady. Sixty-two beats per minute. The same as it had been during firefights in Kandahar, during ambushes outside Fallujah, during every moment of violence that his twenty-two years of service had delivered. His body knew what was coming. His body was ready.

  The van's side door slid open. Figures emerged. Three of them, moving with the coordinated efficiency of people who'd trained together. Dark clothing. Tactical cuts. The kind of gear that didn't come from sporting goods stores. One of them held something that glinted in the headlights—a phone or tablet—its screen casting pale light across his face as he studied whatever was displayed there.

  The man with the device pointed directly toward the cl
earing. Toward the truck. Toward Evan.

  Harris didn't hesitate. The M39's report shattered the night. The man with the tablet dropped where he stood, the device tumbling from his hands as his body crumpled. Before the sound finished echoing off the trees, Harris had already shifted his aim. The second shot took the operator on the left through the upper chest, spinning him sideways. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  The third operator reacted faster than Harris expected. Combat reflexes. Maybe combat experience. He dove toward the van's open door, desperate for cover between himself and the shooter he couldn't see.

  Harris led him by six inches and squeezed. The round went through the door and into the operator. Rather than making it into the van, he hit the ground hard, tried to reach up to climb in, and stopped moving when Harris put another round into his back.

  Three targets. Three kills. Five seconds total.

  Harris was already scanning for additional threats. The van's engine still idled. The headlights still burned. He spotted a fourth figure through the windshield—the driver. Frozen behind the wheel, he was probably trying to figure out what had just happened and whether he was next.

  The scope's crosshairs found the driver's silhouette.

  Harris squeezed the trigger.

  The windshield spider-webbed around a neat hole, and the driver slumped sideways against the door.

  The sedan. Harris swung the scope toward it. Both doors hung open, the interior light casting a pale glow across empty seats. His stomach tightened. The sedan's occupants had bailed the moment the shooting started. Smart. Disciplined. Exactly what trained operators would do. They were already out there somewhere, already moving, already…

  Movement appeared in his peripheral vision. Two figures, halfway to the tree line. They sprinted through the tall grass with the desperate speed of people who knew exactly what would happen if they didn't reach cover.

  Harris tracked left, found the lead runner in his scope, moving fast, maybe twenty yards from the trees. Once he reached that forest, he'd have cover and Harris would lose him. He'd have time to call for backup, time to circle around toward the clearing where Evan sat frozen and helpless.

  Fifteen yards to the tree line. Twelve.

  Harris led him by two feet and squeezed.

  The man's legs buckled mid-stride. He pitched forward, arms flailing, and hit the ground in a heap that didn't move.

  Where was the second one?

  Harris swept the scope right, searching. The grass was waist-high in places, the moonlight casting deceptive shadows that could hide a crouching figure. His heart hammered against his ribs. Not fear, just adrenaline, just the body doing what it did when everything mattered.

  There…the tall grass parted. The second figure crawling now, using the grass for concealment. A woman, dark hair pulled back, maybe ten yards from the tree line. She was almost invisible in the scope, just the shape of her head, something that didn't belong among the natural contours of the field.

  She rose to make a final sprint for the trees.

  Harris fired.

  The round caught her in the back, spinning her sideways. She staggered, almost kept her feet. Then her legs gave out. She collapsed at the very edge of the tree line, one hand reaching toward the darkness that would have saved her.

  Harris put a second round into her to be sure she was dead.

  Six targets. Six kills. Maybe twenty-five seconds from the first shot to the last.

  He rose from his position, the rifle sweeping across the scene as he checked for any threat he might have missed.

  The van sat silent, its driver slumped against the window. The sedan's doors hung open. Four bodies near the vehicles. Two more in the grass short of the tree line.

  Nothing moved except the wind through the branches and the steam rising from the sedan's exhaust pipe.

  He needed to wake Evan. Needed to get them moving before reinforcements arrived. There would be backup. There would be a response. The only question was how long he had before it showed up.

  He kept the rifle trained on the van as he began moving downhill toward the truck. Forty yards. He covered the first twenty at a tactical pace, weapon up, eyes scanning. The van's headlights created harsh shadows that could hide threats, but nothing moved in the light or the darkness.

  He was ten yards out when the sound reached him. Distant at first. A rhythmic thump that he felt in his chest before his ears fully recognized it. Helicopter. Growing louder by the second, approaching fast from the southeast.

  Harris broke into a dead run.

  2

  Harris' flat-out sprint sent him crashing through underbrush and low branches. The M39 bounced against his chest on its sling, temporarily forgotten as the helicopter sound swelled. The distinctive chop of rotor blades ate up distance at a rate no ground vehicle could match.

  He was twenty yards from the truck. Fifteen. The helicopter crested the tree line behind him, its spotlight sweeping across the forest canopy like the eye of an angry god. The rotor wash hit him a second later, bending branches, sending leaves and debris swirling into his face.

  More headlights on the road. Multiple vehicles, appearing from the east, converging on the position with coordinated precision.

  Harris reached the truck and yanked the passenger door open.

  Evan sat frozen on the passenger side of the bench seat, the effigy cradled against his chest. His eyelids were closed, but Harris could see his eyes shifting beneath them. Seeing something no one in this world could see.

  "Come on, Marsh." Harris grabbed Evan's arm, found the spot above the elbow where a nerve cluster sat close to the surface, and pinched. Hard. The kind of pinch that should leave bruises, that should cut through any trance or meditation or whatever the hell this was.

  The helicopter was getting closer, the roar of its engines rapidly increasing in volume.

  One sharp pain meant wrap it up. Two meant emergency. This qualified as an emergency.

  Harris squeezed again, straightened, and peered over the truck's roof toward the road. The convoy had reached the clearing's edge. Doors opened. Figures spilled out. Eight, ten. More. Harris couldn't count them all, couldn't track the tactical situation while simultaneously trying to wake a man whose mind was literally in another galaxy.

  Harris knew from the last two weeks that it took Evan about thirty seconds to get from the bridge to the transfer chamber. He ticked down the seconds in his mind while bracing the M39 on the roof, watching the new threats. They had seen what had happened to their tracking team. They were remaining extra cautious, waiting for air support.

  By the sound of things, that support would be here any moment.

  "Now, Marsh," Harris breathed as his countdown neared thirty.

  Motion in his scope drew his attention. A figure slipped out past one of the trees, trying to advance. He squeezed off another round, gritting his teeth in grim satisfaction as the operator dropped. A second one appeared, then ducked back as Harris' shot hit the bark and ricocheted away. Gunshots cracked from nearby, hitting the rear of the truck and forcing Harris to duck. More rounds peppered the tailgate. They were deliberately staying away from the cab, unwilling to risk Evan or the starship.

  They were shooting at the tires.

  Forty seconds passed. The situation was deteriorating rapidly.

  The helicopter's spotlight swept across the tree line, searching. It hadn't found the truck yet. The canopy above was dense enough to break up the light, to create shadows and confusion. But that wouldn't last.

  Harris made his decision. He broke around the front of the truck, quickly opening the driver's side door and dropping inside. Bullets punctured the door before he could fully close it, none of them penetrating the sheet metal. He'd left the keys in the ignition. Standard protocol. Never have to search for keys when seconds matter.

  The engine turned over on the first try.

  He killed the headlights and threw the truck into gear. The clearing had two exits—the main track they'd come in on, currently crawling with hostiles, and a secondary route he was already familiar with. A game trail, barely wide enough for the truck, winding through dense forest before eventually connecting to a fire road three miles to the north.