"Back so soon, Dev?" The man's tone carried mild curiosity rather than concern. He didn't turn around. "Did you forget something?"

  "Not even close." The Remington's barrel was already centered on the space between the man's shoulder blades.

  The man's posture changed. A subtle shift, muscles tensing beneath the expensive fabric of his jacket. Then, slowly, he turned. His face matched the voice—aged but distinguished, his features the kind that photographers loved and time had treated with unusual kindness. Deep-set eyes took Evan in from head to toe, noting his weapon and his militant stance. The assessment lasted perhaps two seconds before those eyes locked on Evan's face with unsettling calm. "And just who are you?"

  Evan crossed the room, closing enough to make the shotgun's threat immediate and undeniable. "I'm the man who put the hole in that chopper sitting on your helipad a few nights back."

  Something flickered behind those calm eyes. Recognition. Understanding.

  "Marshall." Then the man laughed. The sound was genuine, warm, carrying the deep amusement of someone who'd just heard an unexpectedly good joke. It rolled through the office like a wave, completely at odds with the situation. The armed intruder. The weapon pointed at his chest. The obvious danger of his position.

  "What's so funny?" Evan asked.

  The man's laughter faded to a smile that held more appreciation than fear. "I can't decide whether coming here was the smartest thing you could have done, or the dumbest."

  Evan's finger rested against the shotgun's trigger guard, ready to move inside it at the first sign of trouble. "I have questions. You have answers. Seems like a reasonable trade."

  "By all means." The man gestured toward a leather chair positioned in front of the desk, the motion casual, as if they were meeting for a business discussion rather than at gunpoint. "Care to sit? This may take some time."

  "I'll stand."

  "Suit yourself." The man moved to the chair behind his desk and lowered himself into it with the careful deliberation of someone conscious of both his age and the weapon tracking his every movement. His hands came to rest on the desk's surface, fingers spread and visible. "I assume you want my hands where you can see them?"

  "By all means, keep them right there."

  "Of course." The man settled back, studying Evan with the same analytical interest one might give an unusual specimen. "Tell me what you know. It will help me fill in the blanks."

  Evan maintained his position, the shotgun steady, his back to a wall that let him keep both the door and the windows in his peripheral vision. "I know about the effigies. I know about the Ascendant, and that everyone wants it badly enough to kill for it." His jaw tightened. "I'm not on board with that particular solution."

  "Understandable."

  "I know there are four factions and three trackers. I've met three of those factions, and you have the outstanding tracker." Evan paused, watching the man's face for any reaction. "I know you're from another galaxy. And apparently, you operate like high-tech mafia here on Earth. How am I doing so far?"

  The man's expression remained neutral, but something in his eyes suggested approval. "You've learned a great deal in a remarkably short time." The man tilted his head slightly, a gesture that reminded Evan of a professor considering a promising student. "I also understand you've learned how to fly the Ascendant. Impressive, given that you don't know the language."

  "I can fly her well enough," Evan admitted.

  "How?"

  Evan shrugged without lowering the shotgun. "I broke down the symbols. Made inferences. Connected the dots."

  "Impressive," the man repeated, and this time the word carried genuine weight. "You're more capable than our initial assessments suggested. A significant underestimation on our part. When we saw you had gone into the Marine Corps straight out of high school, we imagined you weren't very bright. Your final GPA suggested the same."

  "I just didn't like school all that much," Evan replied. "To me, it was a necessary evil so I could play football."

  The man leaned forward slightly, his hands still visible on the desk. "We don't have to be enemies, Evan. In fact, you could take on a valuable role with us."

  "I've heard that line before. From High Commander…Sara, is it? From the Umbral Empire?"

  "Ah. High Commander Sarxon Abrelle," Kviren said. "She goes by Sara here. Yes, I can understand why you wouldn't receive that offer very warmly. I don't suppose you would trust that Skytrace isn't so duplicitous?"

  "I might have before you nearly killed my friend."

  "It's the starship we want, Evan. The situation isn't personal."

  "Because it's so important." Evan's eyes narrowed. "Why? What makes the Ascendant worth all this bloodshed?"

  The man was quiet for a moment, his gaze distant, as if he were considering how much to reveal. "The answer to that question is like Pandora's box. Once opened, it cannot be closed again. Do you really want to know?"

  "Yes."

  The man nodded slowly, something shifting in his expression. A decision made.

  "My name is Kviren Battalen. I serve as Commander of the Skytrace Empire for North America." He paused, letting the title settle. "Like many members of the Empire, though not all, I came to Earth from the Oridian Galaxy. Sent by the Empress herself to aid in the recovery of the Ascendant's effigy."

  "You have an empress?"

  "A woman of remarkable vision and patience." Kviren's voice carried the reverence of true belief. "The effigy was brought to Earth by the Makers over four millennia ago. We've been searching for it for over two centuries now."

  Evan's grip on the shotgun shifted slightly. "Four thousand years? That's impossible. I found the effigy at a garage sale in Montana. The woman said her grandfather made it sixty years ago."

  "Clearly a falsehood," Kviren replied. "Though whether it was the grandfather's, the woman's, or otherwise remains questionable."

  "The Makers." Evan kept his voice level despite the chaos in his thoughts. "Who were they?"

  "The architects of our galaxy. Our history. And its near-destruction." Kviren settled deeper into his chair, his hands remaining visible, his posture that of a lecturer warming to his familiar subject. "They were descendants of the first starfaring civilization. Nine in total, they ruled over empires, each commanding entire planetary systems, along with billions of subjects who looked to them for guidance and protection."

  "Emperors?"

  "In every sense of the word. Their territories spanned multiple star systems. They developed technologies that even now we cannot replicate. For centuries, these empires coexisted, not peacefully, perhaps, but without open conflict." Kviren's expression grew distant. "Then something changed. The historical record is unclear on exactly what triggered it, but of course the legends claim it was all over a single woman, of such beauty that the like had never been seen before or since." He laughed. "Needless to say, I don't believe that particular legend. No one truly knows what caused it, but the Makers found themselves at war with one another."

  Evan thought of the Möbius, that impossible ribbon hull bristling with weapons that could erase matter from existence. The terror it had inspired when it emerged from nowhere to annihilate two Red Scar destroyers.

  "The wars escalated over generations," Kviren continued. "Each Maker built seemingly endless fleets of warships, each generation more advanced than the last. Hoping to gain the decisive advantage that would end the conflict in their favor, they threw everything they had into developing superior technology. It sent them down an inevitable path to total ruin."

  Kviren paused, drawing a deep breath while letting his words sink in, his downcast eyes and tight jaw expressing true sorrow for the Makers' folly.

  "Each Maker eventually produced what today we call a relic ship—a unique vessel that represented the absolute peak of their empire's technological ability. Nine ships of unimaginable power, each one capable of single-handedly turning the tide of battle. They became symbols as much as weapons. The physical embodiment of each Maker's genius and authority.

  "The relics fought as intended. Efficiently. Without hesitation. Without mercy. Each engagement pushed the opposing sides closer to extinction. In time, the wars consumed everything the Makers had built. Their fleets annihilated one another. Their homeworlds burned. The stars dimmed beneath the fallout of their weapons. And not until the final battles had ended in stalemate did the surviving Makers look upon what remained and see the decimation they had wrought. Trillions dead. Countless worlds reduced to ash. The galaxy itself scarred beyond recognition."

  "How many survived? The Makers, I mean."

  "Enough to make a choice." Kviren's expression grew contemplative. "Rather than continue fighting until nothing remained, the Makers agreed to end it. Not with a document outlining terms of a truce. They ended it permanently. They destroyed their remaining fleets and erased the knowledge needed to build such weapons again. They confined their surviving subjects to their homeworlds, stripping away the technology that had allowed interstellar travel."

  Evan stared at him. "They threw their own people back to the stone age?"

  "Not quite that far. But far enough." Kviren's voice carried something that might have been admiration, or perhaps horror. "They intentionally set civilization back to ensure that history could never repeat itself. That no one would ever again possess the means to wage war on such an enormous scale."

  "And the Makers themselves?"

  "They fled to Earth, to live out the rest of their lives in exile, knowing that if they ever returned to their weapons, they would finish what they started." Kviren gestured vaguely toward the windows, toward the world beyond. "Complete annihilation."

  "But they obviously didn't destroy the relic ships," Evan said.

  "For many years, we all believed they had. The histories, the legends made no mention of their survival. I don't believe they ever intended for us to rediscover their existence. To not only find them, but learn to control them."

  "There are so many things I don't understand," Evan said. "If the Makers wanted to wipe the slate clean and remove themselves from the equation, then why did they bring the effigies to Earth?"

  "That question has been debated for some time." Kviren's expression turned thoughtful. "Some say they wanted to visit their galaxy when they desired, to see what became of the survivors they left behind. Others believe they simply couldn't bear to destroy the relic ships or their connections to them. That too much of their genius had gone into building the vessels. The truth?" He shrugged. "Unknown. Lost with the Makers themselves."

  "Of all the places in two galaxies, why Earth?"

  "We don't know for certain, but we believe it's because Earthers and Oridians are genetically identical."

  "You mean that we're both human?"

  "Yes."

  "How is that even possible? Across billions of light years, I mean."

  "If the seeds of life are planted in different fields that have identical soil nutrients, moisture, temperature, light, and so on, would they not grow the same?"

  Evan shrugged. "Maybe. But how would the Makers know to come here? Unless..."

  "You're suggesting one of the Makers brought life to Earth," Kviren replied. "The theory has been debated for centuries. There's no definite proof either way."

  Evan processed the information, his mind racing to incorporate this new understanding into everything he'd experienced. The factions hunting him weren't just alien criminals or government operatives. They were the descendants of populations that had been deliberately thrown backward in their development, people who had clawed their way back to the stars, still fighting over the weapons their rulers had tried to hide.

  More than that. They were human.

  "How did you recover?" he asked. "After the Makers left?"

  "Slowly. Painfully." Kviren's voice carried a weight that suggested personal knowledge, even though the events predated him by millennia. "Different populations emerged from the imposed darkness at different rates. Some rediscovered technology faster than others. Some found caches the Makers had missed, or couldn't bring themselves to destroy. Eventually, we returned to the stars. After the first relic ship was discovered, we began searching for the rest.

  "Twelve primary factions now control the Oridian Galaxy, with dozens of lesser groups vying for much smaller scraps. Not wholly unlike the situation here on Earth, actually. Your nations compete for power, for resources, for influence. You maintain stockpiles of nuclear weapons as deterrents against annihilation. In Oridia we have the relic ships. The ones we've managed to find, that is."

  The comparison sent a chill down Evan's spine. Nuclear weapons were terrifying enough. But the relic ships—vessels that could crack planets, erase matter from existence, reshape the battlefield through overwhelming superiority—represented a threat several orders of magnitude beyond anything Earth had ever conceived.

  "How many are there?" Evan asked. "Relic ships, I mean."

  "Originally, there were eleven. Nine flagships belonging to the nine Makers, plus two more." Kviren's fingers tapped lightly on the desk. “Three have been destroyed over the millennia—casualties of the renewed conflicts that ignited among the factions. We believe there are eight still in existence."

  "How many of them have you found?"

  “Seven, as of last week."

  "And the effigies?"

  “We’ve only located five effigies. Though not for lack of trying.”

  "And the Ascendant is one of them.”

  “Yes. Even today, the relic ships remain more advanced than anything any of the new empires can produce, by orders of magnitude. We've spent millennia trying to reverse-engineer the Maker relics we've found, and yet we've barely scratched the surface of their understanding." His eyes met Evan's. "You saw the Möbius, didn't you?"

  "I saw it."

  "Then you know the power of a single relic ship."

  Evan's jaw tightened. He remembered the violet-and-gold energy that had erased two Red Scar destroyers, the twisted hull, the terror that had gripped him when he realized he was completely outmatched.

  "Except the Ascendant isn't like that at all." He shook his head. "My ship is tiny by comparison. It has weapons, sure, but nothing that could threaten something like that. The Möbius could destroy it without effort."

  Kviren's expression shifted. "Could it?" he said, knowledge of some kind entering his eyes.

  The question hung in the air between them.

  "I'm not convinced," Kviren added.

  Evan stared at him. "So that's why everyone wants it? Because somehow it's the best of these mega-powerful starships?"

  "No." Kviren shook his head slowly. "I never said it was the best."

  "Then what is it?"

  Kviren was quiet for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. When he spoke again, his voice carried a hint of resignation.

  "You have to understand, thousands of years have passed. The Makers have become...something more than I believe they were. Different empires remember them differently. To some, they're demons who nearly destroyed everything. To others, they're gods who created the very stars we fly among. The truth has been buried beneath layers of legend and myth, shaped by whatever narrative became dominant at one time or another." He leaned forward slightly. "But certain facts have endured. As legend has it, there were officially nine Makers. Nine rulers, nine relic ships, nine powers that tore the galaxy apart in their endless wars."

  "But?"

  "But in truth, there were ten." Kviren's voice dropped. "One who dwelled far outside the boundaries of known space. One who had watched his brethren destroy themselves and everything they'd built. One who had devoted his genius not to winning the war, but to ending it."

  Evan felt something cold settle in his chest.

  "This tenth Maker built two ships rather than one. The first dwarfed all others in its capabilities and battlefield prowess. One that could negate the advantages of all the other relic ships combined. A Doomsday ship, as it were. The ultimate weapon, designed to end all weapons."

  "And the other?"

  "The tenth Maker realized that to introduce his ship into the wars would be catastrophic. It wouldn't end the conflict; it would escalate it beyond all bounds, triggering a final confrontation that would leave nothing alive in its wake. So the ship remained dormant from the moment of its christening. We believe it remains hidden away in a place only the tenth Maker knew. Waiting."

  Evan's mind raced, trying to connect the pieces. "What does the Doomsday ship have to do with the Ascendant?"

  "The tenth Maker designed a second ship. A smaller vessel. One in which he set out to end the war between his brethren, not through destruction, but through diplomacy." Kviren's voice softened with something that might have been reverence. "A ship designed to carry him to meet the other Makers and convince them to give up their weapons. He wanted to convince them to rise from the ashes of war into a new understanding of prosperity and peace before it was too late."

  Evan stared at the older man, confused. "How can a ship designed to bring diplomacy be so important to⁠—"

  The door burst open. "Father!" Devin rushed through, his earlier composure shattered, his face tight with urgency. "We have…" His shoulders slumped when he saw Evan. "...a problem."

  16

  Before Kviren could react to Devin's interruption, Evan lunged forward, the shotgun braced against his hip as his finger slid inside the trigger guard. He pressed the shotgun's muzzle to Kviren's chest. At the same moment, Devin's hand dropped to the holster strapped to his thigh. His pistol cleared leather in a motion that spoke of countless hours of training, the muzzle snapping up to center on Evan's forehead.