Harris cut the wheel and hit the gas, churning up earth as the F150 spun its wheels in the damp undergrowth before finally catching on the dry ground beneath and heading toward the game trail. Hunting the tires, more rounds pinged off the tailgate as the truck lurched forward, bouncing over roots and rocks, the suspension groaning in protest.

  Harris accelerated away, gaining as much speed as he dared, navigating by moonlight and memory, the trees pressing so close on either side that branches scraped the doors and roof. A continuous shriek of wood on metal that set his teeth on edge.

  Behind him, the helicopter's spotlight swept across the empty space where the truck had been parked moments ago. The chopper hesitated, then began tracking the trail left by the tires in the undergrowth.

  Behind the helicopter, Harris heard engines revving. The sound of pursuit organizing itself.

  Harris pushed the accelerator harder.

  The game trail curved sharply to the left, and he nearly missed it, nearly sending them into a tree that would have ended everything. The truck's rear end fishtailed on loose dirt, tires fighting for purchase. They slid into the tree trunk with a shuddering impact and bounced off. Harris had to slow, losing precious seconds as he fought the wheel, gaining control. Ahead, the path straightened out, and he hit the gas.

  He could hear the helicopter moving, its rotor sound shifting as it swept toward their section of forest. The canopy here was thinner. Less cover. If that spotlight found them⁠—

  And then it did.

  White light flooded the cab, turning night into harsh, shadowless day. Harris squinted against the glare, one hand coming up reflexively to shield his eyes. The helicopter had him now, tracking from above, its spotlight locked onto the truck like a predator unwilling to release its prey.

  He kept driving. Nothing else to do. The helicopter couldn't stop him by itself, at least not without risking his precious cargo. It could only follow, only illuminate, only guide the ground forces that were surely vectoring toward his position.

  Muzzle fire flashed in the rear view mirror. Someone had caught up. Harris couldn't see the vehicle through the spotlight's glare, couldn't identify how close they were, but the bullet that came through the cab's rear window, spider-webbing the safety glass between him and Evan before burying itself in the dash, told him everything he needed to know. He swerved left, then right, making the truck a harder target, branches whipping past inches from his side window.

  More shots. The rear window exploded inward, showering the cab with glass. Harris felt something tug at his shoulder. Not pain, not yet. Just the sensation of impact, of something that would hurt like hell once the adrenaline faded.

  Evan's body slumped sideways with the next hard turn, his head falling against Harris's shoulder. Still frozen. Still gone. Still useless.

  "Any time now, Marsh," Harris muttered through gritted teeth. "Any time you want to wake up and help would be great."

  The game trail opened onto the fire road. Harris yanked the wheel right and floored it. The helicopter effortlessly matched his acceleration, maintaining position directly overhead, its spotlight turning the truck into a beacon that every hostile in the county could track.

  More headlights appeared in the rear view.

  The fire road curved ahead, following the contour of a ridge. Harris knew this stretch. The curve was sharp, bordered by a steep drop on one side and dense forest on the other. It was dangerous at speed. Potentially fatal if you didn't know it was coming.

  With any luck, the pursuing vehicles didn't know the terrain like he did.

  Harris hit the curve at forty miles an hour, the truck's tires screaming as he wrestled it through the turn. For a sickening moment, he felt the rear end start to slide toward the drop-off, felt gravity reaching for them with hungry fingers. Then the tires caught, the truck straightened, and they were through the turn.

  Behind him, brakes shrieked.

  He caught a glimpse in the rear view. The lead vehicle tried to make the same turn at the same speed, its driver realizing too late what he was dealing with. The headlights slewed sideways, pointed toward the sky for a brief moment, and then disappeared over the edge. The crash came a second later, metal screaming against rock, followed by the hollow thump as it hit the bottom.

  One down.

  The second vehicle made the turn. Barely. Its headlights wobbled but stayed on the road, the driver slowing enough to maintain control. The helicopter overhead adjusted its position, the spotlight never wavering from Harris' truck.

  The fire road connected to the county highway half a mile ahead. From there, options opened up. More roads, more turns, more chances to lose pursuit in the maze of rural routes he'd spent two weeks memorizing.

  But the helicopter would stay with him. The helicopter would guide more vehicles to intercept. The helicopter was the real problem, and Harris had no solution for it.

  Not alone.

  He checked on Evan again. Still frozen. Still breathing those shallow breaths. Still clutching the effigy like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

  "I'm running out of ideas here, Marsh." Blood was running down his arm now, the shoulder wound making itself known, his adrenaline starting to thin. "Whatever you're doing up there, you need to finish it. Soon."

  The truck burst onto the county highway, tires chirping on asphalt. Harris grimaced in pain as he cranked the wheel left, heading west. Behind him, the remaining pursuit vehicles made the same turn, headlights glaring in his mirror.

  Above him, the helicopter followed like a patient angel of death.

  And in the passenger seat, Evan Marshall remained frozen for reasons Harris didn't want to think about.

  3

  Pain lanced through Evan's forearm. Sharp. Sudden. A pinch that cut through the surreal horror of the moment and dragged his attention away from the Möbius ship filling his viewport.

  Harris. The signal to wrap it up.

  But he couldn't wrap it up. The power reserves were still climbing, the sphere doing its work, but too slow. Far too slow. The impossible warship drifted closer with each passing second, its weapon batteries tracking him with patient menace.

  "Evan," said the woman he had spoken to on Earth, her English perfect. "You have five seconds to respond. If you choose not to, my magnanimity comes to an end."

  A second pinch, harder than the first. The emergency signal. Harris was in real trouble. The kind that couldn't wait.

  But he was in trouble too. If he abandoned the spaceship now, it would be captured. He could never come back. And the woman, Lars's boss, would have what she wanted so badly she had killed multiple innocent people for it. That she had already betrayed him to obtain. That she had vaporized two other warships to get her hands on control.

  Like he had told Harris, this woman had told him the ship could save millions of lives. But whichever side she was on, what if that meant taking millions more lives? He couldn't just hand something she claimed was so important over to her and trust that she wasn't as evil as her actions so far had made her seem.

  No matter what kind of emergency was happening back on Earth, he had to believe his friend could keep them both alive long enough for the power reserves to build and get him out of this predicament. It was the only play that gave him a chance on both sides of the effigy.

  "Three seconds, Evan," the woman said.

  His attention was fixed on the engineering display on the command console, the angular symbols shifting through shades of warning red. The power curve was a graph, and while he couldn't decipher all of the continually changing symbols around it, he understood the shape of the line on that graph and what it meant.

  Reserves at eight percent. The sphere of the Möbius ship filled the viewport now, its twisted geometry growing larger with each passing second, weapon batteries tracking his position with the patience of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere to run.

  He had to stall. "Wait," he said, his voice steady despite the situation. "Just wait."

  The woman's response came through the speakers with the patience of someone who held all the cards. "I'm listening."

  A jolt of pain shot through Evan's left side—sharp, disorienting, radiating from hip to shoulder—like he'd been slammed against something unyielding. His body on Earth. Something was happening to it, something violent enough to register across the quantum link.

  Eleven percent. The curve was steepening, but not fast enough. Evan gripped the armrests as another phantom impact rippled through his consciousness. He could only imagine his body being thrown around like loose cargo somewhere in Tennessee. Was he still in Harris's possession? Or maybe he'd been captured there, was being loaded unceremoniously into the back of another van.

  He couldn't worry about that now. One thing at a time.

  "The Möbius ship," he said, forcing focus through the dissonance of existing in two places at once. "It's an effigy, too." Evan's mind raced, piecing together implications even as his ribs ached from an impact he couldn't see or understand. "You said your trip to my world was one-way, but you're not stuck there. You can transfer to this ship, just like I transfer to mine."

  A pause. When the woman spoke again, something had shifted in her tone. Curiosity, perhaps. Or reassessment. "Yes." The word carried a hint of something that might have been approval.

  "How many effigies are there on Earth?" he asked.

  "Enough to matter." The Möbius ship was closing the distance, its impossible geometry rotating slowly as it approached. Evan could see individual weapon emplacements now, hundreds of them studding the twisted surface like thorns on a vine.

  "How many do you control?"

  "Is there a point to this, Evan?" The patience in her voice was thinning, an edge creeping into the carefully modulated tone. "Or is this your idea of buying time?"

  Eighteen percent. His shoulder flared with sudden pain. Had his body hit something? Been hit by something? He had no way of knowing, no context for the sensations bleeding through from Earth. Just pain without explanation, violence without visuals.

  "I was thinking maybe we could trade," he said, keeping his voice level through the distraction. "My ship for yours."

  Silence from the speakers. The tactical display updated. The Möbius ship had stopped its approach, holding position at the edge of the debris field.

  "Yours is bigger," Evan continued, watching the power climb past twenty percent. "More powerful. Those red-gray ships…"

  "The Red Scar Empire." The woman's voice carried contempt.

  "The Legion…they seemed afraid of your ship. You erased them like they were nothing. Maybe I'd be better off with something like that. A ship that makes entire fleets run. Would you trade?"

  "This isn't a negotiation."

  "But would you, if it were?"

  "Yes." No hesitation. "Gladly."

  "Why?"

  "Because size isn't everything, Evan. I wasn't lying about the value of the effigy you found. The ship you control."

  Twenty-nine percent. The red warnings on the engineering display had begun fading toward amber. Almost there. Almost.

  "I don't understand," Evan admitted, genuine confusion creeping into his voice. His ship had performed adequately against the Red Scar warships, but he'd nearly gotten himself killed in the process. Whatever made it special wasn't obvious to him.

  "No," the woman agreed. "You don't. That's precisely the problem. You're sitting in the command chair of something you can't begin to comprehend, playing with controls you barely understand, and you have no idea what you're risking every time you engage those systems."

  "Then tell me." Evan watched the power hit thirty-two percent. "What is this ship? Why does everyone want it so badly?"

  The Möbius ship began moving again, drifting closer with that same patient menace, unconcerned with the debris in its path. "The ship is useless to you, Evan. Why fight for something you don't understand when you could simply walk away?"

  "You said it could save lives."

  "It could. In the right hands. Hands that understand what the Makers built and why."

  Thirty-eight percent. A fresh pain blossomed along his right side, sharp enough he gasped. Whatever was happening in Tennessee, it wasn't good.

  "But you destroyed the Red Scar ships without hesitation," he said. "Hundreds of lives, maybe thousands, erased in seconds. And you expect me to believe you'll use my ship for good?"

  The woman laughed, and the sound was genuine, almost warm. "You're thinking in such simple terms. Good and evil. Right and wrong. The universe doesn't operate with such binary simplicity, Evan. I would have thought you, of all people, would understand that."

  Forty-four percent. The amber warnings were spreading across the display, the red retreating. His ribs throbbed. Another impact, another jolt of pain without context.

  "You betrayed me twice already," Evan answered. "I'd be an idiot to trust you again."

  "You speak as if you have a choice," the woman said, any residual warmth draining from her voice. "There's no way out of this for you, Evan. I'm offering a chance for you to survive. Why do you even care who controls the ship? Why does it matter whether my intentions are good or evil? This galaxy is billions of light years from your own. Beyond the fact that you discovered the effigy and how to activate it, none of this is your concern."

  "You made it my concern when your goons tried to kill me," Evan answered. "And now, the more you want me to not care, the more obvious it becomes to me that I should. I don't know much about this galaxy, but I'm pretty sure whichever side you're on, it's the wrong one."

  "You have no idea," the woman answered, her voice ice cold now. "It doesn't matter what you think. Surrender. Now."

  "Or what?" Evan watched the power climb past fifty percent. "You'll erase me like you erased those other ships? Then you won't get what you want."

  "No. I won't." A pause, weighted with calculation. "But neither will my adversaries. Perhaps preventing all of them from claiming your effigy is the best compromise."

  The response sent a shudder down Evan's spine.

  Through the viewport, the Möbius ship's main batteries began to glow. Energy built along their housings, the same violet-gold illumination that had annihilated two capital ships in seconds. The weapon emplacements adjusted their aim in tiny increments, centering on his position with deliberate precision.

  She wasn't bluffing.

  Fifty-eight percent. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

  "I'm opening a hangar bay," the woman said. "Remain on low power and begin your approach. If you comply, I won't reduce you to atoms."

  A section of the hull peeled apart in the distance, revealing a cavity large enough to swallow his ship ten times over. The interior glowed with pale amber light.

  Evan's hand moved to the throttle controls. His left arm burned with sudden fire—not impact this time, something sharper. Localized. His Earth body had been hurt, actually hurt, not just thrown around. The pain made his vision swim for a moment before he pushed through it. Maybe it didn't matter what he did here and now. He might not live long enough to see the final outcome.

  Sixty-three percent.

  Evan eased the throttle forward. The ship drifted toward the Möbius ship, buying seconds with every meter of reluctant progress.

  "Wise choice," the woman said. "I knew you'd see reason eventually."

  Seventy-one percent.

  "Tell me one thing," Evan said. "The groups hunting effigies on Earth. How many are there?"

  "More than you can fight. More than you can hide from." The woman's voice softened again, taking on an almost sympathetic quality. "You're not equipped for this war, Evan. You stumbled upon a weapon of the gods, but you're not even close to being equipped to use or understand it. It's a kindness for me to take it from you before it gets you killed."

  Seventy-nine percent.

  He was approaching the hangar bay, close enough that he could see details inside. Control stations along the walls. What looked like repair equipment. Other craft secured in docking cradles. A prison dressed up as a garage.

  "And if I'd rather die than hand it over?"

  "Then you'll die. And I'll salvage what I can from the wreckage." A pause. "But I don't think you want to die, Evan. You want to live. You want to understand. I can give you both, if you let me."

  Eighty-six percent.

  Three hundred meters to the hangar mouth. The main batteries still glowed along the distant sections of the Möbius hull, but they couldn't track him this close to the ship's own structure. Anything that fired now would risk hitting the twisted band itself. Which meant the moment to act was now.

  Ninety-two percent.

  Close enough.

  Evan shifted his orientation with the trackpad and slid the throttle to maximum, half expecting fresh warning tones and total failure.

  Instead, the ship responded with violent immediacy, acceleration crushing him into the command chair as he suddenly felt like he was falling off the edge of the world.

  The hangar bay entrance flashed past on his port side as he vectored over the opening, the ship screaming along the inner surface of the Möbius loop. Weapon emplacements swiveled to track him, point defense systems designed for intercepting missiles and small craft. They opened fire, energy bolts stitching across the void behind him, slow to adjust to his increasing velocity.

  The center of the Möbius strip loomed ahead. That vast hollow space at the heart of the twisted loop, an empty void framed by the ribbon of the hull. The geometry of the ship worked against it now. Weapons on one side of the ribbon couldn't fire toward the center without risking the opposite curve of the loop.

  Evan had a feeling no other ship had ever gotten close enough to take advantage of that deficiency before.

  He pushed the throttle harder. The hollow center rushed toward him, stars visible through the gap, freedom waiting on the other side. He shot through the opening without slowing.

  Open space exploded around him, the Möbius ship falling away behind as he rocketed into the void. The main batteries finally had a clear shot from behind. Space around him lit up in a prismatic hue, indicating the firing of the powerful weapons. But he was already gone, putting distance between himself and the terrifying starship.