When your life is on the line, it's not how much you know or how well-trained you are. It's how much you want to live.

In the near future, Norman Perseus (Perse) Grant, eighteen, the son of an engineer on a transporter project, is given the chance to beam from Tacoma, Washington, to Reno, Nevada. Perse is slated to go with three celebrities-Carmella Martinez, Jack Miller, and Ronny McFarlane. They have skills in sports. Perse doesn't.

Things go wrong when their carrier signal intertwines with that of a carrier signal from another planet. The four travelers end up on a distant world, Nario Seven. Ronny is killed by a soldier, and Perse, Carmella, and Jack are captured by a warlord, Quaggon.

Quaggon gives them a choice-retrieve an energy source that his people desperately need-or die. It isn't much of a choice, so the three set out for a fortress city, guided by a soldier named Matsuge.

Succeed or die. There is no other way.