The Betwixt Book One

  Chapter 5

  This was the worst, most anxious shift of my life. I couldn’t believe I’d actually bothered to show up for work. But I had; Od had insisted on it.

  “We can’t go after the Twixt on the GAM cruiser yet,” he’d said over breakfast, which had been another sustenance bar. “Not until your guns arrive. But you must not be idle. Your position at Marty’s Space Diner, it is the perfect work for you this morning. You can listen carefully to the conversations around you – glean information on our foe from the GAMs and station crew.”

  I could do that walking the decks – there was nothing special about the diner. Well, Marty always said that food made people talk. In a way, he was right. The diner would concentrate all sorts together, and soon enough they would always start chatting about the latest gossip while throwing down their Space Blasters and Eluvian Ales.

  So I kept my ears out as I mindlessly entered orders.

  “Closed down a deck? Are you serious? Why did they go and do that?” A station engineer asked a cargo crewman as he twisted his drink in his hand. “If it’s core trouble, they’ve got to get in there and stabilize her before she’s lost.”

  “They can’t get in there.” The cargo crewman leaned forward, eyes darting from side-to-side in classic conspiratorial style. “Something’s in there – it has already killed.”

  “Can’t get in?” The engineer was incredulous, but I could see his eyes widen with interest. “Don’t they know where the doors are?”

  “They think it’s some kind of infestation, maybe Clouds – don’t know where they would have picked them up.”

  Clouds, despite the friendly name, were a hive creature made up of billions of tiny, floating cells. They were infamous for infesting engine cores and feeding off the energy. If there were enough of them, they could destroy a ship. The cargo crewman was right – it couldn’t be Clouds. No GAM ship would be that careless. Clouds were a known entity – all incoming cargo was scanned for them.

  I continued to pick up fragments of various conversations – some ridiculous, some harrowing, some too cryptic to understand.

  “They’re going to send in a contamination unit – scan for entities,” a GAM said to his friend.

  “They’re not going to find anything. Jenkins works on that deck – he said he saw that guy before he died, said he heard this noise that wasn’t there—”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Ask Jenkins.”

  Noise that wasn’t there…. I knew what that meant, and it made me want to jump into the center of the sun just to feel warmth again.

  After a while, things became too much, and I had to stand off to the side of the bar, one hand covering my face. This was my responsibility. It was up to me to fix this, and it was my fault that it had gotten this far. A man had died. A man had died….

  “I would say go to a doctor,” a man said from the other side of the bar, “But you don’t like those.”

  I pulled my hand away quickly to meet the gaze of Commander Cole. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  It always started to get awkward quickly when I talked to the Commander, and now was no exception.

  He clamped a hand on his chin and let his gaze lock on the bench. He appeared to be considering something carefully. “I saw you yesterday,” he offered. “You alright?”

  For some reason, those two words startled me into smiling. It was the way he’d said it.

  He tilted his head to the side, awaiting my reply.

  “Oh, of course. I had….” I cast around for an excuse. I wasn’t about to tell the Commander that I had indirectly killed a GAM by not destroying a Twixt when I’d had the chance. But I couldn’t think of anything to say – not a single thing.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said quickly, looking off to his side at a passing Hantari.

  There was that awkward pause again.

  The thing is, I wanted to tell Jason. Okay, so I didn’t know the guy but he… well, I’d like to think he would be one of the few I could trust.

  “So, have you worked on this station long?”

  I bit my lip with my front teeth. “A couple of years – which is long enough, I guess.”

  He conceded with a polite nod. “I guess it has its perks.”

  Sure, if perks included recycled air and enough credits to stock your cupboards with second-hand military sustenance rations. “We get a lot of different races through.” I played with the ties of my apron, flicking them around and digging at the hem with my fingers. “Not like being a GAM. I imagine you see things.” I blushed at the sheer stupidity of my comments. He saw things? Of course, everyone who had vision saw phenomena that could be categorized as things.

  “Oh,” he laughed. “You could say that.” His eyes met mine but dropped to my blouse, and I noted with a flush of heat that they didn’t immediately move.

  When his eyes flicked away, he looked confused.

  I couldn’t stop biting my lips now, and I was whipping my apron ties around so furiously that they were blurs.

  I knew I should be capitalizing on the moment and asking the GAM Commander about the situation aboard his ship, but I couldn’t speak. If I opened my mouth now, it would be to unleash the dam of babble.

  “Mini—” he cut off, obviously trying to form an uncomfortable question from the look of consternation crumpling his brow. “Do you—”

  I hung on his every word.

  “Mini,” another voice cut in from the side.

  I turned to see the Hantari Tech Industry’s salesman from the lower decks. He was still in his navy-blue uniform, his holo badge blinking out for everyone to see. He was carrying two big metal cases, which he placed carefully on the bar. They had the Tech Industry’s logo all over them.

  The Commander leaned back, eyes fixed on the boxes, one eyebrow raised. “Those aren’t what I think they are, are they?” he asked the Hantari. “New generation, Tech Power rifles with second function—”

  “They are.” The Hantari nodded with the quickest flick of his insect head. “Offer to GAM at discount, if he’s interested.”

  The Commander laughed, his face lighting up. “Oh, I can’t afford those.”

  The Hantari turned back to me. He handed me a pad. “The Kroplin was not in your quarters – give your bio scan for confirmation of receipt.”

  My face was burning with 100,000 degrees of white-hot heat. I couldn’t look at the Commander, but I could see his head tilt my way with surprise.

  I did the scan and handed the pad back. The Hantari nodded, and to my complete horror, proceeded to open the boxes right there. “They have been DNA fixed. No one else can fire them,” he added, obviously remembering I was a complete idiot when it came to weaponry. “You have also received free Tech Industry holsters, because of your considerable purchase. Now you have seen the goods,” he quickly shut the cases, “You take. Return to my stall if you have trouble,” he looked at me and made a noise which I could tell was the mosquito version of a harsh laugh, “When human has trouble.”

  “What’s going on here?” Cole’s voice was as a commander’s should be – cold, authoritative, and curt. He looked right at me, expression unreadable.

  “This is a transaction.” The Hantari produced a pad from his pocket. “The GAM should know Tech Industries is a legitimate weapons dealer. Human has been scanned and licensed. This deal is complete and validated.” He showed the Commander the same holo-pad that had convinced Crag’tal.

  Commander Cole was silent then nodded. The Hantari snapped around and walked off, long body swaying through the crowd like a sapling in the wind.

  That left the Commander and me.

  He let out a long breath. “Mind telling me why you have enough weaponry to take a freighter there?” His voice dropped down dangerously low and made me shiver.

  “I, ah, they’re for someone else,” I said slowly.

  “They’re DNA coded only to you. Single use
guns.”

  I was breathing so shallowly that I sounded like a dog panting as it was sent on a raft into the center of the sun. “Ah well….”

  “He talked about a Kroplin. I’ve only seen one of those around lately – same one that assaulted you. You usually buy guns with your attackers?”

  I felt like fainting. “Umm, you see I….”

  His eyes were narrowed, and he was looking at me the way he’d regard the scum of the lower decks. “I guess I was wrong about you, Mini.”

  I reached out and grabbed the cases off the bench, not wanting to draw any more attention. My limbs, my chest, my torso – they were all cold with dread and disappointment.

  He stood up from his stool. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”

  I stood there, the gun cases in hand, feeling worse than when the Twixt had covered me with darkness.

  By the time I made it back to my quarters, I was… it was hard to explain. Numb was the only word that came close. It wasn’t numb in the conventional sense – I could still feel the dread and disappointment – but they were spread out like a suffocating blanket. I walked along, gun cases heavy at my side, on autopilot.

  I nodded at Od when I entered my quarters and dropped the cases on my bed. Od bobbed around at my feet, excited to see what his fortune had bought us. I opened the cases, fingers slipping a couple of times like they were as cold as my insides felt.

  I didn’t even hesitate before I reached down to pick one up. It was one of the pistols. It felt light, with enough weight to remind me that it wasn’t a toy. It was distractingly sleek – the light playing off its smooth, white, metallic finish.

  I ran a finger along the barrel. Od was right, I thought to myself distractedly, there were few that I could trust. Cole had gone and demonstrated that perfectly. No matter how much I wanted it to be otherwise, his mind was made up about me. While Crag’tal hadn’t wanted to know what I was up to, Cole hadn’t given me the time of day. Gunrunner, mercenary, assassin for hire – I didn’t know what Cole thought I was, or why I would need such expensive firepower, but it was clear I’d changed in his estimation. I’d gone from the pathetic diner waitress to the armed suspect.

  Perhaps Od could tell I was distracted, because he didn’t start spouting off about how “We had to board the GAM cruiser before the day was lost,” or how “This was only the first step in our sacred war against the Twixts.”

  I put the gun back in the case, only to pull out my complimentary Tech Industry holsters. There were leg holsters for the pistols and a contraption that was supposed to sit over my back and hold both rifles crossed over each other in an X.

  I took off my holo-pin and placed it on my bedside table. There was no point in waiting, some part of me realized; there was nothing to wait for anymore.

  “We have the guns,” I said coldly as I sat on the edge of the bed and brought the pistol holsters up around each leg. I was still wearing my brimming blue uniform skirt – but did it matter? Not only did the holsters fit snug underneath, but the fold of the fabric would hide them from view. I didn’t fancy walking up to a GAM cruiser, guns at my hips like a common mercenary with the equivalent of “shoot me” tattooed across my brow.

  “You wish to go now?” Od had apparently caught up, and for the first time, his voice was tentative, careful. “You do not wish to plan?”

  What would planning achieve? I was still unskilled, untrained, and hopeless. Sure, I didn’t know how to use these guns, but where was I going to learn that, anyway? I could hardly start blasting away in my room, could I? No, there was only one place these guns were going to see action. “We don’t have time, do we?” I secured the holsters and stowed each of the guns away.

  I patted my skirt over them. Thankfully, there were only the barest of bumps jutting out from my side.

  “Time is short – you are right.”

  I turned to look at the rifles. They would be too conspicuous; I couldn’t afford to take them with me today.

  Today. I was saying today like there would be a tomorrow.

  I walked to the door.

  “How will we get aboard?” Od raced after me.

  “You’ll figure something out.” My voice was still cold. “Where were you today, by the way, when the guns were being delivered?”

  I couldn’t see Od’s face as I marched off down the corridor outside my quarters – apparently, he was having trouble keeping up.

  “I was talking to creatures, trying to find out information – reconnaissance for our journey. It is hard to know who to trust, but we—”

  “Yes,” I cut in with finality, “It is hard to know who to trust.”

  As we walked through the Service Decks, my back felt colder than an ice moon at night. I still walked. That other side of me, the side I was starting to realize wasn’t human – it was in control. It had taken over the controls when Commander Cole had crushed me under his regulation boots. She knew that the only thing that truly mattered was the Twixt. Everything else was peripheral, unimportant, inconsequential.

  We would get aboard the cruiser, I figured, find our way onto the shutdown deck, and end this.

  “We may have a chance to get aboard,” Od spoke softly at my side as we made our way to the docking deck. “If I can make it to an engineering console somewhere. I may be able to momentarily disable their security systems, allowing us to sneak aboard through—”

  Momentarily disable their security systems? What was he going to do? Throw a spanner in their computer core? I didn’t pretend to understand how all this technical sabotage stuff worked, and I didn’t care. This was all going to end in tears, anyway.

  “Do what you have to do,” I mumbled, finding it harder and harder to speak. I was drawing in on myself, like a flower that had been left to wilt and shrivel in the hot desert sun.

  It was all so surreal, so impossible, so untrue. Yet it was happening.

  I’d never even been on a GAM cruiser, let alone navigated my way around their snaking, maze-like decks. So when it came time to board, Od having done his magic with a station security panel he found unattended, I was starting to regret my foolish attitude. The numb calm that had seen me slap on my holsters and march down here was giving way to spiraling unease.

  I still knew what I had to do, academically. Gone was the imperative, the certainty I’d felt in my stomach. Now I was plain old Mini the waitress again. Mini the waitress who’d stolen aboard an army vessel with a pair of high-powered pistols strapped to her thighs.

  We were crawling along some kind of maintenance duct again – Od being particularly fond of those. I wasn’t about to complain; we had more chance crawling along a narrow tunnel than we did walking out in the ship’s corridors. We’d stick out like only a waitress heroine and her alien monk sidekick could do.

  I found myself tugging at the back of my skirt again, and it almost brought a smile to my lips. I was glad to see that, despite the general upheaval in my life, I still knew how to be demure. A girl should never let her knickers show, even if she was having an emotional meltdown while en route to her certain death.

  Od held some kind of small scanner in his hands as he walked along before me. He had warned me, before we’d loaded ourselves into the hatch, that I had to be “exquisitely silent,” which meant no “whimpers, screams, or yelps.” Apparently, this service duct was right over the ceiling of tactical control – whatever that was. Anyway, the point was, we didn’t want to make ourselves known in a ship that was on high alert from a mysterious entity trapped in its engineering deck. This would be a shoot first, don’t ask questions scenario for the GAMs.

  So I concentrated on keeping my breath as silent as possible, which of course meant it sounded like the dying wheeze of a man shot through both lungs. Subtlety obviously wasn’t my thing.

  Fortunately, the thin walls did come in handy. We were able to pick up snippets of conversation as we wended our illegal way through the cruiser’s service ducts.

  “Contam unit is ready to
go, sir.”

  “Looking at quick entry – scan for entities, engage if needed.”

  “We detected a malfunction in the internal security scanners. Looks like a faulty circuit. Seems routine – we’ll have the techs look into it after Main Engineering is cleared.” This particular snippet of conversation had me shiver like a sopping wet dog. I didn’t need Od to tell me that their detected malfunction was less of a faulty circuit, and more of a quick-handed monk.

  Od seemed to always know where he was going, and soon we’d passed down several small ladders – heading further into the center of the ship. This ship was huge, I realized as the minutes ticked by. Once again, I was faced with that awful, slow lead up to battle. The cold preparedness I’d felt in my quarters had all but dwindled. I’d now had the time to think things over, and I was back to wanting to run to my bed and hide from the terrible Twixt, whimpering like a child whose ice cream had fallen in the sand.

  After what felt like half an hour, Od put up a tiny crimson hand in the universal communication of stop. I was glad to sit up a bit, take the pressure off my chaffed and scratched hands. The respite didn’t last long.

  “We are over a hatch that leads down to Main Engineering,” Od spoke freely. “We no longer have to be concerned that we will be overheard. However, we should now expect an altercation—”

  “You mean it’s time to do what we came here to do,” I cut in, voice trembling but still strong enough to push out the words.

  He nodded. “I hope you are prepared, Mini.”

  “Well, I’m not, but I hope I get lucky instead.”

  With that, we made our way down the hatch and onto the deck of Main Engineering.

  The lights were dim in this section – they were as faint as the reflected light of a waning moon. Why that was, I couldn’t tell. Perhaps the GAMs had redirected the power to more essential systems, not wanting to waste energy lighting up a no-man’s-land. Or perhaps it was the Twixt itself – they didn’t like light. Perhaps its first contribution upon moving in had been to dim the lights to create the correct mood for soulless shadows.

  There wasn’t much to note in the semi-darkness, but I could see that this deck was large. Od had tried to show me a blueprint on the security panel he’d hacked into. This section was meant to be circular in the middle with a huge open space that surrounded the massive engine cores that powered the ship. Around that section, like ripples from a pebble dropped in a clear pond, were corridors that connected up to various types of consoles and whatever else you needed to fly lumps of metal through space at several times the speed of light.

  By the looks of it, we had dropped into one of those corridors. I tried for a brief moment to imagine where the Twixt would be hiding. Would he be squeezed into some recess somewhere, taking advantage of the natural shadow to cover his dark form? Or would he be hard at work at some door – trying to get through to the beings, the fresh life, he felt on the other side? Or would he be prowling the corridors like a rabid nightmare, mind fixated on pure violence, ready to destroy the first thing that walked his way?

  The skin along my back was erupting in painful pricks, like I’d rolled around in a solution of iron shavings, crushed up glass, and acid. It was terrible moving silently along these corridors, just waiting. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and charge the thing – get it over and done with. But I couldn’t find it.

  Od was as quiet as deep space, barely keeping pace behind me. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely afraid – I couldn’t see his face in the dark. I couldn’t imagine the guy with a trickle of sweat on his brow. He didn’t seem the type to get frightened. Lucky him.

  We made it through a series of interconnected corridors until we reached the massive open circle that housed the engine cores. The cores were six huge cylinders that reached from the floor to the ceiling with this eerie, pulsing blue light within their clear shells, like the trapped swirl of a massive electrical storm. Had I not been hunting the most vicious fiends in the galaxy, I might have stopped to appreciate their unusual beauty. There was something very space-like about them. They reminded me of a gas nebulae or a trapped, dying sun.

  I would be the first to admit that I knew nothing about engineering, but I could tell that these cores were still on, though powered down. That made a kind of sense – they didn’t look like the kinds of things you could turn off.

  Well, most of the cores still looked on, with their trapped, blue spirals of energy, but there was one toward the back that was blacker. Its tumbling clouds were grayish and looked slower, and I fancied I could even hear a soft whirring-down emanating from it.

  I stared at that core, feeling something I didn’t understand.

  That’s when the lights flicked back on to full, and the massive door at the end of the room opened.