The Betwixt Book One (10 page)

‘
What is going on here?’ Cole's voice was just as a Commander's
should be – cold, authoritative, and curt. He looked right at me,
expression unreadable.

‘
This is 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 for a second, then nodded. The
Hantari snapped around and walked off, long body swaying through
the crowd like a sapling in the wind.

That just 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
was . . . it 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 . . .
then . . . ‘

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

By the time I had made it back to my quarters, I
was . . . it was hard to explain. Numb was the only
word that came close. But 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. Maybe I had surrendered to
whatever it was that was happening to me, let the numb feeling
cancel out the thoughts and feelings, because I just 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 just opened the cases, fingers
slipping a couple of times, like they really 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 just enough weight
to remind me that it wasn't a toy. It was distractingly sleek too –
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 really 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 rather 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, then a little contraption that was supposed to sit
over my back, I figured, 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 any more.

‘
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 skit – but did it matter? Not only
did the holsters fit snug underneath, 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 just 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
exactly 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
finally secured the holsters and stowed each of the guns
away.

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

‘
Time is short, you are right. But . . .
‘

I turned to look at the rifle case. They would be too
conspicuous, I couldn't really afford to take them with me
today.

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

I walked for the door.

‘
But how will we get aboard?’ Od raced after me.

‘
You'll figure something out,’ my voice was still cool. ‘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. But 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. And 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 then . . . .

‘
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. Work or not, 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. And 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 a magic with a station security panel he
found unattended, I was starting to regret my foolish attitude. The
strange 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. But gone was the
strange imperative, the peculiar certainty I had felt in my
stomach. Now I was just plain old Mini the waitress again. And Mini
the waitress had just 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
either, 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. And
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, then 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
catch of conversation had me shiver like a sopping wet dog. I
didn't need Od to tell me that their little ‘detected malfunction’
was less of a faulty circuit, and more of a quick-handed
monk.

Od always seemed to know where he was going, and soon we had
passed down several small ladders – heading further and further
into the center of the ship. This ship was huge, I realized as the
minutes ticked by. And once again, I was faced with that awful,
slow lead up to battle. The cold preparedness I had felt in my
quarters had all but dwindled. I had 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 had 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. But 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 – in fact, 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, after all – 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. And around that
section, like ripples from a pebble dropped in a clear pond, were
corridors that connected up 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,
waiting . . . 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.