The Betwixt Book One (11 page)

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

Eventually we made it through a series of interconnected
corridors until we reach 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 about them.
They reminded me of a gas nebulae or a trapped and dying
sun.

I would be the first to admit that I knew nothing of
engineering – but I could tell that these cores were still on, but
maybe powered down. That made a bit of sense – they didn't look
like the kinds of things you could turn off – just maybe dim, like
the lights had been on this deck.

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

I stared at that core for a moment, feeling something I didn't
quite understand.

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

Chapter 6

The door opened with a quick, mechanical swish. I was moving
well before the GAMs issued in, though. My head was twisted their
way while I ran to Od, grabbed him up under one arm, and threw
myself into a roll behind one of the pulsating cores. If I had
watched someone do this from afar, I would have been amazed at
their agility and timing. Except, I wasn't watching this, I was
doing it. In a flouncy skirt, no less.

But things were happening too fast for me to have out-of-body
‘ha’ moments.

I stopped short of the core, and tucked my back up towards it,
till Od and I were pressed so close to the faintly hot tech-glass,
that I felt like a burger under the grill.

I saw flashes of light from the door – red and blue lasers
slicing around the room in quick flicks. They were probably
attached to the ends of guns, I reasoned, guns that were likely
headed this way.

So this was the Contamination Unit come to clean up Main
Engineering of undesired entities. Problem was, I fit that category
now. I had stowed aboard their ship, after all, and disabled their
internal security sensors to do it. That jettisoned me way past the
‘entity’ category, and straight to ‘enemy’.

I had to keep out of sight, play this carefully, and not get
shot.

I licked my lips, and listened.

The GAMs didn't speak. Either they didn't have much to say, or
they'd switched to silent coms. Which meant I wasn't going to pick
up any helpful hints like 'shoot the thing in the blue skirt', or
'let's just go and check behind that core over there, in case
someone has left us a present'.

I took a deep, silent breath. Strangely enough, the heat off
the core behind me was reassuring. That was the thing about space –
life could only survive were there was heat. And it was always good
to know you weren't dead, yet.

I slowly released Od from my grip – my ears so focused on the
soft, barely perceptible sounds of the GAMs entering the room –
that the little guy could have thrown on a Hawaiian shirt and
played the banjo, and I wouldn't have noticed.

A flicker of fear, of overwhelming unease, threatened to
overcome me as I waited. But I managed to bite it down. I had
something in me, I told myself over and over again, that other
side, that alien side. She knew what to do, it was in my blood.
That's what Od had said. Part of me was meant for this, made for
it. I just had to get out of her way.

My hearing was starting to go into overdrive. I could pick up
the creak of the GAMs' armor as they shifted along, even pick up
the twist in the fabric of their gloves as their fingers tightened
over their triggers.

They were moving closer – across the room to the
cores.

I slipped my hands underneath my skirt and pulled out my
pistols, as slowly and silently as I could manage. Every ruffle of
my skirt, every creak of my muscles, felt like a 1000-decibel alarm
advertising my position better than a massive neon
arrow.

But I finally had my guns in my hand, my fingers stretching
back and forth in front of the triggers, before I secured them into
the loops.

I had time for a desperate, closed-eyed prayer. Then I
waited.

There were several moments of silence before I heard a click
that might as well have been the loudest explosion in the history
of the universe.

‘
Move to open coms,’ someone said loud and clear, ‘there's too
much interference coming off that core.’

I bit my lip and shook my head several times. It was him. I
wanted to sigh out loud and slap myself in the head. It was
Commander Jason Cole. Weren't there any other GAMs upon this rotten
ship that could have led this detail?

This was going to make
things . . . .

‘
Start scanning for entities,’ Jason whispered. To his credit,
his voice was hardly traveling through the room, but for some
reason I could pick it up like he had his hand to my ear and was
shouting through my skull. ‘Keep formation.’

I sucked my lips in and squeezed them so hard it felt like
they were grinding under a tonne of rock . They could scan for
entities – but they probably wouldn't pick up the Twixt. They may,
however, manage to detect the halfy and the Kroplin hiding behind a
reactor core a couple of meters to their left.

But it didn't matter, they didn't get that far.

There was a strange rumble from behind me – which twisted
around and up into a high pitched spin. It sounded
like . . . like something about to blow.

‘
Cut the core, cut the core,’ he shouted, voice more desperate
than I had ever heard.

I stood up, leaning into the core behind me, one foot up, both
hands raised by my head, pistols at the ready.

I didn't know why, but for some reason I didn't think it was
about to blow . . . .

‘
It's not the core – it's . . . what the hell is
that?’ a GAM screamed.

That was my cue.

With one arm, I flattened Od into the tech-glass, forcing him
down to the ground so as to keep him well and truly out of the way.
With the other, I tracked around the core.

I could feel it. I could definitely feel it.

It wasn't so much a presence in my mind, than a drive of
ice-cold spikes slamming through my skin. The Twixt was
here.

I saw the group of GAMs – all six of them. They were just by
the open core, guns trained on the translucent tech-glass. I could
feel the fear and confusion rippling off them like heat from a
newborn star.

They didn't notice me, but in another moment, I noticed it.
There was something in the core – something past the glass in the
center of the black, electric storm. It was a shape like a
screaming, gaping jaw, which traveled up and down like a terrifying
predator.

It was a Twixt. And for some reason, the GAMs could see it
too. Or maybe not, maybe what they could see was the hole in the
energy, as the Twixt fed on it . . . the impression
it made within the core as if feasted on the spiraling
power.

I didn't have time to theorize, though, because that thing, it
felt me, and it started to move. It flicked its head to the side
like a curious owl, then pushed itself right through the glass as
if it were little more than a wisp of inconvenient fog.

The GAMs still hadn't turned, they were too transfixed by the
shape in the glass that was now dissipating. They had no idea that
the Twixt was barely a half meter from them, head twisting their
way.

It was horrible to watch – to feel the dread that the soldiers
should be feeling at the monster in their midst. They had no chance
to help themselves . . . 

I trained both guns towards it, and pulled the triggers, face
squeezing tight in anticipation.

Nothing happened. Well, nothing but the Twixt snapping its
non-distinct head my way and horrifying a scream that only I could
hear.

The breath clogged in my throat, my body freezing for the
barest moment. The guns wouldn't work . . .
I . . . .

But just before the thing launched itself across the room
towards me, something happened. One of the GAMs backed off with a
quick, sharp move and brought his gun up, shooting before I could
even blink. And he shot directly at the Twixt.

It broke the chains that were holding me in place, and I
shifted automatically to the cover of a core.

‘
There's something there,’ Jason screamed, ‘watch the energy
trail!’

He kept shooting, the sound of blasts ricocheting around the
room. And he was right, I noted as I peered around the corner of
the core. The Twixt was leaving a black energy trail as it moved –
residue from the core it had feasted upon moments before. But it
was dissipating, and fast.

I had to help, I had to get these guns going
before-

‘
Get out of its way,’ Jason screamed, ‘Franks get out of
the—’

I heard a crunch as something was flung against a wall. That
something was probably Franks, I thought as I desperately pawed at
my guns trying to get them to work.

‘
Move, go for cover!’ Jason screamed again. The GAM's fire was
becoming more erratic, like the dying buzzes of a fly.

I pulled over and over again at the triggers, my fingers
digging at them like a man scrambling at a ledge as he slipped off
a cliff.

The Twixt was ducking and weaving, avoiding most of the fire
with apparent ease. The GAMs were concentrating their barrages on
the energy trail itself, mistaking it for the creature, when the
Twixt was just before it.

I didn't know what to do – neither my human, nor alien side
could magically make these guns
work . . . 

‘
Where did it g-?’ One GAM screamed, but his voice was cut off
by another terrible crunch.

I-

I had to do something. Anything.

I ran from behind the core. I was behind the GAMs, who were
still facing the Twixt, even though they had no idea where it was.
I loosened my finger from the trigger of one of my pistols and I
threw it right at the Twixt's head. It sailed through the air and
collected the thing right on the top of its non-substantial skull –
causing a spark of light in a room already saturated by
blasts.

The Twixt screamed, honing in on me, the waitress, in a room
full of trained soldiers.

It ran for me; pushing down on its hunches and fleeting
straight past the still confused GAMs.

I had been running towards it, but changed direction faster
than the Commander had changed his mind about me. I skidded to a
halt, falling down onto one hand, but pushing myself up immediately
and into a dash for one of the corridors that led away from the
engine cores.

I made it into the corridor, skidding up against a wall, but
pushing on, always pushing on. If the Twixt was following me, it
would stop decimating the GAMs. They could have a chance to
regroup, to get the hell out of here, and maybe come away from this
thing still alive.

And I . . . I would a find a way.

I tried to think as I ran, tried to think of any possible way
to make my remaining gun work. Was there some kind of safety latch?
Maybe there was a code or something you had to
enter . . . somewhere. Ah!! I didn't know anything
about guns! Why had I been so stupid!

The burning frustration and guilt over not being able to do a
damn thing while GAMs had been slammed against walls like curtains
carelessly fluttering in the wind, was making me seize up. I found
myself squeezing on the trigger, my hands trying to form the
tightest of fists.

After several seconds, the gun began to whir. I almost dropped
it in surprise, my steps faltering to the point where the Twixt
behind me made a failed lunge for one of my arms.

But I pulled up in time, and I brought the gun up to stare at
it, my finger still fixed around the trigger.

A light was collecting in the barrel – with this blue glow
filling up along the side of the grip. It finally reached the end
and a voice said from the gun itself, ‘you have now successfully
loaded your Tech Industries fire arm. Thank you for buying Tech
Industries.’

My jaw literally fell open, but I didn't hang around to
scratch my head in surprise. That was how you loaded it? Holding
your finger on the trigger for several seconds? Why had no one
bothered to tell me that?!

Well, I was only going to get a chance to ask them if I
started doing what I came here to do.