The Betwixt Book One (37 page)

I wanted to reach out and touch her, to feel her glowing skin
against mine, to share the terrible burden that seemed to be
weighing her down. Even though . . . even though I
was already sharing that burden. I already knew what it felt like
to have the weight of the Twixts on my
shoulders . . . .

‘
From your time, from your galaxy – our people disappeared. Not
long before the advent of your current central governing body, we
took our final steps amongst you. The war between our people – the
never-ending battle between the Enlighteners and the Twixts – it
consumed us, warping the very fabric of space around our planet,
around our time, around our light. For we play with the very
origins of power, of creation, and of reality. In our quest for
enlightenment, we came foul of the true understanding of the spirit
– and instead of finding lasting truth, have found lasting war.
Though we understand all that this universe has to offer, and true
enlightenment is finally in our grasp, our time will not be up
until we can defeat, or have been defeated by the
Twixts.’

I shook my head. Everlasting war, everlasting battle? No, no,
what a horrible, what a terrible . . . no! This was
our legacy, beyond the Twixts? To fight forever and ever in some
kind of warp in space? No, I couldn't have understood
correctly . . . this was just too much.

‘
It is now our sacred duty to fight the Twixts, to stop them
from escaping the Rift, from spilling into your universe and
sucking the light out of all that live. We keep them in check, but
cannot so forever. We fear the time is rapidly approaching where we
will lose this balance, where the Twixts will finally be
free . . . . That is why I have sent her, why I
have to part with my only child. She is for you, to do what we
cannot. None of the People - the Enlighteners - none of us can pass
through the Rift, not any more. It has become too dense for our
bodies to traverse. Unlike the Twixts, we are incapable of keeping
the light within, and traveling through the Rift will rip it from
our bodies. She is half-human, she is half other than we are. She
can traverse freely through the barriers between our worlds. As can
all creatures of your universe. With the correct technology, you
can enter what you call the Dark Rift, you can protect your ships
from the pull of the spatial anomaly.’

I wanted to look over at the Commander, to see his face as my
mother finally told me everything. I didn't want to see the shock
in his eyes, maybe even the embarrassment at having not believed.
No, I just wanted to share the moment with him . . .
the only other being aboard this ship that might understand what
this meant to me.

‘
It is now that I must make my request of you. I give you my
daughter so that she may see the Twixts. As we lose containment of
these creatures, as our fight begins to leave us – more and more
Twixts will escape into your galaxy. She will be able to see them,
to fight them, to help you to fight them. But this is not my
request. She is only one, and they are many. If we are to stop this
war from spilling over into your space, we must have help. On board
this ship, we have uploaded the schematics for weapons to be built,
for navigational systems and shield modulations that will help you
travel through the Rift. In the time it will take for my child to
grow, you must build these devices, you must prepare for war. We
understand that it is us who have created this problem, that it is
from our race that the Twixts were born, but without your help to
defeat them, they will destroy you. So help us, please. Use the
schematics we have given you, build them before my child becomes an
adult.’

‘
W-what weapons?’ I stammered, the information so hot in my
mind it felt like my ears were burning. This was an overload. My
mother had sent me to the GAM so that I could protect them? So that
I could grow up helping them to fight the Twixts? And she'd sent
them designs for weapons? But none of this had happened! I had
become a waitress . . . failed in my intended duty
while the threat of the Twixts had just continued to
grow.

Suddenly my mother flicked her head to the side, her eyes
blinking quickly. She appeared to return to her original VM state.
‘Do you have a request, child?’

‘
What the hell did you do with those designs?’ The Commander
snapped. His voice keened with a note I had never heard – it almost
sounded like surprise, like complete, bone-shaking
shock . . . did this mean he finally
believed?

‘
Relax, Commander, I don't have my hands on the schematics for
the most advanced weaponry in the galaxy. If I did, do you think
I'd be bothering to go all the way to the Dark Rift to find a
couple of guns? No, that part of the computer's memory was damaged
beyond repair. Imagine that, sending a ship halfway across the
galaxy with your only child in tow, on some desperate mission to
get Central to build you some weapons, only to have the data files
corrupt en route. Hell, it's enough to bring a tear to an old man's
eye.’

‘
You expect me to believe the data files just corrupted, just
like that? That ship would have had safeguards in place to protect
against all data loss.’ The Commander's voice finally sounded
strained, finally revealed his fatigue in every slurred
syllable.

‘
The ship was hit by a meteorite storm. Hell, it had some fancy
evasive programs on its nav computer, but nothing to cope with
this. As far as I can tell, it was heading past some quiet cluster
when baam some planet went critical. The resulting space debris
impacted it, but didn't destroy it – navigation, stasis, and the
core VM were saved, but those schematics were not. Most of the
computer got crunched when one of the rocks impacted the core. I'll
give the ship credit though, it fixed itself – which is some fancy
tech. But once lost, those files couldn't be retrieved.’

‘
So . . . there aren't any weapons then? No
designs, nothing—’ I began, so hollow and cold at the rising
realization. within me.

‘
Nope. Well, there's a cache just inside the Dark Rift, if you
let your mother continue there – she'll tell you about
it.’

‘
But . . . then we have nothing to bring them?
We have no means of reaching my People, no means of helping them?!’
my voice wavered.

‘
Technically, you could get to them with your little ship, but
I don't plan on going that far.’

‘
She sent me . . . she sent me out here to
help . . . and I couldn't . . . I
can't because of some random accident with an
asteroid?!’

‘
Afraid so.’ Marty cocked an eyebrow, but didn't say
more.

‘
How can you . . . how can you be so calm about
this?! Didn't you hear her, didn't you listen to her message?!! She
just told us our galaxy will be destroyed unless we can build the
weapons to help – unless we can bring our own army to their aid!
And yet you just stand there, with arms crossed and that stupid
smile on your face. Don't you realize there won't be a galaxy if
the Twixts are allowed to win?!’

Marty looked different for a second, vulnerable. ‘I wouldn't
go that far. It's an isolated problem at the moment, there's hardly
any Twixt activity. It's spotty, not a real threat yet. No, I don't
think they're losing as fast as they thought they would be. I'd say
we have twenty years, maybe thirty before we have ourselves an
issue. Which is just enough time for us to take a trip to the Dark
Rift, pick up the weapons cache just inside the door, and bring it
out again. Then it'll just take a short number of years to reverse
engineer those babies and land ourselves with the next generation
of weapons. Then we can build that Twixt-fighting army.’

‘
And you'll hold the patents to the designs,’ the Commander
chimed in, voice anything but cheery. ‘You don't think Central is
going to be suspicious of how you got them? How you just happened
to design weapons that could fight off . . . weapons
effective against—’

He couldn't say it, he still couldn't say it. After all that
had happened to us, after all that we had just heard – the
Commander still couldn't admit that the Twixts were real. ‘The
Twixts,’ I said, voice hard and sharp.

‘
The Twixts,’ the Commander repeated, finally. ‘Central will
take those designs, disregard your patent, and you will land in
jail, where you belong.’

‘
Not so fast, Commander, commerce doesn't always work that way.
I know the risks, and I know my way around them – I am a mercenary
leader, after all. Central will be at my feet, not the other way
around.’ Marty turned to me, face hot, but still apparently calm.
‘So you see, Mini, your war will still be fought, just not the way
your mother intended.’

I took one deep, rattling breath. ‘And if it doesn't work? If
you don't have the time—’

‘
We will have the time. You'll give it to us.’

‘
What?’ I whirled on him, ignoring any last vestige of my
fatigue as it burnt away in the rage and shock.

‘
You'll fight them Twixts, Mini, and you'll keep on fighting
them. You see, they get stronger only if they feed. But for every
one you destroy before they feast, they get weaker.’

‘
I'm only one person – how can I fight off all—’

‘
And I'm the leader of a big old mercenary band. You can see
them, we can shoot them. It'll work a charm.’ Marty patted at his
beard and grinned my way.

‘
You want me to work with you, to work with the Tarians, to
lead them into battle—’

‘
I want you to do what you're going to end up doing anyway. You
can't help but fight the Twixts, Mini, especially after you've
heard what your mother has to tell you. So it really won't matter
who helps you, just as long as you get the job done. It ain't going
to be the GAMs, they aren't going to believe you, kid; so that just
leaves us to watch your back. To help you save the galaxy, and
all.’

‘
While you make your fortune reverse engineering my people's
weapons . . . . how very noble,
Marty.’

‘
Thanks, kid. But now we've got to get back to the message,
there's a bit more your mother has to say. Computer, begin
recording again.’

The image of my mother reverted to the same central position,
her eyes blinking then obviously picking up from where she had left
off. ‘There are more things you have to know,’ she said, ‘more
information you will require in order to help us fight this great
war. But know this, this vessel is for my daughter. It will be
activated by her alone. The navigational program set to return her
through the Dark Rift can only be activated once she is on board.
The schematics I have provided you with will be enough to modify
your own ships to bring them through the traverse. But this vessel
is for her . . . it is for her to return home with,
when she feels the need. I know that her true battle will lie with
you, with this galaxy, in protecting you from the Twixts until the
time comes for all out war. But I ask that you leave this ship so
that she may return, when she is still a child, just for a time,
just so I may meet her . . . may teach her of our
ways . . . .,’ the hologram sighed deeply. ‘But
for the time that she is with you, if you find the need for more
weapons, if your ability to make them is slow – we have provided a
weapons cache just within the borders of the Rift that you can
utilize.’

Marty clicked his fingers and whistled. ‘There it
is.’

I let myself drop to my knees. It was dramatic, pathetic,
unreasonable – but I didn't care. I just leaned back against some
console, and stared up at the image of my mother. All those things
I was meant to have done, that life I was meant to lead – and I had
done none of it. I wasn't the person my mother had intended me to
be, the strong warrior protecting the galaxy as I waited for the
final battle. I was untrained, unloved, and undone. I could have
had another life, worked for the GAM, known my purpose from the
beginning, even met my mother . . . but I didn't
have a touch of it, not a touch.

‘
Just hang in there,’ the Commander said from across the room,
the exact same words, the exact same tone he'd used when Marty had
kidnapped me.

But I didn't want to hear those words right now.

‘
Why did you do this?’ I croaked. ‘Why did you seal this data
file? Why did you hide this from the GAM, when I was sent to
them . . . when she intended me for
them?’

‘
Oh, don't make an issue out of it. You think the GAM would
have believed this message? Without those advanced weapons
schematics, you think they would have had any evidence—’

‘
You don't know that,’ I snapped, finally pushing myself up,
‘you don't know that!’

‘
Just look how long it has taken for your boy over there to
believe you. The GAM would have buried this, trust me, I used to be
one of them. So look at me like the good guy here, Mini, because
that's what I am. If I hadn't sealed those data files, then the GAM
would have buried this ship and you in a pile of paperwork so high
you would never have escaped. No, it was by making them think this
ship was nothing, that you were nothing, that has you standing here
today, free. Well, free-ish. I may have done this for partly
personal gain, but it was better than not doing anything at all.
I,’ Marty put a hand up to his chest and passionately thumped his
flight suit, ‘am the reason this galaxy will defeat the Twixts –
will rise up and destroy our enemy.’ Marty's eyes flared, his face
capturing an emotion that should never be seen on a sane man's
face: a megalomaniac's pride.