The Betwixt Book One (4 page)

‘
It floated in at 0800 this morning. Distress signal hadn't
been activated, life support was functioning, scans didn't show
anything wrong with the engine core. She was in order.’

‘
Well,’ I caught a hold of my ponytail and twisted it,
surprised to see Cole's eyes flick to it before flicking away.
‘Couldn't the crew have just escaped in the life pods? Perhaps
they—’

‘
Escape pods are still on the ship. She was a cargo ship, and
the computer records show she made her last contact at 0730 this
morning. Only half an hour before she was found, abandoned,
drifting in space.’

My hands stopped twisting my hair. ‘Maybe it was pirates,
maybe they faked the contact —’

‘
Where was their ship, where did they escape to? Long-range
scans have confirmed that ship was alone out there, no vessels
within range, except for the one that found her,’ the Commander
interrupted again.

‘
Well . . . perhaps someone remotely accessed
their com-link, made it look like they were on board when they were
systems away?’

Commander Cole's half-smile was firmly tugging at one side of
his jaw. It wasn't clear whether he found my suggestions amusing,
ridiculous, or cute. ‘Now why would someone bother doing that? She
was a freighter, cargo was space junk being taken to the recycling
depot at Central. Worthless.’

I parted my lips, waiting for another objection to come to
mind, but nothing came. And the Commander's half-smile was starting
to get me more and more flustered. ‘Well, what does everyone think
it is then? Pirates, a malfunction, a—’

‘
Twixts,’ the Crag rumbled from beside the Commander, and I
jumped just a little at his unexpected boom.

The Commander gave a brief laugh. ‘Twixts? Doesn't sound like
something a Crag warrior would suggest.’

‘
Crew's gone. No way off that ship. Not pirates, not mercs, not
anything. Twixts.’

Commander Cole shook his head, but I was curious to note that
his face had become stiffer, his lips barely moving.

‘
What's a Twicks?’ I was starting to show my alarming lack of
knowledge in front of the Commander again. For a girl who worked in
a space diner, my knowledge of the galaxy was barely enough to get
by. Blame it on not having parents, or growing up in isolation –
but I didn't follow half of the conversations that would flow
through this diner.

‘
Twixts,’ the Commander corrected, ‘and they're nothing, a
fairytale designed—’

The Crag snorted, and it sounded like an elephant sneezing.
‘We call them the Death Shadows. Can't see them till it's too
late.’

Listening to a Crag talk about anything at all was usually
dramatic, but the menace this one put behind his words sent a
palpable shiver across my back. It felt like the frozen depths of
space collecting down my spine. ‘Shadows?’ I repeated, voice an
appropriate whisper.

‘
Worse than shadows. Can see shadows. These are between things,
in the gaps between.’

A part of me knew I shouldn't be so accepting of the Crag's
show, but the rest of me was shaking behind my tightly tied apron.
Perhaps the Commander could see, because he leaned in
closer.

‘
Ignore him, it's a myth. It's some story space bums and
recruits throw around to scare themselves on long voyages. Only
thing you have to worry about in this galaxy are pirates, scum, and
rogues. Which is enough.’

But I was stuck on something. I honestly felt like the world
had solidified either side of me and was funneling me forward with
no option to turn back. ‘They exist between things?’

‘
Can't see em, can't fight em,’ the Crag bit into the last bit
of rotting flesh from his meal, and the juices of it splashed onto
his stained vest, ‘ then you're dead.’

‘
But, but where did the bodies go then?’ I was aware of the
Commander as he gave a frustrated sigh. He obviously thought I was
an idiot for heading further down this rabbit hole.

‘
Back in-between.’

‘
No, because that doesn't make any sense.’ The Commander
interrupted, ‘in-between isn't anywhere, it's not a location in
space, it's a relative comparison between points. Twixts don't
exist.’

Apparently, we had hit a nerve. The Commander's voice dropped
that little bit and wavered towards the end. Was he sick of trying
to convince me these mysterious monsters didn't exist, had he had
enough of telling the recruits to stop spreading horror stories, or
was there something more to this?

I wasn't going to get a chance to find out.

‘
Another,’ the Crag growled, spinning his plate in my
direction. I managed to catch it before it toppled off my end of
the bench, but the slop his sea bass was drowning in, splashed all
over my chest.

‘
Ehhh.’ I looked at the green and yellow gunk as it dripped and
pooled down my front. How attractive.

I could see Commander Cole recede back at the
smell.

Eh, why did stuff like this always have to happen to me? Just
when I was having the most interesting conversation I'd had all
week, I get covered in the rotted remains of an alien
fish.

It didn't matter anyway, because just as soon as I'd properly
secured the plate, the Commander leaned back, a hand at his ear. He
had a mumbled conversation then stood up as quickly as a spring
snapping back into place. ‘Sorry,’ he said as he turned, ‘cancel my
order.’

And there he left me, covered in slops.

The rest of the shift went slowly, somehow. I was still rushed
off my feet, but somehow it dragged on. I had a moment to change
uniforms, but I still smelled the stench of buttery, sugary death.
For some reason I was itching to just get out and have a walk
around the station. I never usually did it – just walked the
distance to the lift, then back to my quarters. There wasn't much
to see, once you'd seen it all before. But things were different
today; they were quicker, more edgy, and strange.

The air that had been in the diner, the one of palpable,
pressured excitement – it was out in the rest of the station too.
So I found myself walking down one of the numerous corridors that
offered a view of the docking station where they dragged in ships
for repair. Was it out there? I wondered to myself as I rested my
elbows on a hand railing and stared out a porthole. Was that ghost
ship in the docking station right now, the GAMs going through it,
because no other sane being would go anywhere near her? Was that
why the Commander had been called off? Had there been an incident,
had his superiors told him to go over the ship and leave no cargo
box unturned?

In-between. They exist in-between things. The Commander was
right, that didn't make any sense. Things either exist or they
don't, there's nothing that exists in the middle.

I made my slow way back to my quarters, mostly in a daydream,
mind twisting and whirling over the day's happenings. Maybe I was
spending an undue amount of time recounting my conversation with
the Commander, maybe I shouldn't let the strange vibe of the
station bother me . . . .

I opened my door with a mega sigh. I was tiring myself out
with all these what ifs. I needed to sit down and veg out – play
with Hipop and download the latest episode of Galaxy
Chef.

My room was just how I always left it – in a state of
half-clean, half-messy. Certain parts were pristine – my bed made
with symmetrical precision, the vintage cloth covering on my table
straight and perfect. But then there was the couch, which was knee
deep in crumbs, and had various data pads strewn across it. And my
assortment of pot plants were sending their shoots and leaves out
everywhere, threatening to take over the walls like my quarters
were a tropical jungle planet.

‘
Hipop,’ I called as I kicked off my shoes, careful not to send
them into the beautiful, huge saffron flower of one of my more
exotic plants. ‘Hey, monkey, monkey, where are you?’

Silence. I braced myself for the little critter to jump at me
from one of the vines that was clumped across the roof (it really
was a jungle in here). He so did like to climb. But there was
nothing.

‘
Helllllloooo,’ I called.

‘
Hello.’

I whirled, heart as frozen as a drop of water on the tail of a
comet.

It was him. That two foot tall, blood red alien monk that had
been ever so keen on grabbing my hair yesterday. And now, now, he
was in my quarters.

‘
What are you doing here?’ I put a flat hand on my chest, my
fingers squeezed together till the joints felt like
popping.

The guy didn't lunge at me, thankfully, just cocked his little
head to the side, and looked.

My body was braced for an attack, palms sweaty, mouth as dry
as the desert by day. But the thing just kept on
looking.

I took another shuddering breath. ‘Look, this is my room, you
have no right to be here, please leave.’

If it understood me, it didn't give me any indication. It just
kept on staring.

‘
I'm going to call security,’ I said bravely. I would march
across the room to my com-panel, I told myself firmly, and I would
call security. I didn't need to be afraid of this, I didn't need to
be af-

‘
Hello, Mini,’ the thing's voice was very quiet, but very
clipped and polite.

It was unsettling. It had the calm tones of a dearly beloved
grandparent, not that I had ever had one of those, but I could
imagine.

‘
I am very sorry for the rude interruption, I fear I have taken
you quite by surprise.’

I blinked, hand releasing from my chest and floating towards
my mouth. This was . . . bizarre. This little alien,
well, not only was he not throwing himself at me and hissing, he
was conversing in the most articulate, refined of manners.
‘I—’

The alien put up a hand, which had previously been clasped
firmly behind his back, his baggy brown robe obscuring it from
view. ‘I really have to apologize about yesterday. I was,’ his
pinprick black eyes suddenly widened with obvious excitement,
‘unduly surprised. I simply didn't expect to
find . . . you. Not here, not after we'd searched so
long.’

My surprise at his good conversation skills quickly dwindled,
and I started eying off the com-link again. ‘Sorry?’ I said as I
shifted one subtle step towards it.

‘
You, I . . . well . . . we have
searched the galaxy so long, only to find you now, on the cusp of
the great quickening.’

‘
Ah, the what?’ I had that com-link in sight and I just sidled
step by step towards it.

‘
There's no need to be afraid, Mini.’

Oh, I didn't know about that. Yesterday this little monk was
launching himself at me with no provocation, desperate to get a
hold of my ice-white hair. Now he was trying to convince me with
clear oration that this was absolutely fine. I was a bit of an
innocent in this galaxy, I knew that, but I wasn't that
dumb.

‘
I knew your mother.’

I stopped dead. Why would he even say that?

‘
Well, I knew of her. Who of my race does not?’

‘
I don't have a mother,’ my defenses were starting to rise,
making my back tingling cold. The mere mention of her had shifted
this situation.

I walked for the com-link.

But the little alien got there first. He was like a blur,
quicker than he had been yesterday. He tucked into a roll and
sprang up between me and the electronic pad on the wall.

‘
You can't be too hasty in dismissing me, child. There's so
much I have to tell, and there's so little time.’

‘
Get out of my room now—’

‘
There's one on the station, on that ship that came in. The
fools, they are fools for bringing that ship to a populated
station.’

‘
What are you talking about?!’ I tried to duck and weave around
him, but he kept up with my moves like a cat chasing a sick
mouse.

‘
A Shadow, it came on the ship, killed the crew. Now it's here.
We have to hurry; we haven't the time. Those foolish soldiers will
board it soon, let the Shadow loose.’

‘
A shadow?’ I didn't want to listen, just wanted to get to the
com-link, call security, and get that thing the hell out of here.
But that word ‘shadow’ - it struck a chord, a low and reverberating
one.

‘
Death Bringer, Old One, Invisibles, Not There's – races have
many names for them. We always called them Twixts.’

‘
Twixts?’

‘
They are what lie between, far more dangerous than what lies
beneath.’

‘
I don't believe you. If something like that existed, why
wouldn't anyone have seen it? Why wouldn't the station's sensors
have picked it up on that ship?’

‘
Very few can see them, precious few.’ He kept his hands
clasped behind him as he spoke; his head tilted up, face
calm.

‘
Well, sounds convenient—’

‘
You are one of them child.’

‘
Sorry?’

‘
You can see between, just like your mother.’