Chapter 20
Marty keyed in the code. I watched every one of his thick fingers dance across that console, calling up some file from the ship’s computer banks.
There was hardly a sound to compete with the click, click, click of Marty’s fingers as they touched the keypad – oh, and the rumble of my heart as it shook my ribcage.
“Here we go,” Marty said, hands coming to a rest.
A blue, flickering hologram rose above the central control panel. It looked precisely like the AI on the Rain Man’s ship before it had taken shape. This one contorted for a bit, its blue pixels shifting in and out before it took stable form.
If there was a collective intake of breath, I didn’t hear it. If everyone else on the deck stared on in wide-eyed shock, I didn’t see it. I was too distracted by the hologram that hovered above the console.
“You have accessed my Virtual Memory. Please state your request,” the floating form said, voice lilting with a strange accent.
“What the hell is that thing?” the Commander demanded, unable to hide the note of amazement from his voice. “I’ve never seen an AI with that kind of visual programming before.”
Before Marty could answer, before he could cock his head back, before he could grin with those large, white teeth, and far before he could mouth the words “Her mother” – I already knew. I already knew.
The image floating before me, the hologram that was close enough to touch – it spoke to every part of me, every cell, every memory.
She, Her, Mother.
I was staring up at her, letting the light from the hologram play across my face as if I were standing under some great chandelier of flickering candles. My lips were softly parted, my eyes open as far as the stretched skin would allow. “Mother?”
The holographic creature turned my way, tipped its perfect head to the side, and regarded me. “Accessing Virtual Memory. Confirming the identity of Leana Hari’s offspring. Identity confirmed.”
I stared up. I didn’t understand what the AI was talking about. But I knew it was still her.
“Doesn’t she look amazing?” Marty asked from beside me.
I jumped, startled at the sudden intrusion. I’d almost forgotten he was there, almost forgotten where I was and the horrible situation I was in.
Amazing? No. She looked impossible. My mother – no, the hologram of my mother – was ordinary height for a human, with a humanoid body type. But that’s where the similarities ended. Every centimeter of her soft-looking skin glowed like torchlight through amber. The color was so rich, so warm, so inviting. Her eyes were the same as mine, though sharper, clearer – far more like the blast of a phase rifle as it collected a hot bullet in its muzzle. She had coccyx-length ice-white hair that floated around her like a silk veil in a breeze. These were not the startling things about her. It was the markings, the tattoos, the great grooves and impressions that ran all over her skin – these were things that made me stare.
They were so intricate, so complete, so beautiful. Her amber skin was marked, from head to foot, with dark, black groves that had strikes of white-hot blue emanating from them. One massive central line, that gave off more concentrated light than any other, ran from her bottom lip right down to her clavicle and along each arm until it ended right in the center of both her palms.
She parted her lips, her bottom lip all the more visible for that bright strike of light. “Yamana, daughter, what do request of my Virtual Memory?”
I didn’t answer, couldn’t get it into my head that I was supposed to be talking to my mother. I watched her lips move, watched the lines of light.
“We want to access the message stored in your data file – the one where you tell us where all those weapons are.” Marty crossed his arms and grinned.
The hologram of my mother turned to Marty but didn’t narrow her eyes, harrumph, or in any other way indicate that she understood what he’d said.
“Mother, mother I—”
“I am not your mother; I am a segment of her memory, a moment of her time. I look like her, yes; I sound like her; I move like her. But I am myself, and we are separate. I have one goal; she has many.”
I put a hand up to my face, jamming my fingers in the corners of my eyes to stop the tears from welling.
“I have one purpose,” she continued, “One goal. I am here to relay a message, to ensure that Leana Hari’s sacrifice leads to some good.”
Marty made a speed-up motion with his hands. “This is touching, but move on to the message.”
The hologram flicked her gaze to Marty. Though her eyes were expressionless, I fancied I caught them narrowing. “Do you request I playback your mother’s final message?”
She was asking me and me alone. I nodded, one single heartbeat pulsing through me like a roar.
“Very well.” There was an electronic beep, and the hologram came back to its original position, eyes directed straight ahead. She was motionless, nothing more than a 3D doll.
Then she moved.
“I come with a warning, a grave warning.” She stared out but at nobody in particular – her head swept slowly to each side as if she expected she was talking to a crowd. “Yet I come with a gift, one that is harder to give than one’s own life. On this ship is my only daughter, my only child. She is all I have, and yet I give her to you. I have sent her to the headquarters of your army, of the security force responsible for protecting all this galaxy. I have sent her to you because she offers you hope.”
I put a hand on my stomach and one on my mouth. They both shook like I was a hundred times older than my years.
“We are of The People, though my child is also human. If, by this time in your galaxy, you have forgotten our race, I will remind you. We were one of the founders, the first race in your Milky Way to attain space travel, to understand, to manipulate, and to control technologies of astounding power. Yet for all our graces and achievements, we are also responsible for one of the greatest enemies this galaxy will ever encounter. The Twixts, beings of insatiable hunger who feast on the light of living souls. This is our most unfortunate legacy.” She trailed off, her chest rising as she took in a deep breath. She closed her eyes and turned her head to the side.
I wanted to reach out and touch her, to feel her glowing skin against mine, to share the terrible burden that was weighing her down. Though I was already sharing that burden, wasn’t I? 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 fabric of space around our planet, around our time, around our light. For we play with the 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 still 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? This was our legacy? To fight forever and ever in some kind of warp in space?
“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 from all who live. We keep them in check but cannot do so forever. We fear the time is rapidly approaching where we will lose this balance, where the Twixts will be free. That is why I have sent her, why I have to part with my only child. She is for you so you can do what we cannot. None of The People – the Enlighteners – none of us can pass through the Rift, not anymore. 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 told me everything. I didn’t want to see the shock in his eyes, maybe even the embarrassment at having not believed me. No, I wanted to share the moment with him, the only other being aboard this ship who 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. 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 we 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? She’d sent them designs for weapons? None of this had happened! I’d become a waitress and failed in my intended duty while the threat of the Twixts had continued to grow.
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’d never heard – it sounded like surprise, like complete, bone-shaking shock. Did this mean he finally believed me?
“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 corrupted, just like that? That ship would have had safeguards in place to protect against all data loss.” The Commander’s voice sounded strained, revealing 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, bam, 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? No designs, nothing—” I began.
“Nope. But there’s a cache inside the Dark Rift. If you let your mother continue, she’ll tell you all about it.”
“We have no weapons 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 ship, but I don’t plan on going that far.”
“She sent me… she sent me out here to help, and 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 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. Yet you’re just standing there. Don’t you realize there won’t be a galaxy if the Twixts are allowed to win?”
Marty looked uncomfortable. “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. I’d say we have twenty years, maybe thirty before we have ourselves an issue. Which is enough time for us to take a trip to the Dark Rift, pick up the weapons cache inside the door, and bring it out again. It’ll 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 on 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 happened to design weapons that could fight off… weapons effective against—”
He couldn’t say it – he still couldn’t say it. Despite what had happened to us, what we’d heard – the Commander still couldn’t admit that the Twixts were real. “The Twixts,” I said, voice hard and sharp.
“…The Twixts,” the Commander finally managed. “Central will take those designs, disregard your patents, 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. 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 those Twixts, Mini, and you’ll keep on fighting them. You see, they get stronger only if they feed. For every one you destroy before they feast, they get weaker.”
“I’m only one person – how can I fight off all—”
“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 won’t matter who helps you as long as you get the job done. It ain’t going to be with the GAMs; they aren’t going to believe you, kid. So that 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 noble, Marty.”
“Thanks, kid. Now, we’ve got to get back to the message; there’s a bit more your mother has to say. Computer, begin playing the recording again.”
The image of my mother reverted to the same central position. “There are more things you have to know,” she said, “More information you will require in order to help us fight this great war. 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 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, so I may meet her and teach her of our ways.” The hologram sighed deeply. “For the time that she is with you, if you find the need for more weapons, if your ability to make them is hindered – we have provided a weapons cache within the borders of the Rift that you can utilize.”
Marty clicked his fingers and whistled. “There it is.”
I dropped to my knees. It was dramatic, pathetic, unreasonable – but I didn’t care. I 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 have led – and I’d 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.
“Hang in there,” the Commander said from across the room.
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, pushing up. “You don’t know that!”
“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, 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.
“You have no idea what the GAM would have done,” the Commander cut in, his breath growing shorter as time wound on. “They would have had to investigate something like this. I agree – they tend to bury things, catch things up in bureaucracy. But they aren’t mad. They would have looked into this.”
“What if your faith in them is wrong, ha?” Marty continued, the same crazed look in his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t willing to take that risk. Sorry, Commander, but it is me the galaxy will remember when they look to those who saved them from the Twixts. I’m not an angel; I’m a mercenary leader. But that only means I’ve got the balls to do what’s right.”
“No, you’re insane,” I said quietly, choosing to stare up at my mother rather than look at his face.
My thoughts were swimming again, a strange throbbing pain growing in my temples. The after effects of the grenade and my sedative were still messing with my system. The light was too bright. I wanted to turn away from it all and bury my face in my hands.
But that would never last. I wouldn’t be able to hide from this. I was now the unwilling partner of my ex-employer. He was right; I would have no choice but to help him if he was the only person willing to fight the Twixts. Because, like it or not, my greater duty lay with them.
Nothing had turned out as my mother had intended. Everything was messed up, different, screwed. I wasn’t a warrior; I was a waitress. The galaxy hadn’t prepared an army to fight the Twixts, and it was unwilling to believe they even existed. I wasn’t free to follow in her footsteps, to seek her out – I was stuck in the hands of a mercenary leader.
If the balance of war between The People and Twixts was such a delicate one, then I had just broken it.
I felt that shocking truth rumble through me, destroying the last vestiges of my hope.
We were going to lose this fight.
Thank you for reading The Betwixt Book One. This story is concluded in The Betwixt Book Two, which is currently available.
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