The Betwixt Book One

by Odette C. Bell

  Chapter 9

  It took us exactly seven days, three hours, and six minutes to reach the Crag homeworld. From there, we took a chartered cruiser to our moon. The whole experience was unforgettable. Going from working in a diner on a tame space station to the Crag homeworld was about as big a jump as leaping across the Atlantic. I had been jostled so many times my arms were just massive bruises. Not to mention I hadn’t eaten anything in a week – I didn’t fancy rotting fish or steaks of meat as big as my own leg.

  Life on the freighter had been torture – boring, claustrophobic torture. Od had spent long hours discussing god knows what with Crag’tal. I had stayed to my quarters, far too afraid to venture into the rest of the ship. I was starting to reaffirm my stereotype of Crags as rude, aggressive, and willing to pick a fight with anything technically classed as life. I’d been growled at so many times, I’d almost burst into tears.

  The Crag homeworld didn’t have a nice, safe service cupboard to hide in, and our transit there was hellish. I felt so small when we landed at the main city’s planet dock. The looks, the shoves, the growls – I could see why Od and I were the only aliens to have bothered to come here.

  My trip to the Crag moon hammered home how much of a galactic innocent I was. Seriously, I’d almost fallen apart visiting one alien homeworld (even if it had been the Crag homeworld), who the hell would pick me to save the galaxy? The Milky Way needed someone like Jason Cole to fend off the Twixts – someone who could hold their head up high no matter who they had to face off. Instead, everyone would have to rely on me – the girl who got a nosebleed by looking at a bull Crag soldier in full riot gear (he belonged more in a nightmare than in the food court of the planet dock).

  In my more lucid moments, I wondered whether Od and Crag’tal had realized how thoroughly overcome I was by the whole thing. The constant wringing of my hands and quiet mumbles must have given it away. They didn’t accuse me of going crazy or even bother to tell me to calm down. No, Crag’tal stuck with us, fulfilling his bodyguard functions like a whole army rolled into one, and Od continued to be odd.

  By the time we arrived on the moon, I was exhausted. I needed a holiday, and quickly if I was expected to see this thing through to the end. But I didn’t see a day off anywhere in my future. To top things off, I had to leave Hipop in dock until we returned from our adventure.

  Crag’tal was right about one thing, I realized as we walked from the moon dock – hardly anyone visited this place. It had low atmosphere, and you had to wear class-one space suits outside buildings. But apart from that, it was perfectly pleasant. There was a basic level of plant life (not too much considering the low level of atmosphere) but enough that it wasn’t a bowl of brown dust like the Earth’s moon.

  It was strange, but out here it felt like I could be anywhere in the galaxy – there was hardly a Crag in sight.

  “We do not have the time to wait,” Od reminded us as soon as our feet reached dry dock. “We must leave for the outside at once.”

  We’d been traveling continuously for the past twelve hours – and the guy wanted to get right to it like a sadistic boy scout. I wanted a shower and lie down somewhere I could pretend I wasn’t the only half-human in a system full of lizard warriors who wanted to squash me flat.

  I didn’t have the breath to protest, and soon we were suited up and out the airlocks. Fortunately, the low-level atmosphere meant that a cheap standard space suit would suffice. Crag’tal didn’t even need that. He managed to get away with an Oxy Helmet and a dense coat – his people being far more suited to the ravages of a cold, low-atmosphere planet.

  “Spent lot of time here,” Crag’tal admitted as we bounded from the airlock. “Used to it.”

  The second my feet lifted in the low gravity of the moon, I gave the first smile I’d managed in days. There was nothing like low-gravity walking. It lifted the spirits, literally.

  I was like a rookie GAM on her first spacewalk. For at least ten minutes, I jumped around, doing the longest of strides, giggling like a giddy school girl.

  We didn’t have the time for low-gravity-walk shenanigans, apparently, and soon we were off. To where, I couldn’t tell, nor had I bothered to ask. I was starting to realize Od and Crag’tal weren’t here to be my tour guides – they were here to frustrate me and keep all important mission information from ever reaching my ears. It was like I was on the Mystery Bus Tour of Saving the Galaxy. Where we were going, when we’d get there – these were secrets. All I had to know was I’d be fighting the Twixt whenever they reared their ugly heads.

  We were on the light side of the moon when we set off, though we wouldn’t be for long. “Moon spins fast – day, night, day, night. Be prepared.” Crag’tal pointed to the Personal Light Sources we all had in our Oxy Helmets. They were small but powerful lights that were mounted above our visors.

  Walking on a Crag moon at night with nothing but a fancy torchlight? Now wouldn’t that be fun.

  It was beautiful. The moon was craggy and pockmarked, with great mountains and hills rising on all sides. The rocks were dusted lightly with brown and yellow mosses and lichens (or whatever alien equivalent). You could see the Crag Homeworld on the horizon – a big, beautiful blue ball that glistened like a sapphire under direct light.

  It was startling and such a change from the station. This was what exploring the galaxy felt like – this kick in the pit of my stomach as I stared at the strange world around me. I could almost get used to this – well, the exploring happy bit, not the looking for weapons to fight monsters from the in-between dimensions.

  We walked for some time until the buildings of the dock were no longer visible – hidden amongst the crags and lips of jutting rock.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get a real answer. I was traveling with a Kroplin who only talked in flowery prose and a Crag who hardly talked at all. Neither of them could give me a straight answer. I would need someone like Commander Cole if I wanted a real travel plan – and even then, it would be brief and to the point.

  We wouldn’t even be on this moon if Cole were here – we’d be… well, I don’t know. I was trying to imagine how he would deal with this situation if he knew the truth and actually believed it. If he knew for sure I was the last of The People and it was up to me to stop the Twixt from overrunning the galaxy – what would he do? Would he pile me aboard a cruiser and go skipping around the galaxy looking for ancient, lost weapons? Or would he take me straight to the great libraries of Central and start trawling through the archives for mention of The People. Or would he throw his hands up and tell me, “Game over – we can’t win this one?”

  “There is a new dig site between the Crag’e’lath and Crag‘Beth peaks. My sources suggest it is a good place to start,” Od said, voice slightly crackled as it bounced around the earpieces of my helmet.

  A new dig site, ha? Sounded vaguely interesting. “I don’t get it – we can’t walk in and start scouring the ground for ancient guns. How are we going to get in if people, or Crags or whatever, are there at the site?”

  “The site is unguarded, as far as I know. Plus, it is not being run by the Crags; it is a human expedition.”

  “Really? A bunch of humans actually wanted to co—” I cut myself short. I wanted to say that they must be mad for traveling all the way to this godforsaken system, but I didn’t want to insult Crag’tal into breaking my arm. “I mean, why would the Crag let another race dig up one of their moons? Don’t they have their own archaeologists?”

  “No interest.” Crag’tal’s voice was like a mini explosion through my earpieces, which amplified the volume to an unholy level. “And humans pay.”

  I held my helmet, trying to get to my ear to give it a good shake. Eek, that was loud. Maybe my com was slightly broken. “Even if they’re human, and especially if they’re paying, they aren’t going to let us walk in and steal their stuff.”

  “We don’t intend to steal anything, just take what is rightfully yours.”
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  Od couldn’t see me through my helmet, but I was giving him a dead-eyed, supremely sarcastic look. “I don’t think they’ll see that distinction. I think we need a better plan than showing up and seeing what we can rightfully retrieve. Call me crazy, but—”

  “I do not think you are insane, Mini, though perhaps emotionally challenged at times.”

  Oh, ouch.

  “Nor will we walk in. We will offer our services and see what they offer in return.” Od didn’t seem to get tired and bounded ahead with the determination of a combat robot.

  “What they offer in return? A slap around the ears and a ticket back to the homeworld. But,” I squeezed in before Od could say something obvious, “At least that’s more of a plan than walking in.”

  By the time we reached the dig sight, night had settled. Crag’tal had been right – it was night, day, night, day. It happened so fast that before I noticed the dwindling light, my PLS flicked on to cut through the darkness. It didn’t remain dark for long. As soon as we crested the hill that led into the valley where the dig site was, the dark no longer mattered. The whole place was illuminated with these massive stand-up lamps that must have had enough voltage to run a small cruiser.

  “Whoa.” I rested one foot on the lip of rock beside me and looked down into the valley. So much light. It was like they were afraid of the dark.

  A strange thing happened when Od saw it. I could see his helmet swivel to each of the tall lights right in a circle around the dig which was sunk deep into the ground. “Perhaps we will have a far more valuable service to offer than I thought.” He snapped his head back to face us.

  Crag’tal reached behind him and grabbed one of my rifles, which he’d been carrying on his back.

  I had no idea what was going on.

  “I think we should hurry.” Od turned back to the dig.

  “Why? Is there something wrong? I mean, they look like they’re wasting a fortune on lighting, but maybe they don’t like the dark on this moon.” It was weird hearing my own voice reverberate around my helmet, and it made it feel like I was talking to myself.

  “I don’t think it’s the dark they are afraid of.”

  Well, that was ominous.

  I managed to keep up with Od and Crag’tal as they skidded all the way down the sharp face of the mountain and into the valley below. I kept thinking we’d start a rock slide or worse. Who knew what the humans at the site would think if they saw three figures scrambling toward them, guns at the ready, from one of the peaks above.

  As I neared the dig site, the blinding lights sending the prettiest lens flare through my visor,

  I realized there wasn’t anyone around. Not a single soul on the surface, the lights just trained on the round cut in the earth.

  It was eerie. No, scratch that – it was scary.

  I was on the dark side of an alien moon at an abandoned dig site with a gun-toting Crag – this was the stuff of holomovies.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered. My voice could only be picked up by the mic in my helmet and wouldn’t disturb the perfect quiet of the outside world.

  “I am not entirely sure,” Od said, investigating a patch of dirt with the toe of his tiny space-suited foot. “It seems this dig site has been abandoned and quickly.”

  “Abandoned?” I squeaked. “That’s not good. Why would they do that?”

  Crag’tal wasn’t offering any suggestions. He was holding onto my rifle though he technically couldn’t use it – but I imagined he intended to thwack the first thing he saw on the head. Which wasn’t a good sign. If the security-conscious Crag thought something was up, the sky was probably about to pull out a knife and stab us.

  “Well, shouldn’t we go?” I didn’t want to sound like a coward, or, who was I kidding – I didn’t care if I sounded like a scaredy pants. Why should we hang around this abandoned base if there was nobody here? Were we going to build a campfire and tell ghost stories or something?

  “Underground,” Crag’tal piped up, and his voice was much harsher than I remembered. It had a note of something I’d never heard in a Crag’s rumbling baritone – uncertainty.

  “Yes,” Od walked over to some other patch of uninteresting earth and leaned down to get a closer look, “That is what I believe as well.”

  I waited a moment, ready for them to elucidate on the descriptive underground. Did they mean there were people underground, that there was something interesting underground, or that maybe the reason this dig site was so well lit yet abandoned was that there was a monster underground. Patiently waiting to be filled in wasn’t going to get me anywhere with these two. “What’s underground?”

  “The crew of this dig site.” Od stood back up again and walked, somewhat slower than his usual bound, toward the large opening in the earth before us. “I believe that at least some of them are underground.”

  “Okay, is there anything else? I mean, what are we going to do?”

  “Why, the only thing we can do—”

  I winced; I knew what was coming next.

  “We’re going to go find them.”

  As we approached the circular cut in the craggy, moss-covered earth, I went through at least ten reasons why this was a bad idea. We didn’t know what was down there, or even if the crew of the dig had gone off for a drink somewhere and forgotten to turn the lights off. Perhaps there had been a problem, and they’d all flown out. Or perhaps something frightful from the center of a Crag moon had come upon them in the darkest of nights.

  It was a perfectly round hole reinforced with metal all around the rim. All three of us walked up to the edge to stare down. The huge, powerful lights above were placed in such a way as to shine right down into the abyss. I could make out lights and struts at equal intervals going down the tunnel, and to one side, a ladder.

  I hope they didn’t expect me to go down a ladder. Where were the safety forcefields, the elevators, or at the least, the hand railings? I was used to life on a space station where safety was so well controlled, I could hardly imagine the real dangers of space. Here I was facing off against one – and it led down.

  I shifted my feet uncomfortably and watched as Crag’tal stowed his gun and turned to go down the ladder.

  “So we’re going down?”

  “Going down is the only way we will be able to go down there.” Od waited for Crag’tal to descend several rungs before he mounted the ladder.

  “I don’t get it. Where are all the safety precautions – we could fall.”

  “Falling will be the least of our worries. As for your observation that this dig site seems to lack rudimentary safety precautions – I have come across this before. There seems to be a predilection amongst some races, especially humans, to rough it. I am not sure what it means, but I believe the theory is thus: it is more joyous to experience space without a safety net. Indeed, on a dig such as this, one wonders whether they had the money to afford such things after they paid the Crag Government.”

  Oh great. So I was either going into a dig set up by hardcore, safety-hating archaeologists, or poor academics who couldn’t even afford a scrap of metal for a railing. This was fantastic.

  I dithered at the top of the ladder for at least another twenty seconds before mounting it to go down. Down we went, further and further. All the time my imagination ran wild with what we’d find at the bottom. Not that I’d ever been to an archaeological dig on an alien planet – but I could picture the equipment, the consoles, the bare, exposed rock, the monsters.

  It took us five whole minutes to reach the bottom. The ladder led into a big circular room with a massive chunk of the ceiling hollowed out to make a big antechamber. There were massive, powerful lights down here as well, and their illumination bounced off the jagged walls and filled the space like water in a glass. The lights came from so many directions that there was hardly a shadow in sight.

  There was some kind of tech console off to one side. I couldn’t tell whether it was on or what it might be used for, but at leas
t it was comforting to have technology around.

  I swallowed loudly as I stood on the spot where I’d dismounted the ladder, not ready to move around yet. I wondered if the others had picked up my gargantuan gulp – or whether they were too busy concentrating on the creepy abandoned dig site.

  “I believe,” Od said, “We should look down this path.” He indicated a path to the left.

  I hadn’t even noticed there were two ways leading out of this room. Great. I may not have had the tactical experience of a GAM, but I could tell having an unexplored path behind you was bad. It left you open, very open.

  There was one other thing I noticed – Od’s voice had lost the chirp. Even he was whispering now.

  Oh lord, why were we down this hole?

  Crag’tal moved off down the route Od had chosen but not before handing me one of my rifles. He held onto the other one, posture as combat-perfect as a GAM statue.

  Me, I gripped my rifle like it was a teddy bear you cuddle after a bad dream.

  The path we took was to the left of the ladder. The ceiling was low and massive chunks of rock jutted out of it, making the walls about as smooth as an asteroid belt. The floor was uneven too, and I had to concentrate so I didn’t topple right over and crack my head before the fight began. There was going to be a fight of some sort, I could tell. That, or an extremely protracted chase scene.

  I shifted my finger until it rested over the trigger.

  There were blue lights dotted along the narrow, rocky corridor – sunk right into the ground, illuminating the path amongst the jagged brown and gray stones. They shone up into my face and bounced off the top of my visor and back into my eyes. Yet the walls themselves were dark, collecting deep shadows in the crevices and cracks.

  We walked in silence, though my ears were beginning to pick up even the slightest creak of my space suit and amplify it until it sounded like a horn in an auditorium. I could hear Crag’tal’s breathing like the roar of wind in a canyon. Even Od sounded like an old Earth billy puffing on a fire.

  We rounded a corner, and the path before us opened into a massive chamber. It was at least as big as the promenade on the station if not bigger. We entered above it, in view of a long, metal walkway that led down to the rock floor below.

  This must be the real dig site because equipment and technology were spread all over the place. There were also people and—

  I raised my gun.