Read The Betwixt Book One for Free Online Page B

entered hyperspeed from the shock of unexpected,
disembodied voices.
    ‘ Be quiet,’ the monk whispered, ‘when you are startled you make
noise, and it travels through the bulkheads. We are just above the
docking doors of the station; those are GAMs below us. Soon we will
reach a secondary airlock that attaches the station's ventilation
system to the ship – we will travel through this.’
    I really only just caught his words, and I hoped like hell the
GAMs below didn't catch anything either. I really didn't want to be
shot at like a rat in the rafters. ‘But,’ I tried to make my voice
as silent as rose petals falling on water, ‘what about the
station's sensors? Won't they catch us?’
    ‘ I disabled them.’
    He did what?! Oh no, this was just great. Even if I did manage
to get out of this alive, or more realistically, it turned out this
little alien had somehow made the whole thing up – I would be going
straight to prison. Turning off the station's internal sensors was
like punching the Chief of Staff of the GAM right in the nose and
spitting on a picture of his wife.
    ‘ This way.’ The little alien wasn't about to give me any time
to change my mind. And I really couldn't change my mind now – I'd
practically ruined my skirt crawling through these
tunnels.
    The rest of our trek was a blur. Perhaps my mind was starting
to truly fathom its imminent doom, because my body had begun to
tingle like I'd jumped into a bath with a couple of live wires. My
heart was racing, mind twirling, body jumping at the slightest
shadow that drifted into my peripheral vision. I was almost frantic
by the time we'd made it into the ghost ship, down another
ventilation duct, and finally out into what looked like the
engineering room.
    Main power had obviously been switched off in this section, as
the lights were dim and apparently running off secondary feeds.
Which was the worst thing I could think of. Darkness was one thing
– but darkness didn't show up the shadows. Dim light, on the other
hand, made shadows deep, and in some places indistinguishable from
the light.
    It didn't help that this engineering room would probably have
been creepy even in the full light of day, packed with happy
smiling nuns, teddy bears, cupcakes, and other things that
generally posed little threat. It was old, and the style of panels
and railings was of the jutting, painful corner kind. The ship's
core was a megalith that pulsed bone-shatteringly in the center of
the room. The pallet was of browns and military grays. It felt like
walking through some stark, unstable cave.
    I wanted to ask 'what now?’, but my voice had apparently
stayed on the station. I didn't want to make a single noise –
bringing a hoard of Twixts or surprised GAMs my way. But honestly,
what next?
    ‘ Now,’ apparently the little monk was a mind reader as well as
a hair snatcher, ‘we engage in battle.’
    ‘ Sorry?’ I found my voice. ‘But I don't have a weapon,’ I
hissed. ‘I don't know how to fight!’
    ‘ This is a less-than-ideal situation, yes, but we must push
on.’
    Push on? This wasn't a minor setback, like forgetting to pack
the forks for the picnic, this was going into a battle with the
most feared monsters in the galaxy with nothing but a diner
uniform!
    I started to cast around for a stick, not that I would find a
stick on a space ship, but I needed something that resembled a
weapon. I didn't fancy my chances of winning a fistfight with a
shadow, not that I had any chance of winning anyway.
    There was a boom and it translated up through the floor like
an earthquake from below.
    ‘ What was that?’
    ‘ The airlock opening,’ the monk said calmly.
    ‘ That was just the airlock opening?’ Oh lord, I couldn't do
this. I couldn't even stomach the background noises, let alone
engage in the full score of space battle. But something else caught
my ears; something far subtler, something far more worthy of
fear.
    It was a hiss – not an intake or expiration