Cries of the Wolf

by C. S. Harte

  The Mimics took their time inching closer to Meomi and Rayfin who stood with their backs to each other.

  Memories crashed on the shores of Meomi’s consciousness as she looked at the faces of death staring back at her. Dying on Gosi Prime only to be resurrected by an artifact from an extinct alien race. Escaping one prison after another on Dressa while discovering the depths of the Mimic infiltration of Fleet High Command. Surviving multiple nights on a hostile alien planet while being chased by the savage creatures on Caelora.

  Meomi scratched at her skin looking to activate the Aorgar artifact embedded within her, summoning an escape from certain death. There would be no magical rescue this time. “It can’t end like this. Not after everything we’ve been through,” she whispered to herself but loud enough for Rayfin to hear over suit comm.

  “It’s been a fun ride, Captain,” Rayfin said in a low tone. “We might be at the end of the line, but it’s OK. There were many times when I should’ve died already. You kept me alive for a crazy adventure. I’m grateful…”

  “Ray…” Meomi bit her lip.

  “Captain. I need you to understand something.” Rayfin pressed against Meomi’s back. “You like to blame yourself for everything. That’s what made you a good captain. It was an honor serving with…”

  “Ray! Stop talking!” Meomi refused to let her story end here. Even at the cost of her own life, she had to make sure Rayfin survived. Someone had to. The information they possessed was too important to let die with them.

  “Captain?” Rayfin scrunched his eyebrows.

  “I’m going to draw the attention of the pair of Mimics in front of me. I want you to make it onto the decktram. Whatever it takes. Survive! That’s an order!”

  “Captain…”

  “The mission, Ensign.” Meomi steeled her voice. “It must succeed at all costs.”

  “I think I’m better at being the distraction...”

  “This isn’t a democracy, Ensign. You have your orders.”

  Rayfin sighed. “Understood…”

  “On three.”

  He nodded.

  “Three.”

  The reapers stopped their advances and turned their heads toward each other.

  “Two.”

  “Something is happening, Captain.”

  “One,” Meomi screamed as she charged at the two reapers in front of her.

  Before she reached them, the doors of the decktram exploded open. A dozen Calfars poured out of the decktram and rushed the Mimics, quickly overwhelming the pair of reapers in front of Meomi.

  Rayfin blinked his eyes rapidly. “Am I… seeing things?”

  “Turn around! Armory!” Meomi spun and made a dash for the armory.

  The six reapers behind them charged at the Calfar horde ignoring Meomi and Rayfin.

  “Inside! Inside!” she yelled at Rayfin. They barricaded the doors of the armory as ghastly screams and shrill cries seeped through the walls.

  “What just happened?” Rayfin asked.

  “One of two things. Thorne and Bast convinced the Calfars to help us.”

  “Unlikely.” Rayfin scoffed.

  “Or the Calfars killed them and came through the rift…” Her heart dropped into her stomach at the thought. “Whatever the case may be, this adds an unexpected wrinkle to our plans.”

  “You say wrinkle, I say someone took our plan, crumpled it into a tiny ball and lit it on fire.”

  “Grab weapons and explosives.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Whatever you can carry. I’m initializing the combat droids.” Once all ten Centurias were activated, Meomi linked their command module to her visor’s HUD. A new display element appeared in the lower left-hand corner of her screen listing the droid’s readiness and weapon status. With her eye movements, she ordered all droids to switch to cryo-bullets. She learned from the Ostia station videos that cold-based ammo was the only munition type to affect Mimics.

  Rayfin grabbed a cryo-rifle for himself and gave Meomi an arc cannon. He filled a pouch with various explosives and slung it over his shoulder. “Ready, Captain.”

  They waited for the wailings to die down before opening the armory doors.

  “It’s possible the Calfars might ignore us,” Meomi said as she programmed the droids to protect Rayfin.

  “Why do you say that, Captain?”

  “Did you see the way they went straight for Mimics and how the Mimics went straight for them?”

  “That’s a good observation.” Rayfin nodded.

  “Neutralize the most dangerous threats first. Battle Strategies 101.” Meomi changed the firing protocols on the Centurias droids allowing them to fire without confirmation on non-human targets. After a minute of silence, she opened the armory doors and slowly peeked her head outside. “Clear! We need to get to the bridge ASAP!”

  “The bridge is 9 decks up,” Rayfin said. “The Calfars destroyed the decktram that brought us here.”

  “We have to find another one.” Meomi pulled up the Harbinger’s floor plan. “There’s another one 200 meters toward the bow. Go! Go!”

  Meomi and her squad of combat droids encountered little resistance from Mimics or Calfars on the way to the alternate decktram. On numerous occasions, they slipped past pockets of Calfars and Mimics clashing against each other. From a quick glance, it seemed like the Calfars were winning. Their thick hides appeared impervious to Mimic stingers while their giant claw-like hands could squish the heads of Mimics until they popped.

  Mimics needed numbers to win their fights, surrounding and suffocating lone Calfars by releasing their forms and merging together into amorphous blobs that encapsulated their reptilian enemies.

  “Are we going to save the humans left on this ship?” Rayfin asked.

  “After we kill the Fleet Marshall and warn the Fleet Captains.”

  They made it to the bridge deck without having to fire a single shot. One obstacle remained before they reached the bridge itself. The steel lockdown doors were engaged. Only those on the inside could open them.

  “It’s a good thing I brought all these charges,” Rayfin said.

  Meomi nodded at him. “Hopefully it’s enough.”

  “It will loosen the doors, but the droids might have to pry them back.” Rayfin set the explosives around the seams of the lockdown doors. “Stand back.”

  Meomi ordered the droids to activate their energy shields.

  Rayfin and Meomi stood behind the droids as the timer ticked down.

  BOOM!

  The explosion was more than enough to open the bridge seal. Too much in fact. Part of the ceiling blasted into space. Containment fields automatically activated, sealing the deck from exposure.

  “I… I didn’t realize the lockdown doors were made of foil.” Rayfin’s eyes twitched.

  Meomi ignored Rayfin’s comments and charged onto the bridge with her droid squad running behind her.

  There was only one person on the bridge, Fleet Marshall Mathias Klopp, a mountain-sized man wearing Fleet Admiral dress whites and a gold and red sash indicating his Fleet Marshall status. He stood facing the main viewscreen which displayed the full view of the massive battle still raging.

  Without hesitation, Meomi grabbed the hilt of her combat knife from her thigh storage compartment and lunged herself at Klopp intending to stab him in the neck.

  Klopp side-stepped her attack in a lightning-quick move while keeping his eyes forward on the battle. “And who might you be?” He finally turned to look at Meomi.

  She ordered all ten droids to fire their cryo-bullets at the Fleet Marshall.

  Dozens of shots tore through Klopp’s flesh. The combined effects of the cryo-bullets entombed the wraith Mimic in a half-meter thick layer of ice.

  “Did we do it?” Rayfin joined Meomi at her side.

  “I don’t know. We still have to cut off his head.” She stared at him. “I think…”

  “Do we defrost him first?” He tapped the frozen Mimic with his rifle butt.<
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  The ice around the Fleet Marshall began to crack and web. Tiny streaks grew into fissures as the breaks raced across the ice.

  “He’s breaking free!” Meomi yelled. “Get back!” She pushed Rayfin away.

  Instead of breaking out of the ice prison, Klopp’s body liquified into a giant pool of obsidian sludge.

  “What’s happening?” Rayfin grimaced.

  “I wish I knew…” Meomi shook her head.

  Ebony tendrils shot out of the black sludge on the bridge floor, latching onto the first thing they touched, twisting and curling together like vines wrapping around a tree. The slurry separated into three distinct groups.

  More coils, thicker and bulkier, streamed out of each pool, shooting upward and colliding together to form a nightmarish humanoid figure. All three stood over four meters tall with the characteristic demonic red eyes of Mimics. They had a pair of lanky arms that hung down to their knees. On each of their hands were five hooked fingers that glinted against the light on the bridge. The tendrils that comprised their skin continued to writhe and move as if their bodies were merely a collection of void-black snakes.

  “That’s a no…” Rayfin scampered back to the safety of the droids.

  One of the newly formed monsters ran into the decktram to the right of the bridge. The other two charged Rayfin and his squad of droids.

  Meomi fired her arc gun at the one running away to slow it down.

  The creature paused for a moment as currents of electricity coursed through its body before darting into the decktram.

  “You’re not getting away!” Meomi threw herself into the tram before the doors closed.

  “Don’t go in there!” Rayfin yelled as he tried to follow Meomi. One of the Mimic spawns swiped its gangly limbs at him, launching him into the closest droid. “We already have the evidence we need…” Rayfin coughed as he spoke.

  “That was very foolish of you,” said the creature in front of Meomi with a deep, fiendish voice.

  Meomi realized her mistake as the doors closed and the decktram began moving. They already had a video recorded by her suit camera of the Fleet Marshall turning into a Mimic — more than enough evidence for the other captains. Her intense focus on killing Mathias Klopp blinded her to the understanding. “Rayfin, take the video of the Fleet Marshal transforming into a Mimic to the rest of Fleet. Make sure everyone sees it!” She yelled over suit comm.

  “I’m really busy right now, Captain,” Rayfin said in a tired voice. “These two clones are blocking both the exits and access to the comm station.”

  The Mimic standing in front of Meomi began rapidly expanding the size of its body, taking up the entire decktram. “Your death will not be quick.”

  Meomi emptied her entire cartridge into the monster.

  He froze for a moment before quickly regaining mobility. His body began to unwind, shooting himself at Meomi with snake-like precision, and coiling around her entire Tempest suit.

  Suit integrity warnings popped up on Meomi’s HUD. The monster had pierced her suit and was oozing through. She felt a wetness on her skin which quickly changed to a burning sensation. She tried holding in her cries of pain, wanting to deny the satisfaction of her suffering to the monster attacking her. But the urge to scream became too overwhelming, and she howled in agony.

  “Captain!” Rayfin shouted. “I’m coming for you!”

  “NO!” She shouted back. “You have your orders, dammit!”

  Meomi knew Rayfin would not give up on her if she were still alive. She had one course of action left. “It’s up to you now, Ray. Good luck…”

  “What? No! Captain!”

  Meomi navigated to the Tempest suit’s self-destruct sequence on her HUD. “We will both die here today!” She growled at the demonic face staring into her eyes.

  32

  60 seconds until self-destruct.

  Meomi stared at her own reflection in her visor glass. Pain flooded her body from every square centimeter of skin. Yet, she witnessed a serene reflection looking back at her.

  50 seconds.

  She'd been dead once before, during the Battle of Burning Midnight on Gosi Prime. Through a strange set of circumstances, Meomi received the unusual and rare gift of extra time. The faces of her crew flashed before her eyes, smiling and laughing. She accomplished a great many things and helped saved countless people with her gift.

  40 seconds.

  Meomi was at peace with all her decisions leading up to this point. If her death helped humanity defeat the Mimic invaders, she would gladly sacrifice her life many times over.

  35 seconds.

  The burning sensation suddenly disappeared. Air felt cool and refreshing as it entered her lungs. The ticking of the countdown clock sounded dull and distant.

  30 seconds.

  Meomi watched as thick black lines crawled up her neck, sprouting tightly wound concentric circles in seemingly random patterns. “The Aorgarian tattoos,” she whispered to herself as her skin glowed with a hidden illumination deep within her body.

  25 seconds.

  The circles began spinning, growing and shrinking, and then pulsing a bright light as if it were alive and speaking to Meomi.

  20 seconds.

  Something else was screaming. The cry sounded tortured, angry, and deeply demonic.

  “What are you?” the Mimic wraith roared.

  15 seconds.

  Like a fast-moving chemical reaction, every sinewy tendril wrapped around Meomi turned gray, highlighted by a brightly burning red ember.

  10 seconds.

  The embers quickly became ash. A thick layer of which settled on top of Meomi.

  7 seconds.

  Meomi lifted her head and scanned the decktram. Gray dust covered every surface around her.

  3 seconds.

  She canceled the self-destruct timer. “Wow…” she breathed. Inoke mentioned the Aorgars worked on inoculation methods against Mimic toxins. Meomi glanced at her reflection. The markings were gone. Her complexion returned to its usual sandy shade. “Ray, you still there?”

  “You will not believe what just happened, Captain.”

  “Did your Mimics suddenly turn to dust?”

  “How… Is there something you want to tell me, Captain?”

  Meomi ordered the decktram back to the bridge. “What happened here?” she asked as she surveyed the damage.

  “Big monster thingies smashed the combat droids.” Rayfin raised his arms, making himself look bigger. “Then poof, they turned to dust. “He wiggled his fingers while descending his arms to simulate dust falling.

  Meomi rolled her eyes at him.

  Only two Centuria droids remained. The other eight laid torn apart, turning the bridge into a junkyard of droid parts. Ash covered every surface in the room.

  “Those things…” Rayfin rubbed his left shoulder. “They were strong… If they didn’t spontaneously combust, I probably wouldn’t have lasted another minute.” He picked up a shattered head of a droid. “They took a lot of hits meant for me.”

  “I set them to protect you.” Meomi quickly recounted to Rayfin the story of Aorgarian inoculations and her struggles on the decktram.

  “You were meant to find that Aorgar artifact on Gosi Prime.” Rayfin smiled. “Like there’s a guiding hand, helping us. We might actually have a chance against Mimics. Speaking of chances…” He turned his head to the viewscreen which showed many of the Fleet ships on a retreat vector toward the star.

  “So you were able to reach the other captains and relay all our intel!” Meomi beamed a smile at her junior officer. “Excellent job, Ensign!”

  “I can be a persuasive person, Captain.” He winked and pointed at the procession of ships on the viewscreen. The escaping Fleet vessels disappeared into streaks of light as they reached the gravity well of the star. “Success! They’re warping away!”

  “We did it! We actually did it!” For the first time in a long while, Meomi felt joy in her heart. The feeling was strangely f
oreign to her after a prolonged period of grief and strife. She paused for a moment to reflect. There was something dark flitting about the edge of her happiness — a bittersweetness that refused to go away. Thorne was not here with her. Nor was her Cerberus crew. Meomi’s eyes unfocused. “There were times… When…”

  “I know, Captain. Lots of close calls.” He shook his head. “And we lost…”

  “We lost a lot of ships… and people.”

  Rayfin stared at his wrist console. “Roughly 80 percent of the 5th Navy is gone, Captain.”

  Meomi tapped Rayfin’s shoulder. “That means 20 percent made it. All we can do now is focus on what we have left.” She changed the viewscreen to show the internal maps of the Harbinger. Two blue dots on the bridge. Red and purple dots everywhere else. “We’re the only two humans left on this ship.” She bowed her head. “We have some unfinished business.”

  “The Calfars?”

  She nodded. “They shouldn’t be in our universe. We can’t let them escape this ship. This might be the only chance to stop them.”

  “I don’t know, Captain.” He wrinkled his forehead. “Mimics seem to fear the Calfars. Maybe we can work something out with their leader.”

  “No!” Meomi yelled. “Calfars are just like Mimics in a different skin. They would not hesitate to kill us if given a chance. We cannot replace one monster with another. Besides…” She scoffed. “This is our fight. We can’t rely on others to fight for us.”

  Rayfin sighed and glanced away. “So you think Thorne is dead? I was just starting to come around on him…”

  “I don’t know for sure either way. But even if he was alive, he didn’t make it through the rift…” Meomi felt her heart ache as she recalled the almost-kiss back in the pocket universe. “He would agree we need to destroy this ship.”

  “OK, Captain,” he said softly. “How do you plan on destroying a Capital-class ship? We’re not authorized to initiate the self-destruct sequence.”

  Meomi typed a command into the operations console and changed the viewscreen to a map of the system. “We may not be able to self-destruct the ship, but we can steer it into the star.”

  Rayfin dusted the ash off the navigation terminal and sat down. “Setting course for the star. One-half ion drive.”