I hoped.
“This way!” I shouted, sprinting forward.
I dashed off and the others followed me, all of us running for our lives. The mimics followed us, converging together like a giant beast made out of hundreds of smaller, intricate parts.
“Uh, that thing is definitely gaining on us.”
“I am aware.” I huffed. “Bahn, you see anything on that scanner of yours? Change in airway pattern, another hall?”
“I, uh--”
“Come on, less stammering, Coin Twin,” Gonzales urged. “We’re on a very tight deadline here. Emphasis on the dead part.”
I risked a look back to see Bahn typing furiously into the scanner he had built into his wrist gear. “Yes! Ahead and to the right. There’s a large room, we can probably duck in there!”
“And what’s to stop these maniac mimics from ducking in there with us?” Ciangi asked.
“I have an idea,” I said.
“Oh yeah? Is it as good as our last idea?”
I didn’t answer, as we had reached the door. Without missing a beat, I threw myself sideways into the barrier.
I slammed into it with all of my force and that just barely managed to budge it open wide enough for the others to slip in. I could hear the murderous wave of mimics coming, so I scrambled in after them.
“Help me close it!” I cried, standing up and pushing against the massive partition.
The others ran to help me, and together, we managed to close it. We had mere seconds before the mimics came around the bend, and I didn’t know if they could tell where we had gone or not. So, I grabbed one of the spare canisters in my bag and shoved the thick cylinder through the door’s handles.
“That should hold them for a minute.” I gasped.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Ciangi murmured. “But there’s another door on the other side.”
“Crap!” I rushed over and practically tackled that door as well. I was going to have a very sore shoulder tomorrow. If I survived, that was.
Just like before, my three friends joined me until we were able to close that one too, but this time, it was Ciangi who shoved the container through the handles.
“There.” She breathed heavily. “That should hold for at least a couple of minutes.”
“Let’s hope.” I looked around, taking everything in. “Where do you think we are?”
“If I had to guess,” Bahn murmured, walking past us to look at the desolate, cobwebbed surroundings. Good to know that spiders were universal, leaving their tickling, messy webs everywhere. “This was some sort of cafeteria. Where the lower of the crew must have come and gotten their sustenance.” He whistled as he looked around at the large but dilapidated architecture around us. “These aliens, they certainly weren’t small. I’m guessing that specimen we caught a peek at earlier had added some modifications to alter its physical appearance, but its size was not one of the things it tampered with.”
“Fascinating,” Gonzales said. “But not entirely useful.”
“Actually, I think it is,” I muttered, my brain buzzing with the edge of a thought. “We studied this in one of my maintenance courses. Ships are usually laid out in an ergonomic way, with certain key points being in the center of the ship where all the crew can reach it in about the same amount of time. These places are usually the cafeteria, the bridge, and the med bay. Sometimes personnel quarters sub-out the eating area, but that’s less usual.”
“So, if we’re standing in the cafeteria, chances are that either the bridge or the medbay is below us. I’m willing to bet on the bridge, which is where we first saw the creature. I can’t be sure, but I think when we came here, there was a slight decline down the hall leading to it. And as we ran, I think there was an incline to the hall we were sprinting through.”
“Well, that would explain why my calves are screaming,” Ciangi said. “I mean, I know I’m not in the best of shape, but usually it takes a little more running than that to get shin-splints.”
“Shin-splints are going to be the least of your worries,” Gonzales said, her eyes closed while her brows knitted themselves together.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I hear the wave coming back toward us.”
“That’s unfor--”
“In stereo.” She opened her eyes and sighed. “They know we’re here. They’re rushing toward the door right now.”
“That is some exceptionally good hearing,” Bahn said, turning to face the door to the left.
“It’s a gift and a curse,” she answered, facing the right. “I just want you guys to know, it’s been nice being a crew with you. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll be reincarnated as something with a whole lot less responsibility.”
“That’d be nice.”
But I wasn’t interested in the moment of camaraderie. My mind was spinning, as it had never done before.
“I need one of your guns,” I said, holding my hand out.
“Really? Wanna go down blasting?” she said, tossing one to him with a grin. “Never thought guns were your thing.”
“They’re not,” I answered shortly. “Stand back, everyone.” Although they had no idea what I had in mind, they didn’t argue, just scattered. Trying not to tremble, I popped open the rear-cap of the gun and set all the settings to their highest while setting the shielding to its lowest. It didn’t take long for the thing to rumble, and I quickly set it on the floor before dashing away.
The explosion that resulted was…spectacular, to say the least. Ash, metal, and other debris went everywhere, but most importantly, we were all safe.
“Into the hole!” I cried, running forward to the still-red edges.
“My gosh, you really are a genius!” Gonzalez cried, following after me.
About halfway to the newly made gap in the floor, the doors suddenly burst open and two mimic waves surged in from either side.
“Great,” I muttered, my stomach dropping. “A race.”
And what a race it was. The four of us put our everything into our sprint, diving for the hole with no concern for what might be below. As we fell, through wires and bent supports and busted tech, I spun to look upward.
The two waves crashed into each other with a massive amount of force, sending the minis flying everywhere. Unfortunately, many of them came falling right down into the hole with us.
The grav-boots helped to right me, and this time, I landed a little better. Looking forward, then back, I saw another set of those ridiculously oversized doors that was cracked open just enough to get by.
“That way!” I cried, pulling Gonzales and Ciangi to their feet. Bahn landed a beat later, lurching after us with surprising quickness for being what Gonzales would classify as an ‘uber nerd.’
Once more, we were all running, but the end was in sight. We were going to make it out of this. We were going to--
“Hey, Higgens, doesn’t this look familiar?”
But I was already sidling through, pulling the others after me. Once they were all on my side, we shoved the door closed with a resounding thump.
Relief washed over me and I turned, only to have that very same relief turn to ice in my veins.
We were in the bridge and the alien was staring right at us.
“Oh shi--”
Something lashed out of its body, gelatinous and reviling, slamming all of us into the far wall. The air was knocked out of me once more as we hit, and we slid to the ground in a heap.
“This…this was not a good plan,” Gonzales groaned as we disentangled ourselves.
As if it understood us, it stood, its entire body shaking and rearranging as if it was made of gelatin and silicone. It made me want to puke, but I was too scared to do so. But instead of striking us again, that same arm reached for the door and opened it, letting the wave of mini-mimics in.
The arm shrank back into its body and before another extended from its back, only to grab the console it liked to punch its orders into. Once more, several notes sound
ed, and the mimics all stopped in a line.
We stood there, in a tense standoff. If one could call certain defeat a standoff. We were going to die here. We didn’t have near enough weaponry to take the creature down, and as far as I could tell, it had integrated several parts of the ship into its body. If we wanted to kill it, we would have to destroy every last bit of it. And frankly, that was impossible.
The alien knew it too. I could see it across its melting, folding, rearranging, blobby face. It reached for me, long, insidious claws growing out of its arm as it extended. This was the end.
Except, it suddenly wasn’t.
There was a flash of heat and light in front of me and we were all thrown backward. When my head was cleared, I saw a blackened scorch on the ground where we had been standing.
The alien was screaming, whirling in a circle as it tried to put out the parts of it that were on fire. It would have been amusing to watch, if it weren’t so terrifying.
To my surprise, it was Ciangi who stood first, her arm bloodied. It was only after I realized her hand-held scanner was missing that I put the pieces together. She must have overloaded it, just like I had Gonzales’s blaster.
She saved my life.
But it was only a stop-gap. The alien had stopped screaming, and instead returned to its chair. Grabbing the hanging console once more, it punched in another command.
I figured out what it said quickly, as the mimics suddenly jumped into action. But instead of running, they slowly advanced, like an executioner’s march.
We backed up, but there was only so far we could go. Eventually, our backs hit the wall and there was nothing we could do to escape what was about to happen.
“Is this where I start shooting?” Gonzales asked, her voice still as brave and strong as ever.
I planned to tell her no, that there was no point in killing a dozen or so innocent children only to have the others rip us to shreds, but then I saw a lone mimic break away from the formation. Like a small shadow, it flitted toward the alien.
And the console.
Suddenly, everything made sense. But I also knew that, with the way the alien was sitting now, that little mimic would be spotted instantly.
“Yes!” I yelled suddenly.
She shot me a shaky grin, trying to be her normal, headstrong self. “Finally.”
“But shoot the alien.”
“What? Are you sure? I don’t think my blaster is going to penetrate its skin if a straight-up overload blast didn’t do anything besides make it a bit toasty.”
“Oh, it’s definitely not going to hurt him,” I said, sending her my own smile. “But it sure is going to piss him off.”
She gave me an odd look, but I just nodded at her. Thankfully, she seemed to believe that I knew what I was doing, and unloaded into the alien until her gun overheated.
And boy, did it work. The alien shrieked, not in pain, but in pure rage as she peppered it. I saw wide circles of red appear on its skin, only to disappear back to normal flesh. Well, normal for the creature. It stood, advancing on us for a little one-on-one revenge.
It only made it a couple of steps before that tiny mimic I saw scaled its chair and launched itself to the console. In a ripple of color, the mini expanded until there was none other than Mimic perched atop the large computer.
“This is for my people,” she hissed, before punching in a code.
The alien whirled, dozens of arms shooting out of its body to stop her, but the tones were already sounding. Once more, there was a strange sort of stillness when they ended, but then the mimics all turned as one and converged on the alien.
Its ending…wasn’t pretty. It tried to run, but the mimics descended on it with a ferocity that made all other acts of violence I had ever witnessed pale in comparison. I saw the others look away from the carnage, but I forced myself to watch it out. It felt like the right thing to do.
If I was going to plot out a murder of an enemy, I owed them watching the consequences of my handiwork so it would never have to happen again.
When it was all over, my eyes flashed to Mimic’s. She was still perched atop the console, her face flushed and her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“You did it,” I murmured, voice barely able to make it out of my tightening throat.
“So we did.”
13
NICE PLACE FOR AN EPILOGUE
I STARED over the horizon as the sun set, sending dazzling rays of light across the entire landscape. Mimic stood before me, her feet planted firmly on the ground and mine on the metal ramp of our ship.
“I don’t have to leave,” I murmured, voice quiet once again. “I could stay here, with you.”
But she shook her head slowly.
It had been a week since our defeat of her enemy, and we had spent much of the time helping the mimics. There had been a mass panic after the voice in their head was suddenly cut off, and many began doing things that could end up hurting them.
Now, however, things were calmed, and I was supposed to board my ship and go home.
“I need you to be my ambassador to Earth,” she murmured sadly. We were all sad. After going through so much together, we didn’t want to split up. But we had to. “You know that while I was in the ship, I managed to uncover years of messages back to that alien’s people. They’re coming for us, and we need Earth’s help to survive.”
“Yeah, but I mean, do we really trust a group of bureaucrats? What if they try to pull some sort of shady deal? Or they use the sample you’re sending us off with but never offer help in return?”
But Mimic was all soft smiles. “I have learned that, while you are the greatest companions I could ever ask for, I cannot expect the same of all of your people. Especially those in power. So I included a holo-recording stating, should they choose a nefarious path, that both me and my army of shapeshifters would descend on them with little mercy.”
“Really?” Ciangi asked with a smirk. “You and the babies that are still figuring out how to eat on their own?”
“They don’t need to know that. As Higgens once taught me, less is more,” she said, winking at me.
“Alright, well, it’s been good knowing you, I guess.” Gonzales extended her hand and Mimic took it, shaking as friends. “Be safe, okay?”
“I will try my best.”
Ciangi and Bahn both said their good-byes as well, leaving just Mimic and me.
I didn’t want to go. After so long of never belonging on the colony, and then never belonging on the ships I worked, I had come to appreciate having a friend who understood me. I got her in a way I never got other people. And she got me.
And now we had to say good-bye.
“I don’t like this,” I said finally, trying to keep my face straight.
“I know,” she murmured. “But it is a temporary measure. There is no one I trust more than you to make sure your government handles my gifts appropriately. Besides, this is only temporary. Once an alliance is formed, you are more than welcome to visit us here. That is, if you can afford to take a break from all your adoring fans after being the first person to discover non-human life.”
“Psh, I’m sure there won’t be any of those.”
“You forget, I have read almost all of you humans’ history. You are going to be a bit of a…what do you call it? Rack heart? Roll hard?”
“Rock star,” I finished, a halfhearted smile around my lips.
“Yes, that. A rock star.” Suddenly, she was pulling me into a hug, her warm body pressing into mine. I returned the gesture just as ardently, as if I held her hard enough that we wouldn’t have to part.
But eventually, we did.
“Be safe, Higgens. I will count the days until we meet again.”
“Me too.”
I wanted to say more. I wanted to say everything. But I knew that if I did, I would never leave. And right now, me on Earth was what Mimic needed. What kind of friend would I be if I put my needs above hers?
So with a final squee
ze of her hand, I turned my back and walked up the ramp. I heard it retract and the hatch slide closed, but I dared not look behind. If I did, I was afraid I would dive right off the ship and back onto the planet.
As much as I wanted to, that wasn’t the path for me right now. That chapter of my life had closed, and it was about to move on to another one. Hopefully, if I was very, very lucky, our stories would find each other again.
MIMIC AND THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
1
SAY WHAT NOW?
“BUT HOW COULD you possibly know that the creature you found was safe?”
I did everything I could to repress a sigh as I heard a question that I had heard at least a trillion times in the past year. I looked into the recording lens of the holo-projector and pasted on my best polite smile.
“Well, that’s the thing, I couldn’t.”
“Then how do you justify endangering the life of everyone on your ship? Obviously, we are all incredibly grateful it turned out as it did, but if your Mimic—as you call her—had been vengeful or violent, it could have been a very different story.”
It was funny, in a way. Every single interviewer that tried to be cutting edge, and ask the ‘hard-hitting questions,’ always invariably fell back on bringing up all the terrible things that could have happened and how I had endangered the ship. Maybe they thought it would make me crack. Maybe they thought it would make great click-bait to increase their views. I didn’t know, but I was so tired of it.
“It could have been. For all I knew, she was a ravenous monster who wanted to feed on my flesh. But that didn’t matter.”
The hologram of the interviewer tipped their head. “I’m not quite sure what you mean.”
“Of course not. But that’s because you’re looking at this like a human. It’s easy to think that I endangered a ship for a cute, little spikey animal, but that’s only if you forget that we’re the ones who destroyed Mimi’s home. We’re the ones who killed her family and everything she knew. We basically kicked down the door of her house and took an ionic saw to the interior. If she was a dangerous creature, she still deserved shelter. Since our ship took it from her, it made sense to make it her own.
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