Mimic Saves Her People
Space Shifter Chronicles, Book 8
James David Victor
Fairfield Publishing
Copyright © 2018 Fairfield Publishing
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.
This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Contents
1. What Breaks the Silence
2. Scattered Pieces
3. Loss and Life
4. Witness
5. The Quickest Way from Point A to B is to Cheat
6. Do or Die, but Preferably not Die
7. Needle in a Haystack
8. Hush
9. Know Thine Enemy
10. Hitching a Ride
11. Not the Folks One Wants at a Party
12. Divide and Conquer
13. All You Can Eat Buffet
14. Cleaning House
Thank You
Free Story
Bonus Content: Story Preview
Preview: Discovery
1
What Breaks the Silence
I held my breath as Gonzales landed as quickly as she could. But as we descended, smoke—thick and noxious—cloaked our ship, making visibility zero and the forward window switch to a holo-map of our surroundings. My stomach left somewhere behind in space, I could only pray that there was just some sort of strange fire situation back at the home that we’d so carefully built.
The moment the thrusters dipped into a low hum, Mimi surged out of the room, her human form dropping as she shifted to her much quicker, spikier body. I quickly unbuckled myself and followed, nearly tumbling over when we finally did set down.
I could hear footsteps behind me, all rushing to catch up, but I didn’t wait for them. I rushed to catch up with Mimi, only to find that the walkway had already dropped, and she was nowhere to be seen.
So I ran as hard as I could toward the direction of the happy home we had built together. The smoke wasn’t nearly as thick as it was in the air, which meant that it had to have been a while since whatever had happened…happened, and a majority of it had risen upwards.
My breath echoed in my ears as I sprinted, and I wondered how badly my time imprisoned had destroyed all the hard-earned muscle and stamina I had won while helping to build our community. After a few moments, I realized that I could hear my breathing far too clearly.
Where were all the sounds?
There were no spaelgoks trilling. There were no sounds of children chirping. There weren’t even the ever-present sounds of training from the yard. I could have sworn there was always someone on that roughly hewn field, and it had given me comfort many nights when I couldn’t sleep.
That made my heart squeeze even more painfully in my chest, but I kept pressing on.
Or at least I did until I heard a piercing, heart-wrenching sound that made my head throb like I had been hit with a sledge hammer.
I stumbled a moment, my hands catching me in the dirt as nausea overtook me. It only lasted as long as the cry, but as soon as the sound cut off, I knew I had to run even faster.
Because that sound was Mimic, or as I affectionately called her, Mimi.
I didn’t know how I knew considering that I had never heard her make that sound before, in fact, I’d never heard a mimic scream in their original form. I poured everything I had to pelting forward, and when I broke through the trees, even my worst fears didn’t prepare me for what I saw.
The training fields were to the left, the village was ahead, and our defense center was far to the right. For the tiniest of moments, it seemed like everything was fine. There were no buildings on fire and no giant craters.
But then my brain caught up with all the data in front of me and I saw destruction scattered along the entire path up to the city.
The barricades we had built for that attack long ago were all gone, and those seemed to be where the smoke was coming from. The informal school looked like someone had purposefully gone at it with an old-fashioned wrecking ball.
But none of it looked like it had been blasted from the air. No, this was deliberate, methodical destruction that had to have been done by foot troops after an attack, not during.
Another wail ripped through the air and I realized that I had stopped cold in my tracks. Dashing off again, I managed to find Mimi behind a smoldering pile of coal. She was crouched down, her form shaking as that awful sound escaped her mouth again.
I rushed around her, and all my breath left my body as I saw what she was holding.
Or rather who.
Astaroth lay across the ground, his torso pulled into her arms. He was mostly in a human form, but his limbs were melting into black, putty-like pools and more of that dark liquid was coming up from between his split lips.
“I…I don’t know how to help him,” Mimi said, looking up at me with red eyes. It seemed she still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of crying, but she desperately wanted to. “We’ve been studying our anatomy for almost two years and I don’t know what to do! What’s the point of everything we’ve built, of everything we’ve done, if I can’t even help my brother?!”
A low wheeze sounded from below her and Astaroth’s eyes fluttered open. Mimi gasped, and clutched him even more tightly.
“Astaroth! Stay with me!” Her tone was panicked, far higher and more fearful than I had ever heard. I didn’t know what to do, whether to go to her or give her space, so I ended up just frozen as I watched the exchange. “That is a direct order from your leader. Just focus on my voice, okay?”
The large shifter smiled weakly, and his hand came up to caress her cheek. Form rippling and dripping, he left a streak of black across her face, before his hand fell back to the ground with a thump
“No! Astaroth, come back. This isn’t the time to sleep, okay? Just stay with me for another moment!”
I finally got my brain in gear enough to go to her, but I barely made it two steps before his body let out a sudden, intense shudder. Mimi sucked in a breath, as if she was afraid a single move would ruin everything.
The world seemed to pause for a moment, and the two of us clung to the hope that his eyes would flutter open again. I was vaguely aware of Eske arriving somewhere in my peripheral vision, but I didn’t dare turn my head.
Then, as if time was snapping back to its normal rate, his body stiffened, turning the same metallic black that I was used to seeing, before crumbling into ash that blew across the smoldering landscape in a faint cloud.
“No!” Mimi screamed, her human form cracking as shimmering ebony peeked through. I dropped to my knees and held her to me, binding her as tight as I could with my arms as her body wavered, bucked, and roiled with her desperate, tortured cries.
I’d never seen her act like this, but I realized that I’d never seen a mimic die. In fact, I hadn’t even been sure that they could die once they reached their adult form. Sure, Mimi’s family had been chewed up by my ship when we had first met, but she had told me that they had been so tiny and undernourished that they had hardly been sentient. She had been terrified and hurt at the time, but I was sure that was nothing compared to losing what was essentially her little brother.
A few moments later, the rest of our crew arrived, and we all stood in silence. My own eyes were itching, tears threatening to spill over, but I could mourn later. For now, all of my attention needed to be on Mimi.
I couldn’t say how long we stayed there. Maybe it was a minute, maybe it was ten, but eventually Mimi’s sobs stilled and she looked up at my face with a sort of desperation that I wasn’t used to on her features.
“We have to see if there are any others!” she cried. “We have to save them!”
2
Scattered Pieces
In my life since Mimi, I had done many insane things, seen many impossible things, and had plenty of stressful, painful, and horrific things done to me. I’d lost several of my fingers, and I had enough scars that I’d forgotten half of their stories.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to looking for survivors in the ruins of our home.
Except perhaps ruins wasn’t the correct word. All of the buildings were standing, with the windows and doors, which had taken us quite a while to learn how to make, all intact. But once we stepped in, the signs of battle were evident.
Blaster fire, things shattered, beds flipped over, rations everywhere. If I had to guess what had happened, all of the able-bodied mimics had flooded the battlefield for a fight while a second wave came up behind to attack the town and all of the non-combatant and younger mimics.
“How could they only leave one behind?” Mimi asked, her tone empty and her face blank as she stood in the center of the town.
She’d been standing there since we had finished our search and hadn’t moved an inch.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she continued, looking at me with wide eyes. “Was it to leave a message? He was too hurt to tell me anything. Surely, they must have known that. So, what was the point? Why leave him? He couldn’t have been the only one…the only one…”
“It’s okay,” I said, pulling her to me. “You don’t have to say it.”
“The only one that they killed,” she finished in breathless gasp before her voice cut off. I could tell she was still fighting to hold onto her humanoid form and wondered why she didn’t just sink into her original body.
It was only as she buried her face in my chest did I realize that it was so I could comfort her. While we’d certainly cuddled many times around her spikes, this was different. She needed my touch. She needed me to be there for her.
“So, what do we think happened?” Eske said, wiping the dirt and ash on her hands across her previously clean clothes. I didn’t know why the motion caught my attention so much, but I couldn’t help but wonder if what she was cleaning off were the remnants of other mimics who hadn’t made it.
Had they turned to ash like Astaroth? Was that what mimics did? Or had they done something to him? I had a hard time believing that the entire settlement had been taken so easily, so did that mean that whoever landed had something up their sleeve? That they knew mimic anatomy better than the mimics themselves?
“We won’t know until the twins come back with their findings.”
Eske nodded, rubbing the edge of her new visor. I noticed she had taken to doing that whenever she was particularly concerned. “Are we sure splitting up was wise, given everything that’s been going on?”
“Maybe it wasn’t,” I answered honestly. “But Harunya was already here, and your family. If they would be anywhere, it would be at our defense grid, and I’m sure you can see the smoke rising from there all the way where we are.”
“Yeah…” Eske murmured, rubbing her goggles even harder. Thankfully, Aja had built those things to last, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed seeing her so worried. Nothing about this experience was really enjoyable, though, was it?
Mimi let out another wracking sob that was somewhere between human and inhuman, and I stroked her hair. I felt completely useless, like my brain was stuck somewhere between knowing I should be comforting Mimi and trying to comprehend the horror that was strewn out all around us.
The kids couldn’t be gone…could they? Could everyone really be gone? Were they all dead? Were they… Well, what else was there? Whoever came here wouldn’t have just kidnapped an entire city worth of children and young adult mimics, right? How could they contain them? It had taken the generals so many resources to contain Mimi, and although she was the most powerful mimic by far, she was just one.
There had been a couple thousand mimics. There was no one who could possibly have the resources to restrain all of them?
“Hey, do you hear that?” Eske asked.
I turned my head in the direction the former maintenance worker was pointing, and I saw the faintest bit of movement on the horizon. I wasn’t willing to let go of Mimi, so I only took a few steps while squinting hard.
Not that squinting actually made me see better, but it made me feel like I was at least doing something. My efforts were paid off as I saw a line of people shakily approaching from the tree line.
“Inate!” Eske cried, pelting across the field faster than I had seen her move in quite a while, and I’d certainly seen the girl sprint before.
By the time she reached them, I could make out Gonzales leading them, her face a telling mix of both grim and relieved.
“Come on, Mimi,” I said quietly, gently pulling her toward the approaching line of people. “They might know what happened.”
She nodded, and we shuffled forward, reaching the group while Eske was still hugging and crying with a middle-aged woman.
“Higgens, Mimi, this is my mother. Mother, these are the leaders I told you about.” She finally let go of the woman and pointed toward the older man beside her. “This is my father, and these are my brothers, Abel, Yonas, Negasi, and Kofi.”
“I wish we could say it’s nice for you to meet us,” the older man said, his voice pleasantly accented. “But these circumstances are less than ideal.”
I nodded, not sure what other gesture was appropriate given the situation. “Do you all know what happened?”
“No, unfortunately,” Eske’s mother answered. “The alarm sounded and we were all rushed to the closest bunker.”
“Were there any mimics with you?” Mimi asked hopefully.
“Only one.” She reached into the bag at her side and pulled out what had to be the smallest mimic I had ever seen. “We just got here a week or so ago, so we hadn’t had time to make friends with anyone. This one was showing us where you keep the animals when the alarm sounded. They’re also the one who led us to the safe place.”
“They look a little small for cross-species communication,” Mimi said, kneeling and taking the child tenderly into her arms. His spikes could hardly be called that, looking more like pin-pricks than anything. “He’s even smaller than when Higgens first found me.”
“We were down there quite a while,” the mother continued. “There were human provisions in there, but apparently, only a very small amount of food for your kind.”
Mimi grimaced. “We were still worrying about stocking our storerooms. The outer bunkers haven’t been finished. That should have been our priority…but it just seemed like we were finally going to have peace.”
She took a deep breath and I could see her struggling to hold herself together. “Let’s go to the storeroom. There should be at least a little food still left there.”
We all followed her, but as we walked, I noticed there was someone missing.
Harunya? I mouthed to Gonzales, hoping that somehow, I had just overlooked her and the feeling in my gut was wrong.
But the weapons engineer just shook her head slowly, to not draw attention, and I couldn’t help but wonder where the pregnant woman was.
We reached the storeroom without any incident, the only noise being Mimi as she cooed to the starving mimic in her arms. It reminded me of how she had once almost starved to death herself and seeing that her body could have eaten itself into nothing told me that we missed a truly awful fate.
But if he was that small after being able to communicate, then at least a couple of weeks had to have passed since the attack, which meant Ashtaroth had been waiting for us, barely clinging to life, only for us to arrive too late.
That wasn’t a good feeling.
“Hey there, baby. Come on, just a little nibble,” Mimi murmured, holding what looked like some shale rock and dirt to its underside. I heard the telltale crunching and the small thing trilled in relief.
My comm buzzed and I heard Bahn’s frantic, enraged voice over it. “You need to come to our coordinates,” he said, voice just as tense as it had been in some of the battles we had survived. “Get here as fast as you can.”
That was it. No explanation, no reason, just an order. I looked to Mimi, but she was so preoccupied with the little one in her arms that I didn’t think she had even heard Bahn.
“Gonzales, with me. Everyone else, stay here with Mimi,” I said, trying to keep my tone level and as devoid of panic as possible.
But it wasn’t easy. Every bit of my mind wanted to freak out, but it was going to have to wait. Gonzales offered me a slight nod, and then we were jogging out into the open.
It still didn’t make sense. How could the buildings we created be mostly intact while the ground smoldered and smoke was still rising from our training field? After all, if it had been at least two weeks since the attack, everything should be cold and still…right? Not still spilling fumes into the air.
“Any ideas?” Gonzales muttered to me while we jogged. Her face was grim and reminded me of how her expression had often been when she had first lost her eye.
“I want to say no,” I answered honestly. “But there’s only one other massively advanced alien race that we know of.”
“You think this was them? This is nothing like the firepower they had last time. If they had this kind of tech, there’s no way we could have beaten them the first time.”
I shrugged, wishing that we had created some sort of transport system. I had forgotten how long it took to get from one end of our settlement to the other. “It’s been a little over a year since the attack, right? Maybe they got more advanced. Or maybe what we fought was just a baby ship that they thought was enough to deal with us and they realized afterward that they would need more.”
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