“That’s our cue,” Mimi said, ducking down a hall. “Here, up in this vent. I melted a path into a duct that drops right into the hold.”
“Really, you just…melted whatever alloy this is?” Gonzales said as I knelt to boost her up into the chute.
“I was hopped-up on nuclear energy at the time.”
“Ah, right.”
It didn’t take us long to all get in the vent. At first, I thought that we were in for a long, uncomfortable trek through some cramped system, but the experience was surprisingly short. We traveled less than a cafeteria’s length before the vent suddenly tilted, and I started sliding down almost the moment I hit it.
I was reminded of one time we had escaped from prison. For the first time, if I recalled correctly, but instead of some terrifying slide down a massive shoot that might kill us, we only went down maybe ten feet or so before we slammed into another pipe.
“This way,” Mimi said, leading us a small way to where I saw a grate that had already been moved to the side. She slid down and away into darkness, so I followed her without question.
I landed hard, completely unable to see, but I felt a spry hand grab my shoulder. “Just back up slowly until you’re against a wall. The children will shield you from view.”
“What view?” I whispered, stumbling to the side as Gonzales landed beside me and elbowed my side. “I can’t see anything.”
“Sorry, we can’t risk a light. Just trust me. They’re almost here and I need to get into position.”
Three more thumps as the rest of our group landed. Stretching out in the absolute pitch black, I found someone’s arms. “We just need to carefully back up,” I said. “The mimics will do the rest.”
“Back up, he says,” I heard Gonzales grouse. “I’m not sure if I even know which way is back. What if I stood up facing a different direction than you?”
“Here, everyone link hands. I’m holding onto someone.”
“That would be me,” Bahn said calmly.
It only took us a couple of seconds to find each other and then we slowly scuttled backwards like a child learning to walk. I could hear and feel little figures moving quickly past my ankles.
The entire experience was unnerving.
After what felt like forever, my back finally hit solid metal. I crouched down, as did everyone else, assuming that the hand I was holding followed me, and I felt movement a foot or so away from our faces.
Just in the nick of time, it seemed, as I heard a door above us open. Light spilled across the room, forcing its way through the tiny gaps in the mimic pile that was domed over us.
Wow, the little ones really were tiny. It was like when we had first found Mimi’s planet all over again, but at least this time, they had their own free will.
Leaning forward, I peeked through one of the tiny cracks and didn’t expect what I saw. When I heard they were holding the mimics in the starboard side of the ship, I imagined they had just dumped them in a secure sort of cargo hold and sealed off any exits.
That was definitely not the case.
We were in what looked like a specifically-created containment unit, with no door down here or other exit. Now that there was light, I could see that there were only two pipes, which I assumed were usually for pumping oxygen—or whatever this system’s species breathed—into the prison.
Up above by several stories, so high I almost couldn’t make out any of their features, stood an alien in what looked like a clear polymer box, a control panel in front of him. So, he didn’t even come into the unit? How was Mimi planning to…
My line of thought drifted away as I spotted her hastily climbing the wall directly under the box. It seemed to be the only blind spot, but I wondered what had stopped the little ones from doing just that in the weeks since they had been captured.
I got my answer as two long, deadly-looking legs extended out of her as she shed her human disguise. They reached up, up, up carefully until they stopped suddenly. Squinting, I could see little crackles of lightning where they were making contact with something.
Oh. An energy shield that could actually hold mimics? I didn’t think that was possible. How—
Before I could even finish mentally asking myself the question, there was a surge through her body and her legs practically exploded from the field. Shooting up too fast for me to see, they ripped through the floor of the polymer box high above, ripping the alien down from his post just as I saw the tiniest flash of alarm-light glow from his dash.
From there, she dropped from the wall and my vision was obscured by the mimics. That only lasted a second, however, and they all started to scuttle away as Mimi dealt with the threat.
Free from our little mimic cocoon, I jogged across the wide expanse to see that the mimics had formed themselves into a type of living restraint, holding the alien in place while Mimi pulled some of his equipment from him.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Gonzales muttered as we approached. “I half-expected y’all to have killed him.”
“According to the little ones, they get alerts when one of the crew’s vital signs go out. That’s what stopped their first escape attempt.”
“First?” I asked, my mind spinning with several quick revelations. ‘First’ implied that they had tried many times. They were still captured, which meant that they had failed each time, and if they knew that vitals ending sent an alert to the rest of the crew, that meant they had killed at least one of the aliens.
Huh, even starved, terrorized, and imprisoned, it seemed that mimics were still as tenacious as ever. I wondered if any of Mimi’s lieutenants had helped lead most of the failed attempts. They seemed like the type to never give up.
“Yakoba,” Mimi said, standing and holding her arm out. One of the slightly larger mimics quickly climbed up her body to sit on her hand. “Show these humans the way that I came from. I’m going to do more recon as I finish my patrol.”
The mimic gave a warble then scurried off her body and onto my back. I blanked for a moment, my thoughts going to the awful mimic that had betrayed us, but I quickly shoved that thought out of my head to be dealt with at a better time.
“Vellol, your job is to go up there and mimic yourselves into making the box look pristine. That includes making a layer over the dash. When someone comes in, you take them, and you bring them down here for those who’ve fed to shift into. You got that?”
That mimic trilled too and started climbing the wall with nearly twenty or so other children following.
“So, is everyone clear on the plan?” Mimi asked, her eyes full of fire.
I nodded, and there was a wave of affirmative chirps from the rest of the mimics.
“Good. Let’s do our best, everyone. We’ve got a ship to steal.”
“Again,” Gonzales added. “A ship to steal, again.”
13
All You Can Eat Buffet
I had thought that it would be a challenge to go back into the same vent that we had dropped out of, but the mimics made a convenient flight of steps for us to ascend into the pipes. Once we were in, Yakoba crawled from my back and led us forward, a host of mimics behind us.
I didn’t know why Mimi had sent us along with the mimic children when they seemed perfectly capable of feeding themselves, but the answer quickly came as we dropped out of a shoot in front of a door with what looked like an old-fashioned code lock.
“Are you kidding me?” Ciangi said when she saw it. “I thought these guys were advanced, and they’re using regular old combination protection in their ship?”
“Actually,” Bahn said, coming up along beside her and examining the thing. “It’s pretty smart. It can’t be hacked and can’t be brute-forced without setting off an alarm.”
“But why didn’t Mimi just tell us the code if she came this way?”
“Because you don’t need the code to get out of that part of the ship. Only in. this is probably why she didn’t have the mimics just surge back here the moment that she got in, and why
she didn’t go back to feed again.”
“I know we’re in the middle of something,” Eske said. “But I feel like this is something she should have told us about before we split up instead of finding it halfway.”
“It’s fine,” I said, kneeling before the door and pressing my ear to it. “We used these kinds of locks on the colony. I kinda know my way around them.”
“Kinda? Like…how kinda?”
“Kinda as in if all of us aren’t quiet, I won’t figure out anything before someone else comes along and finds us here.”
“Oh, right.” Gonzales turned to the mimics behind us and bent down. “Hey, I know you guys can’t handle a ton of shifting now, but can you change your form to be smooth and add colors?”
There were a couple of warbles that almost sounded like yeses.
“Alright, I want you to block us off from view and try to make a picture of the end of this hall. Kind of like a fake painting. You guys remember those from Eske’s classes back home, right?”
This time, there was no vocal answer, but the little beings did indeed form a wall, obscuring the rest of the hall from our view.
“I hope that worked,” I remarked before concentrating on the door in front of me.
I held my breath as I listened, wishing I had the echolocator I had built for myself when I was young. But I would just have to make do and concentrate on each and every sound that came from the door.
I moved the winch of the combination methodically, closing my eyes. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Finally, there was a grating sort of latch sound and I allowed myself to breathe. One chamber done.
Three to go.
My hand went to the next one, turning it in the opposite direction.
Tock.
Nope, that was very much the wrong sound. It seemed that the second one was clockwise too. I spun it in that direction, listening for another release.
Eventually I got it, and the next one. By the time I finished the final one, I was beginning to sweat, and my head was throbbing. When all of this was said and done, I deserved a real nice nap.
Then it happened. The final click and the door swung open. I almost let out a whoop of excitement but caught myself just in time.
“This way,” I said, stepping inside.
The mimics followed first, all dropping from the wall they had made, and Gonzales was in last. She closed the door behind us and I almost told her to leave it open before thinking better of it.
If we didn’t want the aliens to know that we were here, we needed to make sure everything looked the same as we found it. But I couldn’t help but feel that the closed door was going to kick us in the rear end later.
We all jogged down a catwalk over what looked like it might be a sub-engineering level or even emergency quarters. The tech and setup was all so alien that I couldn’t be certain, but I did know that there wasn’t anything present that could possibly serve as the engine, thruster relay or waste output for the giant ship.
We reached another door, this one without a complicated code, and rushed through it. And there, lit by a dull green glow of emergency lighting, was the exact room we were looking for.
“Thank God,” I whispered, feeling a tiny bit of relief. This was really the lynchpin in our plan. Once we got the mimics fed, we would have a beefed-up army of our own that could also take the shape of the enemy.
“There!” I said, spotting a massive container with several markings on it that just screamed out warning labels. “You see how it’s connected to the engine and what I think may be a crystal generator? That’s gotta be for the runoff.”
“Good eye,” Ciangi said. “I agree.”
That was apparently enough for the little mimics at our feet because they all shot forward in a surge of obsidian. Sure, there were less than a hundred of them, but the sight was still impressive as they reached the massive container and swarmed it to find a way in.
Just like Mimi had that very first week I knew her, they found a tiny chink and worked their way into the energy source. The five of us watched, and I could feel myself basking in the victory of what we had done.
This was it. We had made it to the turning point. From here, it was just—
I was cut off as sirens blared to life, nearly deafening me. It was short, lasting less than a second, but it was enough to break the spell of assuredness I had just been creating for myself.
“What the heck was that?” Gonzales asked, her bionic eye blazing to life, no doubt scanning the area for any threats.
I heard the sound of rock scraping past metal and whirled to the runoff container to see one of the mimics sliding out. It was certainly bigger than when it had gone in, but not nearly the size it would need to be to shift into a bipedal, sentient creature.
Despite that, its form rippled and surged until it was a puddle of what looked like sludgy pink flesh.
“I think I’m gonna barf…” Ciangi groaned, leaning over the side of the catwalk we were on.
But I just stared, watching as very human lips rose to the top of the pile. I felt like I was in shock, unable to comprehend what I was seeing, but that disbelief fled real fast as those lips opened in a scream.
“DANGER!”
“Danger?” Gonzales repeated. “Can we get a little more info there?” Already she was pulling her weapons out and it was clear to me that our covert expedition was suddenly a whole lot less covert.
“LEADER COMES. NOT ALONE!”
“Better. Everyone form a defensive line around this runoff. We want these children to be as well fed as possible, and it’s unlikely the aliens would risk shooting this thing and blowing us all to the afterlife and back.”
We all rushed to do what Gonzales said, equipping ourselves with the guns we had brought. Mine was the same kind that I used when I had defended Mimi’s home planet and when we had stormed the coup base. It had served me well, and I hoped to continue my luck with it.
“What if Mimi can’t get through the door?” Eske asked quietly as all our weapons were trained on the entrance we’d come in through.
“She’ll find a way,” I said determinedly.
As if on cue, there was a slight rumble under our feet. That was the only warning we had before the wall on the opposite side of the room exploded outward, and the biggest mimic I had ever seen sailed through the air.
“Mimi!” I cried, lifting my gun to aim behind her.
Sure enough, there were at least a dozen aliens all chasing after her, firing weapons that left large, smoking holes in her body. I didn’t know what they were using but seeing them hurt her and hearing the resulting squeals of pain filled me with a fury that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
I charged forward, firing at each one that I saw. In the back of my mind, I knew what I was doing was extremely dangerous, and that I was probably going to die, but I didn’t care.
The only thing that mattered was Mimi.
Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. The rest of our group also ran behind me, giving me cover as I advanced. For a moment, the whole room was just heat and anger, blasts firing off one right after the other.
But then we finally reached Mimi where she had landed across the catwalk. Her form was rapidly shrinking, leaving little plumes of smoke as she returned to her human body.
Leaving the firefight to my companions, I ran to her side, sliding my arms under her. “Mimi, are you alright?!” I cried.
Her eyes opened, and she gave me a look that was somewhere between angry and embarrassed.
“The aliens knew we might come for them,” she rasped. “So they made sure to mark themselves in places that weren’t immediately noticeable.”
“Huh, they really are some smart son of a guns,” Gonzales remarked.
It was only then that I noticed that the sound of blaster fire was gone. Looking to the hole that Mimi had ripped into the wall, I saw that most of the aliens were either dead or gone.
“We have to make it to the front before they seal us off,” I said, pulling
Mimi to her feet.
“Wait!” she gasped, and hearing how in pain she was made my heart ache. “There’s more than just aliens on board.”
Before I could even open my mouth to ask what she could possibly mean, there was a whirring sound just outside the gap and I saw a pair of glowing red eyes staring back at me.
“Is that…”
There was another whirring sound and a shape launched itself at us. Gonzales let out a cry, and we all opened fire on whatever it was.
I couldn’t say how long we showered the thing in firelight, but it wasn’t until it collapsed to the ground as a group of random, smoking pieces that we let off our triggers.
“Was…was that some sort of attack robot?” Ciangi asked breathlessly. “They have fully autonomous robot soldiers?!”
“Yes,” Mimi gasped. “More stolen tech. A lot more stolen tech.”
“Uh, just how much is a ‘lot’ of stolen tech?”
She didn’t answer with her mouth, instead raising a shaking hand to point at the hole. My eyes followed her to see dozens and dozens of glowing eyes staring at us from the fissure.
“Oh,” Gonzales muttered. “Oh no.”
That was the last thing any of us managed to say before the wave of mechanical creatures surged forward as one.
There was so much metal, so many flashing lights, that it was impossible to get a read on what they actually looked like. Somewhere between a scorpion or some other insectoid-like creature, they opened fire while their pincer-like hands reached forward to grab at us.
I was certain that for a moment we were about to meet our end when Ciangi dropped her pack and pulled out a small, glowing sphere.
“Take that, you mechanical douchebags!” she cried, pressing the button and slamming it on the ground in front of us.
Instantly, a blue wall lanced up to the ceiling, just like the same walls that had imprisoned us back with Lazer. The machines hit it, then fell to the ground far below, buzzing and crackling.
“Did…did that actually just happen?” Gonzales asked, blinking in shock.
“I told you I came with a bag of tricks,” Ciangi said with a smirk.
Mimic Saves Her People Page 8
