Then there was the last of the second-in-command group, Urdet. Their form was neither masculine, nor feminine, just somewhere in between. They kept their head bald, but their eyes were a ridiculously bright blue with thick lashes. Unlike the rest, they spent most of their time by Mimic’s side, learning, planning, and plotting. I got the feeling that they were almost like an advisor to her. Someone who she could bounce ideas off of and brainstorm with. Good. She needed someone like that.
Of course, there were even more mimics, literally thousands more, but it didn’t take a chart to figure out the group’s hierarchy. Mimic was their leader, and those four were her right-hand men. After them came about ten or so assistant-helpers who were okay at the whole human form thing, and then the general masses.
I could stay on the planet for months, just getting to know all of them, and I still probably wouldn’t have time. And that wasn’t taking into consideration those that were still the same size as when I left; some of the mini-mimics were taking longer to adapt to freedom than others of their species.
Somehow, within a single week, we had the four most advanced mimics ready to accompany us on our mission, plus two more below them. I almost couldn’t believe it as we readied ourselves to go. Everything was happening so fast, it felt like we were rushing straight towards disaster. But at the same time, nothing was happening quickly enough.
“Be safe, all of you,” Bahn said, hugging Ciangi especially tightly. For the first time since I had ever known them, the two were separating. Initially, I had suggested that Ciangi also stay behind, but the blonde had surprised me by refusing. She was right in the fact that we did need everyone we could spare, but still, it had been unexpected.
“I will, I will. Now don’t make me regret this.” She pushed away from him and reached up on her tiptoes to pat his bun a couple of times. “You do your best with that shield thingie. I’ll make sure to program all of the ships we steal so they won’t lock up.”
“Right. As only you could do.”
“Exactly.”
“Alright, alright, you two, break it up,” Gonzales said, crossing between the two. “You can kiss and make up when we get back. Let’s go.”
Ciangi stepped away only for Astaroth to sweep up after her and seize both of them into a hug. “This is the tradition of your people, yes?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ciangi wheezed in his big-armed embrace. “But usually you have to ask first.”
“Of course! That makes sense.” He set them down. “I would like to express friendliness in the physical encircling of our arms. May I?”
She let out a long sigh and for a minute, I was absolutely sure that she would refuse. “Sure,” she said finally, after Bahn shrugged. “And it’s called a hug.”
“Fantastic! Let us hug!”
And then they were being picked up again, squeezed thoroughly, and set back down.
Astaroth went right on down the line, asking each of us if he could hug us. I was tempted to explain that he didn’t need to embrace us since he was going on the mission with us, but it seemed far too complicated, so I just rolled with it.
Little did I know that allowing him to hug us apparently made everyone else want one too, and we spent fifteen minutes alone having Pyjik, Meridyna, and the other two mimic underlings follow suit.
Urdet was the only one who abstained, seeming to like keeping their distance. I wasn’t insulted, of course, and honestly, I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed by all the surprise contact.
But eventually, we finished the impromptu hug-fest and were shuffling onto our ship. The six mimics looked around with awe written across their faces. Although they had spent so much time in the alien’s spacecraft, it was obvious that it was nothing like ours.
We escorted them to the bridge, and I showed them how to buckle themselves in while Gonzales settled into the pilot’s seat, Ciangi into the weapons array, and then finally me on navigation. Not that I had any idea what to do, but the mimics took up all of the non-essential personnel seats, so I found myself stuck someplace actually important.
Mimic, of course, sat with her charges. It felt weird to be separated from her for one of these trips, but I had to accept that she had responsibilities other than being my friend. Responsibilities that involved taking care of an entire planet.
“Everyone ready?” Gonzales asked, kicking the engines into gear.
“Yes!” the mimics chorused as one, which was fairly creepy.
“Good. Preparing for liftoff.”
And with a simple flick of a button, we were flying off into the next grand adventure.
8
Walking the Walk
“So, what is this?” Pyjik asked, coming up behind me so quietly that I almost jumped out of my skin.
“Oh geez, it’s, uh, the fabricator. You punch in foods into this and it puts out things to eat.”
“Foods?” she asked. “But what it’s making doesn’t look like anything edible.”
“Well, what’s food for us is not really like food for you.” I looked around for Mimic, hoping she could handle what was definitely the most curious of the mimics, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“What is it like then?”
“Like this,” I said, taking my plate off the fabricator and showing it to her.
“And that is what all food looks like?”
“No, not all. There’s, like, an unlimited amount of different combinations.”
“Really?” She gave me a skeptical look. “That doesn’t sound real.”
I shrugged. “Believe it or not. Either way, I’d like to eat now.”
“Oh, okay.”
She stepped aside, allowing me to cross to one of the tables of the cafeteria. I sat down, ready to lift part of my salad to my mouth, when she sat down beside me and stared without blinking.
“Hey,” I said, a bit unnerved. “Did Mimic ever tell you about closing your eyes every once in a while?”
“Yes, apologies!” She slowly batted her eyes, and it was one of the most uncomfortable looking displays I had ever witnessed. “She also mentioned something about breathing? Apparently, repeated filtering of oxygen-heavy gas mixes is important to your survival.”
“Yes, very much so. And that’s one of the reasons that you guys are so valuable to this. You all can survive space, while we can’t. Not without enviro-suits, that is.”
I lifted my fork to my mouth once again, but then she was asking another question.
“What’s an enviro-suit?”
I wanted to be angry, but how could I? She was basically a kid in a grown woman’s body, and learning about a whole another society. How could I blame her for being a little curious before a mission that was absolutely going to put her life on the line?
“It’s like the clothes we’re all wearing, but made of super strong, flexible material. We step into it, and then hook it up to a machine that makes sure it’s pressurized and filled with that oxygen-heavy gas mix so we can survive, and it seals us off from the very dangerous space.”
“But it’s just fabric. Even when it’s super strong, it can rip, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what happens then?”
“Usually, we die.”
Her eyes went wide and she leaned back. “Really?”
“Really?”
“Then going out into space is crazy! Surely you never do it.”
“Actually, we venture into the great beyond more often than you might expect.”
“Huh, Mimic did say that you all were insane. I guess I never realized just how much so. She also said that your lives were very, very short and your bodies were incredibly fragile.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say incredibly.” I went to finally take a bite and I almost made it to my mouth this time.
“Why wouldn’t you say incredibly?”
I sighed and was just about to shove the entire mass into my mouth, when the comm buzzed from the corner of the room.
“Hey, guys, we’r
e approaching the safe zone for their sensors. Everybody get ready for a spacewalk.”
With a last reluctant glance at my food, I slid it away and stood. “Come on, Pyjik, let’s go suit up.”
“Really? After everything you told me, you’re still willing to go out there?”
“Yup.”
“Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “Just wow.”
“You have a lot to learn about us humans,” I answered, laughing slightly. “We’re pretty reckless, or crazy, depending on how you frame it.”
“I’m leaning towards crazy, for certain. I don’t understand why Mimic is so fond of you. A single spike in the wrong place and you all could disappear forever. It’s terrifying.”
“You know, we do much better with our own mortality when someone isn’t telling us how easily we can die.”
“Right! Of course. That makes sense. Apologies.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Finally, we reached the lift we needed to take to the room where we would gear up, and the mimic chilled on her endless barrage of questions. The thought that Mimic had been dealing with this for more than a year made me respect her and her saintly patience that much more.
“Hey there,” Gonzales said, throwing me a suit as soon as I entered the space-walk bay. “What took you so long?”
“I was trying to grab some food,” I answered, leaving out the part about how I had been verbally accosted by the eager mimic beside me.
“Really? Before a spacewalk?”
“I didn’t think we were there already. It’s only been about—”
“Thirty-six hours,” Mimic answered, as efficient as ever. She had rounded up the rest of her charges and had them dressed in the standard uniform underwear that had been packed to excess in one of the supply rooms. At first, I was surprised by the nudity, before realizing that they weren’t going to keep their human form while we were in the void.
“You guys all have something to change into when we get there?” I asked. I felt like this was an import part of the mission that we should have talked about before, but maybe they did when I wasn’t around. As much as I liked to think of myself as being important to Mimic, I wasn’t exactly key to most of this plan. Which felt decidedly strange, but I wasn’t letting it get to my ego.
Mostly, at least.
“We’ll be carrying them, actually,” Ciangi said. “Strapped to our backs along with our weapons. The mimics will get us in, and then we’ll find a safe place to land and disseminate the supplies.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I chuckled.
“Do I?” Ciangi asked. “Well, it certainly isn’t. We need to make sure that we land on the blind side of their sensors, and since we won’t have a tether to the main ship, a single misstep could send us hurtling off into space.”
“Of course. No pressure then.”
“None at all.”
Urdet tipped their head to the side. “You are saying something that does not make sense with your previous statement.”
“It’s called sarcasm,” Mimic said gently. “We talked about it a couple of times.”
“Ah, yes. I still don’t think I understand the purpose.”
“It’s like a joke,” she continued to explain just as calmly. “It doesn’t necessarily need a purpose, but is a means to communicate humor and personality.”
“Ah. Yes. How…interesting.”
We finished suiting up without any more interruptions, and I couldn’t help but muse at how different the mimics were. Sure, they all had that same insatiable sort of curiosity, but they all went about it differently. Pyjik was endlessly effervescent in her requests, wide-eyed and enthralled with the world. Astaroth only asked them when they were necessary to his current function, and would listen with an intense look. Urdet was quick to point out when things didn’t make sense to them, and Meridyna just preferred to stand with a puzzled expression on her face until someone guessed what was perplexing her.
It really was like Mimic suddenly had a gaggle of little siblings that all insisted on coming along with her. I didn’t think I could handle it nearly as well as she did.
“Alright, everybody ready?”
“Ready,” was the unanimous response.
“Good,” Gonzales said through the comms. “Let’s go for a walk.”
We made our way to the airlock, and my heart was in my throat once again. Not only had it been forever since I had been outside of a ship in just an enviro-suit, but Pyjik’s words were echoing through my head. Sure, this wasn’t the only crazy thing I had done, but it was certainly up there.
Not that I could object or opt out or any other form of declining the mission. If I wanted Mimic and her people to live to see another day, then I had to do this. We needed the ships, and our meager defense couldn’t lose even one willing warrior.
Gonzales shut the door behind us, and the airlock began to slowly depressurize. With one last glance towards us, she opened the control box and put in for the outer door to drop.
It did, slowly, like it was reading the tension in my gut, and then we were facing the vast, cold void of space.
“Engage your nav-boots.”
We all pressed the button in our wrist-controls and soon the thrusters in our boots came to life, lifting us off the floor. The mimics around us all drifted out of their human form and reverted to their natural shiny, black selves.
Of course, Mimic stayed beside me, and once she was in her space-worthy body, she hooked a couple of spikes through the straps connected to my suit. I could tell that she was being very careful not to pierce my protective layer in any way, but I trusted her implicitly.
Gonzales headed out first, Urdet connected to her straps. Then Ciangi and Meridyna, then Eske with Pyjik, and me bringing up the rear. The other couple of juvenile mimics were staying on the ship, the weapons engineer having taught them how to handle the ship in the case of an emergency evacuation. Or even if our plan was successful. After all, we would all be flying ships and unable to return to the battle cruiser without some lengthy and dangerous docking that we just weren’t willing to risk. I hoped that her lessons proved to be effective, because there was no telling how our plan was going to go.
Space was just as vast and empty as I remembered it, lingering like a nightmare at the edge of my peripheral vision. Smelling vaguely of steak, it burned at my nostrils even through all the filters of my enviro-suit. Had it really been over a year since I was out in the great expanse last? I guessed so…
“We’re about to reach the edge of their sensors. Aim your boots for seven o’clock, ‘cause we’re about to take a trip through their blind side.”
“You would think that a blind side is something we would have learned to eliminate by now,” Ciangi groused, struggling to get her short legs to change her angle appropriately.
I reached out and grabbed her ankle, adjusting her to a better trajectory.
“Thanks,” she said with a sheepish grin.
“No problem. I—”
“Mine!”
Suddenly, Gonzales was spinning off to the side, and I barely caught a glimpse of shiny chrome in front of me before Mimic used some sort of force to push us downward. Everything spun for a moment, and I was sure that I was going to die, but I managed to get my thrusters under me and slow our momentum.
“Is everyone alright?” I asked through the comms.
“They have mines?” Eske gasped raggedly. “I know that I am new to this, but I thought that might be something we would have in our intel! Doesn’t that seem like something that should have been in our intel?!”
“We had no way of knowing,” Gonzales answered, her voice quite tense. “We’re just going to have to go carefully and keep an eye out for any explosive devices. If you do see one, remember not to overreact. A little too much thrust and you can spiral off into the deep so far even your nav-boots won’t be able to save you.”
Eske’s face twisted with worry. “That is…not a comforting thought.”<
br />
“Space isn’t comforting. Get used to it.”
Normally, I would have objected to the harsh tone in her voice, but I knew that Gonzales had changed from the woman I used to know. Our time in captivity had changed her, and I needed to accept that she was going to have a very long healing process.
“I’ll go first,” I said, adjusting my aim again and going back to our goal. “I’m the most expendable of all of us.”
“Um, that may be true in a purely logical sense, but you are carrying the entire leader of the mimic people on your back.”
“Oh…right.”
“I’ll go,” Eske said. “All I have to offer is hand-to-hand combat and a knack for great maintenance skills.”
“I, uh, I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” I countered. “Didn’t you say you had an injury that has damaged your vision to this day?”
“Yeah, but that’s what the goggles are for.”
Gonzales sighed. “You guys do know that we have a limited amount of oxygen in these suits, even with the carbon dioxide recyclers?”
“Yeah, but—”
I was interrupted as a body moved past us. I realized it was Ciangi. Well, that was certainly unexpected. Although the blonde woman was endlessly loyal, she had never exactly been one to jump right in the way of danger before.
I guessed we were all evolving.
Of course, with her sudden progression, the rest of us weren’t going to sit around and continue debating. We followed her, spreading out enough so that if someone needed to move quickly, we could.
We had gotten barely a minute closer to our landing zone when Ciangi shot upwards, barely remembering to kill her speed before going too far. I didn’t have time to go after her, and found myself spinning to the right as another mine drifted towards me and missed me by a mere foot.
“We’re lucky these things aren’t magnetic, I suppose,” Eske said from somewhere behind me. I didn’t dare to look just in case a mine managed to sneak up on me.
“Actually…” I dreaded the tone in Gonzales’s voice as she continued. “I think that might not be the case.”
Mimic Raises an Army (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 4) Page 5
