Mimic Raises an Army (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 4) Read online

The Home Tour

  “Beginning landing sequence in three…two…one!”

  I gripped the armrests of my seat, waiting for the jerking of the landing gear coming down and the throttling of the engine. But it never came. Instead, the computer announced its entire procedure until we were safely on the ground with hardly even a jostle.

  “Whoa,” I murmured as the ship came to a stop and the engines slowly wound down. “They really did upgrade the technology in our big ships.”

  “I am glad that your people found use with the information I gave them. However, I am less than pleased with who they put in charge of it,” Mimic said, her voice laced with concern.

  “You and me both,” Gonzales growled, unbuckling herself. “So, ready to take us to your people?”

  Mimic freed herself as well, and nodded. “Just keep in mind that there is only so much they could have learned in just one year. Be patient with them, please.”

  “Geez, Mimic, you make it sound like we’ll face a swarth of toddlers as soon as we step foot on your planet.”

  “Well, something like that.”

  “Hey, as long as they aren’t pooping or puking on me, I’m good,” Gonzales said, walking towards the main hatch of the ship. She stopped suddenly, and gave the alien a look over her shoulder. “They’re, uh, not going to do that, right?”

  “No. Even my youngest of charges knows how to hold their bowels. If only because our species doesn’t have bowels such as you do.”

  “Alright, good. Otherwise, I would have put on a hazmat suit.”

  “No need.” Mimic drew in a deep breath before straightening her shoulders and marching forward. “This way. I put the coordinates in were for our capital, of sorts, so we will not have far of a walk at all.”

  “Well, that’s convenient,” Eske remarked.

  We filed out, the sunlight bright enough to blind us a bit at first, but we adjusted after just a few moments. I had a bit of déjà vu as I was surrounded once more by quiet forest.

  Except…it wasn’t as quiet as it had been the last time. I could hear a few warbling calls and, dare I say, chirps.

  “I thought all of the animals were dead on this planet,” I said, looking to Mimic.

  “Most are. However, I found that the alien had many in captivity in its ship that it bred for food. It turns out the minerals it had my people harvest were purely for fixing its ship, specifically its fuel system.”

  “Huh, they really did mess up this planet to get everything they needed, didn’t they?”

  “They did indeed, but we are recovering. Come, this way.”

  She strode quickly, but confidently, off into a slightly worn path in the grass. I found myself craning my head this way and that, trying to take in everything around us. It seemed the same as last time, yet so much different. Like I could feel that great change had happened, even if my eyes couldn’t observe it.

  Just like Mimic said, it didn’t take long for us to reach their ‘capital.’ Despite her calling it that, I was surprised to see a fairly flourishing township. The buildings were all shaped differently, and there didn’t seem to be any set proportions between the structures, but it was fairly solid and looked stable.

  “Wow,” Ciangi said, taking it all in. “Not bad, Mimic. Not bad at all.”

  “You built this all in a year?” Eske asked, eyes wide. I was beginning to wonder if they were just going to be stuck that way for the remainder of our time together.

  “It is hard to believe,” Bahn added. “And yet it is here.”

  “You are all very generous in your compliments,” Mimic answered with a small laugh. “Come, my accommodations are this way.”

  We followed her through makeshifts streets, which looked to be made of stones that had been smoothed on top and placed into the earth with only mud to seal them. As we grew closer, I began to see more and more citizens about. Some were walking around as dog-sized, spikey things that reminded me of when Mimic had first been fed. Some were strange creatures that I had never seen before, with multiple tentacles, or jaws, or even wings.

  And some were even human, although most of them were a bit higgledy-piggledy on their features, occasionally missing an eye or having one too many noses. They also seemed to have an issue with getting hair right. It made me marvel at how quickly Mimic had picked it up when we first met.

  A shadow loomed over us and I looked up to see something very familiar, tugging at the back of my head with a persistent sort of recognition.

  “This is my home,” Mimic said, nearly pulling me from my anxious thoughts as I tried to place it. “I’m sure most of you will find it rings a bell.”

  That was when it hit me! It was the main character’s house in one of my favorite sims that Mimic and I used to watch together. My cheeks warmed, and I was flattered that she remembered. She had really meant it when she once said she wanted me to have someplace I felt comfortable when I visited her.

  She was too pure, really. I didn’t know what I had ever done to earn a friend such as her, but I was determined to save her people to make sure she could continue to be my friend for a very, very long time.

  Mimic stepped forward and opened the door for us, and I briefly realized they had no need for locks or keys on their planet. That would never fly on Earth or any colony. I hoped that her people would be able to hold onto their trust, and our presence didn’t somehow corrupt them.

  But before any of us could enter, several shapes darted out. I couldn’t keep track of them all, but I could make out a winged thing hiding on the underside of the balcony, another pressed to the wall, and several more spinning out beside us.

  “Children, children!” Mimic cried, making shooing motions towards them. “What did I tell you about crowding our visitors? You’ll have much more time to observe them.”

  The group resisted, trying to dodge around her, and I couldn’t help but laugh slightly. She really did seem like a schoolmarm dealing with an especially rowdy group of pupils.

  But Gonzales seemed to be loving it.

  “Hey, you guys understand common?” she asked, kneeling down to look one in the face. It trembled before her, giving her an innocent look with its six eyes. “My name’s Gonzales. We’re gonna be spending an awful lot of time together, so we might as well get introductions over with now.”

  It let out a warble, before a long, orangey tentacle lifted from behind its back, extending to touch the weapons engineer’s face. To her credit, she didn’t flinch, just giggled slightly at the touch.

  “It’s furry,” she mused. “I did not expect that.”

  “This is Myxis,” Mimic said, picking him up and placing him on her hip. “This is their favorite form so far, so they insist on spending all of their time in it.”

  “Is that so?” Gonzales asked, standing and holding her arms out like she wanted to take him next. Mimic looked at her uncertainly before relenting, and she handed the baby mimic over.

  Surprisingly, Myxis didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they twittered and cooed and all in all, seemed to enjoy Gonzales’s attention.

  “Huh,” Bahn remarked. “I never figured you for the caretaker type.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess a whole bunch of things have changed for me lately,” she answered blithely before walking through the open door.

  Mimic shrugged, then gestured for all of us to go in after her. We complied, and soon we were inside.

  The sound of more skittering feet told me that there were even more eyes watching us. I didn’t mind, however, as I figured we must be quite alien to them. Those who had developed enough to understand who we were stared at the saviors of their people. Those who hadn’t progressed that much only knew that we looked like their leader, but smelled and acted entirely different. All in all, I got the feeling that we would get a lot of stares.

  “Let me show you to your rooms,” Mimic said, heading toward the staircase at the back of the room. “Unfortunately, there are more of you here than I planned, so we might need to shuffle th
ings around a bit.”

  “Oh,” Eske muttered sheepishly. “Is that my fault?”

  “Yes. However, I am glad you are here. We will need all of the help we can get, and if you are half of the maintenance worker that Higgens was, I’m sure you’ll be vital.”

  Eske saluted enthusiastically, drawing herself up to her full height. “Yes, ma’am! I will do my best.”

  We reached the top of the stairs and Mimic opened the first door. Peeking inside, I saw a pair of roughly hewn twin beds inside, with what looked like mattresses of woven reeds on the frame.

  “I apologize, as we are still struggling with textile creation, but I figured that we could fetch blankets and more modern mattresses from your ship.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Ciangi said. “We’ve slept in worse. And I’m assuming that this is our room?”

  “Yes, I assumed the coin twins would not want to be separated.”

  “You assumed right. We’ll head back to the ship and grab some basic supplies to get cozy. We’re going to be here a while.”

  The two headed back down the stairs and then we were moving on to the next door. This one had a single bed, but an entire structure against one wall that I guessed was a rudimentary weapons rack.

  “And this must be my room,” Gonzales said, sidling past us to look in. “Yes, that will do nicely. I guess I’ll follow the twins to grab some mattresses, clothing, and all that.”

  Then she left too, and we were onto the next room.

  It was fairly standard, but with a large bed and what I recognized as a recreation of the tinkering station in my room back on our first ship together. Once more, I felt incredibly flattered that she had gone so above and beyond, but that faded quickly as I remembered that we had a slight number problem.

  “Oh, uh, I can sleep on the floor, I’m sure.” Eske said, stepping back and wringing her hands nervously.

  “Nonsense,” Mimic said resolutely. “I have other accommodations that will suite Higgens. You are my guest, and you will take this room.”

  “Oh…okay, if you insist. I just wouldn’t want to displace anybody, ya know?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, patting her shoulder. “You’re not.”

  She brightened up considerably and clapped her hands again. “Excellent! I will go and grab supplies as well.”

  That left just Mimic and me. I looked to her, unsure of exactly how she was planning on housing me, but trusting her nonetheless. She hadn’t let me down so far, and I doubted she would on something as simple as a room.

  “I guess you’re with me then,” she said with a shrug, leading me to the very end of the hall where there were two doors left. “The one to the right is what you call the restroom. We made it to the specifications we read in the manuals you left with us, so I hope they are in working order. Naturally, my people don’t really need them.”

  “A life without having a reliance on toilets sounds like a good one.”

  “…if you say so. Now, to the left is my, I suppose now our, room.”

  She opened the door and I stepped in, not quite sure what to expect.

  “I apologize for the lack of bed. I’ll set a couple of my helpers to make a frame today while we’re arranging things and formulating our best plan of attack. After we grab a mattress from the ship, of course.”

  That was right, Mimic didn’t need to sleep like we did, so it would make sense that she wouldn’t waste time and resources on something like a bed.

  But what I did notice in lieu of a mattress was a pile of material on the floor. Looking it over, I realized it was Mimic’s jumper that we had left her in, an envirosuit, and a blanket from the old ship. They were huddled into a pile in the center of the room, and looked strangely out of place.

  “Do you want me to pick these up?” I asked uncertainly.

  Mimic looked to where I was pointing to, and if she was capable of blushing, I was sure she would have then. “Oh, no, its fine for now.” Her eyes wouldn’t quite meet mine and I didn’t think I had ever seen her so flustered. “That’s where I like to rest, when I need a break from everything going on around me. It…it smells like all of you. It helps me feel less alone.”

  What else could I do when my friend said something like that? I crossed the distance between us and pulled her into a hug. “Well, you don’t have to be alone anymore. We’re going to beat these guys that are coming, and then we’ll deal with Earth’s little problem.”

  “And then you’ll go home.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I shot back. “We tried the whole diplomat thing and it didn’t work. As far as I’m concerned, you’re stuck with me for a good, long while. You know, provided we don’t all die a terrible death.”

  “Yes, that is a rather important variable.”

  We shared a quiet laugh, then separated. “Alright,” I said, “let’s go grab the mattress and some other things so we can get this resistance started.”

  “Yes,” she replied with a soft smile. “Let’s.”

  6

  Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

  “So why is your hair like this?”

  I looked up from the box of weapons I was hauling to see a young man hanging from a tree branch. Well, he was mostly a young man. He also had a third arm and a tail, as well as only one eye in the center of his forehead, but hey, I understood that our form was particularly hard to take on and then maintain.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “So different from fur. It’s stringy, and so long! But hers is so bounce-bounce, and then hers is thicker, like rope. You’re all human, but you’re all different.”

  Before I could answer, Eske was replying, a broad grin across her striking features. “You know those critters running around with the four legs, the big ol’ ears, and the long tails?”

  “You mean the Baylsx?”

  “Um, yes. That. They’re all a bunch of different colors, and some have long fur and some have short fur, right?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Well, we’re just like that. We’re all humans, but we’re all a little different.”

  “Oh. That makes sense.” The boy seemed to concentrate hard, and in a rather grotesque rippling of his face, took on a second eye and long, long, carefully coiffed locks like Eske. “How do I look?”

  “Not bad, little one.” She reached up to pat his rounded cheek. “But I like your regular form alright too.”

  He let out a noise that I couldn’t quite make out, then fell to the ground with a splat. However, his form changed as he did, and he landed as a mid-sized, black and spiky mass.

  “There you are!” Eske said. “Now that’s a handsome fellow.”

  It let out a chittering sound, and then four large spikes grew from its back. It squawked several times before I realized what it wanted.

  “You wanna help us carry a crate? How polite.” I nodded to Ciangi and she gratefully set the box she was lugging on his back.

  “Whew,” Ciangi panted. “Thanks. Even with the hover-dollies, we still are looking at manually hauling a lot of these things. I don’t know if you all were aware of this, but I’m not much of one for physical labor.”

  “No, really?” Gonzales said with mock astonishment. “I would have never known.”

  “To be fair,” Bahn said calmly, “none of us are particularly physically adept.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Eske said, grinning brightly as she carried a crate in each arm. “Higgens and I have that constant maintenance physique. Nothing will beef you up more than constantly cleaning and patching up other people’s messes!”

  “She has a point,” I said, continuing on with my own crate. As much as I would have liked to double-haul like Eske, I had spent too long on Earth with nothing to do but attend my classes and various interviews. I wasn’t quite what you’d call flabby, but I had certainly lost a lot of my physique. “But let’s get going. We have a whole lot more to do if we’re going to get these people ready for war.”
/>   We dug in and pushed forward, making our way to the training ground that Mimic had fashioned.

  I had to admit, she had really outdone herself. There was a weapons warehouse that had multiple areas lifted off the ground to avoid water damage to our supplies, and plenty of insulation from the environment. There was also a wide, roped-off yard that was cleared of any dark blue grass or weeds. I guessed that it was a sort of fighting practice area, judging by what was clearly a shooting range on the other side.

  But as we spent our afternoon hauling box, after box, after box, I began to realize something.

  There was no way what we had brought would be enough. Sure, we did ten full trips on the hover lifts, flat floating beds that followed along behind us while carrying about twenty crates, and we manually moved about twenty or so on our own. While that sounded like a lot, we were going up against an incredibly advanced alien species coming to get vengeance for the death of their brethren. We needed every mimic that could fight to fight, which meant they needed to be armed.

  “Hey, I have a thought,” Eske said on our last trip, Mimic and another pair of mimics having joined us to drag along even more supplies.

  “What’s that?” I asked, setting down my crate on a shelf inside the warehouse and trying not to breathe hard.

  “These are all weapons to use if they come down onto the ground to fight us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But what if they…don’t?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they’re really advanced, right? And we don’t know how far they’ve come since the technology on the ship that crashed here all those years ago. So what if they have some sort of powerful weapon that they can fire from space and eliminate us all?”

  My stomach dropped and I stared at her with wide eyes. “I, well, that would have to be a really big laser.”

  “But, like, it could be a thing, right? We have no way of knowing. And if it is, then isn’t all of this kinda moot anyways?”

  “Not quite,” Mimic said, reverting to her human form and setting her crates onto a platform next to some others that were similarly colored. “Since we are done with the relocation of our supplies, I will show you. I hope you all don’t mind a bit of a hike.”