Mimic and the Journey Home (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “Oh my gosh, Mimi. I’m…I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head. “It…it’s fine. These are just memories; they cannot hurt me. They can’t…” She trailed off, her voice growing weaker until her words weren’t audible at all. Her human face slid into place and when it did, I could see fresh tear tracks down her cheeks. “I can see their pain. They could have easily beaten their children, but they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They knew they would be murdered but they wouldn’t raise a hand against those they loved.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it, I automatically stepped forward and gently pulled her into a hug. She clung to me, burying her head into my shoulder with very quiet sobs.

  “The alien enslaved them. All of them. He murdered their parents so he would be the only voice for all their lives.”

  “I really, really am taking this emotional moment seriously,” Ciangi said, sounding sheepish but curious. “But if they were juveniles centuries ago, wouldn’t they eventually grow up and stage some sort of rebellion?”

  “Much like feral human children who have been denied the proper contact to become functioning adults, these children have all been suppressed. Both mentally and physically. They’re all starving, and their command of our language is…rudimentary at best. The alien uses them to collect the materials it needs to repair the ship and feed it. It is hard to say where one task ends and the other begins, but it’s an endless march.”

  “So how do we free them?” I asked.

  Mimic pulled away, looking at me with watery eyes. “You want to free them?”

  “Of course. These are your people. We’re not just going to take off and try to find somewhere nicer to live when your entire race is being used as some sort of brainwashed slave labor.”

  “But you could die.”

  “Yeah, I suppose. But by this point, I feel like we could’ve died on about half of our endeavors.”

  “You’re not wrong there,” Gonzales added. “Besides, I think if there’s one thing I’ve learned from ol’ Higgens here, it’s that he never passes up the chance to be a hero.”

  “What?” I objected. “That’s not true.”

  This time, it was everyone in the group except Mimic who gave me a look.

  “Higgens, you are possibly the only person I’ve ever met who would find alien life that looks more like a spikey pincushion than an actual living thing and immediately care for it instead of informing the rest of the world that you just found proof of new life.”

  “What? Come on, you guys wouldn’t have done the same?”

  “I definitely would not have,” Bahn answered quickly. “My first instinct would have been to contain it, study it, and present it to the scientific community.”

  “You know that ‘it’ you’re talking about is Mimi, right? Your friend?”

  “But she wasn’t any of our friends then. And while I definitely would have tested for sentience, to me, science would have come first.” Bahn’s face was serious but not unkind as he continued. “You’re the only person on the ship that she could have met and had her story come out as it did. You’re one in a million, just like her.”

  “I think we’re getting a little sidetracked here,” Gonzales said, coming up from behind us and clapping me on the back. I was grateful for the reprieve. I didn’t like thinking of myself as some reckless hero. I was just a janitor, after all.

  …a janitor that made friends with aliens, hopped to the opposite side of the universe, planned mutinies, and now wanted to start a full-on rebellion. Oh, and was developing a knack for engineering grunt work.

  “The point is,” the weapons engineer continued, “Higgens won’t let us leave with your people enslaved, so instead of hemming and hawing about what we’re going to do and how great our friend is, why don’t we jump to the part where we start planning what we’re going to do.”

  The coin twins exchanged looks with each other for a long moment before their gazes finally moved to me. Mimic wasn’t paying attention to any of us. She removed herself from my arms and was staring at the mini-mimic again.

  “Alright,” Ciangi said finally. “We’re in.”

  “I knew it,” Gonzales said, holding up her hand in a high five. However, neither of the twins returned it. “Okay, we’ll just save that for later.”

  I crossed my own arms and steeled myself for what might come. “So,” I said after a deep breath. “Who has the first idea to kick off this rebellion?”

  The Plan in Action

  I licked my lips as I looked nervously up at the same mountain we had clambered up before. The mini-mimics were moving again, on their relentless march for more supplies. I could tell it pained Mimic to look at them, now that she knew the true scope of their enslavement, and she kept her gaze to the horizon when not looking at one of us directly.

  “Is everyone clear on the plan?” I asked, my hand resting on the hermetically sealed satchel I had hanging over my torso.

  “Um, yeah,” Gonzales said, raising one of her eyebrows at me. “We’ve gone over it about a dozen times with a fine-tooth comb over the past three days. Why are you just bringing this up now?”

  “Be nice, he’s just nervous,” Ciangi chided.

  “I can’t imagine why. It’s not like we’re planning to overthrow an alien that’s managed to survive in this world for centuries and enslave or kill off the entire population with essentially a horde of babies.”

  “Whoa, relax there with the big picture stuff,” Gonzales continued. “For now, we just get to the feeding canisters and work our way from there.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath to center myself.

  “Be cautious,” Mimic warned. “I think that it might suspect it is no longer alone, and our journey into its ship will not be as easy as it was previously.”

  “Now that part you probably should have mentioned during the whole fine-tooth combing the plan part. What if it already has a trap waiting for us on the way up? Or right inside the gate?”

  “What can I say?” Mimic answered with a shrug. “It’s my first revolution.”

  “I think we can safely say it’s all our first revolution.”

  Once more, the twins exchanged a very certain look. One that didn’t slip by me. But if they didn’t have faith in Mimic, they needed to at least have faith in me.

  “Come on,” I said, walking forward. “We should get this done before nightfall.”

  “Why, is there some sort of timer?”

  “No, but if something goes wrong and we have to escape quickly, would you prefer to do that during the daylight or in the dark?”

  “Good point. Let’s get a move on, shall we?”

  There was a chorus of quiet agreement all around, and then we were heading up the mountain.

  The mini-mimics acted much as they had before, all of them hurriedly scuttling to complete their tasks as fast as they could just so they could do it again. They hastily dodged out of our feet’s way as we walked, but that was the only sign they gave to acknowledge our existence.

  It was hard for me not to get stuck in a loop of sadness and incredulousness as I watched them move. There was a whole civilization of Mimics in front of me, but they had been stunted, starved, and abused until they were nothing more than child slaves. What kind of creature could have done this? After leaving Giomatti behind, I didn’t expect to find a sentient life more selfish than him, and yet here we were.

  No one said much else as we made the hike. I sensed that we were all lost in our own thoughts, imagining the ramifications of what we were doing and what would happen if we failed.

  Normally, I didn’t think of myself as a very violent person. I had never purposefully hurt someone in my life, as long as one didn’t count the time I knocked Giomatti out to save Mimic, and before today, I didn’t think I ever would.

  But now, after learning what had befallen Mimic’s people hundreds of years ago, I found myself angry enough to actually want to hurt the creature. I wanted it to be scar
ed. I wanted it to wonder if it was going to die. And then I wanted it to feel the same torture it had put thousands of innocent lives through.

  The intensity of my desire surprised me. Was…was I a bad guy? I didn’t think of myself as such, but what else could be the truth? I was willfully imagining murder over and over again. Not justice, not just stopping the alien, but straight up murder. I couldn’t be a good person and think such things…right?

  I didn’t know. And in a way, it didn’t matter. The only thing I was concerned about was freeing Mimic’s people so she wouldn’t be alone any longer.

  Even if victory meant her leaving our group forever.

  I shoved that thought down with all the others. It would only distract me, and the last thing I needed during our grand revolution was to be distracted. Besides, we had reached the lip of the cave.

  Gonzales shivered. “Is anyone else getting the heebie-jeebies something fierce?”

  “Count me in that number,” Ciangi said, crossing her arms.

  “I am not fond of the atmosphere as well,” Bahn added at the end.

  “Now that we know the history in these halls, I don’t think we’re ever going to like this place. But this is just the start of the plan, so we probably should worry less about goose bumps and more about the real danger up ahead.”

  “Oh, I don’t need a reminder of exactly how dangerous it’s going to be for all of us,” Gonzales said. “That’s the one thing I am acutely aware of.”

  “Enough speaking,” Mimic said, cutting between all of us to continue into the tunnel. “We must be quick, before it can mount a full assault on us.”

  “You think it would do that? Just for the four of us? Especially considering we’re lifeforms it’s never met yet. I mean, for all it knows, we could help it get off the planet.”

  “This creature uses children as its soldiers and forced them to kill their own parents. I doubt benevolence or patience are part of its decision-making paradigm.”

  “Fair point. Let’s get going then.”

  The five of us crept along, making no noise other than our soft footfalls and harsh breaths. With painstaking care, we inched our way until the stone became that smooth, otherworldly metal, and until otherworldly metal began to open up into the same chambers we had seen before.

  And just like before, the large vat sat upright, mini-mimics scrambling up the ramp only to vomit out all the minerals they were carrying at the top, then hopping off only to slam into the ground below, shake themselves a bit, then skitter to wherever else it wanted them to go.

  “Everyone got their anti-grav boots on?” I hissed as we ducked behind a pillar. “It’s an awful long fall down from the top.”

  “If we didn’t, would there be any fixing that at this point? Unless we’re all gonna turn around and go back to the ship for a little oopsies, forgotsies.”

  “Less sarcasm, more seriousness,” I said flatly. On a good day, humor was hit or miss for me, and this certainly was not a good day. I was tense and full of emotions that I had never felt before.

  “I don’t think that was sarcasm as much as it was my naturally smart mouth, but point taken. Yes, I have my grav-boots.”

  “As do I.”

  “Me too.”

  Gonzales turned to Mimic. “What about you, friend?”

  “I do not need your boots.”

  “Oh right. You’re a shapeshifter so I suppose you could just imagine yourself with some wings and be just fine, right?”

  “I could. Except I’m not going with you.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, almost shocked enough to shout. ‘Almost’ being the key word of course.

  “Why did the four of you think that you had all of the supplies? I have my own part of the plan. One apart from all of you.”

  “Why didn’t you bring that up before?” Gonzales spat. “We spent hours and hours going over this, coming up with the best possible way to take down this alien guy with the supplies that we have!”

  “Just tru--”

  “Trust you! I know! That’s the one thing you did say. Over and over and over again! If I had a credit for every time that phrase came out of your mouth, I would have enough to send back to Earth, buy my own warship, and fly it back here.”

  “Save your energy. There is still much that can go wrong.” Her eyes flicked to me, more serious than I had ever seen them before. All the warmth, all the happy inquisitiveness, I was used to seeing in her gaze was gone. There was only a cold determination. I wondered if my own expression was similar.

  Something had changed in us in this presentation of our latest enemy. Before, our adventures had certainly been dangerous, but never really very life-threatening to anybody else. This, however, was quite different.

  “Be safe,” I murmured, reaching out to touch her shoulder for what could possibly be the last time.

  “Are we ever?” she asked with a half-smile before walking forward.

  She shrank as she went, her skin receding until she was exactly like all the mini-mimics around her. I watched her hop forward, then she blended into the thousands of other shapeshifters rushing across the ground.

  “I…I’m not sure how I feel about this,” Gonzales murmured, looking into the room with her brow furrowed in worry.

  “We need to tr--”

  “Oh my flip, we have to trust her. I get it. Did I not just have a rant about that exact phrase?”

  “Easy,” Ciangi said. “We’re all tense, but you should really save that fire for the mission at hand.”

  “Well, speaking of the mission, are we ready?”

  My hand automatically went to the bag still at my side, resting on the fastenings that kept it hermetically sealed. “I am.”

  “Alright then, we already agreed on the teams, so let’s go poison this guy before he figures out we’re here.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath, then quickly jogged forward.

  I tried to move as quickly as possible, but there was only so fast I could go without stepping on the mini-mimics. And even if they might have survived being crushed under my boot, I had no desire to bring any of them pain. They had been hurt enough as it was.

  Gonzales was right behind me, and we rushed up the ramp leading to the top of the vat. It was almost impossibly slick, and there were several times we slipped and fell hard on our enviro-suited knees.

  By the time we reached the top, both of my knees were sore and possibly bleeding inside my suit, but I didn’t care. We were finally there. Looking down, it was hard not to get a bit of vertigo from how high up we were. I didn’t know if the vat was a single meal or enough for a week, but it was intimidating either way.

  I couldn’t imagine an existence for hundreds of years just serving a malevolent being. Just day in, day out, the same thankless task, never growing. Never learning. Never experiencing all the things that were important in life.

  It made me mad. No, mad wasn’t enough of a word to describe it. It made me furious. More than I had ever been or ever thought possible. And that rage spurred me on. I opened the bag at my side and handed a container to Gonzales before grabbing one myself. Popping off the top, I readied to dump it into the bubbling vat below us.

  “I hope you suffer,” I said heatedly, tipping it forward. Just as I did, a terrible, grating horn filled the air, an under-layer of beeping tones to it. I paused for just a moment, startled, but that was a moment too long. With a pneumatic hiss, the top of the vat sealed shut with some sort of circle of metal.

  “No!” I cried, my stomach dropping.

  “Uh-oh,” Gonzales murmured, for the lack of a better word. “That is very much not good.”

  “Hey,” Ciangi cried from the other vat on the other side of the chamber. “Our vat just sealed.”

  “Ours too,” Gonzales replied.

  “Well, what now?”

  Before any of us could think of an answer, another tone sounded again. But this one was different from the previous one, rising in pitch, before dropping. I di
dn’t need a translator to tell me it was some sort of direct order, but I desperately wished I did have such a device so I could know exactly what it was ordering.

  However, I wasn’t in the dark for long. After the alarm ended, there was a split-second of silence as suspense hung heavy in the air. But then the mimics around us surged forward, spikes growing on their back as they charged straight toward us.

  “Time to go!” I cried, jumping over the edge of the ramp.

  Gonzales followed me and we hurtled toward the ground. Reaching for my wrist-gear, I activated my grav-boots and it slowed our decent enough so when I did hit the ground, it wasn’t bone-cracking.

  But it certainly wasn’t comfortable either. I hit hard, toppling forward and knocking the breath out of myself. Ciangi, Bahn, and Gonzales didn’t seem to fare much better.

  We didn’t have time to recover, however, as the mimics were raining down on top of us, clearly ready to kill.

  “Run!” I cried, fighting to my feet and dashing back toward the exit we had come from.

  “What about Mimi?”

  “We’ll be no good to her dead! Besides, she’s safe. We need to regroup and come up with a new plan.”

  “Uh, might have a problem with that.”

  I was going to ask her why, but a movement caught my gaze. Looking back the way we came, I saw a roiling wave of mimics coming toward us. Nearly seven feet high and chittering murder, it was like watching a wall of death hurtling our direction.

  “Can’t go that way,” I half-gasped.

  “Gee, ya don’t think?!”

  I ignored Gonzales’s smart remark and craned my neck around. There had to be somewhere we could go.

  There, I spotted it in the corner of my vision. A single door leading to a dark hallway. There was no telling what was beyond it, but it couldn’t be any worse.

  I hoped.

  “This way!” I said, 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.