Mimic and the Journey Home

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 scared. 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 didn’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.

“Uh, that thing is definitely gaining on us.”

“I am aware.” I huffed. “Bahn, you see anything on that scanner of yours? Change in airway pattern, another hall?”

“I, uh--”

“Come on, less stammering, Coin Twin,” Gonzales urged. “We’re on a very tight deadline here. Emphasis on the dead part.”

I risked a look back to see Bahn typing furiously into the scanner he had built into his wrist gear. “Yes! Ahead and to the right. There’s a large room, we can probably duck in there!”

“And what’s to stop these maniac mimics from ducking in there with us?”

“I have an idea,” I said.

“Oh yeah? Is it as good as our last idea?”

I didn’t answer, as we had reached the door. Without missing a beat, I threw myself sideways into the barrier.

I slammed into it with all of my force and that just barely managed to budge it open wide enough for the others to slip in. I could hear the murderous wave of mimics coming, so I scrambled in after them.

“Help me close it!” I cried, standing up and pushing against the massive partition.

The others ran to help me, and together, we managed to close it. We had mere seconds before the mimics came around the bend, and I didn’t know if they could tell where we had gone or not. So, I grabbed one of the spare canisters in my bag and shoved the thick cylinder through the door’s handles.

“That should hold them for a minute.” I gasped.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Ciangi murmured. “But there’s another door on the other side.”

“Crap!” I rushed over and practically tackled that door as well. I was going to have a very sore shoulder tomorrow. If I survived, that was.

Just like before, my three friends joined me until we were able to close that one too, but this time, it was Ciangi who shoved the container through the handles.

“There.” She breathed heavily. “That should hold for at least a couple of minutes.”

“Let’s hope.” I looked around, taking everything in. “Where do you think we are?”

“If I had to guess,” Bahn murmured, walking past us to look at the desolate, cobwebbed surroundings. Good to know that spiders were universal, leaving their tickling, messy webs everywhere. “This was some sort of cafeteria. Where the lower of the crew must have come and gotten their sustenance.” He whistled as he looked around at the large but dilapidated architecture around us. “These aliens, they certainly weren’t small. I’m guessing that specimen we caught a peek at earlier had added some modifications to alter its physical appearance, but its size was not one of the things it tampered with.”

“Fascinating,” Gonzales said. “But not entirely useful.”

“Actually, I think it is,” I muttered, my brain buzzing with the edge of a thought. “We studied this in one of my maintenance courses. Ships are usually laid out in an ergonomic way, with certain key points being in the center of the ship where all the crew can reach it in about the same amount of time. These places are usually the cafeteria, the bridge, and the med bay. Sometimes personnel quarters sub-out the eating area, but that’s less usual.”

“So, if we’re standing in the cafeteria, chances are that either the bridge or the medbay is below us. I’m willing to bet on the bridge, which is where we first saw the creature. I can’t be sure, but I think when we came here, there was a slight decline down the hall leading to it. And as we ran, I think there was an incline to the hall we were sprinting through.”

“Well, that would explain why my calves are screaming,” Ciangi said. “I mean, I know I’m not in the best of shape, but usually it takes a little more running than that to get shin-splints.”

“Shin-splints are going to be the least of your worries,” Gonzales said, her eyes closed while her brows knitted themselves together.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“I hear the wave coming back toward us.”

“That’s unfor--”

“In stereo.” She opened her eyes and sighed. “They know we’re here. They’re rushing toward the door right now.”

“That is some exceptionally good hearing,” Bahn said, turning to face the door to the left.

“It’s a gift and a curse,” she answered, facing the right. “I just want you guys to know, it’s been nice being a crew with you. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll be reincarnated as something with a whole lot less responsibility.”

“That’d be nice.”

But I wasn’t interested in the moment of camaraderie. My mind was spinning, as it had never done before.

“I need one of your guns,” I said, holding my hand out.

“Really? Wanna go down blasting?” she said, tossing one to him with a grin. “Never thought guns were your thing.”

“They’re not,” I answered shortly. “Stand back, everyone.” Although they had no idea what I had in mind, they didn’t argue, just scattered. Trying not to tremble, I popped open the gear-cap of the gun and set all the settings to their highest while setting the shielding to its lowest. It didn’t take long for the thing to rumble, and I quickly set it on the floor before dashing away.

The explosion that resulted was…spectacular, to say the least. Ash, metal, and other debris went everywhere, but most importantly, we were all safe.

“Into the hole!” I cried, running forward to the still-red edges.

“My gosh, you really are a genius!” Gonzalez cried, following after me.

About halfway to the newly made gap in the floor, the doors suddenly burst open and two mimic waves surged in from either side.

“Great,” I muttered, my stomach dropping. “A race.”

And what a race it was. The four of us put our everything into our sprint, diving for the hole with no concern for what might be below. As we fell, through wires and bent supports and busted tech, I spun to look upward.

The two waves crashed into each other with a massive amount of force, sending the minis flying everywhere. Unfortunately, many of them came falling right down into the hole with us.

The grav-boots helped to right me, and this time, I landed a little better. Looking forward, then back, I saw another set of those ridiculously oversized doors that was cracked open just enough to get by.

“That way!” I cried, pulling Gonzales and Ciangi to their feet. Bahn landed a beat later, lurching after us with surprising quickness for being what Gonzales would classify as an ‘uber nerd.’

Once more, we were all running again, but the end was in sight. We were going to make it out of this. We were going to--

“Hey, Higgens, doesn’t this look familiar?”

But I was already sidling through, pulling the others after me. Once they were all on my side, we shoved the door closed with a resounding thump.

Relief washed over me and I turned, only to have that very same relief turn to ice in my veins.

We were in the bridge and the alien was staring right at us.

“Oh shi--”

Something lashed out of its body, gelatinous and reviling, slamming all of us into the far wall. The air was knocked out of me once more as we hit, and we slid to the ground in a heap.

“This…this was not a good plan,” Gonzales groaned as we disentangled ourselves.

As if it understood us, it stood, its entire body shaking and rearranging as if it was made of gelatin and silicone. It made me want to puke, but I was too scared to do so. But instead of striking us again, that same arm reached for the door and opened it, letting the wave of mini-mimics in.

The arm shrank back into its body and before another extended from its back, only to grab the console it liked to punch its orders into. Once more, several notes sounded, and the mimics all stopped in a line.

We stood there, in a tense standoff. If one could call certain defeat a standoff. We were going to die here. We didn’t have near the amount of weaponry to take the creature down, and as far as I could tell, it had integrated several parts of the ship into its body. If we wanted to kill it, we would have to destroy every last bit of it. And frankly, that was impossible.

The alien knew it too. I could see it across its melting, folding, rearranging, blobby face. It reached for me, long, insidious claws growing out of its arm as it extended. This was the end.

Except, it suddenly wasn’t.

There was a flash of heat and light in front of me and we were all thrown backward. When my head was cleared, I saw a blackened scorch on the ground where we had been standing.

The alien was screaming, whirling in a circle as it tried to put out the parts of it that were on fire. It would have been amusing to watch, if it weren’t so terrifying.

To my surprise, it was Ciangi who stood first, her arm bloodied. It was only after I realized her hand-held scanner was missing that I put the pieces together. She must have overloaded it, just like I had Gonzales’s blaster.

She saved my life.

But it was only a stop-gap. The alien had stopped screaming, and instead returned to its chair. Grabbing the hanging console once more, it punched in another command.

I figured out what it said quickly, as the mimics suddenly jumped into action. But instead of running, they slowly advanced, like an executioner’s march.

We backed up, but there was only so far we could go. Eventually, our backs hit the wall and there was nothing we could do to escape what was about to happen.

“Is this where I start shooting?” Gonzales asked, her voice still as brave and strong as ever.

I planned to tell her no, that there was no point in killing a dozen or so innocent children only to have the others rip us to shreds, but then I saw a lone mimic break away from the formation. Like a small shadow, it flitted toward the alien.

And the console.

Suddenly, everything made sense. But I also knew that, with the way the alien was sitting now, that little mimic would be spotted instantly.

“Yes!” I yelled suddenly.

She shot me a shaky grin, trying to be her normal, headstrong self. “Finally.”

“But shoot the alien.”

“What? Are you sure? I don’t think my blaster is going to penetrate its skin if a straight-up overload blast didn’t do anything besides make it a bit toasty.”

“Oh, it’s definitely not going to hurt him,” I said, sending her my own smile. “But it sure is going to piss him off.”

She gave me an odd look, but I just nodded at her. Thankfully, she seemed to believe that I knew what I was doing, and unloaded into the alien until her gun overheated.

And boy, did it work. The alien shrieked, not in pain, but in pure rage as she peppered it. I saw wide circles of red appear on its skin, only to disappear back to normal flesh. Well, normal for the creature. It stood, advancing on us for a little one-on-one revenge.

It only made it a couple of steps before that tiny mimic I saw scaled its chair and launched itself to the console. In a ripple of color, the mini expanded until there was none other than Mimic perched atop the large computer.

“This is for my people,” she hissed, before punching in a code.

The alien whirled, dozens of arms shooting out of its body to stop her, but the tones were already sounding. Once more, there was a strange sort of stillness when they ended, but then the mimics all turned as one and converged on the alien.

Its ending…wasn’t pretty. It tried to run, but the mimics descended on it with a ferocity that made all other acts of violence I had ever witnessed pale in comparison. I saw the others look away from the carnage, but I forced myself to watch it out. It felt like the right thing to do.

If I was going to plot out a murder of an enemy, I owed them watching the consequences of my handiwork so it would never have to happen again.

When it was all over, my eyes flashed to Mimic’s. She was still perched atop the console, her face flushed and her eyes bright with unshed tears.

“You did it,” I murmured, voice barely able to make it out of my tightening throat.

“So we did.”