Mimic and the Journey Home

Old Dog, New Tricks

“Pass me the spectral reader.”

I looked at the vast array of tools in front of me then identified the right one and handed it to Gonzales from where she was under one of the medbay consoles.

A day had passed since we had scrambled onto the ship in our frantic escape, and the coin twins were still busy fabricating the contraption we needed to jump through the wormhole again. Meanwhile, Gonzales and myself bounced between setting up other equipment for them or repairing damages to the engines and crystal modules as Bahn pointed them out.

At first, I had thought I would be completely useless, merely a mobile shelf for the brain-trust, but Gonzales seemed determined to have me be useful. We had spent the first hour with her simply explaining the name of tools and then quizzing me on them. From then, whenever she asked me to hand her one, she would either explain its purpose and why she was using it or ask me what it was used for if it was something she had already explained to me.

I was aware I was being educated, but it seemed natural and purposeful, which suited my mind just right. I knew she used the ionic welder to seal tears within any sort of metal component. The silicon injector was used for covering gaps in wiring or fixing tears in protective casing and buttons. The ionic wrench was used to magnetically remove sealed bolts or other fasteners with a chromium component. The list went on and on and on.

It reminded me of all the training I had to do when I was first interested in facilities. I had enjoyed it then, and it was all coming back to me.

Maybe I wasn’t as dense as I had been led to believe.

Perhaps that was a little audacious to think after just under twenty-four hours of assisting the obviously gifted Gonzales, but she never spoke to me as if I was an idiot or wasting her time. It made me feel good. Less like a useless janitor being hounded by someone over the comm at all hours.

“Thanks. Next, I’ll take the—”

Attention: Orbit at destination will be reached in one hour.

“Looks like that’s our cue,” she said, sliding out from underneath and flashing me a bright smile. “You ready for another outing?”

“Not particularly,” I answered honestly, thinking back to that furred monster and shuddering.

“Aw, relax!” she said, clapping my shoulder. “I’m sure this one will go much better. Now let’s hop into our enviro-suits and see what this chunk of the universe has waiting for us!”

It did not go better.

Granted, it didn’t seem to go worse either, but our second outing was definitely just as stressful.

But this time, instead of giant alien monsters looking to make a snack of us, there were tiny little goo monsters that dissolved inorganic things on contact. We found that out because one landed on Bahn’s scanner and it quickly melted in his grasp.

From that point, there had been more running, more screaming, and frantically scanning the area for the minerals we needed followed by a mad dash back to the ship. Mimic handled herself beautifully considering we found nothing for her to eat, but I was beginning to worry about her. Her once adorably full, pixie-like face was growing gaunt, and I often caught bits of her warping and fading in the corner of my vision.

But she never complained. Not once. Not even when we visited the third planet that happened to be completely covered in something similar to water and we were almost swallowed by a giant beast. Not even when I rolled over at night and saw her reverted to her black form, only considerably smaller and shaking from hunger.

Her bravery, her refusal to show weakness, made me that much more resolved to get us home and get whatever it was she considered food in her belly. She deserved the best, and that determination helped me through our fourth and final destination, which happened to pass without incident.

We had boarded the ship more than a little perplexed at how easy the mission had been. After too many hair-raising adventures, we were used to a little more adversity.

However, we didn’t let that surprise faze us for long, and quickly got busy with the final preparations for our jump.

Except…that wasn’t working out so well either.

“Gosh diggity darn it!” Ciangi snapped as something crackled and she yanked her hand back from a port she was trying to repair.

“Really?” Gonzales said, tossing the blonde engineer a med-kit. “That’s your idea of a curse?”

“Well, pardon me for not wanting to use foul language. There are young minds present.”

“What? Like who?”

“Mimic is only a few weeks old at this point,” Bahn said quietly. “You wouldn’t swear around a baby, would you?”

“I especially swear around babies. They don’t understand and they have an affinity for puking on my clothes.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Mimic said from the corner of the room where she was curled in a pop-out chair. “I’ve read much worse on what you call the ‘net’.”

“See? I’m not corrupting any innocents here.”

“Well, in any case,” Ciangi said, returning to her work. “I’ll stick to my creative expletives, thank you very much.

“You’re welcome.”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes but continued to concentrate on her work. “Give me that mini-field generator please.” I passed her the tools she needed then returned to my station where I could run to any of the three in just a few short steps.

“Crap!” This time it was Bahn who was reeling back from his post, a small, blue fire bursting into being on the crystal adaptor he was working on.

I was over in less than a blink, whipping out my pocket extinguisher and spraying the blaze until it was no more. After that, it was my coolant cleaner that quickly dissolved the thick white foam that the extinguisher produced. Once I was sure everything was copasetic and not combusting, I returned to my post.

“This isn’t working,” the taller of the coin twins said, pulling at his long ponytail. “We shouldn’t be getting this many overloads just doing simple re-specs. We haven’t even gotten to a propulsion test yet. Or the dampeners!”

“Do you have a suggestion?” Gonzales asked, for once not snarky as she stood as well, wiping engineering lubricant from her hands. “Because my specialty is so far away from this, it might as well be on the other side of that wormhole. The only thing I’m good for right now is following directions.”

“By all means, this should be working,” Ciangi said, setting down her tools as well. “I just can’t figure out why we’re getting so many sparks. I feel like once we build the dampening system, it will fix this issue, but we can’t build a dampening system if we can’t even get the adaptors to work.”

The three of them stood there, contemplating, while I looked between the three of them, uncertain if they were serious. After a few stressful seconds, I cleared my throat tentatively.

“What’s up, Higgens?” Gonzales asked, eyes looking to me curiously.

“Uh, if I’m understanding you all correctly, the only issue is that the current power level is too much for the repairs to handle until the whole system is in place?”

“That’s the current theory, yeah.” I looked around one more time, sure they were playing some kind of trick on me. “What is it? You’ve got a funny expression on your face. Well, funnier than usual.”

“Gonzales, be nice.”

“What? He knows I’m just playing around. We got that repartee, ya know.”

“It’s just, I, uh... If that’s the issue, why don’t we just, uh…shut off the power?”

“Shut off the power? But without that, there won’t be any life support, or gravity field, or anything really.”

“So?” I shrugged. “I know I’ve read about engineers working in space before. This would essentially be the same thing, wouldn’t it? An artificial vacuum is still a vacuum.”

The three were silent for a long moment, exchanging glances that I couldn’t interpret.

“I believe I have also read about such things,” Mimic added softly. Soft was about the only volume level she could generate anymore. “It is how space stations tend to outer damage of ships, if I am not mistaken.”

“Yeah, and it also happens to be incredibly dangerous and require two years of schooling and internship in addition to what we went through as mechanical engineers.”

“Then again,” Gonzales said, eyeing me with a smirk. “It’s definitely a valid option. And perhaps the best one we’ve had about the problem.”

“We’ve only been discussing the problem for three minutes. Perhaps we should spend a bit more time researching before jumping to the most dangerous conclusion?”

“Discussing it out loud,” she corrected. “But you know it’s been in the back of your mind ever since we started synthesizing the crystals we need.”

“That isn’t necessarily true.” Gonzales raised an eyebrow and crossed to my side. After just a few beats, Ciangi sighed. “Alright. So maybe it was a couple of hours after the first time my hair caught fire. But still, I’m not sure that this is the best course of action.”

“That’s alright,” I said, holding my hands up in a sign of peace. “We’re civilized people here. How about we compromise? Take a few hours, maybe even sleep on it. If you can think of a better idea, let’s do that first. But if you can’t…”

“Then it’s time to make an artificial vacuum!” Gonzales said, probably a bit too cheerfully.

Bahn nodded, coming up beside his shorter counterpart. “That sounds like a fair compromise to me.”

“Good. Then let’s all take a break for now.” I held out my hand to Mimic, who slowly shuffled over with me. “Of course, if any of you decide on something before tonight, feel free to speed along the process. We don’t have much time.”

“Of course. Stay by the comms, everyone. Hopefully, this will be our last night floating in this nowhere land.”

“Be safe, everyone.”

And with that, we all parted our separate ways, busy with our own thoughts. Mimic and I headed back to our room, where she laid down with a rasping gasp.

“I’m worried about you,” I murmured, sitting in the chair across from her bunk.

“I am fine.”

“I know that you’re not.”

“I know as well, but I have read that a specific response is not what is expected upon such an inquiry, but rather a general assurance of positivity.”

“I guess usually, yeah, but I mean it. I’m worried about you. I see the pain you’re in.”

“Unfortunate. I was trying not to telegraph it.”

“You don’t have to hide it, though. That probably takes even more energy. You don’t have to pretend to be fine.”

“I… I will try to keep that in mind.”

“Good. You should get some rest while you can.”

“And what of you?”

I smiled and pulled out my data-log. “I have some research to do.”