Okay, maybe adventure wasn’t the best way to put it. We were rushing to Mimic’s home to help prep her people from war. A war which was going to be against the same species that had enslaved her people for hundreds of years and kept them stunted. Eternal child soldiers and slaves, with no mind of their own and no sense of will.
I shuddered at the thought, wondering what the heck we were supposed to be able to do with a planet full of babies against a technologically advanced species that obviously didn’t have a problem with conquering natives and exploiting their biology.
“A credit for your thoughts?” Ciangi asked, pointing to the spot on the board where she wanted her holo-piece to move to.
I shook my head and returned to the game at hand. Of course, the woman was absolutely creaming me, but it was nice for us to have some one on one time. I couldn’t remember the last time that Ciangi and I had talked alone that wasn’t related to some sort of life-or-death situation. Considering she was one of my only four friends in life, I definitely wanted to rectify that.
“Just thinking about the juxtaposition between us sitting here, playing a board game, while we are on our way to wage a planetary scale war.”
“Oh, ‘juxtaposition.’ Is that from your word-a-day calendar?”
“No,” I objected automatically, before flushing. “…maybe.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about learning. In fact, you should be the opposite. A lot of people get to a certain point in life and they just figure, ‘this is it’ and settle. They stop progressing, stop fighting, and that’s when they start to rot.
“But you, you’ll never rot. You’re always hungry for more. Some people would argue that means that you’re never content, but being content is poison. One that seeps into your bones and taints everything until, the next thing you know, you’re too weak to ever escape it.”
The corner of my mouth went up. “That’s some pretty dramatic prose for word-a-day calendar.”
She laughed at that, shaking her head and making her curls bounce around her head like golden springs. “What can I say? The most recent turn of events has me feeling a little dramatic. You know, abandoning everything we had on Earth, traveling to our certain deaths and all.”
“I don’t know about certain…”
She reached over to pat my cheek. “And don’t you ever lose that optimism, Higgens. Someone around here has to see the bright side.”
Some might have considered that patronizing, but I just chuckled slightly. “I’ll do my best,” I answered before moving my own piece forward.
Ciangi drew in a regretful sort of breath, then pushed her emperor-token forward to take the game. I sighed, and pushed myself away from the table.
“I was never very good at Conquer anyway.”
“Eh, I didn’t think you did that bad. Up for a fifth round?”
“Ha, no, I don’t think so. I’m going to go check on Bahn and Gonzales. Last I knew, they were taking inventory in the weapons room.”
“I think so. Knowing those two, they’ll be working all night. We’ve got another four days of our flight, but by the way they act, you’d think it was tomorrow.”
“I’m pretty sure that being busy helps Gonzales with…things.”
“Ah, that makes sense. And what is your Mimic up to?”
“She’s not my Mimic,” I shot back. “And I think she’s gathering different things for her to, uh, ‘eat’.”
Ciangi nodded at that. “I remember her…eclectic diet. Sent us across several planets once. Well, go, check on all of our friends like the good mother that you are.”
I opened my mouth to argue, before I realized that the term was fairly apt considering the way that I worried after all of them. Shaking my head, I excused myself and headed out.
The peace we had on the ship was decidedly strange considering the hell that we had lived through. There was no guard to torment us, no bars keeping us trapped, no endless parade of questions wondering where Mimic was and if she would think we had betrayed her. I should have been grateful for it, but—if anything—it made me restless.
“Oh hey, what brings you in here?”
I looked to Gonzales, who had spotted me before I even entered the room. Unusual, as she normally would be too absorbed in her work to notice if a tornado itself was outside her door.
“Just checking in,” I answered, sticking my hands in my pocket so I wouldn’t touch anything I wasn’t supposed to. Although I had made a lot of progress toward my engineering degree, I was nowhere near the level of being able to mess with the dangerous chemicals and components that Gonzales and Bahn were. “How’s inventory and upgrading going?”
“Pretty good,” she answered, sending me a bright smile. “Not enough for an entire planet, but enough to give us at least a little bit of hope.”
“Hope is good.”
“Wh—”
Bahn’s question was cut off by a blaring alarm, nearly jolting me out of my skin. I stared at the two for a moment, the pair just as surprised as I was, before collecting myself enough to go over to one of the security displays on the side of the room.
“What does this mean?” I asked, pointing to the blips and lines of code that I didn’t understand.
Gonzales came up beside me, worrying her lip between her teeth. “It means we have an intruder.”
“An intruder?” Bahn asked. “What do you mean an intruder?”
“What about that needs explaining?” she snapped. “Grab some weapons, boys. I don’t know what kind of stowaway we have, but let’s not take our chances, shall we?”
I stared at the solid door in front of us, marveling at its construction. I doubted that even all of our blasters firing at full power could melt even a single hole in it. The metal was sturdy, impossibly so, and I couldn’t see a way around it.
“You’re sure the intruder is in here?” I asked, nodding to the door.
“Yeah, that’s why this area is in lockdown,” Ciangi answered, the only one of us humans without a gun in hand. It seemed that, even after everything we had been through, she still didn’t like any sort of gun. “Whoever managed to get in here is just on the other side of this door.”
“I’m going to punch in the override now, but get ready. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”
“Ready,” I answered, bracing myself and pulling my weapon up.
“Ready,” Bahn agreed.
“Ciangi?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Gonzales stepped forward and to the side, pulling out a panel from the wall and revealing an interface. Quickly, she punched several things in before the blaring finally stopped and the door slowly slid open.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting on the other side. Perhaps some sort of trained super soldier? An assassin that they had somehow known to send after us who had managed to get onto the ship before we lifted off? Either way, it certainly wasn’t a tall, lanky woman with dark, dark skin in a maintenance uniform.
“Um, hi,” she murmured, looking at us with wide eyes from behind her safety goggles. “I, uh, take it from the sounds of the engine that we’re not on Earth anymore?”
“No,” I answered, slowly lowering my gun. “No, we are not.”
3
Good Things Come in Tall Packages
“So, remind me one more time, how did you get in here?” Gonzales asked, circling around the seated woman once again.
After our rather surprising introduction, we had led our ‘guest’ to one of the officers’ lounges and set her down. We arranged ourselves in front of her, no doubt all of us wondering just how she came to be involved in our little slice of rebellion.
Except for Mimic, of course. She didn’t quite understand why the woman alarmed us so much considering that she too had snuck her way onto our original ship, but I promised to explain later.
“I told you, I was working as part of the cleanup crew down in the supply storage areas after all of the movers tracked in a lot of dirt and other
wastes.”
“And then you…what? Just decided to lay down and take a nap?”
“Well, kinda. But it sounds terrible when you put it that way.” She took inventory of our disbelieving looks and sighed. “Look, I was coming off a double and I knew I didn’t have it in me to go through the decontamination and security protocols, so I figured I would just slide into one of the hidey holes I was aware of, take a nap, and then leave when the morning shift clocked in. Of course, as you can probably surmise, I ended up asleep a whole lot longer than just a nap.”
She had a strange sort of accent, one I couldn’t place. It was deep, with a rise and fall to it that seemed quite melodic. I remembered reading once that some places on Earth still spoke differently than the common accent, but I had never listened to it in person.
“You slept for three days?” Gonzales asked, arms crossed and expression dubious.
“That is unlikely,” Mimic said. “Although you humans do require an odd amount of unconscious time, it is usually no more than nine hours, unless sick, injured or influenced by drugs.” She turned her head to the dark-skinned woman. “Are you any of those things?”
“No, not quite.” The stranger adjusted her goggles, then her fingers wound into her hair, tugging at the long, black locks falling over her shoulders and chest. “I woke up and immediately panicked. I thought that the soldiers were taking it on some sort of test run and I absolutely do not have the clearance to be on this thing while it was moving. So, I figured I would just hide, wait until we landed, and then sneak out with the new maintenance crew that came on.”
“Except this wasn’t a test flight.”
“No, I realized that after about eight hours or so. Thankfully, I was able to make it to our maintenance station and hang there with some food and water while I collected myself. I figured that somehow the ship had been stolen by pirates, and my best bet was to hide until I could safely slip out wherever we landed. I’m not the worst colony navigator, so I was pretty sure I could get home alright.”
“If you’ve been hiding in the ship this whole time, how did you manage to avoid setting off any alarms?”
“Oh, that part’s easy. I just stuck to the areas where I knew they weren’t set up yet. The only reason I set off the one you all heard was because I got storage room 2-G and 2-J mixed up.” She took a long breath and smiled shakily at us. “So, what is it then? Y’all pirates?”
“Pirates?” I snorted outright. “No, not quite.”
“Then what?” she asked. “You haven’t killed me outright, and by the looks on your faces when you opened the door, I can guess that you were just as scared as I was, so you’re not some sort of military coup. If you were, I would be dead by now.”
“I guess you could say we’re a kind of…anti-coup.” She cocked her head to the side, clearly not understanding, so I decided to explain further. “My name is Higgens. This is Gonzales, Ciangi, Bahn, and Mimic.”
“Wait… Higgens, why does that sound familiar?”
“Because he’s Earth’s most eligible underdog bachelor,” Gonzales muttered.
I looked up, shocked. “Wait, what? I didn’t know about that part.”
“Oh! You’re the guy that discovered first contact! And you—” She pointed to Mimic. “You’re the alien!”
“Technically, you all were the aliens when you invaded my home. But yes.” Mimic gave a little bow. “I am the alien.”
“Oh my gosh,” the woman breathed. “I can’t believe it’s you! I, uh, wow. You’re skinnier in real life, you know that?” she said, motioning to me.
I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Uh, you’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“Wow. This is just…unbelievable. I never, uh, wait, I should introduce myself first. My name is Eskedare Getachew, or Eske for short. I’m a level-three maintenance worker assigned to this ship, but I don’t have clearance for any exterior repair or cleaning.”
She gave a little salute, but it knocked into her goggles, which she then had to adjust again. I wasn’t sure why she was wearing them considering she wasn’t doing any actual work, but it didn’t seem like the appropriate time to ask about it.
“But…why are you all here?” she asked, her expression clearly curious again.
I had to admit, I was a little surprised at her quick acceptance of who we were. I guessed being ‘famous’ had its perks.
“Well, our gov had a deal with Mimic here to help her with some aliens that were trying to kill her and her people. A certain group decided to renege, imprison us, then try to use all of these supplies built to help her for their own little coup to take over Earth Gov. Naturally, we had to steal the ship.”
She tsk-ed her tongue. “Ain’t that just like politicians. But still, if this is for the preservation of Miss Mimic’s species, I’m more than happy to chip in where I can. It’s because of you that my brother is alive, so I figure I owe you.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow?”
“Those samples of your cell structure that you donated to us,” Eske continued chipperly. “Because of them, the doctors treating my brother’s disease were able to make a breakthrough. For the first time in his life, he gets to run and play just like everybody else.
“So the way I figure it, the least I could do is help you get what is legally yours anyway.”
“Well, then thank you, Miss Eskedare Getachew. I appreciate your support.”
“Please, Eske.” She stood, which made Gonzales flinch, but the rest of us managed not to react violently. “So, what all do you guys need cleaned around here?”
4
The Last Moments of Peace
To her credit, Eske did exactly as she promised. Sure, we didn’t really need someone to look after us or repair minor damage, considering the ship was so new, but she did her best. She would hand Gonzales tools when she needed them, bring Bahn first aid supplies when he inevitably shocked himself on his latest tinkering project, and even helped both Ciangi and Mimic put their hair into a couple of complicated hairstyles that kept it out of their faces.
She reminded me so much of myself that it was uncanny, borderline uncomfortable. She was obviously nervous around us, but so eager to please that sometimes talking to her felt like an obligation. I didn’t mind it too much however, and the rest of the group seemed to be quite amused by her demeanor.
Although, it was strange to no longer be the tallest one in the group. Eske had to be six foot, and—unlike me—she had a sort of royal air about her. Perhaps it was her high cheekbones, or her broad nose. Maybe it was how her thick, well-kept locks formed a crown around her head every time she put them up while she was working. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but there was definitely something royal about her.
Not that she acted like it. Like myself, she seemed less concerned with her appearance and more with being the best maintenance worker that she could be. Not that there was anything wrong with caring about looks, I just identified with being endlessly confounded by whatever the latest trend was.
“So, anything I can help you and your partner with today?” Eske asked, announcing her presence as she entered the lounge.
I looked up from the datalog I was perusing, trying in vain to connect to my scholastic account back home. Unsurprisingly, I was locked out. So much for improving myself before we threw ourselves into the heat of battle.
“My partner?” I asked curiously, pushing my aggression about the login situation to the back of my mind where I could deal with it later.
“Yeah, you know. Miss Mimic. It must be nice to be back with your love again.”
I felt my cheeks turn crimson, and for some reason, my reply made me jump to my feet. “Who said anybody is my love?” I sputtered, sounding like a total fool.
Eske’s eyes went wide, which was only exaggerated by the safety goggles that she still hadn’t removed, even two days later. “Oh geez! I’m sorry! I just assumed with the way you guys look at each other, and since you were her fir
st human contact and saved her from so much, that there was something there.”
“Well, there is something there. But it’s friendship. And trust. She’s the most loyal person I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
She seemed even more perplexed and I had no idea how to rectify the situation. “…but you…uh, don’t love her?”
“No!” But that sounded so harsh leaving my lips that I automatically recanted. “I mean, I d-don’t think so. Or well, that is to say, I—”
She held up her hands, thankfully cutting off the string of words that were just trailing out of my mouth with no real reason. “It’s fine. Emotions are weird, and squiggly, and relationships are that much worse. You can trust her, and I guess that’s all that matters.”
I heaved a sigh of relief that that was over and nodded emphatically. “Yes. I can trust her. And that’s more than I can say for a lot of humans I’ve met.”
“You’re telling me! I can’t believe after that whole Gio…Gigi..Gee—”
“Giomatti,” I offered.
“Yes! That. After the whole Giomatti thing, I can’t believe that you turned around to end up saddled to some Earth scumbags. It just goes to show that money and power can really go to people’s heads.”
“It really can.”
She was quiet for a split-second, and I went to walk past her, eager to be away from the awkward conversation before it could grow even more awkward. But Eske began to walk beside me as I traveled down the hall, and I wasn’t sure if it would be terribly rude to ask her to give me some alone time to think. It looked like Mimic wasn’t the only one who needed to brush up on their human interaction protocol.
“So, you were a maintenance worker once, right?” she asked, uncertainty hanging at the edge of her words as if she was afraid she would offend me. “Like me?”
“Yes, I was.”
“And now you’re—”
“An unemployed student who’s also a fugitive. Not sure that that’s an improvement.”
Mimic: The Space Shifter Chronicles Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 25