Meridyna had a large, American-styled house in the southern tier. As far as I knew, only non-shifting mimics stayed with her. There weren’t nearly as many of them as there were before the war, so I was pretty sure she cared for all of them, feeding them daily and ensuring they had a more natural growth pattern.
Lastly was Urdet. He didn’t have a home as far as I knew, at least not in the traditional sense. He was in charge of constructing the mimics’ library, which was a combination of both physical and digital records. He spent all of his days and nights there, building new floors, creating new servers, organizing data into the appropriate categories, and creating interfaces for future mimics to learn from.
While projects like that probably didn’t seem nearly as cool as a defense grid, or combat, it was one of my favorites. Access to information and history was truly the sign of a civilization. While we were a small one, we were definitely on our way.
As soon as we approached the door, Pyjik was waiting there, a literal picnic basket, like the kind from ancient Earth sims, in her wiry hands.
“I believe this is for you!” she announced, smiling brightly at us.
“That it is!” Mimi said, taking it in her free hand. “Thank you for guarding it!”
“No problem! It’s the most excitement I’ve had since the great battle.” She sighed and leaned against her door. “Never thought I would miss a war, but I just don’t feel that useful anymore. Are you sure there aren’t any space stations I can invade? Ships to steal?”
“We’ll talk about you accompanying Gonzales on her next mission at another time. I have the rest of the afternoon off.”
“Wow, really? I think that’s a first in like…forever.”
“Exactly, so I’d like not to have it interrupted. You be safe now.”
“Yes, Leader Mimi.”
And with that, we were heading off to the forest again.
I let Mimi drag me along, just enjoying her company. It was rare that I got to see her when the sun was up, and I found the sight of her with the natural light reflecting off her pale face and white hair that much more captivating.
We passed by trees, then the clearing, until we finally reached the area where we had built our emergency animal holding pens. Like everything else, we had expanded and improved on that too. We now had a sizable area with all sorts of holding pens, with an appropriate number of creatures in each.
Part of it was for research, so that we could better understand the unique life in her little slice of the universe. Part of it was for conservation, just in case more aliens came to attack. After all, they had limped off with their tail between their legs, but they knew where we were and what we were capable of. We all kind of knew that there was always the chance of them returning with greater numbers, but there was nothing we could do but prepare our defenses and try to make sure we weren’t so helter-skelter if they did come back.
Then again, we all knew that humans were much more likely to be the issue. Sooner or later, Earth was going to get even for how we had ‘wronged’ it.
Finally, we reached a smooth area on the other side of the pens and Mimi pulled a blanket from her basket. Laying it out, she flopped down and patted the ground next to her. “So, you ready for our date?”
“You know what?” I said, sitting beside her. “I am.”
3
Don’t Take Time for Granted
“So, what inspired you to choose a picnic, out of all things?” I asked as Mimi pulled snack after snack out of her little basket.
“You like food, and I like you. From what I know about your species, the logic follows.”
“That it does,” I said, laughing lightly as she handed me a sandwich. While it certainly wasn’t some sort of top-of-the-line, gourmet sandwich, I enjoyed every bite of it because it was made by the woman I loved.
My stomach did a little mini-flip, not exactly the best movement considering that I was actively eating, and I did my best to calm it down. I guess even after six months, my body still reacted at the thought that Mimi and I shared a connection that was different than what we felt for anybody else.
“This is nice,” I said, laying back once I finished my sandwich.
“It is, isn’t it?” Mimi asked, resting her head against my chest. “I can see why Ciangi is always yelling at me to slow down for a moment.”
“Me too.”
“…I can hear your heartbeat,” she murmured, nuzzling into my shirt.
“Does that bother you?”
“No. I like it. It lets me know that you’re alive.”
“Yeah, I suppose it’d be pretty stressful if I wasn’t.”
“You have no idea,” she said softly.
I let myself drift off for a moment, but I could sense that something was amiss. “You okay?”
“Just thinking.”
“What about? You’ve got your upset face on.”
She sat up, her brows furrowing. “Do I?”
“Well, not really before, but most definitely now.”
She grimaced and let out a long sigh. “I was thinking…sad thoughts.”
“Like what?”
“Like…the fact that, as far as I can tell, my species doesn’t suffer from the cellular degradation that yours does on a regular basis.”
“Yeah, you guys do seem to have stacked the deck on genetics.”
My attempt at a mild joke didn’t seem to please her. “Surely you understand what that means, right?”
I felt like normally I would, but with the way she was looking at me, my whole mind went blank. “Uh…should I?”
“Yes. You are going to grow old, Higgens, and I am not. While my kind can die, it’s either due to starvation or damage, via violence or accident. Even if our lives go perfectly, we have a maximum of maybe eighty years together, then you’ll be gone, and I’ll be all alone.” She looked at me with such large, sorrowful eyes that I felt my heart squeeze. “You’ve been with me for my entire life where I truly had consciousness, and imagining an eternity without you is…is… Well, it’s awful. How can I be happy knowing that’s what’s in store for us if we get a happy ending?”
I stared at her for several moments, completely sideswiped. Sure, I had faced my own death a lot with varying levels of bravery, but I had never thought of what it might do to others. Was that selfish of me?
“I guess I never thought of that,” I murmured, feeling vastly inadequate for this conversation.
“It’s fine. I suppose that is not your worry to have.” She sighed, and the sound just about broke my heart. So often she was strong and fearless, it was easy to forget that she was just figuring stuff out along the way just like the rest of us. “I’m sorry if I ruined our meal.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said, reaching over and rubbing her shoulders. “These are things I need to hear. If it’s bothering you, it bothers me. But I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about it in this situation.”
“I know…” she murmured, reaching up to hold one of my hands. “Perhaps I am putting the animal before the wagon. We have a lot of pending doom to get through for both of us to get to eighty.”
I snickered lightly. “Do you perhaps mean, ‘put the horse before the cart’?”
She tilted her head curiously. “What’s a horse?”
“Nothing important,” I said, smiling and pulling her close enough to kiss the top of her head. “Let’s just get through this next year, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, heaving a bit of a sigh. “I suppose that is better for my mental health.”
“Probably for all of ours. What we need to do is just take everything one day at a time and keep building up our little corner of the galaxy.”
I pulled her close to my side and we sat like that for several minutes, just holding each other, listening to the avian creatures singing and trilling, along with the rest of the wild sounds. Originally, those cries had been both foreign and terrifying, but I had long since grown used to them and found
a certain sort of comfort in their alienness.
“Higgens?”
“Yes?”
“I remember reading something else about human courtship traditions. I’d like to try it.”
“Really?” I asked. “What d’you wanna do?”
“Well… I’d like you to dance with me.”
I sat there a moment, trying to think if she would understand the meaning of ‘two left feet,’ but how could I chicken out when Mimi asked for so little?
“I can do that,” I said, standing up and offering her my hand.
Her face illuminated, all the stress and worry from our last conversation fading in light of my answer. She allowed me to help her up, then I pulled up one of the few songs I had saved to my wrist scanner for when I was working. I picked a slow one, with a gentle beat, that was more soothing than boogying.
Trying not to hold my breath, I wrapped one of my arms around her waist and then placed her hand on my shoulder. Even after all of our time together, my heart was picking up speed and I could feel my face flushing. I got our other arms into the position that I had seen on about a thousand different sims, then slowly moved a foot forward.
Naturally, Mimi seemed to pick up on my moves quickly, as she did with everything else, and soon we were gliding around our little picnic.
Well, gliding was probably a generous term, but we were doing alright for a couple of newbies who had never cut a rug before. I didn’t want to brag and say it came naturally, because I was about as athletically inclined as a swamp rat, but there was always something easy about being with Mimi. Even with fingers missing from my hand, and my six-month-old burn scars still pinkish in color, I felt like a debonair gentleman come to call on her. It was hard to remember that there had ever been a time in my life without her; that’s how much we seemed to fit together like peas in a pod.
The world, and all of our troubles, drifted away on the notes from my scanner, transporting us to someplace where there were no wars, no coups, nothing but us and all the possibilities we had stretching out before us.
What I wouldn’t have given to stay in that hazy fantasy, just living, breathing, being. But like everything else in our lives, it only lasted long enough for us to miss it as it broke.
“Leader Higgens! Leader Mimi!”
We paused mid-step, the trance between us breaking, and I looked to the pen area to see Mari running toward us, waving her arms.
“Leader Higgens! Leader Mimi!”
“Yes, we’re here,” I said, reluctantly letting Mimi go. “Do you need something?”
She reached us and nodded emphatically. She didn’t need to catch her breath like a human did, so her words just came spilling out.
“An Earth ship has appeared on the radar!”
“Wait, what?” Mimi dropped my hands and started toward Mari. It was only just then that I realized the small, adorable mimic had chosen a name that was almost identical to her leader. …was that on purpose? Also, geez, I really let stuff fly over my head sometimes.
“It’s not a war vessel, just a simple envoy ship. Max crew of twelve at the most. It’s still too far for us to get a good scan, but we don’t detect any sort of nuclear payload!”
Mimi looked at me with a slightly guilty expression. “It never ends, does it?”
“Looks like it,” I said, grabbing her hand and running back to the defense hub.
4
A Doubtful Ceasefire
I arrived at the lab huffing and puffing, although Mari and Mimi were perfectly fine. When we burst into the main cannon-room, Ciangi, Bahn, Harunya, and Eske were already there, looking up at the radar-holo with a range of intense expressions.
I wasn’t sure why we still called it radar considering that type of technology was long outdated, and our sensors used electro-something-or-other, but that was neither here nor there. What was here was a ship from Earth.
“Have they made any aggressive moves?” Mimi asked, sliding into place beside Ciangi.
“No, but they’ve stopped moving just on the edge of our cannon range.”
“Huh.”
“What do you think they want?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“Unfortunately, I got my master’s in medicine, not fortune telling,” Harunya murmured, her eyes locked on the holo.
“I don’t know if this is the appropriate time for sarcasm…” Eske said, worrying at her lip with her teeth.
“It’s always the time for sarcasm,” Ciangi retorted. “Especially in times of stress, and having an Earth spaceship hanging just out of our orbit is making me very stressed.”
“What’s our protocol?” Mimi asked, reining the conversation in. “We haven’t come up with a standard procedure because we thought we had at least a year until they even started to amass forces to come here.”
“Well…” I said slowly. “They’re not attacking us. They’re not scanning us. What if we just…wait?”
Bahn shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s a great idea. What if they’re setting up to do something catastrophic?”
“Could they do that without it setting off our sensors?”
“Unlikely, but not impossible.”
“I just think going on the offensive and blasting them out of the sky would be inherently wrong. What if it’s a truce?” I argued.
“You really think that they’re going to try to set up a truce?”
“They’re hailing us now!” Ciangi said. “They say they want a truce.”
“…you did that on purpose,” Bahn accused.
“Nah, look at the comm feed. They’re talking peace and they’re talking loud.”
“Huh,” I muttered, rubbing my chin. “I don’t know if I like that I was right. This does seem somewhat trappish.”
“Then let’s treat it like a trap,” Mimi said. “We’ll go in our warship, weapons primed, and have their peace talks, but if they try anything unscrupulous, we make them regret ever coming to my home.”
There was a murmur of agreement and she stated, “Don’t activate the planet shielding. Let’s keep that in our back pocket for now since they’re not on the assault.”
That was right. Earth didn’t know that we had used the alien ship’s engines to create shielding to protect us from almost any space-assault. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we had managed to expand the shield for many miles. That way, heaven forbid should some sort of total-planet assault happen, we would have enough flora and fauna available to repopulate. Assuming we survived, of course. But that was what I generally assumed nowadays. We had a pretty good track record, after all.
Minus the whole Gonzales losing an eye, Eske losing her goggles for three months, and my missing fingers.
“Who’s all going to go then?” Ciangi asked, reaching behind her to hold Harunya’s hand.
“Obviously, I am out,” the doctor said. “I don’t want to risk leaving orbit and re-entry now that I’m nearing the halfway point of my pregnancy.”
“Fair enough,” Bahn said. “But I think we should otherwise all go. Show them a united front.”
“But what if it is a trap and they do somehow manage to trick us?”
“Then we have Gonzales, whenever she returns, as well as all of the lieutenants,” Mimi said, rubbing her chin. She had picked that habit up from Bahn, I had noticed, and it was quite cute on her. “I agree with making a statement. If Earth wants to try to start something, they’re going to have to say it to us as a united front.”
“Alright then,” I said, taking a deep breath to catch up with everything that had happened. “Is this where we get prepped and suit up?”
“Yes,” Mimi said, scattering us all with a nod. “Let’s do that now. I want us all on the ship in fifteen minutes.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Eske said, taking off as only Eske could.
Mimi and I exchanged a look. I could feel that we were on the cusp of something important, but I hoped that it was as good as how it was presenting itself.
I guessed we would have to wait and see. I’d tell myself to cross my fingers, but I could only do that on one hand now.
“You’d think for these being military-grade flexi-armor, it’d be a little more comfortable,” Ciangi groused as Mimi sat at the controls, starting up the warship. Even after all this time, it was strange to see someone other than Gonzales there, and I wished she was back. I felt like what little friendship we had was slipping away, and that thought made me sick to my stomach.
“It’s armor,” Eske said, already buckled in. “That’s basically the opposite of comfort. Just be grateful that these are designed to dispel blaster force and other light-spectrum-based assaults.”
“But not kinetic assaults.” Ciangi continued to pout. “So, if someone has a sword, we’re SOL.”
“Yeah, but who do you know that actually brings a sword to battle nowadays?”
“Um, I’m pretty sure a good chunk of the mimics when the fight came down to the ground. Although some of them were swords made out of their bodies.”
“Fair enough. But I don’t think Earth Gov or the coup people are gonna be goin’ old school on us. If anything, they’ll have a bunch of newer, fancier gadgets that they invented just to destroy us.”
“You always look on the bright side, don’t you?” I asked, buckling myself in.
But Eske just shrugged and flashed me a bright smile. “I am being positive. I worked for these guys long enough to know that their scientists were basically running off caffeine and euphoria for the past year since Miss Mimi dropped the biggest advancement since the wheel right in their lap. It’s kinda amazing what creative minds can do when given the proper tools.”
“Let’s just hope those tools don’t end up being used on us.”
“Taking off now,” Mimi said, interrupting the conversation. “Please buckle yourselves in. Ciangi, can you let the other ship know that we are approaching for a parley. Inform them that we are fully armed and ready to engage should they force our hand, but we would prefer for things to remain peaceable.”
Mimic: The Space Shifter Chronicles Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 43