Mimic: The Space Shifter Chronicles Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9)

by James David Victor

  “Yes. I am the leader of the mimic race, and these are my compatriots. I believe you are familiar with our escapades, but that’s not why we’re—”

  She was cut off as another projection lit up next to the military room to reveal what looked like a nearly empty helm of a ship.

  “Holy boji! Gonzales, is that you?” the young man cried, leaning forward.

  “Ay, yeah. It’s me. We’re gonna need you to get whoever’s leading you now.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but, like, you’re alive now?”

  “Boy, I’ve always been alive. Now go get a leader.”

  “Well, when you went radio silent for four months, we just assumed—”

  “Leader. Now.”

  “Right.”

  He scampered off and it seemed that whatever shock the military folks were going through had just worn off.

  “Are those the revolutionaries?”

  “Is this serious?”

  “Surely you don’t mean—”

  “Look, I realize that rationalization is a normal part of humans adapting to a surprise situation, but I do not have time for it,” Mimi said with quite a bit of authority. “Yes, we are broadcasting our holo-signal to the two of you and you are able to hear and see each other.”

  “How is that possible?” a slimmer person in just a suit instead of a military outfit asked. “As far as we know, your planet is too far for us to receive this in real time.”

  “We invent things,” Gonzales said lackadaisically. “Think you’d be used to that by now.”

  “Most of what I’ve read is you stealing things.”

  “Well…that’s also true.”

  “Gonzales…” Mimi murmured warningly.

  “Right, right. Don’t sidetrack the conversation. By all means, proceed with what’s sure to be a very productive conversation.”

  “Gonzales! It’s good to hear your voice again!”

  It took a lot of work not to sigh as someone strode into the revolutionist’s side. It felt like the conversation just wasn’t willing to cooperate. The man was someone I vaguely recognized from the last big raid we had to expose the coup, but I couldn’t remember his name or his part other than he and Gonzales argued both loudly and emphatically. I guessed months isolated on a ship with just my friends would do that.

  “But what’s with all the suits? Last I knew, they were trying to bring all of us in for our crimes instead of thanking us on their hands and knees.”

  I heard several of the Earth Gov members draw in a deep breath to object, but Mimi took her moment.

  “The reason that all of you are here is because there is a threat that needs all of us to work together to head it off.”

  “Oh, please,” someone from Earth Gov muttered. “Not with this alien threat again. We’ve been prepping ever since you handed over the tech you collected and your cell samples and there hasn’t been a peep.”

  “Not a peep?” I asked incredulously, forgetting myself. “I lost half my hand in the first attack!”

  “Nevertheless, according to our reports from the mimic that was working with the coup, you succeeded with very few casualties. If they are to attack again, we’re sure you’re quite capable of handling the threat with all the tech you’ve stolen from us.”

  “More like reclaimed,” Ciangi muttered. “You wouldn’t have had any of that without Mimi anyways.”

  The guy from the rebel side spoke just as someone else joined him on the screen who I also didn’t remember. “Yeah, as much as I love y’all, we’re kinda busy with helping expose any remaining coup members and hiding from the gov as they try to scapegoat us.”

  “All of you deliberately—”

  Mimi cut off the suit with a high-pitched screech that sounded almost like static. “Enough. The aliens did attack again and ravaged the fledgling city we’ve been building here. I’m sure you’ll all be fascinated to know that we can actually die.” I heard the crack of pain in her voice and my heart squeezed. There had been many nights where I had caught her staring up at the ship ceiling, strange clicking noises issuing from her throat. Holding one of her siblings/adopted children in her arms as they died had clearly taken a toll on her. There had been far too much death in her short life.

  Although it all started with me.

  “Of course, I do not believe any of you will trust us at our word, so here, our ship collected footage of our arrival when we found out that we had been ransacked.”

  Mimi clicked a few commands and soon I heard audio from our ship’s logs from when we first saw the smoke blanket covering the city. Mimi turned her back to it, and I followed suit. In the short time that we had been in contact with the survivors we left behind, we found out that at least three other mimics had perished in the attack.

  Sure, maybe that wasn’t a huge number, but how many would it have been if the aliens weren’t intent on kidnapping all the younglings? The thought terrified me. Besides, four souls lost was far too many in a civilization that was in the thousands and still trying to establish itself.

  Mimi let the log continue until shortly after we left the ship and then she cut it off. I was glad that we didn’t have to witness that death again. I didn’t think I could handle it.

  “And yet you’re here,” one of the government people said dubiously.

  “Yes. We managed to use some pilfered tech to get to their dimension and steal one of their ships—”

  “You really do have a MO, don’t you?”

  But Mimi continued. “It was then that we discovered just how much of a threat these creatures are. I’m sending you what we’ve managed to decode of both their history and the level of technological threat. This isn’t all of it, of course. I only want you to see exactly why we’re reaching out to you.

  “All of you.”

  More buttons pressed, and I could hear something being played for them. It was a bit annoying that I couldn’t see what they were seeing, but that wasn’t how sending holos worked. The projector on one side would scan everything within the field and then send it to another projector, which then created a semi-3D image that could be displayed as a flat image—like the movies of ancient times, or as an image with the standard depth of vids now.

  Finally, though, it ended, and everyone looked a bit more cowed.

  “So basically, these guys are intergalactic harvesters,” the revolutionist murmured, finally sounding like he was taking everything seriously.

  “Yes,” Mimi said, the tiniest bit of relief in her voice. “And just as before, once they take us, they will no doubt be eager to wipe out and integrate the rest of the living animals in the solar system.”

  “We still don’t know that any of this—” one of the military officials started.

  “Oh, shut up, Connors,” one of the suited women snapped. “There is no reason that they would specifically create a technology to contact us, who are most likely one of their greatest and least trustworthy enemies they have, and ask for our help. The risk is far too great unless the reward is survival.”

  “Or the reward could be them trying to destabilize what little structure we have left!”

  “For what purpose?!” she continued, her voice just as sharp. “They’re the ones that exposed the coup to us. And they left right after to go back to the home that we kidnapped them from. If they wanted to take over, they would have just taken over. And they might just do a better job than us.”

  Another man nodded. “Just look at us. We’re the only people who have been fully vetted and there could still be a couple of us who the general didn’t give up in his confession. We let our government, which is supposed to be for the people, bloat into this cancerous, corrupt beast, and it took outsiders to knock us out of it.

  “It’s time that we grew up and helped them like we always promised!”

  There was quiet for a beat and then the revolutionist was speaking. “Wow. Never thought I’d ever hear a lick of sense and responsibility come from a government mook.”

  �
��Let’s, uh…let’s not go with the name calling, shall we?” Mimi asked. “If this is going to work, we all need to be allies. We must be a force together, unintimidated and united.”

  “And how exactly do you think we should unite?” another military person asked.

  “Simple. As the planet closest to the aliens, and arguably the one who has pissed them off the most, they’re going to come here. By our calculation, in two months, three months max.

  “So, what we need is for both of you to send supplies and people to our planet. We need everything from single-man fighters to your full-blown warships, guns, engineers, demolition experts, and marksmen. We have mere weeks to plan for an invasion, and this time, they’re not just going to send a ship. They’re going to send their full armada after us.

  “And humans,” Mimi continued, her voice grave. “This victory won’t just be us protecting ourselves. Destroying the entire army that they send after us will essentially cripple their home planet. These aliens have many enemies that are scattered across the various corners of the universe. I’m sure they will be more than happy to take advantage of that weakness.”

  “So you’re saying we’d effectively be ending an intergalactic terror that’s been roving their sector of space for centuries?” That was the other revolutionist, who had been silent up to that point.

  “Yes. Exactly. There’s a whole universe of different lifeforms, not just mimics and humans, and these aliens have been systematically wiping them out and integrating them into their biologies and technologies. I say it’s time we end that.”

  “If I am understanding this correctly,” the first military person spoke again. “Then you want us to basically empty what little forces and prep we have remaining and send it to you, leaving us completely open to attack from your merry band of uprisers.”

  “Excuse us, you guys had the uprisers. We’re just the ones that brought them to your attention.

  “…violently.”

  “Enough!” the same suited woman from before snapped yet again. “I’m so tired of this. I worked my way up to council leader because I believed I would make a difference. And right now, this is the difference I’ve been waiting my entire life for.

  “So,” she said with a breath. “I vote that we help. On one condition, that is.”

  “And what is that?” Mimi asked, voice guarded as she stood up straight.

  But the woman just smirked ever-so-slightly. “We get to name these alien bastards.”

  4

  Long-Term Guests

  “The reinforcements are coming!”

  I looked up from the panel I was taking apart, hoping to find some materials that could be salvaged. Eske was beside me, taking away things when my bin got full and tossing junk when it was in the way. There in the scorched, leaning doorway was a young mimic, their skin a vibrant purple and little horns sprouted all over its head while their lower body was still an inky black.

  “It’s the Earth Gov supplies. They’ll arrive by mid-afternoon!” And then they were scampering off, no doubt to tell the others.

  “Has it really already been two weeks?” Eske asked, wiping her face with her sleeve but just smearing more grit across her face.

  “Not quite,” I said, looking down at our scanners. “Looks like twelve days. Earth Gov has improved their engines yet again.”

  Eske shook her head, clicking her tongue as she did. I had long since learned that it was a sort of tick she took on whenever she was thinking very hard, so I waited for her to gather her thoughts enough to express them. “To think, if I hadn’t fallen asleep during one of those new, experimental weapons build sessions, I never would have been here.”

  “Yeah, and your family would have never been targeted and had to go into hiding.”

  “True, but I also wouldn’t have been able to be such a huge part of history.” She saw my dubious expression and crouched down next to me, long legs taking up most of the space. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it, right?”

  I shrugged. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “Well, people like you and me... We’re always left to the sidelines of things. We’re burdens. When have we ever been in the pages of history books? Never. We’re inspirational stories, and ‘aww, isn’t that great,’ but never people that are learned about.

  “But you…you discovered life besides us and bonded with it in a way almost no one could. You made an alliance that has literally changed the course of our history forever. And me? The janitor with a head injury who’s always been a bit different from everyone else? I helped train an army. I’ve seen all of you use the hand-to-hand combat techniques I’ve taught to you. I’ve had my head shaved and been imprisoned because I was deemed essential to our side.

  “And all of that was just because I took a nap.”

  I let out a breath. I suppose that I hadn’t thought about all of that in a very long time. Strange, in the early days, our impact on history used to be a bit of a bigger deal to me, but now… Well, now I was just worried about surviving until tomorrow.

  But still, if we did survive, hundreds of years from now, would they know about me? Would they talk about me and Mimi and Gonzales in history class? Would they teach that I was different, that my mind didn’t work like a neurotypical person’s did? Or would they say I was just like everyone else?

  I hoped not.

  I could have used any sort of role model to look up to when I was younger. To know that I wasn’t useless and strange and destined to be nothing but a cleanup guy who tinkered around on mining ships in deep space. In fact, it probably would have made a huge difference in my formative years.

  If I could be that for future generations… Well. It was something to think about. Assuming all of civilization didn’t fall when the aliens arrived in our quadrant of space.

  Wait, no, not aliens. The Harvesters. I wasn’t very partial on the name, but Earth Gov had a meeting that apparently took an entire day amongst themselves and decided that was what they were going to call the big ol’ menaces in the sky.

  “So, are you gonna meet them down at the landing area?” Eske asked. “The mimics have been cleaning out a pretty good chunk of the mountain’s foot for all of them to land.”

  My gut twisted nervously. I still didn’t trust these Earth Gov folks when we had already been betrayed once before, but I guess I didn’t have much of a choice.

  Still, there were some things that we kept under wraps from them. For example, they didn’t know that I had mimicry literally grafted to my body. That was going to be harder to keep under wraps considering that my control on it was still only so-so. I supposed that in war, we couldn’t afford to keep secrets from each other, but my trust would have to be won in time.

  I shuddered and ran my hand through my hair. Its shortness reminded me of just one of the many things that had traumatized us since we’d found out about the coup. From Lazer and his very specific torture of Gonzales. From being chased halfway across the galaxy in fear for our lives. From being strapped down and having my hair forcibly shaved and then being starved and dehydrated.

  It wasn’t pleasant, and it filled me with a sort of anger that wasn’t very comfortable. I hated it. And I hated how Earth Gov made me feel.

  “Are we doing the right thing?” I asked, looking to Eske uncertainly.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think repairing our old war and tech base first was the best thing to do while we waited for their supplies to come in.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t mean that. I mean with trusting them.”

  She frowned, thinking again. “Hmm, I, uh… I guess I don’t know. But I think if Mimi thinks that this is the best idea, then we should believe her. She’s never led us wrong before, and you know that her mimic mind is way more advanced than ours.”

  “Yeah…” I murmured.

  I thought back to all of my nights in the past two weeks. I’d spent them in Mimi’s arms, cherishing what time we had together. We were construct
ing our own little fantasy life about everything that we’d do when we finally had peace. Maybe it was a little putting the cart before the horse, but it gave us something to hope for.

  Something to live for.

  “Well, we’ve got a few more hours,” I said, delving back to the panel I was scrapping. “Let’s try to finish this then head to the landing. I’m sure Mimi will be down there.”

  “Yeah, I think this is one thing that she would never miss.”

  I looked up to the sky as the several ships descended through the clouds, the bottoms red-hot from the friction. I could feel the vibrations from their engines even from where I was, and it only made my nerves increase.

  Were we doing the right thing? Were we going to regret this? Were they going to betray us before the aliens even arrived?

  The Harvesters, I reminded myself.

  I felt a hand slide into mine, and I looked over to see Mimi standing there. I hadn’t even heard her arrive, but I assumed that she had probably been instructing other mimics on what to do.

  “You ready?” I asked her, feeling guilty that I had doubted her. She had so much weight on her shoulders, far more weight than was fair, and the least I could do was support her.

  “As ready as I could ever be,” she murmured, her eyes looking up.

  More and more ship bottoms dotted the sky, and in total I counted five war vessels. That was increasing our current armada by quite a bit. I wondered if these were just ships from different locations that we didn’t steal, or if they were newer models that had been made since our last visit. I supposed I would find out eventually, depending on how this plan went.

  When they finally landed, I forced my face into a neutral state. We were lucky that our negotiations had gone so smoothly, and it wouldn’t do to meet them with aggression right out of the gate.

  Even if I so terribly wanted to.

  The spacecraft let down their ramps in unison, but most of them remained empty. It was only the second ship that had personnel coming out of it, and I counted ten figures.