“But then you guys were there, and you fought so hard to stop him.” She closed her eyes, and it was almost as if I could see the memory replaying over her head. “Your cell was right across from mine, so I remember you trying to push through that barrier, slamming into it with all your might like your sheer willpower was going to break it down. You screamed for me, you tried to draw his attention away, even though you knew he was going to hurt you—badly. When I was being hurt, it was like nothing in the world mattered to you.”
I wanted to tell her that was because it didn’t. She was my friend that I loved very dearly and seeing anyone I loved hurt was the worst torture I had ever endured. But I knew that this wasn’t my time to speak. It was hers. And the least I could do was listen until she was fully done.
“And afterwards, when my nightmares were the worst, you would hold me. You would be the one to listen and tell me it was alright. But there wasn’t any pity in any of it. You didn’t look at me with those sappy, sympathetic gazes that everyone else had. You just treated it sort of matter of fact. Like I had broken my arm and just needed a splint, and this was to be expected. It was…refreshing, to be honest. And I’ll always appreciate that.
“But I think that was right about when I hoped that maybe there could be something for you and me. How could you look at me the way you did and truly not feel any of the feelings I had? I started to get a bit jealous of alien-face. Maybe even resent her a little. What did she have that I didn’t?”
Gonzales snorted at that. “Obviously I wasn’t thinking clearly. That woman is practically a god in inky flesh, and I’m just a girl from the slums with trust issues.
“So yeah, when you two confessed your love to each other and I realized there was never going to be room for me, ever, I needed space. So I left. Even when I came back, looking at you hurt me. Sometimes, looking at you still hurts me.”
She sighed and stood up, wiping her hands on her pants. “So, I figure it’s time to finally give all of that up. I know that friendship is all we’ll ever have because Mimi and you seem to be utterly made for each other. But still…”
She took a step towards me, her tanned hands reaching up until they were gripping my lapels. Her fingers traced along them a moment, her breath shaking, and all I could do was look at her curiously.
“Or at least my mind knows that. But my heart? My heart keeps right on wondering.” She stood on tiptoes and I could feel her breath upon my face. I knew that if I objected, she would immediately stop, but I didn’t.
And then her lips were on mine.
It was an uncertain kiss, with little pressure and a whole lot of questions, but I didn’t object to it. I knew what this was. It was an answer to a question that she needed the resolution to.
Just as soon as it had begun, it stopped, and she dropped back down onto the soles of her feet. “Huh. Well, that answers a lot, doesn’t it?” Gonzales sighed and stepped back. “Thank you for giving me that closure. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a walk now. I’ll see you…in a day or two.”
“…see you,” I murmured weakly, giving her a little wave.
She walked off deeper into the forest and all I could do was watch her, still in a bit of shock from everything that had happened. One day, when I had the time, I would sit down and actually analyze everything that had gone on between us with fresh eyes.
But for now, I supposed there was a lot of work to do.
Heaving a sigh, I went back to work on our main base of operations. At least there I mostly knew what I was doing, and I would be a bit of a wrench monkey for all the engineers. Goodness knew preparing for battle against a giant alien armada seemed a whole lot easier than explaining to Mimi why I had let my friend kiss me.
…maybe there was a thing or two that Mimi didn’t need to know.
6
Tick Tock Goes the Ancient Clock
“I’m just saying that if we reconfigure your energy source like the alien ship’s that you’ll have twice as much power and strength for the shield without risking any sort of overload. And if there even is an overload, apparently you have an entire army of little alien creatures who are happy to eat it and then grow into super-powered weapons.”
“About that,” Urdet said wearily. Since we had last been taken by humans it seemed the most government-minded of the advanced mimics had done quite a lot of growing. While he was the same age physically, he seemed to understand human manner much more and didn’t question every other thing that came out of one of their mouths.
“We’re not sure that is a great idea. We have been monitoring our vitals as best we can, and it seems that those of us who ingested the spill-off radiation and forced rapid growth actually have certain cellular microtears that those who did not ingest do not have. The more run-off that’s been absorbed has resulted in more of these tears along with a slightly increased rate of cellular degradation.”
I jolted at that instantly. It had been a full month since both the revolutionaries and the government had started working with us on our planetary defenses and even more had arrived since. Two ships from the government and a smaller mining ship from the other side of our merry trio. But the real gain was in people. There were a little over a thousand of us now, all building and learning together with the fifteen thousand or so mimics that were left. It was a strange and very intense crash course in assimilation, but for the most part, we got along.
Although that might have just been because we didn’t have time to get into fights or waste a single drop of energy on conflict. Everything was either training, building, repairing, or scrapping. If someone had an idea that would add an iota of defense, it was usually put into action. Just the organization of it all was intense, and the strategists dedicated most of their time to keeping the base team, the troop team, the space team, and the pilot teams all rotating efficiently.
It would have been easier if everyone could have stayed in one spot or everyone could move in the same pattern, but it didn’t work that way. The core team of engineers would stay planet-side in the base, but a chunk was being added to two-man fighters or the warships to perform in-battle repairs—a harrowing and deadly job. They split their time between repairing and rebuilding and learning every single in and out of the ship they were assigned to.
Then the rest of the engineers were up in space, integrating the defenses we were hoping would narrow down the Harvester numbers. They needed longer up there to get anything accomplished, but then they too had to come down to Earth and work on the ships that they would be assigned to.
The soldiers were much the same, busy learning how to fight with mimics and use their unique anatomy to their advantage, building barricades, and teaching how to properly use the munitions they brought to everyone else. Their weapons were far more advanced than anything we had used before and I was glad for the several lessons I had.
So on and so forth it went, and yet somehow we were running like a well-oiled machine. The fact that we had repaired our central hub enough to re-erect the cannon that we stole, and its corresponding shield, was a great accomplishment.
But all of those warm and fuzzy feelings of getting things done faded as Urdet’s words sank over my brain.
“Are you saying that the mimics who’ve absorbed radiation are sick?” I asked, voice sounding strange in my own ears.
That couldn’t be possible.
Mimi would tell me that.
Wouldn’t she?
She wouldn’t keep that from me…
“No, of course not,” Urdet said. “I am merely stating that we have observed a trend that has caused a concerning reaction in us. We do not yet know the consequences of said damage and we also are not stating that we wouldn’t do it again. I am just merely proposing that we do not count on our ability to absorb great amounts of energy as a matter of course.”
“Right…” I murmured, my world spinning.
Mimi was damaged.
How many times had she absorbed radiation run-off? Mor
e than I could even remember. That was the whole thing that allowed her to become sentient and shift into a human form. But was it gained too quickly? And what did that mean for her? What did that mean for us? I had her alien DNA grafted to my body.
“Uh…Higgens?” Ciangi whispered, grabbing my hand in and hauling it into her lap.
Surprised, I looked over to her to see that my skin was starting to ripple and buck. Goodness, that hadn’t happened in quite a while. Breathing through my nose, I forced myself to calm down.
“Alright,” the same engineer said that had spoken before. “Point taken. We need to make sure the output dampener and reservoir chamber are capable of handling the load. Fine. I still think this is the best way to wo—”
A loud alarm went off, and the engineer let out a cry.
“Now what?” she snapped, looking at the holoscreen booting up behind us. A few moments later, we could see the face of one of the military leaders looking anxiously at us.
“What’s going on?” another engineer asked, clearly much calmer than the first woman who was speaking. “Did someone lock themselves in the officers’ head?”
“Officers’ head?” Urdet whispered questioningly, flicking through his datapad as if he was looking for notes. “Is this slang for a mental illness?”
“It means toilet,” Gonzales said, snickering slightly from where she was draped over her chair. I risked a glance in her direction and she just gave me a wink which made me blush furiously.
Goodness, I was going to need to get over that if I ever wanted things to be normal between us again. If they ever could be. It was very strange to know that someone like her had ever loved someone like me. I didn’t know if I was lucky or if they were just unlucky that amazing people like them had feelings for me.
“No. I’m sending you a report now. The sensors on the alien ship went off up here, and I think you’d like to know what they saw.”
Instantly whatever levity or relaxation there had been in the mood of the room vanished and it was almost as if we were all holding our breath at once. The holo projector finished booting up, then we were looking at a fairly simplistic map of the entire system we were in.
And we weren’t alone.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, a red blip started to slide in at the top of the holo-field. I didn’t need to read the analytical data flashing along the bottom to know exactly what it was.
A Harvester ship.
My throat caught as it fully emerged from where it came from and onto our screen. But still…one ship wasn’t that bad. I could guess by the size of its representation that it was probably bigger and more weapon-capable than the ship that we had stolen from them, but not by too much. Still…after we had been such a thorn in their side, it didn’t seem likely that the aliens would just send a single ship to deal with us.
Just as I thought that, the tips of two more ships appeared behind them, lengthening and lengthening until they too were fully visible.
And then three more ships behind that.
Then four more behind that.
On and on it went until there was a full triangle formation of Harvester mega warships coming to wipe us out.
“Well,” Gonzales murmured after a long and breathless pause from all of us. “It seems like our alien friends are ready to have a real party.”
That seemed to break the tension, and suddenly everyone was talking at once.
“Defense is clearly our greatest priority right now.”
“We don’t have the capabilities of taking on an armada that huge!”
“Each one of their ships is like three of ours, and we only have eleven!”
“I don’t know how, but we need to make some bigger guns.”
But all of that furor simmered down as the door open and someone coolly cleared their throats.
We all looked over to see Mimi, standing in the doorway with a collected expression. “I see you’ve heard the news,” she murmured, stepping into the room.
While Mimi was certainly handy in a pinch and quite intelligent, we had decided with all of the specially-trained engineers we now had at our disposal that she would lead and manage the mimics like more of a military leader. After all, there wasn’t really anyone who could inspire and motivate them like she could. But even so, I was incredibly appreciative of seeing her in front of me.
“Yeah,” one of the older engineers groused. “But how did you see it?” Some of the humans were still a bit wary of the mimics. Not that I could blame them. They’d been fed a lot of propaganda about us and that wouldn’t be easily forgotten.
Us?
I guessed I kinda was a mimic now. I hoped that eventually I would have some time to think about what all that meant.
But Mimi just pointed calmly to her scanner. Ah, Bahn really had built us a catch-all tool. Maybe if we all survived, he’d share that tech with Earth Gov.
Probably not.
“I know that we were hoping for less, perhaps ten to fifteen, but I fully believe that we can win this battle.”
“How?” one of the engineers asked. Barry maybe? Larry? Harry? Why were human names so similar? “Even if every single one of our plans worked, we still probably only have the capabilities to take on a dozen or so of those things—and that’s if everything goes exactly right.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m not so certain on our chances here. I wouldn’t even give us a fifty-fifty shot.”
“I understand that,” Mimi said, still just as cool as ever as she sidled beside me. “And I trust your opinions as experts. So if you say we can only handle a dozen, then we can only handle a dozen.”
“So that’s it then?” Ciangi asked curiously. Like me, she could feel that something was up. It had been a while since Mimi had done anything dramatic. Maybe it was time for her to show that particularly human flair again. “We just give up?”
“Not at all,” Mimi said with a wan smile. “If the verdict is that we can only handle twelve ships, then we make sure that only twelve ships actually get to this planet.”
“What?” the original engineering woman spoke. “What do you even mean?”
“What I mean,” she said, calling up a vid of some very old earth documentaries on war. Explosions were everywhere, and I was taken aback for a moment at the ancient and rudimentary carnage. “Is we make sure that eight of those ships never make it here.”
Her eyes flitted to the holo projector and took in all the data. “I’m estimating that we have one month until they arrive. Do the rest of you agree?”
There was a series of affirmative responses all around the table, and Mimi’s smile grew brighter.
“Good. They say that history is always repeating itself, so I thought I might borrow some from you humans since ours is so short. So…” Her hand slid into mine and I swore I felt some of her determination and optimism flow into me. “Are you all ready to get started on phase two?”
7
Beginning Phase Two
I stood at my console in our main command hub, one of the cannon’s metrics and controls arranged all around me. It had been thirty-four days since the aliens arrived in space, and they were coming within communication range of our planet.
Which meant it was time.
We had all spent thirty-four days preparing everything that we could. There was no stone unturned, no violent resource that we didn’t exhaust. We had traps and plans and training out the wazoo.
One thing was for certain: even if we failed, we weren’t going down without a fight.
But I didn’t want us to go down in flames. I wanted us to win, I wanted to hold Mimi and have that magical family with her, and for all of my friends to know what it was like to wake up in the morning and know that there wasn’t anyone coming to kill them.
I wanted peace.
And maybe, just maybe, we were on the cusp of having it.
My palms began to sweat as I gripped one of the levers in front of me and the large aiming toggle. Our weapons team had ma
naged to construct two smaller cannons that mimicked the function of the larger one that we had stolen. While they weren’t generating a shield to protect our city, nor could they punch a hole through one of the ships, they would still do quite a bit of damage. I just had to be careful that I didn’t accidentally commit friendly fire and destroy one of my allies.
Maybe I shouldn’t have volunteered for this position, but it was the only place where I was really needed. All of the small fighters were manned by mimics, with the two-person ones carrying an in-battle repair engineer. The reasoning was that they were the only ones who could really survive the vacuum of space and most explosions. All of them had ingested a tracker so that if they did get flung off into the void, we would be able to go find them.
Assuming, of course, that we were victorious.
And as for the warships, they all had military personnel piloting them and managing their own weapons systems. While Gonzales had managed to get established as the captain of one of them, I certainly didn’t have the skills for that either.
Mimi and Eske were with the ground troops along with Eva, armed to the teeth and set up behind many barriers, smokescreens, and other traps that would hopefully push the odds in our favor.
The only way I would end up in the battle on the ground was if phase two and three of our planned work. And when we ran the simulations, even under the best conditions, our plan only worked a third of the time.
Those weren’t great odds.
But as I held onto my cannon’s controls, I couldn’t help but hope that it would be enough.
“I have a reading,” Aja’s crackling voice came over the comms. We had an order for silence except for necessary updates relevant to the phrase we were on, and so far, only Aja and Mimi were supposed to talk. “Looks like they’re about to reach our outer rim of defenses.”
Mimic: The Space Shifter Chronicles Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 71