Ciangi’s voice buzzed over all of our comms. I swallowed, sitting up in my bunker. Mimi had already left, going back to her leadership position hours ago, but I could still feel her pressed against me. I swore to myself that I would feel that again. No matter what.
“Everyone up to their ships! Remember to prime them, but do not engage your engines until my mark.”
A curious order, but more of our strategy. We didn’t want the Harvesters to know exactly how many ships we had until the last possible second. Our only saving grace in this entire conflict was the element of surprise, and we were going to milk each and every second of it we could.
At first, we weren’t sure our plan would be possible. Wouldn’t the ships just fire on our planet and overwhelm our shield before even getting into orbit? But we came up with a bit of an idea to delay them.
And now that there were only ten of them instead of a dozen, I was more hopeful than ever that our strategy would work.
“I show their weapons are engaging,” Bahn said.
It sounded like the two were in the bunker with me, but I knew that they were in the center of our hub with the cannon, running all of the screens and input from all the different sensors. While they hadn’t had much to do besides calibrate the systems we had planet-side, now was their time to shine.
“Can you tell their aim yet?”
“No, not quite— Ah. They’re taking the bait.”
“Yes!” I heard someone hiss who shouldn’t have been talking. They shut off their feed quickly, but I couldn’t help but agree with them.
But maybe that was because our bait was the same alien ship that we had stolen.
Well, at least it was the outside of the alien ship—minus all of the useful weaponry, of course. We had stripped that thing bare and repurposed it into all of the rest of our plans and figuring out just what kind of weaknesses that we could exploit.
What it was filled with now was a buttload of EMP charges.
“They’re opening fire!”
Our planetary shield blazed to life, cloaking that entire hemisphere just as the Harvesters’ weapons slammed into the vessel.
I assumed that usually their vessels could take a whole lot more damage, but usually their ships weren’t reduced to barely-functional carcasses. The firing hit true and my scanner’s field once more flashed white as the ship exploded in an electrical, fiery blaze.
“Ships engage now! Activate exit protocol! Now!”
I could feel our entire base shake as all eleven of our improved warships took to the atmosphere. While most of the engineers had been working on defenses and rebuilding, there had been a very select crew that had worked hand-in-hand with all of the maintenance folks and mechanics to integrate all the bonuses and advancements we had learned from the Harvester ship into our own technology.
I looked to my screen to see that the remaining ten Harvester ships had indeed been affected by the EMP, and the readings on my scanner indicated that they were doing total system reboots. We had learned from testing our own ship that it would take at least fifteen minutes.
Unfortunately, even at our absolute fastest, it took our ships ten minutes to get into space and firing range, which meant that we only had five minutes to do what we needed.
And that was personally shoot off each and every external cannon while also delivering a virus to the ships that would disable their main internal firing system.
…boy, our plan was complicated.
But the ships made it into space right on time, and Mimi was giving orders again.
“Release the fighters!”
Boy did they. All of the landing bay’s doors opened at the same time and hundreds upon hundreds of lighter, faster ships zoomed towards the sitting ducks.
My screen filled with light again as most of the ships focused on the gunnery. This was their sweet spot, as the ships couldn’t turn their cannons to target them and also couldn’t open their own hangar doors for their fighters. It was five full minutes of absolute carnage.
But of course, that wasn’t enough. There was a small cadre of twenty or so fighters that were absolutely covered in inky blackness. They pulled right up to the gaping barrel of death that was the chute that lead to the internal cannons and that inky blackness broke into hundreds of mimics that scurried inside of the tube.
I held my breath. If their power came back early, or if they found a way to fire their inner weapons without their systems up, then we were going to see massive casualties. I just had to hope those little ones could find the same connection port that was on our vessel and upload the virus that our data-specific engineers had come up with.
“You’ve got three minutes,” Ciangi said. “I recommend all ships pull back at the thirty-second mark because these guys are gonna be pissed.”
“Roger, roger,” one of the human pilots said. I knew there had to be a whole lot of radio chatter between the mimics up there, but they were on their own channel. It wouldn’t do for all of us human to hear a non-stop stream of squeaks, chirps, trills, and barks, but I couldn’t help but wonder what all of them were thinking. Was Pyjek up there? Or Nyiel? Or were they on the ground?
My stomach twisted at the thought of any of the little ones being in danger, but I supposed that this was what I had to get used to for just a little while longer. Then, finally, we could all rest.
“Two minutes until estimated reboot. Mimi, can you hop on your younglings’ channel and tell them to hurry it on up?”
“On it.” She was silent for several long seconds until her voice came back. “The port isn’t in the same place.”
“What do you mean it isn’t in the same place?” Ciangi exclaimed.
“I mean that—”
“I know you’re about to just repeat the same thing back to me so let’s cut that off. Can they tell you what they’re seeing?”
“Mostly just darkness. There’s five or so faint energy signatures but none of them lead to a port. They’re searching everywhere.”
“Alright, alright, so this is a newer model,” Ciangi murmured, and I could almost hear her brain churning. It was so hard not to say anything, but I knew this wasn’t the time. I had to trust. I had to believe that my friends could do this. “That means they’ve improved it. What would have improved the weapons system that we had?”
“Well, there was an obnoxiously long cooldown time,” Bahn offered. “If I was trying to engineer an upgrade, I would deal with that first.”
“That’s it!” Ciangi cried. “They cooled it down! Tell the younglings to look for the coldest spot! They would have the port and dampeners right next to whatever they used to keep it from overheating!”
There was silence again, then Mimi was back. “They’ve found it.”
“Good, because they’ve got one minute until those things boot up, and I’m starting to get some energy signatures. Tell them to get the hell out of there!”
“All troops draw back into a defensive line!” I heard Mimi order across all channels. “The real battle’s about to start!”
One of the pilot’s voices came over the radio. It was completely unfamiliar, so I assumed it was one of the humans.
“Uh, none of your children have left the chute yet.”
“What?” Ciangi asked.
Screeches and sounds issued from Mimi’s mouth, and I assumed that was an intense warning to the younglings.
“Oh! I see them coming!” one of the pilots cried.
“Thirty seconds! Get out of there! Get out of there now!”
“Hold on,” the pilot said. “They’re almost to us.”
“Hurry,” Mimi whispered. “Please, my babies. Hurry.”
“They’re almost here. Almost…”
My heart was in my throat and I was so sure that we were about to see hundreds of mimic children die. But then I heard a shout of victory.
“They’re out! They’re on me now!”
“Good, then get the hell out of there because I read that they’re booting up right now!”
“Roger, over and out!”
I watched on my scanner as they zoomed away, the ships blazing to life and their gun barrels beginning to glow with power. I was so certain that they weren’t going to get away, but then the barrels began to burn orange. Then red. Then a powerful white-blue.
And then, just when it was time for them to fire, the light fizzled out entirely.
“I show one hundred percent virus integration!” one of the engineers cried.
“Good. Prepare for fighter-to-fighter battle. And cannons, it’s time to ready. You’re about to have a whole lot to do.”
“Ready,” I said, with the other gunner echoing me. Apparently, they were a marksman from Earth, but I didn’t know them personally.
With almost uncanny timing, the hangar doors of the ten ships slammed open and hundreds upon thousands of ships poured out in a blaze of small-ship gunfire.
Our own fighters formed a line behind our warships, who formed a solid line of defense. They opened fire in our own blaze and I readied my cannon, waiting for a good shot. As hard as our engineers had worked on them, they still had a cooldown period between shots, and I couldn’t afford to mistime anything.
The sky lit up in a blaze of fire. Our warships closed in on the ten gunless ships while our fighters took on the Harvesters’ smaller ships.
“The Harvesters are starting their landing initiative! They’re trying to get planet-side,” Ciangi hissed.
“We can’t have that happen,” Mimi said. “We’re equipped to handle the three or four that we planned. Ten will decimate us all.”
“Gunners, focus on their bellies,” Bahn said heatedly. “That should be where several of their landing mechanisms should be.”
I nodded and gripped my controls, aiming the cannon at the closest ship. “All fighters, clear coordinates in green on our navs. I’m about to fire in three seconds!”
I watched my clock count down in the trio of clicks and then squeezed the trigger as hard as I could. I felt a slight jerk from my controls and then my own screen showed a bright beam of light shooting up into the sky and out of the atmosphere.
I watched as it hit true and the ship sputtered for a split-second before continuing its descent.
“Dammit,” I hissed to myself before waiting the necessary cooldown and firing again.
My world faded to just firing, firing, firing as soon as I could. I kept my eyes on the readings, I made sure I didn’t aim at my own people, and I shifted my fire from each ship in an effort to slow them down.
The warships upstairs were going just as hard, flying in repeated swoops, trying to take out more targeted systems. I tried to keep my eyes on the fighters, but there were far too many to count.
But what I did see was a very specific count slowly rising in the corner of my display. It was the ships lost count, and one I hoped to keep at zero. Every single digit on that readout meant that a mimic and maybe also a human was now floating somewhere in space, hoping that we would win and then come to save them.
I hated it. I hated the thought that what were essentially children were fighting a war after being starved and used for centuries. I wanted this all to be over.
I felt tears in the corner of my eyes, but I forced myself not to wipe them away. Not even to blink. I had a job to do.
I fired.
And fired.
And fired again.
Every second that I could take an important shot, I did, and soon my screen started to glow red from all of the massive heat and electrical signatures all around us.
“Ship one is down!”
I paused my firing only long enough to swing to the next ship. I was taken over by my concentration, shutting everything else out until Ciangi’s voice cut through the wall in my mind once more.
“Ships two, three, and four are down, but we still have six of them entering our atmosphere! Warbirds, you need to get rid of at least two of those right now or you’re about to be the only survivors of this whole battle.”
Six ships? That was way too many! We would never—
I cut that thought off as I saw a very specific pattern on my control dash. One I could definitely take advantage of.
“Gunner two,” I said into the comms, breaking my radio silence for the first time since my ready. “Aim at the coordinates that I’m telling you on my count. Full charge!”
“My gun’s about to overheat. I need at least thirty seconds.”
“No time,” I snapped. “Let it overheat. If we miss this shot, we’re dead anyways.”
“Geez, no pressure.”
I punched in the coordinates to him and then lined up my own shot.
“You ready?”
“Charged and waiting.”
“On my mark! Three, two…one…fire!”
We both let out a full blast and I could immediately tell my systems were unhappy as they jumped up into the red zone all at once. But that didn’t matter. I watched my scanner breathlessly, waiting for the moment that I hoped would happen.
It would never work in space. Or even at the upper edge of our atmosphere. But since these ships were dealing with planetary entry, all of their shields were diverted to the front and top of their ships as they cut through the air. That left their bottom—where they liked to store their engine and nuclear run-off—completely exposed to a shot.
Just as I hoped, our combined blast punched straight through one ship, and then another. There was a thunderclap of an explosion and then a third one was swallowed up in the resulting explosion.
I couldn’t help it—I let out a huge whoop of victory as Ciangi’s voice burst over the comms again.
“You did it! We have three ships landing. I repeat to all troops, we have three ships landing. Prepare for ground fight!”
Grabbing my gun, I nearly vaulted out of my bunker and to my designated position at one of the protected firing balconies that we had created and camouflaged.
Phase two and three were done. Now it was time for the grand finale.
Hopefully it would be the Harvesters’, and not our own.
9
Take it to the Ground
The wind churned, and large chunks of debris landed all around us, but I steadied myself. Although we had a general idea of where these massive ships would land, they were just that: estimates. I had to wait for them to land before I could point my gun in the right direction, and every second seemed like agony.
But in reality, it only took a few breaths before they were setting down. Far too hot and heavy, they crashed into the ground more than settled on it, with the thundering sound of crunching metal filling the air and dirt flying everywhere.
I didn’t let that distract me, though. The most important thing was making sure we took out as many of those aliens as we could when they exited the ship. We wanted those on the actual battleground to have to deal with as few enemies as possible.
There were smaller booming sounds as the ramps of the ships slammed down and for the tiniest of moments, there was nothing.
And then the machines came rushing forward.
I wasn’t surprised. After our little tussle with the attacking things on the first Harvester ship we had snuck onto, we had prepared that they would no doubt have an entire army of the electronic foot soldiers to send out before risking one of their own lives. After that first battle so long ago, they knew better. They knew that we could kill them, so they were trying to mitigate their losses.
They should have thought of that before they decided to wage war with us then.
The machines rushed forward, a wave of blinding metals and lights, but that quickly ended as our old fighters—the ones that we had stolen from the research station—flew by and dropped their payloads.
I knew better than to look directly at the resulting blast, but I could still feel all the hair on my body stand right up. The distinctive sound of an EMP crackling filled our entire sky, followed by the pitter-patter of the machines falling apart, whatever technology that was h
olding them together losing its grip. Then, after that, a crunching sound as the next wave of robots stepped over their fallen brethren.
It would take the line of pilots at least five more minutes to load up more bombs and do another pass. We thought of holding back more fighters from our phase three, but that put us at too much of a disadvantage.
“Fire on the front line!”
I didn’t need a second order. I aimed my gun and started firing in a thick line across one of the ramps.
The machines fizzled and popped, one after the other, but there were just so many. They raced forward into the hail of plasma and ionic fire coming from straight ahead and above, thousands of them being ruined but thousands more taking their place. There were so many of them!
They rushed closer and closer, and just when it seemed like there was going to be first contact with the front line and the barriers there, the fighters flew over again.
More EMP bombs. More crackling. More robots falling apart. I didn’t let up firing, and neither did anybody else. The world was brimstone and ozone and burnt rubble and melting metal.
It was cacophony. I could hardly hear anything over the crunching and the thrum of all our weaponry. There was nothing to hear. There was only survival.
But then the smoke cleared, and the crunching stopped, and we realized that there were no more machines.
There was something…else, though. A sort of charge in the air that I couldn’t put my finger on. My eyes swept over the mess and the mechanical carnage, wondering if they were reconfiguring themselves or turning into bombs or some other horrific thing, but the pieces stayed dead.
It seemed that even after all this fighting with us, the aliens still hadn’t learned the power of boobytraps and surprise. Strange. They were relatively intelligent and far more advanced than we were. One would have thought that they would have picked up on it. But they—
Then Ciangi’s voice cut through the haze. “They’re firing up their shields!”
“Shields?” someone else murmured. Bahn maybe? I couldn’t tell, it felt like my brain was nutrient paste spread across too much bread. “What could they—”
Mimic: The Space Shifter Chronicles Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 73