“So, Bahn, Ciangi, what did you think when you first met Gonzales?”
“Um, not much really,” Ciangi said with a shrug. “We didn’t really talk to each other much until that really bad bout of pneumonia broke out on the ship. We all got placed next to each other in the infirmary and I guess you can say that the rest is history.”
“Pneumonia? I guessed I missed that.”
“It was all over about a week before you joined us. Actually, that might have been the entire reason we needed you. Our maintenance person had some serious complications and got a blood infection, so we had to drop him off at a medical station.”
“Huh,” I murmured. “That feels like it should be strange.”
Bahn shrugged noncommittedly. “Maybe it is. Maybe we were all destined to meet for this very planet and this very fight. Or maybe it was all coincidence. Either way, I’m glad that it happened, and I am now here, with all of you.”
He raised his glass, beaming at us. I didn’t think I had ever seen him smile so many times in such a short period, but it seemed the crisis was really bringing him out of his shell. A strange reaction to have, but I wasn’t complaining. “To us, and our friendship, and the journeys it has taken us on!”
“Hear, hear!” the rest of us said, raising our own glasses in a toast.
“I don’t understand,” Mimic said with an amused smile. “What is happening?”
“It’s a sort of celebration thing,” I explained, raising her hand with my free arm. “It’s called a toast, actually, and you clink glasses together after someone makes a speech or says something nice.”
“I see,” she said, clinking her glass against all of ours. “Hear, hear, indeed.”
More pleasant conversation ensued, and the minutes quickly passed until finally almost all of the food was either gone or too cold to be appetizing, and we were all just lounging around with very full stomachs.
But naturally, it couldn’t just stay calm and laid back for long. No, with the knack that only Eske had, she looked to Mimic and asked a question that was far too loaded to be answered easily.
“So, what did you think when you first met Higgens? You were a little, tiny thing, right? Was he some big, scary dude? Did you think he was going to eat you or something?”
Mimic said nothing for a moment, many emotions seeming to cross over her face, before she set down her drink and smiled slightly.
“The very first time I saw him, I was terrified out of my mind. He was some long, giant creature that I had never seen before.
“But almost immediately, I just got this sense that I didn’t need to be afraid of him. It’s hard to say exactly how or why I thought back then, my mind was so stunted from feeding only on the asteroid for goodness knows how many years.
“And then, the more we interacted, the more I knew that he was someone I would always be able to trust. That he would never want to hurt me, and would always try to do his best by me. And when I snuck into the engine room and absorbed all that extra nuclear energy that you all were just wasting, and he tried to protect me from you even though he had no idea what I was doing, I knew that he would be the closest thing to a friend I could ever hope for.”
“Wow,” Eske said with a whistle. “I wish I had a friendship origin story like that.”
“Eske,” I reminded gently, my cheeks coloring from Mimic’s words. “You literally only know all of us because you happened to fall asleep on a ship you were assigned to that we stole. If that’s not an insane friendship origin, I don’t know what is.”
“Hah, you have me there. And believe it or not, I’m eternally grateful that I did. Yes, I miss my mom and my brother, but they would be proud of what I’m doing here. And I sincerely hope that one day, when I return to them, I can tell them all of the amazing adventures that you guys have taken me on.”
“That’s an idea I can get behind,” I said, lifting my glass with the last bit of drink left in it. “To family, and to tomorrow.”
We all clinked our glasses again and finished off our carbonated drinks. After that, we lasted maybe a half an hour or so before the food sleepiness, or the ‘itis’ as a friend had once called it, settled in. With lots of hugs, high-fives, and good feelings all around, we returned to our rooms, happy and content, and perhaps for a moment forgetting just what loomed on the horizon. Mimic and I collapsed to my mattress, happy and giggling, curled into each other like our last lifelines in the world. And perhaps we were.
“I love you,” Mimic whispered, her voice almost impossible to hear.
“And I love you,” I responded, confidently for once.
Tangled up with each other, she let me pepper her face with little kisses, before we both drifted to sleep.
7
Arrival
For once, my dreams weren’t terrifying, or weighed down by the reality of our situation. They were light and full of color and the promise of things to come, which made the sharp yelling of Urdet that much harsher in my ear as he burst into our room.
“Our sensors are going off! They’ll be here within the hour!”
That got me up and I scrambled to my feet nearly as quickly as Mimic did.
“Set off the alarms, get all of our pilots to their ships, and make sure the children are herded into the tunnels below the capitol. It’s time.”
“Yes, sister!” And that was all he needed before dashing out.
I barely had time to get to our door before Gonzales, Eske, and the coin twins were dashing into the hall.
“Did I just hear what I thought I heard?” the weapons engineer asked, her eyes wide. “They’re here?”
“They are!” I said, running past her. “We need to get to the ships, ASAP.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice!”
Soon, we were all dashing toward where Ciangi had landed the fighters. Ciangi, of course, veered off at the last minute, her path being the communication array that she and Bahn had built to help with our piloting of the ships.
But what I didn’t expect was for Gonzales to suddenly turn to the left when we were almost to our rides.
“Hey, what are you doing?!” I called.
“Going onto the main battleship!” she answered.
“But what about your ship that you practiced in?”
“It’s in the hangar actually. Trust me, I have a plan!”
I wanted to argue further, and ask exactly what plan she was talking about, but she was already out of range and I needed to get into my ship. I guessed I just had to trust her. That was about the only thing we had over the aliens.
Unless they too were a merry band of misfits thrust together by impossible odds, but I doubted it.
I opened the hatch, slid in, and got my harness on just as Ciangi’s breathless voice came over the comms.
“Hey, how many of you are there now? I only show three engines on.”
“I just got in,” I answered honestly, heart in my throat. “Turning it on now.”
“Good. Does anyone else have a headcount?”
“We’re just waiting on four more,” Bahn answered, also sounding breathless. Maybe he was still clambering into his cockpit? It was hard to say; his ship was so far on the other side of our formation.
“Alright, I’m going to just fire up all of the ships and wait until I get an affirmative from all of them.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Although the pause was giving me enough time to breathe, it only made my heart hammer that much harder. Every second felt like an eon, and now that the moment had come, I was sure that we were utterly unprepared for it.
I only had seven hours of pilot training combined with what little experience I had in college. And yet I was about to engage in a cat and mouse game with a powerful alien race.
Geez, I hoped my sweaty palms wouldn’t interfere too much with my using the controls or otherwise, I was going to be in a really bad spot.
“Alright! I’ve got a check-in from every ship. Initiating takeoff now,
prepare for g-force, just like before.”
I didn’t say anything. None of us did. I could only grit my teeth and wait as the ship thrummed to life, and we began the countdown to war.
This time, instead of terrifying me, the rumble of my little ship gave me hope. Like David and Goliath, we were the simple stones in the slingshot. Hopefully, we would be just as useful in taking down the giant.
It didn’t take long for us to arc up into the atmosphere, and this time, we were much more certain as we took to space. I could see the approaching vessel on our nav display and it was truly massive. Bigger than any ship Earth could ever hope to create, and then some.
We could only hope that Bahn’s estimates held true, and Mimic’s planet wouldn’t be obliterated by some space-beam.
“Positioning you all behind the moon now. From there, you guys are going to be mostly on your own. Our algorithm should smooth out jerky motions and help with different tactical moves, but your little tutorial session will have to do the rest. If you need me urgently, press the call button at the bottom of your dash. But if all of you press it at once, there’s only so much I can do, so use it sparingly.”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Gonzales said. “Now hide the little babes with me behind the moon. Mama’s got something cooking.”
“I object to that metaphor, but okay. I’ll be setting all of your shields to low and engines to impulse while you’re there. The last thing we want is to tip off the alien to our presence before we can get the drop on them.”
“Heard,” I said, eyes flicking to all of the small ships around me. Wondering how many of us would ever touch the ground again. “We’ll keep it as quiet as we can on our side.”
“Good.”
The comm cut off and she maneuvered us into position. Then the waiting game began.
It was an incredibly unpleasant mix of boredom and absolute anxiety. Every second, I was sure that the alien ship would suddenly pull into view, but then that second passed, and the giant vessel had only moved the most painstaking, tiny blip on our nav display. I guessed that being so large meant that it couldn’t zip about like our little ships. Which made sense, considering our whole plan involved us maneuvering around them like a swarm of pestering bugs.
Sweat beaded on my brow, and my own breath rasped in my ears. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I would have thought my heart was beating four times louder than usual. It was too much adrenaline and not enough output. Against all logic, I found myself hoping that the aliens would hurry up and show so I could figure out if we all lived to see another day or not.
Then, just when I was sure I was going to have an attack of apoplexy from the anticipation, the very tip of the ship came into view from around the moon. It was different from the vessel that had crashed on Mimic’s planet all those years ago. More pointed, instead of round, it had one central body, and then two smaller parts extending to the side, almost like a triangle, but with a pretty irregular border.
“Hold steady,” Ciangi whispered over the comms, as if they would be able to hear her if she spoke too loud.
More and more ship came into view, and every time I thought it must finally be done, there was still more spacecraft to be revealed. The thing was bigger than any city I had ever seen, and I had just spent a year on Earth.
After what seemed like an eternity, it finally came to a stop over the planet. It loomed there, our own personal harbinger of doom, and sat there for a moment.
“What is it doing?” I heard one of the mimics ask, I wasn’t sure which.
“Preparing to destroy a completely unarmed civilization,” Mimic answered calmly. “Or at least, that’s what they think.”
Sure enough, I saw movement below them, just barely visible from our position behind the moon. I watched breathlessly as what looked like the biggest, most high-tech cannon slowly lowered itself from between parting plates.
“Now?” Bahn asked, sounding just as anxious as I felt.
“Not yet,” Ciangi replied shortly.
The cannon lowered even further, and in an almost comical surprise—if anything about this situation could be funny—the parts extended outward, like someone had deployed an umbrella, then shot forward, until the cannon was suddenly twice as long and glowing green.
“Now!” Ciangi cried.
Our engines all blazed to life and then we were shooting forward.
This was it, our big Hail Mary, our one-in-a-million shot, our little guys versus the big guys surprise attack. I could only do my best and hope that we all made it to see another day.
After all, I finally had something to live for.
8
Space Fight
I could feel my face pull back from my skull as my ship rushed forward, and I did my best to hold onto the controls. I was very quickly beginning to realize how incredibly stupid it was to hope that a single day’s lesson would be enough, but I guessed I was just going to have to roll with it and adapt.
The coin twins’ algorithm certainly helped, and by the time I reached the grand ship, I was maybe, sorta, kinda getting the hang of flying.
“Alright, someone get me a clean visual of that cannon so that I can program the coordinates into your weapons systems!” Ciangi cried, letting out a whoop. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was enjoying this.
“And what happens if we can’t do that?” I heard Eske ask. Not nervously, surprisingly, but incredibly matter-of-factly considering we were all in the middle of our first galactic firefight.
“Then you’re all firing manually, and real life doesn’t have friendly fire turned off, so you can see why that might be a doubly bad idea.”
“Right. Visual it is.”
We all moved forward, and I expected the ship to round on us, or vaporize all of us with a defensive ray we didn’t see. But it didn’t even react.
I supposed that was what we had been banking on. We were too small to be of much concern to them, and they couldn’t react quickly enough to our movements. We were the flies that would fly into the chinks in their armor.
Hopefully, we wouldn’t get swatted.
The closer I flew to the vessel, the more I realized that my view from the moon had not done it justice. The thing loomed like its own celestial body, filling up my entire field of view. Holding my breath, I ducked under it and the cannon was fully revealed.
“I got it! I’ve got the visual. Programming the location into your weapons systems now!”
We flew past it without doing anything the first time, then we all scattered in different directions as we turned around to pass again. The previously grayish glow was now a full-on shining light, and I could practically feel the void of space began to fill with a discharge of energy.
“Hey, I don’t think we’ve got a ton of time up here. That thing is about to fire.”
“Don’t worry,” Ciangi answered coolly, and I could hear furious typing in the background. “We have the shield up for a reason. It’s supposed to last a year against general fire. It can take a hit or two from that cannon… I just need to— I got it!” She let out a shriek that almost overloaded my earpiece. “Coordinates locked in, everyone open fire!”
Like a group of pilots that actually knew what they were doing, we converged on the weapon. Just like in our one practice, we waited until we were within range before letting loose with our firepower.
At first, it seemed like nothing was happening, that we were just hopelessly peppering the gargantuan gun and all of this was a futile distraction, but after the second past, I noticed the green light begin to flicker.
“We’re doing it, guys!” I cried.
“Don’t be too certain yet,” I heard Bahn murmur. “That cannon is bigger than anything I calculated. Let’s not let it—”
Before he could even finish the thought, the flickering emerald light flashed out in a blinding wave. I instinctively covered my eyes before remembering I needed to keep my hands on the controls, and I flailed to get them back in pl
ace before I spun off in some unintended direction.
The light cleared, and when I could see again, my breath died right in my lungs. For a single moment, there was no sound, no movement, just the illuminated cylinder in front of us.
The cannon was firing.
It almost would have been pretty if it wasn’t a means of wanton destruction. Instead of releasing a bomb, as I had expected, or a massive burst beam, it held a steady stream of virulent energy.
We all watched, stunned, as the beam just kept going and going. It was as if we were locked within a verdant spell, frozen in the raw power and fury just beyond the noses of our ships.
A booming sound and a panicked cry came over the comms, knocking me out of my reverie. It was Ciangi, who did not sound happy.
“Somebody please tell me that they are not firing a continuous beam at us.”
“I would,” I answered, my mouth dry and my tongue heavy between my teeth. “But then I would be lying.”
She let out a string of curses so impressive that I was surprised our comms didn’t combust. “Bahn, I know you had some lofty estimates, but that was allowing the engine setup we have here at least a minute between rounds to volley and recalibrate.”
“I’m well aware,” he answered dryly. “Continuous fire did not seem within the realm of possibilities. The risk of overheating, malfunction, and energy drain seemed far too great for such an advanced society to risk.”
“Well, they’re risking it, and we’re already starting to overheat down here. I don’t want to think what would happen if our setup stalls out for even a minute, so the quicker you guys blast that out of the sky, the better.”
“You do not need to tell me twice,” Mimic said, her ship rocketing forward.
That seemed to be the catalyst that shot us all into action. We swarmed as one, firing on the cannon with everything we had.
For a moment, all of space was alight with contrasting green and red. We peppered the cannon with everything, all our might, wheeling around as soon as we were past it to fire again.
Mimic Goes to War (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 5) Page 5