“No,” I said, holding up my hand. “You have to stay here.” It took a few steps back then settled down into what I assumed was a sitting position. “Alright, very good. I’ll be back in a jiffy, I promise.”
I stepped out and quickly closed the door in front of me, heaving a sigh of relief that it hadn’t tried to squirrel out.
I turned to go, pushing my cart in front of me, only to hear some sort of scuffling behind me. Looking back to my door, I saw a thin, burnt piece of metal sliding out from the minute gap at the bottom. I watched, a little amazed, a little horrified, as the long strip worked itself through until it was all the way out in the hall. From there, it popped right back into my shapeshifting friend.
“You can’t be out here!” I hissed, looking around to make sure we weren’t in view of one of the ship’s many monitors. Thankfully, as a mining ship, there weren’t a lot of security precautions along the crew quarters, and even less so on my lower floor.
It made a sound at me then clambered into my cart before shifting into my compressor rifle.
I debated for the briefest of seconds about fighting with it, but I was quickly beginning to realize that restricting where a shapeshifter could and could not go was a lost cause. “Alright then. I guess we’re making the rounds together.”
An agreeable hiccup came from my bag so I shrugged and hit the start button for the hover mechanism. Without any further ado, we were on our way.
My first task was checking the environment filters. I’d never had a problem with them so far, knock on organic matter, and I was hoping to keep it that way.
I was on edge the entire time, sure that the miners were going to come flocking down in droves to arrest me for contaminating the ship with an unapproved lifeform. I knew that I really should report it. After all, a creature with the ability to change its shape on a whim would be a huge deal to the scientific community.
Humans had been expanding their colonies for a over a century, and while we had found signs of life in the form of long extinct bacteria, all in all we were still very much alone in the universe, as far as we knew.
I also supposed I should be more freaked out about the revelation that there was other life out there, but I had always assumed there would be. I just never thought I would be the one to discover it.
“Higgens!” I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Yes?” I squeaked, hitting the button on my comm-watch.
“Ciangi just reported that there’s a weak spot on the venting in the engine output system. Said she’d like you to reinforce and patch it, just to be safe.”
“Sure, I’ll get right on that.” I clicked off then looked to the camouflaged alien on my cart. “We’re going up to where there’s going to be more crew, so promise me you’ll behave?”
It said nothing, which I supposed was a good thing, and I headed for the elevator.
Normally there wouldn’t be many people skulking around the engine output system, but Ciangi and Bahn, both galactic engine experts, liked to do an inspection every single morning. That meant they were always finding things to improve, but I would gladly take some busy work over critical engine failure any day.
They were an interesting pair. From what I had gathered, they became friends in college where they began working on a new propulsion system for space travel. Apparently, whatever they did was some impressive stuff, because they were snatched up, as a pair, by the largest research conglomerate in existence.
They had worked together ever since, sometimes mockingly being dubbed the ‘coin twins’. I hadn’t understood that particular moniker at first, but it had been Ciangi herself that explained it. She was short and blond, with curls as tight as a screw that made a halo about her head, and stacked every way from Sunday. Meanwhile, Bahn was golden-brown with pin-straight, black hair that he kept pulled back into a ponytail, an almost skeletal build, and a hyper critical gaze that could melt the toughest of alloys. Two different sides of the same coin. I still didn’t quite understand, but at least I knew.
I never would have put that together myself, but I guessed I was just terrible at observing things about people. Their faces all tended to blend together, so I mostly went by the sound of their voice. Those were as varied as the stars in the sky, and I always appreciated that.
We entered the doors quietly, my every nerve on edge, and Ciangi was standing just inside.
“Hey there, Higgens. You made it up here fast.”
“Oh you know, just trying to be efficient.”
“You alright there? You’re sweating.”
Crap, I was terrible at masking how I felt. I was… I was… What was this called? Some sort of ancient earth term, right? Ah, yes. Telegraphing. “Uh, I was doing some early morning cardio. You know, keepin’ in shape and all that.”
She shrugged. “I’ve never been much for working out. Bahn is over at the vent in question, taking some readings. Just under the coolant generators.”
“Gotcha.” I gave her a nod and kept on pushing my cart. Normally, I liked hanging around Bahn and Ciangi; they treated me much nicer than most people. Usually staff liked to act like I was either not there at all, or some sort of inconvenience. But normally I wasn’t smuggling a new alien life around a government contracted mining vessel.
I found Bahn right where Ciangi said he would be—they always had the uncanny ability to do that—and gave a little wave.
“Hey, I hear you’ve got something that needs some reinforcin’?”
The engineer looked at me before his hand pointed upward. Always a man of few words, that Bahn.
“Righto. I’ll hop on that.”
Of course, I didn’t literally hop on it, but I did put a good bit of hustle into my step. The longer I was down here, the greater the chance that something could go wrong.
I would say it took me about ten minutes to do as I was asked, using both my welder and a little insta-hard sealant that I always kept stocked on my belt. The stuff was fantastic. It could even repair a cracked hull for a short time, given a large enough supply.
I returned to my cart, whistling a bit as I slung my bag into it, only to cut off the tune abruptly.
Where had the other bag—aka Mimic—gone?
“Uh, hey Bahn, you got anything else you need done?”
“No. That should be good.”
“Um, I’m just gonna take a look around.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“No such thing as being too careful! I’ll be back in a jiffy!” I rushed away, my heart going a mile a minute. Why hadn’t I put a leash on Mimic, or something? Not that a leash would work against a shapeshifter, but I supposed it was the thought that counts.
“Mimic,” I hissed, ducking under some tubing. “Mimic!”
I heard a chittering and looked up to see a flash of black spike retreating over one of the refinery tanks. “Dammit, how did you get all the way up there?”
I looked around to see how I would shimmy up. I spotted a ladder leading up to the mid-level catwalks and rushed toward it, climbing as quickly as I could in my jumpsuit. Once I was up on the landing, I could see Mimic making a beeline for the radiation dampener.
“Oh no…” If anything happened to the radiation dampener, that could cause a radiation leak, and a radiation leak could cause a whole lot of radiation sickness. “That’s bad.”
I ran down the catwalk, hoping I wasn’t making too much noise. I caught up with it and jumped over to the gangway that lead to the radiation dampener. There was a walkway to take, but it was far too slow.
I stuck the landing then looked around, but the little critter was fast. I couldn’t spot it anywhere! Panic was setting in, making my forehead break out in a cold sweat. Had I just doomed the entire ship by releasing some sort of malevolent alien creature in the bowels of our ship? How could I be so stupid?
I heard a crumpling sound and dashed toward it, praying as I ran. I arrived at the edge of the dampener just in time to see a long, thin piece of cording forc
e its way into one of the welding divots.
“No!” I groaned, rushing forward and trying to catch the tail end. But it was too late, the last of it slipped in and I could only watch as Mimic popped into its natural form and trundled toward the radiation core.
My stomach dropped out of my feet and I pressed myself to the dampener. I felt like I was watching my death happen in slow motion… probably because I was watching my death happen in slow motion. How was this gonna go? Was it going to blow up the entire ship in revenge for destroying its home? Squeeze its way through the other side of the radiation core and into the actual lightyear drive, sending us hurtling out of control through the subspace streams? The possibilities were practically countless, each one more gruesome than the last.
Mimic reached the center of the blinding, shielded mass and my eyes flicked to the readout panel. But instead of seeing an energy spike, or some other form of alert, I saw the radiation output go down.
I blinked, rubbed my eyes, then looked again. Sure enough, the meter was going lower and lower and lower. Which was great. Ships had long since moved away from their nuclear-powered engines, moving onto anti-matter propulsion. However, the process most often used generated massive amounts of radiation. Naturally something needed to be done about all that hazardous material being generated, hence the radiation core that gathered the harmful rays and stored them for use as discharges and weapon blasts. Overloading the core was always an issue, leading to emergency dumping procedures, so the quickly dropping reading was a good thing.
Granted, we didn’t want it to get too low. Having no nuclear energy meant no back-up weapon’s system and wasn’t exactly the best set up for traveling through uncharted space. I watched as the reading dove and dove until finally it was about to drop to dangerous levels.
“Hey, Mimic,” I called, knocking in the dampener. “You need to stop now.” I pressed my face against the barrier, trying to see what was happening within the semi-translucent material. I couldn’t be sure, but I was fairly certain it stopped.
It made a happy chittering sound and began walking back toward me. As it approached, I realized that my little companion was not so little anymore. The closer it got, the bigger and bigger it grew, until it was now in the large dog/tiny pony territory.
“Oh geeze, Mimic.” I groaned. “Why do I get the feeling that this is a very bad thing?”
“What’s going on here?”
I whipped around, letting out another startled screech, to see Ciangi standing at the foot of the ladder, eyeing me curiously. “W-what do you m-mean?” I sputtered.
“I got an alert of low radiation. You notice anything?”
I looked behind me and instead of seeing my ever-growing friend, there wasn’t anything at all. “Uh… no. I spied the reading on my walk around and thought it was super odd but I don’t really know what that means.”
“Normally it means a radiation leak.” She held up some sort of device that made several beeping sounds before a steady ring. “But I’m not detecting anything. Huh.” She hit a button on her own comm. “Bahn, have you been testing your radiation scrubber?”
“No. I’m still in prototype phase.”
“Huh.” The blond woman pulled at one of her curls, her eyes narrowing as she regarded the entire set up. “Do you mind clearing out? This is important and I want to run some tests.”
“Uh, y-yeah. Sure. I will clear out and go about my maintenance duties, like a good worker is supposed to. That’s me.”
“…okay?”
I rushed back to my cart, feeling like the world was crashing around me. Somehow, someway, I had to find a way to find a shapeshifting alien who was loose on the ship without alerting anyone else in the entire crew.
This day was not going how I had envisioned it at all.
4
FRIENDS IN UNUSUAL PLACES
I spent hours scouring the ship for any sign of Mimic. The hardest part was pretending that I was cleaning the entire time so I wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. I was sure at any moment the alarms would sound and the ship would be on high alert.
When I finally returned to my room, close to ten hours later, I was exhausted both physically and emotionally. I was sure that I had doomed the entire crew to their untimely deaths, and I was composing my confession over and over in my head. I could only hope that they would have mercy on me because I was just a stupid janitor when I was court-martialed. Could a civilian be court-martialed? I wasn’t really sure.
I slid my ID to open my door, only to have something massive and black rush at me. Once more I yelped and jumped backward before my brain was able to recognize my missing companion.
“Mimic!” I cried, recovering enough to shove it back into my room and slam the door behind us. “Do you know how long I’ve been searching for you?”
It trilled and shook what I thought might be its backside at me. If I didn’t know better, I would think that it was wagging its tail at me. Except for that part where it didn’t have a tail. It trilled at me again then jumped up and down several times before nudging at my thighs. It was insane how much bigger it was now that it had eaten again, which made me wonder what else it would need to chow down on and exactly how big it was going to get.
I collapsed on my bed, letting out a long sigh. What was I going to do?
Mimic seemed to pick up on my frustration and jumped onto my bed next to me. It weighed quite a bit more than last time, causing me to bounce up several inches. I flailed a bit, and I felt a spike slice across my hand.
“Ow!” I hissed, pulling my hand to me. I saw there was a slight, almost papercut-like slice on the back of my hand. “Whoops.” I remarked, wiping it on my jumpsuit.
Mimic let out a panicked warble and froze, multiple spikes shooting out from its surface.
“Whoa, calm down there fella,” I urged before laughing slightly. “I’m fine. I promise.” For being a faceless, featureless, multi-angled creature, it sure was cute.
I settled myself and Mimic scooted onto my lap, almost purring. The sound relaxed me and I soon found my eyelids growing heavy. It was so funny that after all the stress throughout the day, and utter certainty that I had just ruined my life, it melted away in the presence of my new friend. I guess that’s what I had been missing for so long.
Logically, I knew it was a bit strange for me to be so attached to something I had only known for about two days, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like the alien was depending on me, and it was really nice to matter.
As if reading my mind, it let out a warbling coo and retracted all of its spiky limbs. I smiled, and rested my face against its hard, cool skin. Curled together, we drifted off to sleep.
I SLEPT BETTER than I had in ages, and when I finally drifted to consciousness, I felt great. I was still curled on my side, and I felt the warmth of Mimic pressed against me.
I stretched, then curled my arms back around the alien. Except… they were much softer and squishier than Mimic was supposed to be.
“Did you shift into a pillow again?” I mumbled, rubbing the crust from my eyes before opening them.
It took me a minute for my vision to clear as I sat up, and I yawned egregiously loud. I heard a trill and went to pat the angled, multi-faceted back of my friend.
But instead of solid surface, I felt soft, smooth skin.
“What the hell?!”
I finally came to fully and looked down beside me to see there wasn’t an inky shapeshifter. Instead there was a fully grown, fully nude woman.
I screamed again. I should probably stop doing that. I sat there, frozen for a moment, before hurriedly slapping a hand over my eyes. “Sorry!”
I heard another trill and felt something move toward me. Peeking between my fingers, I saw the woman had sat up as well, and her face was just an inch or so away from mine.
I snapped my fingers back in place. Sure, I enjoyed watching naked people on the net every now and then, but this seemed very intrusive.
I felt very warm,
smooth hands grab my wrists gently then pull them away. I dropped them, and came face to face with the unknown woman.
She was small, but there was a decided squareness to her features. Her hair was white and short, while her eyes were depthless black. Her face drew even closer, and when she was less than a breath away, she let out a low trill.
“Mimic?” I gasped, completely shocked.
She made the same noise again and I felt a strange mix of excitement and horror. “You shifted into a human? You can do that?”
She didn’t answer, instead rolling off the bed and standing. I slammed my hands over my eyes again, only to hear her rummage around. I heard things clattering to the floor, and then fabric rustling and then a zipper being closed. I risked another look to see that she had dressed herself in one of my jumpsuits. It was much too big on her, but I couldn’t care less.
“How did you…” I murmured. “You… you knew to get dressed.”
Such a simple gesture, and yet it meant so much. Yes, Mimic was a shapeshifter with some sort of consciousness, but I had assumed it was animalistic in nature. Like a dog, or horse. However, the fact that she knew that she needed to wear clothing as I did, and had watched me enough to know where I kept my clothes and how to put them on, meant that she most likely was a fully realized, self-aware entity.
“You’re sentient!” I blurted, the words barely getting out of my mouth.
She tilted her head, her mouth moving as if she was speaking, but no sound came out. I supposed I couldn’t be surprised about that, considering it was ridiculous to expect her to know English.
“This is crazy! Do you know what this means?” More mouth moving, but no sound. “I mean, you probably do. Man, I wish we could talk to each other. Are you a genius? Are you smart enough to make me seem like an ant? Are you like a child? A very primitive form? Who knows! Not me, that’s for sure.”
I felt my excitement bubbling up, tripling down on itself so hard that I had to start pacing. I was prattling on, not even sure if I was speaking words anymore, but when I turned Mimic was no longer standing in the center of my room.
Mimic and the Space Engineer (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 1) Page 2