Mimic Raises an Army (Space Shifter Chronicles Book 4)

by James David Victor

  My stomach was churning over and over as I imagined the thousands of different scenarios that could go down.

  One, Earth Gov could decide to entirely blow the station off. It wouldn’t be the first time that they hadn’t fulfilled their part of a bargain, and I found it safer to expect them to abandon anyone who trusted in them.

  Or they could send some massive fighter with a hundred employees that wouldn’t do us any good at all. While we had managed to take over the station, there had only been seven workers for us to deal with. And even Giomatti’s ship had heavily relied on us using trickery to get the entire crew off of the vessel. While we definitely had an edge to our side by having a group of shapeshifters, expecting them to take on a crew that big wasn’t just impractical, it was suicide.

  Or they could send a bunch of fighters that would look for an asteroid field and then completely turn around when they didn’t find one on their sensors.

  I was sure there were even more that I didn’t think of, but just those few options were enough.

  A knock sounded on my door, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up to see Gonzales standing in the entryway. The rest of the group either eating, showering or just unwinding before the next big upswing in action came.

  “Hey, can we talk?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said, sitting up and scooting back on the bed so she had room. “Have a seat.”

  She hesitated for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure, but then walked over and settled down.

  “What’s bothering you?” I asked.

  “I, uh, nothing specifically. I just…” She leaned forward and suddenly her golden-brown eyes were incredibly close to me. I had never taken a moment to look at them so in focus, and I realized that she had flecks of both black and green in her irises. Strange that I had never noticed that before. “You love her, don’t you?”

  I could feel my face lose its color and I swallowed hard. “Love who?” I squeaked.

  “Come on, don’t play that game. I know you’re different from other people, Higgens, and that maybe you don’t feel or interpret things the same way as everybody else, but you love that alien, don’t you?”

  I opened my mouth then closed it, then opened it again. How was I supposed to answer this?

  Yes, I cared for Mimic with each and every fiber of my being. She was as important as the light, or the air. I wanted to be her friend always, and see her succeed and be happy.

  Did…did that mean love? I didn’t know. For so long the thought that I could even have friends was impossible. Was there something more meant for me? Did I even want something more? I wasn’t sure.

  But if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t recoil at the idea. I liked holding Mimic’s hand. And I liked going to bed with her at my side and waking up with her still there. I loved the way she never relented. And how she forgave so many people who didn’t deserve it.

  “I…I think I might,” I answered finally.

  Gonzales sighed and sank back. “I thought so.” She didn’t seem angry, just disappointed, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. “Well, I wish you guys the best. I’m pretty sure she sees the sun itself every time you look at her.”

  “I… Wha—” But Gonzales was already standing up, and I thought I might see tears in those beautiful eyes of hers.

  “I should get some sleep now. You know, before the night terrors kick in. I don’t want any company, so if you hear me screaming, just let it go. I always wake up eventually.” She turned to go, although I didn’t know where to considering that I was in the secondary dorms for the crew and our prisoners were in the primary. She paused just before she was completely out the door. “You’re a really good man, Higgens, I hope you know that. And you deserve every bit of happiness you can get.”

  “I—”

  “Good night, furiendo.”

  And then she was gone, leaving me staring after her like something incredibly important had just happened but I had missed some sort of vital context.

  Settling back, I pondered over her expressions, wondering if I had somehow hurt her. But eventually, my thoughts couldn’t help but turn to Mimic, and the internal revelation I’d had about her.

  So…I might be in love. But what did that mean? And how was I supposed to tell?

  I didn’t know. It wasn’t like anyone had ever explained it to me. In fact, most of the people I had the misfortunate of interacting with regularly had been more than happy to tell me that no one would ever love me and that I should never reproduce. I had never even considered myself capable of love.

  But now… Now, I wasn’t so sure.

  I guess I could worry about it if we got back to Mimic’s home all in one piece.

  I snorted inwardly at that. Depending on what happened, I could arrive back on her planet whole only to end up heartbroken.

  …maybe I should just get some sleep while I could.

  11

  Grand Theft Spaceship

  In the end, we waited two weeks for them to arrive. It took a day and a half for them to send a message that they were sending five fighters and one repair ship. We had cheered quite a bit at that particular revelation, and our spirits had lifted considerably.

  But then there was the issue of making sure that we had everything set up for when they did arrive.

  The first thing was convincing the crew to tell us how to access their remote access to their mines. It took some considerable finessing, and an eventual show and tell from the mimics with just enough information to let them know it was serious, but their leader relented and soon we were setting up the hunks of explosive metal in an appropriate formation.

  Sure, they weren’t exactly comets, but they would come up as enough of a blip on the fighters’ sensors that they wouldn’t question our story right off the bat.

  Then there was setting one big trap in the hangar bay to make sure that we were ready when the fighters did eventually land. That in and of itself was a whole ordeal, and I wasn’t sure whether the mimics were a help or not considering how many questions they asked seemingly nonstop.

  I had thought it many times, but I was only reminded more and more of how Mimic had the patience of a saint. I mean, yeah, she had put up with me for quite a while, but fielding constant inquiries from her charges had to be exhausting, and she had been dealing with it far longer than I had.

  But eventually, the day came. We were in the middle of eating—having already served the prisoners—when an incoming hail beeped several times over the station comms. We all jumped to our feet and rushed back to the communications relay. The mimics all took on the form of the crew member that they were assigned, and arranged themselves within the view of the relay camera. After giving us a nod, Mimic hit a button on the communication relay and they were connecting with the hail from the oncoming ships.

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” Mimic breathed, sounding so much unlike herself that it was startling. “We were beginning to think that you’d forgotten about us.”

  “Negative,” the voice on the other end responded. I couldn’t see them, considering that we were behind the screen, but they certainly sounded like an intense, military type. “We are here and ready to help as best we can.”

  “You’re amazing. Really. Completely and totally amazing.”

  “No problem, ma’am. It’s our duty. Since you lot are the experts in this area, we were hoping that you could advise us on how best to aid you.”

  “Of course, of course. I’ll open our hangar bay and clear you all for landing. Again, thank you so much.”

  “Not a problem, believe us.”

  “Great. I’ll send over the coordinates now.”

  Then she turned off the comm and we all heaved a sigh of relief.

  “We did it,” Eske breathed. “Not to be repetitive, but I really can’t believe it.”

  “Hold your horses on that celebration just yet,” Gonzales said, running a hand through her hair. “We’ve still got to actually take their ship
s.”

  “But that should be easy, right? I mean, we have about a dozen sleeper traps set up in that room. There’s no way they can avoid it.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all of our insane shenanigans,” Ciangi said, “it’s that there’s always a way for things to not go according to plan, and you’ve got to be ready to deal with that.” She gave me a wink then returned her attention back to the others. “So, let’s go see how this all can go wrong, okay?”

  There wasn’t any objection, and we all headed towards the hangar bay. It wasn’t exactly a quick trip, involving several floors on the lift and a couple of halls, but we reached our pile of stuff just as the depressurization light flashed on above the hangar bay doors.

  I caught myself holding my breath once more and reminded myself to inhale and exhale on a more regular basis as we gathered our stuff. Anything left behind wasn’t going to be retrieved, and we couldn’t spare a single supply.

  “Wait, why are there two duffle bags that weren’t here before?” I asked curiously, wondering if—with all the tension—I had just been especially unobservant.

  “Because I may or may not have raided anything that might help us with our little war without hurting the crew here,” Ciangi answered. “I had to do something since Bahn wasn’t here to take up all my time.”

  “Good job!” Gonzales cheered, offering her hand up for a high-five. I had a slight moment of jealousy, but quickly knocked it down. Ever since that night in my room, the weapons engineer had been mostly avoiding me. I gave her what space I could, but I couldn’t help but wonder what was bothering her.

  Ciangi smiled for a second, but then her face fell. “Do you think he’s alright?”

  “Oh, for sure,” Eske said, clapping the smallest of the women on the back. “And if you think about it, he’s having a way better time than you.”

  She smiled and looked to the hangar bay. “I hope so. But let’s get these ships so we can find out for sure.”

  “You won’t have much longer to wait,” Mimic murmured, her face practically pressed to the viewing window. “They’re landing.”

  We all tensed at that and readied ourselves around the door.

  “You have the sleeper charges, Ciangi?”

  “Oh no, I totally—”

  “Forgot them at home, I know, I know.” I said. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Get ready.”

  “Just give me the word.”

  I nodded and joined Mimic. Sure enough, we could see that the ships were already all in the hangar, landing in different parts of the large room.

  To be honest, I was impressed that there was enough room for all of them. While the hangar bay was large, it wasn’t nearly the biggest I had been in. We were lucky. If some of them had had to wait outside, our plan would never have worked.

  That was one thing we needed to improve on in the future. Far too many of our plans relied on blind luck, and sooner or later, it was going to run out.

  “Alright, time for me to try this acting thing that I’m supposed to be so good at,” Mimic said. “Hopefully, I won’t have to say a single word. As soon as they’re in range, make sure to release the gas.”

  “Are you sure it won’t hurt you?” I asked for probably the dozenth time.

  But Mimic just flashed me a tired grin. “I don’t have to breathe, remember?”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s just…”

  She patted my face comfortingly. “You worry.”

  “You gonna go in there or just make kissy faces all day?” Gonzales asked, interrupting the moment.

  “Right. Of course.” Mimic pulled her hand away from my face and I instantly noticed my skin grow colder. With another quick nod, she opened the hangar door and walked in like she belonged.

  She made sure to lock the door behind her, then waved enthusiastically at the soldiers disembarking from their vessels. I was relieved to see that there were only ten of them, one pilot for each fighter, and the rest from the repair ship. I had been worried about two seaters or even a sub-crew cramming themselves into the larger ship, but thankfully, that was not the case.

  Mimic looked like she was saying something to the men walking towards her, but I couldn’t hear it. I could only watch as they drew closer, and closer, and closer until they were finally within our perimeter of sleep grenades.

  It took everything within me to wait until the last one stepped into the boundary, but I did. I had to make sure that this part of our plan went flawlessly, otherwise it was Mimic who would be in the most danger.

  “Now!”

  True to Ciangi’s word, she was listening. She hit the detonator less than a moment later. The hangar bay filled with thick gas, and for several seconds, we couldn’t see a thing.

  I heard a cry from inside, and all of my instincts told me to charge forward, but I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to stay conscious for a while. While I didn’t have any sort of personal experience with sleeper gas, I had seen it work very well on the crew that we had trapped in the first wave of our plan and I didn’t need to test it myself.

  Besides, if I ended up asleep for hours, that meant we would have to leave a ship behind, and that would be one less ship for our coming battle.

  So, I waited. And waited. I waited until it felt like every one of my nerves was standing on end and my teeth were clenched tightly.

  “Gonzales, Ciangi, do either of you know how to interact with the interface enough to pump new air into the hangar bay?”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Yes! I feel like something’s wrong!”

  “Well, you’ve never really been wrong before.” I expected maybe a little bit more of an argument, but Gonzales strode right up to the many-buttoned panel beside the door, her hand hovering over the center part. I was acutely aware that for the slightest of seconds, her finger was resting over the depressurize button, which would send whoever was in there flying out into space.

  But then it moved almost too quickly to know that there had ever been a pause at all, and I could hear fresh air being rushed into the room by life support. Within seconds, the gas cleared and I saw a pile of men on the floor.

  Thank goodness.

  But wait, where was Mimic?

  It was only then that I noticed there were only eight men breathing sluggishly on the ground.

  Oh no.

  “Where’s Mimic?!” I cried, slamming the controls to open the door and running in.

  I didn’t get an answer in a verbal sense. Instead, the reply came as a crushing force that knocked me backwards and into the wall. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, and the whole world was just the burning pain in my side. I collapsed to the ground, and when my head finally cleared enough to look down, I saw a wound already cauterizing itself on my side.

  “Ow,” I wheezed.

  “Higgens!”

  Suddenly, one of the boxes not far from me wasn’t a box anymore, and Mimic launched herself towards whoever had shot me with their blaster. She connected with a soldier just in her peripheral vision, taking him to the ground, only to have the one remaining man stand up and take aim at her.

  I wanted to do something, I really did, but I could hardly get to my feet. There was no way I could cross the room in time to stop him, so I did the only thing I could.

  “Mimic!”

  She turned to look at me, and I weakly pointed in the direction of the oncoming attack. But I was too slow, and I could practically feel the man as he squeezed the trigger.

  But then something too bright to look at was flying through the air, and before I could quite piece together what was going on, an ionic welder on full blast slammed into the aiming soldier.

  He let out a cry as his clothing quickly ignited and he dropped to the ground, rolling around to put it out. That gave Mimic enough time to finish knocking out the man she was tussling with, then run over to incapacitate the other.

  The whole event couldn’t
have taken longer than thirty seconds, but those were thirty seconds that I certainly never wanted to live through again. Mimic ran towards me, a look of pure horror across her features.

  “Higgens! Higgens, are you alright?!”

  I wheezed a bit of a chuckle and offered my hands so that she could pull me up. “I’m hurt, but it’s nothing serious.” She managed to get me to my feet and I threw my arms around her shoulders for support. “It’s already cauterizing, but I think I’m going to have a wicked scar.”

  “Good. I hear your people love scars.”

  “Some do.”

  “You’re welcome,” Gonzales said, crossing the room quickly to grab her welder and shut it off. “And let’s hurry up. It’s only a matter of time until these guys wake up, and I have ten more minutes left on the lockdown before the crew is all released.”

  “I think I’ll need a little help to my ship.”

  “No problem,” Mimic said, pulling me towards the closest craft. “It’s the least I could do.”

  I wanted to tell her that she had passed ‘least she could do’ long ago, but I decided to conserve my energy.

  We had done it, we had secured the ships, but now we just had to live through the entire war we had stolen them for.

  12

  The Flight Back Home is Always Shorter

  “Is everyone seeing my interface on their nav-screens?” Ciangi’s voice came through the comm of our ship.

  “Um, which one is the nav-screen again?”

  “Should be the largest of the interfaces to your right. About three o’clock.”

  “Ah. Yeah. I think so. Is it the floating image of a fist with its middle finger raised?”

  “You got it.”

  “I see it as well,” Mimic chimed in.

  There was a chorus of agreement from everyone else, but of course, Urdet had to have the last word. “I do not understand. This is an offensive gesture, is it not? Why would you show us this after such a harrowing experience?”