And so, we were marching again.
It was slightly disturbing to walk straight through the mini-mimics, but they paid us absolutely no heed. We could nudge them aside with our shoes, even give them a little air with a gentle scoop with the toe of our boots, and they would pay us absolutely no mind. As soon as they were back on their feet, they would continue their persistent trek upward.
None of us said anything, but perhaps that was because none of us knew what to say. What was there that we could say? After so much work, all the danger we had survived and impossible odds that we had beaten, we had finally found Mimic’s people, only to have it be the most disappointing turn of events since I had learned that Colony Claus wasn’t a real person and didn’t deliver presents to all the good little girls and boys at the solar eclipse.
The sun had sunk far into the sky by the time we reached a large, craggy opening of a cave that all the mimics were pouring into.
“Is it just me or does this seem straight out of a horror sim?” Gonzales asked, dubiously eyeing the dark entrance.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this exact scene,” I answered, raising my arm to press in the code for my head-light to illuminate.
The roughly hewn stone seemed to go down quite a far way, but there, just at the edge of my vision, I saw the walls smooth out and fade into something that looked almost jade in nature.
“Come on, guys,” I said, stepping forward cautiously. “This way.”
“Are you sure?” Ciangi asked, her face pale and her cheeks quite flushed.
But Mimic was already striding forward, her lips tight in a grim line. We didn’t need much other discussion beyond that and went right along after her.
Sure enough, while the cave was completely primitive for the first stretch, less than five minutes later, we passed into something that was anything but.
“What is this?” Gonzales asked, running her hand along the metal-like surface.
“If I didn’t know better,” Bahn mused, “I would say it looked like the interior hull of a ship.”
“But this isn’t a ship, Bahn. It’s a mountain.”
“Yes,” he answered with a cool shrug. “But was it always?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. While I agree the idea is improbable, it’s nowhere near impossible. And, as science dictates, once the obvious has been eliminated, the improbable is what to explore next.”
“You know, he has a point,” I said sheepishly, unsure if I should be cutting into all this scientific thought. “Mimi said that what might have happened is one of their comets was knocked into this planet’s gravitational pull and that’s how there are mimics here. What if something knocked into that comet and that’s what caused the sudden change? And, what if that something was a ship?”
“It’s all possible,” Mimic said. “But we won’t know until we go farther.”
“So let’s go farther,” I said with a resolute nod.
The mood grew even more tense as we crept forward. We didn’t want to make too much noise, so that led to another eerie silence as our footsteps echoed through the long, high-tech corridor.
I couldn’t say how long we marched, but time seemed to stretch on forever. We didn’t halt, however, until we suddenly reached a large chamber that was illuminated with a bright, blue light.
We all dropped and crouched instinctively. For being a bunch of eggheads with no military experience, we had some pretty good instincts. Or maybe that was from surviving so many near-misses when we were hopping through the far-side of the galaxy we had accidentally wormholed ourselves to.
The mimics all continued their march past us, continuing up a ramp and finally to what looked like a massive vat not unlike our own mineral containers back on the mining ship. We watched, a bit mesmerized, as one by one they climbed to the top, walked onto a gangway over the vat, and then regurgitated some sort of liquid paste into the container.
“Ew! What the heck!” Gonzales hissed.
“It’s the half-digested form of the minerals we eat,” Mimic explained. “I can smell it from here.”
“And why are we doing that?”
“Normally it is either to offer nourishment to another who is too weak to take in their own food, or to feed younglings. I am guessing it’s neither in this situation.”
Bahn held out his scanner, aiming the reader at the vat. “I think—now, I could be wrong--but this all seems like they’re fueling something.”
“That’s good, right?” Ciangi asked. “Some sort of group effort toward a goal implies sentience.”
“I don’t know…” Mimic admitted, her voice tense. “This is so unlike anything my people would do. I’m afraid I don’t understand. I know evolution is often dictated by environment, but this…this does not seem right.”
Then, as if in response to her comment, a blaring sound ripped through the corridor. All of the aliens froze, including Mimic, shuddering in their spots for the duration of the noise.
I myself had to clap my hands over my ears, the deep, boneshaking siren making my teeth chatter and my head throb. When it finally stopped, I had double vision and had to shake my head vigorously to clear it.
“What was that?” Ciangi asked.
“It was a call,” Mimic answered, eyes locked on something we couldn’t see. “This way.”
Before any of us could object, she was striding forward into the open chamber.
“Mimi! What are you doing?”
“Finding out what’s going on and putting a stop to it.”
Oh. Well, I guessed that answered that.
Unsure of quite what to do, the four of us followed after Mimi, our footsteps much less sure than hers. She strode forward like she knew exactly where she was going, which was as worrying as it was disconcerting.
She didn’t slow even as we exited the chamber, or as we went through another room with another vat that mimics were dumping small, green stones into. And then through more halls and rooms until, finally, she crouched down once more.
“Quiet,” she ordered, finger to her lips.
I didn’t need to be told twice and neither did anybody else on the team. For the second time in a short while, we were creeping forward into the unknown.
My thighs began to ache in earnest, but I couldn’t stand, afraid of giving away our position. All of us sensed that something significant was about to happen, but we weren’t sure if it was good or bad. Any whispered questions to Mimic were only responded to with short shushes. I didn’t know where Mimic had learned that habit either but I wasn’t super thrilled with it.
The hall widened abruptly and we all dodged behind ornate pillars at either side of the opening. Peering past the edge, we saw what basically looked like the shiniest, most holographic bridge I had ever seen.
It was arranged in a circle, what looked like array after array that had once been filled with useful data but were now dark with disuse. A fine layer of dust covered everything, except for a loan figure in the center.
There were no words for what I saw there, and Ciangi let out a short gasp before Bahn covered her mouth.
In the center of the bridge, sitting in a chair that was easily twice my height, was a massive living creature. Somewhat gelatinous in nature, it had rolls and rolls of flesh that dribbled over each other. Its skin was a rotten, sulfurous yellow and the stench rolling from it was just as thick.
I wanted to gag, but I dared not make a noise. Was this the creature who was responsible for the strange antics of the mimics?
It raised a long, claw-tipped hand that glistened with some sort of viscous slime and called up what looked like a holo-display, but it was the wrong color. Slowly, laboriously, it pressed in several sequences. When it finished, it let out a wheezing grunt and there was a moment of silence.
Then the horn sounded again.
My hands went over my ears once more and we all struggled not to make noise. Well, expect for Mimic of course. She turned to look to us, a rage-filled expression on her face.