I tried to move as quickly as possible, but there was only so fast I could go without stepping on the mini-mimics. And even if they might have survived being crushed under my boot, I had no desire to bring any of them pain. They had been hurt enough as it was.
Gonzales was right behind me, and we rushed up the ramp leading to the top of the vat. It was almost impossibly slick, and there were several times we slipped and fell hard on our enviro-suited knees.
By the time we reached the top, both of my knees were sore and possibly bleeding inside my suit, but I didn’t care. We were finally there. Looking down, it was hard not to get a bit of vertigo from how high up we were. I didn’t know if the vat was a single meal or enough for a week, but it was intimidating either way.
I couldn’t imagine an existence for hundreds of years just serving a malevolent being. Just day in, day out, the same thankless task, never growing. Never learning. Never experiencing all the things that were important in life.
It made me mad. No, mad wasn’t enough of a word to describe it. It made me furious. More than I had ever been or ever thought possible. And that rage spurred me on. I opened the bag at my side and handed a container to Gonzales before grabbing one myself. Popping off the top, I readied to dump it into the bubbling vat below us.
“I hope you suffer,” I said heatedly, tipping it forward. Just as I did, a terrible, grating horn filled the air, an under-layer of beeping tones to it. I paused for just a moment, startled, but that was a moment too long. With a pneumatic hiss, the top of the vat sealed shut with some sort of circle of metal.
“No!” I cried, my stomach dropping.
“Uh-oh,” Gonzales murmured, for the lack of a better word. “That is very much not good.”
“Hey,” Ciangi cried from the other vat on the other side of the chamber. “Our vat just sealed.”
“Ours too,” Gonzales replied.
“Well, what now?”
Before any of us could think of an answer, another tone sounded again. But this one was different from the previous one, rising in pitch, before dropping. I didn’t need a translator to tell me it was some sort of direct order, but I desperately wished I did have such a device so I could know exactly what it was ordering.
However, I wasn’t in the dark for long. After the alarm ended, there was a split-second of silence as suspense hung heavy in the air. But then the mimics around us surged forward, spikes growing on their back as they charged straight toward us.
“Time to go!” I cried, jumping over the edge of the ramp.
Gonzales followed me and we hurtled toward the ground. Reaching for my wrist-gear, I activated my grav-boots and it slowed our decent enough so when I did hit the ground, it wasn’t bone-cracking.
But it certainly wasn’t comfortable either. I hit hard, toppling forward and knocking the breath out of myself. Ciangi, Bahn, and Gonzales didn’t seem to fare much better.
We didn’t have time to recover, however, as the mimics were raining down on top of us, clearly ready to kill.
“Run!” I cried, fighting to my feet and dashing back toward the exit we had come from.
“What about Mimi?”
“We’ll be no good to her dead! Besides, she’s safe. We need to regroup and come up with a new plan.”
“Uh, might have a problem with that.”
I was going to ask her why, but a movement caught my gaze. Looking back the way we came, I saw a roiling wave of mimics coming toward us. Nearly seven feet high and chittering murder, it was like watching a wall of death hurtling our direction.
“Can’t go that way,” I half-gasped.
“Gee, ya don’t think?!”
I ignored Gonzales’s smart remark and craned my neck around. There had to be somewhere we could go.
There, I spotted it in the corner of my vision. A single door leading to a dark hallway. There was no telling what was beyond it, but it couldn’t be any worse.
I hoped.
“This way!” I said, sprinting forward.
I dashed off and the others followed me, all of us running for our lives. The mimics followed us, converging together like a giant beast made out of hundreds of smaller, intricate parts.
“Uh, that thing is definitely gaining on us.”
“I am aware.” I huffed. “Bahn, you see anything on that scanner of yours? Change in airway pattern, another hall?”
“I, uh--”
“Come on, less stammering, Coin Twin,” Gonzales urged. “We’re on a very tight deadline here. Emphasis on the dead part.”
I risked a look back to see Bahn typing furiously into the scanner he had built into his wrist gear. “Yes! Ahead and to the right. There’s a large room, we can probably duck in there!”
“And what’s to stop these maniac mimics from ducking in there with us?”
“I have an idea,” I said.
“Oh yeah? Is it as good as our last idea?”
I didn’t answer, as we had reached the door. Without missing a beat, I threw myself sideways into the barrier.
I slammed into it with all of my force and that just barely managed to budge it open wide enough for the others to slip in. I could hear the murderous wave of mimics coming, so I scrambled in after them.
“Help me close it!” I cried, standing up and pushing against the massive partition.
The others ran to help me, and together, we managed to close it. We had mere seconds before the mimics came around the bend, and I didn’t know if they could tell where we had gone or not. So, I grabbed one of the spare canisters in my bag and shoved the thick cylinder through the door’s handles.
“That should hold them for a minute.” I gasped.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Ciangi murmured. “But there’s another door on the other side.”
“Crap!” I rushed over and practically tackled that door as well. I was going to have a very sore shoulder tomorrow. If I survived, that was.
Just like before, my three friends joined me until we were able to close that one too, but this time, it was Ciangi who shoved the container through the handles.
“There.” She breathed heavily. “That should hold for at least a couple of minutes.”
“Let’s hope.” I looked around, taking everything in. “Where do you think we are?”
“If I had to guess,” Bahn murmured, walking past us to look at the desolate, cobwebbed surroundings. Good to know that spiders were universal, leaving their tickling, messy webs everywhere. “This was some sort of cafeteria. Where the lower of the crew must have come and gotten their sustenance.” He whistled as he looked around at the large but dilapidated architecture around us. “These aliens, they certainly weren’t small. I’m guessing that specimen we caught a peek at earlier had added some modifications to alter its physical appearance, but its size was not one of the things it tampered with.”
“Fascinating,” Gonzales said. “But not entirely useful.”
“Actually, I think it is,” I muttered, my brain buzzing with the edge of a thought. “We studied this in one of my maintenance courses. Ships are usually laid out in an ergonomic way, with certain key points being in the center of the ship where all the crew can reach it in about the same amount of time. These places are usually the cafeteria, the bridge, and the med bay. Sometimes personnel quarters sub-out the eating area, but that’s less usual.”
“So, if we’re standing in the cafeteria, chances are that either the bridge or the medbay is below us. I’m willing to bet on the bridge, which is where we first saw the creature. I can’t be sure, but I think when we came here, there was a slight decline down the hall leading to it. And as we ran, I think there was an incline to the hall we were sprinting through.”
“Well, that would explain why my calves are screaming,” Ciangi said. “I mean, I know I’m not in the best of shape, but usually it takes a little more running than that to get shin-splints.”
“Shin-splints are going to be the least of your worries,” Gonzales said, her eyes closed while her brows knitted themselves together.