“Why? What’s going on?”
“I hear the wave coming back toward us.”
“That’s unfor--”
“In stereo.” She opened her eyes and sighed. “They know we’re here. They’re rushing toward the door right now.”
“That is some exceptionally good hearing,” Bahn said, turning to face the door to the left.
“It’s a gift and a curse,” she answered, facing the right. “I just want you guys to know, it’s been nice being a crew with you. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll be reincarnated as something with a whole lot less responsibility.”
“That’d be nice.”
But I wasn’t interested in the moment of camaraderie. My mind was spinning, as it had never done before.
“I need one of your guns,” I said, holding my hand out.
“Really? Wanna go down blasting?” she said, tossing one to him with a grin. “Never thought guns were your thing.”
“They’re not,” I answered shortly. “Stand back, everyone.” Although they had no idea what I had in mind, they didn’t argue, just scattered. Trying not to tremble, I popped open the gear-cap of the gun and set all the settings to their highest while setting the shielding to its lowest. It didn’t take long for the thing to rumble, and I quickly set it on the floor before dashing away.
The explosion that resulted was…spectacular, to say the least. Ash, metal, and other debris went everywhere, but most importantly, we were all safe.
“Into the hole!” I cried, running forward to the still-red edges.
“My gosh, you really are a genius!” Gonzalez cried, following after me.
About halfway to the newly made gap in the floor, the doors suddenly burst open and two mimic waves surged in from either side.
“Great,” I muttered, my stomach dropping. “A race.”
And what a race it was. The four of us put our everything into our sprint, diving for the hole with no concern for what might be below. As we fell, through wires and bent supports and busted tech, I spun to look upward.
The two waves crashed into each other with a massive amount of force, sending the minis flying everywhere. Unfortunately, many of them came falling right down into the hole with us.
The grav-boots helped to right me, and this time, I landed a little better. Looking forward, then back, I saw another set of those ridiculously oversized doors that was cracked open just enough to get by.
“That way!” I cried, pulling Gonzales and Ciangi to their feet. Bahn landed a beat later, lurching after us with surprising quickness for being what Gonzales would classify as an ‘uber nerd.’
Once more, we were all running again, but the end was in sight. We were going to make it out of this. We were going to--
“Hey, Higgens, doesn’t this look familiar?”
But I was already sidling through, pulling the others after me. Once they were all on my side, we shoved the door closed with a resounding thump.
Relief washed over me and I turned, only to have that very same relief turn to ice in my veins.
We were in the bridge and the alien was staring right at us.
“Oh shi--”
Something lashed out of its body, gelatinous and reviling, slamming all of us into the far wall. The air was knocked out of me once more as we hit, and we slid to the ground in a heap.
“This…this was not a good plan,” Gonzales groaned as we disentangled ourselves.
As if it understood us, it stood, its entire body shaking and rearranging as if it was made of gelatin and silicone. It made me want to puke, but I was too scared to do so. But instead of striking us again, that same arm reached for the door and opened it, letting the wave of mini-mimics in.
The arm shrank back into its body and before another extended from its back, only to grab the console it liked to punch its orders into. Once more, several notes sounded, and the mimics all stopped in a line.
We stood there, in a tense standoff. If one could call certain defeat a standoff. We were going to die here. We didn’t have near the amount of weaponry to take the creature down, and as far as I could tell, it had integrated several parts of the ship into its body. If we wanted to kill it, we would have to destroy every last bit of it. And frankly, that was impossible.
The alien knew it too. I could see it across its melting, folding, rearranging, blobby face. It reached for me, long, insidious claws growing out of its arm as it extended. This was the end.
Except, it suddenly wasn’t.
There was a flash of heat and light in front of me and we were all thrown backward. When my head was cleared, I saw a blackened scorch on the ground where we had been standing.
The alien was screaming, whirling in a circle as it tried to put out the parts of it that were on fire. It would have been amusing to watch, if it weren’t so terrifying.
To my surprise, it was Ciangi who stood first, her arm bloodied. It was only after I realized her hand-held scanner was missing that I put the pieces together. She must have overloaded it, just like I had Gonzales’s blaster.
She saved my life.
But it was only a stop-gap. The alien had stopped screaming, and instead returned to its chair. Grabbing the hanging console once more, it punched in another command.
I figured out what it said quickly, as the mimics suddenly jumped into action. But instead of running, they slowly advanced, like an executioner’s march.
We backed up, but there was only so far we could go. Eventually, our backs hit the wall and there was nothing we could do to escape what was about to happen.
“Is this where I start shooting?” Gonzales asked, her voice still as brave and strong as ever.
I planned to tell her no, that there was no point in killing a dozen or so innocent children only to have the others rip us to shreds, but then I saw a lone mimic break away from the formation. Like a small shadow, it flitted toward the alien.
And the console.
Suddenly, everything made sense. But I also knew that, with the way the alien was sitting now, that little mimic would be spotted instantly.
“Yes!” I yelled suddenly.
She shot me a shaky grin, trying to be her normal, headstrong self. “Finally.”
“But shoot the alien.”
“What? Are you sure? I don’t think my blaster is going to penetrate its skin if a straight-up overload blast didn’t do anything besides make it a bit toasty.”
“Oh, it’s definitely not going to hurt him,” I said, sending her my own smile. “But it sure is going to piss him off.”
She gave me an odd look, but I just nodded at her. Thankfully, she seemed to believe that I knew what I was doing, and unloaded into the alien until her gun overheated.
And boy, did it work. The alien shrieked, not in pain, but in pure rage as she peppered it. I saw wide circles of red appear on its skin, only to disappear back to normal flesh. Well, normal for the creature. It stood, advancing on us for a little one-on-one revenge.
It only made it a couple of steps before that tiny mimic I saw scaled its chair and launched itself to the console. In a ripple of color, the mini expanded until there was none other than Mimic perched atop the large computer.
“This is for my people,” she hissed, before punching in a code.
The alien whirled, dozens of arms shooting out of its body to stop her, but the tones were already sounding. Once more, there was a strange sort of stillness when they ended, but then the mimics all turned as one and converged on the alien.
Its ending…wasn’t pretty. It tried to run, but the mimics descended on it with a ferocity that made all other acts of violence I had ever witnessed pale in comparison. I saw the others look away from the carnage, but I forced myself to watch it out. It felt like the right thing to do.
If I was going to plot out a murder of an enemy, I owed them watching the consequences of my handiwork so it would never have to happen again.