When it was all over, my eyes flashed to Mimic’s. She was still perched atop the console, her face flushed and her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“You did it,” I murmured, voice barely able to make it out of my tightening throat.
“So we did.”
Nice Place for an Epilogue
I stared over the horizon as the sun set, sending dazzling rays of light across the entire landscape. Mimic stood before me, her feet planted firmly on the ground and mine on the metal ramp of our ship.
“I don’t have to leave,” I murmured, voice quiet once again. “I could stay here, with you.”
But she shook her head slowly.
It had been a week since our defeat of her enemy, and we had spent much of the time helping the mimics. There had been a mass panic after the voice in their head was suddenly cut off, and many began doing things that could end up hurting them.
Now, however, things were calmed, and I was supposed to board my ship and go home.
“I need you to be my ambassador to earth,” she murmured sadly. We were all sad. After going through so much together, we didn’t want to split up. But we had to. “You know that while I was in the ship, I managed to uncover years of messages back to that alien’s people. They’re coming for us, and we need Earth’s help to survive.”
“Yeah, but I mean, do we really trust a group of bureaucrats? What if they try to pull some sort of shady deal? Or they use the sample you’re sending us off with but never offer help in return?”
But Mimic was all soft smiles. “I have learned that, while you are the greatest companions I could ever ask for, I cannot expect the same of all of your people. Especially those in power. So I included a holo-recording stating, should they choose a nefarious path, that both me and my army of shapeshifters would descend on them with little mercy.”
“Really? You and the babies that are still figuring out how to eat on their own?”
“They don’t need to know that. As Higgens once taught me, less is more,” she said, winking at me.
“Alright, well, it’s been good knowing you, I guess.” Gonzales extended her hand and Mimic took it, shaking as friends. “Be safe, okay?”
“I will try my best.”
Ciangi and Bahn both said their good-byes as well, leaving just Mimic and me.
I didn’t want to go. After so long of never belonging on the colony, and then never belonging on the ships I worked, I had come to appreciate having a friend who understood me. I got her in a way I never got other people. And she got me.
And now we had to say good-bye.
“I don’t like this,” I said finally, trying to keep my face straight.
“I know,” she murmured. “But it is a temporary measure. There is no one I trust more than you to make sure your government handles my gifts appropriately. Besides, this is only temporary. Once an alliance is formed, you are more than welcome to visit us here. That is, if you can afford to take a break from all your adoring fans after being the first person to discover non-human life.”
“Psh, I’m sure there won’t be any of those.”
“You forget, I have read almost all of you humans’ history. You are going to be a bit of a…what do you call it? Rack heart? Roll hard?”
“Rock star,” I finished, a halfhearted smile around my lips.
“Yes, that. A rock star.” Suddenly, she was pulling me into a hug, her warm body pressing into mine. I returned the gesture just as ardently, as if I held her hard enough that we wouldn’t have to part.
But eventually, we did.
“Be safe, Higgens. I will count the days until we meet again.”
“Me too.”
I wanted to say more. I wanted to say everything. But I knew that if I did, I would never leave. And right now, me on Earth was what Mimic needed. What kind of friend would I be if I put her needs above my own?
So with a final squeeze of her hand, I turned my back and walked up the ramp. I heard it retract and the hatch slide closed, but I dared not look behind. If I did, I was afraid I would dive right off the ship and back onto the planet.
As much as I wanted to, that wasn’t the path for me right now. That chapter of my life had closed, and it was about to move on to another one. Hopefully, if I was very, very lucky, our stories would find each other again.
THANK YOU
Thank you so much for reading Mimic and the Journey Home, the second book in the Space Shifter Chronicles. I am so excited you took the chance to read it and I really hope you liked it. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome because it helps me tell others about my books.
If you want to be the first to hear about new releases and special offers, be sure to sign up our Science Fiction Newsletter. We have several fun things planned that will only be available to newsletter subscribers and can’t wait to share those with you too. To start with, you will get a free short story from the Niakrim War series. It tells the story of Cyrus Jones, one of the main characters in the series, and how he came to be part cyborg. All the information is on the next page.
I have also included a preview of Discovery which is the first book in the Niakrim War series. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.
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Preview: Discovery
Space is so boring!
This was certainly not what Violet had expected space travel to be like. She had dreamed of this since the first time she looked up at the stars in the sky, but none of those dreams had included endless days of nothingness. The only excitement she had experienced during the first days of the journey was when an occasional piece of space debris penetrated the warp field forcing the pilot to take evasive action. Even those potentially deadly encounters were brushed aside, as if they were no more bothersome than a fly buzzing around the room, by the Krim Sprinter's legendary pilot, Cyrus Jones, who was as much machine as man.
The captain had assured her that the Krim Sprinter was the fastest ship in the fleet, which made it the fastest ship in the known universe, when he reluctantly brought her on board the week before. The problem with space travel was the incomprehensible distances between planets. Even at three hundred times the speed of light, the travel time to Proxima was listed as seven days. The captain had assured her that they would be there in five. When she asked what they would do on the Proxima outpost for two days while they waited for the rest of the crew to arrive, Captain Mitch Cooper had just smiled and walked away.
After four days of watching countless specks of light stream past in a blur, Violet wished her childhood dream had involved something less monotonous...like being an accountant. She was wondering if it was possible to actually die of boredom when the ship violently lurched, throwing her from her chair. She froze in the air momentarily as the warp drive was forcibly shut down, dropping the ship back into real time, before being slammed into the navigation console. Everything went black.
When she came to, the ship’s bridge was in total chaos. Warning sirens were going off. Red lights were flashing. Captain Cooper was rushing from station to station, assessing damage and muttering to himself. She had a pretty good idea of what he was saying.