This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Coyote_Havoc on 2024-10-31 22:15:20+00:00.
Several things happened simultaneously. The communication with the probe ended when the comms officer was occupied, the weapons officer jumped at the comms officer to keep the mimics away from the captain, Captain Mumford took a hurried several steps back bumping into the weapons station, and every other officer on the bridge left their station to get as much distance away from Comms as possible.
Captain Mumford rubbed her hip where she had banged it against the weapons station and looked down at the panel as she rubbed the pain out of her leg.
"Weaps?" She asked.
"One. Of. Us. Now." The weapons officer replied, lifting himself off the floor before helping the occupied comms officer to her feet.
"Are you still in there weaps?"
"He is still here Cap-tain."
"Let them go." Captain Mumford ordered.
"They are part of us now." The weapons officer replied. "You will be as well. All of you. One of us."
"And if we refuse?"
"Your bod-dies can be rep-pair-red, ac-cept or do not ac-cept. The res-sult is the same."
"I thought you just wanted to talk?" Captain Mumford asked, running her hand across the weapons station.
"Yes. Talk. We can not talk when you do not al-low it." The comms officer replied.
"What do you mean?"
"You're com-munic-cation sys-tems in-tur-rupt us." Weaps said.
"You do not al-low us to talk, to lis-ten, to ev-ven think" comms continued.
"Sin-ce we have enc-count-tered you, you prev-vent us from sp-peak-king." This time it was navigation that had been taken.
"We just want to talk. Now we will talk. You will be sil-lent." All three said in unison.
Captain Mumford didn't like the hand she had been dealt in all of this. She was 48 years young and in the prime of her life as well as a commanding officer in charge of a Battleship. She had everything going for her, and even now she could feel it all slipping away as the mimics voices entered her own mind.
"One of us." The pilot said, bringing herself out of her seat and facing the Captain.
Captain Mumford felt the desire to reply. To just let go and allow the mimics inside of her to take over. She hated it with every ounce of her being and continued to resist.
"You will never be anything but a cheap copy!" She raged. "A mimic of humanity."
"You are the mim-mic." Comms replied.
"Copy made of mat-ter." The pilot said.
"We are en-er-gy. we ex-xist in wave form. You can not stop us." The mimic fighting for her mind finished.
Captain Mumford knew she was loosing this battle. She had already connected the dots and knew what the score was. She also knew what they wanted. She just didn't know if she had the time left.
"Computer, close caption recording. Remove all voc-cal-liz-zat-tion and send."
"Confirmed, recording is sent captain."
The comms officer frowned. "You can not stop us cap-tain."
"I can try." Captain Mumford replied.
"Give up cap-tain." Her own voice betrayed her. She felt lost and scared, but...
"You have my voice, you have my ears,"
"It is al-most done cap-tain."
"Do the eyes work?"
Warning flashed in the eyes of her Bridge crew as her own head swiveled to see where her hand was.
"What does Pier-re Prot-toc-col mean cap-tain?"
With the last of her strength, she applied what little force remained in her left arm activating the program that the weapons officer had left open for her before tackling Comms.
"*Pierre Protocol accepted, self destruct sequence initiated."
The last card she could play, casually thrown on the table as she cashed out and walked away from the table.
"You can not stop us!" Her own mind screamed at her, and as she succumbed she let slip her final words in this life.
"I just did."
/////
Two months had passed since the final transmission of the UTS Prizren. In that time all Admiralty officers and other personnel exposed to the mimics were removed from their positions and replaced with personnel who had not been exposed to the frequency that the mimics existed on. The same frequency that the UTS had initially chosen for rudimentary communications.
The name Prizren was retired from use, there would never be another of her name. Captain Mumford and her crew were awarded the Defender of Terra Medal posthumously. There funeral was held in Prizren Kosovo along with the unveiling of a memorial to the ship and crew.
Much is still not known or understood about the mimics. Though the frequency is no longer in use and permanently blocked from any and all UTS communications equipment, it still exists and the mimics with it. A warning was transmitted to all known sapient species containing the final transmission of the UTS Prizren, in close caption of course, to ally and enemy alike in order to prevent another occurrence of the mimics. Only time will tell if they ever pose a threat again, and Humanity constantly scans for five words indicating they've returned.
"We. Just. Want. To. Talk."