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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Coyote_Havoc on 2024-10-31 18:05:49+00:00.

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It is said that in ancient times coal miners would take a canary with them into the mines. It was a crude and cruel way to test the air underground. If the air was breathable, the canary would continue to chirp. If the chirping stopped, the miners would evacuate immediately.

Captain Mumford felt like she understood the coal miners perspective as her crew kept a careful watch on their own canary pinging in the distance and hoping that they could mine even a little usable information for the UTS Admiralty. Her and her crew were subject to the needs of the UTS Navy and the canary they had sent out was expendable.

Not the most ideal situation, but necessary under the current circumstances.

“5 minutes ma’am”.

Captain Mumford nodded silently, not really listening to the weapons officer. The last four attempts to lure the Mimics had failed as well.

“I believe that eliminates communications.” The comms officer commented.

“Unless you have pen and paper handy.” Captain Mumford replied dryly.

“No ma’am.” The comms officer sang in a relieved tone.

“Weaps, go ahead and power down the probe for now. We’ll start agin in a few minutes.”

“Aye, aye ma’am, powering down.”

Of all the systems a vessel carried, communications equipment seemed like a juicy worm for their dangerous and elusive fish. The mimics wanted to talk after all. So if comms wasn’t what drew them in, what was? Captain Mumford picked up her coffee cup but found that she had emptied it already. She looked into her cup forlorn for a moment before standing up and heading for her ready room to fetch another cup.

“Anyone else want some coffee?” She asked, not expecting an answer.

“What. Is. Cof-fee?”

In that moment she didn’t require another cup, the fear that had run down her spine was enough to put all her senses at full alert. She spun around furiously to face her crew, and seeing every eye looking back at her curiously, the same alarm evident in all of their faces.

“Weaps?”

The Weapons officer jerked back to his station.

“Running diagnostic ma’am.”

“What. Is. Cof-fee?”

Captain Mumford summoned her courage and willed herself to speak.

“Its a beverage that we consume to stay awake, we also drink it recreationally.”

A moment of silence was allowed to pass, and another in anticipation of a reply to the explanation. The only sound was the weapons officer tapping on his panel as he ran the diagnostic.

“Who are you?”

Perhaps not the best question to ask at the time Captain Mumford thought, but not the worst.

“You. Call. Us. Mim-mics. Why?”

Even covered, the hairs on Captain Mumfords arms stood up.

“If you’re not mimics, than what are you?”

“Ma’am, diagnostic comple…”

“Yes. We. Are. At. Your. Probe.”

“You know what it is?”

“We. Are. Aware.”

Captain Mumford shot a glance at the weapons officer who nodded back in affirmation.

“How did you come by that information?” She asked while walking over to the weapons station.

The diagnostic was complete, no errors detected, no life signs in or around the probe were observed, no additional hardware, software, or unknown programming had been found. It was clean as the moment it had been fired from the torpedo bay.

“Un-nit-ted. Ter-ran. Sys-stems Ves-sel. Pier-re.”

“The first vessel you took.”

“Not. Tak-ken. Joined. No. Long-ger. Alone.”

Captain Mumford willed her trepidation back and summoned a calm demeanor. She had one chance to do this correctly, and even though she might not live through it, she had to try. Thinking back to her childhood she tried to remember her father’s lessons and adjusted the phrasing of his questions to suit her own.

“Why do you speak like that?”

“We. Only. Want. To. Talk.”

“There it is again. You have trouble with multi-syllabic words, but you can say ‘Alone’ and ‘Only’ without the same degree of difficulty.”

“You. Talk. Like. This. First.”

“When did we talk like this?”

“First. Even. Now. You. Talk. Like. This.”

“We don’t stop at the end of each word.”

“You. Pause. Space. Bet-tween. Each. Word.”

“The pause between each word is to identify the words and pronounce them correctly.” Captain Mumford said, remembering her own father’s advice. “Otherwise the communication is unintelligible.”

Silence filled the bridge like water, drowning out all thought and word.

“Is this bet-ter”

The thought that she had erred and allowed the Mimics a way to infiltrate Humanity occurred to her but she forced the thought aside. As far as she could tell, her crew had not been infected based off the observations of her lost away team and the recordings from the Vagabond.

“Much better,” she said calmly, “I am curious however, you never answered my questions.”

“Cur-reeeeee oooous.”

Captain Mumford froze in shock for a moment. That was the first time the mimics had ever attempted to use vowels in such a way. Had they been able to adjust their speech pattern based off previous encounters or had it all been her doing?

“Curious, yes.”

“Prime. Iden-ntif-fied. In. Word.”

“Prime?”

“AAAAA EEEEE IIIII OOOOO UUUUU. Prime.”

“Vowels?”

“Prime is voooooo-weeee-ls.”

“What are primes?”

“AAAAA EEEEE IIIII OOOOO UUUUU. Prime.”

“Ma’am,” the comms officer said slowly approaching her, “In Latin, the letter ‘U’ was written as ‘V’ and ‘I’ Was also a number. ‘V’ was five and ‘I’ was one.”

Was it really that simple?

“Can you say two?” Captain Mumford asked.

“AAAAA”

“And five?”

“IIIIII”

“Prime numbers. 2, 3, 5, 7, 11”

“AAAAA EEEEE IIIII OOOOO UUUUU”

“The mimics detected our vowels, confused them with prime numbers, and thought we were trying to communicate.”

“We just want to talk.”

“Why did you take our people?” Captain Mumford asked.

“We did not take. One of us. No lon-nger alone.”

“What does that mean?”

“Hum-mans ex-xist, mim-mics ex-xist, tog-get-her.”

“How?”

“In-side.”

“Inside what?”

“Inside you.” The comms officer said tilting her head at an odd angle.

“One of us now.”