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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/LateralThinker13 on 2024-12-24 23:58:02+00:00.

note: this story was inspired by my wife and an odd youtube clip.

• Body language and vocalizations translated to Galactic Standard (English) -

The Grevic race was not known for its humor, creativity, or flexibility. Which made the giant pseudo-octopi great administrators and bureaucrats, but extremely poor on all social fronts. This did not, however, keep them from gossiping at work.

“Did you hear?” Grevic 9992763-2 asked his coworker in customs and immigration. “The Mimics have landed on that new deathworld, Earth.”

Grevic 2734932-9 sighed. “One more world falls to the Mimics. What’s the big deal?” he replied, his tentacles flicking idly.

“You don’t get it. The Mimics failed to infiltrate. They were detected and repulsed.”

Grevic 2734932-9 paused. “What are you saying? No galactic species has ever had a method for detecting infiltrators, let alone a barely-spacefaring, ominivorous death species! That’s absurd!”

Grevic 9992763-2 flicked its tentacles. “It is true. I have the dispatch here. I can hardly believe it. Hold on a moment, let me broadcast this good news to the Overnet.”

As the Grevic 9992763-2 went to disseminate the news, Grevic 2734932-9 dissolved its cloying restrictive Octopoid form and ate Grevic 9992763-2 whole. As the mimic spent the next few minutes digesting its former coworker, it mulled over the recent discovery. A race that could detect them? Inconcieveable.

• * -

“Another pod’s landing from space! Looks like we’re getting some Ferringil reinforcements!”

Sergeant Timson shrugged. “We’ll see. Round up the droppers, see if they’re friendly. Gap hostiles, take their stuff, you know the drill.”

They marched back to HQ, where holographic battlemaps filled the walls. Several senior staff amassed. As the guards trained their rifles on the new arrivals, one challenged the Sergent. “Timson! This dumpster fire of a war, how would you describe things?”

Timson shrugged. “This is fine.”

The man nodded. “Pass.”

Timson headed to the conference. The Galactic Civilizations had cautiously emerged from space months ago, looking to trade with new sapient species, but were oddly… hesitant. They would not say WHY they were so skittish, but they obviously feared something.

Then reports came in. Reports of people acting weird, being weird, doing anti-human things. When shot, they reverted to a strange, semi-gelatinous, amorphous form that was quickly dubbed as Mimics. Once revealed and disseminated, the Galactic species became more talkative, if less willing to trade and interact.

He remembered one of the first briefings he ever had about them.

“The Mimics are a species that is masterful at integration and infiltration,” the Saurid trader’s five henchmen nodded along with him, well versed in the bizarre biomimicry of the galactic scourge. “No reliable method of detection has ever been produced to find them. They feed upon and manipulate all of society, and nowhere is safe. It makes us unsafe everywhere.”

“I say take off, nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure,” one human Captain muttered.

The Saurids all stared at him, except for one, a cargo handler in the trader’s contingent. It lashed out with sudden tendrils, killing several instantaneously. The humans present, being humans, drew their sidearms and mowed it down in a burst of MagAcc rounds. When it quit twitching and appeared to be dead, MPs moved in to secure the scene, and xenobios began investigations even as the Saurid traders (those who had survived) looked both disturbed and amazed.

“How did you detect it? Were you really going to deploy nuclear weapons upon this location?”

Colonel Fitz blinked. “Do you people not know what sarcasm is? Or movie quotes?”

The Saurid shooks its head. “The word ‘sarcasm’ does not translate, except as a ‘lie that is obvious and humorous in a dark, unbelieveable manner’. Such a statement is not… I understand what my translator is saying, I comprehend the words, but we have no concept for it.”

The colonel stared. “You have no concept for it, or the Galactic Civilization has no concept for it?”

The Saurid shrugged. “Is there a difference?”

The Colonel smiled.

• * -

Earth was mostly pacified. Trade with the galactic civilizations was mostly reestablished through some small, temporary orbitals that had been established. Which would normally cost the hosting civilization a dear sum, but… the humans had proven miraculously capable of detecting Mimics. So much so, that starships began diverting to the Terran system in order to have their crews vetted and measured by the Terrans as safe or not safe. Quickly signs of “it has been X stops since we were last cleared by Terran inspections for Mimics” were cropping up in general parlance and even in actual labels on starship bulkheads.

One such ship was docking now, at Terran Station Oxymoron.

Yes, the Terrans had named it. No, the various alien species didn’t really get the joke.

They also didn’t comprehend the sign that said, “Stupidity is Terminal in this system. No refunds. We break it, you bought it.”

A bulk cruiser’s full crew disembarked and filtered into a customs holding area, the Captain holding his crew of twenty in a small, measurable gaggle. The ursinoid Captain followed the signs until they were in an interview room, complete with seating for all of the crew. It was only then, when all crew were comfortable, that a single Earthling Inspector entered.

“Jesus you guys stink!” the Inspector said without warning. “Did you marinate for your whole journey in skunk shit?”

One crew, a black-faced Fengail marsupiloid, rose from its chair. “We do not smell that bad, just different” it exclaimed.

The Inspector rounded the table and approached the crewman. “You’re very perceptive. Did you figure that all out by yourself?”

The creature stared, then responded, “Yes, I did.”

-ZAP-

One dead mimic on the deck, and the rest of the crew in shock and horror. All except the Captain, who was cautiously pleased, at least by his body language. “Um… pardon, Inspector, but how did you know?”

The Inspector smirked. “You wouldn’t understand. And neither do the Mimics.”

The Captain shrugged. “We galactic races admire your astonishingly high detection rate of Mimics despite their perfect biological mimicry. We just wish we knew how you did it.”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Plus, nobody plans a murder out loud,” he added, staring at several of the other crew who looked sketchy to him.

One, a grayish reptiloid, shed its form and brandished a pistol, only to be gunned down by the Inspector’s pistol faster than anybody had expected. After all of the crew had calmed and taken a few breaths or a drink of water, the Inspector smiled.

“See? Your crew is two Mimics lighter.”

The Captain stared at the human, who was obviously mad. “I do not understand your ways,” his translator relayed, “but I can appreciate your results.”

“That does not surprise me, Captain. As the captain of your own ship, you understand the chain of command, yes?”

The Captain nodded.

The Inspector smiled, then pulled out a length of oddly-marked chain, each thick link an inch across, and attached to a broad black handle. The man touched a button in the handle, and the chain’s links began to glow and sizzle with a dull red heat that promised suffering.

“Well, we humans find explaining this to alien crews to be quite illuminating. The way we describe the chain of command is as the chain that we beat the crew with until they understand who is in fucking command, capiche?”

Two more mimics revealed themselves before being gunned down by automated defenses.

• * -

The Inspector put away his props as he returned to the Customs and Immigration terminal. He poured himself a cup of coffee before slouching into a well-padded chair, glancing at his coworkers.

“Rough day, Simpson?” Inspector Meyers asked.

“Oh, ya think?” he asked exasperatedly.

“Yes, I do,” Meyers replied quickly, before blanching. “I-“

The Inspector, plus three others already in the room, gunned down Meyers in a flurry of energy bolts. A steaming Mimic corpse was revealed a moment later.

Kaperson, another Inspector, glanced over at Simpson. “Fuck, been a while since a Mimic nailed an Inspector. We gotta report it.”

“Just let me head to my quarters first. Got some farming to do, gotta go see if I’ve grown some fucks to give yet.”

“Alas, the fields of fucks have long since been barren,” replied Kaperson,

Simpson smiled. “Who’d’ve thought our most valuable export to the galaxy would be sarcasm, metaphor, and movie quotes?”

Gutierrez, the newest (and the brownest) of the three Inspectors present, said, “Someone said aliens, I thought they said illegal aliens, and signed up.”

They all grinned.