Chapter Text
Ekun
They were friendly… at first. Until the akulu had discovered their plans for a planet that wasn't rightfully theirs.
The akulu were entranced by these aliens when they landed. They looked different, spoke different, came from a spaceship that was different. They were smaller and scrawny, with wrinkly suits and a language that wasn't composed of growls and hisses.
They stayed for a year, teaching the akulu their tongue and technology. They called themselves humans, and they came from a planet called Earth. Earth was a lot like Apino, the humans had said. Except Earth was dying, and the humans would die with it.
The humans wanted to take over Apino. To take the akulu's planet and make it their own, to undoubtedly exploit and kill it like they had their planet.
But the akulu could transfer to Hidspa and Laokiuna, the humans had said. The akulu had two other planets they were also living on.
But Apino was the planet the akulu were native to. The first one they came from, the one that was their home, the only thing bonding the akulu of all three planets. It was a privilege to live on Apino; it was something you had to earn the rights to.
The humans, though helpful in developing new technology, were not worthy of living on Apino, much less being the only inhabitants.
We could see if Hidspa or Laokiuna might work instead, the humans suggested.
That was not the point. They wanted akulu territory. They wanted to steal from those who were there first. They could not have it. They could try one of the other planets in the solar system. They could have one that didn't already belong to the akulu.
No, the humans argued. They're either too cold and far from the sun, Akusok, or they were gas planets. The only inhabitable ones were Hidspa, Laokiuna, and Apino. The akulu's planets.
They could not steal from the akulu. It was not their birthright. If they were meant to have it, they would've been born as an akulu on one of them. The akulu should not have to pay for the crimes humans committed against their own land far away, in a different solar system.
Ekun snarled at the memories. He paced and lashed his tail as his dark blue patterns flared angrily.
At least the akulu had managed to reconstruct the humans' weapons. Ekun glanced at a few guns laying on a table near him and remembered the large bombs strapped to the bottom of Ashuna, the akulu spaceship. A few buttons and a bit of aiming could explode a planet even larger than Laokiuna.
Ekun paused to focus himself on his final rehearsal before running a claw over the small tentacles on his head and going through the nearby doorway.
"Nice to see you again," Ekun's inspector–an akulu smaller than him with dark gold patterns–said in Kinososw, the language mostly growls that humans would struggle trying to replicate.
"The feeling is mutual," Ekun responded in English flawlessly, selecting Evie's voice randomly. The inspector looked pleased despite Ekun also replicating Evie's unfriendly, sarcastic tone.
"This is just your final check, so we're keeping all this brief since you passed everything else and have things down pretty thoroughly. Appearance?" They asked, still in Kinososw. Ekun shapeshifted, growing smaller as his tentacles, claws, and tail disappeared, a wrinkly purple skin similar to a spacesuit emerging. His face felt weird without a beak, so flat .
"Hmm. The suit isn't quite right." The inspector felt it with a claw and looked at it closely. "The wrinkles are too small and it feels a bit too smooth."
Ekun tried to shift to fix the wrinkles, though he wasn't sure how to change the texture that subtly.
"There's just… something not natural about it." They pulled up an image projection of Mateo's suit and pointed to various points. "Look how each fold is spaced or how it puffs when it's not fully tucked in. Look at how there's more small wrinkles around tight areas like the underarms. You'd pass for a glance, but you've never been able to convince me when I'm looking at you head-on. Try to keep that in mind as you shift into everyone else. However, I know what else you could do if you can't manage it. Lexi now." They sank into a thin, rather uncomfortable-looking chair.
"Oh my gosh, guys, did you hear about Owen…? Did you hear that he stole Jenny's headphones? I cannot believe he'd do that. Oh and, I heard Jenny had four extra bowls of cereal this morning too. What a pig. So undignified–have you seen her eat those things? It's like she thinks she's gonna die any second from starvation," Ekun said in a snobbish, higher voice as he rolled his eyes and gestured dramatically in his cyan suit. He opened his mouth to continue more, but the inspector quickly made a motion to silence him and Ekun gave a small smile. He really hoped it wouldn't be Lexi he'd have to impersonate–she was unbearable.
"Owen around Helena, then around Evie, then around Brad."
Ekun's wavy blonde hair morphed to be short and amber as his suit shifted color to an eye scorching pink. He's like a living breast cancer awareness sign.
"Hiii!" Ekun felt ridiculous being this cheerful.
Pretending to be Helena, the instructor looked equally as uncomfortable. "Hiii! What're you doing here?"
"I'm just heading off to do my next wiring in Electrical–"
"Me too! That's so crazy!"
Remembering all the other exaggeratedly cheerful behaviors of the real Helena's, Ekun was surprised she never floated away due to the large concentrated bubble of air replacing her brain.
"Really? That's great! Let's go together!" Ekun gave an exaggerated grin before glancing at the inspector's approving expression and turning to pretend he was interacting with Evie. He crossed his arms and an obviously fake frown appeared on his face. "Why are you over here? Why are you always in the vents?"
Now acting out Evie, the inspector responded, "What am I doing over here? Do you have a problem with me making sure the air quality is clean on this ship?"
"Do you have a problem with me checking up on you? What's so secret that you're doing?"
"Nothing for you to know about," the other akulu snorted. Apparently deciding that was enough–since Owen basically just copied what the nearest person did–they switched to have a relaxed expression.
Picking up on the hint, Ekun changed his expression again to now look nonchalant. "Oh, hey Brad. What's going on with you?"
"Nothin' much, just checking out some footage. Same old stuff. You doing anything?"
"I've got nothing much, too… just some wires here, some wires there…. Yeah, this place's pretty chill; I don't know what you think would be on the cams anyway."
"I'm just looking around on them for perhaps another Evie-Charlie fight; they're funny to watch."
"Brad wouldn't say that," Ekun argued.
The inspector nodded. "Very good. Tell me what he would really say with the actual Brad, then Evie and Helena."
Ekun, though annoyed that he basically had to be them mentally through Owen, repeated it but with their actual appearances.
The two of them walked through Quinn, Sebastian, Jenny, Mateo, and Olivia next without any interruptions, though Ekun still couldn't really get the suit right.
"What would he do as a prank, though?" The inspector interrupted Ekun when he was in the middle of acting out Charlie.
"Turn off someone's alarm clock, stick a post-it note saying "I'm so snart" on Evie, put an oversized whoopee cushion on someone's chair, or stick plastic wrap across an open doorway at face level. Also replace the cereal inside one of Jenny's cereal boxes with lemons and a note saying 'When life gives you lemons'. 'I want lemonade' would be on the back."
They chuckled. "Charlie's a funny guy."
Ekun nodded. "Be a shame if he had to die. Who's next?"
"Zane."
Ekun shapeshifted into the red-clothed astronaut and immediately assembled his expression into a slightly angry frown. " What'd I say? "
The inspector jumped from the sudden yelling.
"Go clean the cameras! Go! Hustle, book it, run, anything faster than your penguin waddle! Would you– do I need to get General Sebastian? Huh? Do I? Run! " Ekun snapped his fingers threateningly. Zane was a little bossy, but he was similar to Ekun when the akulu was constantly disobeyed by all the other workers.
"Okay, you've basically summed him up. Last one: Alex."
Ekun morphed a final time to have a green suit and a long brown braid, but furrowed his brow. "They said that was usually a male name."
"Short for Alexandria. You should know that by now, but everyone calls her Alex, so you should too." The inspector looked a little displeased and glanced obviously at the suit for the ninth time, clearly still not happy with its quality.
Ekun looked up at the light on the ceiling and froze, making sure his eyes appeared to be glazed over. Alex did that sometimes when the lights flickered or something orangeish flared.
"Yeah? Oh, hey Charlie." Ekun looked at the inspector, pretending they were Charlie. He made sure to glance at their eyes, then away, then back at them before looking off into the distance again. Ekun felt his expression, making sure it was mostly neutral. Flat. Every emotion appeared a little late, some a little forced depending on who she was interacting with.
Quinn was sometimes similar with the eye contact, but not the expressions and body language. Alex was the only one in the whole group who acted like that when she wasn't around Brad or Quinn.
"You heading off to prank Evie?"
The inspector nodded and gave what was probably meant to be one of Charlie's mischievous smiles. There was clearly a reason Ekun was the one being sent on the mission and not her.
"She's gonna be mad. You should learn how to dodge soon–she's gonna break your nose with those punches someday." Ekun allowed a small, slightly joking smile on his face as he glanced away again. He'd have to muffle his outward reactions so much if he was Alex, though at least she seemed to express her anger when it was strong. That would probably be the only thing keeping him sane.
"Alex isn't really very strongly defined like Helena or Zane; just summarize some things she does for me." The inspector interrupted. "You have the social behaviors down."
"She goes to Brad sometimes, says she has flashbacks and nightmares. That's a weak spot though; we've never really heard her say what from. I'd assume they're both from the same thing, and both from Earth. Observing squirrels seems to distract and calm her. She tries to stay away from the more unfriendly or gossipy people and often goes to Quinn or Brad if she doesn't know what to do. She makes little jokes around Charlie but doesn't seem to usually actively seek him out. She has a locket around her neck, usually under her suit, that she takes out and fiddles with sometimes. I never saw in the cameras what's in it, but I've seen her open it a few times. We really need to get some better angles and views than just the cameras in the ship." Ekun allowed himself to shift back to his regular akulu form.
"Feel free to somehow find and install more," the inspector snorted. Ekun narrowed his eyes slightly at the potential disrespect.
"Anyways," they continued, not seeming to notice Ekun's suspicion. "You can't seem to get the suits right. So I propose this: go to the Advancer, kill the first crewmate you find, dispose of only their body, and wear their actual suit. The drawback to this is that you can't really shapeshift, so you'd have to stay as the same person you first find. However, I'd suggest that anyways, since the Head wants to see how good humans are at solving urgent mysteries. And that's clearly impossible to do if you're constantly changing identities.
"Also," the inspector said, quieter as they got up and pushed something into Ekun's claw. "We'd like to see from the inside how they react. I mean, that is one of the main reasons we're doing this instead of bombing the Advancer or only following them back to Earth."
Ekun opened his claw and glanced down to see a syringe with a rather thick needle.
"Twenty microchips in there, plenty spare in case you lose some in one way or another. Just one little injection in the head for each of them–should only take a second. Our devices here will be able to monitor and interpret certain brain waves as emotions, so we can study their internal reactions to something like this. Sadly, it's not advanced enough to literally read thoughts–just emotions. Still, it'd be a very interesting study.
"Make sure you have this, too, to communicate." The inspector handed Ekun a small, easily hideable microphone. "But besides the suits, you've succeeded your final inspection. Just remember to use theirs, and you're cleared to go. Best of luck."
Ekun secured the microphone around his head and nodded before walking out the door. He dutifully strutted to where his own suit was, accepting more wishes of luck from various different members of the ship. Surprisingly, Kifinsa wasn't there when the departing akulu was assured by the Head of the ship and mission that Ekun would have his back watched through the cameras.
He finally secured the strong, transparent helmet around his head and pressed a button to allow oxygen in. Ekun glanced down when something caught his eye and saw, below the hooks that'd held his space attire, a little wooden toy roughly shaped like a squirrel.
"Kifinsa?" Ekun questioned in Kinososw, picking it up and looking around. It was slightly dented with toothmarks from the doglike zentuli carrying it around gently.
Kifinsa's golden head popped up from the single seat of Ekun's rocket, and the zentuli seemed to grin as he opened his mouth and panted.
"Oh, no, you can't come with me," Ekun said sympathetically as he walked over and stroked Kifinsa with a gloved claw. He scooped the zentuli up–who was ridiculously heavy–and set him down near his favorite wooden toy.
Kifinsa had always intently watched the projections when squirrel images had come up from Brad trying to relax Alex, so the Head had carved him a squirrel toy.
It was that toy the zentuli picked up gently before turning to Ekun and wagging his scaly, fur-tipped tail hopefully, as though wanting to delay Ekun by making him play fetch. The akulu just smiled slightly and gave Kifinsa a final pat before clambering into the pilot seat and pressing a button to slide the glass roof over himself.
Kifinsa's tail drooped and Ekun heard a muffled whine through the glass before metallic, windowed doors divided them with an airtight seal. The zentuli, looking offended at how the doors closed in his face, glanced at them disgustedly before rolling his eyes and swaggering away, the toy still in his mouth.
Ekun gave a single chuckle as the opposite end of the room opened to space and his small rocket was shot out. He pressed a few buttons to activate the jets on the back and clutched a joystick to steer.
Finally, it was time to execute the plan. To do more than just break the humans' cryosleep pods with high wave frequencies. To do more than just watch the cameras and hack into their technology. To do more than just study them from a distance.
To do more than let them all live.
The tiny rocket pulled up to the Advancer and attached itself to the larger ship, near a rectangular indent. Ekun pressed a button to slide away the glass roof before clambering out.
It was the crewmate's mistake to empty the garbage chute at that moment. Just after the trash flew out, Ekun hurried through the small, temporary door and felt it shut right as his tail got in. The interior latch then opened, with space and its vacuum now blocked off.
Ekun's eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he took off his helmet and slithered out to face the crewmate. The human's eyes widened just before Ekun's spiked tongue shot through their head and rendered them a corpse.
All alone, too… so sad, Ekun thought guiltlessly as he emptied the chute a second time, the body now out of the ship and the evidence gone.
He shapeshifted into the crewmate as he slipped on their suit, securing the microphone tightly around his neck and ensuring it was hidden. Ekun pocketed the syringe and hid his akulu spacesuit among the storage crates, making sure it was well hidden. Nobody should be looking over here.
Ekun picked up his rocket's remote controller. It'll stay on the bottom of the Advancer. If I get discovered, I'll escape back to Ashuna.
After all, there's always plan B, the akulu thought as he slid into a vent silently.