Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The ten minute mark of the voyage was always the worst.

Ten minutes was when the Skeld reached the limit of communication range. Ten minutes was when any call for help would go unanswered. MIRA didn’t give much money to communication support.

At the start of the journey, a crew of ten would sit around in the cafeteria, staring at one another at the center table. The table where, inexplicably, the emergency button was located. With pizza grease and crumbs worked into the button systems, it only worked about fifty percent of the time. MIRA gave even less resources to basic repairs than communications.

Sometimes a crew would sit around the table, putting off leaving to work on the ship. They would give each other suspicious looks and accusatory glances, but nobody would speak. Stares would turn into glares, but before anything could get out of hand, the crew would be pulled away, one by one, for various tasks.

Sometimes a crew would chat, make friends, and socialize in general. These crews always received a shock when an imposter was detected, but usually stayed friendly and cheery, even when ejecting the killer (or innocents) out the airlock. There was no on between. Crews were either very friendly, or distrusting and gloomy.

Either way, sitting around the table for the first ten minutes was a tradition on every MIRA ship, not because it was required, but because the crews themselves never wanted to skip it. Nobody wanted to be the first to go off alone, and nobody wanted to die either. Either that or the crew wanted to chat and play cards. The however, even among the nice crews, the first ten minutes had a tense and scary feeling. The ten minute mark was still a terrible part of the journey.

The worst part about the ten minute mark is that, by then, the imposter scan would be received. Due to the lack of funding (like everything else) in the scan technology, it was extremely outdated. This meant that by the time a crew received their results, they would be just about to leave comms range. No crew ever had time to send a distress signal, although MIRA would likely not respond anyway.

The scan worked this way because, due to the dated technology, it could only scan so many people at once. A MIRA base or launch facility had too many people, so the scan taken once the ship was already launched (and the autopilot locked in).

Crew #88 was lucky, in a sense (numbered that way due to the fact that MIRA started a new count each year to make the job seem slightly less deadly). They had managed to make it to the ten minute mark without the ship malfunctioning in any way, meaning they were still all at the table. This meant that they were all together when the scan was received.

Orange was feeling good. Not only was 8 his lucky number, he had a inexplicable good feeling about this crew. Maybe he would get a rare treat and have a nice, friendly crew. He turned to look at the colored suits of the crew. Green, Yellow, Black, White, Brown, Cyan, Purple, Red, and Lime, who was sitting to his right. 

“Maybe this’ll finally be the time I get a crew without a single imposter!” he said to Lime, in the friendliest tone he could muster.

Many were suspicious when meeting Orange, usually because he was so cheerful. They found weird that he had encountered so many imposters and so much death, and was still friendly to everyone he met. They were also suspicious that he had survived every mission he had ever been on, every single one having two or more imposters. He had come close to the airlock more than once.

Lime simply nodded, and didn’t speak past a grunt in agreement. Orange sighed. He had tried to converse with every single member of the crew, but even more than usual, this crew was not very social. Still, Orange had to try. 

“How many missions is this for you?” he asked, nudging Lime with his elbow. Lime stared at him for a long moment before replying. Although their visors hid their faces, the tone of voice Orange used made it clear he was smiling, and Line seemed to dislike this. “This is my fourth. I’m hoping it will be as successful as the last three.”

”Hey, just like me!” Orange mentioned. “Although I’ve been on lots more missions than four! I could tell you about the time I nearly got ejected! Twice! Or the time-“

Orange turned back to see that Lime wasn’t listening, but was instead conversing with Red and Purple. In fact, as the trip neared the ten minute mark, the crew had formed small groups, talking or playing cards. Other than Lime, Red, and Purple, Green, Yellow, and Black were chatting quietly. White, Brown, and Cyan were the ones playing cards. Everyone had a group except for Orange, which made him sad and a bit scared. The ones without friends always went first, either murdered or ejected. Orange elected to stare down at the table, defeated.

Suddenly, an annoying yet considerably pathetic alarm went off, alerting the crew that the results of the scan were arriving. The crew all watched the large screen at one end of the cafeteria, waiting for the text to finished slowly spelling out the results.

There are 9 imposters among us.

Orange froze, and he wasn’t the only one. Every single member of the crew was obviously shocked or confused. Then all hell broken loose.

In a sudden motion, the cafeteria table was as flipped, sending everybody sprawling, with the table its self landing button side up, although it likely wouldn’t have triggered if it had landed face down and been pressed. Not one person was down for more than a second however, and the scene that Orange found as he leaped up and opened his eyes was absurd.

Lime, Red, and Purple had guns drawn and knives in hand, rapidly switching sim from person to person. Green, Yellow and Black had revealed massive stomach mouths, and their spiked tongues whipped around dangerously. White, Brown and Cyan now had glowing red eyes, with the tell-tale glow of a charging laser. Interestingly, not one of these weapons were aimed at Orange. Maybe they didn’t see him as a threat, at least compared to the others.

The aliens, the ones with the stomach mouthed, had been the first imposters. For years, everyone had feared the shape-shifters, despite them being rare. However, the killing hadn’t been fast enough to satisfy the aliens, so they built robots. Predictably, the milder robots decided to split off and become their own faction. Inspired by these two groups, a third brand of imposters, who were just bloodthirsty humans, was born. This third group was especially deadly, as, although the scan was supposed to detect contraband and weapons, it sometimes missed them.

The aliens still considered the human imposters as enemies to be eliminated, and both the humans and aliens hated the robots for various reasons. However, it was usually a case to case basis. Sometimes, imposters of different factions worked together. Other times, a crew got lucky, with the imposters killing one another and leaving the crew alive. Orange could only hope these imposters were the kind to fight, although they were all already calming down. 

None of the imposters, however, noticed Orange creep out of the room.

Chapter Text

Lime had finally gotten everybody to put their weapons down, retract their tongues, and power down their lasers. It had been easy for him to get Red and Purple to stand down, since Lime was their leader. The other six had taken a lot of yelling, gun-pointing, and threatening. The result was that all nine imposters, humans, robots, and aliens, were now standing around in a rough circle, grumbling and nursing minor wounds but otherwise being silent and peaceful.

Lime recognized every single imposter here, many of which were famous or infamous among the various factions.

Red, Purple and Himself: a trio without a name. Red and Purple were newbies he had taken under his wing, being a successful killer for more than ten years. However, his protégées showed a lot of skill, so he already considered them teammates and not students. Still, without many missions under their belts, Red and Purple weren’t well known, which meant less respect from other imposters.

White: known to many as “the first”, implying they were the first robot to betray the shape-shifters. In reality, they weren’t, instead having killed the real “first”, taking the title.

Brown: the incinerator. Known for leaving very little evidence of their kills, they also worked well with others, regardless of species or faction.

Cyan: the nice robot. Not really that nice, but known for apologizing to each victim before filling them with laser holes. Also works well with others.

Green: the mutilator. She was infamous for extremely overkill and violent murders, and somehow not being caught when found covered in blood. Also known for picking a stupid name.

Yellow: didn’t pick a title, likely due to her sister, Green. Known as silent, rarely speaking and making very little noise when sneaking around. Even her kills are known for being very quiet.

Black: known for using all kinds of weapons, despite having a giant stomach mouth and a spiked tongue. He kept at least seven weapons on him at all times. The kind of person Lime looked up to. 

Black had helped Lime get the others under control, and now the two stood together to address the waiting imposters. By now they had all noticed The absence of Orange. Soon after noticing that, the security doors in the cafeteria closed. This provided the first topic of conversation.

”So, until we can get the doors open, we’re all trapped in here?” Red asked. “We’ll start killing each other before that happens!” He made an aggressive jerk of his head towards Brown, who he had been brawling with before Lime split them up. Lime sighed and ignored him.

”I know not all of us are keen on cooperating with each other” Lime said in a placating tone. “But we all seem ready to at least not kill one another, for now. We can work something out.”

”I’m not making any deals!” Green shouted angrily. “We’ve been after this idiot for two years! If anybody even thinks about-“ she was cut off by other, equally angry shouts.

“You think you’ve got a grudge against Orange? We’ve been after him for four years!” Brown yelled. His laser eye was beginning to glow again.

“We’ve been after him for longer!” Red screamed, joining the argument. Lime sighed and pulled his pistol out. A couple of shots in the air later, quiet was restored.

”Let me get this straight” he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “This Orange guy had evaded all three imposter factions, for over four years?”

The other eight imposters, minus Black, all started talking over one another. However, Lime got the idea that all three factions had sent three imposters, all to have a good chance to kill Orange. He had known it was his mission, but had had no way of knowing if the other factions were sending anybody.

“That explains why there are nine of us” Lime muttered to himself. Then, louder, in order to address the group, he made a suggestion: “How about we take turns?”

He gestured to Cyan, who still had the deck of cards. After a moment of hesitation, He tossed them to Lime, who removed nine cards from the deck. He shuffled them and fanned them out, face down, in his hand.

”We go in numerical order, low to high, one by one, and attempt to get Orange. You fail, its the next persons turn. No interfering with others.”

After much debate, negotiating, and more arguing, all nine imposters agreed. After all, they all wanted the chance to go first and get sole credit for the kill. The drew their cards, ending up in an order Lime quickly memorized: Yellow, Red, Cyan, White, Brown, Purple, Green, Black, and himself.

Yellow set of immediately, as she didn’t need the doors. Slipping into the vent system, she gave a taunting wave to the other imposters and disappeared. Everybody else sat down and waited, sharpening knives or polishing guns. Lime knew many of them secretly hoped Yellow would fail. He himself just wanted Orange dead.

Several rooms away, Orange was frozen again. Now in security, he had heard the entire conversation.

Chapter Text

Orange was trying hard not to panic. When most people met him and heard how many missions he had survived (all of which were infiltrated by one or more imposters), they had one of two reactions.

One half would be immediately suspicious of him, thinking that he must be an imposter himself, having survived so long. These people usually tried to get Orange locked up or ejected, and reacted to his friendliness with more suspicion.

The other half would immediately idolize him, asking for stories and tips. When asked how to fight off imposters, or survive any scenario, Orange always had to respond that, in reality, he mostly ran away, or survived due to dumb luck. Of course, nobody would believe him, chalking it up to modesty. Orange disliked both of these responses, so he never flouted his experience or mission count. This had the added benefit of making him less of a target for imposters, who usually went after veteran crew members first. This was one of the few things Orange did on purpose in order to survive.

That precaution didn’t matter this time though. Based off of the conversation he had just overheard, all nine imposters aboard knew him or about him in some sense. Even if that weren’t the case, he was the only potential victim on the ship, so he would naturally be the first and only murder option.

That didn’t mean Orange had no chance of survival. He had extensive knowledge of the Skeld, as every MIRA was the same (not that MIRA did this to benefit employees. They were just to cheap to buy multiple ship models). He also had some knowledge, if limited, on imposters. He knew the shape-shifters could crawl through vents, and that the robots and humans were very good at sabotage.

”Speaking of vents”, Orange mused out loud, “better cover up this one.”

He got up and shoved a nearby and empty shelf partway onto the security vent. Wouldn’t do to completely cut of his oxygen supply, seeing as, like the rest of the ship, security’s door was shut tight. Then, sitting back down, he continued thinking about how to survive. Against one imposter at a time, he had a chance. But if they stopped that, coming all at once, he’d be dead for sure.

Soon Orange started panicking again, until a loud BANG pulled him away from his thoughts. A stream of profanities, not all human sounding, was coming out of the vent. Orange approached it, although he kept some distance between himself and the cover. He’d seen what imposter tongues could do, and, seeing as this one was in a vent, this one definitely had a tongue.

The vent cover was now rattling very noisily, with whoever or whatever was inside trying to open it, to no success. ”Does this mean your attempt failed?” Orange asked, trying and failing to keep the fear out of his voice. “That it’s not your turn anymore?” “You know about that?” Yellow replied, unleashing another torrent of swears (Orange had gotten close enough to catch their suit color through the grate).

Then the grate cover started shaking again, actually causing the shelf to move off the vent partway. Orange noticed but didn’t risk pushing it back, as it was very close to the vent. Orange’s precautions soon paid off because, after giving up on busting the vent open by slamming against it, Yellow suddenly whipped her tongue through the vent grate. The grate had been bent enough to allow the the tongue through, although it’s mobility was limited. Still, if not for Orange’s distance and rapid backpedaling, he would likely be dead or dying. After whipping around and wrecking everything in its reach, Yellow’s tongue retracted back into the vent. Then, Orange heard banging and thumping, gradually moving further away from security.

Orange was glad that Yellow was gone, but also scared. Soon, another imposter would come, and he wouldn’t likely be as lucky as this first encounter.

”So for being quiet!” Green was saying to her sister. “We could hear you from here, banging around and yelling!”

”I was silent up until I ran into the vent grate! How was I supposed to know there was a shelf over part of it?”

”This Orange guy is a survivor! Assume he takes at least basic precautions!” The two imposters continued arguing back and forth, with the others eventually tuning them out and focusing on planning.

Unlike Yellow, Lime and his teammates were working together to get a door open. While Cyan and Brown worked on opening the permanently, Red had suggested forcing one open enough for himself to get through, in order to start his attempt. Purple and Lime nearly had the door open wide enough for Red to squeeze through, but in the end, it took the alien strength of Black to get it wide enough. When he came over to help, the human imposters glanced at him but offered no questions.

”Brown and Cyan will have all the security doors open soon”, Lime said to Red.“Good luck.”

Red accepted a spare pistol from Purple, and, priming both at once, slipped through the door.

Orange wasn’t feeling much better in Yellow’s absence. Rather, he was feeling lonely. Nobody to talk to, friendly or not. He had only spoken a few words to Yellow, and he really had no idea why he had said anything at all.

”I won’t be alone for long”, Orange muttered to himself. Then out of nowhere, the door hissed open. Instinctively flinching away, Orange expected an imposter to show up in seconds. But after a minute or two of silence, he started to calm down. Knowing the imposters knew he was on security, he decided to move. Walking cautiously, he slipped out of security and started moving towards medbay.

Chapter Text

As the doors shut behind him, Red quickly started walking away and towards security. According to Yellow, Orange was there, sitting around and watching the cameras. Luckily for the imposters, there were only four cameras on the entire ship. MIRA didn’t put much space in the budget for cameras.

As soon as the cafeteria doors left his sight behind him, Red relaxed. Being in a room with eight other bloodthirsty and impatient imposters had been extremely stressful for him. He still didn’t fully trust the others, except for Purple and Lime, despite everyone’s apparent cooperation and friendliness.

The friendliness was what unnerved Red the most.

Shortly after Yellow had left, Red had noticed Green scanning the room, glancing at everybody until landing on him. Seeming to make a decision, she had marched over to Red and stopped right in front of him. Red had expected a fight, or at least the start of an argument. What he hadn’t expected had been for Green to start a conversation as if she’d known him for years. Red hadn’t thought an alien shape-shifter nicknamed “the mutilator“ would be so chatty.

“So Red, Green had started, “what’s your favorite way to kill someone?”

After this question, Red had already frozen on the spot and done his best to tune her out. Unfortunately, the only other thing he had been able to pay attention to other than Green’s voice had been Green herself.

This had proven to be a grave mistake for Red.

Since none of the imposters needed to conceal themselves, most of them, especially the aliens, now had some discrepancies in their outfits and disguises. While Lime, Red, and purple simply had their weapons out, the aliens had allowed their scarier features to show. Green had still looked like someone in a green MIRA uniform, but had also had a large, toothy stomach mouth, and dangerous looking claws. It hadn’t made Red feel very safe, and hadn’t seemed very friendly. If Green’s goal had been to intimidate him, it had worked.

“So after I raise them above my head and take their arms off-“ Green had continued, before stopping. At that point, Green had either picked up on Red’s discomfort, or, more likely, realized that he hadn’t been listening. Luckily, Lime had noticed what was happening, and came over to help Red. Making an excuse about planning, the two humans had left, but not before Green gave Red a clawed pat on the back and wished him luck.

“Tell me all about it if you get him!” Green had exclaimed as they walked away. “Even better, let me see him when you’re finished!”

Red had ignored her, although he was still confused and scared of her friendliness.

“Better than threats and fighting, I guess”, Red muttered, bringing his mind back to the present. He heard the somewhat distant sounds of doors opening, meaning Orange could be on the move. While this made it harder to find the crewmate, it also added the chance to run into him on accident. This was something Red deeply hoped wouldn’t happen.

Owing to the fact that he was an imposter, Red was quite good at lying and keeping secrets. He had one secret that he was determined to hide from the other imposters (except for Lime and Purple, who already knew).

Red had never directly killed someone in his entire life. Not face to face.

This wasn’t to say he wasn’t responsible for plenty of death, and he definitely intended for his actions to lead to death. He was better at sabotage than any other imposter he had ever met, and he was a good fighter. But, in the end, whenever he had encountered the opportunity to stab someone or shoot them in the back, he had always walked away. He had killed entire crews with reactor meltdowns, oxygen malfunctions, and fires, but if he managed to kill Orange with a weapon, it would be his first time.

He was not looking forward to it.

Most human imposters did what they did because they had some kind of grudge against MIRA. This meant there were a lot of human imposters out there. However, unlike the robots and aliens, the humans were not very organized, meaning they didn’t always know if there was another one of them on board a ship. Red had actually met Purple and Lime when the former had tried to kill him. Red had managed to fight the other imposter off and show him his weapons, after which the three worked together.

It was extremely easy for groups of imposters to stay together, owing to the fact that most MIRA facilities were mostly or completely automated, and if they were manned, it was with skeleton crews. Additionally, it was MIRA policy to keep survivors together, and it was easy to lie about being innocent. Every time Red said that they managed to fight off or figure out the imposters and eject them, and MIRA believed him. This was likely because MIRA didn’t put much space in the budget for investigations.

So Red, Lime and Purple had decided to stay in a group and work together. All of them hated MIRA, for various reasons. Lime’s sister was killed in an accident because MIRA was too cheap to inspect their ships often. Purple’s family wasn’t rescued from a crash because MIRA was too cheap to spend the fuel. Red just hated MIRA from the start (for being shady and cheap).

By extension, this meant Lime and Purple hated people who worked for MIRA too. Red knew he should hate them too, but, really, the problem with MIRA was with the leaders. When the options of murdering or sparing someone fought inside his head, murder always won, but just barely. The result was that Red would commit sabotage instead, killing the crew or allowing his partners to pick someone off.

Lime and Purple didn’t seem to mind Red’s avoidance of direct killing that much. They clearly valued his sabotage skills, and having someone who was never near kills was useful. Red had vouched for Lime and Purple many times before, and since he was never under much suspicion for a kill, crews tended to see him as innocent and believe him.

However, this time everyone expected him to kill Orange face to face, or at least try. So Red continued walking slowly down the corridor, keeping an eye out for someone in an Orange suit. When he rounded a corner, he discovered he was near medbay, meaning he wasn’t even halfway to security.

“How did Orange get to security so fast?” Red grumbled, and reluctantly started moving faster.

This quickening in pace didn’t last long, however, as a flash of Orange caused Red to freeze in place. He gripped his pistols, staring at the crewmate standing before him. He raised the weapons.

Orange was headed towards medbay, hoping to grab any medical supplies he could before the next imposter found him. After all, if he even managed to survive any encounters with them, he would very likely be injured. Some of the medical tools could be useful as weapons as well.

Orange rounded a corner near medbay and, seeing nobody, started towards the room. After only a few seconds, he stopped dead in his tracks. Standing at the other end of the corridor was Red, wielding two pistols, and interestingly frozen in a similar manner to Orange. 

“Oh”, Orange exclaimed softly. He stayed frozen, as neither the imposter or the crewmate made any move to do anything. Finally, Red raised the weapons, but still hesitated to shoot.

Orange took advantage of this and sprinted towards medbay. It would be faster to get there than back up, although it meant getting closer to the imposter. Orange’s movement seemed to shake Red to action, and he finally fired his pistols, just as Orange reached medbay and dove inside. Unfortunately, one bullet still grazed his leg, leaving enough of a wound to impair Orange’s walking and running speed.

Orange limped towards the back of medbay before crouching down and hiding behind one of the beds. Moments later, Red appeared in the doorway, guns still drawn. He scanned the room until landing on Orange’s hiding spot. After staring at it a moment, Red fired at the bed, breaking various instruments and tables nearby. Luckily, this meant none of the bullets hit Orange, although a few came close. However, it did reduce Orange’s cover to nearly nothing by the time the barrage was over.

Red continued shooting until both pistols ran out ammo, and then, still staring at Orange for a moment, he left. Orange didn’t dare get up, and so he didn’t see which way Red had gone. Still, he had gained some information from this encounter.

Red had missed Orange all but one time, even while firing two weapons. If Red had been a soldier, Orange would likely be full of bullet holes. Instead, he was alive.

“Someone’s not too experienced with killing”, Orange said to himself, speaking quietly for fear of Red returning. He realized that most imposters were used to secret and sneaky kills, not hunting someone down. It was harder to kill someone when they knew you were after them, even if they were a terrible fighter like Orange. Despite being expert assassins, these imposters were out of their element.

Oranges theorizing was cut short by an alarm blaring, followed by a warning about the reactor. Apparently, Red made his way to the reactor room extremely quickly, and had sabotaged it. If it wasn’t fixed, most of the systems on the ship would lose power (all but the lights). Orange had enough spare oxygen in his suit to last a day, and there was more stashed in storage. However, his suit wasn’t thick enough to survive extreme cold, and the heating systems on the ship mostly relied on the reactor. The imposters would have accounted for this, and have modified suits to survive the cold. Orange would freeze to death within hours if he wasn’t picked off by an imposter first.

The problem was, the imposters knew he would try and fix the reactor. His next opponent would likely be waiting there, or interrupt his repairs. But Orange had no other choice. Stuffing as many bandages and other medical supplies as he could into his suit pockets, he cautiously made his way out of medbay and towards the back of the ship.

Red stepped away from the reactor, satisfied that it was now a sparking, malfunctioning mess.

He still didn’t know why he hadn’t killed Orange. He could have easily reloaded, rushed the crewmate, and killed him. But he had spared him and left.

Red still hated Orange. He hated him for being part of MIRA, and he hated him for evading the imposters to this point. It wasn’t out of kindness or pity either. After all, the next imposter would likely give a much more painful death to Orange than Red could have. Sabotaging the reactor was just making it easier for Orange to meet his end.

Chapter Text

Before he could repair the reactor, Orange had to actually get there. This meant moving all the way from medbay to reactor, going through the upper engine area. Orange regretted leaving security now, considering how close it was to the reactor room, but he likely would have been killed if he had stayed there. He would also be able to pick up some tools in the engine area, which was on the way. This would not only allow him to actually fix things, but would also give him another chance at finding a weapon.

Medbay had probably had syringes, knives, or something else sharp and dangerous. Orange didn’t risk going back there now, but he still would have liked to have something to defend himself with. Even if he didn’t know how to use it, carrying a weapon or something weapon-like would make him feel a lot safer. However, Orange wasn’t too confident he could defeat an imposter, even with a weapon.

“Although”, Orange thought aloud, keeping his voice to a whisper, “I don’t have to kill them, only fight them off enough to escape.” This made Orange feel slightly better, not only because it made his survival somewhat easier, but because he wouldn’t have to kill anybody, even if he was facing bloodthirsty murderers, he’d still rather not kill them. 

Despite not being experienced at all with sneaking around, Orange still managed to make it through the hallways without bumping into or getting attacked by an imposter. Of course, this wasn’t that big of an achievement, considering the imposter would easily be able to find him in the reactor room. If they weren’t already waiting for him there. 

Orange slipped into the upper engine area, and, after making a quick but thorough search of the room, he headed over to where the tools were kept. Orange cringed at the amount of noise he made digging through the toolboxes and supply cabinets in the upper engine area. Even if the constant and extremely loud sounds of the engines probably didn’t cover it up. Luckily Orange, being an experienced mechanic and engineer, was able to find what he needed quickly. After filling his pockets with screwdrivers, duck tape, small hammers, and a wrench.

This wasn’t the widest selection of tools, but definitely enough to fix the reactor along with any other sabotage that might happen. Orange chose to carry the wrench in his hands rather than in a pocket or in his pack, meaning he might be able to whack any imposter he encountered if he was fast enough. Orange wasn’t strong enough to make a lethal blow too easily, but he could definitely swing the wrench with one hand. If he lost the wrench, Orange didn’t know what he would do.

“Maybe I could stab them with a screwdriver?” Orange mused. After glancing around the engine room again and seeing nothing more of use, he left it and started towards the reactor room. Again, the trip was suspiciously uneventful, which actually made Orange more nervous. The imposter might just be slow, or they might be setting up a trap. Orange hoped it was the first one, even though he knew it was unlikely.

When he arrived at the junction between the reactor room and security, he was tempted to revisit the cameras and door controls. 

“If I could delay the doors and get to the reactor in time…” Orange trailed off, thinking about it more. Even if he did pull it off, modifying the door controls would take time that Orange couldn’t spare. Not to mention, if the imposter was already in the reactor room, Orange would be trapped inside. If he failed, he would be locked out of the reactor for a long time, likely ending in his death. Whether due to the reactor malfunction or being trapped in the hallways, dying due to the doors being closed was too big a risk. Sighing and readying his wrench, Orange walked into the reactor room.

Half expecting an imposter to drop from the ceiling, Orange nervously made his way to the reactor itself. Checking behind himself one last time, Orange got to work.

“Finally back?” Lime said to Red as the latter strolled into the cafeteria. The other imposters had been waiting impatiently for his return, especially Cyan, who was next in line.

“As you might have noticed from the alarm, I sabotaged the reactor.” Red replied, brushing past the other imposter and sitting at a table. He looked around the room for Cyan, and called out to them.

“That Orange guy should be in the reactor room about now, unless he wants to die,” Red yelled across the room. “You’re welcome!”

“Thanks!” the robot replied, although Like couldn’t tell if they were being sarcastic or genuine. Then, without another word, Cyan ran out the door and down the hall. There was no need for sneaking this time, so the imposter must have been running full speed towards reactor. 

Walking over to Black, who was sharpening his various knives and other blades, Lime sat down and addressed the alien.

“So, Orange seems to have gotten lucky with Yellow and Red so far, but Cyan has a good chance of getting the kill.”

“What makes you think it was luck?” Black responded, not looking up. “Orange might be a better fighter than we have knowledge of. He’s already survived against imposters multiple times.”

“By running away!” Lime said, rolling his eyes. “Which is exactly what he did on this mission too!”

Black was silent for a moment, stashing his knives in various pockets before speaking.

“All I’m saying is that he has experience with imposters. That shelf he put on top of the vent in security? That wasn’t luck. That was preparation.”

“I guess,” Lime replied, “but Orange doesn’t seem like a fighter, and Cyan knows where he is. No way he survives this.”

“If he does, we’re one step closer to a kill ourselves.” Black said, now pulling out a pistol and starting to clean it. “Still, Cyan being defeated would be a bad sign for us. That robot’s extremely skilled. So in a way, I do wish For Cyan to kill Orange.”

Lime simply sits there, thinking about what would happen if they all failed to kill one person. Being humiliated was a best case scenario.

“Let’s hope so.” Lime finished.

If he hadn’t been so focused on fixing the reactor on time, Orange likely would have heard Cyan coming. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The reactor was very loud, as was the alarm that was now repeating, warning of catastrophic failure and such. Still, Orange was working extremely fast, and had plenty of time to spare. Orange was so good at fixing this part of the ship that he often spaced out while working on it.

At this moment, Orange was thinking about food. All the food on the ship was either in the cafeteria, or nearby in storage. Of course, all the imposters were camped out in the cafeteria, and would definitely kill him if he went there. Orange was not thirsty, because he always carried water with him. Still, some caffeine would also be welcome, as Orange was already getting tired. Maybe he could sneak in and steal some food, but it likely wouldn’t be worth the risk of injury or death.

Orange had all but forgotten about his leg wound, but only for a couple of minutes. While it didn’t cause too much pain if he wasn’t using his leg, it still hurt while walking. While it didn’t slow him down when walking, it would likely do so if he had to run. Orange had stopped to bandage and disinfect the wound, but had been in a rush and only done a mediocre job.

“Speaking of doing a mediocre job,” Orange thought aloud, “I better focus on this next part.”

Orange was almost done fixing the reactor, but he had to rewire one last part before he was done. This was always the hardest part for Orange, and the only part where he ever made mistakes. Orange, still too busy to properly pay attention to his surroundings, accidentally put a wire in the wrong spot.

“The red wire goes one spot upwards.” a voice behind Orange said. Orange quickly fixed his mistake and closed the panel, finishing the repairs. Suddenly, he realized someone had actually spoken. They were also quite close behind him. Slowly, Orange turned around until he saw Cyan. He also saw the glowing red eye.

Acting on impulse, Orange dove out of the way just as the laser fired, narrowly missing and incinerating a nearby tool cart. Fortunately, Cyan’s lasers didn’t seem powerful enough to pierce the inside of the ship's hull. Still, Orange had no doubt they would do serious damage if they hit him.

Oranges dodge had sent him flying into a pile of empty shelves and racks. While this did end up giving him some cover, it did hurt a lot. It didn’t help that lasers didn’t really care about cover, and would burn right through it. Therefore, Oranges only option was to keep running, and maybe incapacitate the imposter. Taking a deep breath, he sprinted for his wrench, which was lying on the floor a few feet away. Cyan had to charge his laser after each shot, and so Orange had an opening to make an attack. After grabbing the wrench, he rushed at Cyan, who simply stood there until stepping out of the way at the last second. Managing to keep his balance, Orange landed a pinch on Cyan’s back.

This was a mistake.

Letting out a cry of pain as his fingers struck solid metal, Orange stumbled backwards until Cyan grabbed him. Orange was held in the air for a couple of seconds, struggling, until the imposter threw him against the wall. Orange was already feeling weak, and didn’t get up.

“I’m really sorry about this.” Cyan said, charging up his laser again. His tone was not at all apologetic. As the laser fired, Orange found just enough strength to slump over, meaning, like Red’s bullet, it only grazed him in the side. However, compared to Red’s bullet, being hit by a laser hurt more. A lot more.

Orange barely heard himself scream, and barely managed to keep his eyes open as Cyan approached. The imposter picked him up again and held him against the wall. The imposter didn’t notice Orange sluggishly grab a screwdriver from one of his pockets.

“Again, I really am sorry about this.” Cyan said, his right eye beginning to glow behind the visor. “If I survived this mission, Brown, Cyan, and I probably would have been extracted and wiped. I’d rather keep my memories. So thank you.”

Time seemed to slow for Orange, and it gave him room to think things through. He felt bad for the imposter, as having your memory wiped was terrible. On the other hand, he didn’t feel bad enough for the imposter to die without a fight. Feeling a sudden surge of strength, Orange drove the screwdriver into Cyan’s laser eye, just before it fired.

The screwdriver pretty much melted, but the imposter fell backwards, releasing Orange, who fell to the ground. Orange managed to get up before Cyan, and he pushed the screwdriver further in, disabling the laser. Then, while the imposter was still recovering from this, he grabbed the wrench and hit Cyan over the head. The imposter went still, but still showed signs of operation. Orange continued his wrench attack until the Imposters circuits were exposed, and he noticed an important looking part right in Cyan’s head, where a brain would be. Using another screwdriver, Orange pried it loose and inspected it.

It was a roughly cylindrical shaped device, with a Red optic or light on front, and various numbers and words printed on the side. One set of words read ‘CY-64’, which Orange guessed meant Cyan was the sixty-fourth robot with the color. Unceremoniously stuffing the robot brain in his breast pocket, Orange slumped to the floor. Maybe the device would come in useful sometime, and more importantly, it seemed to completely disable Cyan, or at least his body.

The fight hadn’t even lasted that long, only a minute or two, but Orange was exhausted. Considering Cyan wouldn’t be returning anytime soon, the imposters hopefully wouldn’t send anybody for a while. While this meant Orange could probably sleep, he didn’t want to risk that much on imposters following made up rules. Deciding to simply rest his eyes, Orange couldn’t avoid sleep in the end. His final thought before he fell asleep was that he wished he had found a place to hide before resting.

Chapter Text

In the cafeteria, the imposters were having a serious discussion.

“So let me get this straight.” Lime said , looking around the table and staring for a few seconds at each imposter. “Three different factions each sent three skilled killers, all to kill Orange, and he’s beaten a third of us already?”

White nodded, and despite the simplicity of the motion and the visor covering her face, Lime could tell she was incredibly frustrated. He guessed that the sentiment was shared by most of those gathered around the table.

Lime had called the meeting after White and Brown had started freaking out. As it had turned out, they had somewhat of a connection with Cyan, since they were all robots. After that connection had supposedly disappeared , the two other robot imposters had lost it.

“To be fair, two of these victories have been in non combat situations.” Black said from beside Lime. “Either Orange got lucky, or Cyan made a mistake.”

“We’re experienced killers!” White interrupted, slamming a hand on the table. “We don’t-“

“We’re overconfident.” Black retorted. To Lime, he still appeared calm, although for all Lime knew the alien was just pretending to be relaxed. In reality, he was likely as unsettled or impatient as all the others.

“We can beat him in a fight if we’re careful, and plan it out. We could always start working together.” Black suggested. This was met with vigorous shaking of heads and multiple loud complaints. All the imposters, despite helping one another occasionally, still wanted the kill themselves. They all wanted sole credit for taking out Orange. 

Once everybody calmed down, White spoke again.

“Cyan sent us a transmission before we lost his signal,” she said, “and it told us that Orange had stabbed him with a screwdriver before attacking with a wrench. Meaning, Cyan fought him and lost.”

For once, the table was completely silent. These details had not been shared with the other imposters previously, and Lime saw that many of them were visibly startled, even nervous looking.

Suddenly, White got up from the table.

“But I am going to beat him in a fight.” She announced, already marching towards the cafeteria door. “He won’t be able to trick me like he did Cyan.”

“White, wait.” Black said, reaching out to gesture for her to come back. “What did we just have a conversation about?”

“Planning and overconfidence,” White replied, “I have a plan. When I say we lost Cyan’s signal, I mean he can’t send us messages, or audio and visual data. However, I can still track him. Currently, Cyan is moving. Considering what Orange did to him, so wouldn’t be surprised if Orange took his brain and is carrying it with him.”

“Wait.” Lime said, rubbing his eyes (or mimicking the action with his helmet and visor). “Your can track the other robots, but you can’t track life forms like Orange?”

White shrugged, moving closer to the exit. She pointed at Black and Yellow.

“Blame them.” she said. “Their species was too cheap to add one when they designed us.”

Without another word, she walked out the door. After a moment's pause, Lime leaned over to Black.

“She’s still overconfident.” He whispered.

Black simply nodded and started cleaning one of his many knives.

In the end, the pain from his wounds woke Orange up before he slept for too long. From what he could tell, he had only been asleep for around half an hour, although he still felt slightly more rested. Sleeping longer likely would have gotten him killed anyway, whether due to murder or ignorance of his wounds.

Orange looked down at his injuries, and despite the pain, felt some relief. The bullet scratch was very minor, and was already healing, although it still hurt some. Orange was more worried about the laser wound in his side. Because of the nature of the attack, the wound was cauterized, but it was a great source of hurt for Orange. It would also likely still need treatment. Luckily, Orange had plenty of bandages and medicines from medbay. Unfortunately, he didn’t know what the medicines did, or how to properly dress a wound. 

His eyes drifted to the robot core in his front pocket. As a very social and friendly person, Orange was starting to get lonely. Visitors don’t count when they are trying to kill you. Of course, Cyan had also tried to kill Orange, but he could hardly do much harm now (or so Orange hoped). Maybe Orange could at least get some information out of the robot.

He lifted the core out of his pocket and took a closer look. Even with his engineering skills, the device was still fairly foreign to him. Still, after some fiddling and modifying, he found a way to patch the imposter into his helmet radio. MIRA suits had very cheap radios, meaning they had the rang rod toy walkie talkies. Stupid MIRA. If they weren’t so cheap, crew mates would be Able to communicate and find imposters much easier. Instead, they could simply talk like normal, not over long distances.

“Hello?” Orange asked, holding the core up to his face. He didn’t even know if Cyan could respond, and even if he could, it was unlikely Cyan would want to. Obviously, Orange was surprised when the imposter responded.

“Who is this? White? Brown? I can’t discern voices very well right now.” Cyan said, as he spoke, the light on the front of his core blinked slightly.

“Orange.” Orange said simply. He waited for the imposter’s reaction.

“What?” WHAT?!” Cyan replied, loud enough that Orange had to turn his helmet volume down. “I’ll kill you, scum!”

“Unlikely,” Orange responded, “seeing as you are a small device incapable of doing much harm.”

“Why are you even talking to me anyway?” Cyan said, still very angry. “I tried to kill you!”

Orange paused for a moment. He thought about what information he wanted first, and the likelihood of Cyan giving up that information.

“Do you know how to properly dress a wound?” Orange asked the imposter.

Cyan was silent for a while.

“I attempted to murder you, and you’re asking me for medical advice?” He finally answered. “Give me one good reason I should help you? In fact, give me a reason to continue talking to you at all!”

“Can you still see?” Orange asked after a moment.

“Yeah, that light up front is also a backup eye,” the imposter replied, although this was followed by a curse. Apparently, Cyan was mad at himself for giving up that information.

Bringing it into sight slowly for effect, Orange held up his largest and scariest looking screwdriver. He made a stabbing motion at Cyan’s optic.

“Here’s your reason.” Orange said, although he was frowning behind his visor. Fighting in self defense and when full of adrenaline was one thing, but threatening a defenseless person did not sit well with him. Even if it was necessary for survival.

“You’re a robot, I’ll bet you have all kinds of useful information,” Orange continued, “but right now I need to know how to treat a laser wound.”

Apparently death threats worked against imposters, because Cyan begrudgingly began giving Orange medical instructions.

“You know I’m going to do everything in my power to get you killed, right?” Cyan said while Orange bandaged himself. “I’m only talking when you force me to. If robot cores could eye things wearily, Cyan would have been doing so to the screwdriver Orange still had out.

“Well I’m very lonely, so that’s gonna be often.” Orange said. He finished treating his wounds, and, picking up Cyan, we started towards the reactor's exit.

“I hate you.” Cyan replied.

Chapter Text

Using some duct tape he had found, Orange was able to strap Cyan to his left shoulder, allowing the imposter a better view than that from Oranges’s pocket. Cyan didn’t acknowledge, instead demanding to know why the human was doing so.

“I’m doing this,” Orange grunted as he ripped off another piece of tape, “ to give you a better view.”

“What, so I can help you better?” Cyan replied. Even without facial expressions to go off of, Orange could hear the sarcasm dripping from the imposter's voice.

“That, and to be nice,” Orange replied. He finished adjusting Cyan on his shoulder and started walking again.

“To be nice?” Cyan scoffed. “Kindness won’t save you from death.”

“Well,” Orange countered, smiling behind his visor, “being nice to you will save me.”

“Sure, because threatening me with death if I don’t help is kindness,” Cyan said. He almost sounded as if he was laughing, but it was bitter.

Orange didn’t respond for a while, occupying himself with reading the directory signs on the walls, despite the fact that he already knew his way around the ship quite well. When he did respond, his voice was quieter, sadder even.

“I wish you wouldn’t make me do that,” Orange said, craning his neck to look at the optic on his shoulder. He didn’t follow up, making it clear the conversation was over for the moment.

Cyan, intent on making Orange as unhappy as possible, pressed onwards.

“I still see no reason for you to be nice to me,” Cyan continued, “it’s not like I’m talking to you out of free will.”

At this Orange perked up a bit and let out an amused chuckle.

“I got you to talk voluntarily just now,” the human replied, reaching over to tap the imposter’s eye. “Check and mate. We’re becoming friends already!”

Cyan was silent, fuming.

White let out an annoyed sigh and turned back to march the way she had come. The ship was structured extremely inconveniently for chasing someone through it, possibly the one thing MIRA did right with the design. Initially she had started towards the reactor room, where Orange had last been. However, Orange had already been moving away, and White hadn’t been able to tell which way the crewmate was heading, as Orange was only heading away from the reactor, not in any other direction. However, around the time White had reached Medbay, Orange had started heading towards the cockpit. The problem was, even though Orange was technically headed towards White, they were on opposite sides of the ship. The human was on the east end of the ship, while the imposter was on the right end.

All of this meant that it was quicker for White to double back and go through the cafeteria rather than make the full loop. The ship wasn’t big enough to lose tracking on Orange and Cyan, so she didn’t need to worry about that. Even so, going through the cafeteria would be humiliating.

“They’re all gonna think I failed already!” White grumbled, but she reluctantly approached the cafeteria doors. She spoke to herself in an eerie, almost sing-song voice, the one she used to intimidate victims. “I know where you are Orange. You can’t hide from me.”

Glancing down the hallway in both directions before entering, Orange slipped into the cockpit. It wouldn’t do to get cornered again if he could avoid it. Too bad almost every room in the ship had exactly one door.

Orange ripped Cyan off his shoulder, although he handled the core gently, and set it on one of the various consoles in the room. Then, he approached a panel in the wall and opened it. Putting himself between it and Cyan’s line of sight, he began flipping switches and inputting codes.

“What are you doing?” Cyan inquired after around a minute. Orange waited before answering, finishing whatever he was working on before speaking.

“I’m activating a beacon,” Orange answered, closing the panel and walk-in back over to Cyan. He picked the imposter up and reattached him to his shoulder. “It warns other MIRA ships to stay away, and tells them not to board or investigate.”

“Thanks for the info,” Cyan said smugly. “Guess it was my turn to get secrets out of someone.”

“You would have found out anyway,” Orange replied. He sat down in the navigators chair, resting his feet and relaxing. “You imposters probably leave after you kill everyone, but it’s a precaution just in case.”

“Not gonna tell MIRA yourself about us imposters?” Cyan asked. Putting the pieces together, he continued to mock the crewmate.

“You don’t expect to survive this, do you?” He continued, laughing. “No, you know you won’t survive! Well, no surprise there, most humans would have died in seconds when facing this situation!”

“I’ve gotten lucky so far,” Orange said, but he sounded sadder, more scared. “Just like all my other missions.”

“And you were sounding so confident just minutes ago!” Cyan continued, even more gleeful now that he knew he had gotten to the crewmate. The next time he spoke, his voice was lower and quieter, sending chills down Orange's spine.

“Well, there’s no shame in surrendering to a superior force,” Cyan said, making it clear he knew what that meant, and knew Orange knew as well. 

Orange didn’t answer, slumping in the chair and fiddling with a screwdriver. He could have been running, or doing something useful, but he just sat and rested. He was so very tired.

Cyan spoke again, in a creepy, almost glitchy and distorted voice: “she’s right outside!”

Ignoring the uncontrolled, chilling laughs now coming from the imposter, understanding suddenly dawned on Orange. He leapt up from the chair just as the cockpit door opened, revealing White, who, unlike Cyan, seems to not be using her laser. Instead they brandished a knife and a pistol, one on either hand. She pointed the gun right at Orange but hesitated.

Orange had a large and sharp screwdriver in his hand, close enough that he could easily stab Cyan’s core if White made a move.

“You really think I care about that failure?” White snarled, waving her knife at Orange’s shoulder. “Do it and you have no bargaining chip!”

“You haven’t shot yet,” Orange said, trying to sound calm but with clear fear in his voice. “If you didn’t care you would have shot.”

White let out a single snort, adjusted her and fired.

Orange, quickly returning to normal after flinching at the gunshot, noticed that he wasn’t bleeding. He hadn’t been shot at all. His gaze fell to the core, lying with a cracked lense on the floor. White had shot Cyan right off of Orange’s shoulder.

White lunged at Orange, grabbing him and slamming him into a nearby console. Levers and buttons dig uncomfortably into Orange’s back, and White stabbed at him with her knife.

Managing to grab her hand before the knife made contact, Orange pushed with all of his strength. Like in his fight with Cyan, he felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, managing to roll out of White’s grip and onto the floor. Scooping up Cyan, he made a dash for the door but was blocked why White. A well placed arm sent Orange crashing to the floor again.

This time White tried to use her gun, but before she could squeeze the trigger Orange managed to kick her arm, throwing off her aim. With another loud bang the shot went into the floor near Orange’s head, and soon after he had managed to get up again. White pinned him again, this time against the wall.

“You fight pretty well!” She said, raising her knife again. White wasn’t showing any signs of exhaustion, while Orange was already out of breath. “For an engineer you certainly have some skills. But they aren’t enough. Time to die.”

A gunshot rang out.

White looked down in surprise. She hadn’t even noticed when Orange had taken her gun. In her surprise she dropped Orange who, after a cough or two, wasting no time in getting out of the cockpit. Getting over her shock, and barely damaged, White gave pursuit.

Turning backwards and firing multiple times, Orange, who was inexperienced with such weapons, missing all the shots. The one he had fired at point blank earlier had hit the most armored part of White (her stomach/chest), and hadn’t done much past puncturing s hole in her suit. Of course, this didn’t matter, as White was a robot and didn’t require a sealed suit.

Still firing wildly at White, Orange stepped into the oxygen monitoring room. He quite quickly backed himself against the wall, right on the trash shoot. White advanced and, throwing aside the knife, launched herself at him, reaching out with both hands.

Orange managed to sidestep st the last second, causing White’s hands to both go directly into the trash shoot.

Orange flipped the lever.

As was necessary to maintain pressurization inside the room, a small door slammed down like a guillotine on White’s wrists. Letting out a cry, she stumbled backwards, sparks shooting from where her hands used to be. She found herself staring down the gun barrel of her pistol, which made, of course, Orange now possessed.

“You’re beaten,” the human said, motioning for her to leave with the gun. “Get out of here.”

“I’m not beaten until I say I’m beaten!” White replied, her voice full of rage. “I could still kill you easily!”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Orange said, “but don’t think I’ll let you live like I did Cyan here. I made that mistake once already. You’ve had your chance. If I have mercy on you don’t think the other imposters will for taking their kill. If you don’t care about Cyan, there’s no way they care about you. Now get out”

Slowly, keeping her gaze on Orange, White left.

“I should be dead by now,” Orange mumbled to himself. “One or two of them decides to break the rules, and I’m dead.”

Once he was sure White was gone, Orange sealed the door and sat down. He took out Cyan’s core and assessed the damage.

“Don’t be dead,” Orange murmured. “Don’t be dead.”

Chapter Text

After White trudged into the cafeteria missing her hands and showering sparks everywhere, the imposters were once again thrown into somewhat of a panic. Although Orange had defeated the others before, and even beat Cyan in combat, seeing one of their own so seriously damaged made them truly aware of the situation they were in.

“How does this keep happening?” Lime asked, talking more to himself than the group. “First he beats Cyan into literal scrap metal, and now he’s done this?”

“He’s getting better at fighting,” Yellow said. “We messed up early and he’s gained experience.”

Jumping up from his seat, Purple pointed his finger at Yellow and joined the conversation.

“You’re one to talk!” he shouted. “You were the first one to go, and you failed in minutes!”

“I said we,” Yellow retorted, also now standing. “Don’t you know what that means? I thought humans were supposed to be smart!”

“Nobody just learns to fight so well in this amount of time!” Purple yelled.

“Well he did, and we have to deal with it” lime said, rejoining the argument. “We can’t keep rushing in blind without much of a plan.”

“We wouldn’t need a plan to kill one crewmate of these incompetents hadn’t messed up constantly!” Purple replied, gesturing wildly at the rest of the imposters.

“What makes you think you could do better?” Yellow shouted back. After many more insults and shouts, Purple drew his knife and tackled her to the ground.

Lime, hesitating to step into the fray to stop them, watched as the two imposters traded blows and drew weapons. Since Purple had initiated the fight, Yellow was caught off guard, and Purple quickly gained the advantage. However, Lime quickly noticed that, despite supposedly having all kinds of shape shifting powers and an extremely versatile and deadly tongue, Yellow was fighting like a normal human would. Even as he finally got himself to move in order to break the fight up, Lime got the impression that Yellow wasn’t fighting to the best of her ability. Whether due to overconfidence, injury, or carefulness, Yellow was holding back.

Black didn’t.

Moving swiftly and cutting Lime off, Black, sporting multiple tendrils and no longer looking remotely human, grabbed Purple, and hoisted him up in the air. Slamming him against the ceiling, Black held him there and showed no sign of letting go. To his credit, Purple seemed reasonably calm for his situation. At least, he wasn’t kicking and screaming, although he was struggling a fair amount. Still, Lime could tell he needed help.

A loud click rang out across the cafeteria, which was mostly silent as the other imposters quietly watched the events unfolding.

“Put him down”, Lime said, pointing his gun at Black. “Put him down and let’s solve this without any more infighting.”

“He attacked first,” Black responded calmly.

“And we’ll figure out how to deal with that later, but for now, put Purple down,” lime continued. He was slowly advancing towards Black, the gun still aimed at the shapeshifter. “Since you and me are the most sensible ones here,” he said, staring glancing around the room at the other imposters, glaring behind his visor, “we can figure something out. Take care of your people, and let me take care of mine.”

After a few moments, Black lowered Purple close to the ground and dropped him.

“Of course,” Black said, “I overreacted. My apologies.”

Lime, holstering his gun, sighed and sat down on a nearby bench. He turned his gaze to Purple, who was still lying on the ground.

“No more of that, you understand?” Lime asked him. “We have to at least restrain from killing one another if we want Orange to die.”

“Understood,” Purple responded, groaning and getting up off the floor. He glanced in Yellow's direction but went off to chat with Red without another word.

After a few moments of silence, Lime spoke up, eager to get the ball rolling again.

“So who’s turn is it now?” he asked, trying to remember the order. “Wasn’t it yours, Brown?”

“It was,” the robot responded. “I want a plan though. Care to help?”

“Of course,” Lime answered. “Anything to see that fool on orange die.”

Brown, Lime, and Black gathered around a table and, after a minute or two, White joined them.

“Don’t let him get in close,” she said, showing her arms and missing hands. “He has good reflexes and relies on us making mistakes when we close distance.”

“I’ll try and use my laser as much as possible,” Brown said, nodding. “A fully charged shot should leave nothing left.”

“No, don’t do that,” Lime cut in. “Longer attacks, like charging up a laser shot or winding up for a big punch give him another opportunity to make a move. Keep your attacks quick, even the smallest charge should be enough to kill Orange on a direct hit.”

“I’m sure the various factions wouldn’t mind evidence, either,” Black offered. “I’ve heard you like full disintegrations, but hold back if you can.”

“Got it,” Brown said, although he seems somewhat disappointed that he wouldn’t get to turn Orange into ash. Still, if his reputation as a team player held up, he would take the other imposters advice.

The four imposters continued discussing strategy for a while, but Brown eventually declared that giving Orange too long a break would lose the imposter an advantage. After some last minute advice, the robot set out towards the last known location of Orange.

Face scrunched in concentration behind his visor, Orange was doing his best to fix Cyan. Although he had no knowledge of how the imposter’s core worked, the damage was actually pretty light. Soon enough, Cyan flickered to life, and Orange’s radio was once again filled with the voice of the imposter.

“So you survived, did you?” Cyan asked, chuckling. “Didn’t like my advice, hmm?”

“I’m not letting you do that again,” Orange said, ignoring what Cyan had said. “I’m cutting our radio link. If I want to talk to you, I will. If you truly have something useful to say, flicker your light to get my attention.”

“Getting tired of not being lonely?” Cyan teased. “I thought you wanted to be friends. You were so cheerful and hopeful earlier.”

“That was before you got creepy,” Orange grumbled, getting up from his sitting position and walking out of the oxygen room. “My friendliness only goes so far.”

“You’re still talking to me now,” Cyan continued, laughing again. “I really am sorry about earlier.”

“No, you’re not,” Orange responded, once again strapping Cyan to his shoulder. “You’re just as sorry as you were when you were about to put a laser through me in the reactor room.”

They walked in silence for a while, heading through the shield generator room towards communications.

“I can’t help but be friendly towards most people I meet,” Orange said suddenly. “It’s sort of a default for me, chatting and helping. What people do can change that.”

“Then why did you repair me?” Cyan asked. From his tone, it seemed like a genuine question.

“I still need you,” Orange said, patting the pocket where he still kept his screwdriver. Then, he made good on his promise and cut the radio feed between himself and the imposter.

Orange had gotten through the shield generator room and was now passing communications. He was getting very hungry and thirsty, and hopefully storage would have something edible. Although, he would have to be careful. He had made it through a long distance without incident, and it was possible whoever was coming for him had predicted his next move.

Arriving in storage, Orange immediately started digging around the various cannon tees, crates, and boxes. 

“Wiring, wiring, more wiring, even more wiring,” Orange read off the names of the boxes in front of him. He had forgotten how high maintenance the ship was, and frankly it was a miracle the ship hadn’t completely fallen apart so far. 

Orange was moving on to the next set of boxes when he caught a flickering out of the corner of his eye. Sighing, he reopened the radio link to Cyan.

“Just thought you should know,” Cyan immediately said, “Brown is on his way here. He’s near the cockpit right now.”

Orange, choosing not to question the information, immediately realized what this meant.

“You can track each other, can’t you?” He asked, pulling out the screwdriver. “That’s how they keep finding me!”

“Woah, woah, I’m trying to help!” Cyan yelped, seeing the deadly implement in Orange’s hand.

“Where is the tracking module?” Orange said, ripping Cyan off his shoulder and inspecting the core. 

Choosing to lose an advantage in killing Orange rather than die himself, Cyan described it to the crewmate, who quickly removed it and buried it behind some boxes.

“Now, about some food,” Orange muttered to himself. A plan was already formulating in his head.

“Still in storage, eh?” Brown said to himself. “This is going to be easy.”

Orange was not still in storage. In fact, he was on his way towards the cafeteria. First though, after a while walking, he popped into Admin. Bringing up the mission information, Orange began scrolling through it. As he searched for some specific data, he decided to talk more with Cyan. Perhaps he could get more information out of the imposter.

“Why did you help me, by the way?” Orange asked Cyan. It was a question Orange actually wanted answered, especially if Cyan had ulterior motives. Which he probably did.

“You repaired me after I got shot,” the imposter responded. “We’re even now.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” Orange said drily, swiping through more files in order to find what he needed. “Why did you help me?”

“Because,” Cyan replied, letting a little bit of creepiness bleed into his voice, “Brown is no fun. He’ll turn you into a pile of ash in seconds. I want you to suffer.”

Orange cut the link. He had found the data he needed anyway.

“Forgot how short of a trip this was,” he said. “Twenty four hours until we reach Polus, and enough armed MIRA personnel to deal with even nine imposters.”

Leaving admin, Orange continued towards the cafeteria with a new hope of survival embedded in his mind.

“You sure are taking a long time in storage, Orange,” Brown said. “You can’t hide from me.”

Orange peeked around the door into the cafeteria. No sign of Brown, who, if Cyan was telling the truth, was currently taking his turn to try and kill Orange. Hopefully the imposters would follow the rules and leave him alone, although Orange wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. He didn’t have a choice though. He felt sick and weak from hunger and thirst, and food would also replenish his rapidly depleting energy. It was a crazy move, but it just might work. 

If it didn’t, Orange would likely die.

He strolled casually through the door and flipped open the control panel.

Nobody noticed.

He linked the cafeteria doors to himself, allowing them to be opened and closed remotely at his command, as long as he was in the room. Then, strolling across and into the kitchen, he made himself some food.

Nobody noticed.

He glanced over at the imposters. Some looked like they were sleeping, others deep in thought. Some were conversing or bickering, and one, Black, was cleaning his weapons. The cafeteria, being a quite large room for no particular reason, meant that Orange could sit across the room from them and apparently not be noticed.

He sat down and lifted his visor slightly to put a forkful of nutrient mush into his mouth. Then, deciding to take chances with Brown, he closed and locked all the doors.

They finally noticed.

One by one, they stared, dumbfounded, at the crewmate. He started back, chewing more food. A quiet discussion broke out between the imposters, and eventually Lime and Black walked across the cafeteria and approached Orange. Without hesitation, they both pulled weapons on the crewmate.

“Brown won’t be too happy if you kill me, I suspect,” Orange said casually, finishing his last forkful of food.

The two imposters looked at each other, and, even with visors covering their faces, they seemed to communicate.

“Brown is quite good at working with others,” Lime said, putting his gun closer to Orange’s face. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind us, say, taking your limbs off. As long as he gets the kill.”

“You created the rule,” Orange responded, although fear was clearly leaking into his voice. It did not match the confident way he had acted before the imposters had noticed him. “I’m pretty sure harming me in any way would count as interference.”

“You are sitting in a room with seven deadly killers, and you think you’re going to walk out alive?” Black said. He glanced at Orange’s shoulder.

“Or is it eight imposters?” the shapeshifter continued. “Give him to us.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” Orange said, regaining some confidence. He got up from the table and started backing towards one of the cafeteria exits. He glanced nervously at the other imposters, who seemed to be keeping their distance only because they had been told to. 

Orange reached the door.

“Give us Cyan back!” White shouted from across the room. “I’ll kill you!”

“You already tried!” Orange shouted back. He opened the doors, and began backing out of the cafeteria.

“You’re lucky I’m in the process of trying to keep us from testing each other apart,” Lime called out to Orange. “Otherwise I’d break the rules more than I’m about to.”

Lime fired.

The bullet hit Orange right on the stomach, and he just barely managed to stumble out of the room. He had, out of pure luck, left through the entrance that led to medbay. He’d have a chance if he reached it before anybody caught up.

Holstering his weapon, Lime turned to Black.

“We’re going to regret letting him go,” he said, looking back at the door Orange had left through. “I still can’t believe he did that.”

“He didn’t get out unscathed,” Black said back, although even he sounded frustrated. “It was worth it to keep the peace. If one of us steals the kill, there will be nothin to stop the others from tearing us apart, along with each other.”

“I can't believe he did that!” Line said, spinning and grumbling. He paused, and thought for a while. “In a way, I respect him for it. We still should have killed him though.”

“If you had shot him anywhere more lethal I would have killed you myself,” Black responded, walking away from Lime. “We want to survive as much as Orange does. We have a better chance of survival one on one with him than against another imposter.”

Despite his frustration and anger, Lime had to agree. Anything to see Orange die.

Brown stood alone in storage, holding Cyan’s tracking module. He had followed its signal across about half of the ship, only to find it and only it, buried behind some wiring crates.

“Crap”, the robot muttered.

Chapter Text

“That was pretty stupid of you,” Cyan said. “You humans can survive much longer without food and water than you did.”

“I was running out of energy,” Orange replied, letting out the words through gritted teeth. Bullet wounds sure hurt a lot.

“Oh, I’m not complaining about your choice of actions!” Cyan said back. “In fact, I’m very grateful that you did your best to get yourself killed! You really are too kind!”

Orange cut the connection.

It took a seemingly endless amount of time to reach medbay, despite its proximity to the cafeteria. Limping inside, Orange stumbled all the way to the back of the room before collapsing on the medical scanner. His arm groped blindly for a few seconds before finding the start button.

After a few more seconds, a green light washed over him multiple times, up and down his body. Orange waited for his results, although it seemed the bullet hadn’t hit anything too vital, considering Orange was still alive.

Orange cursed the ship and MIRA as the medical scan results appeared very, very slowly on the screen in front of him.

Designation: Orange #8248. Job: Engineer. Species: Human.

Bullet entry and exit wounds detected. Multiple suit breaches detected.

With a few clicks and a hiss, a panel that had been sealed shut on Orange’s previous visit opened to reveal a small package. It had no label other than a green cross, but Orange knew what it contained. He reached for it and, after fumbling for a moment, opened it. Inside, there were two small spray-sticks. 

“At least I don’t have to remove a bullet,” Orange mumbled to himself after applying the first spray to his wounds. “Would have been nice to have access to these earlier, though.”

Soon after the imposter attack started occurring aboard MIRA ships, every medbay had received some “improvements”. These changes included a system that ensured that high quality (and expensive) medical supplies were only accessible after a scan, and only if they were “needed”. Some crap about saving money and preventing unnecessary use of MIRA resources.

After a while, the pain from Orange’s wound subsided. The medical spray made sure his injuries wouldn’t become infected, and healed them on the outside. A bullet wound would still take time to heal completely, though.

Now feeling substantially better, or at least feeling up to running and talking again, Orange replaced the medial spray in its spot in the package, taking out the other stick. This one created artificial seals in his suit; not as strong as the suit itself, but good enough to maintain a space suit’s function. After making sure he had no suit breaches, Orange put the spray back and closed the package, stuffing it in one of his pockets.

Orange decided he deserved some gloating.

“Disappointed I didn't die?” Orange said to Cyan after reconnecting their speaking capabilities. “Or are you happy enough that I got shot at all?”

“I assure you, I’m absolutely devastated that you are still among the living,” Cyan retorted. He continued, more to himself than Orange: “gets shot, somehow doesn’t die. Almost as if they weren’t trying to kill you.”

“Seems likely, actually,” Orange replied, talking over Cyan’s continued grumbling. “If my memory serves me right, it was Brown’s turn to kill me.”

Cyan stopped complaining and fumed silently, realizing Orange was right.

“You what!?” Brown was screaming at the other imposters. “You all had the chance to kill Orange, and he got away with one bullet in him? What were you thinking!?”

“Calm down,” Black said. “We thought you would be mad if we took your kill.”

“Mad? Mad!? How do you think I feel right now?” Brown yelled back, and without another word, he stalked away.

Watching Brown stomp away, Lime shouted after him without looking away: “For the record, I was thinking about going for a lethal shot!” 

“Black says he would’ve killed me if I had though,” Lime said in a quieter voice. He chuckled. “Black kill me? As if!”

“Indeed,” Black said, right behind Lime. The human imposter was suddenly aware of the knife pressed lightly against his throat (or the corresponding area of his suit). Seconds later, Red and Purple had their guns aimed at the shapeshifter.

Lime quickly motioned for them to lower their weapons, as Black had already removed the blade from its threatening position. Lime also holstered the gun he had aimed at blacks chest, from before the knife had even been in place.

The eyes of all the other imposters soon left Lime and Black, and the two sat down at a nearby table, starting a discussion.

“One of us attempting to kill the other would be a bigger waste of time than this whole taking turns thing,” Lime said, balancing a knife on his finger.

“I recall it was your idea in the first place,” Black responded.

“Well, we all make mistakes from time to time,” Lime said back.

“Not in this field of work,” Black retorted. He had begun cleaning his weapons again, despite them not being used at all the entire journey.

“Fair enough,” Lime said. He was silent for a moment, before suddenly coming to a realization. He looked up, ready to shout.

He watched Purple walk out the door towards medbay. Lime face palmed, sighed, and turned back to Black.

“We need a contingency, if all this fails,” he ventured. “I mean, we’re not letting him live if he survives all our attempts, right?”

Black didn’t reply.

Orange knew he had stayed in medbay too long. Getting up from his resting position, he started for the door, annoyed at his own ignorance and surprised an imposter hadn’t found him yet.

“Especially considering that trail of blood,” Orange thought out loud, spying the splashes of now dry blood he had left getting to medbay. “I’d better get out of here.”

It was then that Purple appeared around the corner, coming from the cafeteria. His gun was drawn.

Orange didn’t take another look before he started running the opposite way. He did, however, risk a glance backwards after a few seconds passed, confused as to why no bullets had been fired yet. Instead, Orange saw Purple fiddle with a device in the imposter's hand. After a moment, the door to medbay closed. Orange shifted his gaze back forwards and kept running.

Soon, the crewmate had sprinted through the upper engine room, and still Purple had not fired his weapon. Orange was beginning to get tired; he needed to find a room in which to hide.

He was panting when he reached security, but before he could slip inside, the door shut in his face. Orange kept running, Purples footsteps audible behind him.

Reactor closed too. Orange ran past, not slowing down this time when the door to the room sealed shut. It dawned on Orange what Purple was doing: by cutting off Orange’s access to actual rooms, Purple was forcing the crewmate to run through the main corridor. The corridor that eventually led back to the cafeteria.

Orange liked to think he had gotten fairly good at sprinting. In a race of endurance, however, the imposter would win. Even if Purple didn’t catch Orange at first, the cafeteria would either be a dead end or, worse, be open. 

By the time Orange passed electricity (it’s door closed long before Orange arrived), his throat hurt and his feet ached. Still, he kept running.

He reached storage, and ran through. He briefly considered running up to the admin room, but decided against it. It would be a dead end faster than making the full loop of the ship.

He glanced over his shoulder again. Purple was close, still holding his gun but refusing to use it, at least yet. Orange kept running.

There was a large pile of boxes and other containers in the middle of storage. It would obstruct Purple’s view for a few moments, but only a few. Putting on a final burst of speed, Orange sprinted out of storage and into the communication room. He didn’t risk checking if Purple had seen him.

Orange huddled into a corner of the room, hoping he wouldn’t be visible from the doorway. He didn’t hear People's footsteps anymore.

Then it dawned on him.

Communications had been open. The door had been open.

Orange made a dash for the door, but it was too late. Purple appeared in the entryway. Having set the trap, he was expecting to see Orange in the room.

He wasn’t expecting Orange to run right into him.

Orange turned his mad dash for escape into a tackling move, smashing Purple into the doorframe and sending the imposter’s gun clattering to the floor.

Purple however, being a trained fighter, recovers quickly from the attack and swings at Orange, who is still breathing heavily from the earlier chase.

“I should really thank you,” Purple taunts, trading blows with the engineer. “You’ll be my first high profile kill.”

“Don’t thank me, or act sympathetic,” Orange responds. “The last of you to do that ended up having their brain strapped to my shoulder.”

Purple simply snickered and pulled his knife, lunging at Orange. The crewmate manages to catch the imposter’s arm, barely dodging the stab of the knife.

“Why won’t you just die already!” Purple screams, becoming increasingly frustrated at Orange’s continued fighting. 

Orange was too tired to run. He knew he had to fight and win, and hoped that Purple would honor the agreement between imposters; Orange was surprised none of them had made multiple attempts without telling yet.

Purple made another lunge at Orange, but the attack is sluggish, angry and overkill. The crewmate side stepped the imposter, who ran into the communications console and somehow managed to get tangled in the headphone wires. MIRA ships have a lot of wires, due to mostly outdated technology.

By the time the imposter got untangled and turned around, Orange had retrieved the imposter’s gun and had it aimed right at purple. Orange motioned with the gun.

“Leave,” he says simply. The imposter raises his hands, but doesn’t otherwise move.

“How have you beat all of us so far?” Purple inquired, eying the gun nervously but maintaining his position. “Seriously, you aren’t really an engineer, are you?”

“I’m an engineer,” Orange said simply. “And I’m lucky.”

“You’re not lucky,” Purple responded. “You have skills. You could be one of us, you know.”

Orange smiles under his helmet.

“I could be,” he said. “But I don’t want to. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a killer.”

“Yes, you are,” Purple insists. “You are a killer. You just haven’t killed yet.”

Orange motioned with the gun again.

“Leave,” he said, his voice now sounding angrier.

Purple shakes his head and walks out the door, his footsteps eventually retreating away towards storage.

“He’s right, you know,” Cyan said in Orange’s ear. The crewmate had forgotten Cyan could hear everything. “You could work with us. After this, they probably won’t give us as important jobs as infiltrating ships ever again.”

“I don’t want to work with you,” Orange responds quietly. “I’d rather die.”

He immediately regretted saying that, knowing the latter is still likely to become true.

Realizing he still had the gun, Orange stuck it in a pocket and left communications. Finally in possession of a real weapon, Orange began to prepare for his next fight.

Chapter Text

“Tip: pulling the trigger will shoot the gun,” Cyan offered unhelpfully. Orange was fiddling with the stolen pistol as he walked away from the communications room and storage, but, as someone with no firearms knowledge or training, he was incredibly cautious and confused.

“I know that much,” Orange grumbled, stuffing the pistol back in his pocket and deciding to deal with it later.

“Tip: you can only fire a gun so many times before reloading is required. Don’t forget to reload!” Cyan said. To be fair, Or age preferred this to Cyan’s murder glitchy voice. It almost seemed as if the imposter was being… friendly? 

Almost.

“Shut it or put the rest of the space junk in the trash chute,” Orange responded. And chuckled at his own joke. The insult seemed to quiet Cyan, at least for the moment.

Eventually Orange arrived at his destination: security. He hadn’t been attacked on the way, so he assumed this was another short break. On one hand, he had time to rest and plan. On the other hand, it also meant the imposters were resting and planning. That worried Orange.

He took out the gun again and began to look for a way to release the magazine, or at least display ammunition information. After a moment, he found a small holographic projection on the bottom of the grip. It showed that the gun had ten bullets left.

“Oh thank god,” Cyan said with a snicker.

“What?” Orange said back, confused. He put the gun down on the security desk, before thinking better of it and putting in his makeshift holster (a pocket. One can never have too many pockets).

“The imposters put an ammunition counter on the bottom of the grip so that it won’t distract from the target. But the fact that you checked means that you don’t have any experience with guns at all.”

“You could tell that already,” Orang replied, rolling his eyes behind his helmet. 

“With you, it's hard to be sure,” Cyan said. Orange realized it was a complement, somewhat. He didn’t mention that to Cyan.

“If I had firearms experience I would have shot you by now,” Orange said.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Cyan retorted. “That would have been a waste of ammo, and you’re too smart for that.”

Realizing he had complemented the crewmate twice now, Cyan shut up. Orange shrugged and shifted his focus to the security monitors. From what he could count, all of the remaining imposters were still in the cafeteria, including Purple.

Deciding he had some time, Orange locked the security door, double checked his improvised vent cover from earlier, and rested.

He didn’t close his eyes this time, though. Like Cyan had said: he was too smart for that.

It had taken the entirety of the remaining imposters using various shouts, arguments, and threats before Green had begrudgingly agreed to wait a while and make a plan. Now, most of the imposters, minus Black and Lime, were seated around a table combining their knowledge to give Green a better chance. Purple especially was enthusiastic to help; Lime had suggested he do so to distract Purple from his failure, which had left the imposter dejected and angry.

Lime and Black, however, were already betting on Green failure, or at least not ruling it out.

“She’s a vicious and experienced killer,” Lime said, motioning in the vague direction of the other imposters.

“We all are,” Black replied.

“She has tons of experience,” Lime insisted.

“We all do,” Black replied.

Lime sighed, and briefly wondered what would happen if they all failed, before shoving that train of thought out of his mind. They would succeed, one way or another.

“All I’m saying is that if Green fails, we need some kind of contingency,” Lime continued. “Something extra, to guarantee Orange dies.”

“You and I are the backup plan,” Black replied simply. Finally done with cleaning his weapons, he was now sharpening his various knives.

“We’ll, I’m thinking you and I should be the backup plan,” Lime suggested. Black made a confused sound and shifted his gaze to Lime.

“That’s what I just said,” Black said.

“I mean you and me together should be the backup plan,” Lime elaborated. “If green fails, we go together and finish this.”

Black was silent for a moment.

“I’ll give you credit for the kill,” Lime offered. “I just want Orange dead.”

Back considered this for another moment before nodding.

“It’s a good idea,” the shapeshifter said. “And you can have credit for the kill. If it weren’t for you we’d all have killed one another by now.”

“You helped with that too,” Lime pointed out. “But if you insist, I’m all too happy to take the credit.

The two imposters were silent for a few minutes, watching the other imposters continue briefing Green.

“Green gets her chance,” Lime said, getting up and beginning to walk over to the others. He paused and turned back to Black. “And if she fails, we go together.”

Chapter Text

“Remember what we talked about,” White said, causing Green to pause on her way out the cafeteria door. “Everything Orange does is motivated by fear and adrenaline. So while scaring him makes him more dangerous, we do know he can be scared. Intimidate him and he might screw up.”

“And if he gets scared but goes bonkers on you, remember to keep your distance,” Purple added. “That’s how he got all us; we got too close.”

“But remember he probably has Purple’s gun,” Lime mentioned. “Get him to waste his ammo so you have the option to keep your distance at all.”

Green nodded, somehow taking in all of the advice and information at once. Then, she sprinted out of the cafeteria.

Her bloodlust and anger were all too apparent.

Orange knew he was running out of time. He had taken inventory of his resources and realized he really couldn’t set any traps, or make any complicated plans at all. Now he was rushing to at least have some kind of positioning advantage over whoever was coming for him next.

The lights dimmed.

“Out of time, out of time,” Orange muttered, pulling out the pistol and fumbling the safety off. 

The lights started to flicker every once in a while.

Orange checked over his shoulder, seeing nothing. He was nice, he reached the lower engine area, he checked again.

Orange froze. He fumbled with the flashlight strapped to the pistol, the former which he had only just recently found lying around in storage.

Something moved, but it was outside the flashlights beam. The dim lights, however, didn’t provide much help either.

Orange thought he caught a flash of green. Darker green, not the lighter tone this corresponded with Lime.

After standing stock still, sweeping the area with the flashlight over and over, Orange slowly backed away and kept moving. 

He passed security, but didn’t enter. It wouldn’t do to get cornered again. Orange could hear the telltale sound of static coming from inside anyways.

At this point Orange was very close to losing it. The low light levels, along with the fact that Green was clearly stalking him, combined to a terrifying effect. Most of all, the absolute silence was getting to Orange. Even Cyan was, for once, completely quiet despite the fact that Orange had their voice channel open at the moment.

“Wait,” Orange breathed. Cyan would be quiet for three reasons. One, if Or age had made him be quiet, which wasn’t the case. Two, if he was purposefully adding to the creepy silence in an attempt to aid Green’s murder attempt. Three, he knew the imposters would try and kill him again and was acting in self preservation.

But nobody outside Orange could hear Cyan, so the only risk Cyan speaking would pose would be if an imposter was close enough to tell through technological means. An imposter would have to be very, very close to achieve that.

Slowly, Orange looked up.

The thing attached to the ceiling was barely recognizable as Green. Or, it wasn’t recognizable as someone wearing a MIRA suit. 

Orange didn’t even have the time to take in the entirety of Green's current form before he had to dodge out of the way, as she had dropped from the ceiling to attack him.

Orange fired a few shots wildly in her direction, the flashes lighting up the dimly lit area and the shots cutting harshly through the silence. In his surprised state, Orange missed all three shots. At least, he thought he did. It was entirely possible that any number of the bullets had hit Green, and the imposter simply hadn’t reacted. Orange stopped firing, seeing as either way it was a waste of ammo.

Orange started backing away quicker as Green writhed through the hallway, at this point simply a mass of writhing tentacles, tongue, and other appendages, all of them terrifying. One managed to land a blow on Orange, sending him crashing into a wall; miraculously, he kept his grip on the pistol.

Orange managed to get up and flee back into the lower engine room before Green caught up to him. This time she didn’t hit him, but grabbed him and pinned him to the ceiling. Once again, Orange held on to his weapon, although just barely.

He was now, however, captured and at the mercy of Green, who seemingly wanted to draw the entire thing out. Orange couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or bad thing; more time meant a chance for survival, but a slow and excruciating death was probably what Green had in mind.

Sure enough, tightened her grip on Orange, adding more appendages to trap and crush him; they were now tight to a painful extent. For some reason, Green hadn’t restrained Orange’s arms yet, and there Orange saw his chance. He started struggling, moving every bit of his body but the arm that held the pistol. Green responded by putting more effort into restraining those parts of Orange’s body, keeping the gun arm free. 

After another drew seconds of crushing, Green actually spoke to Orange, although the crewmate wished she hadn’t:

“No escape for you,” Green said. The voice seemed to come from no specific direction at all, or every single one at once; Orange couldn’t tell. “I’m going to be the one to kill you. Maybe I’ll kill some of the others too, for their incompetence.”

“I guess there’s no chance of a quick end?” Or age choked out, intent of keeping Green distracted. He whimpered when Green tightened more before responding.

“Oh, no, no no,” she said. “This is going to be exquisitely slow.”

“How’d you get me? Was it-“ Orneed paused it cough and struggled more: “was it my fault, or did you have a plan.”

“Both,” Green responded. “The others helped me. They told me to scare you, and that I could predict your actions if I did. You played right into my hands; you should have run the second you realized I was nearby. Instead, you tried to fight at first. Foolish.”

“We’ll, I’ll keep that advice in mind for next time,” Orange replied. 

“There won’t be a next time,” Green snarled in response. 

“Won’t there?” Orange said, still struggling. “What else did they tell you?”

“Lots of things. About your fighting style, the gun, and-“

Orange cut her off: “don’t let me get close?”

Green seemed to realize her mistake quite quickly, and she actually loosened her grip, preparing for some kind of attack.

“Funny you should mention the gun,” Orange added. Having been moved into position during the struggle and conversation, Orange’s arm now had the freedom to fire the pistol.

Right at the engine. The exposed, outdated, crappy engine. Seeing as it was MIRA tech, the result was immediate: an explosion that shook the ship and stunned Green enough to let Orange go.

The crewmate grunted as he hit the floor and quickly ran for the exit opposite of where he had entered (and farther away from Green). Before the imposter could recover, Orange slammed his hand onto the emergency seal button right outside the engine. 

This button slammed the door shut in front of Onage and automatically sealed it shut permanently. Like the medbay supplies, this function was only available if the ship detected a serious malfunction in the engine room. Since it functionally destroyed the door, the door would need replacing afterwards. Therefore, MIRA made sure it was only available during a serious event.

Orange, realizing he had beaten Green, allowed himself to chuckle at the memory of MIRA’s most famous slogan: Are you sure it’s an emergency?

He knew he should probably figure out if he was seriously injured as a result of Green’s crushing, but he was cut off from medbay. He didn’t seem to be actively dying, so he decided that it was safe to get going. After seeing the speed in which Green found him, he didn’t have time to rest.

Lime watched as Green stalked into the cafeteria, only barely back in the form of a human. When Red and Purple approached her, she flung them aside onto various tables. Nobody tried to talk to her after that.

Lime noticed Black approaching, and got up. 

“Time to go,” Black said curtly. 

“You gonna change form or anything?” Lime asked, jerking his head at Green, who was still sprouting multiple extra limbs.

“It takes a lot of energy and practice,” Black responded. “I’d rather focus my energy on killing rather than intimidating”

Lime nodded. After a last weapons check, and a review of the plan, Lime and Black left the cafeteria. 

“I don’t care if it sort of breaks the rules, them going together,” Purple said to Brown after they were gone. “This is it.”

He paused, taking a breath and staring after Black and Lime.

“Orange dies.”

Chapter Text

“If I remember properly, Black should be coming after me next,” Orange said, nervously glancing over his shoulder (and then checking over the other, as Cyan blocked his view). “Know anything about them?”

“Let’s see,” Cyan responded, seemingly thinking for a moment. “Grossly incompetent, terrible aim. Definitely not a shapeshifter.”

“Veteran killer and weapons expert, and shapeshifter,” Orange noted to himself. “Gotcha.”

He glanced behind himself again, then paused.

“You pretty much gave up that information freely,” Orange said suspiciously. “Why?”

Cyan didn’t answer.

“I thought you wanted me dead,” Orange pressed. “Or did you suddenly have a change of heart?”

“Nothing so selfless, really,” Cyan finally responded. “At this point your survival is increasingly likely. The imposter factions are quite different from one another, but none are very forgiving of failure.”

“Man, I really feel bad now,” Orange muttered dryly. “Guess I’ll lie down and die then.”

“Don’t get my hopes up,” Cyan retorted.

The conversation was put on hold when Orange arrived at his destination: Admin. Accessing one of the main computer consoles, Orange began looking for the information he wanted. Sifting through the slow and outdated MIRA software, Orange resumed his conversation with Cyan.

“Seriously, though,” Orange said. “Does my continued living mean you get executed or imprisoned or something?”

“If I said yes, would you let Black kill you?” Cyan said, although his tone betrayed any real hope in his voice.

“No,” Orange responded simply. He turned his attention back to the Admin field for a moment before continuing: “So what happens to you all if you fail?”

“Depends on how badly we failed,” Cyan said. “If you fail badly enough and get discovered, it usually just results in a lack of rescue if the crew spaces you.”

“I could always take you with me if I survive,” Orange offered, still scrolling through files. Cyan snorted and began to laugh.

“Better eternal boredom in space then eternal boredom with you,” the imposter said back.

“I don't believe you,” Orange teased. “I think you value our friendship.”

“My turn for questions!” Cyan said, changing the subject. “How have you survived so many encounters with imposters?”

“Luck,” Orange grunted. He focused on the screen in front of him.

“I don’t believe you,” Cyan retorted. “You’re way too good at fighting to have it be just luck.”

Orange ignored the imposter, finally finding the file he needed. After reading it, he smiled behind his visor, with renewed hope. 

“You could be one of us,” Cyan said. Orange’s smile disappeared, and his tone turned angry.

“I don’t enjoy fighting,” the crewmate said, “ and especially not killing.”

Cyan’s voice turned glitchy.

“I don’t,” they started as static interrupted their sentence. “Believe you.”

Orange cut the connection, and finished reading the data file.

“It’s really been that long,” he whispered to himself. “Guess I should be happy this was a shorter trip.”

One worry down, Orange turned his train of thought to the (likely) upcoming fight. From the little Orange had observed and heard over the security systems, he decided that Black was likely one of the most experienced and dangerous killers on board. Orange’s spirits plummeted as he realized the still considerably large chance he would die. The best he could do was prepare and not get caught by surprise.

“Surprise!” Black said menacingly from near the vent, where he had apparently crawled out silently.

“Crap,” Orange said. He didn’t even have a weapon on hand, while the imposter was carrying multiple. The crewmate ducked behind the admin table as bullets whizzed overhead. Expecting Black to advance any second, Or he fumbled his own weapon out of its makeshift holster; additionally, after a moment's hesitation, he reestablished his voice channel with Cyan.

“You’ve fought off eight of us but you can’t handle a gun properly?” the robot scoffed. “Really, who are you?”

“If you help me through this I just might tell you,” Orange said back. “But I can’t really get distracted by side conversations right now.”

The crewmate saw movement out of the corner of his eye and stumbled out of the way of Black’s lunge. The imposter had traded the guns for some very sharp looking knives, and moved with blistering speed, slashing and stabbing at Orange.

Hopping to his feet, Orange thought for a moment that Black was being a bit too cautious. 

Or he was holding back for some other reason.

That didn’t matter now though. What did matter was fighting, or fleeing. Running away looked very agreeable to Orange right now, and he made for the door, Black slowly advancing behind him.

“You really think you can outrun him?” Cyan laughed. “You’re fast, but not as fast as Black.”

“And I thought you didn’t know anything about him,” Orange retorted angrily. He had made it to the door without being shot, stabbed, or grabbed. Putting on a final burst of speed (hoping to seal Black in admin once he was outside), Orange sprinted out of the room.

Right into the waiting grasp of Lime.

“They broke the rules,” Orange said aloud, all hope and emotion gone from his voice. 

“You didn’t really think we would let you live, did you?” Lime said, closing on a rapidly backing away Orange. “I don’t know how you’ve survived so long. Really, you should have died in your first mission, like lots of MIRA members do. Guess killing you right now will have to do.”

Chapter Text

Lime advanced in Orange, who backed away back into Admin, careful to keep an eye on Black. Curiously, the shapeshifter hadn’t moved, although he seemed to be ready to step in if necessary. 

Lime had gotten closer, and Orange picked up the pace of his retreat, bumping into a corner of the admin table and stumbling for a moment. Lime noticed the temporary loss of balance and lunged, the knife blade reflecting light from the various screens around the room.  

Orange dodged it, as well as the next few swings and jabs. Lime, however, seemingly put little to no effort into the attacks; Orange suspected he was holding back, toying with him. Orange looks desperately for an opening created by this overconfidence, but finds none. His spirits plummet even farther as he realizes Lime is confident, but not overly to a detrimental effect; he is likely facing one of the more experienced killers out there, and that has earned Lime the ability to toy with his victims.

Black, meanwhile, simply stood by. His weapons are drawn (a knife and a pistol), but he doesn’t take even a step towards Orange. The crewmate half expected the imposter to pull out a bag of popcorn or another snack of some kind.

Orange continues to dive, dodge, and roll out the way of Limes blade, making his way around Admin over and over. Lime, however, seemed to get tired of the dancing around, starting to take the fight more seriously. A kick soon caught Orange in the stomach, sending him tumbling into a wall.

“Come on, fight back!” Lime said, letting out a cruel chuckle. “This job’s no fun without a little challenge.”

Orange’s legs seemed to have suddenly decided getting up was a bad idea.

Lime seemed to have decided finishing the job was a good idea.

Orange didn’t bother putting up an arm to try and block the blow. It would have been a futile gesture.

White finally finished the calculations in her head, and the results were not good. Deciding to borrow a strategy from Lime, the robot searches around the cafeteria for a weapon. Sure enough, someone (which someone, White couldn’t tell, but she knew they were an idiot) had left a pistol lying on a table. 

A few rounds into the ceiling got the room's attention.

Moments later the imposters, minus Lime, Cyan, and Black, were gathered around a single table, visors turned towards White. After a moment (ti make sure everybody was paying attention), she started explaining what she had figured out.

“I’ll keep this short and simple,” she said, frustration and anger already present in her voice. “If Lime and Black don’t kill Orange in about five minutes, we won’t have time to clean it up before we arrive.”

“We’re that close!?” several voices shouted at once. The imposters had collectively lost track of time, and not everyone had memorized the trip length in the first place.

“Purple and Red, please tell me Lime won’t make it messy,” White said, almost pleading.

Purple, seemingly afraid of fueling Whites anger, hesitated a moment before answering.

“He’ll make it messy,” the imposter said, and flinched as White let out a long and colorful string of curses.

“Do Black and Lime know?” Brown ventured.

“My guess would be no,” White replied. “More importantly, they went to Admin. So that Orange idiot probably does know, assuming he had the time to find the right information.”

An awkward silence followed, as each imposter tried to think of a solution. Nobody even thought of trying to interfere in the work of the two most experienced and dangerous imposters on board.

“Somebody at least get Cyan’s body off the ship before we arrive,” White said. “It wouldn’t do to have that lying around.”

Orange waits for the pain, waits for the likely slow death Lime would give him, but it never comes. Opening eyes he didn’t realize had been closed, Orange discovers that Lime was being held back by a tendril, extended by Black. Lime didn’t struggle against it, apparently trusting that Black had a good reason for the interruption. He didn’t seem all too happy about it either, however.

“You said we would work together,” Lime said. “A load of help you were.”

“I would have stepped in if things had gotten nasty for you,” the shapeshifter answered. “And you did say you wanted credit for the kill.”

“As if I’d need you to step in,” Lime replied dryly. “Now tell me why Orange is still sitting in front of me and breathing.”

Only now does Orange realize two more tendrils are wrapped around his legs, preventing the crewmate from getting up and escaping. 

“I have some questions, and Orange can’t answer them if he’s dead,” Black said. The imposter closed the distance between them, and crouched down to Orange’s level.

“Who sent you?” Black asked simply.

“Mostly Idiotic Ridiculous Astronauts,” Orange coughed out, realizing that his wounds were both reopened and more serious than he first thought.

“Who sent you?” Black asked again.

“I told you, MIRA,” Orange said.

Black sighed, giving up on that line of questioning. The next question, however, surprised Orange even though it had been asked before, in different ways.

“Do you want to join us?” the shapeshifter said; the question surprised Lime as much as it did Orange.

“Never,” Orange replied.

Seemingly satisfied after those two simple questions, Black backs away and nods to Lime.

“Kill him,” he said. Orange almost thought he heard disappointment in the imposter's voice.

Again, Orange prepared for pain and death.

Again, Limes' attempt to finish the job was interrupted. This time, it was by the Admin audio systems.

“Destination: reached. MIRA cargo station number 18,” the central console said in an outdated robotic voice.

Lime and Black realized their mistake at the same time.

“We could still kill him, say someone else did it,” Lime said, but his voice was unsure. Black didn’t even bother to answer, and hid all of his weapons as the sound of rapid footsteps neared. Lime did the same.

For once, Orange was thankful for misappropriations of funds; many MIRA stations and facilities put too much into security personnel, making it the only competent part of the organization. The guards mostly sat around all day, as imposter incidents happened almost exclusively on ships. They did, however, do a good job of sweeping and clearing a ship as soon as it docked.

From the fact that he was still alive, Orange surmised one main fact: however good they were at their jobs, imposters benefited from secrecy and surprise. That would contribute to the fact that he had survived the trip, the fact that Lime and Black didn’t seem enthusiastic about taking on an armed security team, and why many imposters were ejected out into space after being discovered.

Orange flinched away as Black and Lime approached him, but they seemed to be back in infiltration mode; they actually grabbed him, albeit roughly, and helped him to his feet. 

The MIRA security team arrived, but Orange didn’t tell them about all the imposters. He could feel the gun pressed into his back, out of view of the security personnel.

“Guess we got lucky with our arrival time,” Lime said. He had adopted a much more friendly tone of voice compared to earlier. “We just found Orange like this, after getting the imposter off the ship. He had gone missing, but I guess he fought back. Lucky guy!”

The MIRA personnel seemed to believe this and moved on to the rest of the ship.

Before leaving admin, Orange bent over to pick up Cyan, who had somehow fallen off his shoulder during the fight. Orange hadn’t even noticed; he hadn’t had their communication channel open at the time. He stuffed Cyan in a pocket and sealed it, hiding it from the outside. Then, he cautiously let Black and Lime lead him off the ship.

His wounds started to hurt more, and he was half asleep, but Black made him pay attention.

“We’ll get you to the station's medbay and stay with you; make sure nobody bothers you while you recover,” the imposter said. The unspoken implications were clear: we’ll be with you the whole time to make sure you don’t tell anybody we’re imposters.

Orange needed a way to communicate his situation to MIRA without getting killed in the process. Now, however, he was too tired to try anything. At least the medbay would be under surveillance, although Orange doubted he’d get much sleep with Lime and Black nearby.

He didn’t dare think about the possibilities of what eight imposters could do on a MIRA station.

Chapter Text

Orange woke up, with only faint memories of before he had fallen asleep: Black and Lime leaving the room, which was empty of patients save Orange. Instantly relaxing, even though the imposters were just waiting outside. He remembered fighting sleep, failing, and no dreams.

Orange supposed it was a good sign he had woken up at all.

With effort (and quite a lot of pain), he leaned over to look at the table next to his bed; Cyan’s core was resting there, with an anonymous note from some MIRA personnel.

Found this in your pocket, not sure what it is; don’t worry, I won’t report it to management, considering what you’ve been through.

Orange had a moment of panic, thinking that the imposters might have allies aboard the station. However, he soon calmed down, convincing himself that it was just another underpaid MIRA employee looking out for him (or, one who didn’t care enough to go through the effort of reporting the contraband).

“You have no idea what I’ve been through,” Orange muttered to himself, and let out a small laugh (and immediately regretted it, as it hurt a whole lot). 

He heard the door opening, and looked up. A moment later, Lime and Black walked through. Orange immediately let the smile leave his face. He suddenly was aware that he wasn’t wearing his suit, and felt a lot more vulnerable; he didn’t even have a screwdriver with which to defend himself. 

“Before you think of trying to give us away, you should know that the audio and video for the cameras in this room have been temporarily shut down,” Lime said.

“In that case, are you here to finish the job?” Orange responded. 

“No,” Black said. “Not now, at least. Were not stupid enough to try something like that on this big a station, with this many people. Despite what you might think, we’re not soldiers; we’re assassins and infiltrators.”

“That might explain why you did such a terrible job back on the ship,” Orange replied, holding in another laugh. He’d rather not have the two imposters see him double over in pain and coughing.

“The element of surprise does give many advantages, yes,” Black conceded. 

Orange was distracted from this conversation by Lime, who was moving closer and closer to the table by his side. At the expense of great pain, Orange managed to snatch Cyan away before Lime reached him.

“Give him up, Orange,” Lime said. “The others want him back.”

“And lose my only bargaining chip? I don’t think so,” Orange retorted. He pushed the notion of any kind of attachment to Cyan out of his mind.

“I’ll just take it then,” Lime said angrily. However, before he could do anything aggressive, the Medbay doors once again opened, and multiple MIRA personnel flooded in (one of which appeared to be a high ranking officer).

“Security feeds were down here, we came to check in!” The officer said, sweeping the room with her gaze. “Could have been a malfunction, seeing as you’re all okay, but we had to make sure.”

“Well, thanks for coming to check in,” Lime replied in a considerably more friendly tone than earlier. “We got rid of Cyan on the ship, and I would hope he was the only imposter.”

Orange realized that they must have explained away his wounds along with Cyan’s disappearance by alleging that Cyan was the imposter on board, and had attacked Orange (which, to be fair, was all true). They had probably also fed MIRA some crap about saving Orange, arriving just in time. At least, enough to make MIRA trust them.

Orange now realized that even if he tried to tell MIRA that everyone else were impostors, there was no way he would be believed. Having nine imposters aboard was a preposterous claim, and might even put him under suspicion, or at least convince people he was crazy.

Orange snapped his attention to the officer, realizing she was speaking to him.

“Since it seems you have recovered enough to continue your duties, I have orders here for your departure on another mission,” was what she said.

Orange heard: “You’re well enough to not collapse and die on the spot, so we’re sticking you in a ship that might or might not have any number of infiltrating killers, even though someone just tried to kill you.”

“Ok,” Orange responded lamely. It had been the same after even his narrowest escapes and survivals. “When?”

“Tomorrow,” the officer replied simply. “Since you got rid of the imposter, and nine is still enough to run the ship properly, you’ll be staying with the same crew.”

“Ah,” Orange said. He had forgotten about an obscure but important policy: if a crew throws out an imposter, and nobody dies after that, they stay together, assuming there are enough people left alive to run a ship.

“I’ll let you rest now,” the officer said, and without waiting for a reply, she left along with Black, Lime, and the other personnel.

At a certain point, Orange felt bored enough waiting around for his departure (and continued assassination attempts) to talk to Cyan. He hadn’t yet received all of his gear back yet, but he did have the communication devices he had used previously to talk to the imposter.

“Well I guess you’re still alive,” Cyan said immediately.

“Funny, you almost sounded happy about that,” Orange said back. “Despite your best efforts in the past to kill me or get me killed.”

“I’m not happy about it, believe me,” Cyan muttered back. “And those weren’t my best efforts. I couldn’t do much for most of the trip.”

Orange and Cyan sat in silence for a while before Cyan changed the subject.

“Are you going to turn me in?” he asked. “Or throw me in a garbage shoot?”

“Of course not, you’re very helpful,” Orange said.

“Really? Helping under the threat of death doesn’t count,” Cyan responded.

“I was being sarcastic,” Orange said dryly.

A few more moments of silence passed.

“Wait,” Cyan said suddenly. “Sarcastic about the help thing, or not throwing me in the trash thing?”

Orange didn’t respond.

“Orange?” Cyan said. The imposter actually sounded worried. “Which one?”

The rest of the day (and night) passed by quickly, despite being normal and dull. Soon, Orange was waiting by the boarding tube, in his brightly colored suit again, standing next to Lime (with Cyan tucked in a pocket).

“You know what just occurred to me?” Orange asked Lime suddenly. He didn’t know why he felt like conversing with the imposter.

“What?” Lime grunted. He didn’t turn to look at Orange.

“If the scan showed nine imposters, why aren’t all but one of us being locked up or ejected right now?” Orange continued.

“That technology isn’t very reliable,” Lime said. They were in an area with no cameras or recording devices, so he seemed fine with talking about imposter related things. “I’ve had missions where the crews have torn each other apart because the scan said there were tons of imposters even though I was the only one. Barely had to lift a finger.”

“Let me guess,” Orange said. “You told them the scan must have malfunctioned. When it said there were nine imposters, you said it was actually supposed to say one imposter?”

Lime grunted affirmative.

“If MIRA wasn’t so gullible you’d be floating out in space running out of air right now,” Orange said. At this point, he was talking to try and ignore the upcoming ordeal he was going to go through.

“Like my faction would let that happen,” Lime snorted. “They pick us up in minutes, most of the time. You can tell you screwed up big time when nobody comes to pick you up. That, or when you get assigned to infiltrate somewhere where they’ll simply toss you into lava or something.”

“Do you think they’d pick you up after this whole thing?” Orange asked. “I’d say you all screwed up pretty bad.”

“Maybe,” Lime responded simply. “Certainly Cyan’s faction wouldn't; losing a body is the fastest way to lose your job with the robots.”

The disgust Lime held for Cyan’s incompetence was clear in the imposter's voice. Orange was almost glad Cyan couldn’t hear Lime.

“Anyways, we haven’t failed yet,” Lime said, chuckling menacingly. “Not like we’ll take turns this time. You’ll be dead in seconds.”

The door to the ship opened.

“We’ll see about that,” Orange retorted, smiling behind his visor (despite his possible imminent doom). “I could beat you all with my eyes closed.”

Lime just laughed more.

“Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

“You’re late, Johnson,” a grumpy MIRA manager says as another underpaid, overworked MIRA employee rushes in the door.

“I know, I know,” Johnson apologizes. “It won’t happen again.”

“It better not!” The manager responds. “Get to work.”

Johnson sighs as he spots the already large pile of personnel files on his desk. He sits down and, before even reading one, goes into autopilot.

Reading, writing, making piles.

Reading, writing, making piles.

He picks up the ten billionth file of the day and reads it over.

Crew member: Orange

Missions: 38

Note: had participated in multiple (38) missions that scanned positive for one or more imposters.

Johnson skims the various notes and mission summaries until he reaches the info he’s looking for, in order to sort it (which is all his job is).

Note: disappeared along with ship on mission (38).

Status: deceased.

Johnson closed the file and stuck it in one of the piles he had made on his desk.

Reading, writing, making piles.

Chapter Text

It has recently come to my attention (due to some amazing people in the comments) that some chapters / notes in this story contain terrible typos or misuse of words.

While I do my best to write well and catch errors, I do my writing on mobile and sometimes don’t notice things. However, I don’t want to use that as an excuse, especially because in one case I knowingly used a word that I now realize is not proper or appropriate for they way I used it.

From now on, I will do my best to watch what I type and edit my stories, and will be more mindful of the language I use.

I want you all to know that I never, ever mean to offend anybody or hurt anybody, but due to my laziness, that was the result.

Thank you to those who caught the errors, and sorry to those for who the mistakes might have ruined a story or day. Laziness is not an excuse, and in future stories I will do better.