It was cold outside. Not freezing, but warmer than the vacuum of space that Tak had become accustomed to in the past year. The stars were clouded in the smog of the polluted purple sky, and she missed the crisp nebulae and stars that she had seen so often looking out the window of her escape pod.

She remembered it clearly, and made her knuckles whiten every time she thought about it. Being thrown against the back of her escape pod as it hurtled away into space, the remains of her robot rattling against the control panels. She could see everything she had worked for reversing because of an idiot's dumb luck. It had taken her months to build up that plan, to perfect the programming of her disguise. Before she had made her public appearance, she had spent hours researching, working, scheming. She could see it all, speeding away in the vacuum of outer space.

Her head had slammed against the back panel of the pod, knocking her out. After what seemed like hours, she awoke on what seemed to be a Vortian ship. The pilots were hicks, there was no doubt about that. But they were politically ignorant enough to upgrade the Irken's sad excuse for a vehicle. It couldn't even compare to her Spittle Runner, but it would take her back to her destination in one piece. They had even been kind enough to put MiMi back together again, although her memory disc was gone for good. Tak figured this was for the better. It would be too humiliating for the little robot to remember their miserable failure as well. She made a note to pick up a new disc as soon as she could.

The Vortians waved goodbye as she put her upgraded pod into gear. They had given it a basic personality interface, and it chimed in in a monotone voice. Tak figured she should be thankful for all they had done for her, and she guessed she had pressed pretty hard onto their hospitality. For now, she was just thankful to get away from their low-tech ship and their lack of sophistication. Long distance communication on line. Ready for takeoff. The pod hovered over the landing deck and flew off tentatively into space.

"All right, MiMi, time to get our affairs in order", Tak murmured. MiMi chirped in reply. Her intelligence was off due to the beating she had undergone, and to this day Tak couldn't understand what had caused her malfunction.

She brought up a keyboard and tapped in a few letters. "Connect to the Massive's main line," she ordered. The pod's computer clicked and brought up a screen. The computer let out a low drone as it connected to the Irken flagship. A burst of static, and she could see into the vessel's main chamber. The Tallest looked the same as ever, lazing about like pampered Earth cats.

"Ah, look who it is. Your name was… Tak, wasn't it?" Red waved a claw as he searched for her name.
"That's correct, my Tallest, a-" Tak began.
"Weren't you the one who tried to take Zim's mission?" Purple interjected.
"Well yes… I, but-"
"We haven't heard much from you, soldier. Did you succeed?" Red leaned forward.
"Well-"
"No need to explain, we already know all about it. We were beginning to think you had been blasted into smithereens." Red snapped.
"There were some problems, yes, but I can explain!" Tak yelped. Her cheeks flushed. This wasn't going as well as she planned.
"Listen, we sympathize with you, but we have more pressing matters to address than a drone looking for a boost in rank." Purple sank back and shrugged. Red nodded in agreement.
"Please, if you'll just hear me out, I can do it this time!" Tak said more urgently.
"You have a little while to go until Devastis holds its next admission for the Elite. I'm sure you'll pass, okay? Call us back in about twenty years and we'll see if we can squeeze you in." Red drawled.
"My Talle-" Tak pleaded.

Click.

Transmission ended, Tak heard the computer drone in her own voice. She groaned and covered her face with her hands. No, this was not what she had planned. A sudden flush of anger filled her. Why, when she was clearly the most capable of any Irken, did she get shoved to the side repeatedly? She slammed a fist onto the main board, and MiMi flinched.

"Change of course, MiMi. We're going to Earth, all right, and we're making a few visits," she growled.

She stepped out onto the cracked concrete of a rooftop. If she had a nose, it would have crinkled in disgust of the odor that assaulted her upon landing. Earth had a noticeable stink that was a constant plague upon her keen senses. A combination of stale meat, sewer water, and smoke drifted in the air, and Tak wondered how the humans were able to put up with it all. It made her yearn to be back on the meticulously swept streets of Irk. Compared to her planet of origin, Earth was stuck in the Dark Ages. She understood why Zim felt the need to constantly make ostentatious references to Earth's general stink.

Zim.

She breathed in a gust of the foul Earth air, fists clenching. This was her first stop. From down the street, she could see the magenta glow of his ridiculous "base". She clicked the implant in her temple, and a sensation of static shock coated her. Looking down, she saw the human skin that had gone unused for a year. She had taken care to upgrade the disguise even further while she drifted in space. While a hand would have passed with a static swish through her holographic hair, she had given it the illusion of having texture, along with the leather bag on her back. Her spider legs retracted and hoisted her down to the dry grass below. "Come, Mimi!" Tak barked. The modified SIR Unit became almost invisible as she switched into her cat form and slid down the side of the house.

From the position of the moon, Tak guessed it was roughly midnight. A lone car zoomed down the street, and Tak kept her hands in her pockets. A gust of wind blew her "hair" in her face, and she attempted to swat it away. MiMi padded silently alongside her, making faint metallic clicks on the cracked sidewalk.

Zim's base hummed with electricity from his excuse for a defense system. Tak walked down the middle of the cal-de-sac and approached the imposing green house, lawn gnomes trained on her and her "cat". "All right, MiMi. You know what to do." MiMi chirped in reply.

She walked up the front walk. Tak could feel the gnomes swiveling to follow her as she got closer to the door. Their robotic limbs hissed as they turned, and MiMi bunched up in apprehension. She remembered the last time she visited and decided to not take any chances waiting for Zim or his idiotic robots to answer the door. Her spider legs emerged from her PAK and met to face the front of the house. Balls of white-hot energy formed at the end, and she guessed the lawn gnomes had already informed Zim of her presence. The tips of her spider legs blasted away the front door, and the bright purple door slammed into the back of the foyer.

The lawn gnomes hummed as they prepared to blast her apart with their lasers. Tak bent her legs and jumped, her spider legs hooking onto the ceilings pipes and tubes. MiMi followed, dashing as a black streak into a nook in the ceiling.

"What is this?" A familiar, high-pitched voice called from the back room. Tak narrowed her eyes and nestled deeper into the pipes. She nodded at MiMi, and the little robot unleashed a small amount of the same bugs she had used on the little Irken the last time she had visited. They disappeared into the ceiling, leaving sparks of green light as they went.

Zim appeared down below, a look of anger and shock on his face as he assessed the damage done to his home. "What's going on? Who are you?" He called out to his invisible attacker.

Tak nodded once more to her robot and dropped down as he walked directly below her.

"Ooph!" Zim had the air knocked out of him as she landed on him, keeping a single spider leg out to pin him to the tiled floor. He opened an eye and registered who had assaulted him.

"Tak!" His hoarse voice growled. "What are you doing here?"
"Taking care of what I left last time. It's been a while," she pressed down on his chest with the spider leg and he winced in pain, "hasn't it?" Up above, a tube snapped as a bug disabled it. Sparks rained down on them, and Zim squirmed.

"Listen, you don't have to do anything brash, okay? Just, calm down!" Zim shrieked. Tak scowled and pressed down on his chest further. He yelped. "I know something that you should know before you cut my head off, okay? Just, just let me go first!"
"Like what?" Tak said suspiciously. She let up her hold on him just barely, and encouraged, he pressed his luck.
"I know where your ship is," he panted. Tak's eyes widened.
"As if I couldn't find out where it is myself. The escape pod can locate it."
"Ha, that tin can you launched off in?" Zim laughed hoarsely. "No, I'll save you the trouble. The Dib-human has it. He's been working on it for a while now. I think he even got it to fly. He keeps it in his garage." Zim babbled a bit too quickly. He was desperate to be unleashed.
Tak withdrew her spider leg and kicked him hard in the side. He wretched and got on his knees, coughing. Tak leaned forward to hiss in what would have been his ear. "You'd better hope that you've been telling the truth, because if I get there and my ship isn't there, I'll make sure you don't die very quickly. You think maybe the Tallest will bump me up a few ranks if I bring them your head on a platter?" She hissed.
Zim turned his head to look her in the eye. "You're crazy," he whispered.
"Good to know." She stood up and clicked for MiMi to come down. She dashed out through the gaping hole in the wall and stopped once more to behead the lawn gnomes.

"Wait!" Zim called as she walked out. "I'm just saying, you'd better not hope to resume your little magma plan. The base got taken down. It's entirely gone. And I've heard your false father is on the lookout now. He caught onto being kidnapped, you know." Tak could hear the smirk in his voice.
"I'll keep that in mind." She said, waving it off. She could find other people to get resources from.

With a sweep on her hand, she was gone.

It took her a few minutes, but she had yanked the coordinates from her computer. With the shied down, Tak was buffeted by the cold night air of Earth. From the image on the onboard screen, Tak could just barely see that the house was several blocks away. MiMi leapt into the back of the pod and switched out of her disguise. "We're upgrading from this old heap of junk, MiMi. Just a little while longer." Tak reeled up the window and jolted the upgraded escape pod into gear.

She kept just above the rooftops, gliding through the air unnoticed. The engine the Vortians had installed sputtered, and Tak guessed it was overheating. She remembered the warning the drifters had given her as she watched them fix it up into a proper vehicle.

"Now, yer gonna wanna make sure ya don't fly this puppy too much, it ain't meant fer long periods o' travel." The engineer with oil on his face and hands patted the top of the little pod. "But take care of 'er and she'll getcha ter where yer goin'."

Tak guessed she had started "flying that puppy too much", because she began hearing the popping of static in the back. MiMi lifted her head to identify the noise. Luckily, the pod had already located its destination. "Be on the lookout, we don't know how long the ape stays up," Tak murmured, laying a hand on her metallic head.

Even as a heap of separate parts, the SIR had been her only companion for the entirety of the journey. She remembered assembling and buffing up the rusty parts of her robot, a last-minute addition after finishing her ship. Under her touch, the robot hummed with acknowledgement. It couldn't feel love, not unlike her master, but they had a deep trust and sense of loyalty to the other.

The pod settled in the shrubbery in the human's back yard. Tak tried to recall the name of the human who had taken her ship. It was 'Dib', wasn't it? Yes, according to Zim, it was. She settled back in the pod and decided to watch for activity. Tak conjured up some of her memories of the brief time she spend in Earth's public. Truthfully, she had spent most of the time underground, living off the resources of her "father" and researching her role as a human. If Zim was any clue to a failed attempt to blend in, she was thankful she had spent so much time trying to fit into the society.

The child had seemed nice enough, although she found he was too willing to puke up any information she had needed. However gullible and clingy the human was, he had to be more than capable if he had gotten the ship to fly again. Tak had given up hope that the ship had survived the beating it took, much less that it landed in the backyard of one of the only humans she had interacted with.

A light in the uppermost window switched out, and Tak climbed out from her pod. The garage lay only yards away, and the computer clicked as it recognized its mother ship. Main vessel located. "Yes, we know," Tak sighed and ran a hand over the dashboard. She stretched her legs, finding that she had grown aching and claustrophobic after spending so much time in the cramped pod. Tak wondered why she hadn't just asked for a ship from the Vortians, although she doubted they had many to spare.

She walked tentatively out into the open yard, cloaked in a disguise that rendered her invisible. Looking down, all she could see were the footprints her steel-toed boots left in the malnourished grass. MiMi followed, lurking about the sparse trees.

Tak approached the cold metal of the garage door and ran a gloved hand over the latch. "MiMi, take care of this," she hissed. The robot hummed and pried the door open. Tak winced at the shrill noise it made and looked up. The light in the window remained off, and no figure appeared through the glass. MiMi stopped to where they could just barely squeeze in and reeled in her large metal claw.

She slid in on her back, grunting as she righted herself. The garage was dark and cold, and reeked of oil and steel. MiMi found a chain and pulled it, illuminating the interior in a dim yellow glow.

It was poorly covered, but it was definitely her ship.

Tak felt her heart flutter as she reached forward and yanked the tarp from her ship. It was dented and appeared to be singed in places, but it was in marvelous condition for what it had gone through. She ran a hand over the insignia she had stenciled herself. The paint was intact, and the glass in the shield appeared to have been refitted and remade. To her surprise, the cockpit opened up at her touch. Hesitantly, she got in. She switched off both of her disguises, leaving herself exposed in her Irken form.

There were still holes and chips in the metal paneling, but the computer appeared to be working. She fired it up and brought up a few screens. The vessel hummed into life, and Tak felt a smile spread on her face. MiMi clicked with approval and settled into the ship. "We can hook the pod up and get this ship whole again, just you wait and see," Tak murmured reassuringly. Due to the silence of the ship, Tak realized that her personality interface had been wiped from the hard drive. "That's too bad, I was hoping this thing would put up a fight." Tak sighed. With the press of a few buttons, the headband fell from a hatch above and latched itself to her head.

She braced herself as the screws dug themselves in. She remembered the first time she had downloaded her personality into the Runner. Wincing at the memory, Tak kept her finger hovering over the button that would make the program cease. After a sharp jolt from the machine, she forced her finger down and halted the ships progress.

Personality transfer complete. Rebuilding onboard computer, Tak heard in her own voice.
"Welcome back," Tak laughed in relief. Looking up, she could see that the garage didn't have much room to move around. She switched it into gear to test if it really could fly. The ship hovered a foot or two before she lowered it down to the platform. "Yes!" Tak pumped her fist in the air. "We can set off sooner than I thought, MiMi."

"Computer," Tak barked. The ship beeped in acknowledgement. "Identify our escape pod and prepare for reconnecting."
Pod identified. Preparing for reconnection with pod computer.
Through the door, Tak could see the escape pod light up. She hoisted herself out and stretched, pleased with how the night had turned out. Zim hadn't been lying after all, although she still planned on returning to beat the stuffing out of him for putting her through so much trouble.

Tak kicked the tarp aside and pulled the garage door open further. She could bring the pod forward, have the ship hook them up, and disable the additions made by the Vortians. Tak dashed through the yard and hopped into the pod, having it glide forward and swivel around to be hooked up to the ship. She bent down and yanked apart the removable engine the Vortians had attached to it. Tak stood and laughed, hands on her hips. The pod would now fit smoothly within the main ship.

Behind her, she could hear a door softly close and footsteps approach from the back of the room. Antennae perked, she halfway turned to see a slightly taller version of the human Zim had referred to as 'Dib'.

"What are you doing?"

Tak turned to face him. "You had something that belonged to me." She said in a calm, low voice.
"I thought you may have died." If Dib was surprised to see her, he was good at hiding it. He still had on the trench coat that she had seen him in last. He approached slowly, as if worried she would whip out a gun and shoot him on the spot.
"Well, obviously you were mistaken." Tak crossed her arms. MiMi climbed from the ship and stood poised between the human and her master.
"I worked on that ship for hours. I thought I would never get it fixed." Dib looked at the ship like it was his child, jaw tight.
"You didn't do a half bad job, for someone working with amateur tools." Tak tensed, ready for him to put up a fight. He was strangely calm.
"Thanks, I guess." Silence.
"You're not going to scream and fight for it?" Tak pressed.
"You're not going to bash my head in for walking in on you?" Dib retorted. Tak felt her shoulders slacken as he continued. "I've gotten a lot of help from that ship. Hacked into Zim's files, for example. I was going to use it to, you know. Go out there." He gestured to the purple sky outside and his voice cracked as if he were holding back tears. "It must seem childish to you. To someone who's gone out there so often." Tak tilted her head to the side and analyzed the human before her. He was letting go of something he had poured his heart into without any fight.
"How old are you, anyway?" Dib asked. He forced his eyes from the ship and met Tak's. She searched his face for any emotion. Anger, stubbornness, despair. She found nothing.
"About one hundred. That's older than most of your kind gets, isn't it?" Dib nodded and looked to the ground, jaw set.
"You have to understand. This ship was my ticket out of exile. That was a long time ago. This ship is part of me." Tak explained as if speaking to a small child. And compared to her, Dib was. He nodded and drew in a tight breath as if ready to break down sobbing.

A gust of wind blew a few dry and wrinkled leaves into the garage. Ready to connect with side pod, the ship announced. Dib flinched and drew his arms up as if hugging himself. "You're leaving, then."
"Oh, I'll stay around for a while. Maybe kill Zim. Same deal as last time." Tak shrugged, and she thought she saw the ghost of a smile on Dib's face.
"It's been almost a year. Eleven months, just about." He whispered.
"How endearing, you kept track." Tak frowned. She got the creeping feeling he was stalling for time and latched onto the escape pod as the ship reached out its tentacles. It found what it was looking for and hooked onto the pod, bringing it forward. With a metallic groan, the pod was hauled into the ship, making it almost twice its original size.

"When will you be leaving?" Dib asked, coughing.
"Soon enough. The Tallest aren't going to make me an Invader any time soon." She sighed and pondered at why she was telling him this. "Another twenty years and I can retake my test, get out of exile. I'll be fine."
"Good for you," Dib sighed and kicked a leaf that rolled towards him. Tak rolled her eyes and placed her hands on her hips.
"Listen, obviously you're capable of building your own ship. You've bound to have learned enough from this old thing, anyhow. Stop moping, all right?" Dib looked up and made that chilling eye contact with her again. After a moment, he nodded.

Tak climbed into her ship and directed it from the dark garage. Dib stepped out and watched it rise, leaves and wind billowing about him. The tail of his trench coat rose and whipped about as the ship rose higher. Tak waved half-heartedly from the cockpit, and he returned the gesture. In a streak of red, the alien and her robot were gone.

Dib sighed and turned back to face the house. The garage seemed oddly empty.

He stepped inside and switched out the light. He had seen enough for one night.