Over seven months.
The tired Irken stared out the tinted window of his relatively small Voot Cruiser at the endless, empty vacuum of space.
He sighed, not for the first time on this trip. And definitely not the last.
Is there even a planet ahead? The Irken shook his head, trying to clear the thought that his leaders, his Tallest, might have betrayed him. It wasn't possible-it wouldn't make any sense. He was their best Invader. Hadn't he proved that over and over again? Even if he...had messed up...a little.
For over seven months the Irken had more or less drifted in space, heading continuously in the same direction. At first the Irken had been ecstatic he was getting a "special" mission, but over time...there were doubts. Things like that creep in when you have nothing to occupy yourself with. Doubts like that stick in your mind and eat away until there's nothing else left.
But he kept convincing himself of the same thing every time these thoughts got too loud, too present-that the planet, whatever it was called, was just ahead. He imagined that as soon as he would land on the planet, he would conquer it, and would be praised by his leaders.
A small problem for the Irken was how long it would take to get to the planet...if it even was there at all. Irkens could go a long while without food, but this trip was getting too long. Soon the Irken would have to break into the emergency rations.
The Irken turned in the chair, facing an array of various colored buttons. He glanced over them, wishing there was a way to call his leaders, just to ask. Just out of curiosity; nothing more. Not doubt. Never doubt.
Suddenly hearing a noise, the Irken's antennae twitched, and he looked over his shoulder at the small, strange SIR unit in the corner that was "sleeping. "The SIR stirred, and looked up at his master with sleepy cyan eyes. "Master…?" The little SIR drawled out smiling and yawning. "Are we there yet, master?"
The Irken turned away from his SIR, staring back out at the expanse of black. He didn't answer for a long moment, and when he did, it sounded less like he was talking to his SIR than himself.
"Yes." Zim whispered. "We're almost there."