Chapter One - The Nightmare Begins Again
"Mar? Mar!", She yelled out into the ships small hallway.
Former Invader Mar was possibly more irresponsible since they joined Irken Black Ops, though that could've been due to the fact that Tallests Red and Purple haven't given them assignments for quite awhile. But today, they're finally about to be given a job, and that moron can't be found anywhere, thought Sen angrily. "Taco!", She called as she walked into the near stark hallway.
The little SIR unit popped out from the ceilings piping. "What?", said the robot darkly.
Taco, the Technology Analysis and Command Operations unit (T.A.C.O.) was obedient at best. At worst, he was defective. Taco was one of the first SIR units in production, and was technically a prototype. Mar and Sen got joint 'custody' of the SIR unit during Operation Impending Doom I, and immediately after they got the little SIR, Sen automatically began tinkering with his personality and programming. Due to certain free radicals in his programming, and to unforeseen mistakes, Taco is the way he is, constantly moody, gothic, and by far, unique. "Where's Mar?" Sen asked him.
Taco dropped onto the walkway and pointed to a nearby door. "He's asleep. For the past few days he's been messing with our weapons and making sure they still work, since we don't. Why?", asked Taco.
Sen shook her head and strode in front of the former Invaders room. Sen's antennae curled slightly in discomfort as she wondered what would be behind the door. She sighed and knocked, quietly at first. "Mar?", she inquired tentatively.
"Come in.", came the tired response, and she opened the door.
The first thing Sen saw in the poorly lit room were two red, half-opened irken eyes. As her own grew accustomed to the dark, she began to see her partners outline. Mar was still wearing his dress uniform that was standard issue to all Black Ops members. It was stained, and possibly unwashed for the past few days. Sen rubbed her antennae nervously as she walked in and sat next to him. "Hey. We might have a job. Tallest Red and Tallest Purple just sent a message about it. You think you're up for a mission?", she asked softly.
Mar looked at her in surprise. "A-a Job?", he stammered hoarsely.
She could understand his shock as she nodded. "Just take the stupid job. You two need it.", said a voice in the doorway.
Taco leaped onto the bed and half glared at the two irkens. Mar chuckled and got up as he spoke, "Well, I'm going to need you two to leave so I can get changed. Where are we going anyway?".
"Some planet called Earth. We're supposed to assassinate two irkens and two of the natives. Their names are Tak, Zim, Dib, and Gaz. You should remember Zim.", pointed out Sen.
"Ah, how could I forget? Operation Impending Doom I's Great Assigning. Zim was the loudmouthed short one wasn't he? Really excited to be there?", Mar mused.
She nodded as she and Taco left the former Invader. Mar took off his shirt and began to wonder why they were given the mission. "An assassination, huh?", he said to himself quietly. He pulled on his shirt just before the ship began to lurch while Sen put in Earths coordinates. Mar walked out carefully as the ship lurched again. "We really need to be planet-side more often.", he said quietly to himself. He walked through the purple corridor and half floated through the oval dining area. The various dispensers and cabinets gave a skeletal glow to the dim room. As he stopped in the middle of the room, Mar bent down to unlatch the small doorway in the middle of the floor and dropped into it after he got it open. "So, how far is this 'Earth' from here?", he asked.
Sen pulled up the navigational charts on the screen in front of her and put in Earth. "Its… Just a few minutes away actually.", replied Sen.
Mar nodded and laid back in one of the bunks behind the pilots seat and began to relax. Unfortunately, something was beginning to nag at him from the back of his mind… "Sen?", he began cautiously.
"Yes?", she replied, looking back slightly.
"Why would the Tallest want us to assassinate a former Invader, another irken, and two of the locals? It doesn't make sense that they wouldn't give a reason.", Mar observed.
It didn't make sense though, he thought. It feels like there's either much more to this mission, or it's a trap of some kind. "Now Mar, I know what you're thinking, but the Tallest must have a good re-", Sen began just as the small cruiser shook violently and the alarms began to go off.
The room glowed an angry red as Sen wrestled with the controls and Mar tried to steady himself in his bunk. Mar gripped the soft fabric of the cabin bed with his irken claws and tried desperately not to panic. "What hit us?!", He asked frantically.
"I don't know, I'm just trying to get my ship on a safe course!", said the irken as she gripped the steering apparatus. Her blue eyes were wide with the terror of crashing planet side.
"Taco! Get us slowed down, now!", yelled Sen.
"I can't, besides, its useless, we wouldn't slow down fast enough!", he said quickly as he bounced on the console again.
"Do it now!", said both irkens in unison.
The Sir unit shook his head as he agilely flipped into a control panel in the command console. As Mar looked on through the cockpits glass, he saw a white and blue planet come into view as the damaged ship sped on. Taco quickly reappeared from the control panel and kicked the side of the console. The ship immediately began to shudder and slow down. "Well, at least we're going to crash on the right planet!", Sen shouted to the former Invader and the SIR.
Mar began to crouch against the wall of his bunk facing the back of the ship as they entered the atmosphere. Taco looked at Sen as she tried futilely to control the ship and began to think about what would happen to her during landfall. He didn't like the picture his mind drew. "Sen, get with Mar, I'll take care of the ship!", He said quickly as he pushed her into one of the rearward cabin beds and grabbed the steering controls.
The room shook and plummeted while the irkens curled against the walls of their bunks, and Taco brought the ship into an emergency landing course. The red glow that pulsed along with the alarm was hypnotizing as Mar watched on. He couldn't stand the fact that they might die there and then. Mar turned slowly and looked into one of the side ports and saw the houses and streets of earth. Each seemed more alien to him than the next. All but one had the same monotone grey color. It was green with a purple roof… As Mar kept looking while he was in his stupor, the ship impacted, and he and Sen were thrown forward into the walls they were leaning against. The room seemed to turn as the cruiser rolled and slid on the soft topsoil. The ship stopped after it crashed into a large oak, and Mar fell onto the floor of the cabin, Sen falling on top of him. "We… Made it.", he said slowly right before he passed out.
-- -- --
"Shut your noise-tube, Dib-monkey.", said the irate Zim and he, Tak, Dib and his sister walked down the sidewalk from Skool.
"Make me. I'm not letting the irkens get Earth!", said the overzealous human.
"You two are making my ears hurt. Shut up so I can hear my game.", Gaz spoke as she continued playing on her Game Slave 2.
As Tak heard all this, her holographic eye twitched at the disgrace of having been stuck on Earth the past few weeks without her ship. She had only gotten MiMi fixed three days ago. Zim was just as stupid as he was when she first got to earth, and not much had changed, except the fact that Dib now had her ship. All of it, ruined, she thought as her first plan to take over Earth crossed her mind, all because of Zim! She pushed said irken into a nearby puddle of water as she turned to her house. As she entered into her base, the computer started an alarm. "Ma'am, there is an irken vessel that crash landed in a nearby park. It just sent out an automatic distress beacon. Do you wish to respond to it?", it asked.
"No. I want to destroy Zim! I want my revenge! I want…", She began, but she turned back to the view screen, "What?".
The computer posted pictures of the ship and its inhabitants. Two were indeed irkens. One was female with blue eyes and pale green skin. The other was male with deep red eyes, and a complexion much like Zim's. Tak glared at the irken's picture as she wondered what he would be like. Dib? No, he didn't look like THAT kind of guy. Zim? Maybe. Looked a bit like the moron, but taller, and… He seemed like he experienced more somehow. Tak shook her head and turned off her holographic disguise. Her purple eyes were narrowed and her brain-tube was bent as she glared at the screen.