Invader Zim: Might of the Empire
Chapter 3: Assembling the Team
Invader Skoodge dashed through yet another set of automatic doors as he made his way through the seemingly infinite number of rooms contained within The Massive. It sounded like the Tallest was going to tell him something important, so the stout irken was determined to find Secret Room # 4 as soon as possible.
The only problem was…
"Wait, where exactly is Secret Room #4 anyway?" Skoodge asked himself as his excitement died down enough for him to realize that he had no idea where he was going- and that he was about to crash into something ahead of him.
"Ow…" the red-eyed Invader mumbled to himself as he pulled his face off of a pole that was sitting right in the middle of the walkway. After spending a few seconds shaking his head to regain focus, Skoodge realized that he had ran into a map that displayed information about the purpose that each room on The Massive served, complete with a "you are here" mark represented by the Irken Empire icon.
"Oooh, a map! This should make finding the secret room easy!" Skoodge cheered to himself as he began giving the map a lookover
"Ah! Ee! Ah! Ah! Oh! Gah!" Skoodge screamed out as he rolled down a comically long flight of stairs. Unfortunately for the red-eyed Invader, The Massive was so large and had had so many different rooms that, even if you were to carry a map with you, you might never be able to arrive at where you intended to go. As such, Skoodge had been spending the past hour traversing the many decks of the most powerful ship in the armada without coming anywhere closer to knowing where Secret Room #4 was.
"I'm… I'm okay…" Skoodge habitually said out loud as he was finally stopped by a box sitting at the bottom of the staircase. It took him a moment to pick himself up, and even longer to fight off the extreme sense of nausea that was sure to come after rolling down what must have been at least a combined total of five flights of stairs.
"Great, now where am I?" The stout irken thought to himself as he recovered enough to look around the immediate area. After glancing around at the miscellaneous boxes scattered about the narrow hallway he was now in, Skoodge caught sight of a door that had been labeled " Secret Room #4", which was directly across from a door that read "This Way to Auditorium".
"Oh. Heh heh, guess I should pay more attention to where I'm going…" Skoodge let out a sigh and entered through the marked doorway, revealing a rather small room that was just barely big enough to hold a red and black sofa set that was encircling a metallic table. Already seated in the room were two irkens; one of them was wearing an armored chest piece and shoulder pads, along with either a modification or a defect that caused his eyes to become jet black in color, and the other individual was…
"LARB!" Skoodge jumped with excitement and waved to the member of his old training team back on Devastis.
"Hey, Skoodge my man, how have you been?" The taller irken responded in kind as Skoodge made his way over to the table and to sit down next to him. "I heard you just conquered yourself a second planet! At the rate you're going, you're going to make the rest of us look bad!"
"Oh, it was nothing! Besides, all I really did was help fix up Zim's Battlemech and-"
"So, you're a friend of Zim's, huh?" The other individual in the room suddenly taking interest in what the stout irken was saying.
"Oh, yeah… Skoodge, this is Irken Elite Black." Larb said as he made an off-hand gesture to the irken sitting across the table.
"It's Commander Black, and I'm one of the top officials in the Irk Internal Security anti-insurgency division." The black-eyed irken said irritably.
"Yeah, well, it's not as cool as being an Invader," Larb said with a grin on his face. It was obvious that the two of them had had a similar conversation earlier.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Commander Black." Skoodge said with a polite nod. "Also, um… do either of you two know what's going on here?"
"Not a clue," Larb admitted. Black merely shook his head in response.
After a while, Skoodge and Larb began talking about random current events while Black simply sat back in silence and ignored the chatter that was taking place next to him. Ten minutes passed the original planned time, the door to the rest of the ship was once again opened, and Almighty Tallest Red entered the meeting room.
"Good evening, Elite Irken Soldiers. I have personally selected you three to launch a covert operation against the Meekorb." The Tallest said as he hovered over to the table and pressed a button on the edge facing him, moments later, a hologram depicting the area of space that the Irkens had designated as Sector 11 appeared in the room. On the display, the planets controlled by the Irken Empire were all colored in black and had a red Imperial icon on them, while a smaller group of planets to the right were colored white and had a blue symbol resembling three stars encircled by a diamond, designating the planets as being under the influence of the Meekorb.
"Our original plan for annexing the area was to send in Invader Tenn and have her cripple Planet Meekorb's ability to communicate with its surrounding colonies," An irken icon representing Invader Tenn traveled across the display and came to rest on top of the planet located precisely in the middle of enemy territory. "Once that had occurred, our forces would have easily been able to crush Meekorb before its colonies could send in support. Unfortunately due to a… mailing… error… Tenn's cover was blown by a package of malfunctioning SIR units," Tenn's icon now had little x's over its eyes. "We don't know who among the shipping staff had messed the delivery up, so we just had all of the labor slaves on that particular conveyor belt executed and replaced with robots."
Skoodge gulped. "Is Tenn okay?"
"For the time being," Red continued on, bringing up an image of an electronic letter signed by numerous top brass in the Meekorb Theocracy. "The Meekorb claim to be holding Invader Tenn hostage, and are demanding that we sign a treaty to establish a permanent demilitarized zone around sector 11 in return for her release. What you three will be doing is infiltrating the Meekorb's biggest Monastery-Stronghold, where Tenn's PAK system is broadcasting from, and recovering her before they can interrogate anything out of her. Once Tenn is safe in our hands, the bulk of our forces will follow up with an Organic Sweep. Any questions?"
"How are we expected to get anywhere near Meekorb space in an irken vessel?" Larb asked.
"Well, that would be a problem, IF you were going to be using an irken vessel. I made a call to the Vortian Loyalists, and they've supplied us with a pilot and a Vort transport ship similar to the ones we ordered destroyed when Invader Larb brought the planet back under our influence," Red answered as Invader Larb seemed to visibly glow with pride at the mention of his conquest. "Since they are very few of them left, the Meekorb will assume that you're a part of the "Resisty" movement and will let you pass with no questions asked."
Tallest Red powered down the hologram projector and began to make his way out of the room. "Now, unless there are any more questions, I need to prepare for the emergency meeting I've called on Deplomia. Your ship is currently docked in hanger 6, and is scheduled to depart in a week. We only have one shot at this, so don't so don't mess it-"
"WAIT!" a voice suddenly screeched out from a nearby air vent, from which a purple eyed female invader suddenly jumped out of and landed in a three point stance.
"Tak?" Skoodge asked unsure of himself. She certainly looked like the irken who had ruined the SIR contest.
"Tak?" Larb parroted.
"What? How did…you find out about…" Red was monetarily dumbstruck by the scene in front of him, before snapping out of it in a fit of rage and hailing the bridge on his communicator. "SECURITY!"
"Wait! My Tallest Please!" Tak said as she got down on her knees and begged. "All I ask for is this last chance to prove myself to you! Let me become a part of this rescue operation, and you will not be disappointed!"
"Buh… you aren't… even… You know what, fine. There's nothing in this room that I can use to shoot you, so just… fine, you can go. Just ask the others for the details… I need a donut."
With that said, Red floated out of the room, leaving the four of them to prepare for the mission in whatever fashion they saw fit.