Thanks to all my reviewers: Zerg170, Fray100, BlackBaccaraRose, evolved-angel, MajorDarkblade, wolfmoonshadow, Zekiev Clayton-Zolnerowich, kyoshibluefire, Invader Beck, Guest of 12513, and Power Taco. Also to all those who have faved and followed. Those notifications are valued too, and I keep them in my email's archive folder so you are not forgotten. That probably sounds either appreciative or creepy.

Invader Beck: Thank you for your enthusiastic comments. They mean a lot, especially from someone who didn't used to like ZAGR. That really blew me away.

Guest of 12513: I'm glad you liked Roz! I never developed her as a character beyond her basic personality and she doesn't have much of a part in the story, but she deserved some attention as she has done a lot to support Zim and Gaz's operation. And appreciate that you noticed how much research I have to do for the story. Some days all I've done was research Aircraft, fuel consumption/range for the Chinook helicopter vs. a C-130, medical, nuclear and quantum sciences, Britain's Royal Marines, and lots and lots of IZ Wiki. Also thanks for the observation about Gir. I really wanted to show him off in what he really could do if he ever had enough cause, but that it wouldn't measure up to what makes Gir unique and precious.

Also I will be brushing a bit on the Irken's ages. Nothing specific as I want to avoid being dogmatic and such. But I wanted to highlight alien development cycles don't relate to human ones. A human 20 year old may be an adult, but an Ikren 20 year old might just be graduating from their version of elementary skool and not even be a teenager yet. I respect that some people are very sensitive about this, but remember that we are talking about two completely different species. Then you get into different orbital rates of the planets, time dilation as those planets travel as different speeds, space travel speeds, and on and on and on.

This chapter could have been a whole story by itself. Filled in as many plot holes as I could find.


Zim could hear the blender grinding away downstairs. It seemed the Professor was still making some sort of liquid breakfast for Gaz-blossom. Then there was the groaning on the other side of the wall as the noise woke Dib up, and he in turn went through the process of waking up Tak.

There were footsteps outside the door, and a knock. Zim gave permission to enter, and Dib stuck his head in the room.

"Hey, Zim. How is Gaz doing?" he asked quietly.

Zim remained seated next to his stricken wife, nor did he turn his head to face his brother-in-law. "There is no change in her condition. Your father unit is supposed to be bringing her liquid nourishment soon. But Zim will also require water to flush out her feeding tube afterward to prevent food poisoning."

Dib regarded this for a moment, but it wasn't unexpected after so brief a time to get a little sleep. In fact, no change was a good thing. It meant Gaz had not developed further complications and her body had a chance to begin healing. "I'll remind Dad to bring up a glass of water for her. But if you need me to… take care of that part I've got a little time before I have to get ready for skool."

Zim just pointed to the rubber kitchen gloves laying on top of an opened box of baby wipes. They were sitting on Gaz's nightstand next to Zim's chair where the Irken maintained his vigil. "Zim will manage. It won't be worse than changing Gaz-blossom's diaper. Zim managed that well enough."

Dib's gaze dipped to the ground in discomfort at the thought of Zim touching his sister, even if it was as caring for a very large inert baby. It couldn't have been pleasant for Zim, wiping his wife clean of her own waste. Dib had chosen to accept that Zim would have such close contact with his sister, and that there was nothing wrong with it. But it wasn't something one grew comfortable with in only a few hours. That would take time. However, Dib was also grateful. That Gaz had someone who loved her and was devoted to taking care of her no matter what that involved or for how long it took. Who could not reach a point where he was unable to deal with the demands of his wife's intensive care anymore. Zim would sit by her inert side for the rest of their lives if that was what it took.

Dib was about to leave when Zim spoke up again. "Last night. Zim was asleep with Gaz-blossom. It was a… good thing." There was a long pause. "You were right."

Dib nearly had a stroke right there. Zim was admitting that someone other than himself was right? And his long time nemesis at that? Fortunately his brain recovered from the shock before Zim continued speaking.

"Part of Gaz-blossom heard me speaking to her. Sensed my presence next to her. She… she managed to open her PAK and use a spider limb to reach out to me. It was only a little bit, but it was something. Right?"

Dib didn't respond for a moment, gathering his thoughts. If Gaz's subconscious could recognize her husband and was- integrated- with the device plugged into her back enough to show any kind of response, let alone a gesture of reaching back to someone, then his sister must not have suffered brain damage from oxygen depravation during the cardiac arrest.

"That's right, Zim," he told his brother-in-law as a certain tension was lifted from the room. "It really means something. She's still with us."

Dib went off into the bathroom to get ready for skool. Professor Membrane finally came back with a bowl of dark green paste, with various colored food particles mixed in, and a large glass of water. They exchanged some minor words of appreciation, and the Professor went back downstairs to clean up the kitchen. Zim set the glass on Gaz's nightstand, and sucked up the disgusting looking 'food' with the large syringe Lieutenant Bravo had found for them last night.

The apparatus was simple. Just a clear tube with a narrow opening where a large bore needle would normally be attached, with a plunger stuffed into the other end of the cylinder about half the size of a small turkey baster. Zim plugged the full syringe into the thin feeding line poking out of his wife's mouth, and began injecting the nourishing substance into the small clear hose running down Gaz's throat and into her stomach. The Irken took his time as the line was narrow and this was his first time doing something like this, especially with something so primitive. But there was little risk to Gaz in the simplistic device.

As he fed his human wife's body, Zim kept an eye on her breathing tube, ensuring that nothing blocked the aperture or was sucked down inside as air was pushed out and drawn back in Gaz's lungs. She could breathe on her own, even if her PAK insured her body functions, but her airway required protection until she could swallow food once again. Even with that reflex intact, it was not easy to feed someone faced downward. Most patients were laid on their back, but that wasn't an option in this case. Not to mention that Gaz was comatose and would be for some time.

The bowl was half empty when Tak came into the room wearing her robe. Her antennae were curled back and past her head, and her purple eyes round in sympathy. She hung back by the door, unsure of what she should say. Zim reloaded the feeding syringe and reattached it to the narrow tube in Gaz's mouth.

"Zim?" she finally asked. "When was your last PAK maintenance cycle?"

Zim shrugged as he slowly pushed on the syringe's plunger. "Three, maybe four days. Zim was going to last night. But-" He didn't finish the sentence.

Tak's eyes widened a bit, but not in surprise. "Zim, you need to take some time for yourself."

The Irken before her just shook his head. "Not now. Gaz-blossom needs me."

Tak walked up quietly and placed a hand, slowly and softly, on Zim's shoulder so as not to startle him. What he was going through she wouldn't have wished on her worst enemy; which coincidently has once been Zim. But he had played a tiny role in helping her husband rescue her from Dirt and their resultant bonding. Had given her a leading place among a community of Irkens when she had been an outcast. Had been the one to save her smeet and given the little life within her a chance to be born one day. Not to mention that it was too easy to envision her Dib having been the one injured.

"Gaz needs you healthy too, Zim. How can you take care of her if you're not? I know first hand that sleep can't fulfill what our PAKs need."

Zim just shrugged, not bothering to admit anything as the feeding regimen continued.

"Zim, I'll watch over your mate when you've finished," Tak offered. "Gaz should be good for two hours, right? Before she needs any attending? You can use the unit in my room. Dib might complain, but I think he'll understand. If there was a way for him to get out of skool, he'd stay here too."

Zim just nodded an acknowledgement without turning to face her as he sucked up green paste into the syringe once more.

Tak took a few steps and sat down gingerly at the foot of Gaz's bed. Not too close to Gaz, but at the very edge of the bed. Zim eyed the other Irken for the briefest of moments, then resumed to pump nutrients into his wife. Once most of the food was gone, Zim put on the rubber gloves and began repeating the process with the glass of water to flush out the feeding tube. Pushing any green paste remaining in the line out so that it would not rot inside the flexible plastic tubing and contaminate Gaz's next feeding. The gloves fit very poorly was they were meant for humans, but Zim managed.

Tak remained seated where she was, lost in her own thoughts. So she startled a bit when Zim finally spoke again.

"Are you going to report Zim for what he's done?" The Irken asked.

Tak looked at him with a confused look. Zim elaborated. "You saw me directly interface with Gaz-blossom's PAK. You saw me compromise it, removed it's personality so it would not erase Gaz-blossom. It is forbidden."

Tak closed her eyes and softly shook her head. "No, Zim. I won't. You may have removed the chip, but I'm the one who destroyed it. Besides, the things I've done are far worse. I abandoned my post on Dirt again. I led an attack on an Irken repository to steal back my egg sac and had it transplanted back into my body. I… um…"

Zim paused what he was doing and looked back at her. Tak was looking at her hands clasped nervously in her lap. "I didn't just allow my Dib to… mate with me. I… I asked him to. I, an Irken, pursued a mating relationship outside our species. I helped my human impregnate me with our smeet." She was gently touching her abdomen now. "Introduced his DNA into our gene pool. I've done everything I could so that she will be born rather than prevent it from happening. By all rights I ought to be taken apart so that my individual cells can be executed."

Tak looked back at Zim. He was looking away now, appearing a bit nauseous. But he didn't speak in condemnation. "Zim supposes it is a good thing we are so far from Irk then."

Tak couldn't help but let a semi-dark laugh escape her lips for a moment. Then Zim spoke again. "Zim created a smeet with a human last night. She is in a smeet chamber in my lab. She will be… half human."

There was a lengthy pause for quite a while. Zim finished Gaz's feeding regimen, and set the dishes and syringe aside on the nightstand he sat next to. Tak spoke up, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Maybe we're thinking about that all wrong. We are never going back to Irk, and this planet will be our smeets' home. Maybe it is more that we are introducing Irken DNA into the human gene pool," she said speaking in vulgar humor.

Zim smiled in spite of himself at Tak's lighthearted comment of their situation. "Yes. Perhaps we will conquer the humans after all," he said in an equally vulgar jest.

There was another long pause as Zim rapidly became serious again as he gazed at his beloved. Her back covered in black and blue blotches, sealed incisions and underneath, her PAK's connections fused into her spine. "Last night Dib said when Gaz-blossom wakes up and begins to recover that she may begin thinking of… mating… with Zim. Tell me, Tak. Just how horrendously awful is it? Can Zim be unconscious? Or will he need his memory erased?"

Even though it was a very uncomfortable topic; one simply did not think about such things, let alone discuss them; Tak couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably. She nearly fell off Gaz's bed holding her sides, her antennae nearly touching her backside. She recovered slowly, needing to wipe her eyes but embracing her belly instead where her and Dib's precious smeet lay nestled within. Zim probably couldn't even try to imagine what was involved. She hadn't before she had educated herself.

Tak smiled at fond memories as she spoke. "No, Zim. It's not a bad thing. It can make you really nervous at first, not knowing what to expect. Awkward at times as you figure things out. But as disgusting as the process sounds, you will find satisfaction as it draws you closer to your mate in ways difficult to understand as she becomes a part of you. It is a… very good thing. And you will begin to look forward to those special times you share with your mate."

Silence dominated the room once more, the only sounds being Gaz's breathing through the large tube occupying her airway and the shower running in the bathroom across the hall as Dib got ready for skool.

Tak changed the subject, as what went on between her and Dib was something private and horded. Not something to be shared with others in conversation if one could escape it. "Zim, I'll have our ships' overhauls completed by tonight. We can go deal with these vermin, gooify them in an hour and be back before Gaz needs you to minister to her needs again. Just you and me. Gaz will have enough Irkens watching over her while we're out. A little hunting will make you feel better and then it will be over and done with. Then you'll be able to give Gaz your full attention." The female Irken stood up.

"No."

Tak stopped short, a hand still on Gaz's bed while she lifted herself up. She looked at Zim with wide eyes. An Irken would never set this aside. Had Dib been hurt, she would have dealt with the future puddles of goo as soon a possible and as quickly as possible. She knew with her own bonded instincts that Zim could not just be putting it off for later. A part of his mind, even if it wasn't working on all it's thrusters, was most definitely going over what could be done to such dookie scum as he cared for his mate. He could either plot what he would do to them tomorrow, or mentally invest for something later as the need to do something bubbled within.

"No? What do you mean no? Zim, you-"

Tak stopped in mid-sentence as Zim waved her silent, never taking his eyes off of Gaz as the once formidable human lay there inert in her bed. Zim pulled a Pad out of his PAK.

"Zim will not deal with them until Gaz-blossom has recovered sufficiently. She deserves all my attention, and she will get all my attention. Gaz-blossom was wronged more than Zim, and they will find doom in a way that is worthy of her. Zim will not settle for anything less. But Zim is also… less than reliable in… certain areas." The Irken handed Tak the Pad in his hand. "These are a few notes Zim has made, and Zim called Skoodge for… things. Zim wishes for you to manage this as the General overseeing this operation. But Zim expects regular reports."

Tak took the offered Pad in near shock. Zim was turning his reprisal over to her? Trusting her to adequately arrange the doom he wanted the meatsacks to experience? She slowly took the Pad out of Zim's outstretched hand. "I would be honored, Zim."

Tak slowly made her way out of the room. Reaching the door, she opened it and paused before exiting. Tak looked backward toward Zim, who was once again holding his Gaz's hand and appeared to be almost willing her to get better. Then she exited Gaz's bedroom, going over the notes Zim had made.

The notes themselves were very basic. Mostly formulas for payment for personnel and objective requirements. It wasn't really a plan, but a picture of what Zim wanted to see happen. Where and in what condition those even marginally involved would be sent. What Zim wanted was doom in a Grand way. Outstanding. Inspiring. Perhaps even what one could called Majestic. And not even she could have come up with what Zim had as the final and dreadful fate for those who had caused harm to his bondmate.

Tak looked away, and placed the Pad within her PAK as she walked back into her room. The Irken pulled a snack box out of a drawer, and sat on the bed she shared with her own mate. Tak ate slowly, deep in thought.


Dib, coming back and dressed in his usual attire, found his wife. It appeared she had been sitting there for awhile, an empty snack box held half forgotten in her hand. He sat down next to his Irken wife and put an arm around her.

"Hey, hun. Is the itching better today?" he asked as he reached with his other hand to take the empty snack box away.

Tak snapped back to reality. "Huh? Oh, yes. Much better. Rubbing that lotion on me before you wake me up from my maintenance cycle makes it far more tolerable."

Dib looked at her as he rubbed her shoulder. "Are you alright, hun?"

Tak nodded her head. "I had a talk with Zim."

"Ahh." Dib waited for his wife to decide if she wanted to say more. Like many husbands, he had learned very quickly that sometimes his wife needed him to just not say anything. You just couldn't force anything with an Irken, let alone Tak. The only thing you could force was an argument. And Tak played to win.

"He is having me plan an operation to deal with the dookie eaters who hurt Gaz. Zim is leaving it in my hands while he remains with her." There was a long pause. "He set it aside and turned it all over to me, and I'm going to be the one to plan and conduct the operation against them."

Dib didn't know what to say to this. Then his wife said something that astounded him.

"Dib? I think I understand what love is now."

Tak turned her head and looked up into Dib's amber eyes with her purple Irken ones. They seemed sad. "Do you think I'll be able to learn how to love you too, Dib? Even though I'm Irken?"

Dib turned slightly to draw Tak into an embrace as they sat on their bed. He tucked her head into his shoulder and let her antennae seek out his hair. "You do, Tak. You love me in your own way."

He paused, and then said what his wife needed to hear. "Do you really think you can't learn something Zim has on accident?"

Tak regarded this for a moment as her mood picked up. "This is very true."

"Besides," Dib said with a smirk. "We humans are a bad, bad influence on you Irkens."

Tak raised her head out of her husband's shoulder. She looked at him with a touch of annoyance. "And what makes you think that?"

Dib touched her belly with a soft hand. "Well, I seem to recall that we didn't even make it back to Earth before we got pregnant. Not to mention after we got back-"

Tak smacked her husband with a pillow. But she was smiling.

They exchanged knowing looks and occasional nudges for a bit before the mood passed. With all the events of the previous night, a lightened mood just didn't last long. "Dib?" Tak called softly. "There may be some things I can't discuss about this operation. We're not going to get Irk involved, but Zim wants a point to be burned into their brainmeat."

Dib relaxed his hold on his Irken, but he didn't get up either. He wasn't sure what to think about that comment or how to respond to the Irken next to him. He wanted the people responsible for his sister's near-death to pay for their crime. And he wouldn't feel bad about having them taken off of the streets. But an Irken military operation on Earth had been one of his worst obsessive nightmares for eight years straight. It wasn't a really a conscious thing, but-

Tak could see something in his eyes. Irkens and plans regarding targets were not really a combination that inspired a cheerful response. She pulled his face toward her own. "Dib, I am responsible for this planet's defense. I know I once plotted against it. But I'm not that Irken anymore. I have no ties with the world that cast me away and stripped me of all I was. I can't betray you, Dib. I share this place with you. This will be our daughter's home, and the only place where she has a chance at a natural life. And you know what? I know that when she grows up she may find a bond of her own, and it will probably be with a human too. Just like her… mother."

Now it was her turn to draw try and Dib close. Not in comfort, but in reassurance. "I'll be the one directing things, Dib. Arranging plans and actions to be taken. Besides, you know Zim. All show and ineffective. I'll share with you what I can as my husband and Lady Gaz's sister, but I can't as an observer for the Swollen Eyeballs. There are things I can't share with my subordinate Irkens because I'm the General. But you are not even part of the military we're forming to defend your planet. Dib, I promise you it will be surgical and precise whatever we end up doing. The Tallest declared this planet a protectorate. No Irken will go against that. And we Irkens who live here will enforce it along side humans if we have to."

Dib looked back at Tak. She was asking for the trust of her husband. To have faith in her. To respect the role she was given in her profession.

"Tak, hun. Would you tell me if there was a threat? Something that needed to be stopped?"

Tak nodded vigorously, her antennae waving back and forth. "Do you really have to ask me that? Of course I would! Everything I have, you, my new family, my whole life, is here. Irkens took everything from me until there was nothing left and I was a broken shell. It was humans who gave me what I now have. Rescued me from was done to me and the filth I was left in. Gave me a home. Gave me a place within a human family. I may not understand families like you do, but I sense the value."

Dib reached over and pulled Tak closer. "I didn't mean it like that, hun. Honest. I know it can be a struggle to balance what is required of us, and we're all a bit on edge. That's all. I do trust you, Tak. You're the only Irken I know deep down that I can trust. I trusted you when you sent your message from Dirt. When I accepted your bond at face value. I trusted you the first time we shared our bedding and slept defenseless with your clawed hands wrapped around me. When I asked you to become my Irken wife. When we created our baby. I love you, Tak."

Tak nodded her head, accepting her husband's words. "You just don't know Irkens like I do. You've only really known Zim, and he is very defective."

They released each other and sat together for another minute in thought, digesting their words, before Dib broke the silence. "I think you are warming up to our little one. I see you holding your belly more. And you just called yourself her mother."

"I am," Tak admitted self-consciously.

Facing down a maim tank was one thing. Saying that she will give unimaginable birth to an unseen smeet at some unimagined time in the future? Embarrassing, but done to support her female troops that had discovered they already had offspring. But admitting out loud in self acceptance that she is a mother? That was a bit scary for someone who had been only a soldier at heart all her previous life.

"Last night holding those smeet clothes… made her a little being within me. I only understood it as being a host to a sort of parasite form that grows into an Irken."

They remained there a little longer. Dib knew she needed occasional reassurance of their bond. She could never leave him. She didn't have a choice because Tak's biological mind didn't have the ability to make any other now. Humans had to build such a life-long bond over a lifetime and constantly maintain it. Then Dib realized his own parents were proof to Tak that human relationships weren't permanent, and she lived in this house. Everyday saw his father was engrossed at work, rarely coming home, and his mother a long missing part of Dib and Gaz's lives. Proof that humans didn't always stay together. And if Tak thought that her job could cause him to one day believe that she was betraying their interests here on Earth…

Dib reached over and squeezed his wife's hand. "Tak, I'll never leave you. I couldn't do that to you. Even if we argue and take a walk to cool off enough to talk things out, I'd always come back. I wouldn't abandon you. Leave you to- die from being alone." No. He couldn't do that. Leaving her would be murder.

Tak's hand squeezed back, and she looked at him with a hint of sadness. "Yes, Dib you will."

Dib tried to protest, but Tak put a clawed finger to his lips. "Dib. You may stay with me all your life, but I am not a fool. I know humans are fragile and don't live very long."

Dib tried again to speak, but he couldn't. This was something he had never really taken into account. He tried again. "Tak? How old are you?"

His wife shrugged her shoulders. "Time measurement is relative, as well as accounting for time dilation factors. And our two species develop at different rates. There is no real correlation. But if you must know I am around 150 Irken years old. I'm not sure exactly what that is in Earth years, but I'm chronologically a lot older than you."

"Soooo, can you put that into Human terms?" Dib asked. Perhaps this was something they should have talked about before getting… well it was a bit late for those thoughts.

Tak sighed. "If I were human, that would make me about twenty. Perhaps a little less."

Dib did some rough figures in his head. Sort of like Dog years versus Human years. For all he knew Tak was older than his own father, but was still very young. And she had said humans had short lifetimes. Then with a tinge of grief he understood.

Tak and Dib would not be growing old together like a human couple. With his short lifespan, Dib could grow elderly while Tak continued a much slower Irken development cycle to reach past young adulthood. And being bonded to him, she would not survive long without him. She probably would not even reach a 'human age' of thirty five. Tak would not get to live even half her expected lifetime, and a good chuck of that portion she had was already spent.

Dib clasped Tak's hand with both of his own and brought it into his lap. Gaz being brought in lifeless last night must have gotten her thinking. Maybe it had always been there as she could have seen that Dib had gone from childhood to entering young adulthood in a mere eight years. But perhaps she had not wanted to think about it until recently. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, love."

Tak smiled fondly and cupped his cheek with her other hand. "Don't be," she told her human. "I would not have survived another five years back on Dirt, and it would have been horrific torment every day. You saved my life, Dib. And I have a chance to have a full one worth living, even if it is short." She looked down into his hands holding her own. "When your time is finished, mine will be too. When you are gone, I will remove my PAK and go quietly."

She held a hand before him to silence Dib's protest. "My PAK is irreparably damaged from all the neglect I suffered. I nearly lost my mind once already. I don't want to be put down like a wild animal, Dib. And chances are they would have to before my functions become too unstable to survive any longer. Why would I want a few extra days of insanity and frothing at the mouth as I die slowly, unable to understand why you're not with me? Without my PAK, my organic brain will just become too stupid to function and shut down in a few minutes. It's better that way."

Dib didn't know what to say, but he felt like crying. They were just really starting out, and his Irken wife was already planning how she wanted to end.

Dib reached out and held Tak tightly in his arms. "It doesn't seem fair," was all he could say.

Tak held him in return, embracing their bond with a smile. "That's because you aren't Irken. This is the price we pay for our bonding. My life may have been shortened, but it won't be an empty one and worth living. Not many Irkens can truly say that."

Dib looked over Tak's shoulder at the clock sitting on his dresser. He wanted to stay home, but he couldn't. And if he was going to get to skool on time he was going to have to skip breakfast. That was okay though. He wasn't hungry.


Skoodge opened the cabin door of the large Ripper class corvette after taxiing from it's parking bay deep within the garage tower, into the giant elevator, and bringing it up to the wide roof that served as a flight deck. As the short and heavyset Irken stepped out onto the recovery area, he took in the scenery. That is, such as it was. Dozens of similar circular towers across the horizon reached up far into the dark sky, each nearly half a mile across at it's base. Ships of all types, sizes, colors and purposes zipped to and fro as they flew through traffic patters as they arrived or departed the Parking Structure Planet. Shuttles ferried crews and passengers to various destinations or to other ships about to depart for new assignments.

This rooftop held over a dozen separate landing pads, each with it's own elevator located to one side for transporting ships down into the tower. A bench and a computer terminal sat on either side of the lift while modest railing encircled the area around the pad.

Blorch had always been a bleak and dreary world. It's previous and now extinct inhabitants, the Slaughtering Rat People, had never done anything with their planet. They had lived in single story buildings made of crude rock. As if ancient Neanderthals had built artificial caves instead of living in natural ones. It had been the first planet conquered by the Irken Armada in Operation Impending Doom II.

Despite their fearsome reputation, it had been easy for Skoodge to fulfill his mission as an Invader. The Slaughtering Rats had been at a stone-age level of technology. While they may have swarmed any intruder who set foot on the surface of their world and eaten them, they had no real defense at all against the Armada. In fact, Skoodge hadn't even landed on the planet. Instead, he defied traditional methods and had taken scans from orbit; his activity limited to aerial reconnaissance and a few test strafing runs. Then Skoodge called in the Armada for the Organic Sweep as Blorch was already wide open to any orbital bombardment.

Skoodge walked up to the Taller tapping his foot nearby and the dozen shorter Irkens with him. He held out an electronic control rod with a ticket stub attached to it. "Taller Blar, you'll find your Ripper has been serviced, resupplied, and every nook and cranny cleaned to a shine. Just as you demanded. I believe you will find everything is in order. Did your competition at Bombing Practice World go well?"

The Taller swiped the thin control rod out of Skoodge's outstretched hand. "It's about time!" he snarled, not bothering to answer Skoodge's polite inquiry. "My ship was supposed to be ready two minutes ago!"

With a huff he led his downtrodden crew up a ramp and into the vessel. Apparently they hadn't even placed in the war glider competition. Not surprising as it was a vary popular event among those Irkens in the fleet.

Skoodge watched the corvette slowly lift off and swing it's nose up into the sky as it departed. The Irken walked back to the spacecraft elevator and took a seat on the bench next to it as he waited for the next ship to come in. He had taken over part of a shift from one of the valet attendants after he had gotten Zim's call. No one had asked any questions or even thought about it. It would not have been surprising if a shorter Irken had been send up here for a few shifts as punishment for some trivial offense.

He watched the traffic in the dark sky around him. There were a few hundred ships in the air at any one time. Mostly shuttles ferrying Irkens to and fro toward one destination or another. Eateries, short-term recreation facilities, crappy gift shops selling shoddy mementos, or places to turn in for some nicer PAK maintenance that included virtual vacations rather than plain unconsciousness that most crews got during their tours of duty.

The communicator in his PAK chirped twice. Skoodge had left some offhand instructions about an incoming ship that he would handle himself as it was on a priority delivery for a Planetary Governor and had suffered a malfunction. He stood up and pulled a Pad out of his PAK, then waited a few more minutes before a courier ship came down from the sky, hovered briefly, and gently set down for a perfect landing.

Skoodge walked up to the cabin as it cracked open to reveal an Irken female in a very secure restraint harness who made no move to exit the craft. He checked the registry numbers marked on the side with the one on the Pad he held. They matched, as well as the listed pilot identification assigned to the vessel.

"Specialist Roz? Governor Zim called me personally to expedite replacing a control module on your ship. I'll take it down to a priority repair bay, so it should only take twenty minutes to replace. The Governor made it clear that he had a special package that was to be delivered without delay. If you will step out to confirm your receipt is accurate before I log it into the database? I assume your cargo area was secured and locked before your departure?"

Roz just nodded with tight lips as she unbelted and climbed out of the pilot's cab. Zim had asked her not to draw any attention to herself, so she did her absolute best to be as ordinary as possible.

Skoodge and Roz walked to the boxy rear of the delivery ship and the female pilot pressed some buttons near the wide hatch. An internal scan of the cargo compartment sent a readout of it's contents to the terminal next to the large elevator. Roz removed her own Pad from her PAK as she and Skoodge walked over to the terminal and compared the two sets of data.

As a special courier ship, it's contents were important packages not to be disturbed. But sometimes a faulty temperature coil, air pressure seal, compartment scanner or other small device inside required repair or replacement. Which required the cargo area to be opened with the control rod presently inserted in the ship's main instrument panel. So before the ship could be turned over for repair, it's cargo had to be scanned internally, the manifest cataloged so it could be verified later that everything was present and intact, or to point a finger at who could be blamed. And none of the valet attendants wanted to be blamed as they did not wish to be sent to an even worse job like sewer pump inspection.

Roz verified the scanned manifest was accurate, and Skoodge took the printed ticket and sent a receipt to Roz's Pad. "There," he said. "I believe everything is in order. I'll move your ship to it's assigned repair bay." He caught the look in Roz's eye. "Not to worry. Governor Zim's package is on time, and your registered cargo will be safe and sound for your final delivery. I can't think of any reason why your ship's cargo doors would even need to be opened. Unless you suspect some other part may be reaching it's end. It happens sometimes."

Roz caught on to Skoodge's reference separating Zim's package and her registered cargo. That it was on time while it was obvious her ship's listed cargo would be delayed due to 'unavoidable' and necessary repairs to make her ship space-worthy again according to regulations.

Roz shook her head. "No, nothing of that sort. The cargo compartment gets inspected every week."

"Good," replied Skoodge. "While you wait we have several snack bars you may like to visit, or perhaps-"

Roz interrupted. "I'll just wait here. It will only be twenty minutes, and there is no point going somewhere when I'd just have come back immediately."

The female Irken pulled a strange device out of her PAK that was marked 'GS-3' as she walked over to the bench. The device soon began making beeps and tones as she pressed buttons. One of the advantages of being a logistics specialist was the availability of items that could be picked up on bases from various worlds. And this particular one had sounded interesting when she had heard the natives on base talking about it one day.

The running program was called 'Paperboy.' Apparently the goal was to get the lowest score possible with as many customers as possible by throwing a 'paper' into a delivery box. As well as using her unlimited ammo to shatter as many windows as possible. All while evading intoxicated drivers and what appeared to be the remains of a looting spree on some suicidal contraption called a 'bicycle.'

Skoodge left her to her noisy device and climbed into the courier delivery ship. He pulled the hatch down, but not completely closed as it was unnecessary for taxiing it into the elevator and down into the repair bay. He eyed the long black square object strapped into the seat next to him, made of thick and very rugged fabric. It had a simple loop of similar material to serve as a handle.

The Irken maneuvered the craft and sent the elevator down into the tower. Once it reached the correct level, he taxied the ship into the repair bay he had assigned for the ship. The bay was empty as it's personnel had been rewarded with an extra break for an earlier speedy overhaul.

He grabbed the black fabric case and left the vehicle. Without a glace in any direction, the Irken simply walked out into the corridor minding his own business. In fifteen minutes the bay's crew would return, and it would take them perhaps five minutes to pull out the malfunctioning control panel and plug in a replacement module. They would call in another available attendant who would take the ship back up and hand it over to Roz good as new.


Skoodge placed the heavy fabric case onto his workbench in his private lab, one of the perks of being an assistant to the 'Governor.' The area was untidy, with a worn hammock strung up in one corner, and piles of manual and technical Pads rising up off the floor. A small snack dispenser was wedged in one corner as his busy duties didn't leave him with lots of leisure time. And what time he did have he didn't want to spend riding in a shuttle to some place else just to eat something.

The workbench itself was clear of other projects, but not necessarily clean either. Tools of various shapes and functions were hung up on the wall or rested on shelves that lined the walls. A large computer terminal sat at the far wall from the room's door. It had a cozy feel to the space; the kind of cozy one might expect in some garage or other area for working on projects.

Skoodge examined the case carefully before deciding not to cut it open with a plasma saw. There seemed to be a line of ridged metal crumpled into itself in neat patterns running around three sides of the case, with a metallic tab attached to one end. Skoodge experimentally tugged on the tab, and with an unzipping sound the seam split as the tab ran down the case's side.

It seemed very primitive and a lousy way to keep something secure as anyone could open the thing. Assuming they could figure out how the primitive mechanism worked. But quickly Skoodge's fingers ran the tab down the whole length of the case and opened it.

On top of whatever was inside was a large flimsy paper cover showing a picture of some large mammals and what appeared to be a small humanoid. It seemed to be the same species he had seen when Zim showed him his mate during their last transmission. He read the printed message as his PAK translated the alien script.

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of an X-Caliber Gauged CO2 Projector Rifle. The finest in it's class. Perfect for subduing bears, moose, and those pesky neighborhood kids! This kit includes everything you need to get started in this exciting field of pest control and relocation.

Skoodge removed the covering paper sheet and tossed it aside in a crumbled ball. He had no interest in what some alien merchant claimed. Then the contents caught his eye as they were reveled and he took in a breath.

Inside was a sleek rifle with a primitive optical scope and a light brown plastic stock resting inside it's storage cavity within a solid block of spongy packing material. A row of what must be compressed gas cylinders were plugged into holes in the packing foam meant for their storage. On the underside of the case's lid were pockets of made with webbing. These contained vials of yellowish colored liquid with labels filled with the tiniest of writing and what seemed to be warnings that the manufacturer was irresponsible.

In another pocket was a plastic case with a clear lid showing rows of small tubes ending in a thin metal point while the other end was feathered with soft red fibers. Projectiles to be fired.

There were other items and accessories, but Skoodge skipped over these for later examination. Now he understood why Zim had been clandestine about shipping this weapon. A cargo handler could drop it and examine it for damage. And it was obviously an alien package, which might have drawn a curious peek. Looking inside at something like this would raise all sorts of questions and lots of scrutiny by higher authority. This weapon was designed to fire using compressed gas silently, delivering a dart that could be mistaken for a fast moving insect, filled with chemical agents to be injected upon impact into it's target.

One simply did not send an assassin styled rifle from an alien and unconquered world into Irken space without it being intended to be used. And one would not use it on a prisoner, slave or a nobody of an Irken. Without the rest of the kit's contents visible, the primitive device appeared to be a rather pathetic toy smeets would reject as pathetic. It operated without the slightest need for power, undetectable to most security scanners looking for powered detonators and energy weapons set to discharge upon opening. Even the chemicals would probably be ignored as being medicinal in nature.

Skoodge reached over and removed the 'Owner's Manual.' It was printed on actual leafed pages and impossible to hack wirelessly. Everything about this kit said 'stealth' to his Irken mind.

As he read, he agreed with Zim's assessment. Compared to Irken standards it was pathetic for combat. It held only a single projectile at a time, thus a need to manually reload for each shot. It's range was only a few hundred feet at most, and could only penetrate clothing and skin.

Zim wanted something like this to be used against the humans responsible for harming his mate. So Skoodge would design just that for his buddy. A magazine fed assault rifle shooting low velocity darts laced with chemical weapons, based on this 'pest control' kit. Then he would fabricate more.

The chemical agents themselves? The medical facility here on Blorch could replicate a small sample easy enough once he researched all the reference material that was included much more thoroughly. With all the different alien lifeforms in the universe, it would simply be unnoticed in the shuffle of requests.


Dib sat at his customary table in the skool cafeteria alone. Just as he had been for the last several weeks. With his sister no longer in skool he had no lunch companion at all. So everyday he had sat and ate in silence. He missed his sister's presence, even if it had been at best an aloof and disinterested one. But Gaz had always been there next to him at lunch in her self-imposed isolation. However she had graduated out of skool; was going to move on to bigger things than her brother could have imagined for her. Now she lay limply in her bed at home because of what other humans had done. And she had been rescued, her very life saved by a non-human who had once seen Earth as a target. Then there was his wife Tak. Who had so much taken from her and accepted it as the price to gain something of greater value.

He'd never admit it, but he even missed Zim being at skool. They may have been blood enemies at the time, but in a strange way even that had been a relationship that kept the isolation at bay.

Dib looked down at his lunch tray. The meal items were separated. There were supposed to be peas and carrots, chicken casserole, and a brownie somewhere in there. But the piles of brown sludge all looked the same. And tasted the same. He took a few more bites, not because he was hungry but because he knew his body needed something to run on. Then he pushed the tray aside, it's contents only half eaten.

The human ignored his fellow students that filled the surrounding tables, laughing, joking, teasing each other within their isolated social bubbles of stereotypes. Happy in their ignorance that the universe contained life different from their own. Content to divide themselves from their own species based on what clothes they wore or what movies they saw. Segregated according to who belonged to which social class demanded by artificial rules that governed them that had little to do with reality. They were all the same species, but refused to be anything but divided.

Dib wanted to scream 'What is wrong with you people?' But it would do no good. It never did.

He let out a sigh. There were too many heavy thoughts and feelings in his mind and heart. Dib removed his wallet from his jeans' pocket and pulled out a picture from inside. It was a recent one of Tak in her holographic human form. She was holding a brown puppy at arms length while looking into the camera with a puzzled expression that read 'I don't get it.' He had taken her on a date to a pet store to look at baby puppies and kittens, thinking that seeing such playful, cute, and helpless creatures would help put her at ease with her own pregnancy.

It hadn't worked of course. So he had taken her on a walk around a nearby park, just being with his wife. He told her about feeding the ducks that habitually gathered there and just relaxing from a day's stress. Getting an idea, Dib took her to a convenience store across the street and bought a loaf of bread. Upon their return, Tak had thrown the entire loaf at the ducks waiting to be fed. Dib still wasn't sure if it was an actual mistake or more calculated. But afterward she did seem less stressed.

Dib was pulled from his momentary sanctuary of memories by a jock's voice over his shoulder.

"Whoa! Who's the hottie?" Torque asked peering over Dib's shoulder. He had been passing by after going back for a second lunch tray for himself. "I bet she's like your distant cousin or something. Only cool. Why don't you give me her number? And I could, like, ask her stuff."

This really annoyed Dib for too many reasons to list. "Go away, Torque. She's with me."

Torque scoffed. "Yeah, right. You? Have a girlfriend? And she doesn't have a face that looks like it was transplanted from a baboon? No, seriously. What skool does she go to?"

Dib turned his head to stare over his shoulder at the jock coldly. "No, she's not my girlfriend. She's my wife. So back off."

"You are so full of it," Torque jeered at him.

Dib held up his left hand, the wedding band plainly visible on his finger. He kept his bonding necklace under his shirt at skool. People though he was weird enough as it was without displaying what the rest would assume was girl's jewelry.

Torque's eyes grew wide as he stared at the simple band. He squinted one eye, trying to think. "Wait. You? Dib? You mean you're actually gettin' some?"

The jock's Neanderthal comment angered Dib. What he and Tak shared was no one else's business. So he spoke with a sharp edge of sarcasm. "That would explain the baby we're having."

Torque's brain seemed to have frozen, and the surrounding tables around them had grown quiet at overhearing something so unnatural as Dib managing to reproduce.

Dib fired off some more. "And she's not in skool. In her own country she was taught to be a soldier instead. So if Tak were here she'd probably be wondering which of the dozen different ways she could disembowel you with your own tonsils that she was going to demonstrate."

A girl's voice sounded in Dib's ears from the other side of his table while he was looking back at the confused jock. "Torque. You need to walk away. Right now."

Dib turned his head forward. Zita was standing beside his table across from him. She was looking at Torque crossly, but her voice carried a cautious warning of trouble brewing in a nature the jock could not fathom. Torque walked away, stunned and unable to think. Well, less unable to think.

Zita then did the unimaginable and took a seat across from Dib. Gasps rose from the other students as several unwritten, unspoken and made up social rules were broken. But popular girls could get away with murder. This thought actually caused Dib to smile for once. If the Irken's had sent a female Invader as a popular cheerleader, Earth could have fallen in the first week.

Zita looked uncomfortable as she sat across from Dib, her hands held in front of her on the table and moving nervously.

"I, uh. I'm sorry to hear about what happened to Gaz. Is she going to be alright?" the girl asked. "I mean, we weren't really friends. But we talked a few times. Explained some things to me when she was feeling the pressure she was under."

Dib took in a deep breath as he ran a hand through his hair. He let the breath out in a deep huff. "I'm not even sure what alright would mean right now. I'd be happy if she would just wake up and start yelling at me. Even if it meant that she'd never move her arms or legs again."

He caught Zita's expression. "When Zim brought her in, Gaz was in cardiac arrest and wasn't breathing. I tried CPR, but it wasn't working. She had to have something grafted into her spine and surgery to alter her spinal column. Right now there is pressure on all those nerves, so even if she wasn't in an induced coma she'd be at least temporarily paralyzed. Even if it turned out to be permanent, it still would be a blessing because at least she would be back with us."

Zita looked away timidly. "Would it be okay if I visited her?"

Dib shook his head regretfully. "Not yet. We all are still dealing with a lot of… things. It hasn't even been a whole day yet. We're still trying to get a grip on what happened. But I'll let you know when you can."

Zita nodded and stood up to leave. "Dib?" she asked before she left. "How are Tak and the baby?"

"Tak is still adjusting, but we manage. Sometimes we worry about the baby. Tak goes in for a checkup twice a week, and so far there are no more problems. It's a girl, you know."

"There was a problem with the baby?" Zita asked in concern.

Dib nodded. "Tak almost miscarried the first day. We nearly lost our child right then. And we can't have another. So this is our only chance, as unexpected as it may have been."

Dib looked up at Zita. He hadn't spoken loudly, but as he now had someone actually talking to him, Dib had forgotten that the students at the tables surrounding them were still silent and staring at them. Dib grew very self-conscious and his checks flushed in embarrassment. He looked around at the other students. But in their eyes he didn't see scorn, rejection or how much he didn't fit in. He saw glimmers of sympathy.

They saw an unpopular senior in hi-skool who was already dealing with a pregnant wife too soon in life, nearly losing the only child they'd ever have, and nearly losing his sister as well. It was a lot for anyone to have to deal with, not to mention all of it was recent. It made homework issues and who sat next to whom seem petty.

Zita glanced at the eyes on them. "Hey! Did I invite you? Mind your own business."

"Zita?" Dib asked before the girl could walk off. "Thanks for asking. About Tak and… you know."

The girl just nodded and walked off.

The public address system buzzed for a moment before a woman's voice echoed through it. "Dib Membrane. Report to the front office. Dib Membrane to the front office."

"Ooooooooo!" many of the surrounding students taunted.

"Oh, grow up!" Dib shot at them. So much for sympathy. Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

He left is lunch tray on the table and made his way out of the cafeteria and through the hallways. As he approached the front office, he spied a familiar disguised figure sitting in a chair waiting.

"Zim?" Dib exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I thought you couldn't leave Gaz. Oh my god, is Gaz alright? Did something happen? Is she-"

Zim stood up as Dib was blabbering. "No," he interrupted, "Gaz-blossom is stable. Tak and your father unit are watching her now, with Beed and Lim guarding them. But there is a problem with the smeet chamber. It's stasis field battery will only last another four hours. Zim cannot wait until skool is over. But Zim does not know what he should do."

Dib looked over his shoulder back down the skool's hallway. He shook his head. Forget skool, he thought. With all that's happening, it's just not the time right now.


Dib drove his small white car out of the skool parking lot and onto the street. Zim sat in the backseat. While they may have come to an understanding and had both stepped up to help when their situations were serious enough, that didn't make them best buddies. Dib hadn't asked any questions, and Zim didn't offer any explanations. But Zim simply wasn't going to sit in a co-pilot's position next to Dib of all people. He still had some pride left.

"So Zim. What is the problem?" Dib asked the Irken seated behing him.

"Zim made a slight miscalculation," the disguised Irken said in a low voice.

Big surprise there, Dib thought. Then he shook himself of the unintended habitual thought. Zim had saved the life of his own baby. And his sister's life too.

Zim continued on. "Zim did not factor in that the cell membranes are entirely human at such an early stage. The nutrient solution of the smeet chamber is performing its function, but it is effecting cellular cohesion. Actually the nutrient solution is neutralizing it completely."

Dib nodded. There was nothing wrong with the egg cell as it began dividing. Except that as it did so, the two cells separated rather than form a single cluster which would eventually form a person. And if this continued, the chamber would eventually be full of single cells. The failure would have to be… cleaned up.

"Can you do something about it?" Dib asked.

Zim explained several technical options. "Zim could have replaced the nutrient solution with a compatible one. But that cannot be done without shutting it down, taking it apart and flushing out the whole system. Zim could have connected the stasis field generator to my base's power grid, but the smeet chamber is designed for very narrow tolerances. It cannot be modified while active, and an attempt may burn out sensitive components. It was not meant to be sent anywhere but to a dedicated smeet factory back on Irk! If one developed a problem, it would have had it's contents transferred to another smeet chamber so it could be repaired. And no matter what Zim does, he would have to turn off the stasis field to do it."

"But there is something you could do? Right?" Dib asked as he turned the car through an intersection and onto a side street. The Zim he knew could always come up with 'solutions.' No matter how bad or crazy they were.

"The smeet chamber will not work this time without future modifications. There needs to be another. One designed for… humans. But moving Gaz-blossom to my lab is dangerous."

Oh… I see, thought Dib. For some reason that was one solution he hadn't been prepared to hear.

Zim spoke some more as Dib made another turn. "But Gaz-blossom cannot agree to this. She has been modified without her consent already. Zim cannot violate our bond, but Zim does not know what that might mean. Perhaps if Zim can find a large dog until Gaz-blossom awakens…"

"Zim!" Dib shouted. "You are NOT getting a dog pregnant!"

Dib stopped the car at the roadblock leading to his house. Zim hadn't actually told him where to go. He rolled down his window and showed the Membrane Labs guard on duty his identification. They were waved through, and Dib continued on. The problem here was that Zim didn't have the human instincts to guide him through making the right decision. He wanted to respect Gaz's interests, but didn't have the framework to understand what those interests were once a child was involved.

"Zim, Gaz would be very hurt and upset with you if you allowed something to happen to her smeet without trying. If you put her ahead of the smeet. She may be upset and shocked when she finds out you did take action, but not at you. At being pushed into this before she feels she's ready by the circumstances. Gaz asked you to do this, Zim, even if she didn't mean in this way. She may even be proud of you for making the right decision, because a parent is supposed to do everything possible to care for their child. Gaz would expect you to soldier on and put your smeet ahead of her own self-interests."

Dib pulled into the driveway. They exited the car, walked past the picket line surrounding the house, and walked inside. "Zim, how difficult will this be?"

Zim rattled off various technical difficulties and steps that needed to be taken as they walked up the stairs to Gaz's room.

Dib opened the door. Professor Membrane was sitting with Gaz reading scientific journals to her, and Tak was sitting on another chair she had brought in from Dib's room. Beed and Lim still wore their armor, but stood at attention on either side of the doorway.

"Dad?" Dib called for his father's attention. "Zim could use some assistance with something." He proceeded to describe some of the things Zim had mentioned.

The Professor's eyes brightened for the first time since he had returned home. "I have something that would be useful. I'll just go get my freeze ray from the basement." He grabbed Dib and Zim by putting an arm around each. "Come on, kids! Let's go do some SCIENCE!"


Zim had privately wrapped Gaz up in her bedding to form a cocoon in order to maintain her modesty; which entailed taking the cotton and plastic sheets she was lying on and folding their ends over on top of the blanket that covered her backside. They had had enough manpower to form a stretcher with their outstretched arms to carry her outdoors. The grav lifter would have taken her and the bed she lay in, which didn't fit through the exit.

Tak ordered the Irkens on the picket line back to the base, with orders to take their maintenance cycles if they were coming due and to get ready for around the clock intensive training. Four members of First Squadron would remain with them to stand guard inside Zim's base. While it's perimeter defenses were still intact, it was too much to ask that Lady Gaz be without any guard at all.

A box van from the base had picked them up and drove the group to Zim's base. On the outside the strange house looked the same as it had before. Inside on the surface level however, there were only the structural walls. No furniture, no pictures, no refrigerator next to a toilet. Nothing. Even the walls were just basic grey.

They carried Gaz carefully, their arms making a ladder to carry her, so as not to jostle her body. The main utility lift for the Voot Cruiser in the center of the room obeyed Zim's command to bring them to the medical chamber.

They brought Gaz though the main corridor and into the medical chamber. The examination table was designed to dump subjects out onto the floor, so it could rotate upside-down on it's robotic arm. So Zim then pulled the blanket covering Gaz down from her back to her waist. Once her back was exposed once more, they held Gaz up against the table, held in place through the bunched up sheets covering her front, and held her there in position as it rotated back into place, allowing her to be turned face up without risking further injury to her spinal cord.

Once Gaz was securely in place, her PAK sticking though an opening in the table's surface with the rest of her covered in her previous bedding, the Professor looked around at all the alien equipment humming and blinking. The smeet chamber stood in one corner, glowing in it's stasis field.

"So, Zim," Professor Membrane said. "You buy your lab equipment from China? I prefer German suppliers myself."

Dib just slapped his forehead.

The Professor followed Zim to the smeet chamber. Zim pressed an override button on the control panel and the stasis field disappeared. The disguised Irken withdrew a complex looking tool from his PAK, and quickly began detaching the top cover. As Zim was choosing haste over delicacy, it came off quickly.

Professor Membrane, being a tall man, easily reached over the opening with his freeze ray. It looked like a paintball gun with a reservoir sloshing of blue liquid. He had invented it because he detested soggy ice cream, but the Professor swore in the name of science that it was perfect for preserving organics like fish without damage. A beam fired into the green solution, and it instantly froze solid. The freezing would buy time, stopping any more cell division until transplantation was complete as there was no way to retrieve anything within an active stasis field. Plus finding an individual cell inside so many gallons of green flowing liquid was a bit of a challenge.

The two stepped away and Zim collected other tools from a cart that rolled out of one wall's hatch next to Gaz. A robotic arm from the ceiling reached down and pulled the green block from the deactivated smeet chamber, setting the cylinder of material on a tray that had also rolled out from another hatch in the wall.

Zim put a pair of magnifiers over his eyes and picked up a material probe. "Gaz-father-unit. Zim hopes you know something about this sort of implantation."

The Professor beamed. "Of course. You'd be surprised how similar monkeys and human beings are."

The chamber echoed with Zim's laughter. "See, Dib? Even your father unit knows it!"

Dib pointed at Gaz's form. "Do you want me to tell your wife that you called her a monkey? It would be my pleasure."

Zim grew sheepish quickly. "Right," he said as he arranged the bed sheets so that they kept Gaz covered up, but exposed her lower abdomen. With everything ready, Zim activated the magnification goggles he wore and began to drill into the block of nutrient solution so that he could retrieve the near microscopic goal frozen within.


Some time later, none of them probably could have guessed, Zim sealed the final small incision in Gaz's skin an inch or two below her belly button. Computer had rolled several vials and a compressed-gas injector out on a tray. The Professor stepped back and stood with the others as Zim injected the synthetic hormones into Gaz's bloodstream. This would jumpstart her body's process to accept residency within her womb.

"Computer, prepare to establish a connection with Gaz-blossom's PAK. We must begin a complete diagnostic and her first maintenance cycle," Zim commanded.

Tak walked up to Zim. "Did it work?" she asked. Tak had nearly lost her own child, and had been laid out on the same table Gaz was now in.

"It is too soon to tell," Zim told her. "Now, Zim would like to be alone for a while with Gaz-blossom. They may wait upstairs."

"Understood," Tak replied.

She turned to the others in the room and guided them to the elevator, amazed at Zim for allowing them to witness so much, let alone accepting the assistance. She would make sure everyone behaved.

"Dib?" the Irken wife asked her husband as they rode the large lift back up to the surface. "Maybe you could order something to eat while we wait? And one of those awful tofu cubes. I'm feeling cravings again."

"Okay," Dib replied. "I'll go pick something up. I should go get Zim's stuff for Gaz's care at the house too. Dad? I could use some help. We can be back in about thirty minutes."

Professor Membrane nodded his consent. Sitting around just waiting didn't sound like a very productive use of time.


Down below in the medical chamber, Computer brought Zim's PAK maintenance unit out of the service tunnel that he used to transfer Zim's requests from one part of his base to another. A scanning platform descended from the ceiling and was held high over Gaz by another large robotic arm.

"Computer. Zim needs to-"

"I have already anticipated it, Master," Computer interrupted.

Zim's PAK had not been serviced for several days, nor had he taken up Tak's offer to use the unit at the Membrane's residence. "I will continue to tune Mistress' PAK installation as needed. Her condition is as expected for a human in her circumstances. But her skeleton is already showing initial signs of remodeling. Her heart is strong, and oxygen intake is good. Mistress will be alright, Master. It will just take time."

Zim nodded and lay himself on a cart sitting next to his wife's table. The large square PAK maintenance unit was deposited nearby, and Computer initiated a command. Cables from the block of technology snaked out and plugged into their two PAKs. Zim closed his eyes and slipped into slumber.


Three hours later, Zim appeared as the Voot's elevator platform once more rose to the surface level. The Professor was still there, reading to the rest of the room a science paper whose title composed of at least ten words no one knew the meaning of, and the others were trying not to listen. Dib and Tak sat on the bare floor as there was no furniture, their arms draped behind the other. Beed, Lim, and the four guards were trying not to look at them while they kept an eye on them.

"Zim can confirm that Gaz-blossom's body is accepting her PAK, and is showing signs of healing. She is still comatose, but Computer says it is necessary so her body and mind can mend undisturbed. It will take a few weeks, and the paralysis should eventually wear off. There was no damage to her spinal cord. Only tissue swelling."

"That's great, Zim." Dib replied in relief. "While we were waiting we brought over all the things you needed for Gaz's care," He pointed at several boxes, a second set of blankets for Gaz, as well as a tall stack of adult diapers. "Dad's not good at sitting around waiting for something."

Tak spoke up, unconsciously fingering her own abdomen. "Zim? Did the smeet-?"

Zim smiled widely. "Smeets. There are two of them now. They are attached, and Gaz's body is starting to accept them. They starting to grow as designed now."


Gir and Mimi remained in the bushes outside the rundown hotel. A pizza delivery was made to the target's room, but Computer designated the human as uninvolved. For hours now, Gir had thrown a pebble at the offending door. He tossed one with a resulting light 'thwak' every ten minutes exactly. Just a reminder to those inside that something still waited for them to come out. Something that had all the time in the world.

Whenever Gir was starting to run out of pebbles, Mimi would go scavenge for more. Now that they had gotten the latest report from Computer, Mimi had sensed a small bit of… something. She didn't think Gir would ever relent until his Mistress herself said she needed it otherwise.


Two days later Echo was feeling worn down. He had thought things had kicked into high gear when Lady Gaz had been shot by what turned out to be a huge tazer. He hadn't imagined what high gear even looked like. The Commander Air Group, or CAG for short, now had three times as many operational planes than human pilots to fly them. All ninety birds that had been sitting on the tarmac when he had first arrived were complete in two days. Laser-head missile production had started up, enough for some squadron live-fire exercises he had planned. But Alpha overruled him.

Tak had mentioned something to him, and now Alpha was planning to incorporate the CAG's exercise plan into a carrier flight deck training session for combat landings, turn around, and relaunch. The entire human squadron running back-to-back sorties. Then Alpha mentioned the Spittle Runners would be involved as well. And the assault shuttles. Delta was going to be running Air Calvary drills with his shuttle pilots, practicing not only dustoffs, decoy landings and hot retrievals, but running as fire support gunships backing up Echo's fighters. Maybe even acting as heavy bombers to supplement the Warthog attack birds.

The Plexiglas canopies of their fighters had also just been replaced with something much stronger and embedded with holographic emitters. The whole canopy could act as a Heads-Up-Display. Or simulated graphics. All the humans except the non-pilot senior officers Alpha, Bravo and Charlie had been stuffed in their fighters sitting on the tarmac for as many hours as humanly possible. And would be for the foreseeable future.

They were pushing hard, and there were some grumbling. But every one of them, whatever else they had been before being brought in, was a war-gamer. And now they had access to the most advanced simulators in the world inside their aircraft. Even the inertial dampeners could simulate G-forces felt, and the system had been modified to allow some sense of movement to filter through for human instincts to process.

Echo had been worried about their training. It typically took a military two years to train a fighter pilot. He was pushing his pilots toward drills including fast paced live carrier landings and 'everything-just-went-to-hell' shotgun launches in their first month. But all his people, while most had not been active military, were from the same war-gaming community; not to mention national championship finalists for multiple years running; each with thousands of hours of experience in their arena. One did not get there by being slack, slapdash, goofing off or being slow on the uptake and going off to do their own thing. And Virtual Reality was their natural environment.

It might take a lot of training to get them squared away, but they all had a solid foundation to build on in their own way. Plus the augmented aircraft they had practically flew themselves now, and Computer could upload navigational data for pilots and onboard avionics to follow. They could even be flown remotely if needed.

Even Computer was being hard pressed, being spread out over the city as he was. He had to manage Zim's base, Gaz's condition, the new base, acting as a server for all the fighters running in simulation mode, fabrication and inventory, his hobby of Earthbound financial assets, Irken bureaucracy, and the mobile PAK maintenance unit at the Membrane residence. Plus two hundred Irkens running their own tasks and asking him for things, not to mention their upkeep. Most of his 'thoughts' were wireless now zipping between connections, and requiring encrypted signals. To keep up, two more processor modules had been installed, as well as another memory core as a backup at the new base.

No one knew what was in the works, but something was up. That suited the Irkens just fine. The humans? Not so much.

Echo had nearly gotten into a shouting match with Alpha over their bullet shortage. And manpower. And the need for rest. The need to stop and absorb what they were learning. Alpha countered that Echo at least had some pilots. He himself didn't have a single human crewman for his ship.

Getting nowhere, Alpha gestured for Echo to be quiet and led him to his wife's office. It was the one place in the base setup so conversations could not be overheard or recorded by anyone. Not even Computer.

"Just shut it, will you?" Alpha whispered in a hiss.

Echo was a bit startled at seeing Alpha let the stress show in his voice and expression.

Alpha took some deep cleansing breaths. "General Tak's been assigned… an adventure. You can guess what that might be. What you don't know is that Governor Zim set aside a hundred thousand monies for reinforcements. We're talking battalion strength for a show-of-force element. And that's just for personnel. Supplies are going to be coming in too for ordinance and modifications to the ship." Echo took in a breath. "We're talking about the equivalent of god only knows how many tens of millions of dollars, for an afternoon to deal with the people who hurt his wife. Word of that gets out, you know what types will be coming our way for a cut."

Echo nodded. Mercenaries. And not the mission focused, well disciplined, professional and well-behaved mercenaries. The more seedy type of down and dirty operations honest people didn't hire.

"Look. I need you to be fully up and running. We're slated to provide air cover for the whole op. What we're not telling anyone is that we humans are also going to kind of be like the cops; maintaining a visible presence so things don't get out of hand. Our planet, our rules sort of thing. We don't expect anything serious. It's all black ops on the other end too, and both Tak and Zim say the guy handling that end is complexly reliable. We just need to be ready if need be."

Echo bobbed his head in agreement. "Any chance I can get some help from the Irkens? I've got about thirty green pilots, sixty empty slots to fill, with five instructors qualified for action. Myself included."

Alpha shook his head. "I've got six hundred open slots myself, and will probably end up running with a skeleton crew from the Support Squadron to run the engines and fire control. That's why I need to run carrier deck drills with your pilots. Heck, I need to get real ship experience beyond computer simulations. But the Irkens have three times the workload we do. They're refitting Doomwind with added missile batteries and magnetic flak cannons since upgrading the energy mounts are out due to the power drain. Plus fabrication of ordinance for everything. Then ground combat training. Then space combat training."

Alpha caught Echo's expression, and held up a hand. "Look. A lot of that is necessary to give their anger and resentment a channel to flow in until it's time rather than let it stew until something blows. Keep them too busy to think about it. And don't forget they may feel a measure of guilt to for letting something happen to their Lady. They need to be doing something to make up for it."

He slapped the senior pilot on the shoulder. "But you know what? A lot of this actually makes me feel better."

"What?" Echo asked incredulously. "We're training like you're expecting all hell to come down on top of us and don't know when!"

Alpha actually laughed at that. "I know," he said. "But this is a reflection of our General's own nervousness. She's acting like a human General expecting visitors of unknown intention and strength. Think about it. When she said this was her homeworld now, she wasn't just claiming it. Now the General is feeling it, and it's showing through in her orders and planning."

"Sooo. How far along is this operation?" Echo asked.

Alpha shrugged. "Not a single detail is laid out. General Tak doesn't know what she has to work with yet, what targets are out there to find and corral, what is coming in to assist, or anything. What she's doing right now is the 'get-ready-for-things-going-wrong' planning because that's all she can do right now. Brainstorm and try to anticipate while getting things prepared. But you didn't hear that. Understood?"

Echo nodded. "I still want to take my pilots up on pointless patrols. Sims are great and all; we can train for cakewalk and disastrous dogfights or attack runs that way. Work out all manner of mistakes and screw-ups that could get them killed in real life. We need to cram those in so they are focused on beating the system because that is how they are geared to learn. But engagements and dealing with emergencies are just the tip of the spear in flight ops. You know that. Plus they're already gamers. We don't want to reinforce that with over simming when they face the real thing."

"You've got a good point," Alpha acknowledged. "Several of them in fact. I'll see what I can do."

"Okay, that's cleared up," Echo stated, acknowledging their disagreement had been settled. "So how's your wife handling all this?"

Alpha sighed. "A bit frightened. She hasn't had our experience of working on a base at high alert before. And she's a bit bored too with everyone too busy to stop in and talk. I tried to get her to go back home for a bit. But for a good listener, she can be real stubborn when she's got a hankering for it. She wants to stay in case Lady Gaz needs to talk about what happened. When that girl wakes up, she's going to have a lot on her mind."


Skoodge ran through his numerous reports while taking a break in his hammock. For five days he had been performing his duties remotely, rarely ever leaving his private lab. Most of it was management work that the 'Governor' should have been doing; overlooking facility evaluations, personnel reports. Lots of Taller's complaining or demanding. Asking said 'Governor' for a decision and reading the notes sent back requiring options and demanding to know which one would be best.

The Earth rifle was in individual components all over the workbench along the other side of the room, along with some prototype rifles based on Zim's requirements. And fabricated projectiles to go with them. There were a few gallons of this 'Horsey Downer' chemical agent the medical bay had sent back. Those containers were stacked in another corner. He wasn't sure how he was going to test those out. Maybe he'd have them shipped to Earth for testing. Sending weapons out to try on another species wouldn't draw the slightest suspicion. In fact, labeling it as such would probably get it shipped express.

Skoodge flipped computerized pages on another Pad, munching on a snack. This one had personnel files for his security forces. He wouldn't draw any from the external security units such as the space squadrons guarding the planet or the orbital defense platforms. No, he'd scour through the lowest of the internal units. Irkens who wouldn't be missed for several months. Those who were to simply wander around and make sure everything was as it should be. Locks being locked. Ships parked in their right spaces. Personnel with the correct clearance entering restricted areas. Low waged and disrespected ones who were mostly part of the scenery.

He had a list already. Perhaps a few hundred, but he also wanted to privately interview each one for suitability before making any offer. One had to be careful in these things, lest word got out about an insanely high paying gig.

Skoodge's door chimed. The Irken got up and pressed a button. The door turned transparent, showing an average looking Irken about three quarters of his own short height, holding a Pad. Skoodge shut down the security view and opened the door.

The Irken came inside, but not too far inside. The place was not exactly the shining example of cleanliness.

"AG!" The aide to an assistant with no name cried out. After so long, other Irkens had stopped calling him 'Assistant to the Governor' as it was a bit of a mouthful in average speech. "I've been looking for you for four days! I kept going to your cubicle in the control tower, but you weren't there. I looked in the medical bay, the fabrication yard, your favorite repair bay-"

"Yes, I needed to be able to work with less distractions for a while. New project for a Governor," Skoodge said simply. "I notified the tower I'd be working remotely for several days at a time. Didn't they tell you?"

The small Irken scratched his head. "Actually, no one noticed you were gone."

Skoodge just shook his head. He eyed the Pad in his aide's hand. "Is that the daily intelligence brief that is five days late?"

He had been so busy that he had actually forgotten about it. Normally it was just a formality paragraph or two of the day's activities or some enemy action somewhere. Something to make Governors feel important when it was read to them by their assistant.

The aide handed it over. Skoodge looked at the first page, puzzled. Then quickly flipped the displayed page to the second page. Then the third, and fourth. He skipped to the very end.

"Twenty seven pages? Just what is going on out there?" Skoodge asked. It seemed like the galaxy had just exploded in activity.

"Is it true?" The Irken asked. "The alien the Tallest made an Irken Lady, the one Zim bonded with? She wears a PAK like us? She treats smallests like we actually matter and have value?"

Skoodge was shocked. He had only heard from Zim over an encrypted call, and he himself had told no one. "She has a PAK now, yes. I don't know about the rest of it as I never met or spoke with her. Now, how did you hear about it?"

The Irken stammered. "Uh, AG. Everybody knows about it. Someone tapped their computer's signal and broadcasts a major data stream in the open across twenty sectors to reach Irk for an hour every day."

"How much was transmitted?" Skoodge asked. A remote survey probe might have done so. Zim was sent to Earth because someone put a possibility tag on the galactic map at the Great Assigning. So someone must have been out there first. Why hadn't anyone realized that? Those probes are routinely cloaked and set to transmit collected data from possible target worlds. But why wait so long? Perhaps it was malfunctioning. It was impossible to say.

"Umm, not quite their life story. But pretty close it seems like. It even included both their memories of events from what was uploaded during their PAK maintenance cycles into their computer for archiving. Anything that was transmitted over their wireless network when they put their second base in. It seems that Zim has one computer running everything."

Of course he would, Skoodge thought. A lot of things were transmitted, but nobody scattered their one computer AI manager across multiple facilities so that it's computations and 'thoughts' could be intercepted. It was like asking someone try and break the data encryption and start listening in on every aspect of what you were doing. He ought to warn Zim right away. But first he needed to know more.

After two more hours of asking questions and then reviewing recorded broadcasts on his own computer terminal Skoodge rubbed his scalp. It seemed that very personal, violations of Irken law, and security sensitive information was filtered out. There was Gaz's call to a smallest called Beed when he had gotten into trouble and was willing to pay fifty thousand monies just to bring him and a few other affected smallest to her home. To work for her because she may have been at fault. Some of her transmissions to and from her ship while it had orbited Irk. Bits and pieces showing how she treated those under her authority well and valued them, but demanded that they step up as well.

There was no mention of Zim's deal to recruit more troops for the upcoming operation. Or of a smeet. One scene was of Zim's base security footage capturing her privately confiding to Zim, worried that she wouldn't be a good Taller! She didn't take her status for granted. It showed she actually cared about fulfilling some obligation to those under her Ladyship. It was practially unheard of among Irkens.

It was as if someone with a bone to pick was broadcasting what an Irken taller should be like. Skoodge watched on.

It was interesting, but he could tell many smallests would be interested in this. Were probably starting to think about shining up their resumes right now.

Then the attack against Gaz was shown in full detail. And Zim's merciless rescue and desperate recovery. At first overhead surveillance and telemetry from the antique walker. But then their personal memories of the attack were played. What they saw and heard, from both Lady Gaz's and Zim's points of view.

The human's PAK could now access her mind, including her memories, and relayed them for uploading to their computer's archive in case some disaster happened and someone needed to discover what had occurred. Just like an Irken. It was supposed to be mostly confidential. But with a single computer inhabiting multiple bases without a secure land line to connect them? They were going to have to see about that oversight. And find that survey probe, but that was most likely impossible.

And now Skoodge's display showed the events of that evening. Gaz's view of Zim as he begged her to hang on to life. Zim's view of Gaz as he picked her body up, almost literally flew apart an antique walker back to a house, worked desperately to save his bondmate's life with another human and Irken pair, and finally installed her PAK. Evidence that she was still alive and could respond when he went to nest with her that night.

Skoodge finally turned back to his aide. He had been watching over his shoulder the whole time. "It is true?" the aide asked.

Skoodge nodded. "It's all true. In fact I suspect a lot has been cut out due to security reasons."

He paused in consideration. Figuring out who was broadcasting this could come later.

Lady Gaz may have been alien, but she had been given a place by the Tallest. She had been given a PAK. It was as if she had been made to live in the wrong organic shell when she was first hatched.

Even being human, any bondmate that saw this would not respond well. Especially the part of the criminals trying to steal Lady Gaz's bonding necklace. Those were practically sacred to bondmates. And not just to the pair it belonged to. Bondmates had an understanding that normal Irkens just lacked perception of. One had to experience a full bonding to comprehend what it meant. Like seeing a smell, or tasting sound.

"How are other Irkens taking this?" He asked.

The aide thought for a moment. "The Tallest are still in their month long, closed-door donut summit. The Tallers deride it, if they pay any attention at all. Average Irkens are not sure what to make of it, but enjoy watching something more scandalous than what is usually broadcast officially. But the smallests? There was a notation during the original broadcast saying there was a fund open for helping the Lady. Many smallests are donating what little they can for a PAK wearing Taller who was willing to look out for Irkens like themselves. They want something done about what happened. A centimonie here and there to a certain 'Skoodge.' Which brings me to the first item on your intelligence brief. Judgementia has issued a ruling. The control brains updated your file this morning."

Skoodge picked up the Pad and looked back at the first page on the electronic display. The Judgementian court conducted an audit after discovering two identical 'Skoodges' were listed when establishing a trust account was attempted by the control brains for the 'Governor,' when electronically mailed donations started to come in. All assets of said 'Skoodge' were frozen and charges of fraud were filed. A court order was issued to the Irken control brains to return the stolen identity to the correct PAK serial number. The ill-gotten assets, including all pay and rewards for each fraudulent year were then ordered back to the original Skoodge.

The figurehead the Tallest had installed was exposed as a fraud. He was stunned. Skoodge was back.

In a related note, Earth was formally sanctioned by the same Judgementian court as a protectorate planet of the Irken Empire and classified as a Refuge Preserve as the Tallest had declared. The correct Governor Skoodge was permitted to accept funds in trust from smallest Irkens for the benefit of the Rulers of Planet Earth during their crisis. The Court also ordered that galactic maps be updated so that confused claims would not be filed on the protected planet.

The aide spoke again. "I guess that means that as of this morning, you're the Governor. Was your name really Skoodge all along?"

The rightful Governor of Blorch didn't answer right away. He was too busy reading on.

A Planet Jacker shipyard had been raided by an Irken ship. Two Planetary Tow Barges were missing. An official complaint had been lodged against the Empire, which was dismissed as actions of the Resisty guerillas pretending to be Irken.

Invaders Squap and Pirt, the most famous bondmates due to Zim and Gaz being the most infamous, and assigned to the twin planets of Kitran were missing. They had been in the media as they had announced they had bonded last month while on their assignment, and the Empire had needed a much better example than a defect and an alien of the asigned world being bonded during an 'Invader's' assignment.

The fleet assigned to the upcoming Organic Sweep of the twin planets arrived four days ago. Both planets were also missing and presumed cloaked. A search was being conducted in the star system to find the planets.

Skoodge called up the Invader's public record. He had known them during Impending Doom II. They were good, and he respected them. Considering that they were bonded and would have had nearly daily contact, a distress call would have been issued had something happened to one of the pair. But both meeting unfortunate fates simultaneously, even if their assigned planets were in sight of each other? That seemed a bit unlikely. Possible, but unlikely.

This was weird. There seemed to be a clerical error. Their bonding dates and registration numbers didn't match. But that was impossible. The bonding necklaces worked automatically, came as a set, and were linked by a DNA reader for registration. They were also exchanged while in proximity to one another. Nor did a couple order a second set of bonding necklaces in case something happened to the first set. In fact, you couldn't.

Skoodge knew this. Once he had discovered he had been in a stage of bonding with an Irken who had died on assignment, he had looked into some of this out of curiosity. Perhaps a touch of the 'what-might-have-been's.'

No. It wasn't possible, Skoodge thought. What if these two Irkens had indeed bonded, but not with each other? And it was widely acknowledged they had bonded while on assignment. Then another thought struck him. That couldn't be it. Planet Jacker tow ships were slow. They couldn't be stealing their assigned planets and running toward refuge? Could they? To protect their bondmates? Lords of Irk, what have the Tallest opened us up to?

Invader Tuni had reported that her assigned planet had sent out a squadron of colony ships. She was pursuing. If she is in pursuit, she knows where they are. An Irken craft is much faster than any colony ship. Why does she not destroy the group and return to continue her assignment?

Skoodge was not liking the unfounded doubts about other Irkens leaking into his brain. But if Zim had bonded with a human, couldn't there be others? What if being lone Invaders made them more vulnerable to bonding instead of less? Isolated on alien worlds. Sometime for years at a time…

The flagship Irradiant Despair as well as one of their fleet's support echelons had left the Meekrob front and was returning to Irk at best speed. They were a month ahead of schedule, but were claiming a required conference over recent casualties. No disruption to the war effort was expected as the General's subordinates were fully briefed on his plans. The report was a few days old, so they should be arriving at Irk any time now.

There had been fourteen notations of Resisty attacks against Irken transports and bases in the past week. Very unusual as that indicated recklessness on their part to launch an offensive against the Empire, and Irken military convoys were very heavily escorted to prevent capture by raiders. Then Skoodge noted that all of these were prisoner transports and processing hubs. Not munitions transfers which were their usual targets. Prisoner vessels were a far lower priority for receiving escorts. The transports attacked were now missing.

Six Irken one-man shuttles, their manifest's indicating some slaves and one had a pet, were collecting around the hypergate. They reported that they did not know where their Tallers were, or how to get in contact with them. As they all were smallests they could wait being directed to where they were supposed to go, since they all were too stupid to remember who their Taller was anyway. They should figure it out for themselves.

The 3753rd Walker battalion's transport was on it's way back to Irk early. The commanding Irken Flov was citing Article Five-Three-Seven, subsection Green, paragraph sixteen for a priority refueling and mission turnaround.

Few Irkens would dare question someone quoting obscure regulations in order to return to a mission. Most had no idea what they were since they did not impact day-to-day operations. They relied on computers to keep track of all that. Skoodge looked up the reference.

An Irken may be granted leave from active duty if a bondmate is debilitated and requires extended medical assistance, as extended separation is proven to hinder job performance due to the onset of death.

Skoodge got the feeling that perhaps someone should have been a bit more specific about whose bondmate they were talking about.

The Irken shook himself. It seemed that their part of the galaxy had gone crazy when the Judgementians proclaimed that there was one place that was protected from the Irkens by the Irken's own procedure. Once a planet's purpose was designated by the Tallest, it was never changed. And as the Judgementians ordered a widespread update of the star charts to identify the star system as hands-off. Official star maps almost had a blinking arrow pointed at Earth that read 'No Irken Armadas beyond this point!'

The only up side was that it would take a very long time before any fleeing the Armada got there. Possibly even years for some. Zim could probably obtain a few neighboring star systems to put refugees on later. One crisis at a time. The Irkens on the other hand. They could get there instantly with the hypergate if they weren't concerned about getting back quickly.


The white haired human male, professor of archeology, sat alone in his dusty basement office. Surrounded by ancient masks, tribal spears and cracked pottery on shelves and decorating his desk. He tapped away at his computer with a stack of unimaginative mid-term papers. His students seemed to be less inspiring every year.

The computer before him started beeping an alarm, and the university professor tapped a few key strokes. A schedule file popped up on his display along side a black window showing a pulsing yellow icon.

The schedule didn't add up to the alert. And it was in the wrong location. He tapped some more keys. A quantum energy signature registered in flashing red letters.

The elderly professor reached into his pocket and tapped a number that he never saved into his cell phone's memory. The other end of the line rang.

"Agent Tunaghost? This is Agent Sock Gnome working Skywatch. I've got a subspace footprint at one-five hours, four-nine point two-two-six minutes, one-three degrees ascension." He spoke crisp and deliberately one digit at a time so there would be no miscommunication. "Range three-one AU. Signature matches an Irken hypergate." The image on his computer display changed. "Correction. Early warning is picking up one vessel has transited. Mass and energy signature indicates an Irken capital ship."


Alpha stood at his control station aboard the Doomwind. Four days ago General Tak had gotten word that they had been hacked by someone, and that just about anyone with a star map and half a brain could locate them. Earth was still a backwater far beyond the middle of nowhere. But the humans among the infant defense force were feeling it.

It wasn't like they had a big bullseye painted on their star system. But they had been essentially advertised as a galactic safe haven during an alien conquest campaign. No longer unnoticeable or insignificant, no matter how small or distant they were.

But human history had been full of safe havens that had become military targets.

Just getting their signal hacked had been a splash of cold water. Humans had been so focused on spying on each other thinking they were alone that it hadn't really sunk in that others out there might have intelligence assets in the heavens keeping tabs too.

General Tak had taken measures to correct the gross oversight in Computer's infrastructure, repair bots worming a string of Irken data cables along human sewer lines, which was the most overlooked and forgotten transmission system in the city. It would go unnoticed for years, and by that time they would have a more permanent solution.

The human pilots were a bit shaken, but also counted it fortunate that they were involved. If aliens showed up (odd considering the Irkens on the base outnumbered them nearly seven to one) they would be the ones to deal with the situation. But at least someone would be there to do so, rather than going about their day in ignorance as they had been living in oblivious helplessness. No human liked feeling impotent.

So with the news, the human pilots continued to train just as hard, but more seriously as their lives may depend on it one day.

They had gotten the alert four hours ago, and Doomwind was just now getting up into Earth orbit. It had taken time to power the ship back up. But the time the Irkens had spent operating the ship while in Irk orbit had done miracles as the entire Irken population self organized and did whatever needed to be done.

The last fighters were landing now. Rather than move them down into the base, through corridors, and across catwalks into the carrier's launch bays and deeper into the ship, the fighters had simply been armed on the ground and taken off to meet the ship in orbit. In fact, Doomwind was stuffed to the gills at the moment. Unfortunately it wasn't with munitions. They had enough to replace what had been loaded on the fighters maybe once or twice for conducting exercises. But they hadn't counted on facing off another ship so soon.

In the starboard side of launch bays sat their thirty Spittle Runners with Major Lim and First Squadron inside. On the other side sat thirty unmanned Harriers in their launch bays. Behind those sat thirty human manned planes behind the airlocks. The first set would be flown remotely by the second half which would go out last, flying one squadron at a time to give the former gamers any edge they could get and covered by the Spittle Runners.

The four assault shuttles were loaded in the landing bay toward the bow. They were meant for ground operations, but they could now carry eight laser-head torpedoes each under their wing stubs. It looked terrible, but it worked. The Attack Warthogs would also be flown remotely either from a pilot switching to a new plane for a new role or as a replacement craft before they went in themselves. Not a difficult concept to execute for a gamer. Those were also in the landing bay, but facing aft.

If need be Echo could launch his birds in all directions using live pilots, remote flying, and preprogrammed avionics and autopilots. The CAG stood at a wide holographic control station near the center of the bridge, ready to upload navigation, evasive or attack maneuvers into his birds computers to guide his green pilots. He hoped he didn't have to launch them though. Not just for the obvious reasons, but also because recovering those all those planes with exceeded hanger space was just awful the first time. There were so many craft onboard that there was literally no space left to move them around at all.

Alpha sat down in his captain's chair behind his array of displays. He had studied hard to learn to read them, and they had been adapted for human use. Or as he thought of it, dumbed down for human use. He put it out of his mind. He didn't have to run the ship himself, but give instructions to those who did on what he wanted the ship to do.

Alpha and Echo were surrounded by a dozen Irkens manning their stations around the bridge. Navigation, Helm, Communications, Electronic Warfare, Damage Control, Combat Information, three different Fire Control officers for the new missile batteries, the secondary energy weapon turrets, and the Point Defense grid. One by one they checked in their readiness.

Echo nodded his own readiness, and Alpha acknowledged him silently. He was nervous. But not as much as he thought he would be. He wasn't a naval officer, trained to fight a warship. He had been a marine, trained to fight light armored vehicles. He didn't know how to do things according to The Book of naval warfare. But that just meant he could use his own book, one the other more experienced side hadn't read yet.

The navy may frown on his way of fighting his ship if it came to that, but the navy didn't have FTL drives either. It would be like giving a tank the instant speed of a Ferrari with instant brakes to go with it, even if maneuverability was not included.

And a fight in the outer regions of local space was like fighting on a wide open plain. There was little cover to seek. No obstacles hide behind once you got close. So like a tank, scoot to your firing position, stabilize the firing platform, take the shot, and move again. Keep your thickest armor and heaviest guns facing the enemy. Shoot-n-Scoot.

But Alpha prayed it wouldn't come down to that. No matter how you looked at it, this was a jury-rigged outfit from top to bottom; without the time needed to settle in firmly.

Beed, acting as Alpha's executive officer walked up to the ship's captain. "Colonel, all departments at battle stations and report ready."

Alpha accepted the report. He had some butterflies in his stomach. Nearly everything they had was onboard. Bravo, Charlie, his wife, Zim and Gaz as well as General Tak were down below on Earth. Everyone else was here with him on one ship.

Then there was that other ship they were heading out to meet. It hadn't done anything. Didn't transmit a hail or demand. Didn't move further toward Earth or turn around and leave. It just sat there near the Neptune orbital line holding it's position.

Alpha was the only being onboard who had been trained professionally for the battle line. That ship out there was a point man. Poke his nose into the landing zone, scope out the area and gauge any reaction. Then call the all clear for the rest of the group behind him. Or call back telling the others what he faced so they could deal with it.

Well, he wasn't about to go out there puttering along for hours like a navy ship, being watched the whole way.

"Navigation, I hope you're quick with your numbers. We might be doing a lot of FTL hops today. Take us out."

"Understood," the Irken replied. "New course. Come right to one-zero-five point nine-five. Ascension one-five degrees. FTL drive fourteen percent power for twelve point eight one seconds."


Doomwind swooped out of interstellar speed approximately one million miles in front of the Irken vessel.

Alpha was tense. "Helm, engines to half. Level turn hard left. Point our broadside at him." Doomwind's light energy turrets, her heaviest direct-fire weapons, were located on her right side fore and aft of the superstructure. Having the target on her right side gave them their best field of fire. The range was extreme for energy weapons, but the other ship wasn't moving.

Echo reported from his station. "Launch doors open. All birds green."

The Irken at the Combat Information station called a report. "I have a signature. It is an Irken Thunderous Heel class battleship. Flagship variant. From the neutrino emissions, I think it is running in defensive alert only."

Alpha noted it silently. "Sensors, Fire control, keep on your toes. If more ships transit in on our position get a firing solution, but do not fire." Flagships typically didn't go in first, but even he knew they didn't run solo. "Roll out a shuttle and two Runners for escort. All other craft standby. Comms, send a challenge to that ship."

An assault shuttle left the landing bay and two Spittle Runners launched to take up positions next to it. They remained above the carrier awaiting orders and out of the ship's potential firing solutions if things went bad. Alpha figured they'd be less likely to start an incident if they saw Irken ships were part of the opposing team. Of course, it could also make it more likely if they thought they were captured ships.

The Irken at the communications board opened a channel and began speaking in an official tone. "Attention Irken vessel. This is Lady Gaz's personal warship Doomwind. You are in violation of protected Earth space by the Irken Empire. Hold your position and do not charge weapons. Failure to comply will be taken as a hostile act, upon which we will disable your ship, board it, space your crew, and tow it back to Earth for the humans to salvage."

"Comms!" Alpha reprimanded. "I said challenge them. Not threaten them like we were bloody space pirates!"

The Irken at the communications panel turned to face him. "How else do you challenge an Irken warship? 'Please go away?'"

A beeping came from his control panel. The Irken pressed several buttons. "The other ship is responding."

A mildly deep and resonant voice accompanied an image of a taller and scarred Irken face on an auxiliary display screen. "Inferior Earth vessel. This is the Irken battleship Irradiant Despair. General Grat, commanding, Third Fleet of the Meekrob front. I find your threats humorous, but my bondmate would not. I believe you already have experience with what a bondmate will do about such things."

Alpha made a gesture to the Irken at Communicatons. A moment later he pressed a button on his own board. "General Grat. This is Colonel Alpha, Captain of this vessel and operating in defense of Earth. We have had that experience, and more. But around here it is not exactly friendly to drop a warship on one's doorstep uninvited and without warning. Lady Gaz's Irken guard are crewing my command at the moment and they are rather protective as well. Something about being a Governor's Own unit makes them… twitchy."

The other commanding Irken's face became more serious. The rest his body was outside the video feed's view. "I… see. As much as I would like to prove which of our ships is clearly superior, human, that is not my mission. I am escorting a convoy responding to a distress signal relayed for a fellow bondmate. We don't take this sort of thing lightly."

Alpha glanced at his bridge crew. They were looking back puzzled. They didn't understand either. This was a reversal of what Irken society had done regarding Governor Zim, Lady Gaz, and many of them as well. They had all been sent away. Not once supported in their troubles.

The image of Tak appeared on another display. "General Grat. This is General Tak. You are violating my zone of operations, and a protected system at that. I have every right to order my joint Human/Irken forces to drive off your ship. Assuming they don't blast it in half on their first pass. You are the visitor here and you disrespect those under my command, not to mention my bondmate who is human too. Now I find it hard to believe after how Irk has tossed us away, Irkens mind you, that they have the slightest concern for Lady Gaz who is human. You're presence is suspicious at best, claiming you have a mission in my defense area."

General Grat had the look of one who had stepped into a situation only to discover it wasn't the situation that he had been expecting. Or more precisely, everything he wasn't expecting. Let alone could have imagined.

"General Tak. I was not… aware of the defense arrangements that had been made. I am indeed escorting a convoy. But our commands are volunteers, not acting in behalf of the Empire." He reached up and pulled his bonding necklace into view before his face. "My bondmate is a smallest. I see how she is treated by others. And some see me as strange for standing up for her. We have seen Lady Gaz truthfully showing respect and consideration for them repeatedly in the broadcasts. The way I wish my fellow Irkens would treat and value my own bondmate. Ordinary Irkens do not understand what it is like to need your bondmate to be treated well despite what she is. Lady Gaz gave my bondmate hope. I am calling my ships now. Mine is the only escort they have."

Alpha wasn't following this exactly. It must have been an Irken thing.

"Alpha," General Tak called. "I want the Spittle Runners and shuttles launched now. They will scan them and if everything checks out, escort them in to Martian orbit. But keep your eyes open."

Alpha nodded to Echo, who relayed the instructions.

Around Doomwind, as Spittle Runners and the three other Assault Shuttles left the ship, other Irken vessels transited from a subspace jump as they entered the hypergate back in the Irk system. Calls started to come in.

"Attention Earth vessel. This is the Asteroid Smelter Rock Smiter. Dorb and Retix, Co-Operators. We got an anonymous message saying you need a material smelter in your asteroid field for 'bullets.'"

"Human warship. This is the Combat Transport Drops Flat. 3753rd Armor battalion, Mech Specialist Flov and my bondmate Xax in charge. We saw what Zim did rescuing his bondmate with that antique. So we brought our twenty eight modern walkers with us. Figured he'd have a use for them."

"Human ship, this is the Munitions Factory Vessel Detonation, Third Fleet support echelon. We're with General Grat."

"Attention Earth ship, this is the heavy supply transport Megastorage. Third Fleet. Hauling everything we need for the voyage back. Also Governor Skooge sent along some care packages to deliver, as well as a list of supplies for Governor Zim. Repulsor emitters, duranium tubing, robotic thrusters, fusion power cores, sensor heads, and laser rods. Enough for forty thousand units of whatever he builds according to a Specialist Roz. Plus a custom set of armor with adjustable dimensions for Lady Gaz. Governor Skoodge sends his regards and wishes Lady Gaz and copy well. Not sure exactly what that means. "

"Earth Defense vessel, this is the Hospital Ship Dookie Happens. General Grat is my bondmate. We're here to assist Lady Gaz in recovering. We have PAK specialists onboard."