Suspicious Absence
It had already been two days and Laes still hadn't returned.
Lard Nar was starting to think something had gone wrong.
He tried to find Chakri so he could ask her about Laes' whereabouts and when he would return... but the young Invader wasn't here anymore. Their ship was gone too.
At first he thought it was just cloaked very well, but when he checked where it had been parked, there was nothing... their ship was really gone.
All of his efforts in trying to contact the Resisty hadn't gotten him anywhere either.
They were dead. The worms must have devoured them after he left.
"You look more troubled than usual," Veena noted.
She only looked up from her computer for a moment before she started typing again.
"Laes should be back by now," he told her as he folded his arms over his chest.
He began chewing his bottom lip.
Their planet was completely restored... maybe that's why the Invaders suddenly vanished. Hopefully that was the reason...
"You worry too much," she stated. "It's only been a couple days."
Lard Nar turned to the recovering Irken soldier who was watching them quietly.
According to Ryter, his name was Divven, but the Irken guard only had a few vague recollections of the soldier. Most of the second-hand information about Divven had come from Lyra who'd trained in the same unit as him when they were younger.
Veena uploaded these specific memories to Divven and coded his name and profession which she connected to the fighting information the Invaders left intact.
She wanted to retrieve even more of the Irkens' collective memories, but Lyra left to track down Filik who was still being loud and uncooperative, and Ryter was continuing to watch over a group of orphaned Vortlings, so his attention was very divided.
"Yes... but they were just going to have him talk to the Tallest..." Lard Nar said. "That shouldn't take two days..."
"He probably just fainted again," Veena reasoned.
That was actually a very good possibility...
"But why would the Invaders on Vort suddenly leave without saying anything?"
Veena shrugged. "Maybe they had other planets to fix... or destroy."
That was another good possibility.
"They still could have said something..." he decided. "So we... so I wouldn't worry."
Veena let out a short sigh. Her fingers were still typing away at the glowing touch activated keys, and she seemed unwilling to look away from the monitor.
"They're a technologically advanced race of people Lard Nar. Why would they need to tell us what they're doing?"
"For courtesy's sake?"
"We don't even know what their definition of courtesy is," Veena told him. Then she stopped typing and turned to look him in the eyes. "Do you think maybe you're being a tad overprotective of Laes?"
She continue: "He might not be very capable in unfamiliar situations, but he's not stupid either."
"I'm not saying he's stupid Veena," Lard Nar muttered, rubbing his temples. "I just..." he sighed. "Don't you think the Invaders' sudden disappearance and Laes not returning after a simple task is kind of
strange...? He's been stabbed fatally by the Tallest before...maybe it happened again..."
Veena frowned a little. "Even if he was mortally wounded, what can we do about it that they can't?"
"I..." Lard Nar's shoulders sagged, and he dipped his head. "I don't know... but they could have at least told us..."
For all they knew Laes was dead right now.
What if the Invaders somehow caused him to die...? Laes had been worrying about the Invader's intentions before... maybe they'd done something to him...
Even if they had, what could they do? Vort's most advanced technology, before the Irkens destroyed or stole it, couldn't compare to what the Invaders were currently using... could it?
They probably had even more advanced technology stock piled away somewhere, on their home planet maybe...
Veena studied him for a short while. Then she stood up from her chair and motioned Divven closer.
The Irken's antennae flicked forward as he stood up straighter. Then he began walking towards her.
"You could always take a ship and go after them," Veena remarked with a shrug. "Since gallivanting all over the galaxy is your specialty."
"I would if I knew where they were going..."
She was making a jab at him because of his unwillingness to stick around on Foodcourtia and help the underground movement there.
That had been her choice... she'd left the Resisty for it.
Instead of following her lead, he decided to take his crew into space to try to fight the Irkens head on.
The results were not surprising... he'd lost their only remaining Vortian battleship and had to request help from the Meekrob.
It had been a brutal and humiliating loss... one she'd never let him forget.
"Chakri mentioned they were planning to restore all of the planets destroyed by the Irkens and the worms, so their next destination will most likely be Plookesia," Veena offered.
"Plookesia...?" He frowned.
Darden had mentioned something about their district a while back... it had been overrun by worms or there was a nest or something.
The Invaders had gotten rid of all of the worms, but Plookesia was likely still in need of repair.
"Do you think the Invaders will stay there long enough for me to meet with them?"
Veena returned her attention to the screen and typed a few words into the search bar.
"You really should spend more time online Lard Nar," she commented, pushing her chair back and leaning away from the monitor as 3D images of the Plookesian's decimated planet were shown.
It had become a dry brown colour, cracked on all sides, with no signs of life.
"Reports that they've completed repairs for Bludon flooded in early this morning, so their ship was likely blocking a lot of our servers and long-ranged transmissions... I'm not too unhappy they left."
"The Irkens never attacked Plookesia..." Lard Nar said as he stared wide-eyed at the screen.
Plookesia was littered with craters... there was a lot of space debris floating around their planet as well.
"All of this damage was caused by the worms..." he recognized.
Were those beasts really gone...?
Veena closed the images and opened her coding program.
"I have more work I need to do," she told him before switching her attention to Divven. "Earlier today I made copies of the Irkens' collective information I took from Ryter's PAK. This should be the information all Irkens are programmed with regardless of their rank."
"Isn't loyalty to the Empire one of those things?" Lard Nar questioned, though he doubted Veena would forget something like that.
"Obviously I removed that part."
Lard Nar tried to meet Divven's gaze, but the Irken kept glancing away.
"How do you feel about the way you're being reprogrammed?" he asked Divven.
The Irken's antennae lowered, and he folded his arms over his chest.
"I don't feel anything... I don't have a reason to feel anything..."
"Oh please. You're alive. You have your basic living functions. And soon you'll have most of your peoples' collective memories," Veena stated as she snagged the cable she'd been using to connect Divven to her computer. "If you really need a purpose you can always find one later."
Lard Nar sighed.
Veena was brilliant when it came to deciphering and coding technology ... but she wasn't a very kind or considerate person, which made her interest in the Irkens very unusual...
As far as he knew, she had a very strong dislike for the Irkens.
She hadn't even gotten along with the Fry Lord or any of the part-time Irken workers at that restaurant on Foodcourtia.
"Why did you decide to help the Irkens?" he decided to ask.
Veena ignored this question and proceeded to connect the cable she was holding to Divven's PAK. The Irken needed to stoop down a little so she could reach it.
"It's not something you would normally do," he prompted.
"I'm well aware of what I would and would not normally do," she admitted as she climbed back onto her chair. She faced the screen again and started typing. "I'm not sympathetic towards them, so you better not be suggesting that. This is nothing more than a challenge for me. I want to test my programming skills and get a good look at the PAKs they've been guarding so closely until now. That's all."
It's true Veena had a hunger for knowledge... but would she really work this hard just for that...?
"Are those really your only reasons?" he questioned her skeptically.
"Why are you implying there's another reason?" She asked in an irritated tone. "I just wanted to get my hands on their PAKs. Happy? Now shut up and leave me alone. You're messing up my concentration, and I still need to code."
Lard Nar chuckled and shook his head. She really was a stubborn person who valued her independence above anything else.
That's why she only stayed with the Resisty for a short time and never listened to a word he said.
It was worse after they'd gotten together... they argued constantly. That's the reason their relationship didn't last... their ideas on how to handle the Irken menace were too different.
She wanted to stay put and work on sabotaging the Empire using her knowledge and skills while he wanted to confront the problem more directly.
When he thought about it, he realized that was only one of the many reasons their relationship died.
The biggest reason was their clashing personalities.
Both of them were too headstrong and opinionated. Neither of them had been willing to compromise.
He would do it then... he would take one of the fixed ships from a nearby storage garage, and he would fly it to Plookesia.
"Do you have a moment Veena?" Lyra asked.
The Irken was holding something in one of her hands as she approached the programmer.
"Not right now," Veena commented, and she pointed at Lard Nar. "He needs something to do. Talk to him about it."
Lyra walked up to him without giving it another thought and offered the device.
"Filik found this underneath one of the cots. It doesn't look like Vortian or Irken technology to me, but I'm not an expert in that sort of thing."
Lard Nar looked it over. The device resembled a speaker of some kind... but it wasn't built like any speaker he'd ever seen.
"It could be Invader technology," Lard Nar suggested. He ran his fingers over the bottom clasp, and it started to glow a light blue color.
A voice began speaking through the device. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't understand the language.
Veena must have become interested because she was suddenly standing in front of him. She took the small speaker looking device out of his hands and studied it for a few moments.
"It looks like the Invaders might have left us a recording," she mused as she returned to her desk with it. "I'll translate it as soon as I'm finished with Divven."
"You make it sound like it's going to be easy to figure out a new language," Lard Nar commented.
Veena smirked at him. "You of all people should know better than to underestimate my abilities."
Her confidence stemmed from her skill and natural problem solving abilities. She was an expert hacker, coder, and programmer, though she only use her skills to benefit herself.
He also suspected she was the one who created the exploding smiley face virus, but he knew bringing that up would likely result in another argument, so he just sighed.
Drent probably paid her a substantial amount of monies to have it installed in his ship... if Lard Nar hadn't been distracted by the doom of his planet, he would have put a stop to it... but he hadn't been paying any attention to any of his subordinates' actions at that time.
He hadn't been a good leader... he'd gotten so many Resisty members killed...
"If you're going to just stand around, can you go do that somewhere that won't be in my way?" Veena questioned in an irritated tone, and this snapped him from his spiralling thoughts.
"You don't need anymore help?" he questioned.
"Not right now."
"...Alright."
He rubbed a hand down the side of his face as he turned to leave. Just like before, they could only tolerate being around each other for so long.
Author's Notes: As this chapter implies, Lard Nar and Veena were a couple for a brief period of time before the events of "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars", but they definitely aren't anymore.