Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective copyrights and I have absolutely nothing at all to do with their creation - although I kick myself every day for not coming up with this idea first.
Author's Note: This story has an interesting inspiration. When I was in ninth grade my World History teacher made us view the film All Quiet On the Western Front. As some of you may or may not know, this film was originally a book - a classic at that. This book was actually banned in Europe by Hitler during World War II because it showed the Germans in an unfavorable light. Anyway in the movie version I saw, there was a scene involving the German soldier protagonist and a French soldier. If memory serves me, during a battle, the German soldier is hiding in a trench. A French soldier happens by and the German soldier leaps up and stabs the man who then collapses into the trench with the main character. But since there's a battle going, the main character can't leave the trench. During the course of the night, he lies near the grievously injured man listening to him suffer. Eventually the main character resolves his own inner conflict and proceeds to help the dying man. The man dies but the German soldier has already realized something about himself - that even though the man was his enemy, they were in the same boat fighting for each their own countries. They were just two guys doing their duty, from my perspective. There's a lot more to the story than just this scene but I found it intriguing enough to write a fanfic inspired by it five years later! Rest assured this is not a 15 chapter epic. Now without further ado, on to the story.
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Retribution
By Raina
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"There's nothing you can do when you're the next in line." - Genesis "The Last Domino"
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He was running.
Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he wondered how long he could keep this up. Already his chest tightened from lack of sufficient oxygen and the laceration on his leg hindered his speed.
It's gaining on me.
Avoiding the sea of corpses, Irken and human alike, he negotiated his way through the battlefield. His mind was only for the assumed safety ahead of him. If he could reach the summit, he'll be safe. Well, not safe really, but safer. Stopping for a moment to catch a second wind, he made pause and fired behind him.
The Irken pursuing him easily ducked, moving liquidly to avoid the bullet. The astonished dismay greeting the creature's evil smirk stirred the human on. He's realized he cannot win this last round.
From its crouch on the ground, the alien sniveled. "Give it up, human, you can't outrun me."
Ignoring the taunt, he continued on. I can make it. I've been able to avoid being killed this long, I can make it for another day to fight. Somewhat worrisomely he checked behind him again. Yes, still following. Odd, how of all the Irken soldiers he'd met on the field today, this one actually seemed to be out for him specifically. It left no doubt or surprise though. Being in charge of the platoon responsible for wiping out the Earth based stronghold of Irkens naturally makes a person stand out. But who was this Irken? The human thought stumbling over a corpse of a man, probably someone he had spoken to five minutes before being killed. It had been on his ass the entire battle, concentrating all its energy on singling him out from the others. It scared him to see the obsession in its eyes. The total and utter dedication these aliens threw into their conquest had always puzzled the human since he was a very small child.
So long ago it seems, he thought. So long ago it was just a game, a farce, a power play. Now it's real. It's become everything I envisioned it to be - and worse.
Halfway to the summit, he tripped over the barrel of a rifle. Yelping aloud, he fell forward. Much to his astonishment, he didn't merely hit the ground; he rolled over it downward. Grunting with each impact, he slid down the side of a ravine. It was one of those crevices that were impossible to see unless you were right on it. The whole tumble to the bottom, he went with the momentum. The knocks to his skull jarred him and the resultant shot of pain from his hip when he landed shook him. Rolling over onto his hands and knees, one hand on his head to keep his helmet from falling off, he looked up.
The Irken had stopped, standing on the edge of the ravine. Its silhouette framed against the dark gray smoke filled sky like a dead leaf. Slowly its spider legs came out and lifted the small creature. Now! He quickly reached into his ankle holster. Aiming with a precision and speed no Irken or human could match, he fired a single shot.
Unwavering the Irken soldier remained stock still, an insect poised for the kill. For a moment the young human was confused. Did I hit it? Then it pitched forward into the ravine, barely catching itself when it landed not two feet away from the man.
He scrambled away in the crabwalk, maintaining aim on the creature until he was able to rise to his feet. Even though dizziness clouded his vision and his leg bent awkwardly, he staggered toward the alien creature.
God, I hope it's dead.
The Irken lay crumpled on the ground like a squashed spider, the metal legs broken and splayed around its body. A flower of green blood spilled from its abdomen and a pool of blood formed rapidly beneath its body.
Not the kill shot I was going for, he thought peering at the creature closely. From where the bullet had hit on the Irken's body, its injury would slowly and painfully kill it.
A fitting death, he thought contemptuously his eyes narrowed. For all the tortures they put us through in this damn war, a little suffering on both ends merits justice.
The Irken opened its eyes. Involuntarily the human man held his breath. The eyes were a shocking deep shade of green, unlike the usual magenta hue of most Irkens. Looking around it fixed its languid but intense gaze on him. In its eyes, the human was a child and an inferior being. Yet for all the years of training and experience, here it was the one lying in its own pool of blood. The human found this thought amusing and allowed a tiny smile to twitch on his lips.
"It must really stink right now to be you," he taunted the creature.
The Irken spit blood out of its mouth and lifted its head a little. "Fuck you."
The human blinked. Finally. An Irken had properly utilized the English language. No mangled struggles for the correct word or phrase. Pure brilliance.
Smiling at the curse, he lowered the weapon. I'm going to let it. . . no her die. No mercy for humans, well, no mercy for aliens. Tit for tat.
Giving it a little mocking wave, he left the injured extraterrestrial. Okay, one threat out of the way. Now all I need to do is . . .
"Oh no." He limped around the ravine, searching for some sort of way to climb out. The walls were almost completely vertical and there weren't enough crevices to gain footholds. After testing the surface and running his hands along it, he became aware of a horrifying reality.
I'm trapped.
He backed away and took deep breaths. "Hell no. This is impossible." He walked back and forth, going one way and then another. Stopped. He heard the sound of a helicopter in the distance. His face went gray. It meant only one thing. "They're leaving," he whispered. Standing up he threw himself at the ravine wall, banging his fists, scrambling up its rough, rocky surface. "No! No! I'm here! Wait! I'm down here!" Hot tears stung his eyes and he blinked them back. "Don't go."
"Hehe."
He turned and glared at the Irken who propped herself up on one arm.
"Your people abandoned you." More dirty chuckles.
"Shut up." He pointedly turned his back on her. "They'll come back." I hope.
The Irken laughed again. "Fat chance of that, stink-beast." A cough interrupted her chortling. It got heavier and deeper so she turned on her side and hacked up a stream of green blood. Turning back over again, fighting back more congestion, she licked the blood off her lips. Despite the vicious pain, an evil smirk played across her face. "Face it, Dib, you're trapped."
Hearing his name, the young man finally turned around. "Who are you?" He came toward the Irken. "Why do you know my name?"
She smiled. "Everyone in the Irken Empire knows Dib Membrane." Cough.
Curling his gloved hands into fists, Dib stood over the tiny creature. "I can guess about as much." He pointed his gun at the Irken. Pleasure ran through him seeing her squirm and feebly try to crawl backward. Part of a spider leg jammed into the ground made moving in any direction virtually impossible.
"Afraid to die?" he mocked, pointing the gun between her eyes. "You're already on that road."
She shook her head, curly antenna twitching. A drop of blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
Dib lowered the gun. His previous conviction came to mind again. "No. I'm not going to give you what you want."
Dismay and fear joined together in the female. So she responded in the best way known to her. "What makes you think you know anything about me, earth stink?"
Dib returned the favor. "What makes you think you know anything about me?"
She fell silent, stuck for an argument and turned her head away from him. After a moment, she gargled deeply in her throat. Unable to fight the fluid filling her breathing orifices, she coughed for a long time.
Dib grew bored and wandered to the opposite side of the ravine wall. Well, if he was going to spend the night here, might as well set up for it. Warily he checked over his shoulder.
The Irken had managed to free herself from the entanglement pinioning her to the ground. Laboriously she crawled over to the other side of the ravine. She grabbed a rock jutting out from the side and heaved her weight up so her back was propped against the surface. The simple effort took a lot out of her and she exhaled loudly, weakly flopping an arm up to wipe the green fluid from her mouth. Her eyelids drooped and her antenna twitched sporadically.
That's the damn trouble with Irkens, Dib thought angrily. They take too long to die. But there was an end in sight; he was fairly sure she would be dead by morning.
Dib sank down and hugged his knees, making sure he kept his handgun where he could get at it. He thought about moving somewhere else so he wouldn't have to look at the Irken. Unfortunately the ravine, however deep, wasn't lengthy. It was more of a huge pothole than a ravine. He could go in any direction and he'd still have the Irken in his view.
Dammit.
Since the battle was over and every human and Irken had fled into the evening, a deadly silence hung in the air. He thought about removing his helmet. It was safe, he decided, and besides my little dying roommate over there, I don't have anything to worry about. He worked his fingers under the helmet and released the clasps, loosened the chinstrap. Dumping it unceremoniously on the ground beside him, he ran his fingers through his mussed, damp hair. After all these years, his spike managed to hang on by the edge of a knife until he'd been ordered to shorten it. He missed the stylish indulgence but admitted in the greater scheme of things, personal pursuits and preferences mattered little.
Same went for the glasses. Ditching them for contacts had been difficult enough without panicking every time one of the damn lenses fell out. But through all the troubles they'd given him, he was grateful. Once too many times a soldier had been popped off because the sun reflected on his glasses at a certain angle. The same rules for human-to-human warfare applied to human-to-alien warfare - with the solid exception of high technology being the only major difference.
Dib rubbed at the skin between his sinuses, the tiny oval pressure marks still lingered. Tired, Jesus, he was exhausted. Too exhausted for someone his age, goddammit. He was only twenty-five.
He opened his eyes and tilted his head back until it touched rock. The stars were out. Has it really been that long? It feels like yesterday I was only fifteen and demanding to be enlisted. It felt like eons ago, though, when this war had started. He didn't even know why Irk had invaded in the first place. He'd discovered Zim's mission had been a complete joke on their part but then . . . suddenly they decided they wanted Earth. In one day Zim went from laughingstock to a major source of information on human weaknesses. In a few short years, from what Dib heard, the little green guy worked his way to a high position somewhere. One where he didn't need to go and do any of the fighting. Dib hadn't seen him in at least five years. Not personally anyway. He planned to keep it that way.
Never mind. Dib was simply a lieutenant following whatever the government told him and his platoons to do. Whatever that was left of the government in any case, he thought stretching his legs out. He winced and cried out. "Shit!" he muttered grabbing his knee and sucking in breath. He'd forgotten about that laceration in his leg. Stretching had opened it again. Warm blood trickled down his leg into his boot. Pulling his pant leg up, he inspected the wound, trying to keep a straight face. It went from under his knee to just above his ankle. Thank God it hadn't severed any muscles. With the first aide kit he had on him, it ought to suffice until he could get real medical attention.
While he worked on himself, Dib glanced up. He frowned. That Irken was still alive although she wasn't moving much. Mostly she remained quiet, staring bleakly at the heavens above. Sometimes a twinge of pain would make her moan aloud and her pak would light up, send a convulsion and resuscitate her every ten minutes. How long it would be able to keep her alive, Dib didn't know. Irken technology was advanced as hell but it wasn't perfect. Usually an Irken wounded like that killed itself. Why wasn't this one? Perhaps it didn't have a suicide watch thing like all the others did.
He almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
Dib returned his attention to his own wound. He wrapped it up after applying disinfectant - which stung and he had to clench his teeth together to keep from crying out. Pulling his cuff down again, Dib arranged the limb so it wouldn't bother him the whole night and then relaxed. Relaxed as much as he could anyway.
His thoughts wandered. Just little things, like what was his sister doing at this moment and if his dad was okay. Gaz was on intelligence - one of the brains behind the scenes - and never had to pick up a gun. Dib would have been there too - everyone decried his insanity at picking up arms. He was considered one of the best resources on Irkens and his being out here was, to quote his general, 'risking the best intelligence on the enemy.'
Dib begrugedly admitted that without his insights, most of the few and far between victories humanity got were due to strategies devised by him. Unfortunately Dib had a crisis of conscience seeing all those poor men and women fighting for the planet. So he enlisted.
Now here he was.
He wondered at his choice. Was it really worth it? He could be doing the resistance so much more good behind the lines rather than in front of them. Watching things die wasn't something he liked seeing every day. It sickened him.
"So why do you do it?" his former wife asked him once.
He had replied, "Because this is just something I have to do."
Not what she wanted to hear apparently. She divorced him, of course. Married only for two years and she divorced him because he wouldn't stop going off to kill aliens trying to take over earth. He'd pleaded with her but she wouldn't budge. A year later she married a good friend of Gaz's and forgot all about him.
He didn't forget her though - although he wanted to.
"Women," he muttered. "God, I don't need that." He shut his eyes and forced himself to go on to something else.
Some Irkens who were sympathetic to Earth's plight joined a few years back - and the floodgate of how many were coming in was getting bigger. Things had been awkward for the first few years and a few dubbed 'hate crimes' happened. But now things had settled down. The Irken dissenters had adjusted themselves and Dib had had a few of them under his command. One particularly, Tak, had been his right hand and they never argued for leadership. They were considered the best human/alien team in the whole world.
He exhaled with regret. Tak was dead now, killed because they screwed up. One screw up after the a long run of victories caused her to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Irkens captured, tortured and then shot her. When news came out of this - delivered in a transmission via the most unsympathetic Irken alive, Zim - Dib had been walking by the room the transmission had been received in. He wanted so badly to run in there and curse Zim out with every vulgarity in the book but he daren't. He couldn't let Zim know he was alive or even where he was. Zim was obsessed with capturing him. He still seemed to view Dib as the worst threat to the success of the invasion - and he was partly right. Why the crazy alien wanted him alive beat the heck out of him. They did have some old scores to settle. Dib had plenty of reasons to want to kill Zim - especially after what he did to his sister.
Dib fought to keep the memory under check. Gaz had been able to move passed it; he ought to have done the same. But it haunted him. It revealed how low Irkens knew to go to get what they wanted out of humans. Dib believed his nemesis was evil but he never thought he was evil enough to do what he had done. He was shocked he didn't put the poor girl out of her misery instead of letting her go. It happened eight years ago when Gaz was eighteen but it still bothered him. Strange how it did too. He hadn't even been the one it had happened to!
It's because it's what he could have done to me, he thought with a shudder. He couldn't get to me so he took it out on my sister. Gaz never meant anything to him but she was the closest thing to me.
A tidy few hours later into the night, a loud moan from the Irken jerked him back to reality. He opened his eyes and squinted through the moonlit darkness. She was trying to medicate herself and she wasn't succeeding. Every time she moved, the bullet wound bled. For fear of making it worse, she stopped trying to move bodily but the pain made her limbs move constantly. The moan dwindled to a low but shrill mewl. It ended after a spell, punctuated by a coughing fit.
Dib was tempted to get up, go over and end it. He couldn't stand listening to the damn thing. Her agony annoyed him.
He sighed and closed his eyes again. Go. To. Sleep. The thought forced itself on his brain.
"Un ivee nurka," the Irken began to mutter in her native tongue, drifting in out of consciousness. "Ili vai lae zyk fen." It sounded like a chant or a prayer. Dib recognized it. The Irken soldiers he had gotten to know muttered it all the time before a fight broke out. Once he asked about it and one explained it helped an Irken face death better if they spoke these words. It was the closest thing to religion these people had. It meant roughly translated: 'I go to fight, I go to death.'
He bet Zim never said it.
Suddenly the Irken shouted, "Lakea hamata vecko!"
Dib made a face. Trademark insult. He ignored it.
"K'naa! Nura fomirk!"
Dib's eyes snapped open and he sat up. "Yunki gonor!" he shouted. It was a lame insult really; he had just compared her to a dirt-digging animal from her home planet. But what SHE had compared HIM to . . . some things he just couldn't let pass by.
She shut up. Then she spoke again, this time in English. "You speak Irken?"
"Some." He didn't want to talk with her. She was supposed to be dead.
"Oh."
A couple of minutes later, she moaned again.
Dib snapped. "That's it." He vaulted to his feet and picked up his gun. Limping over to her, he hovered unsteadily over the small creature. She was a sorry mess. Completely soaked in her own blood, her broken spider legs dangling from her open pak, the little lights on it blinking every now and then. Propped up against the ravine wall, she looked like a lamb sacrificed to the altar. Her claws limp at her sides, her legs lying uselessly ahead of her. Except for her open eyes, the rest of her looked dead.
He lifted his gun and aimed. She lifted her head tiredly, her eyelids drooping.
Dib's finger pressed the trigger. It almost fired. Gradually he lowered it.
"You're pathetic," she said weakly. "Can't even murder your own enemy. I don't know why he wants you."
Dib squinted an eye at her. "Who wants me?"
She met his gaze. "Take a wild guess, worm."
He moved a little closer to her. "Zim."
Grin. "My aren't you bright."
Dib glared at her and crouched to approximate her height sitting down. "Who are you?"
"Invader Nia." Limply she inclined her head forward.
Nice name, he reflected. Almost human. "Yeah, that's your title and name. I want to know what your mission was."
"You." Cough.
"Me?"
Nia gave him a long, steady eyeballing. "You are stupid."
Whatever. "Zim sent you to capture me."
"Yeah."
He nodded. It made sense now why she didn't bother shooting at him. "Oh well," he gave her a cocky grin. "Better luck next time."
"Shut up." Nia tried to sit up more. A flicker of pain ran across her face. When that happened, Dib felt a flutter of something he thought long dead around his heart. Could it be he was actually feeling sorry for her? Crazy.
Dib sat down, keeping the gun on his knee. Nia watched him settle himself with one half-lidded eye. Her face asked.
His shoulders moved up and down in reply.
For a long time, he just sat with her. Saying nothing. She didn't make a sound, except when she went into the Irken equivalent of a cardiac arrest. Dib panicked when that happened and before he could move, the pak sent out a convulsion through the alien's tiny body. The dullness in her eyes remained but she was breathing again.
Dib gave up on the confusion inside of him. He moved. Crawling close to the Irken he gently moved her back from the ravine wall, getting her blood on him in the process. She struggled to protest but her voice refused to work. Carefully he removed the broken metal legs, which allowed the pak to close. Quietly he took out his first aide kit and began working. There wasn't much he could do; the pak would have to take care of whatever he couldn't medicate. But he could at least clean all the blood off and gauze the wound so it wouldn't be tempted to bleed every time its owner moved.
God, Irkens bled a lot.
When blood ran from her mouth again, he used his sleeve to wipe it away. Nia made a disgusted face and jerked back. She even spit on him. While he cleaned the blood off, her eyes followed his every movement. They asked questions she was unable to voice. The alien freaked out and struggled when he started to remove part of her uniform over the wound. Her claw grabbed his wrist tightly and she gave him a deadly warning, "I don't go that way."
Jesus. Dib bemoaned his own people's sexual habits - being that Irkens used to have none. Thanks to a few infamous encounters between one or two humans and Irkens, the aliens still with the Empire reviled being touched by humans. Dib had never had any such interest in Irkens (thank God) and agreed with her obvious abhorrence whole-heartedly.
He reassured her. "I just want to look at your wound."
Nia eyed him and then relaxed. "If you touch me . . ."
"I won't touch you," he promised in exasperation. "Look, see?" He held up his hands. "I'm wearing gloves."
Even so she warily kept her guard up, watching him so closely, he felt like he was back in grade skool being watched by Ms Bitters. Being the smartest kid in class regulated him to be of constant suspicion and many over the shoulder vigils on the teacher's part.
Finishing, he closed her uniform, taking great pains to not move too fast lest she freak out again. Then he scooted over and sat beside her. Pointedly he kept their bodies from coming into contact, since Irkens seemed to have great issues with humans touching them.
Neither spoke. They hardly even looked at each other.
Hours went by. Dib fell in and out of sleep, jerked awake every single time Nia coughed. Thankfully she'd stopped hacking up blood. It meant she was recovering. He wasn't sure how he felt about it - her improvement over what he did and why he did it.
It didn't matter.
At around the time the first fingers of dawn stretched over the mouth of the ravine, the sounds of a helicopter pierced the silence. Waking, Dib rose to his feet and listened. Yes. He smiled. They were getting louder.
"All right, I told you they did. . ." He trailed off and stared. Nia was gone. All that was left where she had lain were a few broken pieces of leg and dried blood puddles. She must have gotten away while he was asleep. Confused he looked around, hand going to his gun. It was still there. He exhaled in relief.
The helicopter was roaring in his ears now. When he finally looked skyward, it appeared. He went where they could see him best and waved his arms.
A ladder came down and on it was Gaz. She jumped off it and approached him. His sister was a looker, her violet hair and amber eyes highlighted that fact and her figure made most men's eyes go round. Dib only gave her a weary smile.
"Hi Gaz."
His voice broke through her incredulous stare at his poor form. She took her time coming to him and gradually she gave him a hug before speaking. "You really pulled one over on us this time," she began pulling back. "You're lucky I love you so much."
Dib chuckled. "Thanks."
Her eyes went up and down. "You injured?"
"Yeah. My leg. Nothing serious though." Awed he watched the metal bird hover. "Man, how'd you guys find me?"
Gaz gave him an all-knowing tap on the side of her head, a wry grin teasing her often straight line of a mouth. "Sibling radar. No, I kept on their asses until they gave me a chopper and their good blessing. Honestly they were ready to give up on you."
"Give my appreciation to Uncle Sam," Dib pointed up. "Okay, if you're not flying that thing - who is?"
"Hi there!" someone poked his head out the pilot's window and waved. He shouted to be heard above the roar of the blades. His antenna and crimson eyes said the rest.
Dib gave Gaz an 'are you nuts?' look. "Skoodge?! You let HIM fly you?"
She shrugged. "What can I say, he likes flying stuff." Looking up, she shouted, "Hey, front and center you dummy! I'd like to go home in one piece!" To Dib she said with real concern, "How you feeling?"
"All right. I could use some food and about ten days sleep." He rubbed his sore neck. "Let's get the hell out of here."
Gaz nodded and climbed on the ladder. Dib followed her.
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