Yayfullness for a new chappie! This is dedicated to Tyko, whose music I… um… borrowed, and am listening to right now. Go A.F.I.! Uh... this chapter is almost entirely exposition, learning and stuff. MOST of it is true and I have dug it up from somewhere. The whole thing about the PAKs is true, cept I dunno how the PAKs got on the irkens in the first place.

It was dark, all the time. There was no sun to rise on our tiny ship, floating through space. The others were sleeping, the suspended animation engaged, but the computer and I had an arrangement. He had kept me awake for a bit longer than the others. I crept into the bridge, the view of the sky momentarily dazzling me. Quickly shaking it off, I moved to the main control panel. It had an uplink to the main Irken system, piggybacking it, but was not detectible. Quickly I signed into the main system, searching for the planet Irk. I had a feeling I wasn't getting the whole truth from Zim.
Locating the small planet, I searched history and present, finally finding an article that looked useful.
Irken life, Irken ways.
The planet of Irk is perfect in all ways. Ask any Irken. The Tallest are perfect rulers, leading the planet in a peaceful and for the most part casualty-free revolution of the universe. The liberated planets then join under the Irken flag.
Irkens were once a simply mechanical race, somehow evolving using only metal, until a smaller, carbon-based, rather stupid life-form started to evolve on the planet. The Irkens attached themselves to these brain-dead creatures, forming a strong and intelligent breed of cyborgs.
Major days in the History of Irk include the Day of the Tallest, which is the anniversary of the crowning of the first Tallest, Tallest Daren. Then there was Horrible Painful Overload Day, a day on which a tiny smeet blocked the entire system, cutting off the power on Irk for five years. This also killed hundreds of smeets, lowering the Armada's power by almost half. This was followed with years later by Horrible Painful Overload day part 2. This was when two Irken trainees escaped from the training facility, and provoked a Dermis Prowler security droid. It maimed one of them, the other escaped. The damage done by this put Irk in darkness for another four years.
Most recently was the horrible failure of Operation Impending Doom 1, when a deranged soldier hijacked a Frontline battle mech (#4) and went on a destructive rampage on planet Irk.
Then there was the tragic death of tallest Miyuki, who was killed on Vort when an infinite energy absorbing thing consumed an infinite energy producing thingie, and then killed the tallest before going on a horrible rampage across the universe.
Last but not last was the death of Tallest Spork, who was also brutally murdered when a soldier called the infinite energy thingie back, and it killed the Tallest.

Well this didn't look good. I wondered if Irk had any happy holidays or just moments of horrible destruction. I ran another search for Zim. I wanted to see if he really was who he said he was. To my surprise, there was an entire file on Zim.

Defective Invader Zim
Zim, a name that will live on in infamy. Zim wreaks havoc and destroys all he comes into contact with. The horror started the day of his processing, when he blocked a tube of smeets, leading to Horrible Painful Overload Day. Later, when he tricked Invader Skoodge into accompanying him, the two of them caused Horrible Painful Overload Day part 2.
Later directly causing the deaths of Tallest Spork and Miyuki, the releasing of an infinitely growing creature of pure energy into the universe, Zim's most horrible moment was single-handedly causing the total failure of Operation Impeding Doom 1. I think we all know that story. Zim was once given a trial and found Defective, but the sentance of death was revoked when the control brains in charge of the task went violently insane.
To keep Operation Impending Doom 2 safe, Zim was banished to a preciously unknown planet called Earth. He thought he was going to conquer it, but the Armada is restricted from that Galaxy to prevent destruction. Shortly after being sent there, he was given another trial, where he was agin labeled defective and sentenced to death.
He went berserk, killing fifteen of the Massive guards in a frenzied attempt to escape. It was a futile attempt, and the sentence was carried out later that day. Rumors have since circulated that he is on the run, but they are entirely fictional.

So there is some brainwashing involved. This can't be true, if Zim's dead, who am I flying with? I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I couldn't. There was something buzzing in the back of my head. I had to clear it. Something buzzing… Wait. If Zim had a chip in his PAK, wouldn't I have one, too? He wouldn't have taken the chip out of an empty PAK, would he?
Without any real thought, my PAK disconnected, clattering to the floor. A tiny green timer appeared in the upper left corner of my vision. It appeared to be ticking down form ten minutes. So I guess that means I have ten minutes to get my PAK back on.
Flipping it over, I opened up the main compartment, exposing a neat array of wires and chips. I saw my spider legs neatly folded in one corner. Ignoring them, I looked around for the mother board. I took a half a year of computer class in middle skool , so I knew the basics, maybe. I found something purple and flat that kinda looked like a motherboard. A ton of chips were attached. I was about to just give up when I heard a voice above me.
"Need some help?"
It was the computer. Of course, why didn't I think if that?
"Do you know how this works?"
"Of course I have pretty much the same thing inside me."
"Oh, good. I'm looking for an uplink, or anything that might be automatically downloading into my PAK."
"Oh, the washer? That's the purple one shaped like an arrow."
I found it, and pulled it out, closing the PAK and putting it back on my back. I felt he cord automatically reattach. That's a relief. I looked at the tiny chip in wonder, and wondered if this would fix anything. I hoped so.

Sorry no more for a while... TFL GET SOME MORE OF YOUR STORIES UP!
Everybody pester The Fic Lord to update, and I will too, K?