Chapter 12
The Stowaway
The next morning, as the sun rose over the tops of the city's tallest buildings, the preparations for lift off was finally complete. They're been done since late last night, but the time to go was finally now. In the deep portion of the lab, Zim, Gir, and Rogue were all in the newly designed Voot. A full system check was run on everything, it was all clear. They were ready.
"Mainframe system clear. Artificial gravity balanced. Preparing for liftoff." The computer announced.
"This is it…" Rogue whispered to herself. She and Zim sat in the two front seats with Gir in the back. Anything that had to be handled in the base was done. Seeing Zim last night, what he said to his computer, was still fresh in in Rogue's mind. But she still didn't understand why she had that brief unusual feeling in the pit of her gut. She could have swore it was like…a sick sensation, but at the same time, it wasn't. It didn't make her want to puke or anything. It just made her feel bad…
"There we go!" Zim said. The ceiling launch tube opened once again and this time the Voot went smoothly up and out of the roof without anything going wrong. Zim then took the controls and sped up ever further upward. In seconds, they were in the Earth's atmosphere. Kicking in the new powered engines, the Voot headed for space. Their journey finally begun.
"…" Rogue took in a sigh and looked out the glass bubble window, at the first mass of stars mixed within the blackness of the cosmos. Even up to this point, she was unsure about all this. But again, she wanted to settle things with the Tallest as much as Zim did. Maybe even more.
Zim pressed a few buttons on the panel and the computer's voice came up, saying, "Tracking last known location of the Massive… … …Sector XE-77."
"That's not TOO far…" Zim said. "Computer, can you tell where it's heading now?"
"… … …It is highly possible that the Massive is heading towards Sector ZC-34. Records show that is where one of the planets for an assigned invader is." The computer said.
"Then set a course for that sector." Zim commanded.
"Time to reach sector… … …approximately three days and five hours." the computer added.
Rogue at last looked away from the window and at Zim. "…Three days…that isn't bad at all."
"It's perfect." Zim said with a grin. "Better then that time it took six months to get to Earth…" He paused for a minute after saying that.
"…What's the matter?" Rogue asked.
"…UH? What?" He said.
"…Never mind." Rogue said, and sunk back into her seat.
From the back, Gir asked, "Are we theeere yet??"
"We just started, Gir!" Zim said with a slight scowl. "It will take three days to get there, so just stay put. That's an order."
Rogue turned her head toward Gir, who was looking bored out of his mind already. That is if he had a mind. She brought her head back and looked at Zim. "…Hey…what were you doing last night…?" The words just came out. Rogue already knew what Zim was doing in the lab the other night. She wasn't sure why she just asked such a dumb question.
But Zim reaction was a bit of a surprise to Rogue. He shot his head toward her with a stunned expression. "…I was…doooing…" He was looking for the right lie, Rogue could tell.
"…You were saying goodbye…to your computer…" Rogue finished. Zim's eyes got wide.
"NO! I was not! Why would I do such a…pointless thing? I know I'll come back! I am ZIM!" He said.
Rogue still didn't buy it. "…You don't have to hide it. I know you're scared…right? In fact, I bet you never been this uncertain about one of your own actions…"
"BE QUIET!!" Zim yelled. Rogue didn't even flinch. She knew that response was coming. The Zim continued saying, "I happen to have the utmost sureness that this brilliant plan of mine WILL work! So there!"
Rogue didn't say anything to counteract Zim's last testament, which got him thinking he won the argument, however…
"…You're a pretty bad liar, Zim."
Zim's grip on the controls got tighter. No words were said for the next few hours on the trip. Weather is was anger that kept the silence or something else, Zim retained a rather uncharacteristic appearance on his face. It wasn't anger, it wasn't scowl; it was a really concerned look.
After hours of pure stillness, something caused Rogue's long relaxed antennas to shoot up. Zim looked at her puzzled. "What is it??"
"I heard something." She replied. "…It's faint, but I can still hear it.
Zim gave his antennas a wiggle. "…I don't hear-"
"You can't, it's too low of a sound" Rogue said. "My hearing is enhanced." She got out of her seat, passed Gir and headed toward the back door were the extra equipment was kept. "…It's coming from in the back room."
"Then check it out." Zim said. "Maybe it's a loose sheet of metal."
"…No…it's almost that, but…" Rogue said. Slowly, she opened the automatic door and stepped into the darken room. There was one light bulb on the ceiling which gave just enough light to see, but everything looked fine to Rogue; at first.
But then she heard it again. It did sound like metal, but it wasn't coming from the ship's walls or sides. The sound was coming from one of the large metal boxes she and Zim picked up from the crash site.
"…" Keeping quiet, Rogue crept over to it and the sound got a lot louder. Something was moving in there. She didn't want to take any chances. She placed one hand on the lid and got her other hand ready with it's laser.
She opened the top very slooowly…
*FLASH*
"AAGH!" Rogue quickly stepped back, covering her eyes. She rubbed them a bit before seeing wherever it was jump out of the box and ran behind some other boxes in the corner.
"Stop right there!" She shouted. The figure looked at her, but she still couldn't see who it was, the lighting in the room wasn't the best. Another flash suddenly appeared, temporary blinding Rogue once again. When she could open her eyes again, the person or whatever it was, was heading for the door to the front of the ship.
"I said STOP!" Rogue dashed in front of the figure JUST as it was going to open the door. She finally could see the individual clearly.
"…Y-YOU!!"
Dib fell backwards, hitting his head on the floor. He looked up at Rogue in a bewildered expression. "…Your not Zim!"
"No kidding!" Rogue shouted. "What the HECK are you doing here?!?"
Dib still didn't answer, as he was JUST realizing he was taking snapshots of the wrong Irken. "…Rogue?? …So this is what you REALLY look like…" He displayed a little grin. "And I got it on film!" He held up his trustworthy camera.
Rogue just gave me a soulless stare and answered, "…So?"
"So?! I have prove that your not human!" Dib said, still feeling highly of himself.
"And you ain't gonna LIVE long enough to show it…" Rogue exclaimed, slowly making her way toward the human, with a crazy, anger look in her eyes. Dib's happy mood quickly melted away…
Back upfront, Zim kept looking back at the backroom door, wondering what's taking Rogue long. Then out of the blue, he could feel the Voot rocking back and forth rather violently. He jumped in his seat and heard something happening in the back room. Like…breaking noises.
Just then, the door swung wide open, and both Rogue and the intruding human Dib came stumbling out for Zim to see.
"WHAT THE-!?!" Zim said, watching the two fight it out on the floor, and Rogue looked to be the one winning. She grabbed the back of Dib's black hair and preceded to bash his face into the hard, metal flooring.
"HOLD IT!!" Zim called out. Rogue finally held it, just comprehending that Zim was here. She let go of Dib, letting his battered face fall to the floor one more time.
"WHAT is HE doing here?!" Zim shouted, pointing his finger at Dib.
"He was hiding out in one of the metal boxes we salvaged!" Rogue explained. "I KNEW I heard something when we picked it up!"
Dib got up from off the floor only to see one ticked off face of Zim staring right back at him. "Yoooou…you…HUMAN!!" Zim snarled. "Your are the LAST thing I wanted to see!!"
"I wasn't gonna let whatever you and Rogue are planning work in the first place, Zim!" Dib said, wiping a little drop of blood from the side of his mouth, thanks to Rogue. "You should have known better then to think-"
"Will you just shut it!" Rogue interrupted. "Your little sneaking was meaningless anyways, Dib."
"That's what you think!" He said, tucking his camera into his coat pocket.
"I don't mean that, you IDIOT." She said. "Just look out the window for starters."
Dib's eyes went to the bubble window and all he could see were stars, stars, and even more stars just spanning out into nothing.
"…SPACE?!" He said in a shocked tone, running over to the glass and placing his hands on it.
"Your pictures won't do any good if your not even on your own planet to show them." Rogue said with a mocking grin.
"What are you doing out in space?!" Dib asked.
"NONE of your business, you Earth monkey!" Zim said. "And just to let you know, you caught me in a particular BAD mood…"
"And why's that?" Dib said with a raised eyebrow.
"No more sounds from you!!" Zim shouted.
"But this is a major problem, Zim…" Rogue said, eyeing Dib. "We can't have Earth scum messing us up in this."
"So you are up to something…" Dib said.
"You just shut up if you value your life, even for a few more minutes…" Rogue sneered. The boy backed away a little, fearing of what she was cooking up.
"You're right…so really right." Zim said, a evil grin appearing on his face as well. He turned to Dib. "You picked the worst time to even try and ruin my plan this time, EARTH boy…"
"I say we toss him out in space." Rogue said, rubbing her hands together. "His head would get bigger and then…'pop'."
Dib got a sick feeling in his stomach.
"That's good…" Zim said. "But we COULD chuck him into the nearest star…I've thought of how funny that would look…heheheh…" The two Irkens continued to converse while Dib was starting to believe that maybe this wasn't such a great idea.
"…Hey…wait a sec…" Rogue stopped and looked around. "…Where did Gir go?"
"Eh?" Zim turned his head towards the control panel. But he quickly moved his sights outside as he saw a horde of meteors coming straight for them. And as it turns out, Gir was sitting in the pilot set, playing with all the buttons.
"WHEE!! I'm winning!!" The SIR squealed.
"GIR!! GET OFF OF THERE!!" Zim yelled. He knocked Gir out of his seat, but they were now into the mass of rocks, bumping and getting rammed. Everybody in the ship were thrown to the floor. Thanks to Gir, the flight course was slightly altered. Zim tried to fixed it, but then a new problem stirred up.
"…Uh, Zim..?" Rogue said in a nervous tone. The Irken looked up and was horrified to see a planet in their path. Before Zim could fix the first problem, the gravity from the upcoming new threat began to pull them towards the planet's surface. Everyone started to scream bloody murder, except Gir who was loving every minute and didn't know better in the first place.
The Voot tilted into a nose dive angle as it began it's crash course onto the lone planet. The screams heard in the ship soon died out as the vessel finally pummeled and collided into the planet's terrain.
~~~~~~
"…Mmm…uh…what?" Rogue woke up, finding herself inside a badly bashed up Voot. She regained her sences and glaced around, having to remember what just happened. She noticed the front window was broken, glass was everywhere, and that is when it hit her.
The moment after impact, she saw Zim, Dib, and Gir being flunged forward and breaking through the bubble glass. She didn't go through because she had a death grip on the back of her seat, but she did end up hitting her head at the same time.
The female Irken walked outside onto the planet's plane. The ground was gray and dust covered nearly everything. The sky was oddly a redness hue, which reminded Rogue of the skys back on Irk. There seemed to be a few of the planet's plant life still hanging around, but as much as Rogue could see, the place looked rather dead. An abandoned planet.
"…Where are they..?" Rogue said, suddenly noticing that she couldn't see any sign of Zim, Gir, or Dib, which she couldn't care less of, but the other two counted. "…Hello? …Zim? Gir? …Where are you?"
TBC…………
The Stowaway
The next morning, as the sun rose over the tops of the city's tallest buildings, the preparations for lift off was finally complete. They're been done since late last night, but the time to go was finally now. In the deep portion of the lab, Zim, Gir, and Rogue were all in the newly designed Voot. A full system check was run on everything, it was all clear. They were ready.
"Mainframe system clear. Artificial gravity balanced. Preparing for liftoff." The computer announced.
"This is it…" Rogue whispered to herself. She and Zim sat in the two front seats with Gir in the back. Anything that had to be handled in the base was done. Seeing Zim last night, what he said to his computer, was still fresh in in Rogue's mind. But she still didn't understand why she had that brief unusual feeling in the pit of her gut. She could have swore it was like…a sick sensation, but at the same time, it wasn't. It didn't make her want to puke or anything. It just made her feel bad…
"There we go!" Zim said. The ceiling launch tube opened once again and this time the Voot went smoothly up and out of the roof without anything going wrong. Zim then took the controls and sped up ever further upward. In seconds, they were in the Earth's atmosphere. Kicking in the new powered engines, the Voot headed for space. Their journey finally begun.
"…" Rogue took in a sigh and looked out the glass bubble window, at the first mass of stars mixed within the blackness of the cosmos. Even up to this point, she was unsure about all this. But again, she wanted to settle things with the Tallest as much as Zim did. Maybe even more.
Zim pressed a few buttons on the panel and the computer's voice came up, saying, "Tracking last known location of the Massive… … …Sector XE-77."
"That's not TOO far…" Zim said. "Computer, can you tell where it's heading now?"
"… … …It is highly possible that the Massive is heading towards Sector ZC-34. Records show that is where one of the planets for an assigned invader is." The computer said.
"Then set a course for that sector." Zim commanded.
"Time to reach sector… … …approximately three days and five hours." the computer added.
Rogue at last looked away from the window and at Zim. "…Three days…that isn't bad at all."
"It's perfect." Zim said with a grin. "Better then that time it took six months to get to Earth…" He paused for a minute after saying that.
"…What's the matter?" Rogue asked.
"…UH? What?" He said.
"…Never mind." Rogue said, and sunk back into her seat.
From the back, Gir asked, "Are we theeere yet??"
"We just started, Gir!" Zim said with a slight scowl. "It will take three days to get there, so just stay put. That's an order."
Rogue turned her head toward Gir, who was looking bored out of his mind already. That is if he had a mind. She brought her head back and looked at Zim. "…Hey…what were you doing last night…?" The words just came out. Rogue already knew what Zim was doing in the lab the other night. She wasn't sure why she just asked such a dumb question.
But Zim reaction was a bit of a surprise to Rogue. He shot his head toward her with a stunned expression. "…I was…doooing…" He was looking for the right lie, Rogue could tell.
"…You were saying goodbye…to your computer…" Rogue finished. Zim's eyes got wide.
"NO! I was not! Why would I do such a…pointless thing? I know I'll come back! I am ZIM!" He said.
Rogue still didn't buy it. "…You don't have to hide it. I know you're scared…right? In fact, I bet you never been this uncertain about one of your own actions…"
"BE QUIET!!" Zim yelled. Rogue didn't even flinch. She knew that response was coming. The Zim continued saying, "I happen to have the utmost sureness that this brilliant plan of mine WILL work! So there!"
Rogue didn't say anything to counteract Zim's last testament, which got him thinking he won the argument, however…
"…You're a pretty bad liar, Zim."
Zim's grip on the controls got tighter. No words were said for the next few hours on the trip. Weather is was anger that kept the silence or something else, Zim retained a rather uncharacteristic appearance on his face. It wasn't anger, it wasn't scowl; it was a really concerned look.
After hours of pure stillness, something caused Rogue's long relaxed antennas to shoot up. Zim looked at her puzzled. "What is it??"
"I heard something." She replied. "…It's faint, but I can still hear it.
Zim gave his antennas a wiggle. "…I don't hear-"
"You can't, it's too low of a sound" Rogue said. "My hearing is enhanced." She got out of her seat, passed Gir and headed toward the back door were the extra equipment was kept. "…It's coming from in the back room."
"Then check it out." Zim said. "Maybe it's a loose sheet of metal."
"…No…it's almost that, but…" Rogue said. Slowly, she opened the automatic door and stepped into the darken room. There was one light bulb on the ceiling which gave just enough light to see, but everything looked fine to Rogue; at first.
But then she heard it again. It did sound like metal, but it wasn't coming from the ship's walls or sides. The sound was coming from one of the large metal boxes she and Zim picked up from the crash site.
"…" Keeping quiet, Rogue crept over to it and the sound got a lot louder. Something was moving in there. She didn't want to take any chances. She placed one hand on the lid and got her other hand ready with it's laser.
She opened the top very slooowly…
*FLASH*
"AAGH!" Rogue quickly stepped back, covering her eyes. She rubbed them a bit before seeing wherever it was jump out of the box and ran behind some other boxes in the corner.
"Stop right there!" She shouted. The figure looked at her, but she still couldn't see who it was, the lighting in the room wasn't the best. Another flash suddenly appeared, temporary blinding Rogue once again. When she could open her eyes again, the person or whatever it was, was heading for the door to the front of the ship.
"I said STOP!" Rogue dashed in front of the figure JUST as it was going to open the door. She finally could see the individual clearly.
"…Y-YOU!!"
Dib fell backwards, hitting his head on the floor. He looked up at Rogue in a bewildered expression. "…Your not Zim!"
"No kidding!" Rogue shouted. "What the HECK are you doing here?!?"
Dib still didn't answer, as he was JUST realizing he was taking snapshots of the wrong Irken. "…Rogue?? …So this is what you REALLY look like…" He displayed a little grin. "And I got it on film!" He held up his trustworthy camera.
Rogue just gave me a soulless stare and answered, "…So?"
"So?! I have prove that your not human!" Dib said, still feeling highly of himself.
"And you ain't gonna LIVE long enough to show it…" Rogue exclaimed, slowly making her way toward the human, with a crazy, anger look in her eyes. Dib's happy mood quickly melted away…
Back upfront, Zim kept looking back at the backroom door, wondering what's taking Rogue long. Then out of the blue, he could feel the Voot rocking back and forth rather violently. He jumped in his seat and heard something happening in the back room. Like…breaking noises.
Just then, the door swung wide open, and both Rogue and the intruding human Dib came stumbling out for Zim to see.
"WHAT THE-!?!" Zim said, watching the two fight it out on the floor, and Rogue looked to be the one winning. She grabbed the back of Dib's black hair and preceded to bash his face into the hard, metal flooring.
"HOLD IT!!" Zim called out. Rogue finally held it, just comprehending that Zim was here. She let go of Dib, letting his battered face fall to the floor one more time.
"WHAT is HE doing here?!" Zim shouted, pointing his finger at Dib.
"He was hiding out in one of the metal boxes we salvaged!" Rogue explained. "I KNEW I heard something when we picked it up!"
Dib got up from off the floor only to see one ticked off face of Zim staring right back at him. "Yoooou…you…HUMAN!!" Zim snarled. "Your are the LAST thing I wanted to see!!"
"I wasn't gonna let whatever you and Rogue are planning work in the first place, Zim!" Dib said, wiping a little drop of blood from the side of his mouth, thanks to Rogue. "You should have known better then to think-"
"Will you just shut it!" Rogue interrupted. "Your little sneaking was meaningless anyways, Dib."
"That's what you think!" He said, tucking his camera into his coat pocket.
"I don't mean that, you IDIOT." She said. "Just look out the window for starters."
Dib's eyes went to the bubble window and all he could see were stars, stars, and even more stars just spanning out into nothing.
"…SPACE?!" He said in a shocked tone, running over to the glass and placing his hands on it.
"Your pictures won't do any good if your not even on your own planet to show them." Rogue said with a mocking grin.
"What are you doing out in space?!" Dib asked.
"NONE of your business, you Earth monkey!" Zim said. "And just to let you know, you caught me in a particular BAD mood…"
"And why's that?" Dib said with a raised eyebrow.
"No more sounds from you!!" Zim shouted.
"But this is a major problem, Zim…" Rogue said, eyeing Dib. "We can't have Earth scum messing us up in this."
"So you are up to something…" Dib said.
"You just shut up if you value your life, even for a few more minutes…" Rogue sneered. The boy backed away a little, fearing of what she was cooking up.
"You're right…so really right." Zim said, a evil grin appearing on his face as well. He turned to Dib. "You picked the worst time to even try and ruin my plan this time, EARTH boy…"
"I say we toss him out in space." Rogue said, rubbing her hands together. "His head would get bigger and then…'pop'."
Dib got a sick feeling in his stomach.
"That's good…" Zim said. "But we COULD chuck him into the nearest star…I've thought of how funny that would look…heheheh…" The two Irkens continued to converse while Dib was starting to believe that maybe this wasn't such a great idea.
"…Hey…wait a sec…" Rogue stopped and looked around. "…Where did Gir go?"
"Eh?" Zim turned his head towards the control panel. But he quickly moved his sights outside as he saw a horde of meteors coming straight for them. And as it turns out, Gir was sitting in the pilot set, playing with all the buttons.
"WHEE!! I'm winning!!" The SIR squealed.
"GIR!! GET OFF OF THERE!!" Zim yelled. He knocked Gir out of his seat, but they were now into the mass of rocks, bumping and getting rammed. Everybody in the ship were thrown to the floor. Thanks to Gir, the flight course was slightly altered. Zim tried to fixed it, but then a new problem stirred up.
"…Uh, Zim..?" Rogue said in a nervous tone. The Irken looked up and was horrified to see a planet in their path. Before Zim could fix the first problem, the gravity from the upcoming new threat began to pull them towards the planet's surface. Everyone started to scream bloody murder, except Gir who was loving every minute and didn't know better in the first place.
The Voot tilted into a nose dive angle as it began it's crash course onto the lone planet. The screams heard in the ship soon died out as the vessel finally pummeled and collided into the planet's terrain.
~~~~~~
"…Mmm…uh…what?" Rogue woke up, finding herself inside a badly bashed up Voot. She regained her sences and glaced around, having to remember what just happened. She noticed the front window was broken, glass was everywhere, and that is when it hit her.
The moment after impact, she saw Zim, Dib, and Gir being flunged forward and breaking through the bubble glass. She didn't go through because she had a death grip on the back of her seat, but she did end up hitting her head at the same time.
The female Irken walked outside onto the planet's plane. The ground was gray and dust covered nearly everything. The sky was oddly a redness hue, which reminded Rogue of the skys back on Irk. There seemed to be a few of the planet's plant life still hanging around, but as much as Rogue could see, the place looked rather dead. An abandoned planet.
"…Where are they..?" Rogue said, suddenly noticing that she couldn't see any sign of Zim, Gir, or Dib, which she couldn't care less of, but the other two counted. "…Hello? …Zim? Gir? …Where are you?"
TBC…………