"Have you seen Invader Raz?" Red was going through the morning's work, mostly just following up on progress reports and answering hails from Invaders currently in the field. But as he was running down the list of names, he noticed one had not communicated with him for a little while. "I know she was on leave after conquering Tanzoth but it's been a while, hasn't it?"

No answer. Purple was playing some game on his reader pad that involved bright lights and loud music.

"Purple, have you seen Raz or not?" Perhaps he had not heard him. "Purple." Red tried again. "Did you send her anywhere or...?"

Nothing. He wasn't even looking up.

Red cleared his throat, narrowing his eyes a bit, and raising his voice. "THERRON!"

"Sweet Mothra, Voel, what do you want!?" Purple finally looked up.

It had been a while since they had addressed one another by their original names. 'Red' and 'Purple' were titles, more or less. Names that had been given to them once they became the Tallest. Red had always found them to be a little superficial, but he didn't really care that much about what he was called so long as Irkens listened to him.

"Have you heard anything from Invader Raz?" Now that he finally had his fellow Tallest's attention he could get on with his day.

"I dunno, maybe."

Voel frowned, glaring at his purple companion with a look of annoyance. He never seemed to take things seriously, despite his high position. It was frustrating when things needed to get done- which was more often than Therron had, perhaps, expected when they became Tallest. It wasn't all fun."I can't remember if we reassigned her anywhere."

"Why is it important?" Therron finally looked over.

"I haven't heard from her. And then Sig put in another request for reassignment to the Academy. But we just sent him like three Invaders." It wasn't like the Empire was hurting for recruits, and with so many Irkens under their rule it could be a little difficult to keep track of everyone. Still... it seemed like some of his most favored hadn't checked in for quite a while.

"Another one? We have given him like a million Irkens!" Therron finally sat up.

"I know, but now Jax has been reassigned to running the Elite exams."

"I thought Zar was running the final exams. She's been doing it for years."

"Yeah I thought that too." Hearing Therron agree with him, Voel found his concern a little more validated. "I ran through our past reports with the Academy but all I found was that we approved a brief leave for Zar during our last Probing Day. But her leave was over months ago." This was all a bit concerning-Irkens didn't exactly just walk off their jobs. They were dedicated to their assignments- it was programmed into their PAKs. Even vacations were a rarity.

"She came back didn't she?" Therron began pulling up actual work-related documents on his reader, and Voel was briefly proud to see the other putting effort into his job. "Yeah, right here, returned on time and was back at work at the end of the week..."

"So where is she now?"

"For Mothra's sake, Red I don't actually know."

"I... I know that. It was one of those questions you don't have to answer."

"Rhetorical?"

"That's the word."Voel folded his arms looking thoughtful. "You're sure you didn't throw Raz out of an airlock for insulting your armor or something stupid, right?"

"I might have, that sounds like something I would do." Despite being Tallest, Therron had always been quick to react without considering consequences of his actions. Not that there were many, given his status, but if he was tossing all the best Irkens into space, something had to be done. (It wouldn't kill the Irkens, but it was a pain in a half to collect them). "But I feel like I haven't launched anyone into space in a while... and also: my armor is not stupid."

"Noted." Red sat back in the air, supported by his hover belt.

"Why don't we just give Sig someone else for now? I don't want him to make me run laps like back at school."

"We're Tallest, he can't do that."

"He'd find a way." Therron retorted a tad bitterly. It seemed as if his old Acadamy days had left a lasting effect on the tall, purple eyed Irken. Not fixing his laziness, as Sig had probably hoped, but at least there was still a fear of the Instructor instilled in him. It was funny given that Therron, aside from his lack of motivation, had not been one of the Irkens that was in trouble most frequently.Voel himself had way more demerits for his behavior back in the day.

The only who had Voel beat was...

"Hey... we haven't gotten a call from Zim in a while either."

"Maybe he's dead." Therron was going through a list of active Invaders.Voel's crimson eyes narrowed as he glared at his companion. "What?" Feeling the change in Voel's attitude, Therron looked up, taking in the annoyance on his co-ruler's face. "We don't like him, remember?"

"He was annoying, yes."

"And destructive."

"And destructive, and sure he poses more of a threat than he does actually aid our cause- BUT he was loyal."

"To a fault." Therron muttered under his breath.

"That is true. But loyalty is a very Irken trait.Zim was a defect, yes, but he is still an Irken- not a good one- but an Irken nonetheless. Don't forget that he made it to Invader status despite how pitifully small he was."Zim had many, many faults. He was less of a soldier and more of a force of nature that couldn't be controlled. Back in their school days, Zim often destroyed half the training ground (unnecessarily) in order to achieve simple assignments.

"He also more or less caused the deaths of two of our Tallest." Therron's voice drew Voel out of memories of smoking battlefields and the glory of training.

"Unintentionally." Voel retorted.

"Are you defending him right now?" Now it was Therron's turn to narrow his eyes. His antennae lying flat as he gave Voel a suspicious look.

"No, no. I'm just saying that it's not like him not to check in." He quickly covered for himself. Zim... he was something else all right. No Irken could so perfectly understand the concepts of what it meant to be an Irken while simultaneously being unable to enact any of those ideals. "We'd know if he was dead. I'm sure the Control Brains would tell us."

"Do they keep track of who dies when they're banished?" Therron widened one eye but kept the other narrowed, skeptically.

"I don't know."Voelwas getting a little annoyed now. "I was just making a point! We haven't heard from Zim, that is weird. Irkens are not reporting to their proper stations. That is also weird. It was a comparison!" He quickly lowered his voice. "C... comparison, that's the right word, isn't it?"

"Yes." Therron went back to looking at his reader.

"I'm not good at the talking with big words thing."Voel sighed.

"Eloquence."

"Now you're just showing off."

"Hey, what about Invader Skoodge?" For once, Therron ignored Voel's obviously annoyed remarks and stayed focused on the task at hand.

"Who?"

"Invader Skoodge."

"Is he the guy who bought us that kick ass slushie machine?"

"No that was Invader Grooge. But Invader Skoodge is also fat- so I can see how you get them confused. But he hasn't bought us anything, so he's like a less cool Grooge."

"Oh yeah! No, I think I remember him."Voel had to think back a bit.Skoodge had been a top Invader not too long ago. But... he hadn't checked in for a while either. "Didn't he die? I know we strapped him to the missile but he got better from that... but I feel like he died."

"Maybe." Therron shrugged. "If he did the Control Brains never changed his status in the Collective to deceased."

"Oh. Guess he's not dead."

"Or they just didn't care enough to update."

"Hmm..." Voel opened the hatch on his wrist armor, accessing the communicator underneath. "I'll call him and ask if he's dead." He went through his list of Invader's trying to find the contact link for Skoodge. If he wasn't dead, he had better have a good reason for not checking in. Finally finding the correct number, Voel dialed and the call immediately disconnected. "Ah, he's probably dead." He tried again, just to be sure, but again there was a disconnect.

"That sucks." Therron shrugged.

"We'll have to find someone else."Voelwas cut off by a knock at the chamber door. This wasn't uncommon, especially as he and Therron would usually have made some sort of appearance on the bridge of the Massive by this point.

"One of us should get that." Therron remarked, looking over at the door. "And not to point out the obvious, but I'm already sitting down."

"Fine." Voel heaved a sigh standing straight, and floating over to the door, pressing the button to trigger it to slide open. Before him was a Navigator. "Char? What do you need?"

"S-sorry my Tallest!" She bowed her head instantly, barely able to squeak out her words through her nervous stammering. "But there has been a disturbance on the bridge."Voel looked over at Therron, making sure he had heard.

"Oh? Is that so. Then I suppose we must see to it." He could hear Therron groaning. "Both of us." The groaning got louder. "Together."

Finally, the exasperated, purple-eyed Irken slunk off of his comfy sofa, supported-mostly- by his hover belt.Voel waited until Therron was mostly upright and the two of them followed the Navigator to the bridge. Instantly upon hisarrival he could see why no one else had stepped in.

The disturbance, as Char had so nicely put it, was caused by two of the Irken Elites in training: one male one female both with red, square eyes (the male had a slight dusting of discoloring spots on the center of his face between his eyes), and both exceedingly tall for their age. These were two of Sig's best, assigned to the Massive to learn from the Tallest's own special forces. The female and male were currently wrestling on the ground, knocking over everything around them. Due to their height, none of the Navigators felt confident stepping in- despite technically out-ranking mere students.

"Vero! Xia!" Voel's voice boomed over the sounds of chaotic fighting and the two Irkens immediately stopped fighting and scurried to their feet. "What are you doing? You were supposed to be monitoring the bridge, not destroying it."

"If you ruined our snack table-" Therron cut off seeing the table disturbed but not destroyed. "You're both lucky you are tall!"

"My Tallest!" Xia immediately bowed her head in respect as she addressed them. "I am sorry for not defeating my counterpart more swiftly and with fewer damages."

"Why were you fighting him to begin with?"Voel folded his arms.

"Well you see," Vero held up his arms passively, "what had happened was-"

"Oh, don't you start. You were reading when we were supposed to be guarding! We are guards!" Xia hissed, her antennae going flat in anger.

"I get where you would think that, seeing as how I had my reader out, and there were words on it, at which I was looking. But actually, I was guarding."

"That is literally the definition of reading!" She shot back angrily. "Give him demerits for reading on the job!"

"Nah, I was guarding. Give Xia demerits for making up definitions."

"You're both getting demerits."Voeltook in a deep breath, putting his hand to his face and slowly bringing it down as he let the breath out. "Vero for reading on the job and Xia for initiating a fight that destroyed the bridge."

"And the snack table!" Therron interjected helpfully.

"And the snack table."Voelreiterated.

"What!? But I was only trying to make him focus!" Xia looked horrified by the decision to include her in the punishment.

"Yes, well you can't just destroy our stuff. You need to think about consequences. You are both tall, very tall, and there is a good chance that in the highly unlikely scenario that something was to happen to Purple and myself, one or both of you might become the Tallest." They knew this, they had to know why they would be put on the Massive to train when their classmates were mostly following ground forces working in Impending Doom II. "While we can do whatever we want on Irk, you have to learn to control your temper if you want to keep our alliances."

"Alliances make us weak." Xia grumbled through gritted teeth.

"Alliances,"Voel was getting annoyed at having been interrupted and raised his voice slightly, drawing himself up to his full height, leaning over the two trainees, "are important to maintaining the Irken might. Tallest Miyuki was the first Tallest to establish peace between ourselves and one of our old foes. Before her, we were on the brink of an all-out war with the Syndicate."

"Yeah! And wars are way less fun than conquest. Rival empires fight back a whole lot more than the planets we're taking now. We'd expend lots of resources and then we wouldn't have enough moneis to buy all the nice things we have now." Therron seemed to have more of a grip on the economy than Voel expected. "And I like nice things!"

"You want Purple to have nice things, don't you?"Voel gestured dramatically to his companion.

"Yes, my Tallest." Xia bowed her head, respectfully.

"I want to hear it from both of you."

"Yes,my Tallest." This time both Xia and Vero spoke together, in unison, heads both bowed. Vero's head popped up and Voel narrowed his eyes.

"Vero, repeat what I just said."

"What I just said." Veroparroted.

"Demerits, double for Vero for being a smartass. AND, you two are on entrance guarding until further notice. You can't be have on the bridge, then you stand in front of it." Voel crossed his arms again, his eyes narrowed in anger, antennae pointed back.

"But that job is so boring!" Xia protested. "Can't you just punish Vero! I was listening!"

"You were, but I don't trust Vero not to just let in anyone. So, I'm sorry Xia but it's both of you. But you can pick first from the snack table when this is over ascompensation. Fair?"

"Yes, my Tallest." She bowed.

"Now both of you get out of my sight."Voel pointed toward the door and the two young trainees scurried off before their Tallest decided on a worse fate. "That was exhausting, I'm going to eat something in my chambers and then return."Voel grabbed a bag of chips from the table and tossed it to Therron before taking one for himself and heading back into their chambers.

"Our poor snacks." Therron grieved through loud munching, as the door slid shut behind them. "They were so young, so delicious."Voel couldn't blame Therron for eating, the taller the Irken, the higher the metabolism seemed to be as their PAKs required more energy for upkeep.

"You know when I authorized the smeetery to use my DNA sequence in theirs meet construction, I didn't expect the resultings meets to be soooooo intolerable."

"In-TALL-erable?"

"Therron I'm going to punch you."

"You know," he ignored the threat, "I had kind of forgotten Miyuki was the one who started our alliances."

"She was, I've always admired her style of rule." Voel took the opportunity to steal the couch, despite the loud protest from Therron. (They had a second couch but Voel had taken the purple one, which was Therron's favorite. "Without her planning and forethought, we would have gone to war."

"What is the protocol for war anyway?" Therron managed to get the question out despite the mouthful off food.

"I don't know." Voel shrugged. "There hasn't been one in quite some time, never in our lifetime, at least. I assume we would get information from the Control Brains if it came to that." It was quiet, save for the sound of food being chewed as Voel started to think back on Tallest Miyuki. Her reign had ended far too soon.

He lazily, started on his own bag of chips.

Stupid Zim.

He had been somehow involved in that death- but the smaller had insisted that it was an accident. For a long time Voel had believed him-Zim was grossly incompetent, sure, but he had loved Miyuki- he had loved all his Tallest. If it were not for the fact that everything Zim touched seemed to explode- he would have been the perfect Irken soldier.

It was funny, part of Voel still thought Zim was (at least partially) innocent; despite having seen what the Irken was capable of when given the right material and motivations.

What had happened on Vort was something about which Voel had always been unclear. Zim had never talked about it much, even to him. It wasn't until they had peaked into his PAK that they even knew his connection to her death. But that raised more question.

Given what had happened to Miyuki and especially her successor Spork (who had also fallen inadvertently to Zim's incompetence) it was strange that Zim was still able to accel as an Invader. Surely such a dangerous defect would have made him a target for deletion far before he was brought to trial all those years ago.

Voel wasn't sure how long he had been in thought. Therron had finished his snack and was back to playing his game.Voelpulled out his own reader. As Tallest he had access to all sorts of files deemed classified from the Irken masses.

Curiosity had gotten the better of him.

He opened up the Irken archives and typed 'Tallest Miyuki' into the search bar. Her basic information appeared at the top. He even found some notes of things she had written. It was nice, reading things in her words. The notes weren't really helpful, just lists of things she had forgotten to get, or days she had meetings... but it was still nice.

As he scrolled to the bottom, to where the notes about her demise would be written, his reader began freezing up. "Stupid thing-" it was top of the line and had never malfunctioned like this before but- as pixels began popping up and spreading over the screen, the text became impossible to read and the screen eventually went black.

Annoyed, Voel went to turn it back on.

Nothing.

He glowered throwing it against the door causing it to slide open revealing a very frightened looking Char standing in the doorway- hand raised mid knock. "S-sirs!" She yelped her voice trembling as she addressed them.

"What is it now?" Having his reader break was putting him in a bad mood.

"Y-you have a guest."

"Guest?" Therronlookedup. "We aren't expecting anyone. Send them away and tell them to make an appointment. You can't just walk in and see the Tallest! We're very busy!"

"I-I-I know that s-sirs. I t-told them. B-but they in-insist on seeing you. Th-they said they tried t-t-to make an a-appointment but couldn't. I-it ap-p-p-pears to be a s-s-squadron of S-Syndicate R-Rangers."

"Well tell them to try harder!"

"I-I-"

"How did they even get to you? Security should have stopped them at the door."Voel got back to his feet (well as much as he could, with the hover belt).

"Y-yeah...th-they said Taller V-Vero let them in."

Voelheaved a huge sigh. "Mothra damn it- okay, we'll be right there."