THIS TOOK A WHILE TO GET DONE. As some of you may realize school takes up a lot of time, aha. I'm in my final semester of college. Not just year, but semester. The finals of the final. And it's art college, so my time is eaten up by projects when I'm not at work. It's a lot of stuff going on. I'm having fun, honestly, but this is what I do to relax when I'm not drawing and it's finally done! It's almost 2000 words (take a few hundred but meh), so I hope you enjoy! I've been wanting to cover this for a while aha

Part 21: Cruising
Dib laid on the rooftop, scouring the stars for any abnormalities. He had his equipment set up beside him in an autopilot setting. He breathed in and sighed contently. The sky was completely clear, unlike when he'd intercepted The Tallest's transmission.

Dib readjusted himself, closing his eyes contently. He should have been inside hours ago. He had class in the morning; but couldn't bring himself to leave the cool night air. He felt his phone buzz. Dib pulled it out, only barely opening one eye to check the screen. Zim was calling him. He smiled and swiped the screen.

"Hey, Zim."

"Dib-stink. Zim is surprised you are still conscious."

Dib chuckled. "Zim, I know you know what 'sleep' is and that's what it's called. You can just say you thought I'd be asleep."

"Mmmm. No," Zim says smugly. Dib rolled his eyes at him, setting the phone on speaker and laying it beside him.

"What's up?"

"Zim finds himself bored and in need of test running his ship-"

"Your Cruiser?" Dib asks.

"Precisely. Would you like to join?" Zim asks. Dib sat up ramrod straight. He nearly knocked the phone off the roof in his scramble.

"Yes! Hell yes, is that even a question you have to ask?!" Dib heard Zim chuckle on the other end of the line. The sighed. Dib frantically climbed down the house. "How soon can you be here?"

"Zim is in the obnoxiously large backyard of the family down your street. They are gone for the night, Zim believes," Zim says. Dib pauses and makes his way to his door.

"That's safe for you to do? It's only-" Dib checks his phone, "-like, 9 p.m."

"All the lights in neighboring houses are off. Zim is alone. And in darkness. How long until you are here, Dib-stink?"

"I'm coming," Dib says. "I can see the house already."

"Ah, good."

Dib hears a click and looks to see Zim had hung up. He shook his head, jogging to the fence line. He paused, listening for any signs of the other neighbors being out. He heard silence, a far-off dog bark, and then determined he was clear. He hopped the fence, the Voot Cruiser coming into view immediately once he'd cleared the fence.

Zim flipped the windshield up. Dib hopped in, settling in a seat to the side. Zim lifted the cruiser, aiming for the nearest bulk of clouds. Dib looked out the side of the Cruiser. The city was quickly becoming nothing more than dots of light on a dark background, with lines making up the streets. This was enthralling in every possible way.

Dib looked over to Zim, who seemed focused, but not as much as Dib would have guessed with a ship that could do such complex maneuvers. He looked at movement above his head to see Zim's antennae twitching. It was difficult to see how they were moving, the movements were so subtle.

"How's piloting it?" Dib asks. Zim glances at him.

"Hm? It's… Zim isn't sure how to describe it. How would you describe driving?" Zim asks. Dib opened his mouth and closed it again. He repeated the action several times and huffed, looking back out the window.

"I guess… it's a combination of sensory input and responsive output. Harder than a bike. But same basic principles. It gets harder when you put in stick shifts."

Zim hummed. "That is not the same, then. Piloting Cruisers requires synchronization with the ship."

"You sync your brain to it?" Dib asked incredulously. Zim smirked.

"In a way. Zim's PAK is copied into the Cruiser each time Zim pilots. This can be an issue, as Zim is sure Dib-stink remembers…" Zim teased. Dib flushed, recalling the, ahem, issues he'd had with Tak's ship once it had woken up.

"Yes, I remember," he says. He focuses back outside as Zim chuckles. He blinked. He was seeing this right, right? They were in the upper atmosphere. "How far out are we going?"

"As far as Zim feels."

Dib beamed. This was the best day of his life. Fighting an alien had been great (and the space ship fights being the best), befriending said alien was amazing, but THIS was by far the best. He didn't have to focus on combat or worry about finding his way back. He was free to enjoy every second of this trip. Zim tilted the ship, flying past the moon, careful to keep the view on Dib's side of the ship.

"This is amazing," he breathes. "I noticed this is a different model than Taks'. Is it an older model?"

"It is a stolen model," Zim says flatly. Dib glances at him.

"Huh?"

"Zim stole it. …Zim had to get to the Impending Doom II meeting," Zim explains hastily. "It's from the planet Zim was banished to."

Dib started to lose himself laughing. "Oh, my god! You stole your own ship, that's hilarious!"
How is that hilarious?" Zim asks.

"I thought you built it!" Dib says, still having trouble holding in his laughter. "You build almost everything you use, I just assumed."

"Dib-stink, Zim fails to see the humor in this." Zim admits.

He banked past Mars, curving around it so that Dib could see the northern pole. The white contrasted sharply against the red surface. It swirled around an indistinct center, broken apart by the landscape around it. An entire section looked as if it had been broken off in parts and shoved to the side. Dib pressed his face against the glass eagerly, his eyes lighting up.

"Mars's ice! Oh, wow. I wonder why it's spiraling. And that gouge…"

"Canyon." Zim corrects. Dib glances at him curiously. "It's a canyon," Zim repeats.

"Weird. It looks like an art piece," Dib says with a chuckle.
Zim piloted past the smaller planet to the largest in the entire system. Dib watched as Jupiter slowly came closer to them, the size growing to the point it was nearly taking up his entire view. The surface was a mass of swirls and moving form. Dib could only describe the shapes as oil on water. It was hypnotic to see the shapes slowly moving across the surface of the planet. From the edge he saw a striking red start to come over. The never-ending storm. It tore through the layers of gas and clouds as it moved, breaking up the lines that were loosely formed over the surface. Dib beamed, eliciting a small laugh from the alien next to him.

Next was Saturn, its rings keeping them far from it as opposed to the viewing distance Dib was afforded with the other planets. Dib could make out a few of the moons, particularly the two between rings. The rings themselves weren't as clear cut as their representations had led Dib to believe. He knew this from when he and Zim had raced through one of the rings, but the sight was still something amazing. And he could enjoy it this time. They cruised over Saturn for a slightly longer time as Zim checked what time it would be back home. Seeming satisfied he turned to Uranus.

"Zim has a question."

"What?"

"Why is your species fascinated by this planet's orbiting rings?" Zim asks. Dib heard the hint of a snide tone in Zim's question; but ignored it.

"They're the wrong way." He explains. "They're up and down, not side to side."

"There is a "way" for planets to settle?" Zim asks incredulously. "Where in the universe did you humans get that assumption?"

"Gravity?" Dib tries. Zim laughs, letting the Cruiser coast until he got himself under control. Dib was glaring at him.

"Every mass has gravity, that makes no sense!" Zim explains. Dib shoved him and returned to the window.

"We can only travel space with satellites, we don't have ALL the answers! Yet. Besides, we might get better answers than even alien empires. We could improve their technology, maybe."

"Why does Dib-stink say that?" Zim asks. When Dib gives him a chastising look Zim quickly amends his question. "Zim is genuinely curious. Humans are a very young species."

"Therefore, we're imaginative. We McGyver things constantly. I jerry-rigged the garage to work on Tak's ship. I learned a lot from that. I'm never turning it on again."

Zim smirked. "You had not expected the uploaded personality, hm?"

"How was I supposed to know it did that?!" Dib asks incredulously. He turned away from the expansive star-scape before him to look at Zim. "Humans are still working on AI, I wasn't expecting a ship to have the same personality as its old owner. It was just as rude, too."

"IT was Tak, in a sense." Zim explains. He looks around the Cruiser, tacking away at the controls before veering off their (mostly) streamlined path. Dib looked forward, a distant shape disappearing into the darkness. He tapped Zim's shoulder, eliciting a hum. "I saw them. Earth is believed to be marked for Irken conquest. Few aliens would come to it knowing that an Irken is there."

"So, your banishment is like a shield?" Dib asks, following the ship until it had completely disappeared.

"Are Irkens that ruthless to other species?"

"Dib-stink, the Irken Empire is seen as vicious by all. Vicious and superior-"

"Zim, I can tell you right now that calling yourself superior only brings trouble."

"Zim is saying what others believe."

"…And you, too," Dib says. Zim groans, but he can't deny the accusation. He banks the Cruiser, bringing Dib's attention away from him and to the planet before them.

Neptune was looming over them, Zim cruising much closer to it than the other planets. Dib was wondering how they hadn't been pulled in by its gravity. The shades of blue layered over each other, swirling over each other, at one point forming a shape like the Red Eye. Dib remembered learning about it in class—a large storm the size of Earth. Dib was caught in this knowledge, knowing that he was looking up something that matched the size of his entire home planet. The colors were like watching a planet made of an ocean swirling below him. It was calming in a way that he couldn't entirely explain, as if he were being washed over in the calm waves he imaged could be making up the atmosphere. Zim left too soon—perhaps it would have been too soon no matter how long they stayed, but Dib would always say regardless that it was too soon.

It was going to be several minutes before they hit Pluto. Zim was unsure what to do to fill the silence. He wouldn't say he was uncomfortable with the silence. He rather preferred it. It allowed him the most flexibility to think as he didn't have to worry about focusing on sounds. It was a very different environment than his time as an Irken weapons designer. It was peaceful. However, being in silence with Dib was unsettling in a way that Zim wasn't comfortable with. The human talked too often for it to be normal. Zim could only think of one topic.

"Zim will admit, he has grown attached to this Voot Cruiser. Despite what Tak or any Irken may think."

"What do you mean?" Dib asks. "This ship is awesome!"

"Zim has streamlined it in recent years. This Cruiser, as Zim explained, is not standard. Zim did steal it. It is a garbage ship, yes. However, Zim has made modifications. Zim found himself with much free time after accepting banishment."

"So, some of what you were doing in that free time was updating it?"

"Yes. Standard Cruiser technology is PAK compatibility. Zim had to reload his PAK into this Voot Cruiser. Zim added many functions PAKs have. Such as the metal legs. Those are Zim's favorite."
Dib laughed. "They are pretty cool."

Zim smiled, coming up onto the last planet. Dib shifted to the front of the ship, where Pluto was coming up to them. The tiny dwarf planet sat in its orbit, the red southern pole contrasting starkly to the rusty and white upper hemisphere. Zim banked and Dib hooted. A large patch of white in the shape of a heart coming into view. Dib had seen the photos of the heart, but to see it was another thing entirely. The planet was something else. Full of craters, mismatched colors, and irregular shapes. Dib basked in it.

"This is the best day of my life."