Lost
Chapter 6- The Capture
The reaction to the new arrivals was… mixed.
"Zim?" Larb rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
At that very moment Red emerged from the ring cutter doing a similar gesture, in his case because he was still groggy. "Would you mind lowering your volume?! Some of us are trying to-!" He stopped abruptly when he saw who was hanging from Fury's maw.
Zim finally acknowledged the presence of the other Irkens, but he ignored the other invaders and instead focused on the two Tallest. "Never fear, My Tallest! The great Zim has come to save you!"
"I can see that." Red said bitterly. Considering Zim was in the Indokuro's hold, however, it seemed he was the one who needed saving.
"How on Irk did you find us, anyway?" Skoodge asked. He was devoid of any hostility unlike most of the others.
"I was working on one of my newest plans to destroy the hyoomans-!"
Red interrupted him. "Go straight to the point, Zim." He certainly was not in the mood to hear another stupid plan that was doomed to failure because Zim had been the one to think of it.
Of course, this worked wonders with Zim. "Okay, as I was saying, I was going to contaminate the hyoomans' supply of milk by infecting it with lots of GERMS when a probe crashed nearby! It had an emergency message from you, My Tallest, and the coordinates to this puny rock! So Zim came to rescue you from the Sobrekt-beasts!" Zim glared at the still-unconscious human. "Thanks to the Dib-beast, however, I crashed my beautiful Zhook cruiser!"
Silence. Red glanced at Purple. Purple stared at Zim blankly. Larb, Stink and Tenn exchanged looks. Ilk and Lena stared worriedly at Red, afraid his reaction.
The emergency probe must have been deviated from its course, probably by a meteorite or any other factor, and instead of going to the Armada it ended up landing right on Earth…
Red took a deep breath. "Did you at least contact the Armada before coming here?"
"I had no time for that! I wasn't going to let the Sobrekt-beasts eat you!" Zim lifted a hand to the Sobrekt. "You hear me, Sobrekt-beasts?!"
Okay, if being stranded on a freezing-cold, uninhabited planet with no snacks, no technology(not even the PAK), no way to communicate with the Armada and having to cooperate with the Sobrekt of all alien species was stressing, this was the breaking point.
Lena, Larb and Stink barely had time to hold Red back as he lunged and tried to attack Zim, cursing and yelling in Irken.
Ilk noticed the Sobrekt hadn't said anything about Zim yet. They were staring at him with wide eyes, however.
"You mean that's… Zim?" Captain asked slowly.
"The Zim? The Irken who single-handedly was this close to destroying the Irken civilization and ruined their first attempt at galactic conquest?" Masouri even made a little gesture with his claws to emphasize.
"That's right, you Sobrekt-beasts!" Zim growled. "I am Zim, and I will likewise destroy you if you do not release My Tallest-!" The Sobrekt yelled-or maybe 'roared' would be a better term- and ran towards him. Red and Purple hoped perhaps they'd kill him before he could destroy what little they had left.
But to their utter shock, they grabbed Zim and lifted him high in the air, laughing and yelling in excitement. Even Echo, Blue and Fury-the latter dropped the big-headed human in the process- joined in. Zim himself seemed like he was in shock judging by how he was screaming, and not in glee like the Sobrekt.
As the group or Irkens stared agape at the scene, Ilk silently asked Lena to lift her up to her father's face and gently closed his jaw.
Seconds later Bob finally landed on top of a pile of snow, his burning rear releasing steam as it came into contact with the frozen water beneath him, making the table drone give a long sigh of relief. He noted the looks on his fellow Irkens.
"Did I miss something here?"
Sure, she knew who Zim was, everybody in the Empire did. After all it wasn't easy to forget the Irken who caused a blackout on Irk when he was four minutes old, caused a second blackout it a few years later and then ruined Operation Impending Doom I.
As for her case, she was in what could be called the 'gray area'. She didn't hate Zim blindly like the rest of the Irken race, but she didn't hold him on a pedestal either.
So when the Sobrekt started treating Zim like he was a sort of hero, she was stunned. She never thought anybody would actually admire the short little Defective.
"Those guys clearly need glasses…" Larb muttered, watching Zim being 'pampered' on the other side. Lena figured he either didn't like not being the object of praise, didn't like Zim being the object of praise, or a combination of both factors. And he wasn't the only one.
"I'm going to throw up." Purple muttered while clutching his stomach, though it was hard to tell if it was out of the DAS or he was very disgusted about Zim.
Lena was staring at the Sobrekt's side of the camp. Zim had relaxed considerably once he realized he wasn't being torn limb from limb and was being treated like he always thought he deserved. Currently he was seated on top of the Ibris, sharing the 'tales of his countless victories' with his scaly audience.
"You know what this means, right?" Tenn was rubbing her arms and her antenna drooped. "The Armada never got the message, which means they don't know we are here and given we have no way to contact them…"
Stink complained when his stomach started growled for the fifth time. "And those lizards didn't bring any food, I'm starving!"
"Maybe Zim could get them to bring us food." Skoodge suggested.
"What if we eat the big-headed hyooman? He doesn't look like he's going to wake up any soon."
"Eww, that's disgusting!"
"Is food all you lot of bottomless pits care about?! How are we getting out of here!"
"All of you, SHUT UP!"
Lena nearly jumped when suddenly Red snarled, getting on his feet and flattening his antenna against his head. He certainly looked pissed. The others-except Tallest Purple and Ilk, who were probably already used to these outbursts-jumped back on their seats as well, Bob even fell backwards.
"You just…! You don't let me think clearly! Just…!" With that he stomped off into the woods. Weaponless.
Of course, Zim had to dip his spoon in. "My Tallest, should the amazing Zim escort you?"
"NO! Especially not by YOU, Zim!"
Lena couldn't believe he could hear Zim even from that far. She had noticed he and Purple didn't like Zim from catching one glimpse or two of their interactions during Zim's transmissions, but this was a bit too much. And being the rational Irken that she was, something on the back of her PAK urged her to find a logical explanation.
"I'm going to see if he's okay," she said getting on her feet, but Ilk grabbed her hand.
"Be careful. Dad can get a bit… explosive when he's at his limit," she warned. "Usually Uncle Pur would calm him down a bit first, but…" Ilk glanced at Purple, who had crossed his arms and was pouting like a little smeet.
Lena smiled and nodded, though she couldn't help but feel her squeedly-spooch squirm a bit. She had never seen either of her Tallest angry, at least not when she was present. She did hear about those days many random Irkens were thrown out of the airlock, though.
She followed Tallest Red's footprints into the woods, finding him a few meters away kicking whatever was in front of him, be it rocks, twigs or even small rodents. All the while he continued to curse Zim in Irken.
"My Tallest…?" she called, but he was so immersed in ranting he didn't hear her. "My Tallest!" she jumped when he abruptly turned around and yelled at the top of his lungs.
"WHAT?!"
Lena swore her heart almost jumped out of her chest. Red quickly noticed who he had just yelled at. "I'm sorry, Lena, I didn't…!" he brought his hand to his forehead and gave another frustrated sigh. "Oh, damn it..."
"That's okay…" Lena whispered, though it would be a bit longer before she got over the fright. He really was scary when angry. "I wanted to see if you were alright."
Red started pacing. "Lena, don't take me wrong, but I think it's plainly evident I'm not alright. No one knows we are here, we have no way to contact the Armada, no snacks, and the pièce de resistance: besides having to worry about the Sobrekt now I also have to deal with Zim of all people!"
"Look it on the bright side, My Tallest. Perhaps he can be of help."
A snort. "Lena, you don't know him like I do. Every time he tries to help, disaster follows. How do you think Operation Impending Doom I was ruined before it even began?"
It's pretty hard to forget when everybody is always talking about it, right? "But he did mention he came on a zhook-cruiser. That ship has more advanced equipment than the ring cutter, right? Perhaps there are salvageable parts we could use on the Sobrekt's ship and increase the chances of fixing it."
"That's…" Red blinked. "… not such a bad idea. The sooner I can get us all out of here, especially Ilk, the better."
Lena wondered if now would be a good time considering she just got unintentionally yelled at a few minutes ago. Oh, well. The sooner, the better. "Um, My Tallest… When I woke up I noticed I had your blanket on top of me… I wanted to... Thank you for it." To her surprise he smiled at her the same way he'd smile at Ilk. It made her heart-organ flutter.
"I just couldn't let our only doctor to get a cold," he said gently. "By the way, right now you don't have to call me 'Tallest'; Zim is going to annoy the heck out of me and Purple with that. You can call me Red."
Lena swore her cheeks had turned a deep shade of green-blue. "As you wish… Red." Even the mention of his name made her heart-organ soar.
Both their antenna twitched when they heard a noise coming from the woods. Damn it, good day to leave the weapons back at the camp. As the sound-it almost felt like footsteps-got louder, Red stood protectively in front of Lena; she wondered if he knew any sort of martial combat, considering he was disarmed yet he was willing to fight whatever was coming.
Much to both their shock, however, the life form that came out of the trees was no animal, but a… Okay, she had no idea what it was, but it was clearly sentient. It reminded her of the human Zim had brought along, but taller with silvery gleaming skin, long pointed ears and grayish dirty hair that might have been white was.
"Greetings!" he spoke with a surprisingly soothe voice.
"Who are you?" Red asked warily.
"Oh, right! Sorry, where are my manners?" the creature gave a sharp-toothed grin. "My name is Iraa. I didn't mean to scare you."
"That's curious considering you came out of nowhere without warning." Red pointed out, narrowing his eyes.
"Where are you from, by the way?" Lena asked. "As far as I know, this place is uninhabited."
"Alas, I crash landed here not long ago. I was looking around for firewood when I saw something falling from the sky. Did your ship crash around here too?"
Lena wasn't sure why, but there was something about this guy… She couldn't wrap her finger about it, but she had a bad feeling about him.
"What does it look like, pal? That we came here on a holiday?" Red told him bitterly.
"I see… I'm sorry for your plight, friend…"
"Don't call me that, you… what are you, by the way?"
"Me? Oh, I'm but a humble Hothian-"
"Okay. Don't call me that, Hothian. It's bad enough I have to interact with Sobrekt on equal terms."
Lena was sure she saw a strange glint on Iraa's eyes when Red mentioned the Sobrekt. He merely offered another 'friendly' smile. "I see. Well, it was nice chatting with you, good sir, but I must be on my way. I have to get to my shelter before it gets dark. Hopefully we'll meet again."
Hopefully not. Lena stared at Iraa as he left, her antenna wiggling.
"Um, Lena… would you mind releasing my arm? You're going to leave a mark…"
Lena blinked and noticed the tip of her claws were digging unto Red's arm. "Sorry!" She apologized, releasing it. "It's just… I have a bad feeling about that guy."
Red stared at the direction Iraa had disappeared into. "Me too."
A high pitched-scream followed by yells of fright and dismay coming from the camp caused them both to jump. As they rushed back, fearing the worst, they found a ruckus happening on the Sobrekt's side of the camp. Foxtrot was flailing his arms around while Zim was trying to pull something from his head. In turn, Blue was pulling on Zim's waist, and Echo on Blue's tail, while Captain and Masouri did the same with Foxtrot. Purple and the others were just watching and laughing, like those times they'd watch a comedy earthen-film.
"GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!"
"I LOVE YOU, BIG VIOLET IGUANA!"
"GIR, RELEASE THE SOBREKT-BEAST RIGHT NOW!"
"WHAT IS THAT THING, ANYWAY?!"
"YOU'RE GOING TO TEAR OFF MY TAIL!"
Red's eye twitched. He wondered if it was possible to hang oneself with a branch.
He just couldn't believe it! His indokuro had caught Zim the Hitorken! ZIM! What a honor! From what he had heard Zim wasn't easy to capture at all, he'd always destroy his captivity like an atomic bomb. It was hard not to hear things about him considering he already had quite the reputation.
Zim was held in high regard by his people. It might seem weird, but being very inclined to war and finding glee whenever their enemies were given a devastating blow from anywhere, internal blows were considered the most admirable. Naturally since Zim had already given his own Empire quite the blows not once, but numerous times, he was a sort of hero to the Sobrekt.
He had to admit his personality was… not like he imagined, but his skills in mayhem and destruction probably were the cause.
"And that's how Zim brought down the hamster-beast all by himself!" the little Irken gloated.
"That's not what happened!" Oh, right. The mammalian alien-or hyooman, as Zim called that species-had awoken a little while ago, and immediately made it clear he was Zim's enemy. Naturally, he was tied up after the revelation.
"LIES!" Zim yelled at him.
The little metal menace from before-Hitorken Zim called him GIR, his 'advanced' SIR unit-ran out of the Ibris holding a plate filled with what seemed to be a dish consisting of green stuff and tiny balls of meat on top of a circular dough shape. "Guess who made tacos!"
Blue didn't have any idea of what those things were of, a sentiment shared by his teammates, but when they tried to decline GIR broke out into a hysterical fit of yelling, forcing the Sobrekt to take one 'taco' each and eat it.
Blue managed to distract GIR long enough to hide his own taco under the snow.
"Hey, Zim, since your SIR unit is wasting precious supplies in making disgusting earth food why don't you tell him to make us something edible to eat!" Invader Larb yelled.
"Go get your own food, Larb!"
The purple tallest said. "Zim, I'm starving. Get me food."
"GIR, offer some 'tacos' to Tallest Purple!"
"I don't feel like having Earth food. I want something else."
Zim saluted. "As you wish, My Tallest!" Then he turned to Blue. "You, blue-lizard, go get the Tallest food!"
"Why don't you get your own food, Zim?" the Dib-hyooman challenged, smirking. "Or what? You can't?"
"How dare you, Dib-Stink?! Zim is more than capable of providing for his Tallest! To prove it I shall lead the blue-lizard to find a suitable meal! Come along, blue-lizard and dog-lizard!"
Oh, Ancestors! Caught by his Indokuro only once and he already wanted to hunt with him! He must have given a good impression!
"Come on, Fury!" he called his Indokuro, who promptly rushed to him.
"Let's take Dib-stink so that he may witness Zim's amazing skills!"
GIR yelled happily. "Woohoo, we're going on a stroll through the woods like Snow White!"
Masouri whispered. "Captain, can I go?" he pouted when Captain mouthed a 'go back to fixing the ancestor-damned ship'. Blue had Fury pick up the Dib-stink by the ropes to take him along. "Hey, wouldn't it be easier if you let me walk alongside you?" the hyooman inquired.
"So that you try to escape at the first chance?" Blue told him. "Not a chance."
"Ilk-smeet, would you like to join me?"
"No way! She's not going anywhere near that thing!" Tenn pointed at Fury, earning a low growl.
"Besides, I doubt Tallest Red will take kindly that you took his daughter alongside him." Stink added. Blue could tell he was referring to him.
"Ha! The lizard-beasts shall not lay a hand on Ilk-smeet as long as she sticks close to me!"
"Any friend of Zim is a friend of ours!" Foxtrot clarified. Blue noted the expressions on the other Irkens' faces when he said this, particularly the purple Tallest's. Ilk got on her feet. "Well, in that case, perhaps I could lend them a hand."
"I insist it's not a good idea, Ilk," Tenn said. "I mean, can we really trust them to keep their word?"
"Sobrekt always keep their word, Irken," Captain retorted, frowning. "You'd know that if you bothered getting to know a species instead of just enslaving them."
Blue noted the purple tallest's antennae were twitching, and he looked anxious. "Hey, what are you…?"
"Nobody move!" the purple Tallest jumped to his feet, his antenna moving almost frantically by then. "I'm smelling donuts!"
Zim seemed to remember something. "Ah, My Tallest!" he opened the compartment in GIR's head and took out a small white box with green dots. Blue managed to see some red words in a strange language written in red on top of it. "From your message I figured you were probably being deprived of your snacks by the Sobrekt-beasts," Blue and the others frowned at Fury. "So I decided to bring some of the snacks I was planning to send you. It's donuts from a popular brand named creepy crim-"
He hadn't finished the sentence when the purple Tallest technically lunged at him and snatched the box.
"Thank you, Zim! I owe you one!" he said in between devouring the doughnuts and talking.
Five Minutes Later...
Afterwards Zim had that goofy, ear-to-ear grin on his face as he led the small hunting group into the woods. Ilk didn't have the heart to tell him Uncle Purple had only reacted like that because of the DAS; he was always trying so hard to please him and dad that she figured it would be nice if he thought said attempts were finally bearing fruit, at least for a while.
Besides, it had been some time since she last saw him, GIR and Dib. Apparently, GIR had snuck unto Zim's shook cruiser after allowing Dib in. Zim was not happy. GIR was supposed to stay back on Earth to feed Rexy (the tyrannosaurus rex he had cloned a-la-Jurassic Park when she was just a smeet), but frankly she thought Mini-moose was a better choice for the job.
The intriguing thing was that GIR was working. Unlike the rest of the technology brought by both parties, GIR hadn't show any signs of being shutting down or malfunctioning... more than usual.
"So how's Earth?"
"As I was explaining earlier, my next plan involves infecting humans with germs through their white liquid food produced by cow mammary glands!"
"It's called milk!" Dib corrected and was ignored.
Blue looked rather… confused. "What are those 'mammary glands'?"
Zim shivered in disgust. "Apparently hyoomans need them to produce that white liquid for their smeets. Disgusting!" he pointed at Dib with a thumb. "Just ask Dib-beast about it."
"Hey, Dib-beast, do you have mammary glands?"
Ilk nearly burst out laughing when Dib's face turned red. She hadn't known humans could do that! "W-What do I know?! It's a girl-thing!" Fury dropped him on the ground and lifted his head to sniff the air.
Seconds later his spines bristled and he ran off into the woods.
"Looks like Fury found something," Blue announced quietly. "Let's go." He felt a tug on his clothing and looked down at GIR. "What is it?"
"Got any piggies?" GIR asked with the innocence of a child.
"What?" Blue winced when the little robot's cya eyes swelled up with tears.
"I miss piggy!"
Zim let out a frustrated groan and took out something from his PAK. A pink inflated balloon with a piggy face painted on it with black marker. "Here's your piggy, GIR." GIR snatched the piggy substitute and started dancing around with joy, lifting it up in the air.
Okay, this is getting awkward. Ilk quickly asked. "Does the indokuro do all the hunting for you?"
Though Blue didn't like what she was implying, he was grateful for the change in topic. "It really depends on the size of the prey. He can kill small and medium-sized critters by himself, but when there's big game involved he mostly wears it down and I deal the fatal blow."
"Where did you get a fucking indoraptor?" Dib asked. Blue and Ilk glanced at him, confused. "I'm talking about that thing!"
"He's an indokuro, Dib-beast." Blue frowned.
"Well, he looks like an indoraptor."
"What's an indoraptor, by the way?" Ilk inquired.
"Oh, well, a few months ago a new movie came out…"
There was a loud roar up ahead. "Looks like Fury has caught it," Blue licked his chops. "Let's go."
"Um, I'd rather stay behind, if you don't mind," Ilk said. "I don't want to see another carnage."
"Chill out, I'm not going to skin it until we go back to the camp. We still have to see how we're going to distribute it evenly. Besides, if it's too small we'll have to look for another one."
Just like Blue said (and leaving the talk about the 'indoraptor' pending for now), Fury had taken down a mammal the size of an earth-cow (like Zim put it) and Blue didn't skin it. Thankfully it would be enough to feed them for the time being. Besides, Ilk figured they better get to camp soon; if dad came back and saw she wasn't there he'd probably have a panic attack.
"Onward, fury-beast! Let's take this meal to My Tallest!" Zim cried from the back of the indokuro, who for one reason or another didn't seem to mind, as Fury dragged the animal with his jaws. Sadly, this slowed them down considerably. GIR was riding behind Zim, flailing up his arms and calling out 'pony ride'.
"I didn't know they could be ridden." Ilk commented, staring at him.
"Usually you can't unless he trusts you completely." Blue explained.
"Man, if my dad saw this he'd probably take a blood sample to clone him and create a new weapon." Dib commented.
"Sorry kiddo, but the patent, rights and genetic coding of the Indokuro are exclusive to the Sobrekt."
"Is that how your people call themselves? What else do you have? An indominus rex?!"
"A what now?"
Ilk's antenna twitched. She thought she heard shouting coming from the camp. Had dad finally returned? Was he yelling at the others for letting her come with Blue and Zim?
She wasn't the only one. Dib also looked around. "Did you guys hear that?" Blue was similarly turning his head to the side slightly, his pupils gone to thin slits. The only one who seemed oblivious was Zim. "Why did you stop, fury-beast? My Tallest are hungry!"
A plasmashot. Then a battle roar... At least Ilk thought it was a battle roar, but it sounded more like a pained one.
"Was that a weapon?!"
"Something's happening!" Blue growled. "Fury, leave the carcass and go help!" The indokuro did as told and ran into the woods, taking a very angry Zim and a excited GIR along.
Ilk didn't even have time to protest as Blue grabbed her by the hand and ran off, dragging her and Dib along. It almost felt as if they were flying, she had read the Kryvtors from Sobrekt were fast, but this was astounding. She heard a roar of pain coming from the camp.
"FURY!"
As soon as they ran into the clearing they were brought down by a sort of glowing blue netting that sent electric shocks through their bodies.
"Blue!"
"ILK!"
Once she recovered from the fall Ilk managed to see what was going on. Dad, uncle Pur, everyone was trapped by similar blue netting. When she tried to move, more shocks rendered her body immobile. Fury and Zim were somehow still struggling to get free even though their net was continuously electrocuting them.
What caught her attention was the 'people' around them, all of them holding big smoking weapons that reminded her of bazookas. Their skins had grayish hues with silvery blonde hair, pointed ears and big eyes. Were they natives to this planet?
"What happened?!" Dib asked.
"Are you blind?!" Foxtrot snarled through grit teeth. "We were captured!"
"You know, maybe your reputation of being 'unmatched in combat' was exaggerated!" Bob retorted.
"We were caught off guard! Otherwise the situation would have turned out differently!" Captain defended his team. Ilk noted him clutching his stomach painfully. "Besides, I think those 'tacos' were overdue...!"
One of the natives snarled something in an unknown language, though he had probably told them to be quiet. Another stepped out of the Ibris and said something that caused the rest to cheer.
"You." Dad narrowed his eyes at him.
"Greetings, friends," he said, referring to dad and Lena. Had they met before? "I'm sorry for the… unexpected visit, but I'm afraid we require your ship."
"OVER MY SCALY CORPSE!" Masouri yelled only to wince and whimper in pain, his arms wrapped around his abdomen.
"Masouri, stop moving!" Echo snarled at him.
"I'm not asking your permission. I'm telling you what will happen. We shall take you with us, and you will fix the ship. Otherwise the consequences could be… disastrous."
"You think that scares us?" Captain snickered in between pained winces. "You clearly don't know who we are."
"Actually, I do," still smiling, the man revealed the incubator with the egg inside. The smug look on Captain's face vanished. "Let's make a deal: if you fix the ship for us, I will return this to you, unharmed."
To the group's shock, these natives had cargo ships that actually worked. With one glance, however, they could tell these were not made to leave the planet's atmosphere; they were small with few engines and lacked life support and artificial gravity systems.
The prisoners were divided in two groups: Ilk, Red, Lena, Blue, Captain, Fury, GIR and Zim were put in one ship (much to Red's dismay), and the rest was put on a second one while a third would carry the Ibris to… wherever they were going. The captives were put in holding cells inside the ships.
On board the first ship, Red, Lena and Ilk were locked into one cell. Blue, Captain and Zim were placed in the next one, and finally Fury was locked in the cargo hold. GIR was nowhere to be seen. Red was partly relieved he didn't have to share a cell with Zim, especially now that he was yelling empty threats at their captors. "I DEMAND YOU RELEASE ME FROM THIS CELL!"
Lena sighed. "Zim, I don't think they understand you, and even if they do they're not going to let us out."
"I don't get it, what do they want with us?" Ilk recalled the leader had addressed to her father as if they had met previously. She looked up at him. "Dad, did you know that guy?"
"He approached me and Lena when I was venting off." Red admitted rather sheepishly.
"Don't you think it would have been nice to tell us?!" Captain snarled. If there wasn't a wall separating their cells he'd be glaring right at him. At least the stomachache had passed.
"How was I supposed to know this guy had a whole crew with ships and all?!"
"That's the weird thing. How can this aircraft run at all if technology doesn't work? At least neither of ours' did!" Blue pointed out."...Well, except for Hitorken Zim's SIR."
"Well, we're not going to find out inside this cell. We have to get out of here."
"ZIM IS GOING TO KILL YOU!"
Ilk spoke up. "Speaking of which, where is GIR?"
A sudden commotion coming from the cargo hold seemed to answer her question. Fury emerged from the door seconds later, GIR flailing up on his back happily with a cowboy hat. "Woo-hooo! Look, mastah, I'm a cowboy!"
"Fury, over here!" Blue called him and petted his neck when he came closer. "Good boy. Now go find a way to open the door!"
"GIR, go with the fury-beast and get me out of here!" Zim snapped at the little robot, who seemed to go into duty mode for a few seconds, responding "Yes, sir!" with a salute before going back to 'GIR' mode and whooping in excitement.
Red scoffed as soon as the indokuro and the malfunctioning SIR went through the opposite door. "You expect me to think that creature and that robot will be smart enough to know that?"
"Ah, genetic engineering can do wonders," Captain snickered. He even spared the tall Irken a knowing glance. "Of course, you would know about it."
If only anger was enough to break the bars, Red's grip would have snapped them in two by then. Ilk noticed the tone in Captain's voice and her father's reaction to it. Was there a hidden meaning behind it? Now that she thought about it, they gave the impression that they knew each other from before.
Screaming coming from the bridge, a loud smash and violent shaking from the ship later the lock on the cell doors opened, letting them know Fury and GIR had been successful. But the ship's lights had turned a reddish hue and it had inclined diagonally, as if it were…
Blue and Zim cried in unison. "No, he didn't!"
They were the first to dart through the door that would lead to the bridge with the others in hot pursuit, coming across either unconscious or dead bodies in their wake. Their fears were confirmed when they saw Fury in the bridge right next to the monitor with sparkling claw marks across it and GIR dancing on top of it holding sparking cables in his hands. "Look, mastah! I found electric worms!"
Uh-oh.
"GIIIIR!" Zim yelled in a mixture of anger and horror.
"Destroying the main console? Wow, how smart indeed." Red snarled sarcastically.
Captain growled and struck his closed fist against the useless console. "Forget about that! We'll have to get off the ship!"
"In case you haven't noticed this ship is hundreds of meters up in the air moving at 60 kilometers per hour!"
"Then I guess you'd rather go down with it?!"
GIR lost interest in the wires and went towards a very familiar crate, picking up a Captain's katana. "Mastah, can we play with this toy swords?! I wanna be Samjack!"
To the Irkens' dismay, though, their lasers and guns were not there, only the Sobrekt's old-fashioned weapons, which Blue and Captain rapidly seized (though it took Captain a few seconds to convince GIR to return the katana). Blue quickly took a look at the parts of the console that were not destroyed by Fury's claws and pressed a button.
Warning. Cargo door open. Decompression imminent.
Lena panicked. "What are you doing?!"
"Like I said, we have to get off this ship before it crashes!" Captain growled right back as he ran past them and towards the back of the ship, followed by Blue and Fury.
"What do we do?!"
Zim was randomly pressing whatever button he could find to no avail. "My Tallest, the lizard-beasts were right when they said the controls are inoperable now!"
"Great, what do we do now?!"
"Why don't we go with them?!"
"Lena, you can't be serious!"
The ship shook violently again.
"Dad, it's not like we have any other choice! They have the only available weapons!"
Red was pretty certain he was going to hate himself in the morning (if they made it to the morning, that is), but he relented. What did they have to lose?
The cargo hold was a literal whirlwind. A violent gust of air was sucking whatever wasn't stuck to the ground hurling outside; Red and Zim barely had time to grab Ilk's arms as she was nearly dragged by the air force.
"About time!" Captain called from nearby the open door. He and Blue were holding unto Fury's body while the indokuro used his claws and all his weight to cling to the metal flooring.
"So what's your plan?!" Red yelled over the whistling air.
"We're close to the ground level! We have to jump NOW!"
By then Zim had picked Ilk up bridal style, much to the latter's dismay. "I shall carry Ilk-smeet to safety, My Tallest!"
"Zim, I can jump by myself!" she protested.
Too late. With a loud scream Zim had jumped off the platform and both were blown out of the ship, soon followed by the Sobrekt and GIR. "ILK!" Red would have jumped after them, but he recalled he wasn't alone. He glanced at Lena. She looked frightened. Irk, he was freaking out too, but one of them had to keep their head.
He grabbed her hand and squeezed it assuringly. Lena glanced at him, gulping, and nodded. He returned the nod.
Closing their eyes shut, they jumped off the ship.
Things don't look good now that the group has been separated. Wonder what these guys want. And how come their vehicles do work?
I used the name 'Hothians' as a reference to the planet at the beginning of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi because this planet is also very cold, but there's also more to it.
Next Chapter: Ilk's party plans out their next step. Meanwhile, Iraa's captives must plan their own strategy without strangling each other first.
See you next time!