Lard Nar glared suspiciously at the creature in front of him, hunching forward in his squishy chair to get a better look at it. Skinny, soft-looking pale thing it was; built on the symmetrical body plan that was roughly a common standard in this sector of the galaxy arm. Pretty unexciting looks, really, except for a seeming surplus of orifices.
Except it had arrived in a ship of Irken make; strange and modified, to be sure, but still recognizably Irken. The skill of a creature that obtained a ship from the formidable Irken fleet must be impressive; that or it was a stooge to the Irken or an alien body hosting an Irken mind. Either way it could potentially be useful, but he had to find out what it was first.
He worked his claws nervously into the giving fabric on his chair. The alien he was interrogating stared back at him impassively with ochre-colored eyes. Apparent docility gave the Vortian confidence. "What's your rank?" he snapped. "Where did you get an Irken ship? Why are you traveling through Irken territory?"
And in a slightly grating voice, the alien answered all of his questions, giving clarification where it was demanded and background information that could easily be verified and put to good use by the Resisty.
Or that was how it would have gone in an ideal world.
Instead, Lard Nar found himself torn violently out of the chair and slammed back brutally into the metal wall with his feet dangling a few feet above the floor.
He gasped and gagged and clutched at the hard fingers digging into his throat. It was already hard to move his arms; Irken torture had caused severe nerve damage which had never quite healed and now the delicate nerves were being pinched. It left him with involuntary twitches and the occasion spastic fit at the best of times, and under pressure, his entire system could collapse. Was beginning to collapse now.
Through a haze of agony Lard Nar heard the chatter and tumult of his panicked subordinates. A more pressing matter was that he was being shaken now, a little, so that his twitching body swung back and forth a bit. "Shut up and listen to me, ALL of you!" the creature holding him snarled in a grating voice. "I had something I was doing, a person I was looking for, and you've all stopped me from doing it!"
It whirled around and slammed Lard Nar back into the gel-filled cushioning in his seat. He sank back and back and back until the padding almost engulfed him. The pressure on his throat lessened very slightly and the Vortian's body began to spasm, skinny arms flailing. He blinked painfully. Hot, angry eyes glared into his. "My name is Gaz," the alien growled. "I don't have a rank. I'm here to get back my stupid brother from the shithead Irken who stole him, and you're all delaying me."
"So you know what?" the alien… Gaz… continued. Everyone was arrayed around them tensely, and out of the corner of his eye Lard Nar could Spleenk, crouched and rocking tensely, gnawing furiously on his spindly fingers. Gaz shook him again, not hard but with a feeling of barely contained homicidal violence. "You know what? I think I should just kill you all, right here, because I might not be able to catch Zim now and something needs to die for that."
Lard Nar rolled his head from side to side as best he could. The gel in the cushions oozed to the sides a little more, widening the small ditch that his head rested in. "Wait," he said. "No, no, wait!" Gaz looked back down at him and Lard Nar thought rapidly. A few seconds ago he had had something important in his head but now it was gone, skittered off into a far dusty corner.
"Do you ever stop talking?" Gaz asked him. Lard Nar gobbled and gasped and finally grasped what he had lost.
"You can't go against the Armada alone," he said. "It's impossible, impossible to stand against the Irkens without allies. Especially if you're heading into the Massive's sweep! That's just crazy!"
He hoped he wouldn't get killed for that. He hoped the alien would consider it. Gaz seemed to be thinking on it, at least; and Lard Nar watched it, hoping. With an Irken ship (stolen?) and driven by the ferocity it had already displayed, this alien might actually be able to force itself into the highly secure area patrolled by the Armada. Maybe. He hoped it wouldn't realize that. However, it would definitely be impossible to launch a stealthy, secure rescue mission without detection. Lard Nar hoped it wanted a secure rescue mission, and not just a suicidal blaze of glory.
"I see," Gaz said, quieter than before, its voice beginning to smooth and lose inflection. Thoughtful sounding, maybe. "Teamwork? An alliance? Is that your bright idea?" That sounded contemptuous; not such a good sign.
"In your ship…" Lard Nar babbled. "The small size… no significant weapons… it would easily fall before even a small warship of the Armada!"
"I could do it," Gaz said coldly. "I don't much feel like teaming up with a bunch of idiots. My brother will be bad enough when I get him."
It sounded like it was thinking about it, at least. Its fingers hadn't gotten any tighter. Lard Nar risked another verbal prod, as sharp as he dared. "And then…? When your brother… is found? The Irken," he said. "The Irken that you wanted. You'll need allies, reinforcements to find him. It could take a thousand years to find one Irken in the entire Empire."
"Not this one," Gaz replied quietly. Its voice was very soft but it was underscored with a terrible resolve, a determination that would wrap around anything as weak as mere flesh and slice into it like steel cable. "This one will stick out. And I never need help for anything."
The Vortian found himself released very suddenly. He hadn't been expecting it at all, with the way the conversation had been going, and so he was still for a few seconds while Gaz crouched before him, arms folded, waiting impatiently. It was difficult to get up with pain still scintillating down his limbs- pins and needles multiplied one hundred times- but he managed, spurred on by crazed urgency, the same vital energy that had bolstered him through forming and maintaining the fractious, erratic, flighty Resisty. His troops surrounded him, engulfed him and moved him away from Gaz. All of the Resisty members moved away from Gaz, in fact, filtering away from the new "recruit" as fast as they reasonably could.
Gaz padded after them all quietly. It moved with a quiet that was uncanny, sticking to the shadows, and blended in well for a creature so pale. Lard Nar wondered where it had gotten the Irken suit, the Irken ship. He wondered, in fact, what gender it was; a he or a she or truly and it, like the Meekrob, which simply divided themselves when a proper agitation of cells had been reached; or if it was one of those species where thirty-two different genders were needed for a new one to be produced. He wondered if he had doomed the Resisty to pledging aide (sort of) to this creature. He took the gamble he had taken with every new recruit and hoped to win.
Or at least break even.
At the corridor he paused to wait for it; and stiffened when it seemed to materialize at his shoulder. He managed to relax fractionally after a moment and walked with Gaz.
He thought that his release indicated a tacit agreement to working together but he asked anyway, jittering: "We are agreed, then? For now you will ally with us?"
Gaz paused for a moment, and then replied. "All right."
Human and Vortian paced down the corridor together, Gaz allowing herself to fall behind slightly. She could tell it put Lard Nar on edge to have her behind him and she rather enjoyed the feeling. The Resisty leader reminded her of Dib, in a crazy, comforting, irritating kind of way: they had the same drive, the same uncontainable nervous energy. It was hard to remember not to fall into the old harsh pattern of insults and intimidation because even if she didn't need Lard Nar his forces could come in handy, at least. On that count she was already failing; she would have to learn to remember that he wasn't someone she needed to threaten.
Gaz peeled a flake of dried skin off her lower lip, using her teeth. It exposed the tender layer below and brought the taste of blood to her mouth, and she winced at it. Lard Nar glanced up at her with a tic under his eye. "When do you want to go?" he asked. "The Irkens won't suspect, they don't ever think that they can be attacked, but if they find out we're there they'll come down on us like a pack of rat people on a box of yummy nuggets-"
"I don't care," Gaz interrupted. "Soon, that's all. I want it to be soon. I want to get my brother out alive."
"Brother," Lard Nar said vaguely. "A male littermate, yes? I had several."
Gaz was silent, uncomfortable. I don't want to know this about you. I don't care at all about you. Why are you telling me this?
"Ahh," the Vortian seemed to shake himself, regaining his equilibrium slightly. "But soon, yes, of course, as soon as we can get the ships ready." The turned together into a room on the left, and Gaz recognized the long gullets of teleport tubes from what she had seen in Zim's base. The design was very similar.
They stepped onto the triggering pads, Lard Nar first and Gaz immediately afterwards. Bodies converted into crackling pink beams of energy, which were hurled, refracted, and reassembled by lenses in one of the other long boxy ships floating nearby. Gaz stumbled slightly, assaulted by a sudden wave of dizziness, like being back on land after gaining sea legs. She hoped Lard Nar hadn't noticed. When the bright spots dissolved from in front of her eyes she looked over the hangar: high ceiling, brightly lit, mostly empty. The Spittle Runner, an old friend, sat in one corner. It had been gutted: all the hardware was pulled out, long tails of wire leading back towards the ship. The wires had been severed though, quite neatly; apparently to stop Tak's personality from taking over the ship and wreaking havoc. Gaz felt hot, then very cold again. The Spittle Runner was probably the best ship in here. None of the whole ships looked as good: they were scrappy, patched, scarred. Probably some of them had over the course of the years been replaced entirely with new parts. They were a lean and hungry-looking bunch of ships: scavengers. Gaz thought them over and bit the inside of her cheek, considering.
None of them could pass as even remotely Irken. Lard Nar gave her a nervous glance and skittered out between the ships, his feet going tic-tic against the floor. His voice echoed against the strutted walls. "Possibly, these could be of some use- a distraction maybe, or reinforcements if you were discovered…"
Gaz thought, he's nervous. He's not a complete idiot. She also thought, I can make this more. I can make everything that's here so much greater. I can use these aliens. The entire Irken race deserves to suffer and I can use these aliens to make them do that.
She was possibly one of the last free people of her race. But all of them were the last of their race, here; and she thought she could make them her own.
END OF CHAPTER 12
7/11/2005
Many thanks to the lovely Red Crow for her beta-ing.