Invader Zim: Might of the Empire
Chapter five: Arrival
1. Shoot 'em with lasers
2. Use a big enough bomb
3. Destroy the battle suit or weapon they happen to be interfacing with.
4. Crush them between two force fields
5. Drop them in a black hole or nearby star
6. Shoot 'em with plasma
7. Blow up the planet they are currently floating on
8. Freeze 'em. Then shatter 'em
9. Say their name backwards
10. Repeatedly botch a passage from a Meekorb holy book.
11. Trap them in an energy displacement field
a bad joke.
-Page 12,358 of the Irken Soldier training manual. Entitled: A dozen ways to kill a meekorb.
The replica vortian ship darted around various bits of space debris as the infiltration team neared Meekorb territory. Sitting in a modified command chair, the Vortian Loyalist pilot was busy desperately trying to monitor of all of the ship's systems by himself. A special visor the horned-alien wore that was designed to streamline data being displayed from multiple sources into a format that was easier for the individual to understand, made the task theoretically doable- although not easily doable.
A chunk of rock broken off some asteroid crashed into the side of the ship, causing a slight dent in the haul and giving the interior a good shake.
"Hey, vortian, can we not die before we even get to planet Meekorb?" Larb complained as he looked up from the game of Oppression he was playing with Skoodge over at a lounge area situated one terrace above from where the pilot was sitting.
"So. Hard. To. Fly. Ship. without help." The pilot, who happened to be named Ir Aug, managed to say through gritted his teeth as he tried to avoid more incoming space junk. "Should. Have. Asked. For Drones-"
The ship suddenly veered hard to the left, narrowly avoiding a collision with a huge piece of scrap metal.
"… So, you were just about to explain that implant in your face…" Commander Black said as the ship leveled out again.
"Oh this? It's a little thing called an Overrider, it channels a command thought by me at a target that I focus on. If the target is a week willed fool, then it is forced to do my bidding."
Tak glanced over from the separate table that she and Black were sitting at towards the game Skoodge and Larb were playing. She glared at the pair, focusing her mind on the two Invaders as Larb drew his hand of cards.
"All in!" Larb suddenly declared. Pushing his pile of monies to the center of the table.
"…Impressive…" Black said after a slight pause.
"Normally these things cost a small fortune and are reserved for slave-labor overseers, but I managed to find and an old one while I was sente- working on Planet Dirt. With my SIR unit MIMI's help, I managed to get it repaired and implanted."
"Speaking of which, where is your SIR unit? I only saw those other two load theirs onto the ship."
"That's because it was DESTROYED!" Tak slammed her fist onto the table. "Destroyed in my fight with that, INCOMPETENT! BUMBLING Excuse for an Invader known as Zim!"
"She's also not technically an Invader, so even if she did have a SIR, she had to have built it from scrap." Larb added in unhelpfully. Tak responded with a truly frightening glare, which was quickly followed by Larb slugging himself in the face and falling backwards in his seat, creating an enormous bruise in the dead center of his forehead.
"Ow!" Larb screamed as he picked himself up, only to see that Skoodge had just placed four cards on the table. Each one depicting one of the four most recent Almighty Tallests, including the current duo of Red and Purple.
"I won!" Skoodge cheered to himself as he dragged Larb's generous pile of monies to his side of the table and began stacking the coins in little mini towers according to their size and value.
Tak began to focus on the stout invader, before the black-eyed irken interrupted her focus by talking.
"Let the little guy keep his monies, he won them fair and square."
"… Very well. He's nowhere near as annoying as the taller one anyways." Tak admitted grudgingly as she turned her head to look out of the front viewport.
A meekorb with yellow forehead markings quickly traveled through a series of pure white hallways that had many branching off paths packed full of other meekorb observing random statistical information being displayed on several huge screens. The energy being weaved his way through the crowd, bobbing up and town to accommodate for the large influx of traffic that plagued the Monastery-Stronghold at this time of day. He passed by many individuals that he recognized as friends or acquaintances, but he had no time to stop by and make small talk for a bit. He was needed in Interrogation Room 1, in regards to the "incident" the Celestials didn't want to make public yet.
"Irkens," The meekorb thought as he made a turn down a declining slope and approached a vault-like door that was guarded by two blue-marked individuals. "Such violent and soulless creatures. To think what could have happened if that one hadn't lost control of its minions…"
He stopped for a moment and shook his head in order to ward off a string of dreadful thoughts from entering his mind. Once the stream of dark images ceased, the meekorb continued on his way towards the sealed door. After passing a message off to one of the guards, the guard flew into the sealed door; and, after a few seconds, the door began to glow slightly. As the glow grew in intensity, gears within the locking mechanism began to turn, and the door swung open, revealing a room that was poorly lit for a Meekorb facility. Once the door was fully swung open, the yellow marked meekorb floated into the dark room, where the prisoner was currently being suspended from the ceiling by a series of wires that had been wound around her limbs. The irken in question appeared to be female, judging from the curled antennae and the presence of eyelashes- something the males of the species generally lacked. Other than that though, the Meekorb had failed to learn anything else about her, due to an unexpected feature getting in the way of the interrogation process.
"Hey, hey you over there!" The irken muttered as green blood ran down past her eyes from various cuts along the surface of her face. "When I get out of here I'm gonna… I'm gonna… w-why are you a fish now?"
"So she's still-"
"Under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, sir" A meekorb with a red-mark on his forehead said as he looked over a set of screens displaying the prisoner's vital signs. "Approximately every five hours, the device on her back injects another dose of the serum into her system. We've tried jamming the device numerous times, but to no effect."
"I see. And is the device still flashing that red light periodically?"
"Yes sir, we haven't been able to shut that down either."
"Heh heh heh, you fish are in so much trouble when the big…red…thing gets over here," Tenn broke out in a burst of hysteric laughter for a moment, before yawning and closing her eyes.
"Don't let her fall asleep." The yellow mark ordered, and a slight electric pulse was sent down the wire suspending the irken off the ground.
"Buh?" Tenn suddenly blurted out as her eyes shot open again.
"Sir, has there been any response from the Irkens yet?"
"No, the Celestials are beginning to fear that the Empire has abandoned this one. That, or they're planning an assault soon. In either case, Father Bauld'Ur will be sending a high alert warning to all of our colonies if we don't receive a response within the next 24 hours."
Just then, the door unlocked and slid open again, revealing another red marked meekorb.
"Captain Ashar, our scanners have picked up an outsider vessel approaching the Core System. Judging from its design, it must be a Vortian Type 34."
"It must be a Resisty ship then, our enemy destroyed all of the vortian ships that were still on the planet. Allow them passage to the stronghold's docking bay, they must have sent us another shipment of supplies."
"Right away sir," The red mark said with a nod as he headed back down the hallway.
"Now that that's out of the way, we may resume trying to overcome this unexpected…problem… So, does anyone here happen to have any-"
"Hey! Hey A'haaaa, the floor's melting again… you should fix that." Tenn said to the meekorb captain as another burst of laughter overcame her.
"I'm telling you guys, my plan cannot fail!" Tak yelled as she slammed a metal pointer at the screen displaying dozens of different diagrams- with at least one of them labeled as 'prove to the Tallest that I deserve to be recognized as an Invader'.
"We aren't going with the plan that the Invader who missed her exams came up with, my plan is loads better than yours!" Larb, who now was holding an icepack to his head retorted as used his free hand to drag a chalkboard next to where he was standing. His plan was several steps simpler than Tak's, and ended with a drawing of him standing in front of a crowd being praised by hundreds of irkens.
"Uh, Larb, Where are we gonna get a plasma battle tank?" Skoodge pointed out after skimming through the collection of chalk markings. "We can always go with my plan!" Skoodge said as he unrolled a scroll of paper, at the bottom of which was an above average black and white drawing of the four of them plus Tenn going out for ice cream once the above steps had been completed.
The three of them bickered back and forth four at least twenty minutes, before the ship suddenly swerved again and knocked everyone off balance.
"Sorry," Aug said as the ship leveled out again. "Also, we've been cleared for landing at the southern monastery, so you guys should probably figure out what you're going to do or we're all going to die as soon as they come and inspect the ship."
"The pilot has a point," Commander Black spoke for the first time since the other three had gone off to write up their plans. "Maybe you three should just vote on which plan to use. It looks like they could all technically work, so I don't care either way"
"I vote for mine!" They all immediately called out, before Tak glared at Larb again.
"I change my vote to Tak's!" Larb suddenly blurted out, only realizing what he had just said a few moments too late.
"Excellent, my plan it is then!" Tak said as she used her pointer to zoom in on various diagrams on the screen. "Here's how it will go. First, I, since I'm the only one here who can actually pull of a convincing disguise, will pose as a vortian representative of the "Resisty" and help our pilot oversee the unloading of the gift that Almighty Tallest Red had been so kind as to give us for this mission. "While that's happening, the three of you will take the SIR units with you and use them to lock on to the emergency recovery signal that Tenn's PAK is emmiting and break her out of wherever she is being held prisoner. Once you have a confirmed sighting of her, send me a message and I'll unleash the gift onto our enemy, which should give me plenty of time to sneak over to the communications tower and shut the whole place down. Have the ship ready for takeoff by the time I get back, because I don't want to get caught in the mess that is sure to happen once the Meekorb higher ups realize what's going on."
"Uh, question. Why do you get to do all of the cool parts of the plan?" Larb asked.
"Because it's MY plan and YOU voted for it, so quit complaining." Tak said as she pressed a button on a device on her wrist. Almost instantly, her irken form had been replaced with that of a vortian with smaller horns and lighter skin than that of their pilot and dressed in a sort of dull workman's uniform. "Now everyone go down to the cargo level, grab a weapon, and find somewhere to hide. We're going to have company over shortly."