The being held her blaster directly at Zim, the sadistic smirk on her face expressing her joy of seeing her acquaintances in such a state. Zim and Gaz would have loved to blast her brains right then, but they left the ship unarmed and they were also in no condition to fight. All they could do to express their hatred was to glare at her.
"Tak," the three letter name left a disgusting taste in Zim's mouth.
"I sense a bit of scorn and hate there, Zim, is that the kind of tone you want to use with a fellow Invader?" Tak was enjoying this situation. Having the beings she hated the most at her mercy was the best thing to happen to her in weeks.
"Didn't you fail your invader exam, Tak? At least I was an actual Invader."
"And yet how many planets have you conquered? Didn't you fail to even conquer that pathetic rock known as Earth? I, on the other hand, have conquered multiple planets, I think you'll recognize their names; Derim, Tnol, Plinuct, Foodcourtia..."
"Those are Irken colonies!"
"That's right, and now you're the witness to my latest conquest, Vort."
"No fair! Conquering Irken planets was my idea first!"
"You thought it first but I did it first."
"How dare you steal from my genius!"
"Please, I think I would actually get dumber if I took anything from your mind. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an Irken home world to conquer before the next cycle."
"That idea was mine first! Mine!"
"'Blah, blah, I'm Zim and I like to yell to pretend I'm smart!' My Irk, I forgot how annoying you could be. I'm just going to kill you now."
Zim, Gaz, and Kor braced themselves for the blast. Tak was taking her time to pull the trigger, savoring Zim's last seconds. She wore that sadistic smile she always had and slowly licked her lips out of joy and insanity. She was about to pull when she was interrupted by her SIR unit.
"Not now, Mimi, I'm finding joy in my life," Tak kept holding the laser at Zim but Mimi was persistent and got in her way. "Mimi, if you don't want to be smelted down into a pie tin move!"
The SIR unit didn't move.
"Mimi, I'm serious about that threat," Tak aimed her laser at Mimi, "I hope you like living as a dessert p-"
"I want him alive."
The voice came from Mimi but it wasn't her's. It was a deep, accented voice. Zim thought the voice was important, because it made Tak let go of the trigger.
"Damn it!" Tak screeched in a fit of rage. "Well, Zim, it looks like you'll be living for at least a few more hours, he wants to see you."
"Who's he? Don't refer to a being in such an ambiguous manner in an attempt to disguise his identity!" Zim said.
"I'll refer to the Employer any way I want!"
"The Employer? Is that who you're working for?"
"No it isn't."
"You just said it."
"You said it!"
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"Your head doesn't make sense!"
"CAN YOU JUST CAPTURE US ALREADY!" Gaz interrupted the two's stupid banter. Tak turned away from Zim and activated a communication device on her wrist, but she still aimed the blaster towards them.
"Lard, I need transport for six prisoners. Also, bring bombs, there's something big and annoying I want destroyed."
Zim, Gaz, Dib, Kor, Daj, and Kry were to be brought to the remains of a Vortian Detention Center. A group consisting of various races from the universe put blindfolds on them and bounded their wrists. They were taking orders from Tak, but none of them seemed to like her. They always glared at her with hate, a glare that was also aimed at Zim.
They were brought there on a land vehicle, something Tak's group had scavenged from the planet. Zim couldn't see the remains of the city but could get a sense of the surroundings. There was nothing but silence. Zim recalled that life on Vort was always somewhat lively, either some new inventions were made or scientific disaster occurred, most of which were Zim's fault. Zim could tell that Vort was dead.
Zim heard the sound of a gate opening and they were taken off the vehicle. A few moments later, Tak removed their blindfolds and threw them in a cell. The six sat behind a set of bars made of lasers. Eventually Dib, Kry, and Daj eventually woke up. On the other side was Mimi, looking at the six faces that sat before her. Tak entered the room shortly after.
"Well, the Employer won't be able to contact us for another few hours, so if everything goes exactly like I want them to, that's exactly how long you have left to live," Tak grew a hopeful smile on her face.
"How?" Zim asked.
"How what?"
"How the Irk did you conquer all those worlds?"
"Because I'm a superior Invader."
"You lie!"
"But I am, I've invaded and took over several planets. You couldn't even take Earth."
"You couldn't either, Tak."
"That was your fault, just like every other bad thing that happens to me, it's all because of you!" Tak calmed herself down, "However, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have met him, and I wouldn't have you all at my mercy."
"Why are you keeping us alive anyway?" Gaz asked, there was no fear in her voice, "You only need Zim alive, so why didn't you kill us when you had the chance?"
"Oh Gaz, where's the fun in just killing you immediately? Don't misunderstand me, just because I really hate Zim doesn't mean I don't hate you or your brother the same amount for all those wretched years on Earth."
"I feel the same way."
"I love how you always act so tough in front of others. Your diary makes you out to be a completely different person," Tak took out a black book with a picture of a heart being stabbed by a knife and waved it in front of Gaz's face.
"It's a Vendetta List! And give it back before I tear it away from you, along with your hands!"
"Gaz, always so dark in your threats, according to you're diary, on the inside...you're really dark. You should see someone about that. Oh well, like you can make threats."
"Give it back!"
"Nope." Gaz shot Tak a spiteful look. "Well have fun in your cell, I'm going to prepare torture devices for all of you, it's going to be so much fun! Hahahaha..." Tak left the room, leaving Mimi to watch over Zim and the others. The group moved back into the darkness, hiding from Mimi's sight.
"Now what," Dib whispered.
"We escape of course," Zim said.
"How, Mr. Genius," Kor said sarcastically.
"Lizard-stink."
"It's kind of hard to tie someone by their wrists when they only have one hand, and no wrists," Daj revealed his free hand, "Now how do we remove your bonds?"
"Tak made three errors, one not properly bonding the Lizard-stink, two, not knowing about Dib-worm's laser-blade."
"Right," Daj activated Dib's laser-blade, cutting his bond in the process. Once they removed all the bonds, Zim explained the next course of action.
"Now before we move on, we have to distract Tak's SIR unit somehow," at that moment the group looked at Mimi and she fell face first on the ground. "That problem solved itself."
"Wait," Kor said, "Isn't that a bit suspicious?"
"It doesn't matter. The third mistake was imprisoning me in the place where I did all my work in."
"You worked in a prison on Vort?" Gaz asked.
"Prison? Ha, what a foolish misunderstanding. This is the thinking area for all the best scientists on Vort! I didn't work here exactly, I worked in a more traditional lab, but I was sent here as a reward each time I made a new invention."
"It looks like a prison."
"That's only to fool the dumb geniuses, only beings like me and the murderous Vortian that slaughtered dozens of beings who was my thinking partner could see the true meaning of this place!"
"...just get on with the plan."
"Dib, cut a hole behind this wall." Dib carefully cut a circle on the back of the cell, leading into another room of the building.
Once on the other side they found several corridors leading in several directions, reminding them of the terrible labyrinth on Oberox, except the walls were too high to climb over. However, Zim knew which corridors would get them out since he would often escape his "thinking room" and explore the facility.
As they ran through, they found that most of the security systems were either broken or powerless. Though on one hand, this meant no alarms could go off and warn Tak, on the other hand, it irked Zim. He suddenly stopped at a fork in the path.
"This is where we split paths," Zim said, "You will all be taking the right path, just follow it through and you'll reach a gate. Wait a few seconds and it'll open. I'll be taking the path on the left."
"Wait, what'll you be doing?" Gaz asked.
"Someone has to open the gate."
"What?"
"If you didn't notice, the power in this building is lacking, however, the gate is still functioning, I heard it when we entered, meaning parts of the building are still functioning. Since I know that none of you have the intelligence to operate a simple gate, I'm going to have to open it."
"Then how will you get out?"
"I can get out on my own, you've been dragging me down anyway. Now go and find whatever remains of the Dibship. I'll meet you all later," Zim took off, leaving his team behind. The group decided to follow Zim's order and started heading for the gate. While they were running, Gaz thought she her a faint clanking sound from Zim's direction.
Dib and the others ran down the corridor until it reached an open room. There was the gate Zim had mentioned, it was too large to force open and too thick for Dib to slice through, so they waited as Zim instructed.
"Do you really think that the Dibship blew up?" Dib asked.
"Think about it, Dib," Daj said, "What did you hear when we were being taken here?"
"Nothing."
"Exactly."
"Unless they had some explosives that somehow creates force without causing vibrations in the atmosphere, it's a safe bet to say the Dibship wasn't blown up, yet," Kor said.
"And the sooner we find it the sooner we can find my blaster, so I can kill those freaks that tied me up."
"I think we should prioritize leaving over blasting the brains out of beings."
"The ship crashed hard enough to knock me out, I can only guess that it's heavily damaged. If it can't fly, then we're gonna be stuck for a while, and I might as well kill beings to kill time." Kor knew that Daj had a point, she saw the ship after the crash, it was a wreck. Even if the entire crew knew how to reconstruct the Dibship it would take days.
"Before we think about what to do at the ship, we should focus on finding it first," Dib said, "Does anybody have any idea where it is?"
"Absolutely none," Kor and Daj said in unison.
"Alright, um, did Zim say anything on how to find it?"
"He said nothing," Kor answered.
"...Zim's plans are always vague aren't they?"
"And yet we're always the idiots for never asking for more detail."
"Alright, we'll-" Dib was interrupted by a rumbling sound. The gate had begun to open. Dib ordered the others to move quickly, and they all slipped under the gate. Once they got out the gate suddenly closed on them, the group was thankful nobody was under it when it happened.
"You were saying, Dib."
"Right, we'll-" Dib stopped mid-sentence and looked around, "Wait a minute, where's Gaz?"
Zim found the console that controlled the gate in the guard's room. The room was dark and abandoned, as expected of a post-invasion detention center. He ran towards the console but tripped over something, a fallen drawer housing weapons belonging to the guards apparently. He got up and approached the console and saw it was left on. Now he just had to figure out how to open the gate. The console featured several buttons, levers, knobs, and pully thingies, he was also inexperienced in dealing with gate control consoles. Zim did the only logical thing that came to his mind. He pushed a big red button labeled "Open". He heard a rumbling and assumed he opened the gate. He applauded himself for his great analytical skills.
Then the lights came on. Power lit up the room, revealing what was hidden in the darkness. There were blood smears on the walls, both from Irkens and Vortians, however there were no bodies. In front of Zim were several monitors, all of which lit up and revealed the several rooms and corridors of the detention center. He spotted Dib and the others escaping under the gate, then he saw the room he was in, and the being that leaning against the door behind him.
"So how'd your little escape go, Zim?" Tak said playfully.
"Quite well, actually, Tak," Zim said her name with disgust.
"Oh? Even though you're still here, trapped with me?"
"You don't know my combat prowess, maybe I could outmaneuver and get by you and exit through the gate?" Tak aimed her blaster and shot the gate controls. Zim looked behind him and saw the gate fall suddenly through the monitors. "No matter, Tak, this doesn't hinder my plans at all."
"Is that right?"
"Of course, and they will go according to plan."
"Really? Are you sure I haven't done anything that might have changed those plans?"
"Of course not, you don't know what I'm thinking!"
"Of course not, Zim, you're really stupid, so if I knew what you were thinking, that would make me stupid. However, I'm not stupid, I'm superior to you, which means I know what you're thinking plus what others think! In other words, I think more than you!"
"What?"
"And I listened to what Mimi recorded." Tak's SIR unit moved forward and replayed Zim's words from earlier. "This recording eye for SIR units was really helpful, I thank you for dropping it."
"You picked it up? It was lost on Heboad!"
"Which I was on for a reconnaissance mission."
"And how did you record me? I was whispering!"
"Have you heard yourself whisper? It shares the same decibels as the cries of Earth whales."
"That still doesn't matter! I haven't even revealed most of my genius plan yet!"
"You mean how you purposely left yourself behind to let everyone else escape because you knew you were temporarily invincible since my boss wanted you alive, then you would use those few hours waiting for him to plan an escape? It's not that hard to figure out, Zim, even the shortest of Irkens can deduce that."
"N-No! That wasn't my plan at all! For one thing, why would I, Zim, leave myself behind and not escape?"
"Because I know of the troubles you're going through with your PAK, and the new 'traits' you're getting with them."
"I have no idea what you're spewing!"
"I know the situation, Zim, how you're PAK doesn't transmit any Bio-Waves anymore, and how you're feeling like those Earth-worms that you loathe so much, it's because-" Tak paused and turned around. "Zim, you were saying how everything has gone according to you're plan?"
"Yes."
Tak motioned to Mimi. The robot outstretch her arms and they flew out of the door. Zim heard a familiar voice and they yelled in protest of Mimi's arms attacking them. The robot arms retracted to reveal Gaz being suspended by her arms.
"Gaz!" Zim shouted.
"Looks like one of your group doesn't like listening to you. Shame, I was gonna look forward to her performance later," Tak said.
"I told you to leave with the others! Why are you here?"
"I-" Gaz didn't want to tell Zim that she heard Mimi and got worried for him, "I came back to get my Vendetta List, I'm not going to leave without it."
"You mean you're diary?" Tak made Gaz face her and revealed a black book with a picture of a heart being stabbed on the cover.
"Vendetta List!"
"Well you're not getting it back."
"Why the hell do you even want it?"
"That's none of your business. I could want it for professional reasons, or maybe for personal reasons, like reading your little secrets. For instance, your liking for a cert-"
Gaz used her legs to kick Mimi in the face, causing her to drop. She then lunged at Tak and punched her on the left side of her head, causing the diary to fall out of her hands. Gaz tried to grab it but she was quickly restrained by Mimi, who used extra robotic limbs coming from her head.
"All this for your feely book," Zim said, "Ridiculous."
"Shut up!" Gaz retorted.
"Oh, I'm really going to enjoy torturing you, Gaz," Tak said as she got up. She picked up Gaz's diary and tucked it away.
"I swear, Tak, when I get the chance I'll tear your squeedly-spooch out!"
"But you'll never get that chance. So Zim, how does it feel to know that your plan is crumbling around you."
"It's not. Dib-worm and the others will-"
"Die."
"What?"
"Zim, so far your plan consisted of two things, letting everyone else escape and you'll be the only one left behind. Well you obviously aren't the only one, and everyone else certainly won't escape."
"What are you talking about, they already got pass the gate."
"Of course, because I let them. I let you get this far, Zim, I let you think Mimi wasn't paying attention by knocking her down, I let you open the gate by leaving the console on and labeling the open button, and I let your little group go through the gate, but just because they got out doesn't mean they've 'escaped'."
"What are you talking about?"
"The only reason I kept your group alive was because I wanted enjoyment from their suffering, so on my way here I was thinking about the best way to do that. That's when I spotted one of the soldiers in my armada, you know, the force that did this to Vort."
"Your armada is still here? This late after an invasion?"
"Of course not, they're the last group, specifically five of my soldiers, left to scavenge the planet along with me and my...other, less competent group. I've already canceled their other search orders around the planet, and they're all converging here, to find your little crew. All while I watch from the city's monitors, eating pie!"
"My crew can handle five soldiers."
"How naïve, these soldiers razed planets, and nothing stopped them; not Foodcourtian, not Vortian, and not Irken, four ragtag fools won't even be able to stop one of them. Eventually I will see each member of your crew die, as they'll all be hunted."
"Explosions set, sir, ready to commence with big boom!" Shloonktapooxis and a few of the other members of the Resisty had finished placing the bombs all over the Dibship. There were five of them, Lard Nar, Shloonktapooxis, Spleenk, Ixane, and their pilot, the large being with a floating brain.
"Wait, Shloonk, you missed one," Nar picked up an explosive and placed it on Shloonk's head.
"Gee, these are a lot of explosives already, do we really need one more?" The Resisty looked at the Dibship and saw that its entire surface was covered with explosives except for the openings caused by the crash.
"Tak said she doesn't care at all for this ship or its contents, blow it up so we don't have to worry about what's inside. Also I already rigged all the explosives to be blown up by this switch, so we might as well not waste it."
"Alright, sir, but there's no room on the outside."
"Just put it somewhere inside."
"Alright," Shloonk started hovering towards the Dibship when a loud groan was made. The Resisty looked at each other to confirm who it came from, but none of them was the source of the groan. They ignored it and Shloonk moved forward, then the source of the groan spoke.
"...o-ow...what...happened? Where am...I..."
"What? Who said that? Show yourself before me!" Nar shouted.
"What? Who's shouting with that nasally annoying voice like he's trying to sound important!"
"Hey! I'm not trying to sound important, I am important!"
"Ow, my audio intakes! What accent is that? It reeks with the stenches of meaningless side character!"
"How can sound waves even give off an odor!"
"I don't know, but apparently you're unimportance destroyed all natural laws of this universe!"
"Why you..., show yourself! Face me instead of hiding like a coward!"
"How about you face me! I can't see you at all! In fact I can't see anything! Not inside, not outside, how about you face me you dipstick!"
"You..you! Are you hiding beh-"
"Wait! I can't see anything! I'M BLIND! Oh cruel and heartless beings! You strip my vision from me while my conscious was relinquished! What dastardly fiends!"
"What the? We never blind-"
"Oh the woe that I feel! I must released these sorrows into physical form! I must scribe!...I can't even move! Seriously, what the hell? Not just my vision but my you paralyze me as well! Do you have coal in your core? Why must these things keep happening to me!"
"...what's going on?"
"I am but a tree, forever growing leaves, as they leave, a new leaf takes its place, until I die...the leaves represent tragedy."
"I...I'm just going to sit down now. I-I need time to comprehend what's going on." Nar sat on a rock while the voice continued his ramblings. Shloonk hovered over to his leader.
"Captain, I know what's going on!" Shloonk said.
"Yes, Shloonk," Nar responded.
"I can tell you," Shloonk lowered his voice, "but you'll have to keep it a secret."
"Sure, Shloonk."
"It's the princess!"
"..."
"That voice belongs to the princess of my home planet! She has returned to me so that we may fly away to peace and joy!"
"..."
"I'll handle this, boss. Hey princess!"
"-h woe, oh sorrow, black darkness, ruby dust, uh, other artistically...doors- hey, wait, what?" The voice stopped in his ramblings.
"Princess, it's me! Shloonktapooxis Nebuloxia Bluconix! I'm here for you to whisk me away!"
"..."
"I think Shloonk just out-stupid whatever that voice is," Spleenk whispered to Nar.
"Princess, where are you! Are you inside the ship? I'll come for you!" Shloonk started making his way towards the ship.
"Screw you! I am the ship!"
"Princess? You're the ship? Did you transmogrify yourself again?"
"You idiot! I'm not a princess, you numbskull! I'm the Dibship, you dipstick!"
"Ooooooh, hey boss, it's just the ship's computer personality."
"Can we just blow it up now?" Nar said.
"Okay."
"Woah, wait, what?" The Dibship said, "You're gonna blow me up?"
"Yes, we already placed all these bombs on you, we just need to place this last one."
"Wait, would you really blow up another being?"
"You're not a being, you're a program."
"Do I not feel too, Do I not think as you do, Am I not living? By Dibship."
"That...was, beautiful."
"Good, now get these things off me you useless, unimportant waste of space."
"Blow him up."
"Wait, no, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" Shloonk hovered inside the Dibship as he was screaming. The Resisty waited for Shloonk to return so they could blow up the Dibship. They waited for hours and still no sign of him.
"AAAAAAHHHH-you know what, my vocal gears are getting tired, I'm going to sleep mode," The Dibship ceased his screaming to the delight of the Resisty, but now they needed to get Shloonk out of there.
"Pilot, since you are the largest and thus presumably the strongest out of all of us, you go in and get Shloonk," Nar ordered. The brain-exposed being obeyed and marched into the ship. After a while, he too didn't return.
"We need to approach this more strategically," Nar said, "Ixane, you are our fastest, go in and scout the situation then return. Ixane agreed and ran inside, after more waiting she also didn't return.
"Sir, maybe we should try going in together," Spleenk suggested.
"Spleenk, for some reason the universe hates you because all your ideas end up never working. So because you suggested that idea, we're gonna do the opposite, and you're going in next."
"Yes, sir." Spleenk walked in leaving only Nar waiting. After a while he got bored and decided it was about time to go in himself. He approached the douche of a ship and entered through the open hole in the back where the others entered.
He found himself in a dark room filled with rubble, stuffing, and broken targets. He saw a corridor on the other side of the room and followed it. After walking on the path and seeing some of the other rooms of the Dibship, Nar started seeing a faint glow coming from behind him. He walked forward and saw that the glow was following him. He started walking but then quickly turned around to face his pursuer, and when he did, the pursuer was right in front of him.
"Hi!" It was a cyan robot about his height that was stupidly waving his hand. Nar recognized the robot, it was on the dossier given to him by the Employer. The bot was a subordinate of the Irken who was the captain of the ship, apparently it was left behind after Tak captured the crew. The files said that the robot was really stupid, but he remained cautious.
Nar kept watching the robot, and he slowly backed away, but the robot moved as he moved and kept following him. Nar stopped again, trying to determine if the robot was gonna attack him or not. He stared at the robot, who made strange noises each time he leaned forward, then he started feeling really weird being in the same area as this robot. He tried to think of methods to get away, and he decided to put his faith in the Employer's dossier of the robot and try to use mind games to make him leave.
"Um, can you go away?" Nar asked.
"Okay!" The robot ran off in the other direction. Nar sighed in relief and turned around, only to find the robot staring at him again.
"Ah! How did you get there?" The robot just stared at him. "Just, get away from me."
"Noooo," The robot smiled with his tongue sticking out, its big, round cyan lights still aimed at him.
"Please," Nar said calmly, "I kind of have business, uh, by myself, so if you cou-"
"You'll never leave."
"What?" The robot's last statement took Nar by surprise. The robot had said it in such a gleeful tone that Nar started getting very nervous. He tried slowly backing away, but the robot would follow his movement. Nar panicked and started sprinting away but the robot would suddenly appear and he would have to change directions, until he found himself in a dead end. It was a dark room, Nar found himself against a wall, standing under the door frame on the opposite side of the room was the robot, only his cyan parts were visible.
"Never ever, hehahehaHeHaHeHaHEHAHAHAHA-"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Gaz! Gaz! Gaaaaz!" Dib was searching frantically for his sister, hoping that she wasn't still inside or worse, crushed under the gate.
"Dib, calm down!" Kor shouted at him.
"Gaz! Gaz! Damn it, Kor, what do I do? What if she's dead! I can't go home with my sister's corpse!"
"Dib, just calm down and stop being a hysteri-!"
"What if I don't even have a corpse to bring home? Maybe I can lift this gate!"
"Dib!" Kor tried to stop him but Dib frantically ran to the large closed gate and tried lifting it with all his weak Earthly might. "Ugh, Daj, do something."
"Zim, damn you, open this door!" Daj walked to Dib and kicked him so that he was on his back. Kry then dragged Dib back to Kor.
"I was the last one through the gate, I'm positive that Gaz wasn't behind me. At worse, she's still stuck inside."
"Thenwehaveto-" Kor slapped Dib to shut him up.
"Gaz isn't stupid, Dib. If she didn't escape with us, then she must have a good reason to stay behind. For now, we should just trust her and go back to the Dibship like Zim told us to." Dib thought for a bit and silently nodded.
"Fine, I know that Gaz can handle herself, it's just as her brother I have to worry about her too. You know the feeling right?"
"I hated my family."
"I can kind of sympathize," Daj said.
"So let's get to the Dibship then," Dib started walking off and Kor, Daj, and Kry followed. After two steps Dib stopped in his tracks, "Right, we have no idea where the Dibship is."
"Well since we're already lost, I think we should just keep walking away from the facility containing the sadistic drone that gets way too much joy from death, both of them," Daj said. They all agreed that it was the best solution, they could at least recon the area.
Vort's three moons provided the group with enough light to survey the area. The city was broken and desolate after the invasion but they could still tell how advance the Vortians were in terms of their technological prowess. The planet, or at least the city they were in, lacked any sign of organic matter, the ground, the plants, and even metallic clouds floated over them. The buildings that surrounded them, both those partially left standing and fallen, were interconnected, each had some sort of walkway that lead to the next building. Dib wished he could've seen Vort pre-Tak invasion, to witness a technology based alien planet that wasn't bent on owning the universe.
"Tak certainly did a good job destroying the city, a better job than Zim ever did on Earth," Dib said.
"I'm surprised at how thorough she is," Kor said, "this is what the entire planet was like, right? How could anyone caused this much destruction to an entire planet?"
"Irkens are purely militaristic," Daj said, "They use the resources of the conquered to conquer even more. They have amassed legions of warships and advance tech through this method, not to mention being the most powerful race means they just keep growing at a rapid rate, giving them an almost unlimited supply of soldiers. So think about it, unlimited resources, unlimited technology, and unlimited soldiers, conquering planets like these is just routine work for them."
"But it wasn't the Irkens who even did this," Dib said, "Whoever, whatever did this beat the Irkens. Is there any sort of force or race in the universe that can go against the Irkens like this?"
"In terms of soldiers, the closest race is-...was the Darvons. In terms of technology, it was the Vortians before they started giving the technology to the Irkens. There are no ships that could even come close to the planet-destroying powers of the ones used by Irk, the Irken fleet is left unmatched by anything in this universe."
"If they didn't have the planet destroying tech that the Irkens used, then how can they do all of this?" Kor asked.
"If it's not the tech that's beating out the Irkens, then it can only be the soldiers. I know first hand the a good chunk of Irken soldiers are incompetent, so actually outmatching an Irken soldier is no big deal, it's the fact that whatever did this outmatched colonies of Irken soldiers."
"An army that beat out the Irkens? Does a force like that even exist?"
"Apparently. I don't know what deep hole in the universe they crawled out from, but I would never wanna cross paths with any of them."
"Me too," Dib said.
"Me thre-AARGH!" A laser bolt had zoomed across and hit Kor through her stomach. Dib caught her before she fell and the four looked at the source of the shot. It was a very tall figure standing far from them, the light of the moons behind him, shrouding his identity in shadows. He lowered his arm blaster and spoke.
"Well, too bad."