Chapter Text
“Now, Dib, I’ve entrusted a very important mission to you.” (A way to finally prove yourself).
“With how much you like discovering new things, you will do well reporting your findings. Maybe in this way you will find more interest in… more paramount sciences.” (You are still so young and ignorant).
“Take your time. You have six Urth-months time to report your findings, my apprentice! That is roughly 182.5 days; days consisting of the planet spinning on its axis and rotating through their stars’s light. Four thousand three hundred eighty hours. Two hundred sixty-two thousand eight-hundred Urthan minutes.” (This is a simple task. Do not bother me. Do not fail me ).
Dib supposed he couldn’t deny a recording.
Nilslerians were a civilization consisting of herbivorous, blue, slime-emitting aliens enraptured by science.
They did not conquer, they scarcely even fought, merely creating and creating and creating, pushing themselves higher up the food chain simply by technological advancements alone.
Although the Nilslerian species could put up a fight, if only with the help of specialized weapons. Although not quite as technologically advanced or battle-ready as the Irken empire, the species put a reasonable amount of effort on strengthening a military. No Nilslerian was exactly a fighter, but their army was made of combat engineers, geospatial engineers, technical engineers, they knew how to fashion effective weapons and keep ‘em running, and most importantly: how to use them.
Gaz herself was a military engineer, focusing on robotic and mecha-type weapons. Dib didn’t know where she got the time to build so much machinery, as every time he saw her she was tapping away at some holographic video game and doing what definitely didn’t look like work. But, she was still young. And besides , Dib’s mentor and lead scientist of a science-worshipping planet considered nothing Dib ever did as work. That’s why he was being sent to a whole other planet, after all.
“Don’t pout so much, you’re always whining about not getting to do anything, not ever being taken seriously.” Gaz grumbled, leaning haphazardly against his spacecraft while ‘helping’ load Dib’s things.
“That’s the thing, I’m not being taken seriously! He… he thinks all my work is childish garbage and is sending me to another planet to hope it strikes me to start doing ‘real’ science!” Dib threw another suitcase into the craft, immediately magnetizing and sucking up in the storage with his other luggage.
“I’m waiting for you to accidentally knock one of those cases open so I can laugh at you.” She sneered.
“Yeah! Just laugh like they all do!” Dib burst out, flailing the last one clumsily into the ship and huffing as, just like all the others, it got sucked into the storage department.
“Calm down. Dad is putting his trust in you for the first time to do one thing right . And, if you decide to mess the whole operation up just because you're petty…” Her eyes narrowed into a glare which sent spikes of panic and memories of pain through him. If he screwed this up, he was getting slammed into one of her painful game simulations, or beaten by a large robot’s fists, which were somehow always meaty and sweaty. Why did she have to create a meaty, sweaty robot? It was nothing short of cruel.
“I will do as he asks,” Dib hissed warily, shrinking into himself, “But, I will not give him the satisfaction of obediently shutting-up and pretending to enjoy it.”
“Well, give me the satisfaction of you shutting up and leaving.” Gaz seemed to sigh, pushing Dib back so that he tripped onto his rear through the spacecraft doorway. She looked down on him stoically for a moment as the door automatically slid closed.
“Wait— Gaz, I think I forgot my toothbrush.” He pleaded, his gargantuan grey teeth stuck out over his quivering lip.
“You’ll live without it.” She stated, listlessly tapping something into the pad at the side of the spacecraft's door, the small vehicle giving a meek whirring noise as it took off towards the speck called Urth.
Dib yawned as a ding echoed, a tube of near-tasteless nutrition paste shooting out of a food dispenser and plopping into his hand.
“Log number 35,” Dib began quite suddenly, a click resounding across the ship as it automatically began recording audio, “Getting closer to the planet Urth. It appears very, very blue.”
He was not one bit excited for this mission, definitely not interested at all. But as Urth came into view he couldn’t stop from theorizing about what he might discover on this Urth. The creatures must be quite animalistic, as Urth was a planet which seemed rarely visited and almost completely isolated from the rest of it’s galaxy.
“It’s solar system seems to consist of eight other planets, which I will inquire into later, and is the third planet away from the nearest star in which it orbits. I really did not expect it to be so blue. Perhaps I will have some advantage with camouflage.” He paused for a moment to suck down the nutrition paste.
Dib flexed his 6 fingered hand around the tube, watching the blue of his knuckles darken and stretch around bone. The hands were the only place Dib had bones actually, the rest of him either heavy and thick, or covered in a protective armor, somewhat of an exoskeleton, which could roll inside through slits in his skin and provide support internally as well. Every part of Nilslerian anatomy supported brute defense. What would he do if the creatures of Earth were built the opposite?
He cleared his throat in embarrassment, unsure of what else he could observe. Hopefully something to distract him from his own paranoid thoughts, “Ship, begin taking photos for reference.”
He ran a tongue over his rounded, gray teeth, where an Urth-creature might have razor sharp. Dib twitched his droopy ears, which flopped almost as low as his lower jaw, where an Urth-creature might have none at all. He glanced at his thick, trunk-like forearms and shins, the weight of his wrists compared to the stick-thin rest of him sinking him down into a permanent slouch. Making him clumsily, slow, and grounded, where an Urth-creature might be swift, agile, and deadly. His skin was covered in occasional bumps, something of an oversized pore, sweating out sticky-ish cleaning liquid which ensured Nilslerians never had to put time or effort into such a thing as bathing. But it also made his skin soft and weak, where an Urth-creature’s might be strong, almost plated, and of a disgusting green shade. Where Dib had a muscular meat-bag hanging off his head like a braid or annoying cow-lick, the creature might have twitching antennae capable of hearing and smelling, giving it heightened senses. Unlike Dib’s amber pupils, they could have large bug-like, compound eyes, in which you could see reflections and reflections of yourself, leaving you feeling exposed in front of a genetically-superior Irken soldier-
Dib shook his head hastily at his own thoughts. He felt a flash of confusement, why had he been comparing Urth-creatures to Irkens? Well, obviously it was because that Urth spacecraft quite far ahead of him looked much like an Irken voot runner.
Ah, yes, that must be it, he concluded.
“About… a hundred and twenty gigins away there appears to be a similar craft to an Irken voot runner. Which is odd, because I don’t remember humans having access to such advanced technology,” Dib said, something beginning to dawn on him, “And if that’s true. That would have to mean… that that is an actual voot runner. Belonging to an Irken.”
He ducked his head down, he’d be fine if only this didn’t mean his mission was potentially in danger, and that he might be slaughtered by a clone soldier and their lackeys! Was he going to study all the life on this one planet just for it to be destroyed and turned into a parking structure planet? He took deep breaths, attempting to calm down, and suddenly embarrassed more and more by his thoughts the clearer his head got.
What was he going to do? This was something he immediately needed to report, and he debated between stalking the Irken and attempting to contact his mentor. Well, his mentor wasn’t going to answer. Membrane was always too busy. Gaz, maybe, would actually answer even if he did make her mad by calling. He ordered his ship to focus on and record the Irken voot as he called his sister hopefully.
“Gaz? Gaz! Don’t get mad I called, okay? I have something urgent to report-“ Dib insisted as soon as the red ‘Call Connected’ message popped up.
“Hello you pathetic worm! ” The voice boomed over him, immediately translated through his speaker, yet Dib still felt there was something in the tone completely Irken, “Er, why don’t you have any video call functions on your inferior craft? I can’t see you.”
Dib stared wide-eyed out at the Irken ship, “Why and how are you calling me?!”
“Why are you following me?!” The Irken accused, both aliens were almost frantic in their speech.
“I… As if! I’m not following you,” Dib said, flailing his arms as if the other could see him, “Don’t turn your voot around, keep flying forward!”
“Then why is your spacecraft following me?”
Dib screamed in his head. He did not want to confront an Irken, he just wanted to turn tail and get home. But, for some reason he had a nagging feeling. Was this the only chance he had to impress Professor Membrane, his father? Gaz was right when she said this was the first time he had specially asked him to go on a mission. Could he really afford to screw this up? His mouth tasted sweet and stale, like old nutrition paste and mucus. He really wished he hadn’t forgotten a toothbrush.
Seriously, what was he scared of? Was the worst possibility an Irken? There were creatures such as Snarl Beasts, Bazoogian Core Munchers, and Bees. By Science, the Bees… a shiver crawled across Dib’s spine at the very thought. Although, he had to admit not much came close in scariness-factor compared to the Irken Empire, everyone knew how disposable the individual Irkens were. A single Irken was like a tiny robo-soldier controlled by a hive-mind, easy enough to defeat (that’s why the Nilslerians made nearly all their robots with a self-learning AI!), but together with the massive they could make meager work of crumbling an entire planet to dust, much like a pack of gnomes could together crawl up and push down a middle-aged man. Oh, and yeah, there were also alien gnomes. Dib hated those guys.
Dib groaned and shook the image of a tiny, bloodlust-fueled gnome from his mind. Irkens colonized and destroyed planet after planet merely for their amusement. The more he thought about it, the more determined he got. The Irken screeched and monologued, but Dib’s concentration wasn’t broken until he was sent flying into his ship’s wall.
“Hey!” Dib yelled, cringing at how uncool his own voice sounded. He hopped up and began frantically typing on his control board, manually pulling out his weapons systems and letting his own three plasma cannons whirr and heat up for a minute for dramatic effect. He grinned, and fired. “You really think your run-down voot can win against a Nilslerian ship?”
“Your inferior vehicle is beneath Zim !” Zim cackled, dodging the brunt of the attack. Dib watched as the runner practically vibrated with one meager hit.
Dib had never had proper battle training more than shooter games with Gaz, even if those were pretty brutal in themselves, but he knew never to let the enemy get on his tail. The two ships faced each other, and they’d have to keep hitting each other in a battle of gradual attrition, until one of their ships eventually keeled over and the other could move on. Or, both ships broke apart and they both died in the void of space.
He groaned, knowing this was going to put him at a disadvantage, but it needed to be done. He whirred up his plasma cannons and fired just as the Irken did, gritting his teeth as his ship shook with the force of a hit, and rushed forward, and over the voot runner.
He began zigzagging as the voot turned to follow him with cannons blazing.
“Fool! Idiot! Stupid!” Zim was still laughing maniacally, and Dib realized he should have tried to knock out one or both of the voot’s cannons before he dashed, but he didn’t have time to turn around now. He merely sped up, cringing as the Irken got louder, “You really think you can escape? You think you can go faster than Zim?!”
Dib started going full-throttle, he was getting closer and closer to Urth’s surface. He just needed to land and then he could figure out what to do. His ship couldn’t take too much damage, as much as he wanted to boast how superior it was to the Irken’s garbage ship, it was just a tacky explorer’s craft for the scientist’s crazy son. It wasn’t meant to actually be used.
“Stop speeding up! Slow down and let me destroy you! Gir! Activate the SF drive!”
Wait- the SF drive was meant for travelling through galaxies, not for catching up to ships 6 gigins away. Dib involuntarily screamed as a voot hurtled full-speed into the back of his craft and pushed them both, flaming towards the Urth. An ecstatic ‘WHEEEEEEEEEEEE’ echoed through Dib’s speaker, supposedly from Gir as the voice sounded nothing like the Irken’s.
“Shut it off! Shut it off!” Dib choked out, there was no way he could brake in space, so he reversed, putting all his speed towards pushing them back.
“I am trying! ” Zim screamed back, but even after he turned it off the voot kept pushing them forward.
Dib began yelling Nilslerian profanities, mostly words containing science jargon and a various assortment of wrenches. Everything was flashing red and he felt weightless, until it wasn’t and everything was black and tasted like soil and sour and pain.
“Emergency Ejection Commencing.” A robotic voice announced, and Dib saw his first close-up scenes of Urth in a flash, until he landed face first in the grass a mere three feet away from his spacecraft.
“Zim lives! ”
“I’ve never beens alive!”
Dib was wiping dirt off his glasses, just in time to see an Irken dragging himself out of his wrecked voot-crusier. A tiny robot was running in circles and screaming. Nothing was right in the world. He dragged himself on his feet, and besides terrible bruising and teeny cuts, Dib was impressed with the lack of injuries both of them had sustained. One of the Irken’s eyes was swelling, the other big and ruby and glaring .
“You wrecked my ship!” Dib accused, pointing a shaking finger in the Irken’s direction.
“You ruined my ship!” Zim howled in return, “You filthy, inferior, Nil-suck-ian worm!”
“Your ship was garbage before, and besides this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t activated your SF-drive! Now we’re stuck here! I only have six months to do my job, fix my ship, and return home!”
“This is not Zim’s fault!” The Irken quivered, he seemed ready to scream for at least a couple more hours, but he was silenced as he looked out at Urthan-homes and buildings. They had landed in an ugly stain of a park, smack-dab in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, “This is terrible.”
“Well, it’s not great.” Dib spat in agreement, and both aliens drooped in frustration.
“These people are tiny!” Gir giggled, stuffing a racoon in his head.