Chapter Text
The Irken Empire.
Spanning several dozen planets, each dedicated to a single purpose, it was home to a race of green-skinned humanoid aliens who were technologically advanced far beyond most if not all other races in the galaxy. Such advancement led them to believe they were superior in every way possible, and soon, they decided to expand their territory and influence by conquering and subjugating every planet they could get their hands on.
Their empire had grown slowly, but soon, it reached the point where they gained enough resources to plan their largest conquest in history: That of conquering every known race out there. At the time, it was called Operation Impending Doom, and for that purpose, they had been training several hundred Irkens soldiers. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this first attempt had failed before it could even get started, but undaunted, they tried again. Over the past couple of decades, they raised a new crop of elite Irken soldiers all the way into full-fledged Invaders, and now, they were ready to begin the operation once again.
This was the reality an Irken girl named Tenn was born into—and one she never questioned.
She was among the Invaders raised in this new batch. Ever since she was assigned as a soldier at birth, she had been eager to make a name for herself and prove herself worthy in the eyes of her superiors. And the more she was mistreated by her fellow Irken for being rather short for their species, the more intense she only grew in her determination to prove them wrong. And while she became painfully aware of how much harder she had to work than anyone else just to keep up with the most basic tenets of being a soldier, for her, there was no other option. If she failed in her duties, she would most likely be reprogrammed to work a menial job in fast food, as a janitor, or even as a servant—and she would never, ever, allow herself to fall that low.
Her curled antennae quivered, thinking over all of this, as she steered her ship to the docking rings of Planet Conventia. This was it. This was what her whole life had been leading up to. Miracle of miracles, her efforts had finally paid off, as not only did she achieve the coveted rank of Invader, but was even chosen to be among the first of them to be assigned an enemy planet. Here, the Irken leaders, known as the Almighty Tallest, were scheduled to hold the ceremony in which they would officially start Operation Impending Doom 2. It was known as the Great Assigning.
After she was beamed down to the planet below, she joined a procession of similarly-dressed Irkens all converging on the convention hall where the ceremony would take place. They all wore their standard-issue Invader uniforms, complete with red striped shirts and black gloves, pants, and boots. They also all wore round, metal backpack-looking devices on their backs.
While the rest of them filed into the audience hall, Tenn instead took her place in a line of other Invaders on stage. The Irkens in this line were the ones who would be assigned a planet today. As they stood up straight and turned their eyes to the ceiling, where their leaders would soon arrive from, they prepared to wiggle their antennae in salute.
Tenn steeled herself for what was to come. For better or for worse, no matter which planet she would be assigned...she had to be prepared for anything.
“Step forward, Invader Tenn.”
She held her breath. This was it. The moment of truth.
The moment Tallest Red called her name, she stepped forward from her line of fellow Invaders to come face to face with him and Tallest Purple. The entire audience chamber behind them was quiet, as they had been for the past few minutes; their red eyes watching with bated breath as they waited to see which planet Tenn would be assigned to.
But Tenn’s attention was focused only on her leaders right in front of her. She stood up straight, hoping against hope that she would be able to mitigate her less-than-ideal height, and that her seriousness and unwavering loyalty would be enough to make up for what she lacked. Already, she had seen the first Invader on the list, Larb, barely end up being avoided assigned to Planet Blorch, home of the Slaughtering Rat people, in favor of Planet Vort, all due to the fact that he had grown a few inches since the last time they saw him. She knew she was at least a little bit taller too, so she hoped and prayed that she would be able to avoid being assigned to Planet Blorch as well. She held her breath as Red began to speak.
“You will be assigned to Planet Meekrob, home to the energy beings that shoot lightning bolts.”
Her face fell. Oh no. She had forgotten about Meekrob.
As if on cue, a hologram popped up behind the Tallest, which depicted her running away in terror from a bunch of blue manta ray-like aliens that looked like floating lungs shooting lightning bolts all around her. She never knew how those concept artists could draw these pictures so soon after the Tallest gave their proclamations. More importantly, she had to speak up.
“But…!” she stammered. “Isn’t that the most dangerous planet that we intend to conquer!?”
“Of course it is, of course it is.” Tallest Red nodded. “But, you see, Invader Tenn...we are giving you a chance to prove yourself by assigning you this mission. We were so impressed with your results during your training that we figured that if there was any one of you who could conquer Meekrob, it would be you.”
“Really…?” Tenn would have fainted with joy from hearing one of the Tallest speak so highly of her...that is, if it weren’t for the fact that Purple was snickering in the background the entire time. Of course. There must be a catch.
“Yes, really. Now move along, soldier! We’ve got the rest of the Invaders to assign planets to.” Red shooed her along.
“AND NO MORE INTERRUPTIONS!” shouted Purple, glaring severely at the rest of the Irkens in line.
As she moved to the left side of the stage where Larb and the others were standing, she stared at the ground in dismay. Being assigned to Planet Meekrob...it had to have been because of her lack of height. Purple snickering in the background told her everything she needed to know. And if not that, then certainly the fact that she was shorter than all of her fellow Invaders who had already been assigned planets.
Well, what’s done was done. All that meant was that she’d have to work extra hard on this mission in order to gain the Tallest’s respect. As an Irken Invader, that’s about all she could do at this point. It was all for the sake of the empire, and all to make Operation Impending Doom 2 a success this time around.
Even if it was the most dangerous planet on the list.
Her mind went into overdrive, ignoring the rest of the ceremony as well as the crowd of fellow Irkens watching them in favor of going through the objectives of her mission. Their jobs as Invaders were to infiltrate the planets they were assigned, blend in with the hideous native inhabitants, assess the planet’s weaknesses, and prepare it for conquest in the name of the Irken Empire. Just like how the Tallest reminded them when this entire ceremony began. As her mind turned to that concept art from earlier, she began to wonder…
How in the world was she supposed to blend in with the native inhabitants when they all looked like that??
The rest of the ceremony was...interesting, to say the least. Tenn was surprised when at the last minute, this guy named Zim suddenly showed up declaring he was an Invader too and demanded the Tallest to assign him an enemy planet. Apparently, he was the one who single-handedly messed up Operation Impending Doom 1, which already put her on edge. She was even more surprised to find that the Tallest not only did have a planet for him to invade, but even gave him a SIR unit. Although that one acted kind of...glitchy.
She felt like she should have been relieved that Planet Blorch ended up being assigned to Invader Skoodge, but it didn’t make her feel any better when she realized that Skoodge was literally the only one shorter than her, if she didn’t count Zim. And while she tried to take comfort in the fact that at least she wasn’t going to be the only one who’d have a difficult time with their mission, something told her that Planet Meekrob was a completely different beast compared to Blorch.
In the worst case scenario, she could see Invader Skoodge outdoing her, and if that happened...she shuddered, not wanting to think about it.
A robotic voice then snapped her out of her trance. “Master Tenn! What are your orders?”
She was jolted back to reality, sitting in her spaceship with her brand new SIR unit by her side. The name stood for Standard Intelligence Retrieval unit; a robot given out by the Tallest that was designed to help out each Invader for their mission. And she would definitely need all of the information she could get in order for this particular mission to have any chance of success.
“Huh? Oh right, yes…” She sat up and took the controls of her ship. “SIR, we are headed to Planet Meekrob, home of the, uh…” She shuddered again. “Energy beings who shoot lighting bolts. Go enter the planet's coordinates into my ship’s navigation.”
“Yes, my master!”
Her SIR unit typed in the coordinates on her ship’s console. As they prepared for liftoff, she thought to herself that maybe she should give her own SIR unit a name, as it would otherwise be easy to get it confused with all the other SIR units that the Invaders had assigned to them. Not that they would ever interact with each other (much), but still…it was true that aside from occasional contact with the Tallest, they wouldn’t have anyone else on their side during these missions.
“...SIR.”
The robot turned its head to Tenn. “What is it, Master Tenn?”
“I’m going to give you a new name. I’m thinking about calling you…Thermos.”
He blinked. “Why is that?”
“BECAUSE YOU LOOK LIKE A THERMOS, THAT’S WHY!” Tenn turned away and huffed, not wanting to admit that, historically speaking, she was really bad at giving things names.
She then heard a sound behind her, like a packet was being ripped and some dust was pouring from it, and turned back to her robot. She stared in disbelief as he spun his head around like a centrifuge.
“Uh...Thermos? What exactly are you doing?” she asked, dumbfounded.
“I’m making…” As if on cue, he stopped spinning. “GRAPE JUICE! I have seen in your database that you prefer this snack as a recreational item. Like you said, I am a thermos, after all.”
Tenn stared into the robot’s head, seeing that he indeed made a pool of grape juice. Her eyes sparkled, and without realizing it, she started salivating.
“L—let me try...”
She eagerly grabbed the little robot’s head and downed the whole mixture in one gulp.
It took a while before the taste overpowered her taste buds, but when it did, it practically knocked her out. “...It’s good grape juice,” she mumbled in a daze, genuinely surprised by the quality of it all.
“Thank you, my master!” The little robot then jumped up on the control panel in front of her, brought out what looked like a jester hat and some juggling balls, and struck a pose. “I also have a wide variety of entertainment I can provide at your command! This trip to Meekrob will take approximately one month, and I intend to please!”
Tenn smiled and leaned back in her chair. Maybe this mission won’t be so bad after all.
—One month later—
“Proximity warning: Planet Meekrob ahead.”
Tenn was engrossed in binge-watching Thermos’ latest never-ending slapstick routine when her computer’s voice yanked her out of her haze.
“What’s that…? Planet Meekrob…?” She rubbed her eyes and racked her brains to try to recall what it was about Planet Meekrob that was so important.
Then it hit her. “OH YEAH, THE MISSION!”
She sat up straight and looked ahead, glaring at the ominous looking planet, with its purple thunderclouds and rocky surface. “The planet of the energy beings that shoot lightning bolts, huh…? We’ll need rubber, and lots of it.”
As if on cue, Thermos brought out a pair of black rubber gloves, boots, and pants from his cranium. They were clearly made for Tenn in mind. “Aye-aye, my master!”
“Excellent.” She quickly replaced her old gloves and boots with the rubber ones Thermos provided for her. She momentarily thought about replacing her pants too, but then mentally decided that it might be a bit overkill at this phase of the operation. She also remembered how Zim was screaming about rubber pants at the end of the Great Assigning, and figured it might be best to keep that guy’s smooth brain as far away from her operation as possible.
She took the controls of her ship, giving herself a few moments to remember her flight training, and started steering the ship to move in for a landing on the planet. Before they reached the clouds, she double-checked just to make sure there was a protective coating of rubber around her ship online, as well as an invisibility cloak so nobody would spot them while they were coming in.
“All systems are good to go. We should be safe from being seen or electrocuted. Now.” She turned to her SIR unit. “I’m going to fly around this planet and look for a spot to land so we can start building our base. Thermos, I want you to run a scanner on the planet’s surface while I do that, so you can see what these Meekrob consider to be normal. We’ll need that information both for our base and for our disguises here.”
He saluted. “Yes, my master!”
She flew at cruising altitude right below the clouds, searching for a good place to land. The landscape consisted of mostly barren rocks, but every so often, there would be pockets of blue electrical energy in large quantities that clearly indicated large cities as well as small towns. She made sure to fly over as many of those places as possible so Thermos would have plenty of time to collect data.
Eventually, her computer brought up several pictures of various rock formations on screen. “I have found 32 locations for us to build our base. Which one would you like?”
Tenn was originally going to throw a dart at them and choose whichever one it landed on, but then she started thinking critically. If these Meekrob built their societies around these pockets of blue electrical energy, that must mean that they serve as a valuable source of power; maybe even of sustenance. If that could be the key to their weaknesses, then…
“Land us next to the largest source of that...blue electric energy,” she ordered.
The computer did as she asked, accelerating the ship towards said energy, which, as it turned out, was on the other side of the planet.
“EEYAAAAAAAGHH!”
Poor Tenn realized too late that she’d be flattened against the seat from the sudden inertia. Especially her antennae. As the ship sped along and Thermos obliviously enjoyed the ride, Tenn made a mental note to herself to use that feature more carefully in the future.
Thankfully, the ship eventually found it and slowed down, allowing Tenn to decompress herself and her antennae from all the forces of those G’s. She found it especially fortunate that she didn’t have to vomit—although she did come close.
The ship landed, and before she stepped out, Tenn double checked the computer to make sure the planet’s atmosphere was breathable. Thankfully, it was.
She could see that the ship landed her behind a rock formation that masked them from the blue energy field below. Around it flew several dozen of those light blue, manta ray-like aliens looking like pairs of lungs going about their business. The younger ones frequently changed the shapes of their bodies into random objects seemingly for fun, while the older ones were less frivolous and seemed to focus entirely on whatever task was at hand.
After staring at the scene for longer than she would have liked, Tenn quickly hid in the shadows of the rock to avoid any passerby discovering her. As they flew off, she narrowed her eyes after them.
“...I still haven’t figured out how I’m supposed to disguise myself as one of them,” she admitted, glaring down at the ground. “I mean, they’re made of pure energy! And they fly! They FLY!” She gestured towards them angrily, clearly envious of their capabilities. “How are we ever going to make a disguise that would actually fool them!?”
“Master Tenn, I have an idea,” said Thermos. “We build a hovercraft you can stand on and freely control with your antennae, and then hide you and the hovercraft inside a force field. And over that force field, we project a hologram that looks like this.” He grabbed a screen from the computer and showed her the schematics for how his disguise idea could work.
Tenn looked at the screen, her skin crawling when she looked at the Meekrob disguise that Thermos and her computer had prepared for her. She wasn’t at all fond of the idea of having to hide her true self in the form of a hideous looking alien creature, but these Meekrob were an extremely dangerous species. She couldn’t afford to take her chances with them—she couldn’t even assume that they’d be as dumb as species on other planets where she otherwise could have gotten away with a paper-thin disguise.
No matter. Once she’d conquered these people, they’d become slaves who’d be of extremely valuable use to the Irken Empire. All this trouble would be worth it in the end.
“At any rate, now that we have the disguise figured out...let’s now focus on building our base.” She pulled out a pen-looking object and handed it over to her SIR unit. “Thermos? I’d like you to put the data you’ve collected in here.”
“Yes, my master!” He took the pen, attached it to a cord from his head, and uploaded the necessary information into it. Then he stuck the pen in the ground, whereupon it dug its way deep underground.
Tenn and Thermos ran off to give the device more space to work with. After a few moments, the base’s top floor sprouted right where they used to be, covering their spaceship. Tenn smiled upon looking upon the technological architecture; primarily made of red and gray metal, just like how an Irken base should be. Yes, this was looking good…
And then suddenly, right as it completed its construction, the outer layer changed its appearance to match that of the rock formation right next to it.
“......................”
On one hand, she should have seen this coming. They were building into a cliff face, after all, so it would make logical sense that her base would also look like a cliff. It also made it so that it would be very hard for her enemies to find her here. On the other hand, well...she expected something more interesting.
She sighed. “...Come on, Thermos. Let’s hope the inside isn’t as bad as this.”
Much to Tenn’s relief, it wasn’t. The top floor as well as all of the basements featured all of the gadgets and gizmos she was familiar with among the many planets of the Irken Empire, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
After settling into the base’s new central command room, she sat down and got to work. They had her base and disguise figured out, so now all she needed was to ascertain the best place into which she could enter this Meekrob society without arousing too much suspicion.
Of course, if she could complete her conquest just by sitting in this base, observing the people here, and reporting her findings back to the Tallest, she would do just that. But again, she couldn’t afford to take her chances with the Meekrob. Blending into their society would be by far the quickest way to gather the information needed to take them down. She ran the telescope over the entire city, observing Meekrob across all walks of life.
After several hours, she ultimately concluded that her best possible option was to enroll into the local school for the children. They wouldn’t be expected to follow the norms of this society as closely as the adults, so there’d be a lot more room for error as she figured out what was socially acceptable and what wasn’t. Furthermore, all of the children were expected to enroll in school, whereas the adults had to expend effort to find jobs and go through what looked like a lengthy and grueling process just to get in. And lastly, posing as an adult would make it much more likely that she’d become the target of…
She growled in disgust, not wanting to finish that line of thought. She had no intention of becoming any one of these filthy Meekrob’s “love-pigs”, so to speak. Other Invaders might be able to successfully fake their acts in this regard, but she wouldn’t resort to that if she could help it. After all, she figured that was one of the many reasons why Irkens like her were superior to begin with.
Of course, Tenn wasn’t too fond of the idea of posing as a child, but she also knew that in all likelihood, most of the other Invaders would probably have to do that too.
She looked over her disguise and had Thermos and the computer adjust it so that she’d look closer to that of a Meekrob child. Ironically enough, the size of the new disguise actually fit her better than the old one...which didn’t do anything to soothe her bruised ego.
“All right, now I just have to figure out how to enroll myself into this school.” She started getting to work on the computer, performing as many intense long range scans as she could. All the while, she continued to look through her telescope, observing the Meekrob carefully and glaring at them all the same.
Soon, she would be among them, and from there, her conquest would begin. This was the moment all of her training was leading her up to. She vowed that she would succeed in her mission on this highly advanced, dangerous planet, for if she did, the great database of Irken kind would remember her for the rest of time. Everyone would know her name...and nobody would ever look down on her again.
Thermos wheeled up to her like an excitable puppy, opening the top canister in his head. “Grape juice?”
Tenn’s eyes widened, and she smiled. “Why, yes, Thermos. I’ll have some more.”