I do not own any of the characters from Invader Zim.

Tak takes on the Tallest in a battle for survival. Rated M for future violence and language.

Tak and the Martian Armada

Chapter 1: Prologue

The sun finally began to rise over the desolate Martian landscape. Now there was at least light to work with. Three hundred million miles she had drifted out of control before smashing into this barren ball of rusted iron. The crash damaged the communication system, the gravi-drive, and the power generator. Whatever wasn't damaged in the crash had been torn to shreds by MiMi, her SIR unit, driven insane by a link-up with Zim's defective SIR, Gir. Fortunately, the crash site was near a defunct robotic crawler/probe that could possibly be used for parts.

Tak was angry at herself. Angry for failing to complete her mission, but most of all, for failing to destroy Zim. She could survive in the thin atmosphere of the planet, that was no problem. But without food and some power source, she wouldn't last very long here. Her escape pod had only the barest necessities for survival, so she stripped the probe of whatever she found useful. The solar panels were covered with an inch of dust, but would work fine once they were cleaned off. They were hooked up to a fairly primitive communication system that she was positive she could link to her damaged console and send a distress signal to the home planet, or any Irken ship close by. She could have contacted Zim, and beg for his help, but that was out of the question. The thought of him gloating over her defeat made her blood boil. No, she would leave him out of this, and if the opportunity ever arose, kill him herself without a second thought. Things, however, looked quite bleak for her.

It is mid-afternoon by the time Tak had thrown together a makeshift communications system, and was ready to send out her first message. She had managed to increase the power output of the solar panels by five hundred percent, but it was just barely enough to get her call for help sent.

Request assistance. Ship destroyed. Whereabouts unknown. Send help. After several hours, a transmission came in from the home planet. It was from Tallest Red.

"Ah, Tak! You're still alive. Zim called and said he destroyed you, all by himself. It seems he was exaggerating as usual." he snickered.

"He had help from his Earth friends. He would never have been able to destroy me by himself!"

"Oh my. That is unsettling news. He has made 'friends' with the creatures he was sent to subjugate? Tsk tsk. Zim should be punished for that."

"Send me another ship, and I will make sure it gets done."

"Alas, poor Tak, we won't be sending you a rescue ship, let alone a fighter craft. We allowed you to go after Zim to get rid of him, but you failed. We cannot stomach failure. We had hoped you would get rid of each other." He spoke very condescendingly to her.

"What? But why?" Red sighed.

"Zim was a pest, and an idiot We sent him to Earth to get him out of our sight. His bumblings were an insult to the great Irken Empire. You were the ideal candidate to send after him, after all, you hated him immensely, and were deemed extremely intelligent and a fierce fighter to boot. Unfortunately, you are a female, plus you were growing taller at a very rapid rate." Tak was confused.

"What do those last two traits have to do with anything?"

"Well, as you know, Irken leaders are determined by height. Anyone who is anyone on Irk, is among the tallest on the planet. By our standards, you were growing taller and taller, and it seems you will probably surpass us in height in the near future. Plus you're a female. We have not had a true female leader since the last queen died two thousand years ago, at the very beginnings of the Empire. We do not intend to have another."

"But we have had Tallest females before, why not a queen?"

"Because queens, and in fact, all females, had this nasty little habit of eating their mates' heads during courtship. After the last queen died, we males took over and, in the name of self-preservation, tried to breed the females of our species out of existence. It wasn't such a good idea, I must admit. We needed to keep females in the gene pool, but we did manage to reduce your numbers. That is why there are relatively few of you around. We now raise our young in cloning factories, and thus are able to control the amount of females that come into this world. The system has worked very nicely since then. There are a few aberrations that pop up now and again, and you are one of them. Purple and I are not willing to step down in case you should become taller than the both of us. Our problem will be solved if you die where you are now. We will not be sending you any rescue ship."

"But . . . I don't want to replace you, I just want to prove that I can be a good invader!"

"Ha ha ha! Zim is an idiot, yet you failed to kill him. Doesn't that make you a bigger idiot? That alone would seem to preclude you from becoming an invader!" Tak's initial confusion turned to anger.

"Why you . . .!"

"Oh spare me your indignations, please!" he sneered, "Just be a good little soldier, and die for the sake of the Empire. From the looks of your surroundings, you probably won't last more than a week. Maybe if you conserve your energy, you could last a month!" Tak flew into a rage.

"I will survive this, and when I do, I'll come back and . . . and . . .EAT YOUR HEADS!" Tallest Red began to prance around like a little girl.

"Ooooo! You know, that has sexual overtones for our kind! I'm getting excited just thinking about it! We males can live quite awhile without our heads as we continue to . . . copulate!"

"I won't just eat your head, you sick bastard, I'll cut off your legs so you can't call yourselves 'tallest' anymore!" Red immediately lost his mocking attitude.

"What? What was that? What did you say? Threatening to eat my head is one thing, but threatening to cut off my legs? That is the greatest threat any Irken can make to their leaders! It is a crime punishable by immediate death, and your body will be impaled in the Great Hall of Conventia as an example of impudence! I guess we will be sending a ship to you after all, but it will be crewed by our finest assassins. Won't you please try and stay alive till then? They should arrive at your beacon in a week. Enjoy your last few days of existence." Transmission ended.

Tak sat there infuriated, but helpless, and smashed the console beacon with a rock. She had no weapons, and the escape pod did not have enough energy left to build a bomb to greet her future murderers.

The Martian sunset was well underway, and soon the temperature would drop to well below two hundred degrees Centigrade. She could survive the cold easily with her exo-suit, but what was the point. The killers would be here in seven days, and she would be taken back to Irk, dead or alive, and her body displayed in a most horrible fashion. She could try to hide, but without food, she would soon starve to death anyway. Besides, there was two inches of fine dust everywhere, and her tracks would be easy to follow. If only she had a jet pack. A jet pack! Of course! The escape pod used compressed gas for manuevering in space. Tak could rig up a small booster pack to get around without leaving tracks. From there she could search the cliff sides for a cave to take refuge. The assassins would eventually find her, but she wasn't going to just roll over and let them take her without a fight.

She quickly set about removing the air cylinders, and put a make-shift rocket pack together. It wasn't pretty, but the lower gravity of the planet would make it work without much difficulty. There wasn't enough fuel left on the pod to make a decent explosion, but there was something else she could use. The canopy had four charges to blow the retaining bolts holding it down in case of emergency, but the canopy dislodged itself when the pod crashed, so the charges were never utilized. With those she could fashion a primitive, but lethally effective, weapon.

Tak gathered what she needed into a bag, then left to find a sanctuary among the cliffs. It was a bad idea. With hardly any atmosphere to speak of, the setting sun began to cast enormous shadows across the Red planet's landscape, blacker than the starlit sky, reaching across the plains like great fingers of pitch. The Irken girl turned back towards her wrecked pod before it was too late.

In the distance she could see a massive gash in the planet's surface slowly fill with a shadow so thick and black, it looked like she could walk across it. Just as the sun reached it's lowest angle, she caught the gleam of polished metal off the side of the canyon wall. It flashed for an instant before being engulfed by the darkness. She noted the approximate direction and distance. It could wait. For now, she would spend another night in the pod. Tomorrow she would investigate.

The Assassins

Tallest Red summoned his killer elite together. "Bring her back, alive preferrably, in pieces if you must, but bring her back." The mission leader spoke up.

"We will do as you command, my Tallness, but isn't a female unworthy of all this effort?" Red glowered at him.

"You four have all sworn to follow your orders to the death without question. This 'female' is not to be taken lightly. She is a skilled fighter in her own right, and trained in the most rigorous of survival techniques. I would just as soon let her rot on that dead planet, but she has pronounced the most foul, despicable threat against your leaders, and must be brought back for punishment. To let her get away with it would be most disturbing indeed, . . . almost as disturbing as you questioning my orders!" he grinned malevolently. "Kill him. Then select another leader from among yourselves."

As soon as Red had spoken the words, three swords pierced the commander, silently, and without any hesitation. His body had not yet hit the floor, but his former comrades had already vanished, and were on their way to Tak. Tallest Purple entered the room just as the body collapsed to the ground.

"Did I miss something?" he chortled.

"Just doing my part for overpopulation!" Red replied.

End Chapter 1

A/N: I've always thought of the Irkens as insectoid, thereby the parallels with the praying mantis female, who often (but not always), devours her mate's head during mating.

There are probably some of you out there who will argue that Tallest Miyuki would be the last female leader, but Miyuki was set to appear on the episode titled "The Trial" which never aired because the series had already been cancelled. I don't believe she was mentioned in any episode prior to that, which essentially makes her non-canon.

The "great gash" in the planet's surface is a reference to the Valles Marineris, a somewhat mysterious, very large canyon-like beature on Mars, about six times deeper than the Grand Canyon, and nearly four thousand miles long. For you nit-pickers who want to point out that the Martian Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) are nowhere near the canyon, kudos to you!