The Smeet

The Attack

Things were going so smoothly it put both Tallest in a good mood. Operation Impending Doom II was being a success, half of the planets marked for conquest had already been claimed and repurposed and Zim was still faraway on exile in Earth; currently, though, after tasting so many tasty pastries and snacks unique to that backwater planet they were actually considering marking it for conquest and turning it into a bakery/zoo mixture (the latter was because Purple was intrigued about Earth's fauna after so many movies).

Then there was little Ilk. For a five-year-old smeet she was quite tall, no doubt thanks to her father's genes; the tip of her antennae reached her father's knees. Since she wasn't done growing yet (and wasn't considered a full Irken yet due to being underage), her height was not yet taken into account, but her blood relation to Tallest Red was.

She somehow managed to sneak out of her room-even though it was half-an-hour past her curfew-and go into the mostly-empty cafeteria. She silently opened the door to go into the kitchen, walked towards the fridge and slid it open to find some doughnuts.

"Isn't it a bit too late for you to be outside your bed, young lady?"

Ilk jumped back in fright, allowing the door to close again, and froze when Purple stepped out of the shadows, snacking on a bag of doughnuts himself.

"Huh, I was just..." Ilk tried to think of a good excuse for being out that late.

"And if I recall correctly, your dad said you couldn't eat any sugar past that curfew either, am I right?" Purple continued, his face serious.

"Umm..." Out of options, Ilk did the only thing she could think of at the moment; she placed her hands behind her back, lowered her antennae and tried to give the most angelical look she could muster.

What? It worked with Bob and Skoodge.

Purple stared at his niece for a few seconds before sighing and opening the door of the fridge again. "You can grab one, then you go straight back to your room. Oh, and not a word of this to your daddy, okay?" Purple grinned.

Ilk's eyes lit up and she nodded eagerly.

With the whole issue cleared up, Purple gave her some affectionate pats on the head before leaving the kitchen and going back to the control room, where his co-tallest looked like he had been waiting for him for a good while now.

"What took you so long?" Red inquired, mildly irritated.

"It's hard to find the doughnuts without somebody to tell me where they are." Purple half-lied, omitting the part about Ilk being there to steal one herself.

"Right..." Red narrowed his eyes, not believing him. It's Purple they were talking about, he could find a doughnut with a blindfold on in the middle of a battlefield. He sighed. "Ilk went to steal another doughnut, didn't she?"

After being caught, Purple got on the defensive. "Come on, it's just a doughnut!"

"You talk much considering the last time she had a sugar rush was because you left the bag near her crib."

"Cinnamon rolls!"

Red rolled his eyes again and a doughnut from his own bag.

One of the navigators caught something moving in the radar; after pressing a few buttons, he managed to identify it: it was another ship, not as large as the Massive, but it was very big. "My Tallest, a vessel of unknown origin is coming closer towards us."

"A vessel?" Red inquired.

"Oh, please don't tell me it's the 'Resisty'," Purple said, uttering the name with disgust. "Stupid name."