Lost

The Mendigo

The Hothian Base, that night...

"I must say, I'm impressed," Iraa had said upon seeing how 'well-behaved' they were in comparison to the 'last ones'. "And given I have an even... better leverage, you can have your egg back."

Ever since the egg was constantly changing in hands between Masouri, Foxtrot, and Echo. The Irkens and Dib would wonder why they were so zealous about it; sure, it was the offspring of an Indokuro, perhaps the best hybrekt ever designed (as the kryvtors put it). In fact, Larb had been tempted to steal it a few times already, but he never got the chance.

On the other hand, some more 'productive' individuals, such as Tenn, were more interested in learning just who these 'Hothian' people were. They hadn't learned much other than they seemed to be desperate to get off this planet. So she decided to employ her 'stealth skills' to steal a journal or something. Surely these guys must have something like that, right?

The chance arrived that night. Four guards armed with somewhat-primitive spears (seriously, they have a seemingly fully-functional base and they used cavemen sticks as weapons?) came to them and started leading them back to their cell. Tenn spotted what seemed to be a tablet of some sorts hidden amongst a guard's layers of clothing. She made sure to be close to that one as she pretended to trip; like she predicted the impatient fella took her by the arm and dragged her quickly to catch up with the others, the moment she took advantage of to silently slide the tablet out of his pocket and underneath her uniform.

When she was shoved inside the windowless cell again and the door closed shut, Tenn waited for a few more minutes until she was certain they were truly gone before taking the tablet out, to the delight of the others. It lasted only for a few seconds, however; the damn thing had a password.

"On the bright side, if it has a password it must mean it's got pretty important stuff, right?" Stink pointed out, trying to lift the mood up a bit.

"How are we supposed to figure out the password of somebody we don't know who happens to speak another language!"

"I thought you said your PAKs were not working because of the famous virus the Sobrekt used on them." Dib pointed out.

"Actually, the virus doesn't affect the PAK's universal translator," Foxtrot explained with a yawn followed by some coughing. He was laying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. "It would be a nightmare to communicate."

"But we have never encountered these guys before, so their language, whatever it's called, is not in the databases," Purple added bitterly. He snatched the datapad from Tenn and took a good look at it. He noticed it didn't seem to have a camera, meaning it was probably an old model, at least by this species' standards. Who knows, the only known information about 'Hothians' was that their equipment DID work for a yet unexplained reason. Irk, if only Red were here, he was an ace at hacking stuff.

Wait a minute, wasn't the Dib-hyooman good at that too? He must be if he could keep up with an Irken even if said Irken was Zim. "Hey, you."

"My name is Dib, for the hundredth time."

"Whatever, think you could hack into this thing? I'll give you a donut."

Did he really think a simple donut was worth that much? Then again, Dib didn't get to eat much than half a hot-dog; the other half was eaten by Echo when he offered her a try. "Okay, let me take a look." He was given the pad and he started pressing buttons. Bless Tak's ship, he had been able to learn quite a few alien languages in his spare time. It took him a bit longer than usual because he wasn't used to this one in particular, but eventually, he overrode the password, and to get some extra points he changed the language setting to English. "Done."