Chapter 1 - Birth of the 'Perfect' Assassin

“It wasn’t easy…” he said, “but here it is, I got it just like you asked.”
Two Irkens stood around the table, one was an incredibly short female Irken, and a scientific genius, if not somewhat mad, perhaps the Irken equivalent of a Dr. Frankenstein. The other Irken was about twice as tall- though that’s not very tall either. She specializes in mechanics, machines, gadgets and gizmos of all sorts, and is very well educated in anything having to do with computers or other such technology.
The taller Irken handed a small half sphere package to the shorter one.
“I don’t intend to get deeply involved with this, you know what will happen if we get caught,” she said as the smaller Irken removed the wrapping of the item.
“I know, but only if something goes wrong… but nothing is going to go wrong, not since we have the right material this time…” the shorter Irken said holing the half sphere object in the light for close examination. She grinned.
The thing she held was a Pak, a special thing that allowed Irkens to live, but not just any Pak, this was the long dead Pak of a very famous Tallest. The one who brought the empire to power, that caused the Irken race to become one of the strongest races in the universe. All the wisdom and intelligence of the first great Tallest, all of it, contained in one little Pak, for a Pak was not only a life support system but it kept careful record of each Irken, holding all their thoughts and memories. Since Paks are often reused these memories are passed from Irken to Irken, though there are a few exceptions in which a Pak becomes Corrupt and should not be reused.
Sadly enough she had the perfect example of that. You see, Ziffae- the short Irken scientist- had always had this great idea, a way to revolutionize the Empire, something that would make the Irken race untouchable, but no one would hear out her Idea. She wanted to use the genes of fellow Irkens to engineer Irken Smeets that would grow to specialize in one or two jobs each, for example- stronger soldiers, smarter scientists, more tactful leaders- all these things she thought could be accomplished with her help.
Unfortunately, the first experiment she ran, she had no support and thus had a hard time accessing the proper supplies needed for such a thing to happen, and the first experiment died. The gene matching pattern wasn’t quite right yet. She worked for years and year, having many experiments die for multiple reasons, and some reasons she couldn’t quite figure out. That was when she met Ci. Ci recognized the problem immediately, dead Paks, old and discarded ones that no longer functioned. Unable to get her hands on a fresher, more desirable Pak, Ziffae was desperate and hired Ci to she if she could, in a way, ‘reanimate’ one of the non-operational Paks. Years and years of tinkering finally saw one Pak reanimated, but they had no clue who it had formerly belonged to, or why it was dead, they just wanted to see all the work come together. By this time Ziffae had the gene matcher down, though because of the limits, she also had a limited supply of genes for this.
Finally, they put everything into action, and tried to animate one of the Smeets Ziffae had created, and on August the thirteenth the first living Irken experiment took its first breath. They regretted it though. They gave it a thorough examination, discovering something they hadn’t thought of before, the Pak was dead for a reason.
It’s eyes were Dull and grey with no shine in them at all- characteristics of a dead Irken. One of it’s antenna was curled, a common trait for girls, and the other antenna was crooked, bent like a boy’s would be. Apparently it came with a name as well, for the first two days it was alive it would seem to do nothing but croak in this rough annoying, yet rather shrill voice, “I is Foozy, who you?”
Ci wanted to shut the experiment down by week two after ‘Foozy’ had successfully managed to crawl inside the computer screen and hide there while chewing on some of the wires, but Ziffae wouldn’t allow it. She said Foozy’s behavior was interesting, an chance for her to learn what the genes had created, and to see the effects of a fully dysfunctional Pak. A week later Ci couldn’t help but bring it up again, though this time Foozy had somehow managed to successfully bite off her own arm and not bleed to death, in fact, Ziffae took notes, Foozy didn’t seem to bleed much at all. Perhaps instead of managing to create a completely failed experiment Ziffae had managed to create the perfect Berserk. Foozy was incredibly strong, and didn’t bleed easily, though it seemed to have the brain of… well… nothing…
Ziffae secretly regretted Foozy’s creation, it was hard to keep her under the radar, and she was very difficult to take care of, and yet, Foozy was a greater help than any perfect experiment could have been.
Since then Ziffae had other creations, after searching around and finding functional Paks, and finding genes that would make a more stable Irkens. Several more had survived, and she was proud of each of them, but it wasn’t enough. They were all good but she wanted to truly test how perfect she could make one of her ‘children’ as she had come to call them. She spent day, and soon weeks, eventually months, to the point of years, examining and cross examining each little gene, studying it’s effect, what it did, what traits it held, until she finally found what she wanted. The genes for the perfect Assassin. Assassins had to be strong in every way, mentally, physically, and intellectually, making it the perfect challenge for the ‘perfect’ Irken experiment.

This had been one of her greatest dreams, and she had the perfect specimen to attach the perfect Pak to, nothing could go wrong. Ziffae even already had a name picked out. She wanted to call him Czei, a sort of acronym for Ci and Ziffae’s Experimental Irken. Everything was going according to plan. She gingerly placed the Pak in the machine and started it up. Fluid flowed through the tube her ‘perfect’ Irken Smeet was held in, and she watched in suspense a the Pak permanently rooted itself onto the babes back. The Smeet came through the long series of tubes, finally stopping in a open tube where it floated there at the top. Just born and the Smeet was already the size of the Irken who gave her life. Ziffae rushed over to the open tube and gently placed her hand on the Smeet’s head.
It’s eyes snapped open, revealing something she hadn’t planned for. Her Irken had a tri color- one red eye, and one with blue and purple. The Smeet sat up.
“Welcome to the land of the living Czei,” Ziffae said warmly to the new Smeet.
“Wrong,” the Smeet responded. The voice was smooth and feminine… it was a girl! “This is a reanimation, I’m not ‘alive’ so don’t treat me like I’m stupid, and my name is Zech.”
Ziffae stood in shock. Her perfect assassin… turned out to be female? She had examined each gene ten times over at the least! How could this have happened? It was supposed to be male! She had wanted so much for her Assassin to take after the great Tallest whose Pak she now had.
The new Smeet waited patiently in the tube, sitting there in the birthing fluid, staring at Ziffae with cold emotionless eyes.
“Why do you think your name is Zech?” Ziffae said, “I created you! I brought you to life, there for I am to be the one who titles you.”
The Smeet blinked once and waited, then responded, “The Pak chooses the name, and it tells me I am Zech.”
Ziffae blinked with shock again, ‘Zech’ was keener than she thought she would be. “Well then, Zech it is. Come with me, we’ll get you some clothes and something to eat.” She paused and helped the new Smeet out of the tube then walked off to find some clothes for the new born Irken girl to cover herself with.
Zech stood there, and scratched at the skin where the Pak had attached its self, and trailed her hand along the bottom of the cold metal. She felt small words engraved on the Pak.
“Zanamech,” she whispered to herself, “I remember it now.” Zech grinned.
“Looks like I cheated death after all… Tallest Z is back...”

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