Chapter 1

 

The Saiyan's eyes were open again.

He had opened them several times the last few days; perhaps he was finally coming out of it. Bulma sat next to the bed, eyeing him warily. Was it time to try and contact Goku? "How are you today?" she asked, not particularly caring but feeling it was her duty to inquire.

His heavy brows pulled together as he stared at her in puzzlement. Did he suddenly not speak the language? He spoke it fine two weeks ago when he showed up at Master Roshi's and kidnapped little Gohan. But he closed his eyes again and the machines, when she glanced at them, indicated he was once more unconscious.

A human would have been dead, of course, after having a hole the size of two fists blown through his chest. Even this alien would have died, she thought. But Goku would not let Piccolo finish the Saiyan off, and he claimed to be afraid of what might happen at a medical facility. So he brought the alien here, to the Capsule Corporation, and pleaded with Bulma to use her company's computers and technical know-how to try and save the Saiyan.

"He said he was my brother." Goku turned the puppy-dog eyes on her, all the more effective because he had no idea he was doing it. "He said so many things, Bulma! I have to know."

And she, although she shrieked and grumbled about how Goku never cared what kind of danger he got everyone around him into, had of course agreed, because she looked at the young man and saw that strange, half-wild child she first met out in the wilderness nearly a dozen years earlier. She never really had been able to say 'no' to that child. Screamed it a few times in the face of certain doom during the course of their adventures, sure; but actually denying Goku something he really, really wanted was beyond her.

And then he raced off again because Piccolo had inexplicably taken Gohan, leaving Bulma with the sour thought that at least some one else was doing hostage duty these days and a very, very dangerous being she half-hoped wouldn't recover from his injuries. Typical Goku. She didn't know how Chi-chi put up with him.

Sighing, she got the medical log and began to enter the day's notes. The alien's recuperative powers were amazing, she would give him that. He lost chunks of ribs and most of a lung to Piccolo's killing ki strike. Amazingly the organ was slowly regenerating, as were other tissues and muscles. She measured the wound, noted it was a centimeter less in diameter today from the last measurement, and dressed it again. Checking and double checking that every alarm possible was in place and that the sentry robots were armed, she left the room. Her father would be by soon to take a watch; he was fascinated by the alien, of course, as he was fascinated by everything. In fact, the Saiyan really owed his life to Dr. Briefs. The machines keeping him alive were contraptions quickly cobbled together by her father from early medical inventions of his.

Bulma, although she could bandage a wound and even extract a bullet if she had to, didn't know enough biology to invent medical equipment. However, if there was a car that needed modification, she did it. If there was a tricky product that required special encapsulation, she did it. And if there was an alien energy-detecting device — she grinned to herself as she let herself into her workroom — she got first dibs on it.

Walking over to the table, she propped her head on her palms and stared at the deceptively-simple device there. It looked like nothing so much as one half of a headset someone mischievously pasted a green lens onto. She might have gotten it into functioning order sooner, but she was so terrified of what the Saiyan might do at first she would not leave him alone. She found an hour here and there to work on it during the past week. Last night it had popped on for a few seconds, giving her hope that she had finally worked out the power source connections.

"Tonight's the night," she told it cheerfully. "Tonight I get you to work."

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They lost a week on the planet Wakusei. Not that it was an especially difficult planet to purge, but the relay transmitter suddenly decided to be faulty and it took a while before someone figured out where to kick the thing to get it working again. We really need to start carrying some of the more technically-minded slaves on these ships, Zarbon thought. There is nothing more useless than a bunch of Saiyans standing around trying to fix something!

The inrush of messages once the transmitter came back online took another two days to sort through. There were literally dozens from the King alone demanding to know the status of the Heir. Vegeta rolled his eyes and disappeared into his quarters, undoubtedly to have one of those barbed do-you-really-want-me-to-come-home-and-kill-you conversations both men seemed to thrive on. Zarbon had long ago decided Saiyan familial relations were beyond his understanding.

And there was a terse message from Sashoki. "I know you're alive, baka. Call me or you won't be much longer." Grinning, Zarbon went into his own quarters and waited patiently while the irate communications officer on Vejiitasei — apparently there had been problems planetside as well — tracked her down for him.

"Baka," was her greeting when the screen in his room flickered on. "Where the hell have you been?"

"We're still on Wakusei. The ship got caught in an energy backlash and communications were down. We almost had to abort the mission and come back. After Vegeta killed half-a-dozen techs someone figured out how to get the thing to work again."

She gave one of those characteristic Saiyan snorts, the one that cursed all technology to hell and back. Zarbon grinned at her and lifted his hand so she could see his fingernails. "All was not lost. I had time to try out a new color. What d'you think?"

Another snort, this one of the all-aliens-are-cracked variety. "You are so weird."

Zarbon raised an eyebrow. "And that says what about you, exactly?"

Sashoki ignored that. "I've got something for you." Her tone was strangely diffident, very non-Saiyan. "They weren't quite sure what to do with it because everyone who might care is off planet, so they left it with me."

"And 'it' is...?"

"A series of transmissions from Radditz's scouter."

Zarbon, admiring his new nail color, let his hand drop and looked at her without expression. He knew "transmissions" weren't usually released unless they were final ones. "He's on Chikyuu, isn't he? We're on our way there. We would have been there by now if not for this."

"Something went wrong."

"I gathered that much. What?"

"I'm not sure. They were rather scrambled, and, anyway, I didn't want to listen to them. I hated that jerk."

She was using the past tense. Zarbon went very still, looking at her with eyes that were suddenly hard. "Where's Bardock?"

"On a mission. He doesn't know yet." She said, an edge to her voice, "Do you want them? I got clearance for you to listen to them."

One blue hand closed into a fist. "Yes," he said, then, more gently, "thank you." Even after an oath of fealty and fifteen years of service, it was not easy for Zarbon to get 'clearance' for anything outside of his carefully-defined duties. Vegeta usually had to intervene directly, and since the Prince took out his payment in flesh during practice sessions, Zarbon avoided asking for anything directly. "I owe you."

"I'm the one in debt to you."

He smiled at that, but without humor. "There's no debt between us, Sashoki. There never was."

"There is as long as I say there is."

"Whatever," he sighed. "Code them for my eyes only, okay? I don't want some third class yahoo in communications..." He stopped. I don't want some third class yahoo getting his jollies out of Radditz's death, he almost said, but it didn't feel real to him. Not yet.

"Right." She looked at him with carefully-concealed concern in her dark eyes. "Chikyuu must be more dangerous than anyone thought. Take good care of the Prince."

She would never be able to express direct concern for him, but he had been dealing with the Saiyans — and her — for years now and he could sometimes read the emotions they didn't want to admit existed. "Vegeta's safe with me around," Zarbon told her, his smile a bit more relaxed.

Another snort. "Poor guy. Doesn't know what he's missing." She nodded and the screen blinked out.

Zarbon grimaced. I love you, too, he thought wryly.

_________________________________________________________

The exchange of bitter insults ended with the King coldly stating that the Prince had hardly been on Vejiitasei since he came of age, so to expect him to act like a true Saiyan was futile. Vegeta was about to comment that he could just become King and decree what made a "true" Saiyan when the communication cut off. Coward can't even take an insult, Vegeta thought in annoyance. He is going to be no sport at all when it's time to kill him. Of course, that time was still several decades off. It would be thirty years before Vegeta would enter his prime as a warrior, and he did not want to be stuck on Vejiitasei until well after that.

Although why couldn't the King go off world? It wasn't that long ago that his father said the Heir would never leave the planet again. Stopping the Heir when he wanted to go off world, though, proved problematic. The King ordered Zarbon to restrain Vegeta; Zarbon looked at the King with those ridiculous eyebrows of his raised as far as they would go and said, in that cool respectful tone, "Sire, my oath of fealty was given to Vegeta. Unless he tells me he needs to be restrained, I can't do anything without becoming an oathbreaker."

Vegeta almost had given the order just to force Zarbon into another no-holds-barred match. But he didn't want to kill the only entity in his sector of the galaxy that could still give him a decent contest, so he settled for staring haughtily at his father as he took off in the one-man scouter.

After that the King relented, albeit he insisted that Vegeta go on a battleship and take a host of warriors of every class with him. He even occasionally came up with missions for his son, as he had this time. Although tracking down lost infants was not Vegeta's idea of fun, there was occasionally a good reason the infants became lost in the first place and some of the battles had been worth while. The last several planets were just routine purging missions, however, and Vegeta's thoughts of his father were even less charitable than usual.

He was too unsettled to meditate. Even though it was the middle of the night ship-time, Vegeta decided the only way to contain his irritation at his father was a good training session. He hated the small chamber attached to the royal quarters; checking the computer, he saw that the training area for the soldiers on his level was empty and headed for it. Night guards snapped to attention as he strode by; he inclined his head (barely) at male ones he recognized, but as always ignored female ones. He knew perfectly well his aloofness sparked rumors about his personal preferences that were none of anyone's business, but he didn't have time for the complications even glancing at a female guard could bring.

One of which, he thought wryly as he entered the training room, leaving instructions with the guards there that he was not to be disturbed, was that he didn't want to have a full-out confrontation with Zarbon on the ship. He could defeat Zarbon now, no problem, but the ship wasn't shielded for that sort of energy release and explosive decompression was not how he would chose to die.

He had never given any thought to his conduct around the occasional female warrior who cropped up in the palace until an incident a few years earlier. He stopped to talk to one of the off world soldiers about an emblem on her shoulder plate he never noticed before; turned out she had taken it off some official on the last world her squad purged, liked it and kept it. She offered it to him, reluctantly, but Vegeta grinned, shook his head, and kept going.

The fireworks started about two hours later; some fool who noticed the Prince smiling at her mentioned it to someone, who mentioned it to someone else and before anyone involved knew what was going on the King sent some of his personal guards to have her "prepped" for concubine duty. The ruckus raised when she objected brought Zarbon into the fray since it was fairly close to Vegeta's quarters. By the time Vegeta got there to demand what the HELL was going on half his father's guards were dead and Zarbon was in his transformed state (and, thought Vegeta as he finished his stretches and started the first of a few thousand push-ups, in an absolutely awesome emotional state as well, the likes of which no Saiyan could hope to obtain), powered up to the max, sparking with an energy aura that cracked the palace's fine marble walls as he snarled no one was going to dragged off to a harem and de-sexed against their will while he was standing. It was something Zarbon seemed to take very, very personally.

Although Vegeta didn't care one way or another about either the female or Zarbon's peculiar reaction to the situation, he did care about having his privacy invaded. He stormed into the throne room, shouting at his father that he would pick his own concubines, thankyouverymuch. His father looked down his nose and remarked that as far as he could tell his son wasn't having anything to do with any of the current concubines, although if the alien were enough for him, well, the chromosome counts were all wrong so it didn't really matter anyway...

It almost came to the fatal final confrontation right there, but Vegeta, thinking his off world jaunts would come to a summary halt once he became King, used every technique Zarbon ever taught him to calm down and walked out coldly stating that his sexual requirements were none of his father's concern.

And Zarbon came out of it with something totally unexpected, thought Vegeta, grinning, as he continued his push-ups. About a week later the female slapped her gloves across Radditz's face, challenging him for Zarbon's attentions. The look of sheer astonishment on Zarbon's face had been priceless. Radditz relinquished any claim he had on Zarbon with a shrug — Vegeta never could figure out the relationship between those two, not that he expended any energy wondering about it — and whatever arrangements Zarbon eventually came to with the soldier didn't interfere with his duties so the Prince ignored them.

It was odd, thought Vegeta on a tangent, that they hadn't heard from Radditz. There was a huge backlog of messages due to the transmitter failure, of course, but Radditz should have made planetfall well before the machine betrayed them. That would make two Saiyans that Chikyuu had claimed — and, thirty-year-old scouting reports to the contrary, any planet that destroyed two Saiyans was bound to be interesting.

And Chikyuu had a moon. A perfect one. Although ten thousand push-ups or so were adequate for containing his annoyance with his father, going oozaru on a world capable of claiming Saiyan lives would go a long way toward making this entire mission worth while.

_________________________________________________________

"Gotcha," said Bulma happily, grinning at the device. It had taken all night and the sort of patience she only reserved for mechanical problems, but she finally tweaked whatever needed to be tweaked just right and was getting alien symbols meaning who-knew-what scrolling across the eyepiece. She stretched her hands over her head, ordered one of the service robots to go for coffee and prepared to spend the day making the contraption use symbols she could understand.