A/N: The part about Vegeta in this preface is taken from the anime episodes about his trip in space to become SSJ. I will try to keep this story canon with the knowledge we have up to the end of the Freeza saga, but if I mess up you can tell me and I will try and correct it. I love reviews, even if they are flames or criticism. Reviews will get me writing sooner, but I will try not to post any chapter until I have already made specific progress on the next chapter. Also a quick warning, I might change the name of this story later so either leave your email in a review or remember my name rather than the story's name.
Title: Uncharted Territory
Preface: Beyond the Stars
By the time the word of the both King Cold and Prince Freeza's death reached the outermost planets of the Cold Empire, chaos had already ensued. With no clear heirs or great fighters to take the throne, bitter battles and wars were raged between the newly emancipated colonies.
A glimmer of hope rose as the Prince of Saiyans, Vegeta, returned to space after a disappearance of several months. However this hope was crushed when Vegeta, rather than consolidating forces to rebuild the empire, decided to lay waste to whatever remaining outposts and colonies he could find. After that no one heard of him again, but a rumor that he had become a Super Saiyan was sometimes mentioned.
The former members of the empire continued to wait for a ruler or group to take charge, but over two years had passed with only death and destruction to show for it. Entire races and planets disappeared overnight as countless atrocities were committed. Even the most distant planet in the empire, Cold Outpost 127A, also felt the backlash from the interplanetary battles.
They were a generally weak planet, made of only a few hundred inhabitants who were mostly non-fighters of various races, but their technology was sophisticated. Deciding that staying on the planet would mean certain death to them in the near future, they created twenty large ships to transport both the inhabitants and supplies they would need to start a new life on a new planet.
Data recovered from a probe sent almost a century ago into deep space gave them the location of their new home. They packed up their ships and secured themselves into hibernation chambers that would be their homes for the next three years in space.
All the ships took off but one, which stayed behind to set an overload in the power reactors they had built on the planet. A chain reaction was set for one hour, just enough time for the ship to take off and leave the blast range. The plan was going smoothly until the final ship, just now leaving the planet's gravitational pull, detected the approach of several rogue warships on sensors.
Knowing that none of their own ships could match the firepower of a warship, the leader of the final ship, a Saiyan known as Pepper, sent the other passengers on his ship into escape pods that would be immediately picked up by one of the other nineteen ships. Pepper then set course directly for the main power reactor on the planet.
Moments before impact, Pepper abandoned the ship and flew as far away as possible. The resulting explosion shook then entire planet, enough so that the planet itself started losing integrity. Within half an hour, he and the planet would be scattered across this region of space. Unfortunately, he knew it would most likely not be soon enough to stop the destruction of the rest of the ships.
Pepper's own power was not great enough to destroy the ships or the planet, but it might be if he could transform into his Oozuru state. Firing up a moon ball, he felt the transformation take place for the first time in years.
His focus on the safety of his friends and family kept him sane as he powered up a large energy blast in his mouth. At just the right moment, the giant ape released the blast directly down at the planet.
The result was almost immediate as the destructive force of the blast, in conjunction with the unstable reactor core, caused the planet to explode. Debris slammed into warship and created a large obstacle between them and the transport ships. Pepper's last sight was the disappearance of these ships into deep space and into a new future.
And Time Passed…
PS: I have already written the first and most of the second chapter. I will post both sometime in the next week or so. Please review!!!