Hi, this is your ancient friend Kuree. Ive been writing here on since February of 2001. "Gypsy" is the only story that I am revisiting and finishing. I think there is a lot of room for character development and a fun story here. I hope you enjoy it and if you have time, re-read the chapters, as I am posting up different versions. Thank you for your patience, and please review me on anything that seems far fetched, or unbelievable, etc etc.
The ship lurched forward as it tended to do in the outer reaches of space, when the very nothing-ness of the universe seemed to push against the walls of Pan's battered ship, The Gypsy. She jerked awake, casting a weary eye towards the control center window. Vast blackness stretched across the glass, sprinkled by billions upon billions of streaming stars.
She picked one out, among the trillions.
'Hey motherfucking star I see tonight. How about a wish? Get me somewhere. I don't even care where. Just get me somewhere.'
She propped her buckled black boots onto the dashboard, carefully avoiding buttons on the control panel. Half-lidded, she continued to gaze at the sparkling balls of gas that had once seemed so amazing to her. She was becoming cynical at the prospect of floating through the reaches of space alone for another month.
Her ship was her home. Earth was a fading memory...pictures played in her head that she cared not to remember. Things had changed. People were dead, other separated...the world was not the cotton candy pink she had envisioned as a child. She hadn't even seen the Earth in 7 years…7 years of change and growth.
Her grandfather had been gone for ages...her parents were divorced, although her mother was dead now. She had felt her ki slip off into the oblivion about 2 years ago. At the time she had been unable to even grieve her mother's passing, and now it was a sore subject, that even in her alone time she tried not to think about.
She was sure that Bulma and Vegeta were divorced, although they probably weren't even legally, in human terms, married to begin with. In fact, Vegeta had taken off when she was about 16, right off into the vastness of space. It almost seemed too typical for the old bastard. He had trained her some, and she had an odd affection for him. He had always pushed her one step further than her father ever would, and she never held back. Pan had no delusions and knew he would kick her ass if she didn't give her best. She respected him, but the one she had loved was Trunks.
She had loved him so long that at times she could remember nothing else. The wounds she got from fighting had been wrapped by his hands when she was a teenager, and the scrapes on her knees were kissed by his lips when she was a child. He had been the hero on the back of the cereal box to her, and it was almost surreal the way she had adored him.
She had watched him, silent through the years. She had watched through the long spikes of black hair that she hadn't really cut in 4 or 5 years, 'cuz that's the way 'he' liked it best. Even when he told her he loved her and she was the best friend he'd ever had, she just watched. Breaking. With a sneer directed to her former self, she cursed her past weaknesses and then picked up a battered sketchbook from the floor.
Pages upon pages of images, people, star maps, alien anatomy, and the scenes from hundreds of planets filled it. All the people she ever met along her journeys were sketched in this book. She drew them so she wouldn't forget. Anything she found she took note of...
She sighed and leaned back into her pilot chair. She fiddled with her black suit, eyes floating over the many patches and medals...gifts, from the rulers of planets. At 25 she was currently the youngest freelance fighter in space, and certainly among a handful of female ones. She made her money winning universal competitions, and the occasional assassination. She had fought in many, many wars, even the 4 Year War of Acantha. She was known by the graceful and deadly way in which she fought, and the name they called her by was Saiyajin. In space, she had no need for her human lineage. She was a Saiyajin.
She wore the traditional battle gear of a Saiyajin female, before Frieza had taken control of their race. It was an original battle suit; she had stolen it from a private collector who had made a large profit after the destruction of Vegetasei. It protected her like armor, except without the weight. It was constructed out of the leather-like hide of an animal now extinct, which had only lived on Vegetasei. It was jet black with the red emblem of the house of Vegetasei blazoned on the top. Someone important had once worn this suit. It was her pride, her history. Anyone who managed to make a mark on it, died.
A high-pitched noise startled Pan out of her musing. She immediately sat up straight and swiveled her chair toward the massive communications panel. "Computer, on screen." She commanded, and an image bounced up, filling the entire ship window.
"Well fuck, yer a sight, Saiyajin." The sharp toothed grin of a slightly humanoid figure appeared on the communications window. Pan's face immediately spread into a smirk.
"Anathea, how did you fix onto my signal?" Pan asked her companion in crime, an Acanthian female. She had been under Pan's command during the War Of Acantha, and had remained friends. She owned a port in the Western region, and whenever she was in the neighborhood, Pan stopped by for a drink and to switch a few battle stories, old and new.
"I've been keeping track a you since you left that Boron spaceport. News was all over town when you showed up." Anathea grinned another toothy grin. Her eHerAcanthian accent was crazy, reminding Pan of a half British, half Spanish sound, if you could imagine such a thing.
Pan grimaced. She liked to keep a low profile for the most part. After all, old allies to Frieza were out there, many of who still held grudges against Saiyajin, and many who just had grudges against her.
"Yeah, I fuckin' know, I had to pick up some parts and that's the only place that was convenient to get them. I had a whole pack of Naiden hunters tracking me. Stupid pigs."
Anathea chuckled.
"You know, Saiyajin, could be because, oh, i dont know, that little "fling" you had with their Prince a few months ago." Anathea said sarcastically, bringing up one of Pan's escapades.
Pan turned red and growled. "What can I say, he threw himself at me. You can't rape the willing." She lazily ran her hands through her hair. None of it was past ear length. She never stayed long with one man. Not that she was a whore or anything, she just hadn't yet found what she wanted in a permanent mate. She always felt disconnected from them, and then left, off to another journey. "So why call me now?" Pan asked, propping her face up with her hand.
Anathea twitched her dog-like ears lazily. She had a face more human than wolf, and a set of strikingly blue eyes. "There have been rumors..." Anathea started. "Seems people have been reporting another Saiyajin lurking abut the galaxy."
Pan lifted an eyebrow with semi-interest. The Acanthian people weren't a race to gossip for the hell of it. They had an extreme amount of honor and loyalty when it came to the protection of their own kind and their friends. So, while Pan may have had rank over Anathea in the War, Anathea was more like a big sister to Pan, even though she participated more than once as her partner in crime.
"Male or female?" Pan asked. Anathea shrugged her blue eyebrows. "I dont know. Methrail, my brother told me in Acanthian. We have no gender words..."
Pan was fluent in quite a few of the major languages of the Universe, including Acanthian, which she had learned during the War. She had even learned a good amount of Saiyajin by an elderly Erinyes woman. Her race had a very long lifespan, and when Pan had met her she was going on 400. Unfortunately, her race didn't survive the wrath of Frieza. The elder had learned Saiyajin when she had been about 20 years old and worked on Vegetasei as a bondservant...380 years ago. As a result, Pan had learned a form of Saiyajin that was poetic, more refined. She had learned the flowing Saiyajin of the court women and the royalty of Vegetasei...
"...you listening to me?" The rough voice of Anathea cut through Pan's musings. She shook her head and sat up straighter. "Uh, sorry Ana...just thinking..."
Anathea sighed and relayed her message again. "I've got to go, but where are you planning to be within the next couple of days?"
Pan looked at her quizzically. "Shit, I dont know. My engines are pissing out on me, and my Nav system is pretending to be all amnesiac. Im just drifting...I dont even know where the fuck I am, all these star formations look odd to me." She bit her lip, pride a little sinking to have to admit these things. Usually she was very intune with her ship. It was made out of bio-mechanical parts from all the systems of the galaxy...parts of her ship were alive, and more ancient than she would probably grasp. After all, she sailed the winds of the galaxy with the blessings of many races, and their ancestors. Spirits lived in the walls of her ship.
Anathea shook her head. Her people had ordinary bolt and screw ships, simply engine, metal, nothing else. She found these so called "spirit- ships" rather annoying and felt Pan shouldn't place so much trust in the ancients of the Universe. 'They are dead.' she though, 'How lucky could they be?'
Anathea tapped rapidly on her ship's main control."I've got a lock on you, your near the 34th sector in the Eastern region...What are you doing near Vegetasei?" Her eyebrows lifted.
"What?" Pan asked.
"You are about a day's travel away from the ruins of Vegetasei. Damn, hahaha. You're basically in a dead zone." Anathea stated. "Half of those planets aren't even inhabited now..."
Pan cursed in some random language beneath her breath. What if her engines were to fail permanently? She did of course have backup power but it would only get her so far. Lately her ship had been acting crazy, seemingly with a mind of it's own, which was a vast understatement, Pan knew. It DID have a mind of its own. It was like it was taking her where IT wanted her to go. As soon as her hormones changed, so did the ships. It was like living with another female. Pan and her ship were very much in sync with each other. Pan found it funny that if there were any problems on her eclectic ship, it was from the parts that were strictly mechanical, with no living components.
"How in the hell did you get out there? Where were you headed? It seems very unlikely you would get out there by chance..." Anathea said slowly, daring Pan to deny it.
Pan, looking steadily at her replied "I don't know where I was going. I told the computer to set a course and I entered about 50 planets to choose from, randomly." She shrugged. "I only put Vegetasei in there for the hell of it..." Pan didn't mention she had also entered Earth as a possible choice. Earth was like her open wound...it festered when she chose to remember it. 'Stupid ship!' she said in her head, and imagined the ship puffing out like a cat with indignation. 'You're doing this shit on purpose!'
Anathea looked at her skeptically, and rubbed a belly that Pan hadn't even noticed before.
"Jesus Christ Ana, are you pregnant?" Pan asked, voice almost squeaking as she looked at her semi swollen belly.
Anathea turned red and clearly avoided the subject. Pan wasn't sure how that had happened but it amused her none the less.
Ana would not be swayed into talking. "I told you I have to go!" Her old friend went on, "We will talk later okay? I am keeping track of you. Should your ship fail I have people on watch to come get you. 'Hma se garr, Saiyajin." She said a traditional go in peace farewell of her people, the screen flickered, and then Pan was once again alone in space. Save her neurotic ship.
Pan yawned, thinking mildly on the gossip over the drifting Saiyajin. Briefly she toyed with the thought that the other Saiyajin could be Vegeta, the old bastard himself, but knew it wasn't possible. Vegeta had disappeared on purpose and he wouldn't blow his silence come hell or high water. He was somewhere, she decided, undercover. Most likely training on his quest for power...even after all this time.
She did think that another Saiyajin could be out there...the universe was an unending place. With a pang of loneliness, something that she never usually felt, she wished she was with her old friends...old loves.
Feh. Love is meaningless.
She whispered to her ship, "Gypsy, please go to auto-pilot..." As an afterthought she added, "And no funny shit this time!" Then she curled into a ball in her huge control chair, tail wrapped around her thigh, and wished for dreams.
Like her wish earlier to the stars to take her somewhere, anywhere...
she should have been more specific.
