Summary: Gine has been on Earth for almost as long as her son has. Unfortunately, neither is aware of the other due to the humans who strive to prevent a reunion from occurring. The organization posing as Area 51 keeps the amnesiac mother to our hero under lock and key for purposes unknown. When Raditz arrives seeking to recruit her younger brother, it is amidst a human conspiracy involving Goku and his super powered friends. Through all of it, there is one man who stands torn between his loyalty to the human race and doing the right thing.

The Veil

Prologue

October 12th, Age 761

Kobo Rend rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with his left hand before checking the time on his wrist watch again. Its digital display read 5:09am. That meant he wasn't still dreaming. The bullet train actually was running late.

A particularly frigid gust of wind blew across the thinly populated loading platform and shocked him into a moment of near full alertness. Even through his thick khakis and padded trench coat, the wind chill still bit at him like a rabid dog. He flipped up his collar to shield his face a little.

Had he known the train was gonna be this late, he wouldn't have skipped stopping at the cafe on his apartment building's ground floor. A hot cup would've done him more good than just the obvious warming of his mouth and hands, though. The concentrated caffeine might just have left him feeling a little bit more prepared for the situation that was waiting for him at his new job.

Even though today was to be his first day, he wasn't necessarily walking toward the unknown. The call that had woken him an hour earlier, asking him to come in two days before his official start date, had not been without explanation. Protocol prevented level one top secrets from being discussed in detail over the phone - even secured lines - so the briefing had been a short one.

Apparently, a very specific type of signal had been detected by a very specific sort of satellite employed by his division of government and they required his presence immediately. Perks of the new job included being on call twenty-four seven. He really needed to think about relocating to somewhere closer and soon.

Also worth noting was that, prior to his promotion and subsequent reassignment, he had held a level two clearance for the previous ten years and had been part of a team of scientists which occasionally contributed to solving level one problems, if only in a peripheral capacity. His chosen field of biology had, admittedly, taken him farther than he had ever imagined it would.

Since there were very few people with his credentials operating at such a high level, he had handled quite a number of rare samples of microorganisms over the years - and even a few he had never seen or thought could possibly exist before.

All that past experience amounted to him being unable to stop his mind from forming ever wilder theories on what kind of situation warranted calling in the new guy on a Saturday.

'Finally.'

That was the word that came to his mind when he noticed the sleek train approaching on the western horizon. It rolled to a complete stop right as his watch ticked away the first thirty seconds of 5:11. He hoped his ride to East City didn't run into any further delays. He had a reputation of punctuality to live up to, after all.

Twilight gradually faded into full blown morning during the quiet trip to the distant city and he passed the time by casually observing the scenery. The country side was as beautiful and as dangerous as ever. The rail had to pass through wild dinosaur territory and he had seen a small pack of raptors feasting on the fresh kill of a much larger breed. He shuddered to think of what would happen to him if the train had a breakdown while they were still in such a dangerous area.

Thankfully, though, the high speed movement had managed to get him and the rest of the passengers through it quickly and unscathed.

Before he knew it, he had arrived at East City Station with less minutes to spare than he was comfortable with. He had practically jogged off of the platform, down the stairs, and through the lobby to get to the street and hail a cab.

It was 6:15 on the dot when he entered the ground floor of his new office building.

He didn't waste any time marveling at how shiny the waxed tile floors were or how nondescript everything else was. Instead, he marched directly up to the nearest security turnstile so he could be scanned for weapons and issued a personnel identification lanyard.

After being cleared, he was ushered deeper into the lobby by a member of security who, upon request, also directed him to the elevators in a closed off corridor. His air of being slightly lost was inevitable due to the new environment. The atmosphere, however, was almost comforting in its familiarity, so he appeared somewhat more casual when he stepped inside of the elevator car and swiped his barcoded lanyard over the scanner. The elevator's gears sprung to life and closed the doors before it began humming along with the slow descent.

A deep basement headquarters was nothing he hadn't seen before. So, when he arrived, he had been expecting to see something along the lines of a multi-level bunker with a large open atrium at it's center, open hallways branching off toward other work areas, and surrounding balconies that overlooked.

He was genuinely surprised when nothing resembling his expectations was there.

What lay before him was a corridor lit with fluorescent lights running the length of it's arched ceilings. The walls and ceiling were lined with tiny square tiles - not unlike what could be found in a subway station.

He stepped out of the elevator, tightening the grip on his briefcase, and trekked forward into the small tunnel. The sound of his hard soled dress shoes tapping on the dull concrete echoed all around him as he neared a point where the corridor took a sharp angle down. It was a staircase with a metal rail running down the middle.

Kobo hurriedly descended the steps, deciding that the unexpected could delay him further if he let it.

When he reached the bottom, the tunnel opened up into a chamber two stories high, a hundred feet wide, and thirty feet deep. The furthest wall was a seamless floor to ceiling mirror. He looked around the room for any sort of terminal or scanner to run his lanyard against but found nothing indicating a way to advance further. It was a dead end.

He checked his watch again for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last hour. It was 6:25. He had told the person he spoke with over the phone that he would be there no later than 6:30.

The mirror reflected his look of irritation right back at him and he noticed for the first time that he had forgotten to shave the overnight growth off of his face in his early morning haste. His reddish brown hair was also haphazardly combed back with not nearly enough gel to hold it in place. He was going to show up late on his first day and look like he had just rolled out of bed.

He approached the mirror to get a better look at himself and pulled out an emergency comb from his inner coat pocket to run through his slightly shaggy hair. Then, leaning forward, he grinned to get a look at his teeth and make sure nothing was stuck in them. His face was only inches away from the glass so he noticed right away when it didn't fog over from the heat of his breath.

Thinking how peculiar that was, he reached a hand up to touch the surface. He was thoroughly unprepared for the reaction he got.

A glowing red light appeared on the mirror in an outline around his hand along with another nearby projection that appeared to be a short list of his vitals. Within seconds, the hand outline shifted to green and disappeared. A moment later, the section of mirror directly in front of him dissolved into a door shaped opening.

"Access granted."

Kobo jumped a little in response to the automated sounding feminine voice that had come from somewhere around him.

Gathering his wits, he walked through the door and noticed the large pill shaped rail car sitting at the opening of a perpendicular tunnel just ahead. It's large gullwing door folded open on its own when he was within a few steps so he was able to board uninterrupted. The interior was a lot like a charter bus with pairs of bucket seats lining both sides and a narrow path down the middle.

He took the nearest seat and sighed. Another long train ride so soon after the previous one was the last thing he needed.

"All occupants are reminded to strap in before launch. Please secure any loose items in the under seat bin storage," the automated voice said.

Kobo's eyes went wide at the mention of the word 'launch' and he quickly found the bin she was talking about under the seat in front of him. He dropped his briefcase in, slid it shut, and pulled the seatbelt harness over his shoulders. In no sooner than the time it took him to finish fiddling with the buckle, he heard the spooling of a jet engine kick on and felt the rumble of thrust begin to shake everything as it was held back by the vehicle's brakes. He couldn't manage to yell out his surprise because the crushing G-forces that overwhelmed him so suddenly had pulled most of the air from his lungs when he was pushed back against his seat cushions.

In what felt like simultaneously an eternity and the blink of an eye, it was over.

When the door lifted to reveal what he hoped was his final destination, he saw a tall dark skinned man with close cropped black hair waiting for him. The rank insignia on his immaculately groomed uniform suit indicated he was a commander. He was a well decorated commander too, according to the ribbons sewn above his left breast pocket, and a young one at that.

Kobo thought he might've been around five years younger than himself. If that were true, he could no longer boast to his old work buddies about being the first man to have achieved a promotion to level one before his thirtieth birthday.

"Good morning, Doctor Rend," the man greeted with a slight incline of his head while keeping his hands clasped behind his back. "I am Neguro; Commander of this base. If you'll follow me, we can get started," he added before turning an about face and walking up the sloped corridor.

"Uh... sure - I mean, yessir," Kobo said, correcting himself, as he fumbled with undoing the seat belt buckle. He reached for his briefcase, then sprinted out of the jet powered subway car to catch up with his new boss and walk closely behind him.

"On a normal day, we would have rolled out the welcome wagon and given you the grand tour," Neguro said as they walked.

They crested the incline and passed through the opening created by two automatic sliding doors.

"But this isn't a normal day," Kobo acknowledged.

"No, it isn't." Neguro suddenly stopped at the halfway point of the long tiled hallway they had entered. He turned his body toward the wall to Kobo's left and touched the full palm of his right hand to it. The reaction was almost instantaneous.

Both walls, the ceiling, and floor became transparent and suddenly Kobo could see the entirety of the base below him and how vast it was. The corridor they were standing on was suspended near the very top of the large dome structure which, to Kobo's naked eyes, appeared to be over three miles in diameter. The walls and ceiling of the great dome were also somehow projecting the translucent image of a sunny day on the surface.

There were several smaller structures at the bottom of the dome laid out like a small town. It even had grass and trees lining the streets. In the air space between the suspended hallway and the town below were several spherical structures of various size that were also suspended. They were all connected by a series of open air catwalks and staircases.

The hallway they were in led to a massive pillar-like building at the very center of the dome. There was no doubt in Kobo's mind that that building was where the command center was located.

"As you can see, a tour would take much too long," Neguro said.

Kobo picked his jaw up from where it had fallen and managed a quick response. "Another time then, I guess."

"Indeed," Neguro said before dropping his hand from the wall. Everything around them shifted back to opaque color and he started again toward the central pillar structure. "You're no doubt wondering what crisis I called you in for."

"Yessir, I am," Kobo admitted as he followed. "I'm a PhD in microbiology and I have a master in chemistry, so I can only imagine there's some sort of outbreak that you need help identifying. However, the phone briefing I received makes me wonder if it's not something else entirely."

"You were right to think that, Doctor." Neguro paused for a beat before continuing. "About three hours ago, our deep space satellites detected a small ship entering our solar system. My analysts have determined it will reach Earth before noon today."

Kobo's eyes widened as he processed what Neguro had just said.

"That's not all," the Commander continued. "We think we know what is piloting it and why they've come."

The duo finally reached the other end of the hall and Kobo followed Neguro through another set of automatic doors. They stepped into a curved corridor that most likely circled the interior perimeter of the pillar tower and walked up to a heavy looking metal door.

The dark skinned commander palmed the door and, after it opened for him, led Kobo into the large circular chamber.

Curved rows of workstations, each with a member of personnel operating the most advanced computer terminals Kobo had ever seen, surrounded the center of the dished room in a concentric ring formation with paths opened between them at intervals. At the center was the stump of a pillar, the size of a large round table, with a massive light projection hovering several feet above it.

The holographic monitor, for that was what it obviously was, was showing a three dimensional representation of Earth's solar system zoomed out enough to see it's entirety. Just passing Jupiter, was a little white dot moving at incredible speed.

"That," Neguro said, indicating the white dot, "is a single occupant pod capable of faster than light travel. And this," he continued, and the image suddenly morphed into cctv security footage showing a full sized pod being guarded in a warehouse somewhere under the dome, "is the one we recovered from a crash site twenty years ago."

Kobo was normally a sure-footed type of person, but he had to admit to himself that he was feeling rather out of his depth at the moment. As shocked and amazed as he was about the revelation of intelligent life existing on planets other than Earth, he was even more thrown when he thought about the implications of one of Neguro's earlier statements.

"You, uh, said that you thought you knew why whoever is in that pod is on their way here," Kobo said. "Was that pod you captured twenty years ago empty when you found it?" 'Please say yes, please say yes,' he thought to himself.

"No, as a matter of fact, it wasn't."

Kobo ran a hand through his mussed up hair and sighed audibly. Intergalactic conflict and alien invasion suddenly seemed less like the plot of a summer movie and more like the next big news story likely to pop up on channel five later this afternoon.

It suddenly occurred to him why they would want a world class biologist on hand during this mess. "It's here, isn't it?" he asked. "You brought me here because you need me to analyze tissue samples from it, right?"

"You already have, actually," Neguro said. "Our chief scientist abandoned us several years before I even took up position as head of this operation. We've been outsourcing certain work to level two labs ever since - in addition to seeking a replacement. I believe the designation we used on those samples was 'Case Fifty-One'. Surely, they would have left a lasting impression on your memory."

"Oh... wow," Kobo replied. He was rendered to near speechlessness. He honestly didn't know what else to say to something like that.

"In any case, your lab's research turned out to be the most productive and, after I discovered that you were the ace up their sleeve, I personally made the decision to recruit you because I genuinely believe you have something great to offer us.

"Now," Neguro continued, "to answer your earlier question; Yes, the specimen is here. It's also still alive. It has been locked in cryostasis and secured within a quarantine since we found it. It was bleeding from a head wound when it was pulled from the wreckage and patched up by our medics before being put on ice. Our best minds have spent the last two decades deciphering the xenolinguistics stored in the pod's computer so that, on a day like this, we could wake it up and conduct an interrogation without there being a communication barrier.

"I need you to use what you've learned about the Case Fifty-One to synthesize a sedative that will be effective against the specimen's advanced immune system and I need it right now. We need the thing awake and responsive, but unable to do much more than lift a finger. Staff Sergeant Gabel will escort you to your new laboratory."

A particularly fit looking woman of about Kobo's age, who had stayed in the background until now, left the two other people she had been conversing with close by and stepped up to introduce herself. She wore the same dark blue uniform that everyone else seemed to have on and was blonde haired, blue eyed, and as symmetrically proportioned as was humanly possible. In short, she was a bombshell.

"Good morning, Doctor," she said. "If you'll follow me, I'll see to it that you get to your new lab as soon as possible. A team of skilled assistants who are already up to date with the progress you've made are waiting and the lab has been prepped in anticipation of your arrival."

"Wow, uh, thanks," Kobo said before becoming embarrassingly aware of his increasing overuse of the word 'uh'. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat before continuing. "Well, then, I suppose we should get a move on."

Gine was unaware that she had been stuck in a fog until the moment they had shoved her into a corner and started hosing her nude body down with blasts of water. She slid to the cold tile floor, coughing and sputtering, while blinking her eyes rapidly and instinctively holding her hands out to block as much of the water from her face as she could.

Why did she feel so heavy? Where was she and who were these people? What did they want with her?

Three individuals covered head to toe in strange looking white suits with tinted visors covering their faces stood several paces away from her. The two closest ones handled the hoses that were spraying her while the third stood slightly behind them with some sort of flat device in their hands. A spotlight shining behind them cast their shadows across the wet floor and made it difficult to focus on anything else.

"Stop it, please!" she shouted, after finally gathering the breath she needed.

The third suit touched the other two on the shoulders and got them to lower their hoses. The water stopped flowing soon after and the grainy sound of an electronically filtered voice came from the one giving the orders. "You speak English?"

"I- I don't know what that is, but I can understand you just fine," she replied. "Who are you people? Why are you doing this?"

"You don't get to ask questions until you answer ours," the leader of the other two white suits replied with a detached calmness.

"But..."

"I'll start with something simple," the interrogator said. "What planet are you from?"

"Planet... wait, where am I?" she asked. A feeling of dread crept up from her gut and sent a shiver down her back.

"Answer the question," the interrogator insisted.

"I- I can't... " she said, more to herself, as realization dawned on her that she was drawing a blank except for the lingering feeling that she had let down someone important to her. "I... my name is Gine. That's all I can remember... "

From behind the one way mirrored glass separating him from the interrogation room, Kobo watched with a mixture of awe and fascination. She looked just like a human being except for the tail. Why had Neguro and everyone else insisted on referring to her with such impersonal terms? 'It' and 'the specimen' were hardly suitable designations for a young woman.

Kobo got the feeling there was still more they hadn't told him about their extraterrestrial visitor. Something about her had them extremely scared. Why else would they have decided to pump her full of a sedative and use intimidation tactics. While he wasn't entirely comfortable with their choices, he wasn't about to start making waves so soon after joining the operation.

His face turned into a frown when an argument broke out amongst his companions about what Gine had just said. Some of them thought she was lying and wanted to step up the interrogation into a torture to get more information. Now that was a line he wasn't willing to cross.

'So much for not making waves,' he thought.

He cleared his throat loudly enough to get everyone's attention. "She's telling the truth. There's no need to get carried away."

"You have no way of knowing that!" an older man snapped while dropping his fist onto the cold steel table between them to punctuate. He was somewhere in his fifties, balding, and his uniform had a sub-commander rank sewn onto it.

"I do, actually," Kobo replied insistently. "The sedative I made for her includes a unique mixture of Sodium Pentothal. She couldn't lie any more than she could stand up - which is not at all."

It looked like the sub-commander was about to escalate his argument, but Kobo saw Neguro glare at the man and it seemed to be just what he needed to make him shut up. He appreciated the support.

"If Doctor Rend says the specimen can't lie while under the effects of his serum, then there's nothing else to be done right now," Neguro said. He pressed a button on the intercom unit that was built into the table and addressed the three men that were in the room with Gine through the headsets built into their environmental suits. "Let's wrap this up, gentlemen. Get it dried off and taken to it's new holding cell. We'll try again later."

The three replied by immediately carrying out Neguro's orders. Kobo watched one of them drape a large towel over her while another rolled a wheelchair into the room.

"Commander Neguro, Sir." It was Gabel's voice coming in through the intercom.

"Go ahead," Neguro replied.

"The pod just entered our atmosphere, Sir. It's due to land any second now. Control tower's got our eye in the sky pacing it as we speak. I can have the live feed patched through to your location, if you'd like."

"Do it."

A small section of ceiling slid open to make way for the cylindrical stump that descended several inches. The dome like lens at its tip immediately began projecting the footage over the center of the table so everyone could see it.

The image zoomed in on a person with long spikey hair who was dressed in strange armor as they floated out of the crater their pod rested in. Then that person literally shot off into the sky. As in flight - under their own power.

Kobo let his jaw hang breathlessly as the satellite feed followed the person who rocketed through the sky at supersonic speed. "That alien... It's really...?"

"Flying, yes," Neguro finished for him. "Believe it or not, there are several individuals already on this planet who possess that ability. Keep watching."

Kobo did just that and, soon enough, the alien made contact with a person who he vaguely recognized. It was a green man wearing a white turban and cape. It nagged him that he couldn't recall where he had seen him before. Perhaps if he had paid more attention to the television, instead of working so hard, he would have come up with the answer. Then again, he wouldn't be where he was right now if he hadn't worked so hard.

A standoff was taking place between them and Kobo thought they might have exchanged words but, since they were viewing footage from a spy satellite, no sound came through and even with it zoomed in they were too far away to even try and read lips. The two figures on screen were little more than tiny humanoid shapes with color. They were left to guess what the duo could be discussing.

Then, seemingly out of the blue, the green man thrust a hand forward and emitted a destructive wave of light that detonated against the alien visitor. When the smoke cleared, the would-be victim stood totally unscathed.

Kobo suddenly became aware of his trembling hands. The flying alien invader had been more than enough to set him on edge. Now there were people who could throw around explosive balls of light too?

He glanced over at Neguro. The man was doing a bang up job at maintaining his unruffled appearance. Though, upon closer inspection, he did notice him clenching and unclenching his jaw.

When he returned his eyes to the screen, the camera was following the alien figure as it blasted through the sky again.

Raditz' forehead was starting to ache from the frown that had only gotten deeper since her arrival on this backwater mud ball. Each passing minute brought with it a new concern and a bit of worry.

Why were so many natives still alive? Had something happened to her little brother that made it impossible for him to complete his task? Had the unthinkable happened?

'No,' she thought. 'This new power level I detected definitely has to be his.'

She felt a great wave of relief wash over her when she got within visual range of the small island and spotted a young man wearing orange with the same unmistakable hairstyle of their father standing on the beach. The tension in her forehead vanished and a grin made it's way onto her face as she momentarily forgot about everything else.

"Hey, Kakarot!" she called out in a jovial manner as she descended. Her feet touched the sand as she smoothly transitioned into a jog that brought her right up to her brother.

She vaguely noticed the tense, almost threatening, posture of he and the similarly dressed native standing beside him, but didn't react to it. She was currently the most powerful being on the entire planet after all.

"Wow, it's been so long I nearly forgot how much you look like him," she said, referring to their father. Her exuberance was quickly ebbing as her reasons for being there caught up with her.

"Huh...? Do I know you? What's a 'Kakarot'?" Kakarot asked. The confused expression on his face made Raditz' frown start to creep its way back onto her forehead.

She noticed the small bald man share a confused glance with the blue haired female clad in white before said female shuffled herself behind Kakarot, for protection, next to some small child who was doing the same. Didn't they know who he was? It suddenly occurred to her that these natives were acting way too comfortable with her little brother. They should've been running away from him.

"I'm your big sister, Raditz, you idiot," she replied snappishly. "I know you were little the last time we saw each other in person but come on. I made sure to sneak a few family mementos onto your pod before it launched so you would have something of us to hang onto after you purged this planet. Speaking of which, you've got some explaining to do. Why haven't you killed everyone like you were supposed to?"

The blue haired woman went wide eyed, the short guy took a step back in shock, and the old man in the sunglasses reached a hand up to rub his beard in a contemplative gesture.

"Kill everyone!? Are you crazy? This is my home and these are my friends," Kakarot replied defensively. "Look, I don't know who you think I am, but my name is Goku and I've lived here my entire life."

"That's not entirely true," the old man interjected. "I remember a story your grandpa told me a long time ago about how he found you. We were both completely wasted on sake so I didn't take him very seriously but now it seems he was telling the truth. He said he was hiking through the woods one day, while on a hunt, when the wailing cries of a child scared off his prey. When he got to the source of the cries, he found you at the bottom of a crater inside of a small pod. According to him, you were quite a vicious little thing until you fell and hit your head on a rock. You didn't wake up for days and he felt so guilty for not doing a better job of looking after you. However, you managed to pull through to a full recovery and were a cheerful little boy from that day forward."

"You're kidding me. Goku's really an alien?" the bluenette woman asked, poking her head out from behind the man to whom she was referring.

"Yes, that certainly seems to be the case," the old man replied.

"Of course he is! Kakarot is a member of our warrior race - the Saiyans," Raditz bit at them harshly before throwing her hands up in frustration. She was really starting to get annoyed with all of this back and forth. "Though it seems his programming got scrambled when he got dropped on his head. That's unfortunate, but not without a resolution. It's time for him to slaughter you all so we can get off of this pitiful rock!"

"Now hold on just a minute, lady," the short bald man said, sizing her up as he sauntered over. "Nobody's getting slaughtered today - not as long as I'm still standing. I'm not in the habit of fighting women, but I won't back down if you try-"

Raditz lashed out with her tail, cutting the small man off as she sent him flying into the little house several paces behind him. "I'm sorry, you were saying?" she asked mockingly as she folded her arms over her chest.

"Krillin!" That was the collective gasp of her brother and the two remaining natives.

"You're going to regret that," Kakarot said, tensing his stance as he curled his fingers into fists.

"Is that a... a tail?" the old man asked in a shaky voice as he pointed to her now unfurled appendage. "Goku... I think you'd better start taking what she says seriously."

"Hey, it looks just like mine used to," Kakarot commented, succumbing to the distraction.

"Used to?" Raditz said. She rounded on her younger sibling to get a look behind him, which scared off the woman and child, then went stark still as his lack of a tail sunk in. The next moment she nearly exploded. "What the hell Kakarot!? Your tail's gone! How am I supposed to explain this to Vegeta! Shit, he's gonna be so pissed!"

"Not that it's any of your business, but I lost my tail a while ago and I'm just fine. Nothing bad has happened to me," Kakarot said. "So... stop freaking out," he added a bit nervously.

"That's easy for you to say! You don't know Vegeta! No... some kind of concession will have to be made to appease him..." she said trailing off into her own thoughts.

It's a good thing she hadn't opened a line of communication with her scouter yet, otherwise she might've had Vegeta yelling in her ear at the moment. She already knew what he would say, though. He would want her to write Kakarot off as a lost cause, before killing him and purging the planet herself.

Despite surviving as a cold blooded destroyer of intergalactic civilizations for so long, she had never forgotten the most important lesson her sap of a mother had grilled into her about family love and loyalty. So, killing her baby brother was absolutely out of the question. She just needed to properly instill him with the motivation to do what was necessary to show Vegeta that even without his tail, he had maintained his killer instinct and could be further sharpened as an ally.

She shifted her gaze over to the woman and child once again, this time lingering for a moment. The woman was crouched behind the boy, with her arms wrapped protectively around his front. Raditz' eyes bulged slightly when she noticed, for the first time, the tip of a small tail peeking out from under the boy's robes.

The gears in her head began to slowly turn.

The brat was obviously Kakarot's, which made him her nephew. And, seeing as she herself was the last Saiyan woman alive, the child's mother was surely a native. 'Wait... the mother... Is this blue haired girl...?'

"Listen up, little bro," Raditz said, having come to a decision. "I'm not an unreasonable person. It's apparent that you've become dulled while living among these weaklings, so I'm going to do you a favor." She lifted a hand and casually blew a hole through the old man's chest with a small blast. She ignored the gasp, shout, and sudden crying that followed.

Raditz was forced to dodge Kakarot's fist as he lunged at her. She twirled around to tag him with an elbow to the back of his neck that brought him to his hands and knees.

"That first one was a freebie," she said as he struggled to right himself. "You have until sunset to kill the rest of this planet's population. I'll be taking the woman and child hostage as well. Call it insurance. Vegeta is going to be pissed at both of us regardless, but a healthy Saiyan child that can be raised to fight with us is a boon that even he wouldn't refuse. Hopefully it's enough to get back in his good graces."

Raditz grabbed ahold of her two new hostages before they could make any feeble attempt to escape. The woman kicked and screamed while dangling from her hand but she held fast. The brat merely continued wailing as he called for his 'daddy'.

"You had better not disappoint me, Kakarot," Raditz added before taking to the air and accelerating at a leisurely pace.

By the time they made it back to her landing site, she had had enough of the child's screaming cries and the mother's cursing. The first thing she did was shove them into her pod and lock the hatch so she could be alone with her thoughts.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay, little guy. Your daddy is strong. He'll come save us - you'll see," Bulma said as she held Gohan in her lap.

She rubbed his head while rocking him back and forth in an attempt to soothe him. The crying had really started to grate on her when they were stuck in such tight quarters together. No way was she ever having kids.

Gohan sniffled and took a raggedly shaky breath before replying in a small voice. "You think so?"

"I know so," she replied, putting as much confidence into her voice as she could muster. Deep down, though, she wasn't so sure.

Despite witnessing Goku pull off the seemingly impossible before, she had her doubts. This time they were facing something none of them could ever have fathomed. In less than an hour they had gone from a normal day to learning that they weren't alone in the universe while experiencing a hostile first contact. So, it went without saying that even he would be feeling out of his depth.

She suddenly found herself dreading other potential revelations that might occur before sunset arrived.

Bulma immediately began inspecting the inside of the pod, looking for something she could use to get them out of this situation. She began a mental catalog of things that stood out to her.

Padded seat and arm rests, check. Storage bin under seat, check. Computer console below porthole on hatch, check. Maintenance panel below console, check.

She reached into the inner pocket of her white jacket and removed the small capsule case within. The first capsule in the row of four was always her emergency tool kit. A grin made it's way onto her face as she popped the capsule.

Gohan flinched in her lap at the sudden appearance of a small toolbox at her feet. "What's that for?" he asked her, pointing a finger at it.

She opened the box lid and grabbed a small electric drill before snapping a flat blade screw bit onto the end of it. "I'm gonna hijack this ship and give your daddy an edge."

"Cool!" Gohan cheered with all the wonder characteristic of the small child that he was. "Can I help?"

"Sure," Bulma replied just as she was getting the last screw out of the panel. "I'm gonna be busy figuring out this alien computer so maybe you could keep a lookout through the window and give me a warning if that mean lady comes back. What do you say?"

"Okay!"

Neguro had maintained his calm outward appearance throughout the ordeal up until this point but the string of questioning that Kobo had been stuck on was really beginning to take its toll. He had done his best to tell the biologist only what was necessary and do it without snapping at him for ruining his interrogation. After all, the man didn't know that they had ways of extracting information that rendered amnesia a non-issue.

So far, the slightly unkempt man had bought the story he was being fed without any problem. Of course, like Neguro's grandfather had always told him, 'a good lie is peppered with the truth'.

So, when he had answered Kobo's question about how they knew the identities and whereabouts of every super powered being living on Earth, he had been honest when he told the man about having them under constant surveillance. He had also been honest when he described to Kobo how dangerous they were and had even shown the man footage from the world martial arts tournament of five years earlier. Kobo had just naturally assumed it was their interest in public safety that motivated such tactics.

Despite having a lot riding on the affairs of the resident aliens, and the outcome related to their most recent arrival, Neguro knew now was not the time to be hasty lest he make a costly mistake that affected his people's long term goals.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, you caught me in a moment of thought. Say again?" Neguro asked politely.

"Ah, that's perfectly okay. I'm prone to zoning out myself - from time to time. I mean, it doesn't happen often enough to effect my productivity or anything," he added the last bit hastily before trying to laugh it off.

"Of course not. You wouldn't be here if not for your impeccable work ethic. Please continue," Neguro said, from behind a fake smile, while wishing the man would do anything but.

"Yes, right. Well, I was watching the feed and couldn't help but notice that the child that got abducted along with the woman, who I'm assuming belongs to this Son Goku you mentioned, has a tail just like the aliens. I almost missed it what with the poor image quality and all but it's definitely there. Wouldn't that suggest that either Son Goku or his wife is also an alien? And, if that's the case, I'm surprised you guys haven't figured it out since you said you've got them under constant surveillance."

Neguro had to credit the man's apparent sharpness even if it wasn't to his benefit for him start getting suspicious of them so soon.

"The child does, in fact, belong to Son Goku and I did indeed take notice of it's tail," Neguro admitted. "However, this is the first time we've gotten as clear a glimpse at it. You see, the Son family live in a thickly forested area nestled between a mountain range which, as you can imagine, our satellites have a difficult time penetrating. Today was the first time he ventured off of the mountain in roughly five years."

"Oh, I see," Kobo replied, swallowing another bit of truth Neguro had just fed him.

"In the recent past, we've tried getting a few field operatives to bug his home but they've been unable to get anywhere close without being detected. We've learned through our taps at Capsule Corp that Son Goku and several others affiliated with him have an ability that lets them detect a person's presence using some sort of sixth sense. Thus we have had only our unreliable footage and hearsay from Capsule to gather conclusions."

That last statement had been a bold faced lie. However, he certainly wasn't going to tell Kobo that they had simply sent drones in to finish the bugging job after learning about their sensing trick. The less that man knew, the better.

While it was somewhat of an inconvenience keeping up his grand charade, he genuinely needed Kobo's expertise at his disposal. So, until such a time as he either outlived his usefulness or became a liability, Neguro and all the true members of his operation would keep up appearances. Afterward, he would dispose of the good Doctor just as he had the others before him.