Syn looked out the view window at the planet below her and let out a sigh of relief. Though she did not look forward to whatever could possibly come, she would be content for now to free herself of her box-like prison. She watched as the sun peeked over the planet's horizon sending rays of light illuminating its surface. Greens and browns and blues were visible beneath a swirling blanket of white that was constantly in motion. It was breathtaking. She dreamed as a child of living in a place like this. She had dreamed of a wonderful spaceship landing in the Square and sweeping her off to some exotic land far from the barren waste that was Varan. She could only look back to her homeland with contempt now. She closed her eyes remembering her last few days on Varan.

She remembered the look of fear on the man's face as she approached him in the quarantine tank. She held the gun down at her side, stricken by the sight of him. He was unkempt, forced to wallow in his own waste and shook with every breath. His olive skin had gone pallid, and scars from incisions, injections, living autopsies, and possibly beatings covered his body. He was no longer the man he once was, who ever that might have been. He was now just a shadow. She raised the gun. The fear in his eyes seemed to subside. She knew it was never her he feared. The horror had been in his face since the day he was exposed to the virus. She cocked the gun.

The virus should have died with the doctors who created it. But Varan's prestigious men of science and medicine had to keep it alive. They swore they could harness it, could make a vaccine. It would be a medical breakthrough. Hundreds of subjects later, they had gotten nowhere and must keep the virus alive the only way they know how: passing from living host to living host. They always kept an infected host alive in this cell, shoving another one in when the former is about to die.

She took a step forward. This one was going to die in a few days and she knew what they planned to do with the next. The man began to shake more violently than before, and the terror returned to his face. *Curious* she thought but soon understood his actions. She was suddenly grabbed from behind, a shot fired, her quarantine hood was pulled from her head, and she was pushed forward into the arms of the now dying host. Her frantic shot had been true, but the man had a few breaths of life left. She knew those infected breaths were already coursing through her system. That was the nature of the virus. It spread quickly and killed silently. She would be dead within a month. Her mission failed…unless she could kill herself. She reached for her gun, but it was already in the hands of her attacker.

"Tsk tsk Syn. You know better than to meddle in Father's business."

The voice was her brother's and he stood shaking his forefinger at her.

"And you know what he plans to do with this virus, Bryn. Millions of people will die."

She shuddered at the prospect of being the one to cause that travesty: the complete destruction of an entire race.

"Our planet is already dead. Our only hope in colonizing another is to wipe it out with our only weapon."

Bryn gestured to her. She was that weapon now.

"We aren't a conquering race and if we want to survive, this is the only way we can do it."

Bryn almost sounded pleading. An opening radio frequency sounded above them. Lord Var's voice came through. They both looked up.

"Did you catch our intruder?"

"Yes, Father," Bryn looked back to his sister, meeting her gaze with a cold stare. "…And I would also like to report that we have our new host. The plan may be carried out soon."

His voice was hard and unmoving. Syn could never forget that look.

"Wonderful." Lord Var's voice came through.

"Father?" Syn addressed him, ready to make a final stand against his course of action. There was a long pause.

"Syn…I…always feared those thoughts in your head would get you into trouble but I never imagined you would do something so foolish."

His voice was resigned. It had only taken him that moment of pause to accept the fact that his daughter was going to die, and she was filled with despise for it.

"Father, let this virus die with me. We turned this world into the waste it is. We must live with it. A whole planet should not suffer for our own mistakes."

She instinctively looked to her big brother for support but she knew she would find none. His stare remained icy.

"We have no other choice."

His radio transmission ended and a heavy silence fill over the tank. She met her brother's gaze once more and held it. They shared the same jade eyes, the same blood, even the same laugh she thought, remembering that there once were times when they could laugh. Now her blood was poisoned, though in her heart she knew that his was tainted with something far worse.

In two days time she had been sealed in this vessel and sent off to a world not too distant where the creatures shared a blood composition similar to there own. Siliak was the planet, inhabited by a race of cold-blooded creatures like themselves. They were her targets. She would infect their lives the moment they found her and she would be unable to stop it.

Once on route Syn wasted no time. She worked a day and a night (or what she expected would have been that long) to get her hands free of their bonds. A metal ring clasped each wrist to the arms of her chair. The release switch for the clasps was visible but just out of reach on the ship's control board. She violently jerked at her wrists, angling her hands in many different positions to find the best was to pull them free. The rings dug into her flesh and the stinging pain was constant, but she finally succeeded in cracking a bone in her right hand and sliding it free. She hit the release switch that had taunted her since take off and hugged her newly freed wrist to her chest. From there she easily hacked into the ships computer system and changed the coordinates to reach a planet where she knew she could do no damage: Earth. The humans were warm-blooded aliens and could not contract her disease. She knew of reptilian creatures that thrived on the planet and shared their cold-bloodedness, but their genetic makeup was so different and the structure so under evolved, there could be no damage there either.

Syn was jarred to the present as the craft hit the atmosphere. She watched the burn up through the window. The ride was becoming shaky but the craft could make it. *Almost through* she thought. Turbulence hit the pod and her small world was thrown to the side. Her attention was drawn to the window as a small crack formed in the glass. Another jolt and the small crack was suddenly a large one. She clenched her eyes shut and gripped the arms of her chair, immediately sending a searing pain through her arm. She screamed and opened her eyes, briefly viewing the top of a forest before everything went black.

* * *

Syn felt herself returning to the conscious realm. She had dreamed of a lush green land inhabited by her people. They were happy. Even she was happy…until she approached one of her Varan brothers and touched his shoulder. They began to drop dead one by one, and the fertile lands began to decay. She was soon alone, left with only the shadow of screams and the guilt on her shoulders. But now it was ending, the scene dissolving in a bright light. Too bright. She opened her eyes, but the bright light remained. Slowly, she became aware of the light's origin. A window next to her bed let the late afternoon sun bathe her face. She covered her eyes and tried to forget the sun. That brought her attention to the bed. She wondered briefly if she was still asleep and then uncovered her eyes to survey her surroundings.

She was indeed on a bed in a small white room. Some medical equipment was set up to her right monitoring her heartbeats. She listened to the double beeps that were trying to follow her twin hearts syncopated beating. Something from across the room moved and now there was a curious blue haired woman standing over her.

"You're awake!" she said cheerfully.

Syn scrambled to put things together but her mind wasn't working fast enough.

"What are you…" she managed.

"My name is Bulma. I'm human. This is Earth, where we humans live." She paused before adding, "What are you?"

The woman now seemed satisfied and she waited for an answer. It was not exactly the information Syn was looking for. She knew what planet this was. Another movement across the room brought Syn's attention to a second presence. This one was a man. He stood at the opposite wall with his arms crossing his chest. Though mostly in shadow, she knew he was watching her. Straightening up, he took a step toward her. Now he was bathed in light. He wasn't human. He was a green creature…almost reptilian. Her first reaction was to scream. She had to get him away. She knew that if he was susceptible to the virus, it was already too late, but she needed to believe she could save him.

"Get out!" she yelled and sat bolt upright.

Startled, he seemed to take a defensive stance.

"If you value your life you will leave."

She tried to sound pleading and not hostile as he probably suspected she was.

"It's okay! He's a good guy. He just looks kind of broody and he gets in a mood sometimes, but that's his way." Bulma said, grabbing her by the shoulder.

"It doesn't matter who he is," Syn said, looking desperately into Bulma's face, "I need him out!"

She turned back to face the green man, but he had already gone. Syn hadn't even heard the door open.

"I believe he may require some sort of explanation for that one. It's only fair. He did save your life. Who knows what would have happened to you trapped out in that jungle alone."

Bulma busied herself at a computer beside the heart monitor while she talked. Syn let what the woman said sink in. She would have died, with no alien contact, possible saving the life of at least one man.

"Who was he?" she asked.

Perhaps the woman could at best ease her worries or at worst confirm her fears.

"Piccolo? He's a friend. Like I said you don't need to worry about him. He's one of us…He used to be evil but that was a long time ago."

"One of you?"

Syn was perplexed. She knew the woman didn't mean he was human. Maybe she had fallen into some sort of strange cult.

"Well one of them…a Z fighter. Protectors of the Earth. They fight for good. He has saved humanity on his own a number of times."

Syn was beginning to be impressed but this still did not help her.

"I think I will need to explain my behavior so that you may be able to help me…" she paused grasping for an explanation. She did not want to reveal that she was an implement of death. "I come from a reptilian race of people, the Varans. Long ago our ancestors developed a defense mechanism to ward off a stronger reptilian race that threatened to conquer them. They were able to modify their body chemistry to make it one that was unbearable and actually poisonous to the enemy race. I don't know how it was done or what exactly the other race found poisonous, but they were soon extinct and the Varans prospered. The strange chemistry remained, and we have recently found that it is still poison though not as deadly."

She took a breath. The story was actually part of an old myth passed down by the elders. Somewhere in the long version, the questions 'why is our skin is green' and 'why do we have two hearts' are answered.

"That certainly is a good reason for alarm but I assure you; Piccolo is no lizard…no offense. The Nemeks are more slug-like than anything else. His body is completely alien to anything I have ever seen. In fact I don't think he's ever been sick before."

That was reassuring to hear but she wasn't satisfied. She spotted a microscope along with a mess of other gizmos on a counter across the room. This must be some sort of medical facility. She realized she had never asked where she was.

"Would it be all right if I ran a test…to be sure."

"Of course" came the cheerful reply.

"I need only a blood sample from…Piccolo is it? Oh and a needle."

Syn crossed the room to the microscope as Bulma bustled out the room. Shortly after she returned with the supplies.

"I happen to have a sample on hand. He doesn't generally let me get close to him with a needle."

Bulma held up a vile of purple fluid. She dropped it on a slide and handed it and the needle to Syn. She pricked her middle finger and squeezed a drop of her own blue blood onto the slide. She placed the slide under the lens and focused. She attempted to swirl the blood together with the needle but the blood would not mix. It was like oil and water. She smiled, relieved. It was as she had hoped and as Bulma had suspected. Syn turned to Bulma.

"Thank you and I'm sorry for the trouble I'm sure I caused."

Bulma smiled that cheerful-no-worries smile again.

"Don't worry about it. But now that you're up I'm sure you'll want a warm shower and a nice clean change of clothes."

Syn suddenly became aware of how dirty she must have actually been. She was in that pod for almost a week.

"Thank you." Syn said.

"I'll be right back with towels and something to wear."

She held up her hand in a wave and opened the door to leave.

"Bulma…" The woman paused and turned back, "My name is Syn."

Bulma smiled again and left the room.