ROGUE PLANET

by the Not-So-Super Saiyan

and

Hanko the Doebringer

CHAPTER EIGHT: HELL OR HIGH WATER

Was it something we did?

Or just a cruel twist of fate?

Was it hell or high water

And is it too late?

Bulma listened to her own quiet sniffles echo in the empty engine room. She crouched in the corner of the dismantled machine, burying her face deep in her knees. The tube had been long since hollowed out. Almost every piece in the section needed replacing, and she wasn't sure how to tell them after the salvage operation things were essentially not any better than they had been. So much for hope.

She hit the inside of the hollow tubing with her fist and something fell from the ventilation shaft above her onto her head. She cursed, rubbing her hand and groping in the darkness for whatever had fallen on her, unceremoniously ruining her pity party. Undoubtedly a broken part she had missed, just one more thing that grounded the ship to it's dusty grave.

Her hand bumped the edge of the thing that had fallen on her head, but it wasn't a part at all. It was a book. A book bound in a cord. Just like the one Basil had shown her in her dream.

"Yoohoo?" A voice called into the dark as a hand banged loudly against the walls. Bulma tucked the book in the cargo pocket of her pants and crawled out of the engine to see Nappa, looking around and scratching his bald head comically.

Nappa cranked the light dial and the lights in the engine room sparked to life. Bulma squinted with annoyance at the intruder.

"There you are." he laughed, slapping his own knee. "You wiley, lil' smutch rat, you. Always sneakin' away and scurrin' about. Come on." he grunted as he lifted her up off the ground like a rag doll and set her upright. "It's nearly grub time."

Nappa moved through life with an obliviousness and almost innocence that Bulma envied greatly. Most of the time his ignorance was either amusing or mildly annoying but he was tolerable, sometimes even endearing. Right now Bulma just wanted him to leave.

"I'm not hungry Nappa."

"Y'know you ain't much of a saiyan. Saiyans is always hungry." He chortled.

He was right, she wasn't . When she didn't respond he leaned in closer, fixing her with a gentle, inquisitive look.

"Whatcha doin' down here in the dark now anyways, soesa ?"

"Just thinking."

"Thinkin' is a dangerous game." he cautioned, standing upright. He towered over her. Sometimes she forgot how ludicrously huge and strong this ridiculous man was.

"Look. I don't want to go, I can't face the others right now... I don't know how to tell everyone."

He looked confused. She could see on his face he was trying desperately to fill in the blanks on whatever dire news he had missed, staring at her blankly.

"Tell 'em what?"

"It's game over Napps." she sat back down on the edge of the engine block, leaning her head back and blinking away the fresh sting of tears.

"Whatcha mean?" he grunted as he sat next to her, resting his hands on his knees.

"The parts we salvaged are broken. Just as broken as the ones we have now. They're not going to work...I got everyone's hopes up for nothing. Scratch that, not nothing. For the worse! Look what happened to Tschev!"

Bulma thought back to the sickening moment in the purger ship. It seemed like everytime she closed her eyes she could see the large metal beam crash down in front of her, the jagged, torn metal edge nearly slicing Tschev in half. Maybe if Bulma had been a saiyan, had been faster or seen better in the low light the whole mess could've been prevented. But here she was, filthy and sweaty, hiding in the engine while Tschev lay on a table in the medical bay, the split seam sewn together as neatly as Bulma and Vegeta could from her chin down to her lower abdomen.

"Now hey there. Don't you be talkin' none like that Soesa. Weren't fer you, Tschev woulda been a goner! Two halves of a whole idiot you coulda say." he snorted, laughing to himself. "Course, pulling her completely outta the way mighta been preferred, but hey. Things are what they are."

"I just don't know, Nappa. It feels like no matter what we do or try, we are fighting against the inevitable. We're going to die on this rock."

"Well, you know what they say, when the tough get going, it's cuz times are tough. This ain't our first setback, and we always make do. After all, hopes all ya got when ya got nothing but hope."

Bulma laughed through the tears as she wiped them away with her sleeve. What Nappa said had been as ridiculous as he was, like most other things he said, but at the same time he was right. She had to keep going. No sense in crying over it now.

They would figure it out or die trying.

"You know what a saiyan does in times like this?"

She shook her head as she bunched the sleeves of her shirt in her hands, running her fingers along the rough seams.

"It's right about time for a fono ."

"A what?"

The saiyans lounged around the mess hall waiting to be summoned by their captain. Nearly everyone was there. Only Tschev, Bardock, and Vegeta were missing. Tschev on account of the accident the night before, and Vegeta on account of him never being around. Bardock usually stayed pretty close, brooding in a corner somewhere nearby but he had gone back and forth from the medical bay to outside the ship since they returned, doing very little else. No one bothered him, no one asked him what he was doing or why. Bulma imagined he was probably mulling outside somewhere, brewing in his thoughts, and smoking until his lungs turned to ash. He had been a worrisome wreck since the accident, though he would never admit it to anyone.

Nappa had called upon Vegeta to request a fono and when Vegeta was good 'n ready he would summon the crew. Apparently it was something along the lines of the meeting she had interrupted a couple of weeks earlier. She banked on sticking close to Lato and following her lead. While she had learned a lot about the saiyans, they still had customs and rituals that she was unfamiliar with. Lato had become a liaison to her of sorts. Answering the hundreds of questions she had asked with grace and patience.

Nappa and Raditz were busy playing some sort of board game with small colorful beads and a rounded pegboard full of holes. Raditz had just lost for the fifth time in a row. From what Bulma had gathered by passively watching, Nappa was quite the strategist. She was a more than a little surprised. She made a mental note to ask Lato the rules of the game. Deciding she would challenge Nappa once she had learned how to play. Very few could rival a mind like Bulma's and the look on his face would be priceless when she beat the undefeated champion at his own game.

She picked at her nails as she leaned on the table. Something in her was excited to finally be included in the secret meetings the crew regularly held, the other part of her was ridiculously nervous. Her mind mulling over the same question again and again.

When they found out the ship couldn't be fixed...what would they do to her?

Lato sat at the opposite end as Raditz and Nappa, carefully deconstructing and cleaning her rifle, and putting it back together again meticulously. Unlike the weapons of the other saiyans her knives and guns were always pristine, much like she was. Very well kept. Bulma couldn't speak much for saiyans as a whole, but as far as the crew was concerned she was the cleanest and most polite of all of them.

Bulma fidgeted nervously, pulling the book from her pocket and feeling the the worn edges. No one had seemed to recognize it as Basil's and if they did they hadn't said a thing about it. It was all written in the same script the scouter displayed information in. It must have been Saiyan, while Bulma had picked up quite a lot of it, understanding more than she could speak, she still had no idea how to read it. Another mental note, she would ask Lato to teach her to read Saiyan. The cord that bound the book was made of some sort of rough leather, a ring tied to the end.

Bulma closed the book and watched Lato for a time, it was almost soothing watching her quick, meticulous work.

"Hey…" Bulma started before her confidence piddled out.

"Hello." Lato smiled without looking up as she continued her work.

"Hey Lato, can I...talk to you?"

"Of course."

"Alone?"

Lato stopped what she was doing and looked up at Bulma, her face fell into a slight pout. She nodded subtly and stood quietly, walking out of the room. Bulma scrambled to follow. Lato led her down the winding hallways to a door that looked just like the rest of them. She opened it and gestured for Bulma to step inside.

It was Lato's room and it was just as Bulma had pictured it. Simple, tidy, and very clean. From the ceiling of the room hung an array different lights. All different shapes, sizes, and colors. It was beautiful.

"Please, sit." Lato gestured to a small ornate rug on the floor, very similar to the one Bulma had seen in Stoks's room. She would never admit it to anyone but sometimes she would steal inside his quarters when she needed something to bolster her spirits...or a good cry.

Lato kicked off her boots and folded her ankles sitting cross-legged on the rug, Bulma followed suit.

"Tell me. What is troubling you?" Lato asked, her hands rested on her knees, her tail unwrapping from her waist as she relaxed, and her head tilted to the side in idle curiosity.

"Okay, you are going to think I am crazy but I need to tell somebody this."

Lato smirked, a twinkle of curiosity in her eyes. "Alright."

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

Lato looked caught off guard by the question. "What do you mean?"

"Okay. This is going to sound absolutely insane and I am fully aware of that. But at this point there is just too much going on for me to sort this all out by myself and to be honest I don't really trust any of the others enough to talk to them. It's not that I don't like them...I like them just fine. You're the most normal one here and-" Bulma felt herself begin to ramble nervously and caught herself.

Lato laughed musically. It was calming.

" Normal is a very interesting word, Bulma. I have been called many things in my life. But I don't think I have ever been called normal before."

"Well you're normal to me. So I don't want you to think I'm insane and I realise how this sounds but-"

Lato rested her hand on Bulma's knee, looking at her with a look of genuine concern.

"It's okay." Lato smiled. Bulma took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts, and continued.

"Okay. A while ago, like a couple of weeks ago...I had this...dream." Bulma started out confident but as she went she felt more and more foolish. She found herself fidgeting nervously with her nails. "So...in the dream I think I met Basil? I don't know. I was working on the engine a lot at the time and pulling really long nights so I figured it was just the stress of being kidnapped by aliens and stranded in some dark, hot hell forced to fix their junker ship."

Lato chuckled under her breath as she watched Bulma ramble.

"But I don't know. In the dream she gave me this notebook, right?"

Lato nodded thoughtfully.

"And...and so I didn't really think anything of it until...well, until I actually found the book ."

She pulled the small leatherbound journal from her pocket and passed it to Lato. Lato unwrapped it reverently and cracked the book open, her brow furrowing as she began to flip through the book, reading rapidly. After a few moments she swallowed hard. She thumbed the ring at the end and a smile tugged at the edges of her lips. After a moment she spoke.

"What else happened?"

"She...told me to 'take care of her' and asked me to give the book to Tschev."

"Well…" Lato sighed, "far be it from me to contradict my sister." she smiled sweetly as she passed the book back to Bulma, setting her hands back on her knees.

"What?"

"Every saiyan we have lost was essential to this crew and that loss has been felt by everyone they have left behind. So it will always be. Basil was no exception. She was important to everyone, though they may not have spoken about it. Saiyans are loud but we can be a private people. Much of our culture is sacred to us. We have nothing left but who we are. Basil was Tschev's mate, Stoks's dear friend, and my little sister. You remind me a lot of her. You two would've made great friends."

"I'm so sorry Lato. I had no idea. You never-"

"It's alright." She placed a hand on Bulma's shoulder and smiled at her. "We all grieve in our own ways." She thought for a moment, then continued. "To answer your question I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts. But if one spoke to me, I would listen."

The fono* was interesting. Everyone was stiff at first and nobody spoke. The room was eerily silent. It was so out of character of them, at least to Bulma, that she wondered if anything was wrong. She expected Vegeta to call the meeting to order, but it was Lato who actually spoke first. She said something cryptic and veiled in metaphor, something about singing birds or something, Bulma wasn't sure. Then she addressed and acknowledged everyone in the room, ending with Bulma.

After Lato finished, Vegeta responded in kind, using the same strange dialect. Not understanding most of the words, or the contextual meaning of the words she did recognize, she started to space out a bit, just listening to the rising and falling intonation, the unusually rhythmic way Vegeta and Lato spoke, and the occasional grunts or 'mmm's of the others, acting like a chorus of accents to certain things Vegeta said. She wondered if this oratorical style was an entirely different dialect or just some kind of cultural code.

Vegeta finished his speech before pausing. Then he switched to galactic common.

"So, Bulma. This meeting is for you. Speak."

She snapped back to the present, suddenly incredibly unsure of how to proceed.

"Oh..yes, uh…" She began. The Saiyans all watched her intently. Vegeta's head moved slowly forward, his eyes and eyebrows making an expression that clearly meant he was not feeling very patient.

Bulma cleared her throat. Might as well just dive right into it.

"I can't fix the engine with what you brought back from the other ship. About half of the parts of the engine won't function at all, and most of the rest is so bad that if any of you were to sneeze in there more parts might break."

"Don't see why you pitchin' a fit Soesa. " Raditz snorted. "We got 'cher parts for ya."

"Yeah, you did, Vale. But what did you do to it before bringing it to me, mmm?"

Something told Bulma this was not the place to use personal insults, judging by the way the others responded when the jab slipped out. It was strange and unnerving how different the rules seemed to be in a situation like this compared to virtually every other waking moment with the Saiyans.

No use holding back now, Bulma decided. "Well? Any day now Raditz." she crossed her arms and drummed her fingers on her forearms.

"I…"

"You what ?" she snapped impatiently.

"I...just...y'know, grabbed the parts. I thought this is what you...wanted?" He wasn't sure what to say but as soon as the words slipped out of his mouth he was sure they were the wrong ones.

"No. No Rad, you did not just grab the parts . You broke the parts . You idiots just ripped things out of conduits and walls. This is complicated technology and tossing it around like a tin o' beans is how you break things. "

"All may not be lost." Lato reasoned.

"Yeah, where there's a way, there's a will." Nappa mused loudly.

"Well things are looking pretty dire to me right now." Bulma interjected.

"That's quite enough." Vegeta's rough voice cut through the quibbling.

Everyone stopped and turned to face their captain.

"Bardock. How far is the nearest PTO base?"

Bardock chewed on his unlit cigarette, humming lightly as he thought and scratching his face thoughtfully. "'Maybe a parsec, maybe more. Hard to say since this planet is driftin'. Last I checked nearest was the fleet boneyard. Might be a good place for bone pickin'."

" Soesa, does the pod have enough fuel to go that far and back?"

"Definitely. We'll see how long it'll take to repair, if I can repair it. Though it never should've crashed in the first place, I told you it had an automated landing sequence. A monkey could-" she stopped herself as he raised an eyebrow at her. She nervously cleared her throat and continued. "But that's not my main concern. It isn't our ticket out of here, it won't do any good because it won't carry everyone."

"That's fine. It doesn't need to. We can take what we need from the shipyard to repair the ship. Nappa you, Bardock, and Lato will stay here, keep an eye on things. No way to tell if that beacon got to anyone or not. So keep your ears to the ground. Raditz, you'll join the Soesa 'n me. That pod ain't big and we will need all the room we can spare for scrap."

"Excuse me?" Bulma nearly choked on her own tongue. "What do you mean ' the Soesa' ?" she growled, imitating Vegeta's low, rough voice.

Nappa and Raditz both snickered but were quickly silenced by the venomous look their captain shot at them.

"I just want to make sure no parts get broken during retrieval.. You will salvage the parts."

His tone said everything his words didn't.. Bulma sighed dejectedly but before she could voice her complaints he continued.

"How long will it take you to repair the pod?"

"Give me a week. That should be long enough to see if it's even reparable, and to fix it if it is."

"You have two days."

"Who does he think he is anyways?" Bulma snarled as she shimmied out from beneath the control panel of the pod.

"The captain." Lato laughed at Bulma's incessant griping.

She had requested a week to get the pod space worthy, Vegeta told her she had two days, and she had completed it with half a day to spare.

"Yeah. You sure showed us Soesa. " Raditz chortled, swinging his legs back and forth as he sat on the side console. "Ain't no one more stubborn than Vegeta 'cept you."

"You know what. I don't want to hear it from you Rad. You have been utterly useless, alright?"

He shrugged, tossing the metal orb he was holding in the air. Lato snatched it before he could catch it again, turning it gracefully across to the back of her hand and running it up her arm, across her shoulders and down to her other hand before tossing it back to him.

He stared goofily at her, and she snickered as the metal ball hit him in the face.

"If you two are done horsin' around that about does it." Bulma peeled off her sweaty gloves and tossed them in the chair.

"Great!" Raditz jumped off the console, picking up the metal orb from the ground. "Just in time for grub."

" Soesa I got some good news for ya. Ya don't gotta worry none about fixin' the ship no more." Nappa chortled.

They were outside, gathered around the campfire for the evening meal. This happened more and more often these days since nobody but Stoks knew how to cook anything any other way than to roast it over a fire. Several of the crew had tried. It hadn't gone well.

Bulma took a sip of her water from her tin raising an eyebrow as she kicked dust into the roaring fire. "Oh? And why is that Nappa?"

"'Cause with Raditz huntin' like this we'll all be bones an' skin by the end of the week."

"Oh hush your bellyachin' you. I don't see you doin' no hunting." Raditz gripped quietly as he flipped his hair back over his shoulder and pulled it up in a messy bun at the top of his head. In the mop of long hair and the occasional dreadlock woven with colorful threads, there was a simple set of rounded clay beads on a string that was woven into his hair behind his ear. Bulma had never seen them, though she couldn't say she had ever really inspected Raditz's hair before.

"What are these?" she asked, pointing to the string of beads.

He reached behind his ear and fingered them gently as if he had forgotten them. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

"Oh...my mother gave these to me on a necklace when I left for my first purge….y'know for good luck and whatnot. Each one's a member of our family. My father, my mother, me, and Kakarot."

Bulma tried to imagine Bardock as a family man and nearly laughed. He never smiled, rarely spoke. The only time he did anything relatively engaging was when he picked fights with Tschev, which happened fairly often.

"What was your mother like?" She leaned in, chin resting heavily on her palm, her elbow resting on her knees.

Raditz eyed his father cautiously at the question. He hadn't seemed to notice. He was across the fire, hitting his tin cup against the log he sat on and singing along to Nappa's horrendous pipe music. A cigarette fixin' to fall right out his mouth.

"Don't usually talk about her none. Not 'round dad anyways...he...he don't like to think about it."

"Oh... I'm sorry." Bulma seemed genuinely surprised. The saiyans had always been more than open about anything she had asked them. Never before had she seen one of the crew shy away from any subject.

"That's alright Soesa. She died when I was real young, nearly ten years a tickin'...but dad still don't like to speak none about it on account a him missin' her something wicked. I don't know about your people but it's...it's not usual for a saiyan to bond and mate for life. We just don't do it." he chewed thoughtfully, spitting a mouthful of clean bones in the dirt at his feet. "Ain't our way. Some say though that us saiyans can imprint, like findin' a soulmate of sorts. Dad 'n Ma were like that." he laughed to himself as he remembered, absentmindedly thumbing the beads in his hair. "He only had eyes for her. Basil n' Tschev were like that too. Once they met that was it. The rest of the world just…," he motioned smoothly with his hands, "ceased to be. Ain't hell or high water come between the two of 'em but… can't say I ever met no other saiyans like that."

"I see…"

Bardock muttered a tune that soon turned into a song and Nappa whistled noisily through his small round pipe. Vegeta leaned forward, using the stick he had stoked the fire with to bang the beat of the tune into the dirt, humming along quietly. He almost smiled. Lato set down her knife and the root she was skinning. She stood and dusted herself off, smoothing her top as she stepped forward to the center of the camp. Then...she began to dance. Her movements were long and graceful like lapping ocean waves. It was a stark contrast to the saiyans and their abrasive nature. Raditz stared in awe at the dancing saiyan. Bulma couldn't help but smile. She didn't blame him, it was amazing.

"She's pretty good. Dontcha think Rad?" Bulma mused knowingly, watching Raditz chew on his bottom lip as he leaned forward, mesmerized by the performance.

"She's more than good...she's absolutely incredible." Raditz mumbled wistfully as Lato stepped gracefully around the fire, spinning gentle webs of blue light around her like wisps of smoke, a genuine smile softening her stoic features. When they reached the chorus of the song all of the saiyans began to sing. It was beautiful and powerful, resonating deep in Bulma's chest. If she and known the words she would've sung along. It was the first time she had seen them all so lighthearted.

Raditz felt Bulma's eyes on him and he cleared his throat awkwardly. She smiled at him, raising her eyebrows knowingly. He kicked around the fire for a good lookin' critter and finally settled for a crispy, barely recognizable lizard on a stick.

Lato's dance finished, her legs gently crossed and her hands forming a delicate diamond, her index fingers touching as she held them up to the dark heavens.

The saiyans cheered and stomped. Lato curtsied gently and laughed.

"What was that?" Bulma leaned in closer and muttered to Raditz, her hands flicking in the air, trying clumsily to mimic the strange flickering blue light that Lato spun and wove around her when she danced.

"What...you mean her ki?"

She rolled her eyes, reaching for a root from the coals on the edge of the fire. "I don't know, the blue light."

"Yeah. That's ki." he sounded surprised as he tore into a small critter. "You ain't never seen ki before?"

Had she? She vaguely remembered Goku talking about ki, usually calling it 'energy' or something.

"Everything alive has ki in it - it's what makes us...well, alive. Strong folk can learn how to make it in excess, gather it up, and do things with it. Most saiyans can, anyway. Other folk in the galaxy… well. Hit or miss, I'd say. Mostly miss."

"What do you mean, 'do stuff with it'?" Bulma was somewhat confused.

"Well, you saw me dance, but that's just the tip o' the iceberg. We incorporate techniques using ki into our martial arts. It can burn, cut, pierce, push, or explode if you're strong enough." Lato interjected.

"If you could weaponize that, blow up a ship with your freakin' hands then why on Earth are you people using guns and knives instead of blasting people out of the sky with your force powers?"

The saiyans spoke over each other as they tried to explain the complex nature of energy.

"You want to know, mmm?" Vegeta's voice silenced the crew. He was slowly unwrapping the thick bandages around his hands.

With a playful smirk he held his palms out towards Bulma. She cautiously stood and walked forward, looking down at his palm. She couldn't help but gawk at the sight. The entirety of his hands were covered in knurled, pink burn scars.

"Yes, it would be ideal to blow up a ship with my freakin' hands." Vegeta laughed.

"You see, using ki offensively… it's not easy or safe. Even most saiyans avoid using it unless there's no other choice, and only as much as is necessary. Here…" Lato said, holding out her palm to Bulma. In a second, a small orb, like a tiny blue sun coalesced in the air above her hand. "Feel." Lato said.

"Ahhh!" Bulma shrieked, surprised as she touched it. "It's hot!" .

"Mmm." Bardock said. "That it is."

Bulma was piecing things together…. Bardock's missing arm, the scars covering so much of his body... burn scars.

"Heh, yeah." Bardock said, looking away. He clearly saw what Bulma was thinking.

"Why would you dance with something so dangerous?" Bulma asked, shocked at the dangerous potential.

"Well I - " Lato began.

"Good ole' Lato," Nappa interjected. "She ain't the strongest Saiyan in the crew, musculo-physically speakin'. But she's got a gift for ki control. It's a pretty rare trait to have. Vegeta's probably the only one I seen what can generate and control more intense ki than Lato there."

"You flatter me" Lato said, actually blushing slightly.

"I ain't flattening nobody." Nappa said. "Yous prolly the only one of the crew, Geeters exceptin' o course, I wouldn't much look forward to fightin. I seen you - all sneaky like, weaving in 'n out people, making 'em all look clumsy. Don't need none of that. I clumsy enough as it is!"

"Well thank you, Nappa." Lato said graciously, with a slight bow.

"So why aren't you going with us then?" Bulma asked, curious as to why Raditz of all the crew members had been chosen as the third member of their upcoming raid.

"I imagine it's because Vegeta's worried about that homing beacon we found on the purger ship." Raditz said. "There's no shame in me admitting I'd rather have Lato help defend our ship rather 'n me."

"Yer just hoping to do some bondage while out with Vegeta!" Nappa shouted, slapping Vegeta on the back. Vegeta looked up at him with mild annoyance. He opened his mouth to speak but instead rolled his eyes and took a bite of the hot root in his hand.

"I think you mean, bonding ." Bulma said, trying to hold back a laugh.

"I know what I said! And you know what I meant!" Nappa yelled, laughing louder than the rest.

Bulma laughed. The spirit of the campfire was so much lighter than the somber tone of life in the scorching desert night. She was starting to love these Saiyans. They had become a family to her. A loud, obnoxious, uncouth family. They were more proud than anyone she had ever met. Proud of their heritage, their race, their culture… but at the same time they were also humble. Humble enough to endlessly tease one another and themselves and just, laugh.

Bulma was exhausted, too exhausted to sleep. It was becoming more than an inconvenience, it was becoming a problem. She found herself sleepless and restless every time tragedy struck. Wearing holes in the floor in front of the medical bay and the wall in the mess hall. She wished she had been more like the saiyans, so accustomed to tragedy and the gruesomeness of their lives that they slept easy. She was beginning to grow quite fond of them. Vegeta, on the other hand, she could do without. He was rarely around and when he was she wished he wasn't.

But when she mopped the blood from the floors, or pulled the carefully cobbled engine apart she thought of the saiyans that had been lost, their only legacy the junk ship they had left behind. Even worse she began to imagine losing one of the remaining crew members.

When anything happened to disrupt the delicate balance of the life she was building, the survival she was desperately clawing at, she found herself pacing through the ship, climbing and crawling through tunnels, around and around again in circles, chewing at her raw nail beds until they bled.

She could never relax, never let her guard down. Tschev's injury had been more than sobering. A simple accident borne from childish anger and carelessness, a collapsed pillar of a crashed ship nearly ended the life of a crew member. A week had passed and Tschev had still not awoken. As Bulma had pulled together the loose skin and thread the needles through the swollen flesh she couldn't help but think, it could've easily been her. But Bulma was not a saiyan, she was a human. The plain and simple spit of it all was that if it had been Bulma she would have been dead before even making it to the operating table.

She had thought more about death in the past month than ever in her life before. She was only eighteen and she had been young and foolish. Bulma had always felt invincible, believing that somehow she would pull through in the end. Life had sobered her up real quick. Now she was fighting for her life, they all were. Eventually they would die, maybe it would be in only a few moments, or maybe many years from now.

The boy stood silently, his hand clasped to his chest in salute.

"Kneel."

His eyes darted around the room, weighing his options. To stand would be to disobey a direct order. The punishment for insubordination was great... too great. So he knelt, his knee bent to the tyrant who destroyed his world, slaughtered his people, and held him captive as a slave.

In the low light his eyes caught a flicker of movement. They weren't alone. His eyes darted between his master and the intruder behind him. A young woman, with vibrant blue hair and piercing eyes. Tears cut hard lines down her soft, rosy cheeks. She was filthy and covered in bruises, her ragged clothes torn. She stared listlessly at him, never blinking, never breathing, never looking away. Something was wrong, it turned his stomach and filled him with panic, she didn't belong here. Frieza watched gleefully as the boy stared up at him.

It was getting dark, too dark to see. For a creature that can see through the darkness it was more than frightening, it was debilitating. He closed his eyes and listened, staving off the onset of paralyzing fear. He listened to the steps of his master circling him like a hungry animal, to the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears, and of the girl crying. Then the sounds stopped. A clammy tail wrapped around his throat, before his hands could reach around it, slammed his small body into the ground, his face colliding with the floor.

His arms were pulled from where they desperately clawed into the tail that suffocated him, chained to bolts in the floor. Electricity sparked through the wires that wrapped tight around his tiny wrists. He knew the punishment would be less severe if he didn't fight his heritage, his pride, the blood of his people cried out from dark skies for him to resist.

No matter how hard he struggled he couldn't break the chains. The pain was blinding, sharp white sparked through the suffocating darkness, but it wasn't enough to stop his struggling. The boy never gave in, the pain evident on his face and in the stifled groans. It made it all the sweeter for his master. So he fought as he listened to the deafening sound of his flesh split with each whip. He could feel the slick blood bubble up his back and trickle down his sides. His raw spine burned and his body trembled.

"As much as it pains me to do this, my child, we will continue this until you relent to me. You simply must give up the illusion of control. Remember, dear boy, a slave has no control."

Couldn't breathe. Couldn't see.

The words slithered through the darkness, punctuated by the lashes.

"How does it feel...Vegeta...to be completely...and utterly...powerless? Tell me…"

Bulma found herself passing in front of the open door to the medical bay, the glow of the bell light spilling into the hallway as it swayed gently back and forth. As she passed she looked in at Tschev, still bundled in blankets, moaning in pain. She didn't think twice as she passed, catching herself dead in her tracks as she realized someone sitting behind the head of the table. Bulma quietly peered in the room at Bardock. He leaned his tired body into the back of his chair. One leg crossed over the other he pushed off the ground leaning the chair on its back legs and letting it fall forward before pushing it back again and again slowly blowing cigarette smoke into the air. It swirled in the light of the bell lamp creating a warm haze in the room.

Bardock hummed, sweet and low as he rubbed the rough pad of his thumb back and forth over Tschev's sweaty forehead. He opened his tired eyes as he yawned, his large canines slipping from under his lips. His white eye stared through Bulma and for a moment she thought he had seen her. Quietly she slipped past the room, pausing to listen to his voice, a smile tugging gently on the corners of her lips.

Bulma had never paid much mind to the little things in life. After all, when your life is one grand adventure after another and who has time to sit around drinking lemonade in lawn chairs and watching the fireflies dance? But now that those moments were gone she ached for them. Ached for the sound of her mother humming while she knit or the smell of her father thoughtfully smoking while he worked. The way that Goku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly when he was nervous or the way that Yamcha blushed when she kissed his cheek.

She was beginning to take joy in the little things. The absolutely, insignificant moments she had always taken for granted, passing them by without a second thought. Out here they meant everything. She clasped her mother's cross, saying a silent prayer to a god she wasn't sure she believed in. She prayed to anyone who would listen. Prayed for the saiyans, for their mission, for their survival.

Vegeta woke as he always did - shivering, silent, and utterly paralyzed. Panic shot through his veins like ice, hyperventilating, eyes screwed shut as he struggled to regain control.

Control. A foreign concept for a slave.

Systematically through his entire life, everything he had known and loved had been ripped away and crushed to pieces in front of him. He breathed heavily through his nose, rubbing his raw hands over his face, the springs in his mattress creaking painfully as rolled to the edge of the bed.

It was over, no use in dwelling on it now. He would wake and move on as he had done a thousand times over. But the girl. She had penetrated his memories, his nightmares. Watching him squirm in pain, staring down blankly at the humiliation as Frieza ripped his joints from their sockets and lashed his back until the flesh threatened to peel from his bones.

He rolled his shoulders, hyper aware of the twisting scars that covered his chest and back. The anger smoldered deep inside his gut and bubbled up to his chest. He threw his fist at the wall, letting it collide as hard as he could, nearly driving a hole through the already reinforced metal sheets and leaving a huge dent in the wall. He felt something break in his hand and threw his fist at the wall again, just in spite.

Bulma nearly jumped out of her own skin, yelping at the sudden sound that shattered the calm silence she had stewed in for hours. Only one person slept down at that end of the hallway.

Vegeta.

She marched down the hallways with purpose. At least she wasn't bothering anyone when she walked through the ship at the wee hours of the night. But Vegeta? He was more than inconsiderate. He was incredibly self-centered and rude.

She banged rapidly on the door with her fist.

"Hey. Open up." When no one answered she banged harder, her confidence bolstered by her own racing heart.

Who did he think he was anyways? He had scared the living daylights out of her. Besides, people were trying to sleep . So upset over her own fright, Bulma hadn't stopped to think that the people who were actually sleeping didn't seem to be bothered by whatever ruckus their captain was making on the other end of the hallway.

She lifted her hand to knock again and felt a hand grip her wrist tightly. She hadn't heard the door open, hadn't seen him move, but it was closed behind him and he stood in front of her, holding her hand above her head. He wore nothing except for his cargo pants, which hung loosely about his trim waist. He released her hand and she found herself backing down the hallway. His bare feet padding gracefully across the floor as he walked closer to her. The sound of his tail rapping lightly against the floor in agitation. He looked tired and pale, his deep, ruddy skin nearly sheet white. He was covered in a sheen of cold sweat and his fierce eyes tore through her like bullets. She stopped at the doorway to the mess hall, unable to do anything but stare at him. His eyes narrowed with annoyance as he stepped forward, crossing his arms contemptuously.

She recognized the scar that ran the length of his abdomen. But it was nearly hidden amongst a forest of lashes and holes. Every single mark a testament to his survival. It was incredible he was still alive.

During her stay with the saiyans she had begun to learn so much about them: their language, their culture, even their personal histories. She had grown to respect each one of them as she learned of their incredible tales of survival and perseverance. All except for Vegeta. She knew nothing about Vegeta. Nothing except that he was distant and cold, he had next to no sense of humor, he was never around and when he was, she wished he wasn't.

"What do you want?" he growled so low she barely understood him.

"People are trying to sleep." she hissed.

"Forgive me." he turned his head to the side and leaned in close, his look calm but venomous. Like a snarling dog without the energy to snap it's jaws. "Did I wake you from your beauty sleep?"

"Well...no, but-"

He waited, eyebrows raised incredulously before rolling his tired eyes and scoffing.

" Tzch ."

He turned away from her, his back bathed in the yellow light of the mess hall that spilled into the hallway. She stared at the milky scars that tore through his body. Something in her wanted to reach out and touch them, to ask him about their stories, but self-preservation silenced her.

"Go to bed, Soesa . Tomorrow will begin shortly and there is much to be done."

Bulma once again found herself alone in the darkness.

Translations:

*fono - fono literally means meeting but the connotation of it covers more than just the English word "meeting". Basically like a council.

AN: We know you guys are pining for action and we really want to give it to you. We promise it is coming very, very soon. We just don't want to put in action for the sake of action. Trust us. It will be worth the wait.

Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on the story so far! We have been thrilled that you've enjoyed it and have read every comment even if we have not responded to all of them.

Mo & Hanko