Chapter 14: Freeza?
Bulma got up out of her chair and began feeling around for the emergency backup switch. The ship should never have completely shut off like this.
"What's wrong, Bulma?" Kuririn called out through the darkness. "Why are all the lights out?"
"Damn!" she said angrily, flipping the backup switch on and off repeatedly, but to no avail. She knelt down and yanked one of the emergency kits out from under her seat. "Well this is just perfect!" she snapped, fishing out a flashlight. "They've taken control of the ship. I don't know how they did it, but our friends from another world have pulled our ship into theirs and shut off our power."
"How could they have done that?" Gohan asked, as Bulma turned on the flashlight and began digging under her seat again. "Their ship was exactly like ours, wasn't it?"
"I don't think so," she replied. "That blip on the radar screen was much too big to belong to a ship our size. They must have deceived us somehow."
"Yeah," Kuririn said, as Bulma tossed him and Gohan each a flashlight. "But just who are 'they,' exactly?"
"I don't know," Bulma said, walking over onto the entry platform, "but I'm going to find out. No one hijacks my ship without a fight! Are you two coming?"
"We're with you, Bulma," Kuririn said, as he and Gohan hopped out of their chairs. "Let's just hope that we're not in over our heads!" They trotted over and stood beside Bulma on the entry platform.
"Piccolo!" she commanded. The platform slowly lowered itself to the floor of the enemy spacecraft. Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan warily crept out from under their ship and peered out at their surroundings.
"What is this place?" Kuririrn wondered aloud. Suddenly, bright lights snapped on above them, making them jump.
"It looks like a hangar," Bulma said. "See! There are some of those little robotic attack pods that swarmed us earlier!"
"Where is everybody?" Gohan asked as they explored the hangar. "I'd felt sure that we'd be greeted by armed space pirates or something. Pretty rude hijackers, huh?"
"Look!" Bulma said, pointing to a hallway on the other side of the hangar. "I don't see any other doorways. Come on. It might be a trap, but we don't exactly have a lot of options, here."
"I guess you're right," Kuririn agreed. "Just the same, we'd better be careful."
They crept over to the doorway and peered inside, but no one appeared to be in there. It was dimly lit for as far as Bulma could see. Constantly watching all around them, the three wary travelers made their way down the hallway.
"Well," Bulma said after a few minutes. "Maybe this place isn't booby-trapped after all." Just then, gun ports opened in the walls, and they were suddenly aware that Bulma had spoken too soon. The guns began firing a barrage of bullets at them, and they were forced to run the gauntlet down the hallway. More guns appeared on the walls as they ran. They'd walked into a trap, all right!
"Look!" Kuririn shouted over the din of the bullets. "There's a light up there! Turn right!" They dove into the new hallway, frantically checking the walls for more gun ports.
"If you think that you can kill us with a few pieces of lead, then think again!" Bulma hollered angrily.
"Don't make them mad, Bulma," Kuririn groaned. "They have an advantage over us, you know. We're on their turf."
"I don't care!" Bulma snapped. "We didn't do anything to them! They have no right to attack us like this! When I find whoever's behind this, I'll give 'em a few real reasons to shoot at me!"
Suddenly, large metal doors dropped down from the ceiling behind and in front of them. Before they had time to react, a strange, corrosive goo began oozing out of the walls. A little bit dripped onto Kuririn's hat and began eating it away. Bulma quickly yanked it off of his head and threw it onto the ground. The trio quickly flew up a few inches to get out of reach of the smelly acid.
"What should we do?" Bulma asked, as Kuririn quickly grabbed his hat before any more of the stuff could get to it. "We can't stay here much longer. I'm sure we can avoid this acid for a while, but the fumes smell toxic. We've got to get out of here!"
"One exit, coming right up!" Kuririn said, and he blasted through one of the doors. They flew away from the poisonous fumes as quickly as they could, and they ran down several more hallways, each one appearing no different from the last. After about five minutes of running like this, they stopped to try to figure out where they were.
"You know, I'd swear I've seen this hallway before," Bulma grumbled.
"I've been thinking the same thing," Kuririn replied. "I think we've been going in circles."
"I'm beginning to feel very unwelcome," she said with an angry scowl. "I wish I could at least see who I'm running from. I'm tired of feeling like a rat in a maze."
"Hey, look at that!" Kuririn said, pointing at an odd panel on the ceiling. It was a slightly different hue from all the others.
"Hmmm..." Bulma said, floating up so she could see it better. "I wonder what will happen if I move this thing around..." She found that she could push the panel up and turn it, so she did. The result was a new doorway opening next to Gohan.
"Should we go in?" Gohan asked. "It's probably another trap."
"I know," Bulma sighed, "but we ought to keep moving. We're bound to come to the end of this string of booby-traps sooner or later. Besides, we can't go back. We know what's waiting for us back there."
They decided that she was right. They stepped boldly through the doorway, which snapped shut almost immediately.
"Here we go again," Kuririn grumbled. Suddenly the floor gave way beneath them, and they realized in horror that they were about to be sucked out into space! As they fell down a chute toward certain death, they simultaneously realized what had to be done. Bulma, Gohan, and Kuririn stretched their arms downward and shot enormous chi blasts toward the void, propelling themselves back up the chute. They flew down the new corridor in this way until Kuririn spied a switch on the wall that closed a hatch between them and outer space. Panting, they looked at each other in exhaustion. Fortunately, they were all still alive. The only loss had been Kuririn's hat, which he'd lost while propelling himself back up the chute.
"I'm getting really tired of this," Bulma snarled.
Kuririn groaned in agreement. "I'm just plain getting tired... not to mention hungry."
Bulma's stomach growled in assent. They hadn't eaten much today, thanks to their inactivity on the ship.
"Is it just me," Gohan asked, sniffing the air, "or do you guys smell food too?"
Bulma and Kuririn sniffed too. "You're right!" Kuririn said. "Where is it coming from?"
"Come on," Bulma exclaimed. "Let's find out." They followed their noses down the various hallways until they came to a large room. There was a table out in the center, and it was covered with delicious-smelling food. The table even came complete with three chairs. Bulma's stomach growled more loudly now, and her mouth watered in anticipation.
"All right!" she and Gohan exclaimed. They ran to the table and sat in two of the chairs.
"Hold it, guys," Kuririn said. "I smell a rat."
"All I smell is this great food," Gohan whined, staring at the dishes in front of him.
"How do you know that the food isn't poisoned?" Kuririn asked them. "I'm sure that whoever prepared this table also set all those other traps for us. How do we know that this isn't just another trap? Why should we believe that they've changed their minds about us?"
"Well, let's just sit down for a while at least," Bulma said, eying the food longingly. "You're tired, aren't you?"
"All right," he sighed. He sat down in the other chair and glanced around nervously. He just couldn't shake his apprehension that all this great-smelling food came with some deadly or poisonous strings attached.
"You never know," Bulma said, poking hopefully at her plate of food. "Maybe they're about to reward us for making it through that fun house of theirs."
"Yeah, right," Kuririn said, pushing his plate of food away so that he wouldn't be so tempted to stuff his face. "That's way too farfetched to me. Are you sure that isn't just your stomach talking, Bulma?"
"Well, it's sure been talking a lot," she complained, looking down and frowning as she rubbed her growling stomach. "I wouldn't be surprised."
Suddenly a knife shot through the air toward Bulma's head. Compared to the projectiles she was used to dodging, it was traveling at a crawl, so she easily dodged by leaning her head to one side. It struck her chair and stuck fast.
"What the?" she exclaimed, looking at the place where the knife had struck. It must have activated some kind of button, because a light beside it had begun to blink on and off.
"Get out of here! Quick!" she barked, jumping up from her chair. "It's another trap!" Gohan and Kuririn leapt to their feet, and they all began glancing around in anticipation of some new danger. Suddenly a shadow appeared over them. Gohan and Kuririn bolted before Bulma realized what was happening, and with a loud "clang" sound, she was instantly covered by darkness. She could hear the muffled voices of Gohan and Kuririn, as well as the reverberations of their pounding fists on the outside of her metal prison. She tried to feel her way to a wall, but she was grabbed tightly around the middle by an unknown attacker.
"Whoever you are, you'd better let me go right now!" she said angrily, struggling to get her arms free. Suddenly a hole opened above her and she could see in the light that she was being held by what appeared to be a large, metal claw.
"Huh? What happened? Where did this thing come froooooom!" she shrieked as the claw yanked her up to a platform high above the floor. She struggled violently to free herself, and the claw made some grinding, popping noises as her struggles began to crack and tear the metal.
"Freeze, or we'll shoot you!" someone said next to her. She suddenly realized that she was surrounded on all sides by children with guns pointed straight at her head.
"Bulma!" Gohan and Kuririn yelled up to her. "Are you all right?"
"Forget about me for the moment!" she called back. "You two need to watch out too! You're surrounded!"
Kuririn and Gohan gasped as they realized she was right. It was as if these children had appeared out of nowhere. They were all armed, and they all had their guns pointed at her, Kuririn, and Gohan.
"What the hell is wrong with you kids?" Bulma snapped at the armed children who had crowded around her. "First you attack our ship, then you make us go through all kinds of deadly traps, and now this! What kind of sadistic misfits are you anyway? We didn't do anything to you!"
"Liar!" the boy closest to her exclaimed. "It was your kind that robbed us of our parents and our planet! We have every reason to destroy you!" He pushed his gun closer to her face.
"Rapid teleport!" Bulma yelled. Now that time had stopped, she was able to free herself from the metal claw that held her without worrying about the gun-toting brats. It was a simple matter to free herself, and she had figured as much. It was only logical that machines that were powered by electricity or hydraulics would be easily manipulated during halted time. She floated out in front of the platform and turned around to look at the children some more. She couldn't switch back to real time just yet. She had to think. Perhaps she had been wrong in assuming that their aggressors were totally deserving of a severe thrashing. They obviously had mistaken Bulma and her friends for someone else - someone terrible. Maybe they should try to talk things out before doing anything rash. Still, it wouldn't hurt to take precautions. She took the guns from the hands of each of the kids on the platform and tucked the stack of weapons under her arm. She snapped back into real time and allowed the kids in front of her to react. They jumped back in fear and confusion when they saw her hovering there with their weapons.
"Now just calm down," she said, trying not to sound threatening. "If you're afraid I'm going to hurt you, you can rest assured that I won't. I'm not that kind of person. I just want to get to the bottom of this mess. Just who do you think we are, and why did it make you attack us?"
"Don't play dumb with us!" the same one said to her. "We know you're three of Freeza's cronies!"
"Freeza?" Bulma said, genuinely confused. "Who's Freeza?" Suddenly she sensed a rise in chi down below. Kuririn and Gohan were beginning to lose their patience with the mob of armed youngsters that was closing in on them. They were about ready to resort to violence.
"Uh-oh!" she exclaimed. This wasn't good. They certainly didn't want to pick a fight with these kids. If they were the kind of people who had to rely on guns for their protection, there wouldn't be much they could do to defend themselves from Bulma and the boys. A lot of lives could be lost in such a one-sided skirmish.
"Here! Take these!" she said hurriedly, shoving the pile of guns at the one who had snapped at her earlier. "I've got to stop my friends from making a big mistake!" The boy fell back from the weight of the guns as Bulma shot down towards Kuririn and Gohan. They were just about to fire energy blasts at the crowd of angry, threatening children when Bulma touched down in front of them. Gohan stopped himself in time, but Kuririn let a small energy ball escape from him. Bulma canceled it out without too much difficulty, but it made her hand sting something fierce.
"Hold it!" she cried angrily. "Will everyone please just calm down?"
"What's the matter, Bulma?" Kuririn asked her in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"Kuririn, we can't fight these kids!" she exclaimed, holding her arms up to stop both sides from attacking. "They think we're someone else – someone really terrible. This is all a big misunderstanding, and if you guys start tossing chi all over the place, you'll start killing innocents!"
"'Innocent?!'" Kuririn said incredulously. "What do you mean 'innocent?' They were about to shoot us!"
"Why shouldn't we?" the oldest-looking one asked angrily. "You did the same thing to all our parents!"
"Huh? What do you mean?" Kuririn asked, shocked right out of his anger.
"Kuririn," Bulma said, "these kids think that we helped some guy named Freeza destroy their civilization and their parents. That's why they attacked us."
Before anyone could say anything else the whole ship quaked violently, and Bulma was nearly knocked off her feet. An adolescent girl ran out to report.
"Zeshin!" she cried to the older-looking boy. "We've entered an asteroid field! The ship will be torn to bits if we don't do something, and that last impact has already caused some small fires in the eighth and ninth sectors of the ship! They're too close to the fuel lines to be insignificant for long!"
"Bun, you're in charge!" Zeshin barked at the one who had snapped at Bulma up on the platform. "Assign some people to watch these three and send the rest to go handle those fires with me. You go to the bridge and fly our ship through these asteroids. Now let's move!"
Bun quickly did as he was told. Soon the whole ship was a bustle of nervous activity. Only ten children had been assigned to watch Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan, and the poor kids were so nervous and scared that they weren't even paying attention to their captives.
"What should we do?" Kuririn asked Bulma. "Should we leave while we can? When they get past this asteroid field they'll probably try to execute us again."
"Yeah, but from the looks of things around here, they're not going to have an easy time with their current situation. They're just kids, Kuririn! We ought to at least try to give them a hand."
Suddenly, one of the steel panels on the ceiling above a large group of the kids began creaking and groaning. Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan nodded at each other and flew over toward the panicking children, just in time to keep the thick chunk of metal from crushing them. The children looked up in shock and fear as their rescuers dropped the panel harmlessly off to one side.
"Are you all right?" Bulma asked them. Gulping, they nodded at her. She shot them a relieved smile and then turned back toward Gohan and Kuririn.
"Here's my game plan," she said quickly. "Gohan, Kuririn, I want you two to try to keep these kids out of harm's way and help them put out those fires. While you do that, I'm going to go to the control room and do what I can to help them pilot us out of the asteroid field. With a bit of luck, we'll show them that there are decent people in this universe yet!"
"Let's do it!" Kuririn said.
"Yeah!" Gohan agreed.
"All right!" Bulma said, turning to run down the passage where she'd seen Bun go earlier. "You two be careful!"
She ran through the hallway where she'd seen Bun go, having to make her way past dozens of panicking children. Luckily, she didn't have far to run. She soon found herself at the bridge, standing beside Bun, who was frantically trying to keep the ship from hitting the larger asteroids. He was doing an okay job with that, but they were taking a lot of minor hits from the smaller ones, and those would add up before long. Bulma quickly studied his actions so that she could pick up the gist of this ship and how it handled. She smiled happily as she discovered that it was similar to their own ship, and she could even do it all manually by keyboard, too.
"Move!" she ordered, shoving him out of the seat and sitting down. Ignoring his cry of protest, she immediately began typing out commands to the ship's main computer.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Bun hollered at her angrily.
"Keeping us all from getting killed, that's what!" she snapped. "Don't yell at me! I need to concentrate!"
She deftly maneuvered the ship past the enormous rocks, while she used the ship's laser guns to atomize the smaller chunks that were in their path. She had to stop time every now and then just to work out a plausible strategy, and in this way, she managed to avoid all of the damaging rocks. To say that Bun was amazed by her piloting skills was a rather bold understatement. He immediately stopped complaining once they stopped getting hit. After about twenty minutes of strenuous, nerve-wracking dodging, they were finally past the field of asteroids, and Bulma was able to rest her fingers.
"Whew!" she sighed. "That was intense!" She turned to smirk triumphantly at Bun and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.
"Hey!" she cried angrily. "What gives? Can't you get it through your thick skulls that we're not here to hurt you? I just saved your lives, for Kami's sake!"
"Ha!" Bun snorted derisively at her. "You only did that to save yourself! You three don't give a damn about people like us! You've got to be in league with Freeza. Only people associated with him could do what I've seen you three do today."
"Put your weapon down, Bun," Zeshin said. He had just arrived with Gohan and Kuririn. "These three aren't with Freeza; I'm sure of it now." He told them about how Gohan and Kuririn had rescued a bunch of kids from various calamities, and had helped them put out the fires.
"These guys can't be with Freeza," he claimed, "because Freeza's men would never have gone out of their way to save everyone like that. They might have put out the fires and piloted us through the asteroid field so they could save themselves, but they wouldn't have done the rest."
Bun looked closely into Bulma's eyes. After a few moments, he seemed satisfied. Bulma had not noticed it before, but it suddenly occurred to her that Bun looked a lot like a younger version of Yamucha.
"I believe you," he said to Zeshin. "I don't see the evil in her eyes that I saw in the eyes of Freeza's soldiers." He turned to walk out, and he stopped to tousle Gohan's hair as he left.
"I'm sorry we attacked you," Zeshin apologized. "We're all pretty jumpy around here. Freeza's still looking for us."
"Who is this Freeza, anyway?" Kuririn asked. "What exactly did he do to you and your home world?"
Zeshin shuddered. "Freeza and his minions are the worst kind of evil. They came to our planet and killed all our parents. Only us kids were able to escape, but even so, of all the ships full of children that flew away, only our mirrored one has so far escaped destruction from Freeza. All the rest of our brothers and sisters have been killed by that maniac and his soldiers."
"Why did Freeza kill all your people?" Bulma asked.
"They wanted to sell our planet to a barbaric race of people who had destroyed their own planet with wars and pollution," he said disgustedly. "Our people were the 'vermin' that were set to be exterminated before the sale."
Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan looked at each other in amazement. This was all too familiar.
"These people sound a lot like Saiyans," Bulma said. "The Saiyans tried to do the same thing with our planet. By any chance, did Freeza and his men have long, furry tails?"
"No," Zeshin said. "Some of them had tails, but they weren't like that. They seemed to be from lots of different races of people, but they could all do what you three can do - you know, shoot energy from your hands, fly, things like that. Anyway, to tell you the truth, I've never seen Freeza before; none of us have. All we've seen are his soldiers."
"Oh," Kuririn said. "So where are you all going? You can't very well go back to your own planet now."
"Yeah," Zeshin said. "I know. We're going to the planet of one of our home world's trading partners. They said that they'd be glad to take us in."
"That's great," Bulma sighed happily. "At least you all have a place to go."
"Where are you three going?" he asked them.
"We're going to the planet Namek," Gohan answered, "and it's very important that we get there in a hurry."
"It's strange that you should say that," Zeshin said. "We passed Namek only a few days ago. We know a shortcut, if you're interested."
"We sure are!" Bulma said, grinning at Kuririn and Gohan, who grinned back. Zeshin gave her the coordinates, and they all went to the hangar, where all the rest of the children were waiting to bid them farewell.
"Goodbye Zeshin... Bun." Bulma said, shaking their hands firmly. Kuririn and Gohan did the same. "I sincerely hope that you all make it to where you are going."
"And the same back to you," Bun said. "I'm sorry I ever made such a bad call. You three are the best aliens I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few."
Bulma and the boys laughed at this innocent but funny statement. Everyone waved goodbye as Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan got into their ship and sped away.
"Where were they going, anyway?" Bun asked Zeshin, as they went back inside and headed for the bridge.
"Namek," Zeshin replied. "I hope they make it there without any trouble."
Bun suddenly grew strangely pale. "What?!" he exclaimed. "Run that by me again!"
"Namek," Zeshin said again, shooting his friend a puzzled glance. "What's the matter?"
"Oh no!" Bun said, clenching his fists. "No! They can't go there!"
"What in the world has gotten into you?" Zeshin asked him. "Why shouldn't they go to Namek?"
"Because," Bun said, shaking angrily. "I overheard one of Freeza's soldiers say before we left that Namek was Freeza's next primary target! We've just sent those people to their deaths!"