Chapter Twenty-five - Leberion
An annoying beeping sound stirred 18 back to consciousness. It took a moment for the source of the beeping, the reason, and her current location, to register in her mind. Once it did she came to full alert again and turned off the noise before bringing up the data display. Planet Leberion lay dead ahead, in another fifteen minutes she'd be entering the atmosphere and beginning her descent. In twenty-five she'd be on the surface. She scanned over the power readings being displayed on the screen not really expecting much. The threat here wasn't organic, the powers of the planet's robots wouldn't register on the scanners. Sure enough the highest reading to appear on the screen was only 222.
As she gazed at that reading she couldn't help but feel sorry for these people. Their greatest fighter, the most powerful person on the planet and seventeen points over the second strongest, was only a measly twenty points stronger than Master Kakkarotto had been when he was born and Kakkarotto had been the weakest living Sai-jin back then. It illustrated just how little chance the average person really had against the Masters and she found herself thinking about what could have happened to her if she'd not defected while still Human, had not become one of Dr. Gero's projects. Dead, with the rest of those on Earth, for a month now. She really wouldn't have been much different than these people. She never would have been as strong as the Masters, never would have had a chance to pull herself up from under the Empire's feet, even if she was still under its thumb.
Though she knew that the relative freedom she enjoyed had its limits. Even these days when the Empire called her a Master, and she was largely treated as such by the others, there were still invisible chains. She knew she wasn't truly a Master. Yes, it was official, more so even than Videl's supposed position as a Master, but it had never actually felt real. The lack of realism to the title had been one of the main reasons she'd been so concerned about her daughter's safety. She had become a Master as the end of her progression through the ranks of the Empire's forces and because it had only made sense to make her and her brother, two of the Empire's strongest soldiers, into Masters.
Despite the title, however, she still carried all of the failsafes that Gero had originally installed. A tracking device to follow her movements with, the power cut-off systems that would disable her infinite energy generator reducing her power to that of the average Human, the mind inhibitor function of the nano-bots in her system that could knock her out and trap her in a coma like state indefinitely, and a high yield explosive that could be remote detonated and would blow her apart from the inside, and kill almost anyone else within two hundred feet of her when it went off. Those four failsafes, developed by Gero to protect himself and the other Masters even before he himself had risen to their ranks, had been left in place despite her and her brother gaining the title of Master themselves. Proof to her that they weren't really Masters, just soldiers with a little more power, and tighter leashes.
She closed her eyes and sighed as she felt the Space Pod begin to vibrate heavily. She'd just entered the upper atmosphere of Leberion. Touch down was only ten minutes away now. Pushing her thoughts from her mind she focused on the job at hand and called up further data on the planet and her current location. According to the computer she was right on target, she'd come down about three miles outside of Defiance, the capital city of Leberion, so renamed just four years ago when it became the center of the Leberion resistance.
Defiance was the tightest gathering of people on the planet, over half the population was gathered together there, some seventy thousand individuals, the rest scattered about randomly. The planet only had a population of about one hundred and twenty thousand in all. Best as she could tell from the intelligence on the planet only those in Defiance were part of the resistance, part of those building the 'Battle Droids', the rest were just trying to make the best of their lives. She didn't want to drag in anyone she didn't have to so with luck this entire mission could be contained to just Defiance.
Closing her eyes again she braced for the coming landing, hands gripping tight to the armrests in the pod. "Impact in ten..." began a computerized voice inside the pod. "Nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two...." One was drowned out by the bone jarring and thundering force of the impact with the planet's surface. The force of the hit slammed her jaws together and jammed her knee against the door.
"Par for the course for a pod landing." she muttered, rubbing her knee with one hand while activating the door release with the other. Once the door was fully open she pulled herself out of her pod, adjusted her purple and back battle armor, and then gazed around her. "What... the... hell?" she breathed. The data she'd gone over, after leaving Saiya, had claimed Leberion was a world of abundant life, covered in thick forests with only a few cities here and there. A mostly tropical world where the coldest it ever got at the poles was a few degrees above freezing. What she saw around her was a barren snow covered wasteland, and her breath misting in front of her face.
She looked up and saw thick black clouds filling the sky, threatening to unleash a massive blizzard. But, as she lowered her gaze, she saw that the black above her was not clouds. She could see it rising out of towering structures within the city before her. It was smoke. Massive amounts of thick, black, sun light choking smoke. She'd never seen a world so badly polluted before, especially in such a short time. The data she'd read was only a little over a year old. How could they have possibly spewed this much smoke into the air so fast? More importantly, why would they have done so?
Lifting into the air she started for the city. Her answers to the clouds lay there, inside one of the buildings beneath the towering smoke stacks. She'd find out what, exactly, was going on before she set out on her original mission. There was a chance that the resistance here was already gone, given the state of the world. As she neared the city she saw that it wasn't in much better shape than the lands around it. A lot of the windows were blown out, some had been covered in plastic, others boarded up, but most left open, a few buildings had been destroyed, though she couldn't tell how, and a hover car sat at the corner of an intersection, burning.
"What is going on?" she wondered, coming to a stop and gazing about. Down the street to her right she could see more destroyed buildings as well as pot holes in the road where the snow dipped lower than elsewhere. There was also a large tanker trucker, the tanker blown apart into two. Looking at the shape of the tearing along the metal she could only think of one thing that could have caused that damage, an energy blast. But why would anyone here shoot an energy blast at a tanker? What's more, where were all the resistance members at?
Her scanners were detecting powers all through the buildings around her but so far none had come out to try and oppose her. In fact, many had gone back further, moving away from the windows. "It's like a war zone here." she mused to herself. "What in the hell happened? The Empire hasn't sent anyone here in ten years, so this isn't something we did." She turned from the ruined truck and looked toward one of the towering smoke stacks. Now that she was inside the city she could tell that the stack reached a good hundred feet into the sky and that there were five to a building. The buildings with the stacks were the only ones that looked to have been taken care of. In fact, the one she could see was in pristine condition.
She was just about to start toward it when her scanners picked up a number of sudden powers flaring up all around her. In a span of three seconds she went from having about seven dozen powers in the 2 to 8 range around her to having another hundred powers, in the 140 to 18 range, surrounding her. "The hell? Ki Suppression? Here?" she thought, turning her head to see if she could catch a glimpse of the sources of the ki. "Wait, no, it can't be ki suppression, the powers didn't increase, they just appeared...."
And then there were sparks of blue all around her and a barrage of energy blasts was surging toward her. She dodged around them easily enough and, as she did, brought up a hand and quickly generated a golden energy disc. "Destructo Disc!" she cried, pitching her arm forward and flinging the disc toward the powers on her right. The barrage of attacks stopped as soon as she loosed her attack and the powers began to scatter. With a flick of her wrist the disc twisted in the air and shifted direction as well following the nearest of the powers. A second later seven of them had dropped down to zero. And then, suddenly, they all blinked out of existence again, just as suddenly as they'd appeared.
"That's definitely not suppression." she thought, frowning. "It's instant, suppression doesn't instantly remove a power. So what the hell is it?" She shook her head and turned her attention back to the smoke stacked building, more convinced now that she needed the answers it held before going any further in her mission. Moving quickly she covered the remaining two hundred yards to the building in only a few seconds and then pulled to a stop again. Down below turrets turned and pointed in her direction and she scowled as light began to build up in their barrels for a moment before a new barrage of energy was surging toward her.
She dodged these attacks as easy as the last and took out the four barrels aimed her way with a ki blast each. That done she floated down lower and looked along the wall for a door. Not seeing anything, however, she fired a blast at the wall and made her own. Landing she stepped inside and looked around. The building was clearly a factory for mass producing the world's Battle Droids. While the building looked large from the outside, at least a five hundred square feet and four floors, it was even larger inside. From the walk way she was on she had a good view of the entire expanse and figured it had to go at least two hundred feet underground.
There were four large assembly lines, two at the left end and two more on the right end, with a multitude of workers rushing around trying to escape. The robots being produced would not have passed as any sort of living creature, like 16 could. They looked like big, round, metals balls with a strip of black around their center and hose like arms and legs. The feet were just half spheres and the end of their arms ended in what looked more like the claws of a crane than hands. The design didn't match anything on record which meant they were likely a new model.
There was no telling how high over the 500,000 mark these ones could be, though she wasn't too worried about them. Despite the considerable improvement made in the ten years since the first model six months wasn't a whole lot of time. She doubted even these models would be able to hurt her. Perhaps an untransformed Goten, if he were still around, maybe even an untransformed Bra, but she doubted they'd be much over that yet. Her concern and her haste had been for the future. Given another five or ten years she wouldn't be surprised if Leberion were producing robots on par with 19 at the least, possibly even as strong as 16.
"Sorry." she said, raising an arm and pointing her palm toward one of the assembly lines. She knew these people were likely just trying to protect their world and their families, just like the resistance fighters she'd known on Earth, but she was the same. She no longer knew the reason she'd defected to the Masters in the first place and no longer cared. Ever since Marron had been born, from the moment she'd first held her, everything she'd done had been done to protect her. She had created her shell and the cold exterior the world saw, pushed her sorrow and her pity aside, and fought tooth and nail to get into a position where she could keep her daughter safe. Part of that safety involved missions such as these and, for that reason alone, she was able to do them.
Bright purple energy gathered in front of her palm and then with a crack it shot forward, slammed into the right hand assembly, and exploded blowing away the majority of the equipment. Though she could have blasted the entire building into dust with one shot she'd held back, she still needed her answers. As she turned to blast the next one she saw that only a few workers were left, heading toward a door at the bottom level along the opposite wall from where she was. She aimed her blast that way instead, hitting the wall just over the door, and caved in the exit. Then she turned and took out the remaining three assemblies before moving from the walk on which she stood and descending down to the bottom level where the last of the workers were banging on the rubble trying to move it aside.
The natives looked almost Human. Same height, same build, same body design, and so on. The differences lay in the multi-faceted insectoid eyes, the purple, blue, and red skin colorations, the lack of hair, the single short fat black horn atop their heads, and the oversized and pointed ears. There were only seven workers still left, three of them red skinned, two blue, and two purple. The two purple ones and one of the blue were female, the others were male, and all seven had powers of 6. 18 gazed at each of them as they turned from the rubble to stare, terrified, at her.
"Show time." she thought, her face turning into a scowl. "Alright, I need information." she said as her feet touched the floor. "What's happened to the city outside?" The seven workers didn't answer, merely continued to stare at her and tremble. "Too terrified to speak, terrific." she thought, her scowl deepening. Unfortunately there was only one easy way to get them to start talking. She raised a hand and pointed a finger at one of the older looking red ones, she avoided killing women, children, and the young in general when and where ever possible, and fired a blast of purple energy through his head. The man was thrown back into the wall and then collapsed to the ground, dead. One of the purple women screamed and ducked behind one of the remaining red men.
"Next time I pick two targets." she said. "Now, what happened here?"
"V-Valor took over." the blue female said, eyes wide in fright. "H-him and his pe-people and their n-new Battle Droid designs o-overwhelmed Gallant's f-forces."
"Valor? Gallant?" 18 asked.
The blue woman nodded as she swallowed a lump in her throat. "Ga-Gallant used to lead th-the resistance forces." she said. "He c-created the Battle Droids, the old models. Valor d-didn't like how he ran th-things and f-formed another group and made their o-own, much st-stronger Battle Droids and attacked."
18 sighed and rubbed her forehead. A civil war within the rebel faction, terrific. "How long ago?" she asked.
"T-ten months." replied the woman.
"How long was the fighting?"
"O-one day."
"One day?" she thought. "How could this Valor guy take over in a single day?" She glanced around at the ruins of the plant wondering if this Valor's design might be vastly superior to the best that Gallant had developed. "How strong are Valor's Battle Droids?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Stronger than you." said the purple woman not currently hiding, an edge of defiance to her voice.
"Unlikely." replied 18. "But unfortunately, not impossible." she added mentally before addressing the workers again. "How strong?"
"W-we do not kn-know." the blue woman, again. "But th-they wiped out all of Ga-Gallant's Battle Droids w-without a single loss."
18 closed her eyes and sighed again. Maybe she should have brought someone along with her, 16 or Gero, instead of coming on her own. She still had doubts that any one of these new designs could pose a threat to her on its own but she was concerned there might be enough of them to overwhelm even her. "And the smoke?" she asked at last. "Why is there so much of it?"
"Valor ordered m-mass production of both hi-his strongest designs. Non stop production to b-build an army."
"To attack the Empire with?" asked 18, opening her eyes again. The blue woman nodded in reply. "Non stop since he took over ten months ago?" Another nodded reply. "Well isn't that perfect." she muttered. "I don't even know if there's a damned Empire left to protect and these guys have an army." She shook her head and turned around back toward the hole she'd made before. "I'd leave the city if I were you." she said to them as she lifted into the air. She stopped a moment later as a metal pipe suddenly slammed into the back of her head. The impact hadn't hurt, she'd barely felt it, but the pipe had bent.
She turned and looked behind her and saw the purple skinned woman who'd spoken earlier, claimed the Battle Droids were stronger than her, staring at the bent pipe and then looking up at 18 in fear. She dropped the pipe suddenly, as though it might bite her, then turned and started running toward the far end of the building. The Cyborg just floated there and watched her for a moment, debating if she should let her go. But after a few seconds she decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to do so. If the woman was willing to go so far as to try and kill her herself she wouldn't likely give up on the resistance even after it had wiped it out. So she raised a hand above her head and formed another energy disc.
"Destructo Disc!" she called, pitching it forward. The running woman turned at the sound of 18's voice, saw the spinning disc hurtling toward her, and then tripped over her own feet and fell. It only took the woman a moment to get back onto her feet again but just as she stood the disc reached her and sliced through her neck before fading. The woman's headless body stumbled a few more steps and then collapsed, dark green blood spilling out over the floor, her head having been thrown several feet forward when it was severed, where it landed with a dull thud, rolled and bounced several more feet, and then finally came to a stop.
"Serenity!" the blue woman that had given 18 her answers cried, taking off at a run for the fallen woman.
18 just closed her eyes, turned, and floated back up to and out of the hole she'd made before. She knew she should probably blast the entire factory apart, leaving behind salvagable debris was probably a bad idea, but she couldn't work up the will to do it. So instead she turned from it toward the next closest one to her. But as she prepared to head for it she spotted a glint of light, followed by several more, as something came flying up toward her. It only took a moment to recognize about half of the machines as the round things she'd seen in the now destroyed factory.
The other half or so of the machines she saw were of a different design. The woman before had mentioned that they were mass producing two designs, apparently she was now facing off against both of them. This second design was very similar to the first, the primary exception being that the body was more like that of a person, though somewhat like a rounded triangle. The legs were still hose like and the feet still half spheres but the arms were solid and jointed like a person would have and the hands looked more like actual hands. The black strips were gone as well and instead they had a large red circle of glass near the top of their bodies on what looked vaguely like a head.
Far as she could see there were about five hundred of each design floating there, not pleasant numbers when she knew these things were capable of tearing through an army of machines in the 500,000 range of power without a problem. Considering the civil war had lasted only a day 18 figured her earlier assessment that these things would only be a threat to an untransformed Goten or Bra was off. It was likely they could be a serious threat even to an untransformed Pan, possibly even Vegeta, though she doubted much higher than that.
Not that it was much consolation in her current situation. A thousand opponents, capable of giving even just an untransformed Vegeta a work out one on one, would be difficult, even for her. She brought her arm up again and created another disc. Just as she was about to launch her attack a dozen of the non round ones lunged at her, much faster than she'd expected. Her attack faded away as she quickly went on the defensive, dodging around punches, kicks, and energy blasts.
"I don't believe this!" she thought in shock as she slipped another punch and smashed her fist into one of their red circles, shattering it and causing the robot to fall from the sky. "Their speed and strength... these things have be around at least half of my power!" She dodged another series of punches and kicks as more of the robots began to charge in, both of this variety and the round kind. She quickly discovered that the round ones were considerably weaker than the non round ones, and in turn her. But their numbers, and fighting along side the stronger versions, more than made up for it. "I need to fall back." she realized as a metal fist slammed into her back. She'd hardly felt it but if enough of them hit her enough times she'd start to feel it.
She started to turn back to the direction of her pod but there was a sudden loud and thunderous crack, her eyes bulged, and then they closed and she began to fall from the sky. Two of the round robots shot in and caught her by the arms, pulling her back up. They held her there, unconscious, for a moment, and then turned toward another factory, near the middle of the city, and flew off with her between them.
XXX
"There it is." said Nail, watching the main monitor in the control room of Tao's ship. The monitor was currently displaying the close-range space radar display and a transponder had just appeared on the screen, near the top right corner.
"Distance?" asked Tao from where he sat at the controls.
"Five thousand miles and closing, though not very quickly." replied the Namek. "It's going away from us but we're moving faster."
"Empire transports tend to be old and slow." said the Human. "Inefficient as it is the Empire uses too much money on Gero's research and on squashing Resistance uprisings to properly maintain any craft not owned by a Master." Tao reached out and flicked a few switches on his console, turned a knob, and then depressed two blue buttons and a purple one. "Unfortunately my resources are rather limited and my ship probably equally as old as the freighter. I've already got the engines maxed out and we've still only got 70% output." He scowled at his readings. 70% output and dropping, by about a hundredth of a percent every ten to twelve seconds. He'd not pushed the engine of his ship for a few years, it was in need of quite a few repairs beyond his own technical know how.
"What's the angle?" he asked, turning his focus back to the controls. Normal space flight could be automated easy enough but coming up along side another ship and docking while still in motion was precision work and required a living pilot.
"X: -058, Y: +124, Z: +013." Nail replied. He felt the floor shudder slightly under his feet as the ship changed course slightly. "Distance now four thousand eight hundred miles." He watched the monitor as the ship's computer tracked the transponder, the cargo ship not altering its course despite their approach. "I figured they'd have seen us by now." he said after a moment. "They've made no move to evade us."
"They may not be paying attention to their space radar." replied Tao. "And as we are suppressed their scouters wouldn't alert them to our approach. Though it's possible they have noticed us and are either ignoring us, since there aren't any notable powers on here, or they've gone to internal alert and are waiting for us to board, merely playing at ignorance. We should be close enough for a visual now."
Nail nodded and switched over the monitor view from the radar to the external cameras. They were just under forty-five hundred miles away now and the cargo ship looked like little more than a speck of light. The Namek set the view to maximum magnification and the cargo transport filled the screen. "Our best option for docking would be the rear top cargo hold." he said after a moment. "Use the landing gear to clamp us down to the hull so they can't shake us off. It looks like there's an air lock for the cargo hold as well, we can just blast through it after we secure the docking bridge." Suddenly a box appeared in the bottom right corner of the screen, filled with a series of numbers. "Tao, I thought you said the ship's captain was only just over 35,000?" Nail asked, glancing back.
"According to the registry, he is. Why?"
"The ship's scanners just picked up two powers well over that. One at about 48,000 and the other around 52,000."
"Interesting, crews are never stronger than their captain. Not on Sai-jin owned and operated ships, at least." said Tao thoughtfully. "Probably just a personnel transfer. Doesn't matter anyway, they're still not a match for us."
Nail nodded as he watched the distance read out continue to tick down. "Four thousand miles." he announced a few moments later. "We should catch up to them in about ten minutes."
"Understood, preparing magnetic docking clamps and booting up the docking bridge computer." replied Tao. "Head down to the bottom hatch and get ready. Once we're secure I'll open the air lock door over here. Blast your way in and clear out any guards that come along and wait for me, I should only be a few moments."
"Right." Nail said with a nod as he made his way out of the room.