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- - - - - - CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE - - - - - - -
Location: Coola's ship and Planet Freeza
Alyx transformed back to her usual self and only then did he calm down.
"I-it looked like t-that…. But it was a m-man… "
Coola stepped up to Alyx and grabbed her firmly by the throat. He easily lifted her up of her feet.
"Coola it was NOT her!" Freeza objected. "She was with me all the time!"
"Tell me what you now about this incident!" Coola demanded. "I bet you're no stranger to whoever did this!"
She grabbed his wrist with her hands and tried to speak but his grip blocked off her breath and the sound of her voice.
"Coola let her GO! That she looks like the one we're looking for, doesn't mean she's in on it!"
Coola frowned. "I'm not convinced of that!" But he let her go for now.
Alyx fell down on her knees, coughing while she breathed as much air into her lungs as possible.
"I'll put Zarbon on the investigation as soon as we get back home!" Freeza said. "He'll find out what happened!"
He pulled Alyx of off her knees and took her back to his ship. "You'd better think of some way to apologize to the lady!" he snapped at his brother as he walked passed him.
"Don't be angry with him," Alyx said when they were back in his quarters on his own ship. "He's just angry because of the death of King Cold."
Freeza let out a sigh. "That's no excuse for just accusing everybody."
Back on Planet Freeza King Cold's body was taken to the mortuary. Freeza looked around when he came out of his ship.
"Where the heck is Zarbon when you need him?" He mumbled when he did not see his first in command.
In stead of Zarbon one of his other high officers came up to him. He seemed kinda nervous, like he was afraid that what he was going to say would make his master strike him dead before he had finished his sentence.
He made a deep bow for his master.
"What is going on, where is Zarbon?" Freeza demanded to know.
The officer got back on his feet, held his head bowed down. "There's been an attack on the planet, Sir…" he started.
Freeza frowned. "Who dares to attack MY planet!"
"We don't know, Sir… but…"
"You DON'T KNOW!" He snapped at him. "Zarbon is investigating that attack?"
"N-no, Sir…" The poor officer had to pull himself together. "Zarbon was a victim in that attack … he was killed in it, Sir."
There was a silence for a moment. A highly astonished look appeared on Freeza's face.
"One of my finest men was killed …. And we don't know who did it!" He said in a dangerously quiet manner. "Where's Dodoria!"
"Well, Sir … he was killed as well…" Now he really feared for his life.
Freeza gnashed his teeth and clenched his fists and tried very hard not to go nuclear on the officer who had brought him the bad news.
Coola came back from the mortuary. He had escorted his father's body there and made sure he was treated with the respect he deserved.
"What's going on?" He wanted to know when he saw Freeza's anger and astonishment and the shivering officer before him.
"It seems there was an attack on MY PLANET! And NOBODY knows who's responsible!" He said most agitated. "My right hand man and one of my top soldiers were killed in the attack! AND NOBODY KNOWS WHO THE HELL DID IT!"
Coola frowned.
The officer did have some information for his master:
"We are investigating the case and as far as we can tell they were both attacked by some powerful beast with razor-sharp teeth and claws…."
"WHAAT!" The brothers gazed at each other for a sec.
"Could that mean that the same beast that attacked father's ship, has attacked your planet!" Coola wondered out loud as his eyes looked for Alyx.
She moved closer to Freeza as his brother gave her this wary look again.
"Will you quit blaming Alyx!" Freeza snapped at him. "She was with me the whole time. Besides, we weren't even on the planet!" He turned to Alyx. "Go to my chambers, take some rest."
"You don't think I have anything to do with this, do you?" she asked him as she gave him the innocent-big-eyes-look.
He gave her a smile. "Don't be ridiculous. You were with me the whole time, how could you be in on it. My brother is just looking for a scapegoat."
"I am not! I want to know who's responsible, don't you?" Coola protested.
"Of course I do! But I will not randomly start pointing fingers!" He rebuked his older brother and told Alyx: "Go now. In the mean time we'll start our own investigation."
She smiled, gave him a kiss on his dark lips and left him alone with his brother.
Coola crossed his arms. "You just don't wanna see it, do you? How big are the odds of some beast attacking father and your planet that happens to look just like your new girlfriend?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "That would be too obvious! Who'd be that stupid!"
"Well, whatever. To get back to the attacker. If it is the same who attacked father's ship and your planet, how could the attacker be on father's ship and then later back here?" Coola posed.
The brothers stared at each other again for a few moments, pondering on that thought.
Then suddenly Freeza's eyes grew larger as he remembered something. "It did take him an awful long time to take off when he left…. And when I contacted him, there was no reply…I told you about the communication when you contacted me earlier to go and find him, remember?"
Coola nodded. "Perhaps the attacker already was ON the planet, killed father and his men …"
"And then set a course in the ships computer to make it appear as if it took of as nothing had happened!" Freeza finished his sentence.
"The attacker got off the ship before it left the planet and took out your best henchmen when you were away to that icy planet," Coola finished the plot.
"Do you think the attacker is still on my planet?" Freeza didn't like that idea at all.
Coola shook his head. "He's probably far away by now."
Freeza wasn't convinced of that and actually, neither was Coola when he thought about it.
Coola turned to the officer who was investigating the whole matter.
"Where were they found? Freeza's men?"
"Zarbon was found in the forest. He was jogging when he was attacked. We don't think he had much of a change against his attacker. He had a huge gaping wound in his chest. It didn't take very long for him to bleed to death."
Freeza growled. Not that he was grieving for the loss of two of his best men. It pissed him off that they were killed without his knowledge by some unknown enemy.
"It's one thing when I send my own men to the next dimension MYSELF! But who else dares to do so!"
"Dodoria was found in his quarters with a bite wound on his throat. We believe the beast choked him to death. He could have choked in is own blood. Or both."
"So the attacker got into my headquarters and nobody noticed anything?" Freeza asked the officer in a dangerously calm way.
The officer swallowed a lump from his throat. "Yes Sir. We have checked all our security recordings and the log in the computer. But there was no sign of an intruder alert anywhere."
One of the men in command of the officer contacted him through his scouter. He had been investigating Zarbon's chambers for any clue on the attack.
"Sir, I have found something on Zarbon's computer that you definitely want to see!" he told him from the other side of the scouter.
"My men have found some clue," the officer immediately told his master.
Freeza made his way to Zarbon's chambers as fast as he could, followed by his brother and the officer.