Chapter 36

遭難と殺気

Vegeta woke up to the gentle rocking of his ship and the sounds of water sloshing outside. His sleep timer always went off in orbit. A drop of water tapped his nose. His ship wasn't just airtight, it was spacetight. The console and controls were dead. Nothing was outside the window but blackness.

Vegeta's fingers dug into the armrest. Underwater. Please. With his scouter and souvenir packet of instant ramen in one hand, he wrenched the door open.

Viscous water that stung his eyes flooded the ship in an instant. Far, far below him was a faint glow. Spaceship. Vegeta hooked his foot under the doorframe and swam for the glow.

He broke through the surface. The cold air froze against his wet battlesuit. He quickly rose out of the water, his spaceship in tow. His spaceship that was half-crushed by a dent in its side. His scouter, waterproof of course, told him that Nappa and Raditz were nowhere to be found. It also told him it had been 36 days since they left Planet Freeza 14... far too soon. He pressed the comm button.

The scouter's small signal tried to connect to the amplifier dish in Vegeta's ship. Bouncing back empty-handed, it tuned in to some local radio waves as a consolation prize.

"—Noon, morning, evening, or night. You're listening to R99's The Lynx. And now, it's another episode of the Kakoo, Kakoo, and Kye show!" A bouncy theme song played. "Kakoo Jeen, what have you got for us this afternoon?"

"Well, Kakoo Seing, truffle season is once again upon us so wake up your dogs and dust off your family recipe cards! It's time to get digging! In other news, Mr. Jeeji Kso wants to let us know that the next time we play 'Lost My Heart in the Wild Wild Grass' he's leaving us for S88's the Fox."

"Great, we don't need his misery hanging over Matchi any longer."

"Kidding, Jeej! I mean, as long as you are. Please stay with us. Please."

"Yes, please do. And to all you devilish rogues listening in, the deadline for library fines and parking tickets is coming up soon."

"And now for the weekly update."

"I'm Kye Shee. There has still been no sign that the Freeza has learned of our home Rock-Row. Please don't worry about the isolation: indefinite does not mean permanent and this is all for you! And remember: gloves, boots, striped rubber armor and murder in the eyes. Contact Shiwasay Base the instant you spot one of these evil invaders and do not approach. We want them crushed, not you. Sir Dow Moe has gifted us with the best military we could have. And a message from the man himself: 'I love you.' What a guy."

"And now we'll be playing 'Lost my Heart—" Click. Vegeta stepped ashore, dusting the last bit of ash from his disintegrated ship off his gloves. He walked until the sand turned to rocks turned to dirt turned to tall grass. He pressed a button on his scouter.

10,000.

8,550.

10,370.

12,690.

9,865.

10,00—Click.

Vegeta cut the sleeves off his jumpsuit and buried his gloves and armor beneath the closest tree to the shore. He was in trouble.

Towering white clouds hung in the sky like apocalyptic meteors frozen in time above gently sloping hills of rusty grass. It was a windy day with a sweet smell in the air. All around Vegeta, large furry animals were leaping out of the grass and galloping away towards the horizon. According to his scouter, almost a thousand beings of low power lay a few miles ahead. And a dozen more readings were drawing close.

Vegeta disappeared into the long grass as a land vehicle pulled up fifty yards away. A tall being hopped out, followed by a neat line of smaller ones. They each carried a bucket and had the cuffs of their pants tucked into their socks. They all looked like Saiyans with darker skin and lighter hair. And no tails, of course.

As the children reached the closest bush and began to pick berries, it was a wonder none of them heard the sound of grinding teeth coming from behind a hill. Hunched over, hands wrapped around his tail, Vegeta had checked the scouter again. Changed the scope. Found, in total, over one hundred power levels in the 10,000 range. A shudder passed through his whole body as the base of his tail tore. Seconds later, it flopped to the ground lifelessly. As the school bus set off back the way it had come, Vegeta stood up, suddenly passing for a local.

*⁂*⁂*

The whole town smelled like food. Someone downwind with a sensitive nose would be able to smell it from an hour away. No one minded; it had no reason to hide itself.

Vegeta blew in on the next strong gust of wind running fast, but not so fast they couldn't see him. Building after building shot by, until he smashed into the side of a tall satellite dish near the center of town. He shouted along with the other screams and gasps of horror as the dish tipped and creaked. Vegeta scrambled away just in time as the ten-ton metal dish came down with a pavement-cracking gongg.

In his pocket, the "connect to MATCHI LOCAL SERVER?" display that had been blinking for the past ten minutes on his scouter lost bars and disappeared. Locals were edging closer and poking their heads out of doors.

"WHERE AM I?!" Vegeta yelled at top venom and volume, leaping to his feet. "I'm not supposed to be here! Who did this? Show yourself! Or was it all of you?!" He scrambled away from the encroaching bodies.

"Hey, calm down little guy," one of the men said in a slow voice.

"I didn't do anything! Did you grab me right out of space? This—HEY!" Arms wrapped around him from behind and lifted him off the ground. He struggled but didn't break free.

"We didn't do anything," said a different slow voice behind him. "What's this about space travel? Where were you going?"

"I was just minding my own business when I ran into the Freeza Force. Ten carrier ships, at least, and dozens of combatant pods swarming around like flies! They didn't see me in time and I managed to zip into an asteroid field to take cover. Alright, maybe I wasn't paying the most attention to what was in front of me, I was trying to see if they were following! The next thing I know I've landed here with a wreck of a ship."

"Did they see you?" said the local, spinning him around and suddenly looking very fierce. "Did they see you heading towards this planet?"

"Uh, no, no... they couldn't have," said Vegeta, thinking fast. They were speaking a simple variation of a root language he'd learned the other month, but that only made things possible, not easy. Good thing he'd been listening to their obnoxious radio show up until the minute he destroyed the satellite. "I was drifting in space for weeks with a busted ship. I wasn't anywhere near this place to begin with and they had plenty of time to get me before I got too far."

The local breathed a sigh of relief and carefully set Vegeta down. "That's a piece of bad luck. But considering you were almost taken by the Freeza... We can take a look at your ship. Where did it fall?"

No. No, they were not going to see his ship. That's why he disintegrated it. "It sank to the bottom of the ocean. I landed back there," Vegeta said, pointing off in the distance.

"Okay, show us the exact location and we'll send a submarine to fish it out."

"Um... not necessary, it cracked and it's in pieces by now."

"We have very capable metal detectors, I'm sure salvaging the pieces is better than nothing."

"No, it... it was in pieces before, but then they all burned up in the atmosphere."

The local frowned, concerned. "What are you saying? Was the spaceship so compromised while you were still in orbit?"

"Yep, and since I had to make a no-ship landing I'm obviously feeling pretty bad right now so I'm going to rest." Vegeta turned his back to them and sat down. He stared at a fuzzy brown clump that smelled like soil growing in a crack in the road and thought hard.

After a respectful minute, someone put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Wouldn't you be more comfortable speaking Universal? How do you know this language?"

Shoot. "Uh, this language is fine. I'm a... linguist. I've studied more than twenty root languages." Did being honest make him more trustworthy or suspicious?

"We'll give you a place to stay for the time being," said the voice behind him. "We happen to be new to the town ourselves. I'm Mem Jaff, the Noodle Chef," said the cream-colored one in the middle.

"Nick Jaff, the Meat Chef," grunted the short toothy one.

"Abla Jaff, the Fry Chef!" sizzled the tall one.

"Right this way, kid!" chorused the three brothers Jaff. "What's your name?"

"That doesn't really matter," said Vegeta.

He spent the night on a cot crammed between bags of flour in their basement, wide awake and heart pounding.

*⁂*⁂*

"They don't know when or how I'll be able to get back, right?" Vegeta asked the next morning, leaning against the back wall while Mem Jaff worked with a rope of dough.

"A few days until they fix the signal tower," Mem said. He swept the dough across his flour-covered table, stretched it, and twisted it together. "Then the guys in the big cities can figure it out. Matchi's so isolated. It took me and my brothers a week's travel off the grid to get here. But the truffles and quarry taste fresher than anywhere else. And the ground's practically made of wheat!"

Vegeta blinked, distracted by the dough's changing texture. "You guys really like truffles, huh?"

"They're an international delicacy. Sometimes I wish everyone would take more time to appreciate a good noodle... but nothing's better than a high-quality truffle after a long day. Here," Mem threw a watermelon-sized fuzzy brown ball at Vegeta. "This is one of the first we've found this year."

"Where do you get them?"

"They grow about ten feet underground in the forest. We need dogs to smell them out and dig for us."

"It's just like the ones growing in the road," Vegeta said, smelling it himself. "Why bother digging in the forest?"

"The road ones taste like feet!" Mem laughed, tossing his rope into the air. It split into dozens of noodles and fell neatly into a pot of boiling water. "Enough talk, come over here and show me how much you picked up by watching during our conversation." When he was away from a Freeza Planet, Vegeta ate raw ingredients as he found them. He did not cook. His rope of dough crumbled into pieces and rolled to the corners of the room as if the floor was uneven. He was demoted to carrying around whatever Mem didn't have room in his own arms for.

At the front of the house lay a table for one Jaff to leave a Food In Progress for the next Jaff (generally Abla.) Towards the end of the day (after one of the best lunches Vegeta ever had), a teen was waiting for them.

"Shoon Say, get outta here," Mem said, angrily slamming the raw noodle platter down. "You want a sign you're hanging around us too much? Ms. Librarian comes to me about your overdue books."

"I won't hang around as much if you let me become your apprentice! Take me back to Katoy with you! I'll even change my name to Jaff."

"Get a job!"

"I have one." Shoon Say rolled his eyes. "I got it yesterday. Librarian says she'll take away my fines if I'll be the town dogcatcher... no respect for my culinary dreams... grumble grumble."

"I'll help you for a few hours," said Vegeta. The Jaff House was punishingly hot and humid with the 24/7 cooking, and he needed to learn something that wasn't how to make noodles.

*⁂*⁂*

"Just look out for them, I guess," Shoon said, pacing down the streets with a taser on the end of a long stick, some thick leather belts, a box of cookies, something that looked like a long thin sock, and leather mitts. "A few decades old family dogs ran away for the first time. Maybe the brothers just need to see how I can handle responsibility."

"Can the comm tower send messages to other planets?" Vegeta asked, not looking out for dogs.

"The signal tower? No! Why would we need to? Only Shiwasay Base can do that."

"... They're the local militia that's protecting us from Freeza," Vegeta said, kicking a rock in his special-issue Freeza Force alabaster boots. He'd taken a good look with his scouter last night. The only power levels in the area of note were eight located in the direction of Shiwasay Base, all around 8,000. "Are they doing a good job?"

"Considering our one year anniversary of safety since the threat emerged, I'd say yes. You didn't think it's weird how two out of every five people here are chefs? The whole planet's gearing up to celebrate."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed. "How did it emerge, exactly?"

"The hero, Dow Moe, told us. Now all this food's being made in his honor. Imagine... the brothers Jaff cooking for you." Shoon sighed wistfully. "You better help them as much as you can. I was so, so close... but having your flour lifted by a guy who came... from space... is so much more appealing than a dog catcher."

"Dog!" Vegeta shouted suddenly as a Saiyan-sized, sleek-furred beast of an animal ran in front of them. Its front paws were big and heavy and equipped with long blunt claws. It had a black button nose on the end of a two foot long snout and its black eyes were shinier versions of the nose. It ran hunched over on two legs with a hand scraping the ground for balance.

As soon as it saw Vegeta, it lost its mind. Shoon had managed to flank it from behind, and as he was deciding between covering its snout with the sock, tasering it, or strapping its arms and legs together, it squealed and thrashed around, gave Shoon a nip on the arm, trampled over him claws and all, and disappeared into the woods.

"I've never seen one so panicked," Shoon said in wonder, sitting up and seemingly unhurt. He suddenly looked to Vegeta, eyes wide.

"Well, time for me to head back," Vegeta said cheerfully. "I'll put in a word to the Jaffs for you. Good luck!"

Vegeta returned to sweep flour off the floor, move flour in from a different store in town, and try to get the flour dust out of his clothing. Suddenly it was dinner time. The brothers were loud and familiar in the way they talked about recipes. And the food was delicious, again. Before he knew it, he was on the cot in the storeroom once more. What a productive day. They accepted him. He just needed to figure out how he fit in to the ecosystem of Matchi.

He didn't sleep. He was so tired of making friends with locals. He couldn't remember why he'd ever done it.