ASIS: A Saotome In Space

Summary: Ranma-chan gets malleted into another dimension and must survive all manner of alien threats in order to find her way home.

Disclaimer: Most characters and settings portrayed in this story are the intellectual property of Rumiko Takahashi, Akira Toriyama and affiliated entities. I do this purely for the fun and enjoyment of escapism – not for profit.

Chapter One: A Long Way From Home

Ranma no baka.

It's funny how three simple words strung together into a sentence can come to haunt a person. Sure, the volume and inflection behind them make a difference. As does the mallet that inevitably follows. However, when all of those things result in your entire world being flipped upside down, it tends to change you.

I still replay the moment over and over again in my head as it was the last thing I experienced that was familiar.

There I was, training in the dojo to beat Herb and regain my manhood when I was confronted with a weakness so uniquely me that it bordered on legendary. Speaking to Akane without putting my foot in my own mouth was never something I was good at avoiding. I don't even remember what I said that set her off. It wouldn't change anything if I did, anyway. The part that's really burnt into my memory is the unusually strong swing of her mallet that day and leaving earth for the first time.

I was never much of a nerd but even I knew that humans couldn't survive in the cold vacuum of space. I also knew that tornadoes of light weren't supposed to exist out there nor were they supposed to swallow people up and crap them out somewhere in the twilight zone. I may have fallen asleep in class more times than I care to remember but I was certain that earth didn't have a red sky or three moons and two suns. It definitely wasn't supposed to have so much gravity either. I knew these things for a fact and, yet, there they were staring me in the face.

Luckily, for me, the survival skills I learned while training on the road with my old man didn't seem to care which planet I was on. The forests, despite having purple and blue trees, were still made of wood. The dried up sticks and leaves still made fire. Dirty water still made you sick. And, most importantly, the outrageously over-sized wildlife could be killed and eaten if you were desperate enough.

At first, it had been difficult just to walk, let alone run and jump so I'd been limited to foraging for the fallen berries, nuts and seeds littering the forest floor. After a few weeks of scraping by like that, I'd adapted enough to move like a normal person and venture out from the shelter of my little corner of woods. It wasn't long afterward that I learned it was safer to hunt the giant white mantis since they tended to be slower than the man-sized feral rodents as well as easier to separate from their packs.

I tore my eyes away from the flame, where it was easy to lose myself in thoughts these days, and leaned forward from my seat on the fallen log to rotate the mantis claw I had roasting on a spat. It smelled horrendous but its meat was filling and gave me a great deal more strength than the foraged food had. Still, this was a dangerous place and I needed all the energy I could get if I wanted to survive it.

Survival. That's all my life was about now. I didn't even know if it was possible to find my way back home. However, if it was, then I sure as hell needed to live long enough to get there.

I ate my dinner and smothered the fire with dirt before climbing the tree I'd been sleeping in for the last month. I'd already learned the hard way that a lot of the local predators used the caves for shelter so trees were the safest places.

Since it took every ounce of effort I could give to stay alive, I was always exhausted by the end of the day. As soon as I found my little nook between branches, sleep took me.

I woke with a start, reflexively gripping the trunk between my legs to avoid falling, when a shockwave and tremor rippled through the canopy. It was early morning, on the cusp of daybreak, and there was just enough light for me to make out the silhouette of a massive object descending from the sky. I scaled the tree to it's peak for a better look and nearly lost my grip when I saw it in it's entirety. It was a long spear tipped oval with bulbous protrusions, bladed spikes of metal venting gas and orbs of pulsing light at the rear. I knew, without a doubt, that I was staring at an honest to god space ship. This wasn't earth so that left only one conclusion; aliens.

I didn't even stop to consider the potential negative repercussions. They had a ship. If I made contact, then I could get off this world and maybe (just maybe) find out how to get back to earth.

I dropped to the ground in one swift motion, pausing only momentarily to wince at the slight strain it put on my knees, and then took off at full tilt. I vaulted fallen trees, scaled boulders and swung on vines to close the distance as fast as I could. For all I knew, this was going to be my one and only shot.

I was mid swing over a ravine when the craft made landfall, flattening an entire region of forest as it did so, and displacing enough air to throw me. I felt the sharpness of the impact as I was flung into the cliff face and impaled through the shoulder by a thick tree root. The pain was so bad I screamed. My entire body weight was being supported by the wound.

I reached up with my other arm and used a higher root to pull myself up enough to lessen the strain. That slight movement made the wound hurt even more and I almost blacked out for a moment. I screwed my eyes shut, not daring to look down at the bloody mess, and sucked in a breath before yanking myself free. A sickening squelch accompanied the release and I held back a wave of nausea just long enough to climb over the ledge. The moment I was on flat ground, my stomach emptied it's contents of its own volition and I collapsed onto my side.

Blood was leaking out even faster now and seeping into the loamy soil beneath me. A surge of panic fueled adrenaline shocked me back into a higher level of alertness as my own mortality sunk in. If I didn't get help right away, I was a goner.

I curled my legs in and got a knee under me. Then I climbed to my feet. I could breath just fine which meant I hadn't punctured a lung. Thank the universe for small miracles.

I summoned the Soul of Ice and took off running once again.

When I came to the clearing of fallen trees, I realized just how big the ship really was. It easily dwarfed the tallest skyscrapers I'd ever seen. A seam appeared in the hull just before a loading ramp descended to the ground. It was almost as if the welcome mat had been laid out for me.

My feet started moving on their own and I nearly made it to the platform at the bottom when the first ranks of soldiers began to file out of the entrance. They were covered from head to toe in reflective white armor with black visors set into their helmets so it was impossible to tell exactly how alien they were. They were human shaped, at least, so that had to be a good sign, right?

I raised my good arm and opened my mouth in an attempt to ask for help but the words died the moment I saw them draw their weapons. I still had enough wits about me to dodge to the side when they opened fire. I don't know what I had been expecting, but it hadn't been this. A flurry of energy bolts flew at me as I ran for dear life back toward the cover of trees. Over my shoulder, I saw a large ball of light that felt like ki hit the ramp and incinerate the group of hostiles as well as a large chunk of the ship. I rolled into a somersault and took cover to avoid the concussive shockwave that followed.

I risked peeking my head out from between the fallen tree trunks afterward and saw a smaller disc shaped craft floating overhead with a man standing atop. He was clad in angular blue and black armor that left the bare skin of his arms and legs exposed. Other than the furry brown tail waving freely behind his back, he looked human. He raised his left arm and launched another blast at the larger ship which caused a chain reaction of smaller explosions to tear it up from the inside. It was almost as if he had known exactly where to aim.

I made to run for the treeline once again as a huge fireball lit up the early morning sky. There was no way to know that he wouldn't turn on me now that the greater threat had been eliminated. Clearly this guy had no qualms about mass murder. I tried to keep an eye on him as I ran away since it was never a good idea to totally turn your back on a potential enemy but he just vanished in the blink of an eye. The next moment, I ran blindly into what felt like a solid wall and ended up bouncing backward to fall on my ass. I was sure I looked like a fish with my mouth gaping open as I looked up at him. He'd come out of nowhere faster than I could see and stood directly in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest, authoritatively. I hadn't noticed earlier but his hair was unusually wild – almost gravity defying. He was also wearing some sort of headset with a lens over his left eye.

"You're hurt," he said, dropping his arms and kneeling down to get a closer look at me. It was a statement of acknowledgment rather than a question.

I was so shocked he was speaking my language that my brain didn't translate words to my mouth properly. I mumbled something unintelligible even to my own senses.

He tapped the device cupped over his ear and spoke again. "Amond, ready a tank. I found a stray."

It wasn't until he reached out and pulled me up by my good arm that I found the will to resist. "Let go!" I shouted. His grip was like iron, though.

"She speaks," he said, grinning slightly.

"She does more than that," I said, reeling back a leg in preparation to kick him in the junk. It was a betrayal of everything I stood for as a man, stooping to such a level, but I was pretty desperate. My ankle popped painfully as it met the solid material of some otherworldly cup rather than soft fleshy bits. I don't know why I'd expected that to workout differently.

"That was rude," he said, with amusement, as his grin expanded further. "I like rude women better when they're alive, though. You can complain all you want after we get you patched up," he added before lifting me off the ground and flying us (actual flying) up to his ship.

We entered through a domed hatch at the top of the craft and I was mystified by the small assortment of non-human looking aliens gathered around what I guessed was the command center. I didn't get to stare at them too long because he dragged me through an archway, down a corridor and into a room with three glass tanks that each had various tubes and instruments attached. One of them was occupied by an alien and filled with greenish fluid. A wave of anxiety struck me like a punch to the gut. Was I going to become some guinea pig in a twisted alien experiment? The kind the nerds in my class used to read about in manga?

I started thrashing in the man's arms as if my life depended on it. All I managed to do was tweak my injuries and make the pain worse. He sighed, rolling his eyes, and then struck me at the base of my neck. Everything went black.

OoooooO

Turles opened the hatch to the nearest regen tank and dumped the unconscious girl inside. He snapped his fingers and the medical droid proceeded to hook her up to breathing equipment. It also peeled off the blood soaked and crusty looking rags she had been wearing. She was about as well endowed as he'd ever seen but the fact that she looked in such a sorry state stymied whatever physical reaction he might otherwise have had. He took one last look at her, as the tank was filled, before retreating toward the exit.

Amond was waiting for him just outside in the corridor. The heavily muscled, tower, of a red-skinned man was wearing his stoic face, meaning he was preoccupied with something he considered important. Turles continued on walking and the larger man fell into step beside him.

"Is it good news or bad?" he asked his second in command as they headed toward the bridge.

"Bad," Amond replied. "They managed to successfully broadcast a distress signal before you destroyed them. Galactic Patrol will be crawling all over this sector within a day now that they know we're here. That's not enough time for the tree to reach maturity, let alone bear fruit worth the effort."

Turles stopped to slam his fist into the bulkhead, leaving a noticeable dent. "Damn it to hell. After all the research we did to find an unclaimed planet with this much abundance."

"There's still plenty of places inhabited by large sentient civilizations," Amond offered, letting a bit of bloodlust show through his grin.

"No, I told you before that we needed to save those until we're absolutely desperate or nearing the end of our goal. If we go straight into extracting from prominent and highly populated worlds, then King Kold will undoubtedly catch wind of what we're doing and kill us before we become a serious threat. He already hates Saiyans enough as it is. I heard he's even planning to put his bastard son in charge of my homeworld soon. And, apparently, the brat has an even shorter temper than him. The last thing I want is to see it get blown up. We need to stay off their radar as long as we can."

Amond sighed, but didn't seem too disappointed. "In that case, then, how about a place that's already been written off? There's this old world called Namek that was abandoned by most of its people a long time ago when it was overpopulated and polluted. Supposedly, only a few of them still live there and it's mostly recovered. Rumor has it that there are oceans full of wildlife. Plenty of energy to spare, if that's the case."

"That's a big IF. I've heard those same rumors and, even if that place turns out to be more than a myth, we could just as easily arrive there to find it still a wasteland. We'll have pissed away six months of travel and millions on fuel for nothing," Turles said, clenching his fists even more.

"Either way, we'll need to get away from the galactic core for awhile and lay low," Amond replied. "Might as well check it out in the meantime."

Turles sighed. One shitty option after another. "Alright, tell the helm to set a course. I'll be in my quarters. Make sure no one disturbs me."

OoooooO