"This way, Mom," Trunks said, leading the way back through
the ship to the control room. They'd brought better light this time, something
more like a lantern than a flashlight. A few of the curved plates crunched
and shattered under Bulma's feet as she took a wrong step, but so far nothing
worse had happened. She hoped it stayed that way.
"There was something in the tank?" she asked as
she followed him, trying to be more quiet, but finding it nearly impossible.
The ship was foreboding enough from the outside, but inside it could be
almost suffocating. She'd seen the cells, and she was sure she'd even seen
a few bones among the rubble on the floor. Now, like her son, she was beginning
to think this might have been a prison ship.
"Yeah. I don't know if she was still alive or not,
but I thought you'd want to see it anyway." The two of them entered what
she presumed to be the control room. There was a large screen to one side,
dust covered and cracked, and below that was the destroyed panel. Even
with her technical knoeledge, it looked hopeless. She sighed and looked
around, then went to the tank where Trunks stood.
"See?" he asked. He had a handkerchief
out and was busily scrubbing off some of the thick dust that had settled
onto the glass. She could see that there was, indeed, a girl inside of
it. She had dark hair, and something about the sharp angle of her features
looked vaguely familiar. Trunks continued his work, trying to uncover anything
else inside that might be important. Bulma's eyes were drawn to the bloody
gash in the girl's midsection. She leaned a little closer to look at it.
. . no, not just a gash, a hole.
She winced, then her gaze caught on something else. Around the girl's
waist was wrapped something fuzzy and brown. A tail.
Bulma gasped. "A Saiya-jin?"
Trunks looked up, then blinked, seeming to see the
girl in full for the first time. "What? I thought there weren't any full
blooded Saiya-jins left."
"So did I, but that's what she looks like." Bulma
went to the tanks controls and dusted them off. Much of it was in another
language, but she was able to decipher that the girl was still, technically,
alive. There was a heart rate monitor, though the pulse was very slow,
only a couple beats a minute, and the breathing monitor showed much the
same. "And she seems to be alive, too."
He stood up straight and looked at the girl in the
tank for a moment, then the controls. "I wonder how long she's been here."
"I don't know, but I think it's lucky that this
thing uses it's own power source," Bulma said, gesturing to the tank. An
idea struck suddenly, and she went with it. "Feeling adventurous?"
"Huh?" He looked at her for a moment, then caught
her meaning. "You mean you want to wake her up?"
"Well, not yet I don't think. I think this might
be a suspended animation tank. I was thinking that we could build a regeneration
tank and put her in that to heal that wound, then wake her up. Who knows,
Trunks. If she is a Saiya-jin, you might be able to learn something from
her. Or the other way around. It just seems cruel to leave her here. We
don't know if she did anything to deserve it, and if she did. . .Well,
chances are you can beat her, anyway."
"I hope you aren't being too optimistic about this,
Mom," he said. "Move it if you want, but I want to be there every step
of the way, just in case."
