Hi everyone.
Yeah, I was on a roll, but then I kinda fell off into the rather strange world of Harry Potter Fandom with not a little treacle on the side. But that's a different story. Apologies for making this so long in coming, and on with it....
Chapter 19 : I'm going to be unprofessional today and not name this chapter anything. An then see who notices.
Bardock returned home at sunset. He saw the door swinging on it's hinges; heard the silence coming from inside, and bolted through the door and down to the basement. His Rebel's were beginning to stir from their random piling on the floor.
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!!!" Bellowed Bardock, and many of the saiyans -awake or still unconscious- winced.
"Bardock." Croaked Pasha from the floor near his feet, he held out a hand to pull her up which she accepted, stumbling a little on her feet. "He had a type of gas, knocked us all out. I -I'm not sure quite what happened."
"Who? A traitor?"
"No. Council member- or lackey." She stood still, drawing in clean air. Bardock cast a glance over the room, searching for an unfamiliar body, Pasha was doing the same thing when she laid eyes on Toma and picked her way over to help him up too. He pushed himself up to sitting position.
"Got his mask off." Muttered Toma immediately. "If he's not here he's gone."
"Then what are we waiting for?! Get everyone up! We're leaving!" Bardock ordered, pulling sayains roughly to their feet, and although a good number toppled back over, more stayed up, pulling plans and maps from drawers and cupboards. "Leave everything that can be spared, we'll blow this place up when we've gone. Pasha, head count, make sure everyone here. If they're not- bah, we'll have to leave without them." Pasha nodded and started counting the Rebel's, which wasn't easy when they were all running round.
Bardock looked around the main room for Sena, when he couldn't see her he walked down the hall to her room. She wasn't there either. Bardock frowned, and checked the upstairs.
"Rana's group's not here, Bardock." Pasha reported, coming up behind him as he looked over the entrance shack. "Just five of them."
"Would Sena have gone with them?"
Pasha looked up at her leader and knew what he was thinking. "Pro- Probably not."
"I thought so." Growled Bardock angrily, deep in his throat. He was glaring into space with such a look Pasha was relieved it wasn't aimed at her.
Bardock swung round and put his fist straight through the wall, and yelled wordlessly in frustration and anger. Pasha looked at the floor. Damn Council, if they'd hurt her -Pasha's fists clenched tighter.
"Get everyone out immediately!" Bardock shouted again. "They're not going to leave us alone, they'll be coming back. Out! And we'll deal with them later."
Twenty seven Rebels hung in the air about their old headquarters as ki formed brilliantly in Bardock's hands, and fell downwards onto the entrance shack, which promptly exploded. The dust cloud mixed with the smog of the twilight, which would aid in hiding them from eyesight -though not scouters.
"Take separate routs." Bardock said, making sure he sounded like he had a plan, which he certainly did not. "We'll regroup tonight in the mountains to the east. Make sure you're not followed. Get there as soon as possible -sooner, if you can. Go."
The dispersed in threes and fours, in all directions. Pasha and Toma stayed with Bardock, who was looking toward the Palace.
"We'll come with you." Pasha said. "I can't stand the thought of her in there with them."
Neither could Bardock, his short fingernails were embedded into the flesh of his palm. "We can't. Not till the Seventh." He said. "I can't risk botching everything up just to rescue her. We'll have to wait, it's only two more nights."
"Bardock honestly! They could kill her!" Pasha said. "I'll go myself."
"You will not be so stupid!" Ordered Bardock loudly. Pasha closed her mouth but glared. "They will not kill her because their Head will know who she is. He's a fool but he'll know he can use her against us. She'll be alive next time we see her. And then he'll be dead. Pasha, save it for the Seventh. Toma, you have a battle to report to me."
Toma nodded, he wasn't looking forward to admitting he was the one who had lead Alfalfa to them. It was a mistake he was furious about, and was every bit ready to take his anger into the Palace right now to right his wrongs. Bardock took off east, towards the distant mountains. Pasha and Toma exchanged glances filled with the same desire to destroy the Council now, and followed. Neither was feeling the desire stronger than Bardock.
***
"MMmmmm." Chichi yawned, blinking up at the sperical lights scattered over the ceiling. They doubled and blurred, and Chichi thought it was probably time to go to bed. She'd been looking over the controls and trying to make sense of the star map on one of the screen. As she passed through the control room quater doorway into the main quater, the screen started beeping. Chichi jumped, and turned back round.
There was a new dot on the screen -no, there were two: one was probably a planet, by the look of the other planters on the star chart; the other was smaller. Chichi thought about waking Bulma, but she was so deeply asleep, and hardly ever got a proper night's full, Chichi decided to leave her; tell her in the morning.
Far away, the smaller dot was registering Bulma's ship on their radar, and was sending a 'ready and waiting' message down to the Planet Vegita.
***
Sena wasn't sure she would have woken so soon if her breathing hadn't been obstructed by the clammy sand her face and body lay in. As carefully but as quickly as she could -which wasn't very- she moved her head that half inch she needed before she could breath in air and not sand.
Breathing hurt. A few grains of the sand that were not pasted to the ground with sweat -and blood- has taken residence in her throat, and she needed to cough. And she was cold again. The blood on the sand was no longer warm, but not yet dry; she'd only been thrown back in here a short while ago. She was glad, she wasn't going to stay drifting from consciousness to unconsciousness; grey to black, for long if she could possibly help it.
Her right arm wasn't broken, and she used it to push herself up, drawing on the solidity of the wall to support her back as she sat against it.
The grains of sand in her throat tickled again, and she coughed involuntarily. Sena's lung felt like the cough would tear them open, there was a daemon in her stomach pounding against her ribs, sending fiery pains in all directions. Then she needed to gasp in more breath, but she was controlled enough to do this slowly, with her head tipped back leaning against the wall, eyes closed.
It felt as though she was sinking into darkness again, but she didn't think she was. The black inside her eyelids shrunk away as something luminescent lit up the room with a warm, yellow glow.
Careful now. Take it slow.
Sena opened her eyes, head on a tilt still against the too-hard stone wall. The cell was alight with the radiance omitting from the stranger standing tall in front of her, and Sena jumped in panic, but couldn't otherwise move.
He was tall, bathed in golden light, and obviously a saiyan. A tail the same colour as his hair wrapped around his waist. Super Saiyan. Sena blinked as he knelt down in the sand beside her.
"It won't hurt for much longer." The rise and fall of his voice was sparingly familiar, as if she'd known if from a very long time ago.
"Yes. It's been a very long time since we met. Lifetimes. I'll try and find you again, I believe we're being drawn together."
Sena stood up easily, as if she weighed nothing and felt no pain, and none of her wounds protested. Indeed, all over her body her skin was bruised and unbroken. She looked up at him, then down at the sand where her real body was slumped against the wall.
"I don't remember." She whispered, looking from her hurting body to the one she stood in. "I don't understand."
He closed his arms around her. "I'll keep you warm tonight." He promised. She knew his arms and the warmth his body made against her own -even though it really wasn't her true body- and she tried to remember as she fell asleep, warm and painless in his arms. She slept before she remembered.
***
Gohan woke up slowly, savouring the dream that was fleeting even as he tried to stop it. He thought of warmth and someone sad, but it had been a good dream, if unusual. He finally registered why he'd woken up: someone was banging on the door. Gohan pulled himself out of bed and opened it.
"Good. You're awake." Said Bulma. "Come and see this." She was still in her dark blue dressing gown, and her hair was tied roughly in a pony tail at the back of her head, done quickly. Gohan followed her to the control room. "We're almost there." She said, sounding happy and worried at the same time. "Look, that's Planet Vegita, we should be there tonight."
"Excellent." Said Gohan. "So what's the problem?" There was obviously a problem. Bulma didn't walk around with her hair like that if she had a hairbrush nearby, not without good reason.
"That dot," she pointed to the smaller dot Chichi had seen the night before. "It's a ship. It's a very large ship, and it's coming straight towards us."
"Oh." Said Gohan.
"Yes. Oh." Said Bulma. "I think the best thing to do is double back and try to loose them, we'll loose time, too, but I don't fancy out chances should that great things start to fire."
"Well...you're the boss. I guess." Gohan said.
"Of course I'm the boss!" Bulma retorted. "And don't look like that because I don't like it any more than you do." Gohan wiped off the look he hadn't been aware was on his face. "Right, I'll go and make breakfast, shall I?"
"Yes please." Said Bulma. "I'm starved!"
The ship slowly changed course, ducking behind a drab looking planet and heading off round the left of Planet Vegita.
The Arkosian ship, however, was no so easily fooled. Radditz' orders were clear, just shoot them from the sky.
So this is what they then proceeded to do.
***
At breakfast on the Sixth tournament day, Lushka could barley eat anything. She had another row with her mother the night before, and was now refusing to talk to her; she'd spent the previous night sleeping in one of her friend's chambers. And now, her mission was to find Trunks. She was so angry at her mother she wanted to shatter every plan she'd made, and so Lushka was going to tell Trunks everything she knew. If only she could find him.
He was late for breakfast, and Lushka's heart or stomach fluttered when he finally came in, dressed as a Prince. She pretended to eat while really watching him from the corner of her eye, somewhere down the long table, and she waited and waited for him to finish eating and leave. As soon as he was alone, grabbed him by the forearm and dragging him off into an empty room before he could say so much as 'wha?'
"There's thing I gotta tell you." Lushka said, panting a little from dashing down the halls after him.
"Hello to you too."
"Oh, don't." Lushka said, then froze, apparently "It was my mother -she sent the note, the threatening one. She set it up, maybe more, she's a vicious, vindictive, utter bitch. I hate her! She's had people killed and she's been so horrible to me because it was you that got off that ship and not her Prince Vegita. This whole big wedding plan's all to do with her and the Council, it's all she wants, but she's clever and she'll find out I told you and I'll never be able to go back and...and...oooh." Lushka said, sinking down into a chair. Trunks was surprised that anyone could say that much that quickly, and didn't actually process much of this information.
"Uh." He said, oh so cleverly. "Um, say that again."
She looked at Trunks, as if he should have taken it in the first time. "My mother had the connection with the weapons dealer set up, she had him give you the note." She said, slower this time, her voice full of almost controlled anger.
"So...No one's threatening you?"
"Not via notes, no." Lushka muttered.
Trunks looked washed over with relief. "I can go home!" He said, throwing his head back and his arms out. His mother and Gohan would be here soon, with their ship, and he could give this all up and go home now that no one was in danger because of him. Wonderful!
Lushka's face fell, her bottom jaw trembled slightly, then to Trunks' surprise and utter horror, she burst into tears.
Trunks's arms dropped back to his side and he stayed standing there, as if waiting for her to stop crying and say she was just teasing. She didn't; she slithered off the chair and sat on the floor, her face pressed just above her knees. Trunks was looking decidedly uncomfortable now, and approached her as if by doing so he'd make it worse.
"Oh, you, just get out of here!" She snapped, her voice slightly muffled against her legs. "Go on! Go! Run home!"
"Um." Said Trunks, squatting down next to her. "That's not what you want." He was sure it wasn't, but he hadn't thought she'd react like this; he'd thought it'd be a hug and easy goodbye.
Obviously not. "You'll be leaving, you won't be Prince here any longer. You can't tell me what I want or don't." There was a nasty tone in her voice, amplified by the sobs she was holding in. "You're so thick!" She spat, "if you think they're going to just let you leave. If you think that they won't try and shoot your ship out of the sky, if you think...If you bloody thought at all!" She ended, her arms still wrapped around her legs.
"I did think." Trunks said (slightly unsure if he meant it.) Lushka made a stifled 'ha!' noise from behind the wall of leg. "I did! I thought we were friends."
"I...well..." Said Lushka, a little softer. She hadn't been expecting that, it was the last thing anyone she knew would have said. "I...I'm not going to be able to go back to...to how I was before, my mother's practically disowned me, without her influence, I won't be welcome at my girl-friends places anymore, or in the Palace, and without you here I might as well be dead. I can't survive out there." She waved one hand in the air, indicating outside the Palace walls.
"Well, you could...come back with us?" Trunks suggested.
"What?" Lushka asked, shakily. "Leave? I...can't leave."
"But you just said-"
"I'm going to have a bath." Lushka snapped, standing up and stomping out of the room. 'What the hell was that all about?' Lushka asked herself, suddenly ashamed and angry at her tears. 'Why am I walking away? Why don't I go with him? Why does he make me so confused?'
***
It wasn't an awakening, it was a slow approach through soft darkness towards the flickering light of the cell. With her eyes open only a crack, the room took a long while to come into focus. Wall, wall, wall, wall, bars. A lump of another prisoner, and the hard shine of light against the wire and barbs wrapped around a tail.
Sena twitched her own tail, and it hurt, but not badly, not like the rest of her limbs.
Not like she had hurt last night -or the night before. Sena felt she'd slept for a long time. But she felt better. Still she moved slowly, and silently, pulling herself into a sitting position then onto her hands and knees, she crawled through the sand to the other side of the cell, where her cell mate, the ex-noble from Marunkre, was propped up against the wall.
Sena hands found her tail and the wire, and working from the tip down, she began to remove the barbs from her flesh.
A spasm jolted through Arienla's body, bringing her to a higher level of consciousness than she had known for days. She looked back, over her shoulder, and saw what Sena was doing.
But pride held fast. "Get away from me, filth." She spat, her voice a harsh whisper -it was all she could produce. "I don't need a Rebel's help."
Sena looked up at her, dark eyes met dark eyes. "You're not getting any other." Sena said. Arienla reached back with one hand to strike her, but Sena was sitting just out of her reach, pulling the pain from her tail.
"Nooo." Arienla moaned, in pain and disgust she wasn't sure she felt. But Rebels... they were just nuisances, they had always been horrid, bothersome...OW! She screwed her eyes shut. And this was the Rat's daughter...Arienla was a smart young Saiyain, someone, she knew, had made some seriously wrong judgements.
The last of the barbs left her tail, but she felt no different. It still hurt.
She slept.
As well as she could, Sena wrapped the wire into a loose ball, puncturing her hand at least once on the sharp metal. She left the ball in the closest corner, feeling light-headed and weak. And then she, too, went to sleep.
***
Bulma's face was pinched and looking paler than usual, as she steered the ship manually, her eyes flicking from the dot on the radar to the window behind her, where the Arkosian ship was now in sight. The grey bulk of it looked unnatural and foreboding against the otherwise black of space and stars. Goosebumps were rising on Bulma's arm but she was keeping cool in the crisis that was creeping up on them...
"They're SHOOTING at us!" Chichi shrieked, as the ship jerked sideways forcing her to clutch onto the table or fly across the room. Bulma's hands were calmly but very rapidly flying over the control panel.
"Of course they're shooting at us. They're Saiyans. Don't worry, I anticipated this..." A burst of bright, pale blue light illuminated the interior of the ship as it shot past the window, terribly close. The ship rolled half over in the air, and was pulled after the blast somewhat. Chichi had managed to scurry across the room and was holding onto Gohan's arm for dear life.
"Bulma!" She yelled, cutting off the blood supply to Gohan's hand.
"Two seconds..." Bulma said, in the voice of one who is biting her lip. "Just mi-AH!"
The third blast had smashed into the back of the ship, filling the air inside with the thick smell of burning. The ground leaped up and became the ceiling, and the three suddenly found themselves upside down, before tumbling back down to the was-a-ceiling-now-a-floor. Gohan caught himself moments before his head hit the floor, and turned till her was the right way up, Chichi still hanging off his arm, looking pale.
Bulma seatbelt was pressing into her shoulders and stomach as she hung upside down in her seat, but she didn't let that stop her. There, almost done. Holding the shoulder straps she reached out with her foot and kicked at the final button, which lit up with a pale yellow glow.
Bulma sat back and sighed in relief. "Shields are up." She said, "I'll see what I can do about the gravity...the blast seems to have scrambled something."
"Seems to?" Muttered Chichi under her breath. "Seems to? Good grief..."
Gohan, feeling rather useless, turned to look out one of the back windows, where the enormous ship shot another blast towards them. There was a faint shock wave as it hit, but Bulma's shield held. Chichi sagged next to Gohan.
"Right...good, ok..." She said weakly to herself. "I think I need a coffee- or rum. Coffee and rum seems like a very good idea right now."
"Nope, gravity's gone." Bulma commented, "steering's a little off too." She twisted the controls in her hands, and the ship rocked slightly, but didn't turn up the right way, or change direction. "We're in for an interesting landing."
Neither Gohan nor Chichi liked the way she said 'interesting'
The huge mass of earth was just below them now filling the entire window with the view. The ruddy brown coloured planet was closer than any other planet had seen since they had left Earth, and was covered in tatters of silky grey cloud.
It had been a very long time since Bulma had landed a ship, and she'd never done so while hanging upside down from a chair. That, mixed with the fact that the gravity was still insisting that the ceiling was really the floor, made for a landing all three of them thought they could have done without.
***
Cousin to Pasha and long member to the Rebels was Rana, who's small group had been left behind after the destruction of the Rebel headquarters. She surveyed the scene of rubble and dust with her four companions, and a few other onlookers. 'Is this the end of us?' She thought, because that was exactly what it looked like.
"Rana." Nor said, in low tones. "Bardock would lead any survivors to the mountains." Rana looked grim, but Nor was right, Nor was always right.
"We'll look for survivors." She told the others. "Don't hold out too much hope."
They travelled by foot until the gazes shot towards them were no longer suspicious, then they took to the air. Nor shot dark looks at the other three, warning them not to say anything. The small raid Rana had sent them on hadn't been particularly successful, and agitating her would not be the best course of action right now. Still, the Rebels couldn't stay quiet, not for long, the Council would begin to get suspicious. With the main focus now on tomorrow night, there wasn't time to keep up appearances, this job Rana took, with her lover Nor, as well allies Lin, Tatoe and Colly.
It was dark, and the night was moonless -however, something was glowing in the sky with much the same light as a moon, although somewhat smaller, and brighter, and it moved a hell of a lot faster, too, tumbling through the air towards the mountain range.
"Speed up." Rana commanded, adding to her speed. Colly dropped downwards, letting gravity add to his speed as he plunged toward the place that -had any Rebel's survived the wreckage of their home- Bardock would be.
And there they all were, all of them! Rana allowed herself a smile, then burst out with the news of the ship -or speeding moon, whichever.
"There haven't been any off-world missions for months, though." Mused Bardock, and he looked round at his group of companions surrounding him under the sky. "Alright, let's get to this thing before the Council does."
Now you review, so I know you're still reading….^_^