15
11.2.43
GCS Dante, Outer Sol System
1821 Hours
Sabre lead the group through a series of corridors and lifts to the briefing room. It was large enough to seat the earthlings' entire party. The right-hand side of the room was basically a long window, made from a super-dense glass-diamond compound, and gave them a beautiful panorama of space. Currently the view was taken up by a fantastic binary star system. The travelers from earth were enthralled at the sight.
They had dropped out of warp speed to make some adjustments to the reactors and re-calculate their trajectory. Even a slight deviation in course could end up putting them through a sun, asteroid, or other spacial hazard. That could certainly put a dampener on his mission.
Sabre could sense an aura of tension amongst the group. The earlier display in the training chamber had had more of a negative impact than he had hoped. One thing he had forgotten to take into account was the fact that they had been training pretty heavily for the past four years. During their fight with Cell, they realized that they were much weaker than they had wanted to be. Now he had just threw them into a room that made them feel even worse. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot
The group seated themselves and turned their attention to Sabre.
"First off, I want to let you know that this is just a preliminary briefing. There is way too much information to go through in one sitting. So I'll just go through the basics."
Sabre pushed a button on the table and the lights dimmed. A viewscreen descended from the ceiling and flickered to life. It was positioned directly in the center of the room, and could be viewed from either side. A picture of a black alien appeared on the screen.
"This is the enemy. We call them the Necrons. We have been unable to communicate with them in any way. All attempts at peaceful contact have resulted in the destruction of our envoy. What you are seeing is a standard infantryman."
The black figure was certainly intimidating. It was covered with a variety of devices that were attached to its armor. It was bipedal, just as all known sentient life was, and had four appendages, two arms and two legs. A scale next to the creature read it to be seven and a half feet tall. The ebony alien had blood red eyes but was without a mouth or nose. Its head was completely bald with a series of jagged lines crisscrossing its skull. In its hands was a large gun unfamiliar to all of the Z warriors.
"They aren't too much to worry about, and have a power level of only about fifty thousand or so. The guns they carry are much more effective however, and are equivalent to a blast from a warrior with a power level of about a million. Still, you guys don't have to worry about them."
Sabre flashed through a few more pictures of lower-class warriors and described their various strengths and weaknesses. He didn't spend too much time on them however, because that job would fall to regular army and marine units. He stopped at an image of a rather small looking fighter with a large, almost spherical head.
"Okay, here is where things start to get interesting. These guys are no more than five feet tall and don't have much fighting power, but they can still cause serious problems. You see, these guys put false images in your minds. They can make you believe all sorts of things, like you friends are dead or that your unit is retreating. There is no way to distinguish the false images from reality. If you see one of these guys, take 'em out as fast as you can."
"How is that possible?" Tien asked.
"Frankly, no one is really sure. We know next to nothing about these aliens. All the information being shown to you here is the totality of what we know. Most of it is still classified. Like I said, the only time we meet these things is in battle."
"Do you even know where these things came from?" Trunks asked.
"Not exactly. We know they came from sector 1542, which is about eight hundred light years from the Coalition's farthest borders. We thought it was a dead sector, because it had only three active stars. The rest of it was nothing but black holes. We found them when they were still about a year away, and we tracked their movements. As soon as they hit our first colony, the shit hit the fan. We've been at war ever since."
"How come these things have come out now? The Saiyan Empire never encountered anything like this. My father would have mentioned something to me." Vegeta stated.
"Well, I'm not in intel, but as far as I know, this is the first time that anyone has come across these things."
Sabre couldn't have known how wrong he was.
"Anything else?"
The room was silent. A new picture flashed onto the screen and they immediately recognized it. It was the thing that had followed Sabre to Earth.
"Yeah, you all saw one of these guys back when I landed here. They are assassins. The one that followed me here happened to be a rather weak. Their power levels can range anywhere from twenty million to two hundred million. They are nearly impossible to detect, and you cannot sense their energy. The only way I am able to see them is with my augmented vision. As you can see, they appear to be just outlines of a being. In fact, they absorb all the light around them, making them completely black. They have no discernable features whatsoever. Using an advanced cloaking field, they make themselves totally invisible to the naked eye and most scanners. They can walk up to you in broad daylight and snap your neck, and you never would have noticed anything out of the ordinary."
Chi-Chi spoke up. "Look, I'm sorry, but this is too much. How are our guys supposed to be able to defend themselves against these things? The way you are describing these Necrons, it seems you are just recruiting them to die! And for what, your silly little empire?"
Sabre sighed. This woman was too much. But then again, how would he feel if their roles were reversed? Having your husband and son recruited to fight in some far off war for a cause they had no interest in seemed absurd. He needed a drink.
"Ma'am you have a valid point. I can understand where you are coming from. But the Coalition is not an Empire. We do not subjugate others, we do not force anyone to do anything they don't want to. We are an alliance of worlds to protect all that we hold dear from threats both alien and domestic. All we d-"
Chi-Chi cut him off. "Save your speech for a cadet or whatever you call them. I just want to know if there is even a chance my husband and son will come out of this. I don't want to be a widow or the mother of a dead child. How bad is this situation anyway?"
Sabre became very sober. He reflected on the billions of lives already lost. How many wives had become widows? How many mothers lost their boys and girls to an enemy that they didn't even understand? For the first time he began to wonder about the plausibility of his mission.
"Ma'am, I-" he began. He was going to say something heroic and encouraging, but that would have been a lie. "It's bad. Real bad."
"That's all I wanted to know." She said softly. Chi-Chi looked sick. The entire room seemed to be weighed down with a sense of dread, and even Vegeta and Goku looked concerned. If this super-powerful stranger couldn't even handle these creatures, then things were bad indeed.
Sabre continued the briefing for another hour. He went through all the enemies that they would encounter on the battlefield, along with the weapons they would be armed with. However, he did not discuss the cyborgs. Krillin took note of this.
"Hey Sabre," Krillin said, "what about those cyborg thingies you talked about?"
He paused for a moment. "That is another matter in itself. We'll talk about them sometime in the future. That should be all for now. From here, you can wander the ship for as long as you want. Tomorrow is when the training begins. I want you all to get a good night's rest. We'll meet in the chamber at 0600 hours. Eve, Chi-Chi, and Bulma, you are more than welcome to watch. If not, Bulma, we have plenty of technical information for you to delve into. It would be pretty handy to have someone with your abilities around to help. Chi-Chi, we can always use another cook."
"Cook?"
"Yeah, we can familiarize you with the technology we used too prepare food. It'd be nice to have a decent meal for a change."
Chi-Chi looked resentful but said nothing.
Once again, Eve asked the question that seemed to define her life. "What about me?"
"You...uhhh...you can do whatever, I guess. I can give you a tour of the ship, if you like."
"That's cool."
"Okay, then, I guess you can go off and explore. She's a big ship, so you'll be able to wander her for a while. Oh, and don't go into any rooms marked "Danger" or "Crew Members Only" I don't want you to blow us up."
With that, everyone in the room dispersed. Eve stayed behind.
"So...Jake, why did that little bald guy call you Sabre?"
"Well, I haven't told them my real name...it isn't appropriate yet."
"Why not?"
"Look, I have my reasons, I will tell them some time in the future. Don't worry about it." The tone in his voice let her know that the subject was closed.
"So..."
"Yeah, uh, how 'bout we go for a walk?"
"That'd be fine. I've never been on a space ship before."
So they began to walk. He took her on a tour of all the major sections of the ship, including the bridge. He taught her some basic commands and how to read the LCD screens. She was a fast learner, able to almost always understand what he was telling her. While they roamed the corridors they made small talk, cracked some jokes, and talked about their families. Eve did most of the talking on that part.
She was born and raised in New York City and was living alone in an apartment complex in the Bronx. Her dad was killed as an innocent bystander in a drive by shooting before she was born, and her mother left when she was eight. She had managed to pay for the rent by selling drugs and her body. She didn't talk much about that though, because it obviously pained her to do so. Mostly she commented no how much life sucked for her, and how she had been thinking of killing herself for the past two years.
Eve had handled this entire situation quite well compared to most people. For some reason, she simply wasn't phased by this drastic change in her life. Spaceships, flying men, big green aliens, none of them had really shocked her. It was if somehow, she had always known stuff like this existed, she had just never been exposed to it. She often fantasised about a world like this, and now, she was a part of it.
Jake didn't say much, he mostly listened as this girl poured his heart out to her. He didn't have any answers for her, or much advice for that matter. He always thought he had had it rough, which he did, but she had just as bad. Those thugs that he had saved her from were gang members that harassed almost everyone in her neighborhood. Apparently, she had sold some bad drugs and they were coming to even the score. Eve noticed his quietness and decided to let him do the talking.
"Sorry, I must have put a lot on you. Thanks for listening for so long. No one has ever really been nice to me before."
"Aw, hey, it's nothing...I just wish there was more I could do to help you."
"Are you kiddin me? You saved my life, took me flying, got me out of that hellhole I called a home, and now your taking me with you on this fantastic trip! You've done more for me in one day than anyone has done for me in my entire life. I owe you my life."
"Naw, you don't owe me anything. Besides, Dende said this is what's best for you, coming with us, that is. He must see something special in you, otherwise you wouldn't be here."
"Special? Not likely. Enough about me. How about you, you've hardly said anything about yourself. What about your family?"
"I'd rather not..."
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing...something happened, a long time ago..."
"Oh. I get it. So, what's in here?" Eve asked, gesturing to a large pair of doors.
"That's the engine room. You wanna look around?"
"Sure."
He led her through the doors and they entered engineering. It was absolutely massive, far larger than the training chamber. Only a small fraction of the space was used for utilitarian purposes. The four massive reactors that propelled the ship took up most of the space. From here the ship's reactors were monitored and serviced. Currently, Lieutenant Commanders Transa and Vrakan, both Thrakans, were on duty. When Sabre entered the room they came to attention.
"Major," the Lieutenant Commanders acknowledged.
"At ease. I'm just giving Eve here a tour of engineering. How's everything running?"
"We should have the engines calibrated for the next jump momentarily. We're just checking with astrometrics to verify the course plot. We'll start up the reactors as soon as we get the go-ahead."
"Excellent. That'll give Eve here the pleasure of watching the reactors come on-line."
"What do you use for fuel?" Eve asked.
Vrakan answered her. "We use Amnian crystals. You see, these crystals contain within them enormous amounts of stored energy and we harness this energy to power our ship."
"Let me guess, these things are rare?"
Sabre responded to this question. "Actually, they are quite commonly found in the Tycho system. Unfortunately, that is the only place these crystals are found. The Amnae that brought us there left them on our planets. We aren't in danger of ever running out of these crystals, because they are semi-organic, meaning they can reproduce themselves."
"You mean those rocks can have kids?"
"Not exactly. It's asexual reproduction. They simply split in two."
"Weird."
Sabre smiled and led her deeper into the engine room. They passed by numerous control panels and computer systems. He took her to where the Amnian crystals were stored. Normally, this part of engineering was sealed why the reactors were on-line, but since they were deactivated it was perfectly safe.
"You want to see the crystals? They're quite beautiful."
"Sure. What do they look like?"
"You'll see."
He walked over to the crystal storage chamber and punched in a series of numbers on a keypad. The chamber casing opened, revealing the crystals within. When Eve saw them she was mesmerized. They were far more beautiful than anything she had seen on earth. They were relatively small, no bigger than baseballs, but were shaped in radical polyhedron designs. The crystals emanated light from themselves, a testimite to the subatomic reactions occurring within them. They were similar to diamonds, but had blue, red, and green tints to them.
"Can...can I touch them?"
"Yeah, it's perfectly safe. As long as the engines are off. If they weren't we'd both be reduced to atoms."
Eve extended her hand tentatively and place a finger on one of the crystals.
"It's warm."
"Yep. When they aren't in use they maintain a constant temperature of 95 degrees."
Eve then placed her entire hand over the crystal and closed her eyes. As she did so, Sabre felt something strange. Something was happening.
When Eve placed her hand on the crystal a wave of pleasure spread throughout her body. She immediately relaxed and embraced the feeling. It felt like something within her was awakening, coming to life for the first time. It wasn't a dark feeling, in fact it was quite the opposite. Her mind was racing, her consciousness no longer in the engineering room. She was far, far away, on a world she had never known.
Now Sabre could feel a major change within the girl. He had no clue as to what it could possibly be, other than the fact it was related to the crystals. But nothing like this had ever happened to anyone before. They had been used for hundreds by the Coalition and nothing like this had been recorded. Sabre could detect another energy source within her, merging with her original energy. Something was going down.
Eve's mind was being filled with information and history of a culture utterly foreign to her. The dormant parts of her brain were being awakened and put to use by the new energy inside of her body. She felt as if another person was inside of her, inhabiting her body like a roommate she never knew she had. But her body started losing control.
When she started seizing Sabre knew something like this was going to happen. She took her hands off the crystals but her body continued convulsing anyway. Sabre grabbed her and called for Transa and Vrakan.
"What's going on?" Vrakan asked.
"I don't know, she just touched the crystals and started seizing."
"What the hell is going on? I can feel two energy signatures within her!" Transa cried.
"Yeah, I know, the second one appeared when she touched the crystals. Her body is obviously taken objection to it."
"Let's get her to the infirmary." Vrakan said.
"Alright, I'll transmit there. You two stay here, we have to bring the engines back on-line, we have a schedule to keep."
"Right." the Thrakans agreed.
Sabre focused on the location of the infirmary and brought he and Eve there in an instant. The ship's doctor, Renara, a Danti, was on duty.
"What the hell is going on?" the surprised Danti exclaimed.
"She's seizing. Work your magic, doc?" Sabre placed Eve on one of the beds and let Renara take over.
"How did this happen?" He asked, trying to hold the girl down.
"I got her," Sabre said as he pinnned the convulsing girl. "She just touched the reactor crystals and this started happening."
The doctor began to hook her up to a med scanner and run a brain scan. It was obviously gettign worse when her eyes rolled back into her head. She started to gag on her own saliva, forcing them to turn her on her side. "Well whatever it is, it's 'cause of the crystals, bu-" Renara paused in mid speech, "Holy shit, there are two energy signatures in her!"
"Yeah, it popped up when she touched the crystals."
"Well, now I know what's causing the seizures. I've read about this before, in some classified medical journals," the Danti began, continuing to work on the girl, "A few years back there were some experiments being done in high-level military projects. Those boys are always up to something. Anyway, they were trying to transfer multiple organic consciousnesses into one body. The problem was, the brain would only accept the consciousness of itself, it rejected the others."
"What happened?"
"Well, first it was seizures like this, then-" Eve suddenly stopped shaking.
"What?"
"This. Damit all to hell..." Renara sighed as her vitals flatlined.
"Doc..."
"I know." Renara started a battery of injections designed to get her heart beating again. "The hosts bodies shut down on them. Apparently, two essences can't share the same body..."
"Well what the hell is inside of her?"
"How am I supposed to know? You brought her here. Are you sure she's human?"
"Well, I brought her from the earth..."
"Fuck!" the doctor said, agitated. "It's not working, her heart has stopped completely. Her brain shut down too. I could hook her up to a machine, but she'd just be a vegetable. What do you want to do?"
"What if I-"
"Used your powers? You can't heal the dead, Sabre."
"Damn...this girl was supposed to be special or something..." This definiately was not good. He brought this girl with him, and now she's dead. This all made no sense, but then again, the circumstances as of late hadn't made much sense either.
"Leave her."
"Right. Sorry about the girl."
"Yeah, she was just a kid. It's a damn shame." Sabre took a good look at the dead girl, not sure what to think. She was on her side, not moving, a puddle of drool driping out of her mouth. Her eyes were still rolled back into her head. He had seen plenty of dead bodies before, plenty of dead friends...but it didn't feel like that. It was like something special had been lost before it even came to be.
"I guess I'll run the autopsy, maybe I can find something out about what caused this second energy signature to show up."
"Could you wait until tomorrow to run the autopsy? I just want to make sure of someting before you do."
"Sure. I guess it wouldn't hurt any. She's not getting any deader."
"Thanks. But damn, now I have to tell the others. This is just great. What are they going to think? I've already lost one of them and we haven't even started training yet."
"These things happen, you know."
"I know, but why do they have to happen to me?" Renara didn't have an answer for that but also didn't want to get involved with the human's self-pity.
"Well, go do what you have to, I'll keep her on ice 'till tomorrow."
"Alright," Sabre sighed as he walked out of the infirmary. He still couldn't shake the feeling though, that something wasn't right. Eve wasn't supposed to be dead. There was something just plain off about the entire situation, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. It was slighly unsettling to loose a man before the battle was even faught. He would have taken it as a bad omen if he had believed in such things.
He decided to wait unitll tomorrow morning to tell the group of Eve's death. In the meanitme, he went to his quarters and poured himself a drink of Ziratov-something-or-other. It burned on the way down, and he couldn't keep it in his mouth for more than a second without feeling the urge to vomit, but it did it's job. So he sat there, reflecting on the recent events in a half-drunk pensive stupor.
"So this is what its come down to. Those eight, me, and Ree are all that will stand between the Coalition and oblivion. Heh, heh. Me, Ree, that rhymes. Heh heh. Damn, I wish she was here...she always makes me feel good. God she's so hot...I...I think I love her." He thought to himself.
"But you do love her." It was that damn voice in his head that popped into his thoughts whenever he got like this.
"Shut up. You know what I mean."
"No, that's just it. You've always loved her, and she's always loved you. Even when you were kids, you knew it. But you're both so afraid of admitting it to each other you pretend it's nothing more than a sibiling's love."
"What? You don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure I do. I'm your better half, you're just too cowardly to admit that you love her. You want her, bad, and it just kills you. I don't know why you're so afraid though, she's got it pretty bad for you, too."
"But...how am I supposed to say this stuff, how can I-"
"That's all part of the game, Jake."
"I don't even know when I'm going to see her again, though. She went back in time to set things straight with that kid's world, and isn't due back to base for another week."
"I wouldn't worry about it. She'll pop up sooner than you think."
"How can you know that? Y-" His conversation withhimself was cut off when the alarm sounded. The claxon, normally a mere annoyance, was piercing his head like a knife, amplified by his half-drunken stupor.
"Goddamnit, if it isn't one thing it's another," he muttered to himself. He hurried to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face then blurred transmitted to the bridge.
"Situation report," he ordered. Lieutennant Commander Rafa, the on-duty deck officer, responded.
"We're not sure, sir. The boards started lighting up around engineering, somebody is down there that shouldn't be."
"Do we know who it is?"
"Yes, sir, it appears to be one of the passengers...Vegeta."
"What the hell is he up to?"
"It looks like he's...he's powered up for some reason, and he shorted out some conduits. He's fried the primary and terchiary power regulators, we can't start up the reactors unless we get replacements."
"Stupid-ass-arrogant-son-of-a-bitch!" Sabre cursed. "Transa, come in!" he ordered, slamming his fist on the comm switch.
"Uh, yeah Major."
"Can you handle him?"
"Not quite..."
"Alright."
Sabre transmitted to the engine room to see various chunks of important systems lying about. There were what looked to be power-up singes near the starboard reactor casing. Transa was laying on the floor, blood running from his nose, and was holding his right arm. Vegeta was hovering above him, raging mad and fully powered.
"You will pay for what you have done to my people!"
"Vegeta, what the hell are you doing?! Sabre screamed at the enraged Super Saiyan.
"Stay out of this! This...thing killed my people, you will pay for what you did, Frieza!"
Frieza...Sabre recognized the name. He was some space tyrant that was going about and destroying the natural inhabitants of worlds and selling them for profit. Yes, they were going to send someone to fix that little problem. But Goku solved the problem, and Trunks finished the job. Frieza died almost three years ago, Vegeta must have gone crazy.
Sabre was shaken out of his thoughts when he felt Vegeta's power surge. He looked up to see the Saiyan's golden ki flaring about him violenlty, a tempest of rage and raw power. He extended his arms out from his body, palms outward. His breathing was rapidly increasing, as was his power level. He then brought his hands together in front of him, wrists rotated at 90 degree angles, fingers curved. Vegeta was about to do something monumentally stupid.
Sabre didn't even bother shouting at him again. He transformed in a brilliant white flash and blurred in front of Vegeta. Before the raging Saiyan had time to react, Sabre delivered a punch square into Vegeta's face, knocking him through four reinforced bulkheads. Lucky for him his back was to the interior of the ship.
As soon as his momentum stopped, Vegeta's golden aura disappeared. He was knocked clean out and probably had a concussion. Sabre turned his attention to the wounded Transa and healed him in a brilliant flash of yellow. He dropped back to the ground and questioned him.
"What the hell was that all about?"
"Sir, I have no idea. He stumbled in here a few minutes ago. I told him this was engineering and he had to get out because we were about to start up the reactors."
"What did he say?"
"He mumbled something about being a Saiyan prince but turned to walk out anyway. Then something happened, I don't know what. He just turned back around and kept saying "but you're dead!" I just looked at him and turned back to my controls. Then he shot in front of the reactor casing and went all out. Does this have anything to do with the crystals? I mean, the girl touched them, and now this?"
"No, this has to be something else..." Despite the dull throbbing in his head, something managed to click. He knew Vegeta had rage problems, but only when provoked. And why would he talk about that Frieza guy, unless he saw him? And that meant...
They had been compromised.
11.2.43
GCS Dante, Outer Sol System
1821 Hours
Sabre lead the group through a series of corridors and lifts to the briefing room. It was large enough to seat the earthlings' entire party. The right-hand side of the room was basically a long window, made from a super-dense glass-diamond compound, and gave them a beautiful panorama of space. Currently the view was taken up by a fantastic binary star system. The travelers from earth were enthralled at the sight.
They had dropped out of warp speed to make some adjustments to the reactors and re-calculate their trajectory. Even a slight deviation in course could end up putting them through a sun, asteroid, or other spacial hazard. That could certainly put a dampener on his mission.
Sabre could sense an aura of tension amongst the group. The earlier display in the training chamber had had more of a negative impact than he had hoped. One thing he had forgotten to take into account was the fact that they had been training pretty heavily for the past four years. During their fight with Cell, they realized that they were much weaker than they had wanted to be. Now he had just threw them into a room that made them feel even worse. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot
The group seated themselves and turned their attention to Sabre.
"First off, I want to let you know that this is just a preliminary briefing. There is way too much information to go through in one sitting. So I'll just go through the basics."
Sabre pushed a button on the table and the lights dimmed. A viewscreen descended from the ceiling and flickered to life. It was positioned directly in the center of the room, and could be viewed from either side. A picture of a black alien appeared on the screen.
"This is the enemy. We call them the Necrons. We have been unable to communicate with them in any way. All attempts at peaceful contact have resulted in the destruction of our envoy. What you are seeing is a standard infantryman."
The black figure was certainly intimidating. It was covered with a variety of devices that were attached to its armor. It was bipedal, just as all known sentient life was, and had four appendages, two arms and two legs. A scale next to the creature read it to be seven and a half feet tall. The ebony alien had blood red eyes but was without a mouth or nose. Its head was completely bald with a series of jagged lines crisscrossing its skull. In its hands was a large gun unfamiliar to all of the Z warriors.
"They aren't too much to worry about, and have a power level of only about fifty thousand or so. The guns they carry are much more effective however, and are equivalent to a blast from a warrior with a power level of about a million. Still, you guys don't have to worry about them."
Sabre flashed through a few more pictures of lower-class warriors and described their various strengths and weaknesses. He didn't spend too much time on them however, because that job would fall to regular army and marine units. He stopped at an image of a rather small looking fighter with a large, almost spherical head.
"Okay, here is where things start to get interesting. These guys are no more than five feet tall and don't have much fighting power, but they can still cause serious problems. You see, these guys put false images in your minds. They can make you believe all sorts of things, like you friends are dead or that your unit is retreating. There is no way to distinguish the false images from reality. If you see one of these guys, take 'em out as fast as you can."
"How is that possible?" Tien asked.
"Frankly, no one is really sure. We know next to nothing about these aliens. All the information being shown to you here is the totality of what we know. Most of it is still classified. Like I said, the only time we meet these things is in battle."
"Do you even know where these things came from?" Trunks asked.
"Not exactly. We know they came from sector 1542, which is about eight hundred light years from the Coalition's farthest borders. We thought it was a dead sector, because it had only three active stars. The rest of it was nothing but black holes. We found them when they were still about a year away, and we tracked their movements. As soon as they hit our first colony, the shit hit the fan. We've been at war ever since."
"How come these things have come out now? The Saiyan Empire never encountered anything like this. My father would have mentioned something to me." Vegeta stated.
"Well, I'm not in intel, but as far as I know, this is the first time that anyone has come across these things."
Sabre couldn't have known how wrong he was.
"Anything else?"
The room was silent. A new picture flashed onto the screen and they immediately recognized it. It was the thing that had followed Sabre to Earth.
"Yeah, you all saw one of these guys back when I landed here. They are assassins. The one that followed me here happened to be a rather weak. Their power levels can range anywhere from twenty million to two hundred million. They are nearly impossible to detect, and you cannot sense their energy. The only way I am able to see them is with my augmented vision. As you can see, they appear to be just outlines of a being. In fact, they absorb all the light around them, making them completely black. They have no discernable features whatsoever. Using an advanced cloaking field, they make themselves totally invisible to the naked eye and most scanners. They can walk up to you in broad daylight and snap your neck, and you never would have noticed anything out of the ordinary."
Chi-Chi spoke up. "Look, I'm sorry, but this is too much. How are our guys supposed to be able to defend themselves against these things? The way you are describing these Necrons, it seems you are just recruiting them to die! And for what, your silly little empire?"
Sabre sighed. This woman was too much. But then again, how would he feel if their roles were reversed? Having your husband and son recruited to fight in some far off war for a cause they had no interest in seemed absurd. He needed a drink.
"Ma'am you have a valid point. I can understand where you are coming from. But the Coalition is not an Empire. We do not subjugate others, we do not force anyone to do anything they don't want to. We are an alliance of worlds to protect all that we hold dear from threats both alien and domestic. All we d-"
Chi-Chi cut him off. "Save your speech for a cadet or whatever you call them. I just want to know if there is even a chance my husband and son will come out of this. I don't want to be a widow or the mother of a dead child. How bad is this situation anyway?"
Sabre became very sober. He reflected on the billions of lives already lost. How many wives had become widows? How many mothers lost their boys and girls to an enemy that they didn't even understand? For the first time he began to wonder about the plausibility of his mission.
"Ma'am, I-" he began. He was going to say something heroic and encouraging, but that would have been a lie. "It's bad. Real bad."
"That's all I wanted to know." She said softly. Chi-Chi looked sick. The entire room seemed to be weighed down with a sense of dread, and even Vegeta and Goku looked concerned. If this super-powerful stranger couldn't even handle these creatures, then things were bad indeed.
Sabre continued the briefing for another hour. He went through all the enemies that they would encounter on the battlefield, along with the weapons they would be armed with. However, he did not discuss the cyborgs. Krillin took note of this.
"Hey Sabre," Krillin said, "what about those cyborg thingies you talked about?"
He paused for a moment. "That is another matter in itself. We'll talk about them sometime in the future. That should be all for now. From here, you can wander the ship for as long as you want. Tomorrow is when the training begins. I want you all to get a good night's rest. We'll meet in the chamber at 0600 hours. Eve, Chi-Chi, and Bulma, you are more than welcome to watch. If not, Bulma, we have plenty of technical information for you to delve into. It would be pretty handy to have someone with your abilities around to help. Chi-Chi, we can always use another cook."
"Cook?"
"Yeah, we can familiarize you with the technology we used too prepare food. It'd be nice to have a decent meal for a change."
Chi-Chi looked resentful but said nothing.
Once again, Eve asked the question that seemed to define her life. "What about me?"
"You...uhhh...you can do whatever, I guess. I can give you a tour of the ship, if you like."
"That's cool."
"Okay, then, I guess you can go off and explore. She's a big ship, so you'll be able to wander her for a while. Oh, and don't go into any rooms marked "Danger" or "Crew Members Only" I don't want you to blow us up."
With that, everyone in the room dispersed. Eve stayed behind.
"So...Jake, why did that little bald guy call you Sabre?"
"Well, I haven't told them my real name...it isn't appropriate yet."
"Why not?"
"Look, I have my reasons, I will tell them some time in the future. Don't worry about it." The tone in his voice let her know that the subject was closed.
"So..."
"Yeah, uh, how 'bout we go for a walk?"
"That'd be fine. I've never been on a space ship before."
So they began to walk. He took her on a tour of all the major sections of the ship, including the bridge. He taught her some basic commands and how to read the LCD screens. She was a fast learner, able to almost always understand what he was telling her. While they roamed the corridors they made small talk, cracked some jokes, and talked about their families. Eve did most of the talking on that part.
She was born and raised in New York City and was living alone in an apartment complex in the Bronx. Her dad was killed as an innocent bystander in a drive by shooting before she was born, and her mother left when she was eight. She had managed to pay for the rent by selling drugs and her body. She didn't talk much about that though, because it obviously pained her to do so. Mostly she commented no how much life sucked for her, and how she had been thinking of killing herself for the past two years.
Eve had handled this entire situation quite well compared to most people. For some reason, she simply wasn't phased by this drastic change in her life. Spaceships, flying men, big green aliens, none of them had really shocked her. It was if somehow, she had always known stuff like this existed, she had just never been exposed to it. She often fantasised about a world like this, and now, she was a part of it.
Jake didn't say much, he mostly listened as this girl poured his heart out to her. He didn't have any answers for her, or much advice for that matter. He always thought he had had it rough, which he did, but she had just as bad. Those thugs that he had saved her from were gang members that harassed almost everyone in her neighborhood. Apparently, she had sold some bad drugs and they were coming to even the score. Eve noticed his quietness and decided to let him do the talking.
"Sorry, I must have put a lot on you. Thanks for listening for so long. No one has ever really been nice to me before."
"Aw, hey, it's nothing...I just wish there was more I could do to help you."
"Are you kiddin me? You saved my life, took me flying, got me out of that hellhole I called a home, and now your taking me with you on this fantastic trip! You've done more for me in one day than anyone has done for me in my entire life. I owe you my life."
"Naw, you don't owe me anything. Besides, Dende said this is what's best for you, coming with us, that is. He must see something special in you, otherwise you wouldn't be here."
"Special? Not likely. Enough about me. How about you, you've hardly said anything about yourself. What about your family?"
"I'd rather not..."
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing...something happened, a long time ago..."
"Oh. I get it. So, what's in here?" Eve asked, gesturing to a large pair of doors.
"That's the engine room. You wanna look around?"
"Sure."
He led her through the doors and they entered engineering. It was absolutely massive, far larger than the training chamber. Only a small fraction of the space was used for utilitarian purposes. The four massive reactors that propelled the ship took up most of the space. From here the ship's reactors were monitored and serviced. Currently, Lieutenant Commanders Transa and Vrakan, both Thrakans, were on duty. When Sabre entered the room they came to attention.
"Major," the Lieutenant Commanders acknowledged.
"At ease. I'm just giving Eve here a tour of engineering. How's everything running?"
"We should have the engines calibrated for the next jump momentarily. We're just checking with astrometrics to verify the course plot. We'll start up the reactors as soon as we get the go-ahead."
"Excellent. That'll give Eve here the pleasure of watching the reactors come on-line."
"What do you use for fuel?" Eve asked.
Vrakan answered her. "We use Amnian crystals. You see, these crystals contain within them enormous amounts of stored energy and we harness this energy to power our ship."
"Let me guess, these things are rare?"
Sabre responded to this question. "Actually, they are quite commonly found in the Tycho system. Unfortunately, that is the only place these crystals are found. The Amnae that brought us there left them on our planets. We aren't in danger of ever running out of these crystals, because they are semi-organic, meaning they can reproduce themselves."
"You mean those rocks can have kids?"
"Not exactly. It's asexual reproduction. They simply split in two."
"Weird."
Sabre smiled and led her deeper into the engine room. They passed by numerous control panels and computer systems. He took her to where the Amnian crystals were stored. Normally, this part of engineering was sealed why the reactors were on-line, but since they were deactivated it was perfectly safe.
"You want to see the crystals? They're quite beautiful."
"Sure. What do they look like?"
"You'll see."
He walked over to the crystal storage chamber and punched in a series of numbers on a keypad. The chamber casing opened, revealing the crystals within. When Eve saw them she was mesmerized. They were far more beautiful than anything she had seen on earth. They were relatively small, no bigger than baseballs, but were shaped in radical polyhedron designs. The crystals emanated light from themselves, a testimite to the subatomic reactions occurring within them. They were similar to diamonds, but had blue, red, and green tints to them.
"Can...can I touch them?"
"Yeah, it's perfectly safe. As long as the engines are off. If they weren't we'd both be reduced to atoms."
Eve extended her hand tentatively and place a finger on one of the crystals.
"It's warm."
"Yep. When they aren't in use they maintain a constant temperature of 95 degrees."
Eve then placed her entire hand over the crystal and closed her eyes. As she did so, Sabre felt something strange. Something was happening.
When Eve placed her hand on the crystal a wave of pleasure spread throughout her body. She immediately relaxed and embraced the feeling. It felt like something within her was awakening, coming to life for the first time. It wasn't a dark feeling, in fact it was quite the opposite. Her mind was racing, her consciousness no longer in the engineering room. She was far, far away, on a world she had never known.
Now Sabre could feel a major change within the girl. He had no clue as to what it could possibly be, other than the fact it was related to the crystals. But nothing like this had ever happened to anyone before. They had been used for hundreds by the Coalition and nothing like this had been recorded. Sabre could detect another energy source within her, merging with her original energy. Something was going down.
Eve's mind was being filled with information and history of a culture utterly foreign to her. The dormant parts of her brain were being awakened and put to use by the new energy inside of her body. She felt as if another person was inside of her, inhabiting her body like a roommate she never knew she had. But her body started losing control.
When she started seizing Sabre knew something like this was going to happen. She took her hands off the crystals but her body continued convulsing anyway. Sabre grabbed her and called for Transa and Vrakan.
"What's going on?" Vrakan asked.
"I don't know, she just touched the crystals and started seizing."
"What the hell is going on? I can feel two energy signatures within her!" Transa cried.
"Yeah, I know, the second one appeared when she touched the crystals. Her body is obviously taken objection to it."
"Let's get her to the infirmary." Vrakan said.
"Alright, I'll transmit there. You two stay here, we have to bring the engines back on-line, we have a schedule to keep."
"Right." the Thrakans agreed.
Sabre focused on the location of the infirmary and brought he and Eve there in an instant. The ship's doctor, Renara, a Danti, was on duty.
"What the hell is going on?" the surprised Danti exclaimed.
"She's seizing. Work your magic, doc?" Sabre placed Eve on one of the beds and let Renara take over.
"How did this happen?" He asked, trying to hold the girl down.
"I got her," Sabre said as he pinnned the convulsing girl. "She just touched the reactor crystals and this started happening."
The doctor began to hook her up to a med scanner and run a brain scan. It was obviously gettign worse when her eyes rolled back into her head. She started to gag on her own saliva, forcing them to turn her on her side. "Well whatever it is, it's 'cause of the crystals, bu-" Renara paused in mid speech, "Holy shit, there are two energy signatures in her!"
"Yeah, it popped up when she touched the crystals."
"Well, now I know what's causing the seizures. I've read about this before, in some classified medical journals," the Danti began, continuing to work on the girl, "A few years back there were some experiments being done in high-level military projects. Those boys are always up to something. Anyway, they were trying to transfer multiple organic consciousnesses into one body. The problem was, the brain would only accept the consciousness of itself, it rejected the others."
"What happened?"
"Well, first it was seizures like this, then-" Eve suddenly stopped shaking.
"What?"
"This. Damit all to hell..." Renara sighed as her vitals flatlined.
"Doc..."
"I know." Renara started a battery of injections designed to get her heart beating again. "The hosts bodies shut down on them. Apparently, two essences can't share the same body..."
"Well what the hell is inside of her?"
"How am I supposed to know? You brought her here. Are you sure she's human?"
"Well, I brought her from the earth..."
"Fuck!" the doctor said, agitated. "It's not working, her heart has stopped completely. Her brain shut down too. I could hook her up to a machine, but she'd just be a vegetable. What do you want to do?"
"What if I-"
"Used your powers? You can't heal the dead, Sabre."
"Damn...this girl was supposed to be special or something..." This definiately was not good. He brought this girl with him, and now she's dead. This all made no sense, but then again, the circumstances as of late hadn't made much sense either.
"Leave her."
"Right. Sorry about the girl."
"Yeah, she was just a kid. It's a damn shame." Sabre took a good look at the dead girl, not sure what to think. She was on her side, not moving, a puddle of drool driping out of her mouth. Her eyes were still rolled back into her head. He had seen plenty of dead bodies before, plenty of dead friends...but it didn't feel like that. It was like something special had been lost before it even came to be.
"I guess I'll run the autopsy, maybe I can find something out about what caused this second energy signature to show up."
"Could you wait until tomorrow to run the autopsy? I just want to make sure of someting before you do."
"Sure. I guess it wouldn't hurt any. She's not getting any deader."
"Thanks. But damn, now I have to tell the others. This is just great. What are they going to think? I've already lost one of them and we haven't even started training yet."
"These things happen, you know."
"I know, but why do they have to happen to me?" Renara didn't have an answer for that but also didn't want to get involved with the human's self-pity.
"Well, go do what you have to, I'll keep her on ice 'till tomorrow."
"Alright," Sabre sighed as he walked out of the infirmary. He still couldn't shake the feeling though, that something wasn't right. Eve wasn't supposed to be dead. There was something just plain off about the entire situation, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. It was slighly unsettling to loose a man before the battle was even faught. He would have taken it as a bad omen if he had believed in such things.
He decided to wait unitll tomorrow morning to tell the group of Eve's death. In the meanitme, he went to his quarters and poured himself a drink of Ziratov-something-or-other. It burned on the way down, and he couldn't keep it in his mouth for more than a second without feeling the urge to vomit, but it did it's job. So he sat there, reflecting on the recent events in a half-drunk pensive stupor.
"So this is what its come down to. Those eight, me, and Ree are all that will stand between the Coalition and oblivion. Heh, heh. Me, Ree, that rhymes. Heh heh. Damn, I wish she was here...she always makes me feel good. God she's so hot...I...I think I love her." He thought to himself.
"But you do love her." It was that damn voice in his head that popped into his thoughts whenever he got like this.
"Shut up. You know what I mean."
"No, that's just it. You've always loved her, and she's always loved you. Even when you were kids, you knew it. But you're both so afraid of admitting it to each other you pretend it's nothing more than a sibiling's love."
"What? You don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure I do. I'm your better half, you're just too cowardly to admit that you love her. You want her, bad, and it just kills you. I don't know why you're so afraid though, she's got it pretty bad for you, too."
"But...how am I supposed to say this stuff, how can I-"
"That's all part of the game, Jake."
"I don't even know when I'm going to see her again, though. She went back in time to set things straight with that kid's world, and isn't due back to base for another week."
"I wouldn't worry about it. She'll pop up sooner than you think."
"How can you know that? Y-" His conversation withhimself was cut off when the alarm sounded. The claxon, normally a mere annoyance, was piercing his head like a knife, amplified by his half-drunken stupor.
"Goddamnit, if it isn't one thing it's another," he muttered to himself. He hurried to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face then blurred transmitted to the bridge.
"Situation report," he ordered. Lieutennant Commander Rafa, the on-duty deck officer, responded.
"We're not sure, sir. The boards started lighting up around engineering, somebody is down there that shouldn't be."
"Do we know who it is?"
"Yes, sir, it appears to be one of the passengers...Vegeta."
"What the hell is he up to?"
"It looks like he's...he's powered up for some reason, and he shorted out some conduits. He's fried the primary and terchiary power regulators, we can't start up the reactors unless we get replacements."
"Stupid-ass-arrogant-son-of-a-bitch!" Sabre cursed. "Transa, come in!" he ordered, slamming his fist on the comm switch.
"Uh, yeah Major."
"Can you handle him?"
"Not quite..."
"Alright."
Sabre transmitted to the engine room to see various chunks of important systems lying about. There were what looked to be power-up singes near the starboard reactor casing. Transa was laying on the floor, blood running from his nose, and was holding his right arm. Vegeta was hovering above him, raging mad and fully powered.
"You will pay for what you have done to my people!"
"Vegeta, what the hell are you doing?! Sabre screamed at the enraged Super Saiyan.
"Stay out of this! This...thing killed my people, you will pay for what you did, Frieza!"
Frieza...Sabre recognized the name. He was some space tyrant that was going about and destroying the natural inhabitants of worlds and selling them for profit. Yes, they were going to send someone to fix that little problem. But Goku solved the problem, and Trunks finished the job. Frieza died almost three years ago, Vegeta must have gone crazy.
Sabre was shaken out of his thoughts when he felt Vegeta's power surge. He looked up to see the Saiyan's golden ki flaring about him violenlty, a tempest of rage and raw power. He extended his arms out from his body, palms outward. His breathing was rapidly increasing, as was his power level. He then brought his hands together in front of him, wrists rotated at 90 degree angles, fingers curved. Vegeta was about to do something monumentally stupid.
Sabre didn't even bother shouting at him again. He transformed in a brilliant white flash and blurred in front of Vegeta. Before the raging Saiyan had time to react, Sabre delivered a punch square into Vegeta's face, knocking him through four reinforced bulkheads. Lucky for him his back was to the interior of the ship.
As soon as his momentum stopped, Vegeta's golden aura disappeared. He was knocked clean out and probably had a concussion. Sabre turned his attention to the wounded Transa and healed him in a brilliant flash of yellow. He dropped back to the ground and questioned him.
"What the hell was that all about?"
"Sir, I have no idea. He stumbled in here a few minutes ago. I told him this was engineering and he had to get out because we were about to start up the reactors."
"What did he say?"
"He mumbled something about being a Saiyan prince but turned to walk out anyway. Then something happened, I don't know what. He just turned back around and kept saying "but you're dead!" I just looked at him and turned back to my controls. Then he shot in front of the reactor casing and went all out. Does this have anything to do with the crystals? I mean, the girl touched them, and now this?"
"No, this has to be something else..." Despite the dull throbbing in his head, something managed to click. He knew Vegeta had rage problems, but only when provoked. And why would he talk about that Frieza guy, unless he saw him? And that meant...
They had been compromised.