--Terms--

--Elites - An army of Saiyans who demonstrate brute strength and excel in the use of force.

--Reconnaissance - An army of Saiyans who are trained to scout enemy territory and bring back information.

--Intelligence - These are all Saiyans who do technical and computational work for the Elites and the Reconnaissance, yet they are kept in the dark about most of the direct military stratagem.

--Tacticians - These Saiyans are higher up Intelligence who work directly with war plans and battle tactics and who sometimes join the Elites and Reconnaissance in the field.

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Tyranny and Mutation

Chapter 2

--Planet Vegeta...

King Vegeta II - A Saiyan of only about two-thirds the height of his father, he ruled his people with an iron fist. He was arrogant and cold-hearted, but strong. He always meant what he said and always said what he meant. He was a very intelligent and ambitious man who dreamed as all men dreamed. He wished to reign over all. He felt he had the means, and so he decided that he would do what every ambitious man dreamed to do, yet had rarely attempted. He would take over the universe.

Elite Commander Nappa - This was Vegeta's right hand. He worked closely with the king and would sometimes also act as his body guard, though Vegeta did not need one. He, too, was arrogant, cold-hearted, and strong. But he lacked what Vegeta had in spades. Intelligence. He was the head of the Elites, the most powerful Saiyans on the planet who were trained solely to fight. He was also loud, vulgar and obnoxious.

Recon Commander Radditz - As the leader of the Reconnaissance, it was important to not only be strong, but also wise. The Reconnaissance was a group of powerful Saiyans who were not only trained to fight, but also to collect information and anything else worth collecting. He was surprisingly witty and possessed a strange kind of charm, though he, too, was just as arrogant as the king and the Elite Commander.

The three Saiyans sat at the table with all of the members of Vegeta's war council. Several of the high-ranking Elites had joined them, along with some high-ranking Reconnaissance troops. All of the king's Tacticians, and the Head of Intelligence were there as well.

"It is time to finish this," Vegeta began. He looked around the table to make sure all of his council members were paying attention. "Invading the Unnur Sector took a lot out of the Reconnaissance. Several of them didn't make it back. But our numbers are still strong, so we will not concern ourselves with that. Our main concern is that we still have to take that sector." He looked at his head Tactician. "Update."

"Of course, Sire," the Head Tactician said. He went through some papers that were in front of him and cleared his throat. "There are 5 planets in the Unnur Sector with intelligent life. We've taken Planet Hjordis, Planet Valdis, Planet Eydis and Planet Asdis. That leaves Planet Vigdis. Planet Vigdis is the one that gave us the most trouble. Their inhabitants' power levels are very near our own--"

"It was easy for the Reconnaissance troops who were sent to Valdis to take it even before the Elites arrived," Radditz interrupted. "And the planet nearest there needed to be scouted. That planet was Vigdis. And Vigdis was the planet where that Reconnaissance group was intercepted. I don't know how they were doing it, but they masked their powers somehow. Our scouters were unable to pick up on their true power levels. It was like they were ready for us."

The Head of Intelligence stood. "Actually, Recon Commander, Intelligence picked up a signal from Planet Valdis during your inspection of Planet Vigdis. We were unable to contact you. Their wide-spread signal dampened ours. We contacted Elite Commander Nappa and told him about it before he and the Elites reached their interstellar system. We couldn't be too sure what the signal was, so we warned him of the interference in our com equipment."

"And in the meantime there was no way of communicating between the Elites, who were concentrating on taking Hjordis, Asdis and Eydis, and Reconnaissance, who obviously suffered a surprise attack by the inhabitants of Vigdis," the Head Tactician went on.

"You should have known there was trouble when you received no communications from Reconnaissance," Vegeta said to Nappa. "You even received a communication from Intelligence telling you that the ships' com signals suffered from interference. What made you go forward with the seizure?"

Nappa frowned. "I knew how important it was to take the Unnur Sector--"

"There was a great possibility that you could have put more men in danger," Vegeta told him. "Now the only reason I'm not demoting you is because the Elites returned in pretty much one piece, aside from the troops who continue to patrol that interstellar system. The planets we've taken must remain under our control, but we must not foolishly rush headlong into a situation we cannot control." He stared at Nappa as he spoke.

After a long silence, one of the high-ranking Reconnaissance troops cleared her throat. "It seems our main problem is that our ships' signals can't get through the signals used for communication in that sector. If we can't communicate with each other, all of our efforts will be useless--"

"Not useless. Just less comfortable," Nappa said. "We can still take that sector if we hit them fast and hit them hard."

"Nappa, we have to be careful about this!" Vegeta shouted. "We don't know what they could have waiting for us on Planet Vigdis. Especially now that they've received communications of our invasion. And most likely, if we know that our signals are dampened by theirs, then they know it as well. They could be using that against us."

"My Liege," a second Tactician spoke. "If I remember correctly, the queen is working on a new line of battle pods as we speak--"

Vegeta nodded to the second Tactician. "Let her know the situation. We need more advanced communications equipment for those new pods." He looked at the Head of Intelligence. "Do you have some sort of recording of the signal that Planet Valdis sent out?"

"Yes, Sire," the Head of Intelligence told him. "But no one in Intelligence was able to decipher--"

"I didn't ask you that!" Vegeta shouted. "Go and inform the queen of the situation! There is no time to waste!"

"Yes, Your Highness," the Tactician and Head of Intelligence said. They quickly left the room.

Vegeta spoke to the remaining council. "Assuming that we get these battle pods with better communications equipment, we'll need to have a strategy and carry it out to the letter." Nappa looked like he was about to say something, but King Vegeta stopped him. "To the letter. We're not dealing with people who are 50 times weaker than we are. We are dealing with a race of people who could cause great damage. A group of about 20 Reconnaissance troops was completely wiped out. And those are just the ones we know of. We have no idea what could be happening to the troops who are still in that sector as we speak. That is not something I will take lightly. Now, as for the inhabitants of Planet Vigdis..."

--outside the lab...

Queen Bulma - She was a very intelligent woman who was known to build things that no one around could build. She was confident in her work and even more confident in her looks. She knows that there is no one on the whole planet who knew more about technology than she did. King Vegeta II had a lab built for her soon after their wedding and she has been designing different things for the king's armies. She enjoys her work a little too much sometimes.

The human woman was working in the side panel of the new prototype battle pod she had been working on for several days now. When she had a new idea, she usually worked on it pretty much nonstop day and night until it was finished. Currently she was trying to disconnect a big box from the side of the battle pod, but the connector seemed to be stuck.

She pulled as hard as she could, but one of her hands slipped off. "OUCH!" She looked at her hand and groaned. "There goes another nail." She sighed and wiped her brow. "It's almost impossible to stay beautiful while being a mechanical genius," she muttered to herself. She put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Sitar! I'm gonna need that new heat sensor if I ever plan to run a final test on this baby! Are you listening to me!" she yelled.

Sitar - This is a Namek who works closely with Bulma in the majority of her mechanical explorations. Any heavy lifting that has to be done, he does it. And even though his technological prowess is almost equal to the queens, she would never admit it. As a matter of fact, she has listened to some of his advice when he would make suggestions about certain routes to take in troubleshooting her equipment. From time to time she becomes very upset with him very quickly.

The young Namek came out of the lab carrying a very big part for the new battle pod. "I am listening, Queen Bulma. There is no need to shout. My hearing is sensitive enough."

Bulma looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Well, I should have had that heat sensor 20 minutes ago. I don't have all day to upgrade battle pods, you know. I would like to start on other projects too." She pointed to the panel on the side of the new battle pod. "The old heat sensor's cable seems to be stuck."

Sitar walked over and looked at the connector to the old heat sensor. "The heat sensor let the system get so hot that the cable started to melt. I'm gonna need a new cable if I plan on installing the new heat sensor."

"Don't get cocky. It was a simple problem," Bulma told him. She ran off to the lab to get another heat sensor cable. She walked back outside and handed the cable to Sitar. "There. Now let's hurry this along. When you calibrated the new heat sensor, did you set it to the temperature I asked you to set it to?"

"Actually, I thought it would be better to set it to a temperature slightly lower," Sitar told her. "Even when the sensor activates the cooling system, it'll take a while for the cooling system to bring the internal temperature back down. Some of the parts near the processor can't take extreme temperatures for very long. That was what caused the entire manifold to burn out."

Bulma put her hands on her hips. "I know that. Why do you think I had you build a better heat sensor? Everything was burning out too fast on those old-model battle pods anyway. But I figured if I recalibrated the old heat sensors, it would save a little time during mass production. Those old heat sensors just weren't capable of responding to the calibrations I'd changed them to." She folded her arms across her chest and frowned.

As soon as Sitar began replacing the part, two of Vegeta's council members walked over to them.

"Queen Bulma, we have an urgent message from the king," the Tactician said. He kneeled before her.

Bulma turned to them and looked at them strangely. "An urgent message? What is it? And it had better not be demands on the specifications of these new battle pods. I've been working on them nonstop for nearly a week."

The Head of Intelligence also kneeled before the queen. "We apologize for disturbing you, Your Majesty. But this is important news that we only found out today." He stood and held up a data strip. "Please. There is little time. We need for you to come and review the recording we've brought to you."

Bulma put her hands on her hips and looked at them for a while. Then she turned to Sitar. "Continue what you are doing. Once you finish, take it out for a test run. Report on anything that may be wrong." She led the Tactician and the Head of Intelligence into the lab.

--End Chapter 2--

--Hello. That chapter may or may not have been a bore for you. But cheer up. The next chapter's all about the hero and heroine of this story meeting up with some interesting Earthlings.

--Okay. How do you know I'm still kind of a beginner at this? I missed putting a disclaimer on the first chapter. So this will be the first and last disclaimer for this story. I don't own DB, DBZ, or DBGT or any of the characters associated with those series. I also don't own the names of the planets in this chapter.