A small party of armored soldiers surrounded the landing pad where the mysterious new arrival would have landed if their trajectory remained the same. Most of these soldiers were Saiyans decorating their waists with their own tails, though there were a handful of aliens wearing gear that aided them in channeling their Ki instead of doing so with their natural methods.
"I repeat, Capsule Corp, identify yourself or we will shut down the landing pad!" the voice blared from the megaphone, drowning out all the other noise in the ship. Bardock and Gohan left from the nearby room and sifted through various scattered heaps of merchandising that still laid around after their comedic visit. This sudden boom of noise had distracted their training session.
"What's a landing pad?" Goku asked after pressing a red button on the control panel.
"Who let Kakarot to the communication panel?" Chayote looked around while the Earthlings just shrugged in synchrony.
"You didn't expect me to talk, did you? If they saw me talking, they'd send out ships to engage us, leave alone withdraw the landing pad…" Piccolo crossed his arms and turned away, washing his hands off this matter. "We've planned this out, let's just stick to it."
"The landing pad is a bouncy pad necessary for your ship to land. If we shut it, you'll slam into the face of the planet and leave a massive crater rendering your ship inoperable. We will also know you're here to cause trouble, so you'll have the entire Saiyan army on your tail. We don't know a Capsule Corp so identify yourself immediately, vessel." The Saiyan talking to Goku repeated his request.
"I'm a Kakarook, or whatever, I'm a Saiyan grown on Earth!" Goku declared. Chayote turned to Bardock, who just sighed.
"Your voice is eerily similar to Kakarot's, mind taking it over from him?" Chayote wondered.
"That darned scientist spent entire weeks making sure that the megaphone system is of pristine sound quality but he couldn't install a visual display… Oh well, I guess it'll work out better for us in the end…" Bardock sighed and moved up to Kakarot, moving him aside from the communications panel with his arm.
"Sorry 'bout that. I've got a space cold, or something. I've never been to space, actually…" Bardock tried mending the situation. "Name's Kakarot, as I've said, I'm a Saiyan grown on Earth and I've conquered my planet. Nobody reached out to me to pick me up, so I've had the Earthlings build me a functional spacecraft that I could use to reach Planet Vegeta."
"Planet Earth!?" a loud grunt came from the speaker. It wasn't the good kind of loud, it was the sound of suspicion put to words. "Isn't that the planet prince Vegeta came back from grievously injured?"
"Shit…!" Bardock paled out. He was screwing it up, so Chayote rushed up to the communications. They didn't have much time to bargain for their landing pad. If they smashed on Planet Vegeta and ended up getting stranded, nobody would have been better off for it.
"Yeah… Kakarot wasn't around for that part…" Chayote spoke up into the comm link. "The entire scuffle of Bardock's crew and prince Vegeta occurred outside of Kakarot's reach."
"Who is this?" the Saiyan wondered. It was a good thing that he couldn't see the Dragon Team changing into their Frieza Army equipment, with Piccolo having to take the most extensive disguising in order to hide his Namekian heritage. Luckily enough, Frieza Army had functional helmets and Lord Slug's appearance on Earth sort of nudged some ideas for them.
"I'm… Mame from Kakarot's crew." Chayote came up with a lie on the fly.
"Kakarot's crew?" the voice wondered.
"We haven't come up with a name yet. Some of us only joined Kakarot on his way to Planet Vegeta. We thought aliens other than Saiyans could land on Planet Vegeta," Chayote wondered.
"Our records show a Kakarot from way back in our registries. I'm not picking up any other Kakarots, but I can't really find a destination as to where he was sent." The Saiyan wondered.
"Okay, we're kind of coming in hot so maybe you can raise us a landing pad and we can sort something out once we land, okay? I mean, Kakarot came all the way from Earth to fulfill his destiny and join Lord Frieza's army as a loyal Saiyan soldier and all…" Chayote clapped her hands together, hoping for some good fortune.
"Yeah, okay, we're going to keep the landing pad ready for you, but don't even try anything funny once you land. A party of soldiers will be there to straighten the details out." The Saiyan on the comm link cancelled the link. Chayote helped herself to a hefty sight as she turned around and scooped a visor from the floor that she used to cover up the upper half of her face.
"What are you doing?" Bardock wondered.
"Someone on the planet might still remember some of my features. I have a feeling that I etched into some people's minds when I left Planet Vegeta originally…" the female Saiyan stretched her neck out. "You better play along too. You're considered a rebel on this planet, remember?"
"How can I forget?" Bardock clenched his fists and grit his teeth. "Just for the record, if this plan doesn't work, I start swinging fists and blowing shit up…"
Despite his tough talk, the Saiyan warrior took a caterpillar-shaped plastic gadget off the ground and placed his arms around it from each side. An energy field enveloped his hands, making it impossible to pull them apart from the stasis bubbles even if Bardock could make subtle movements with his hands. Everyone suppressed their battle powers to what these goons would have had a reason to expect from Kakarot and his ragtag crew of aliens.
"Are we still okay? We kind of didn't factor Vegeta into consideration. He's been on Earth, if he gets a better look at either of our faces–he'll identify us immediately. Who knows, even these disguises might not fool him…" Piccolo let out a husky babble through a fake beard that resembled that of Muten Roshi's and disguised the green skin of his lower jaw some. There might have been more than one green-skinned races in the universe but the fewer general features Piccolo revealed, the better odds that he'd remain an enigma. Namekians weren't meant to be seen outside of their planet, so it was for the better if that line of questioning remained unexplored.
The Saiyan didn't lie. Couple of rings of soldiers, both Saiyans and aliens lined around the landing pad. The Saiyans had their hands raised while the aliens pointed their rifles at the opening door, tightening their stances and jumping at every chance that the Earthling spacecraft gave them to freak out for.
"Yo!" Goku emerged first. Honestly, everybody should have predicted the following reaction.
"It's Bardock, the rebellious Saiyan! Fire!" someone shouted out and everybody started blasting. Goku wasn't any smarter than that either. His power level shot way up as he flashed around, deflecting every laser bolt and protecting the ship. A simpleton he was, he realized the profound importance of the only ship capable of bringing all of them back to Earth.
"Wait up!" Chayote charged out from the opening and pointed to Goku. "He's not Bardock, he's Bardock's son. They look identical to one another, that's true, but Kakarot is loyal to King Vegeta!"
"Huh? She might be right. Look at this guy, he doesn't have Bardock's scar!" someone from the crew of oval-headed aliens pointed to Goku as they slowly began catching on. It was oh so ironic that the toughest thing to convince these guys of was something that was true, as opposed to the many lies they've gobbled down already.
"Okay, so we've got you guys something, but after this greeting…" Yamcha stroked the back of his head as he turned to the dimmed interior of the spaceship, wondering if it was the right time for them to further their plan now.
"Hm… You're another Saiyan, aren't you?" someone pointed to the tail waggling behind Chayote's back. Realizing that there was no way that she was on any of their registries, the Saiyan did her best to keep her composure with her. "Yeah… I'm from… Planet Sando."
"Planet Sando? Isn't it entirely covered in water?" one of the oval-headed aliens wondered as one by one the rich crew began lowering their Ki, channeling canons though none of them broke the circle they kept the new arrivals surrounded in.
"Yeah, I'm not sure whose idea it was to shoot me there, but I can assure you that you won't find me on any registry for that exact reason…" Chayote shrugged.
"I bet!" a fat Saiyan with spiky hair cackled. "That sounds like signature Saiyan humor. Your dad must have owed someone money, so they switched the spaceship coordinates to those of Planet Sando, shot you out and wiped the registry."
"That, as stupid as it sounds, it sounds like something a Saiyan would do…" one of the aliens with dotted skin nodded to himself even if hearing this explanation alone seemed to cause them a tangible headache.
"It's real fortunate you've ended up bumping into Kakarot then, Planet Sando and Planet Earth are half a galaxy away from one another." A blue-skinned alien voiced his doubts.
"Yeah, we figured you would be hesitant to let us in this easily," Tenshinhan muttered before turning to the spaceship interior too and called out. "Come on out!"
While the guardsmen of Planet Vegeta began growing accustomed to the new arrivals, once Bardock emerged from their spaceship with his hands trapped in stasis fields, the Saiyans opened fire again. This time Goku didn't rush in to deflect them, though neither did Bardock. The rebellious Saiyan warrior seemed to favor helping his own tail as he vanished and moved around the incoming Ki blasts, but before even one of them could touch the spacecraft, they froze in mid-air, as if trapped in stasis fields of their own.
"T-That white guy…" one Saiyan pointed at Chiaotzu as the ghoulish warrior in Frieza Army armor floated over everyone's heads with his arms extended and an intense energy aura curling around him. Chiaotzu's eyes were gleaming with cerulean flashes as his telekinesis ran rampant to save their ship from damage.
"That's Bardock for sure! He's got the scar and everything!" a Saiyan hissed, pointing his finger to Bardock.
"That's right, Bardock's Kakarot's own father, isn't he? And yet Kakarot caught the guy you couldn't catch and brought him to King Vegeta to do whatever he wants to. Imprison him, retrain him to be more obedient next time or execute him, it doesn't matter. Kakarot doesn't care as long as we can join the Frieza Army…" Chayote turned to Bardock, who seemed to roll his eyes. He seethed in hatred of his current predicament, though he himself ended up agreeing to it when he realized this might end up with him facing King Vegeta, eventually.
"No way…" rustling and mumbles of disbelief scattered across the platoon of confused soldiers as they looked at each other, questioning what they should have done. "Damn, this is unexpected. We need to straighten this out…"
"What's the matter?" Chayote raised an eyebrow so high up that it almost peeked from over her visor.
"Well… Truth be told, we're not the ones handling the recruitment. Something like that would have to go through one of Lord Frieza's commanders or King Vegeta himself…" a hesitant Saiyan admitted.
Chayote couldn't contain a twitch of the right side of her face at the very mention of facing Lord Frieza or his commanders. That was never part of the plan. Facing either of them would have been just trouble stew. As good of a liar as Chayote made herself out to be in her most optimistic descriptions, she'd not last a second against Frieza's polite sadism and neither would anyone else amongst the Earthlings.
They were all too honest, too eager to test their limits against even Frieza himself. It wasn't just Kakarot or Bardock burning with the need to clash against either of the two Vegetas or the cruel space emperor in charge of this whole syndicate. Such curiosity was a part of being a martial artist, growing stronger and seeking greater challenges, and everyone aboard this ship, excluding maybe Gohan, wanted to get a shot at someone like Frieza at some point. Bardock was the only other one to have actually ever seen Frieza, but he was the worst kind of Saiyan berserker there was so even that knowledge of staring at the space emperor from the other side of the room was a poor reason not to challenge him.
"In that case, we wouldn't mind all seeing the King," Chayote cracked her neck, trying to play off her fearful writhing in discomfort as just stiffness from long travel. "We'd have never seen him, but we're sure that King Vegeta will understand our drive to join the Saiyan fighting force. We don't have to join the Frieza Army from the get-go, we can earn the King's trust gradually as a part of his own force as long as he spares the time to see we're serious here."
"Heh, the Saiyan army?" one of the aliens laughed out in mockery of the very idea as he turned to the others. All Saiyans comprising the circle seemed to turn sour and react in their own ways, albeit all of them with scorn. The aliens all seemed to have a blast, laughing out to their hearts' extent. "There's no other fighting force beside the Frieza Army. The Saiyan army hasn't been a thing for years now!"
"Figures," Bardock made a mean grimace and spat aside. "A spit for the sissy king…" he muttered.
"So is there no way that we can see this King Vegeta guy? Pretty please!" Kakarot winced and clapped his hands, running out in front of Chayote and bowing before the talkative soldiers, all of whom seemed taken aback by the Saiyan's goofy demeanor.
"K-Kakarot… Please be patient…" Chayote tried making herself sound frightened by this sudden burst of vigor, or rather impatience, in Son Goku's stiff bones. "The Saiyans aren't all as wild and brutal as you are anymore. There are proper rules, you know…"
Yamcha leaned to a bobble-headed alien who looked to be quivering in his knees after seeing the wild stunts that this Kakarot crew had pulled before the meeting party. "I don't know for how long she can still keep Kakarot controlled. All of you guys may end up so screwed if he snaps…"
"M-Maybe we need to show these guys to King Vegeta after all?" the frightened alien who seemed to be all head and mutton chops turned to his peers and began hassling them. "This guy did capture Bardock where even prince Vegeta failed to do that…"
"Yeah… Someone this powerful… I don't know if Lord Frieza's gonna like this at all, to be fair…" someone muttered having overhead the fearful sentiments.
"Okay, tell you what, we're going to let the King know about your arrival. If he wants to meet you himself, he'll tell us that. If he's disinterested, he'll report this incident to Lord Frieza, and someone from the Frieza Army will come to interview you guys themselves. You seem like you guys can handle yourselves, as long as you can follow orders just as well–Lord Frieza will be overjoyed to have you join his army. It's good to find excellent help these days." A tall and broad-shouldered Saiyan who seemed to be the most important person in this circle of soldiers declared.
"Okay, you're free to hang out but don't stray from the soldiers watching you. You won't be allowed to do anything by yourselves until you're in the army. If a soldier loses track of one of you–you're all as good as Bardock here…" the fatso Saiyan from earlier approached Bardock and kicked him in the back. As the push kick collided with Bardock's back with a rough thud but the rebellious warrior didn't move one inch, instead leaving the kicking soldier to stumble back in a struggle for balance, the spiky-haired chubby scratched his head.
"Alright then…" Chayote sighed. "If the King won't see us–we'll break everything in sight, kick the crap out of everyone and drag Bardock's wife out of here by force. Under no circumstances can we meet this Frieza or one of his commanders."
"Huh? They're that strong!?" Goku whistled out loud, stunning the surrounding soldiers. "Oh, sorry…" he replied telepathically. "It's just that it got me really excited! I was wondering if we'd bump into that Vegeta guy here. I've been itching to fight him myself, but if this Frieza guy is even more amazing!"
"It's not that they're so strong… Heck, we can probably handle just about everyone on Frieza's payroll. The problem is that we'll piss him off if we do that. It's the absolute worst kind of heat. Who knows, if all of us fight together, maybe we can take Frieza on. We don't want another Turles or Slug situation on our hands," Chayote explained herself.
"Speak for yourself," Bardock's thought lingered before he walked off range alongside the soldier taking him to the king.
"If we start blowing things up–our spacecraft will follow. Let's not resort to that. I've met nobody in the universe who can handle a Super Namekian on a one-on-one fight yet. Even Slug had to resort to trickery to beat me. I get it that this Frieza guy's really scary to you, but you're probably way stronger than him by now, anyway." Piccolo voiced his thoughts too.
"I agree with Piccolo here." Tenshinhan joined in on the telepathic link. "We'll be in a lot more trouble if we try to power through this while we're all stranded on an alien planet. If our ship's blown up–we're stuck here amongst an entire planet of Saiyans and aliens. Our odds are probably better just handling whatever this Frieza offers."
"Plus, everyone knows the King Kai's Fist now so they can get more and more powerful!" Chiaotzu's screechy voice stuck around in Chayote's thoughts for a while after the psychic ghoul was done broadcasting his pondering.
Chayote had a mean feeling that both Slug and Turles alike might have been stronger than Frieza, and they somehow handled them. But the absolute terror and forceful respect instilled for the space tyrant since her early age impeded any attempts to think positive thoughts and not plan on how to sabotage this entire operation for the Dragon Team just because she didn't want to meet Frieza eye-to-eye again.