Jaco leaned back in his chair. His big yellow eyes peered through the darkness beyond the glass.
"Where is it?," Vegeta grumbled.
"I'm not sure Something's showing up on the EMR radar. Maybe an instrument malfunction," Jaco reassured as he adjusted the ship's controls.
"You probably screwed up the math," Vegeta said.
"Your wife calculated these coordinates- thank you," Jaco fired back.
"Leave her out of this," Vegeta started.
"Hey," Goku interrupted the bickering, "Look."
A hazy structure peaked out of the emptiness of space. It slowly emerged like a heat mirage on the horizon. Jaco milled through the documents sitting on the ship's console.
"Woah, so that's the ship huh?," Goku said, "I didn't think it would be so , so big," he trailed off.
The silent drifting colossus dwarfed the galactic hatchback. Eight wheels spun round the compound's axis, each slightly larger than the next.
"Quit shuffling paper and board the damn thing!," Vegeta demanded as they inched closer.
Grey walls took up all their ship's windows; they slowly disappeared in its gravity, losing passive propulsion.
"We must have boarding documents in place, you know that," Jaco huffed, "Weren't you space bound all the time back in the day?"
"Just Hurry," Vegeta growled.
Weariness creeped into Goku's heart. He turned a keen eye to his foe turned ally. The edge in Vegeta's voice made his skin crawl. Jaco held the console radio in his narrow hand.
"Galactic patrol man Jaco, requesting to board, over," he said.
A static filled voice rumbled back, "Er, requesting to board?," the voice said half asleep, "On what prerogative?"
"A warrant for search," Jaco returned.
"Hold on a second," the voice responded.
"Varochi speaking," a new voice said.
"This is Jaco, galactic patrol man, requesting to board upon warrant. Also are you aware that you're veiled?"
Goku mouthed 'what' to Vegeta. Vegeta shrugged his shoulders, seeing Jaco on the radio reminded Vegeta of watching Bulma yak on the phone casually with het sister. He half-way expected Jaco to start filing his nails.
A long paused weighed down the conversation until Varochi broke the silence, "This is a level four corrections facility… you want to board- for a warrant? This must be some sort of misunderstanding."
"Captain," Jaco began, "I am fully prepared to tab your ship and have the galactic fleet pull you onto the next planet available, If you refuse. I guess your budget can tank the fines then."
"No-no, permission granted, "Varochi sighed.
Jaco hung up his radio, feeling empowered yet slightly annoyed by the conversation.
"Uh," Goku scratched his head, "How far behind us is the fleet?"
"There is no fleet Kakarot. It was a bluff," Vegeta explained.
"No, this is a potential trafficking sting," Jaco corrected them both, "This is big! You guys get Bulla back, and we prove they abducted a missing person. Who knows who else is on board? Then we can get the Intergalactic Commission involved."
The hatchback craft lumbered into the mouth of the receiving bay. The garage style door closed behind them. Goku's ears ached as the cabin was re-pressurized.
"This is it," Jaco reminded them, "Remember you aren't Goku and Vegeta anymore- you're new hires. This may be our only chance to get Bulla out of here."
Goku nodded dutifully and Vegeta offered his barely agreeable, "Hmph."
One by one they piled out of Jaco's craft. They were immediately greeted by two bay attendants wearing maroon suits. Jaco chattered at the quiet attendants. Flashing his badge at them. He offered them a stack of neatly folded forms with every 'I' and 'T' meticulously attended to.
"What do you think they're saying?," Goku whispered
"I don't know," Vegeta replied.
Jaco turned his flat green face to the Saiyans, "They won't admit you until they scan you for contaminants."
A quiet, unremarkable guard strolled up to Jaco. He pulled his scanner from his baggy pocket. It was solid white with a gun like handle. Goku studied the smooth rounded surface of the machine.
It looks like a buttonless TV remote, Goku thought.
A swath of rosy UV light flashed from the device. The guard swept it over Jaco in one clean stroke from head to toe. With a beep, red symbols blinked on the top of the scanner. The bay attendant was appeased cocking his head lazily over his shoulder. He dutifully approached Goku with the scanner in hand. Goku imagined the face beneath the helmet and figured they were the same height after the heel of the guard's boots were factored in. He imagined where the alien was from, who his family is even.
We're all just trying to make it out in the universe, he thought.
A vague hope tickled his cheeks pink and made his heart beat slow and steady in his chest.
Maybe this whole thing is an accident- a misunderstanding, Goku hoped.
The attendant robotically scanned Goku, dragging the warm ray over his body from head to toe. The top of the scanner blinked again with glowing jargon. The attendant's head popped up.
"Everything okay?," Goku responded to the guard's frozen stance with an uneasy smile.
The guard waved his comrade over with his gloved hand. Goku watched them carefully tune the device like it was a musical instrument. Vegeta's black pupils darted between Goku and the attendants. He didn't even bother to try to decipher the gibberish; he knew better. He focused on their tight shoulders and heavy breath.
Something's wrong, Vegeta thought.
The accompanying guard jerked the scanner from the first attendant's hand. He scanned Goku again with haste only for the same symbols to flash. He slapped the nozzle of the device on the heel of his hand a few times before trying again. A poof of grey smoke fizzled from the scanner casing before it shattered n the guard's hand.
The hair stood up on Vegeta's neck. He clenched his teeth behind his sealed lips.
That was a damn power scouter!, he thought.
The guards slinked away, nervously sputtering jumbled words at Jaco. They disappeared behind the hull door as quickly as they came, with the first nursing his scorched hand.
Jaco turned, saying, "They said they'll be back. They need administrative-"
"Get in your ship," Vegeta interrupted him.
"Do what?," Goku chimed in.
"Get in the ship, jackass! Administration my ass. They're playing us, Jaco," Vegeta said.
"Maybe, you've got a point," Goku added.
"Hey," Jaco pouted, "I can hold my own. I'm no push over."
"If you want to live, get in the fucking ship," Vegeta warned him.
"Wait a minute, are you actually concerned about me?," Jaco teased, red-faced.
"No, you trigger happy clown. Who's going to fly that tin-can if you die."
"Oh fine," Jaco gave in as he paced toward his hatchback. He slammed the ship cover down in a final act of defiance.
"Kakarot," Vegeta hummed.
"Yeah," Goku said.
"If anything happens to me. I want you to find-"
"Don't worry, Vegeta I got you."
The hull door swung open. Four bay attendants emerged from the door single file, following Cloak. Goku's jaw left his mouth agape. He rubbed his tired eyes, thinking it was the result of double vision, turning the last attendant's shadow into a chalky black ghost. Pins and needles danced on Goku's skin. He thought Cloak looked like soot packed into one of Chi-Chi's gingerbread cookie cutters.
"I'm Kurai Cloak, the Defense Coordinator of this vessel," Cloak introduced himself, "I've been informed you have a warrant for search."
Goku jammed his elbow into Vegeta's side.
"We're looking for an Earthling girl, reported missing almost 8 months ago," Vegeta said.
"This vessel houses criminals that are sentenced to be off world by their peers. Do you understand this?," Cloak said, pulling out his inner diplomat.
"We have just cause to search," Vegeta said.
"I can certainly oblige the request and provide escort for your tour, but," he paused, "You must wear a tracking bracket for your safety," Cloak said.
The bay attendants approached; each pair wielding a thick brassy collar. The collars were unhinged and waiting for their bare skin. Goku scanned the glinting waxy collar. He reluctantly took it in his hand. The pads of his fingers grazed the vertical scratched on it. Vegeta rotated his round and round beneath the bay lights.
Are these… fingernail marks?, Goku thought.
"No," Vegeta spoke up.
Vegeta's firm response drew Goku from his thoughts. Goku gazed into the older Saiyan's stern eyes, seeing him like all those years ago with that big black 'M' carved into his forehead.
"Do you have a description?," Cloak said, "Since you won't comply, I can look for you."
"I know that you have her," Vegeta started solemn and slow, "Cut the crap. I will slaughter every last person on this shithole if I have to."
"I can't give her to you, pup," Cloak sighed.
His disembodied voice rippled around them like choppy radio static. Goku instinctively assumed a guarded stance, bending his knees. The desire for combat abandoned him for once. Apprehension gripped Goku rather than jittery excitement at the challenge of testing his power. The heavy realization sunk in Goku's gut like a stone.
Something is really wrong here, Goku thought.
"Then you'll be the first," Vegeta said to Cloak.
Before Goku could blink, Vegeta's rage escaped from his body. A cobalt aura swallowed him. Blue sparks climbed the air burning the oxygen in the bay. Deep longing and weeks of madness were scribbled on Vegeta's face. His grief converted into violence within an instant. Vegeta lunged at Cloak, preparing to rip his spine from his back. In a breath, Vegeta shivered. His skin ached with freezer burn. He had passed through Cloak, like hoping through a storm cloud. Vegeta looked down at his hands and watched drifts of smog and dead skin escape from between his fingers. He looked up, showing cloak his baffled face. Cloak reassembled himself, gathering the little drifting shreds as they zipped back to his body. Purple sludge erupted form the bay floor, swallowing Goku and Vegeta both. Goku thrashed in the mauve mire. Tiny turbulence bubbles ticked Vegeta's skin. He didn't resist the mauve crypt. It's gritty fingers dragged him deeper into unconsciousness.
I've failed you, my eschalot, he thought, For he second time. You must detest my failure. You must hate me.
A vivid memory spun in his mind's eye. He was a little boy once again, kicking and screaming as Frieza dragged him away. The fuzzy image of his father grew smaller and smaller from the growing distance. He remembered how his hope for rescue evolved to bitterness as days turned to weeks, then months. Déjà vu washed over him when he remembered the day Frieza told him as a brooding teenager, "He gave you away- to me," Frieza sneered.
Vegeta relived the defeat of accepting Frieze's words at 14 years old. His eyes opened wide despite the ooze burning his corneas.
I will NEVER give you away, he thought.
"Bulla!," he screamed as the violet slime evaporated and splattered from his charged body. He broke free from Cloak's prison. Cloak's yellow eyes widened.
"Focus Kakarot! Use your instant transmission!," Vegeta encouraged Goku.
"Don't be surprised," Vegeta huffed at Cloak, 'What's a demon compared to a God."
"A God-," Cloak almost whispered.
Cloak waved his hand and darkness slammed Vegeta from all sides. He was pinned in Cloak's bone crushing lasso. No light graced Vegeta's pupils. He was enveloped and sealed in the smoky black tomb.
"I see no God," Cloak's voice seeped trough the darkness, "You are but matter, prince, nothing but flesh and bone- carbon given breath. I can take you if I had wanted you… make you dirt beneath my fingernails."
"Prince?," Vegeta managed to choke up.
"I know who you are and knew your father. I've watched a thousand suns die. I've watched civilization rise against civilization. I've walked on the threads on which planets were hung. I had lived a thousand of your lifetimes when your ancestors began to terrorize the galaxy. You are no God- just a cluster of cells drunk on power. I'm sorry Prince, but you too will taste death and each cell will be sold for pennies and dimes."
Jaco popped out of his ship's observation window. Both of his shaky hands clenched the handle of his plasma gun.
"Hang on guys!," Jaco called out to them, hushing Cloak's mouth.
Cloak raised his hand, but it was too late. Jaco popped off a shot, blasting a large red handle mounted to the wall. Siren's shrieked and red lights strobed the bay. Jaco slammed the observation window shut on his cruiser. The bay door retracted into the ship's hull. Two of the bay attendants were sucked into the void of space. Light leaked into Vegeta's world as Cloak's essence was leeched into the vacuum.
"Close the door! Close the door!," Cloak commanded.
Vegeta gasped for air as the black cocoon peeled from his body at last. He groped for the cargo hooks in the bay ceiling, but it was futile. He too was sucked into the silent void. His body bobbed along with the bay attendants, like a dumpling in the black soup of death. He watched their motionless bodies drift closer. Grisly ice crusted on their gelatinous eye balls. Frost collected on the shards of their disintegrated helmets, creating shimmering halo's around their heads. The fleshy bits of their noses and lips were stained indigo before crumbling off their corpses.
Vegeta watched the skin crack on his arms before lifting off in grey sheets. He let his eyes drift to a close as oxygen deprivation finally began to affect his brain. He summoned his strength, but it would not come.
He's sucked the life our of me, he thought before his consciousness faded into a squiggly purple dream.
"Vegeta-Vegeta. Wake up," a voice called. Blurry faces swirled over his head. His muscles ached as he sat up. His heavy shoulders wobbled from side-to-side A fierce headache split the back of his skull.
"Hey Vegeta," the groggy voice morphed into something recognizable.
"Kakarot?," Vegeta hacked, "Did you get him?," he said frantically.
He staggered to his feet, pacing for a moment before realizing he was back on Jaco's small ship.
"Where?," Vegeta managed before entered a coughing fit, "Where's Bulla?"
Goku's silence answered his question. Vegeta's lagging memory finally emerged from his brain.
"You, this is your fault!," he barked at Jaco.
"Excuse me, I saved your monkey- butts," Jaco defended himself, "I had to space walk to lug you in here."
"We had it under control," Vegeta said.
"Don't kid yourself. Yeah, it looked really under control to me," Jaco grumbled and rolled his eyes.
"Take me back right now!," Vegeta yelled.
"No, besides, I've tagged their ship. Someone will-"
"Take me back, or I'll-"
"Or you'll what Vegeta?," Goku quietly interrupted him with a worried frown.
Vegeta looked down at his boots and paid no mind to his own snorting breath. He shrugged Goku's hand off his shoulder and turned away.
"We need to go to HQ," Jaco said.
"Whatever," Vegeta responded.
