While he tried to process the answer the old man had given him after he learned that the small weak creature on the ground was his son who had somehow returned him to the land of the living, Bardock watched as the group that had accompanied his child cautiously braved their way towards him and rather gently gathered up his son. The blue haired female pulled something that looked like an oversized vitamin pill with a button on the end out of her pocket, pressed the button, and threw it. A wheeled conveyance of some sort appeared where the item had landed and the other members of the group carefully carried the boy over to the newly appeared vehicle, where they very gently laid him down on the short upholstered bench toward what he presumed was the rear of the vehicle. The blue haired woman climbed onto the forward bench behind an extra wheel that was placed at an odd angle. With a squealing of tires and a crunching of gravel the vehicle began to slowly make its way toward some unknown destination. Almost idly, he took to the air and followed it.
Why would Kakarot wish for me to be here merely because I wasn't? Bardock wondered as he followed the vehicle to a dome shaped building that had a large red drawing of two crossed lines painted on the front.
The vehicle stopped in front of a door with unfamiliar writing on it, and a bunch of people - a couple of whom wore the white coats common throughout the galaxy amongst scientists and doctors - rushed from the building. The people promptly started fussing over his son, carefully placing him on some sort of wheeled bed before carting him inside the building where they started making a massive fuss over a few broken bones and possibly a concussion.
The creatures on this planet were truly pathetic if they fussed that much over such minor injuries. On Vegeta, one of Kakarot's teammates would've simply dragged the boy to the med-center and tossed him into a regen tank. A few hours later, the child would be bouncing out eager to get back to work, just like he and Raditz had at that age.
Raditz. He hadn't really thought about that brat in a while. There hadn't really been much of a need to since the kid who'd somehow weaseled his way into the Royal Guard hadn't done anything to bring any embarrassment to either of them. The kid had been born with a high enough power level to remain on Vegeta, and had mostly taken care of himself since then due to the fact that he and his mate were usually gone.
Kakarot had been one hell of a surprise. He and his mate had decided to stop trying to have more children after Raditz's next two siblings had been miscarried; and for about a decade, that was just what they had done. Raditz had been twelve when Bardock learned that his mate was pregnant once more. Neither of them had expected the pregnancy to last; and after every mission, Bardock expected to hear that his mate had yet again miscarried. Instead, the child had been born alive about a month earlier than was expected. Once it became clear that he would survive, the small and practically powerless infant had been sent to clear out a planet full of weaklings in the hope that it would strengthen him.
Kakarot had clearly failed in his task. Watching the Earthlings treat him like some sort of well loved pet made it apparent that he had been living off of them instead of killing them as he was supposed to. While that was an admirable survival technique amongst some species, it was completely unacceptable for a Saiyan.
Bardock ceased his musings before rage overtook him and caused him to either do something that would send him back to Hell or something that would irreparably damage the child who was destined to grow up to defeat Frieza, landed in front of the building the vehicle had stopped at, and entered it through the door through which his son had previously been taken. He would see that his son was tended to, and then leave until the child was ready to join him.
Following the rather pugnant scent of the boy's attire, he swiftly found where his son was being treated. It was there that he got an unpleasant surprise. Rather than having been placed in the local equivalent of a regen tank that he had figured the med-center he was in would have (this conjecture had been based on the level of technology that would be necessary to be able to create a small object that could turn into a vehicle large enough to fit several people) one of the white coated people that had brought his son in was setting the bones in the unconscious boy's left arm by hand while a female in a loose-fitting and brightly patterned outfit prepared something off to the side.
The man looked up at him in surprise.
"Are you the father?" The doctor asked after recovering his composure.
"Yes." he replied, deciding not to elaborate.
"The patient's left arm is broken in two places, he has three broken ribs, and his right wrist is broken as well. I would like to keep him here a few days for observation to make sure he's stabilized and beginning to heal." the doctor said.
Obviously - considering the lack of regen tanks - they didn't have the technology to be able to immediately tell if his son was getting better despite the fact that they had a technological level up to the task of creating it.
"Acceptable." he said, deciding that venting his frustration over the planet's lack of technology was counterproductive, before leaning against the nearest wall so he could supervise the treatment his son was getting. While Saiyans were apparently outwardly similar to the inhabitants of Earth, it was a near certainty that there would be a great deal of internal differences. He would stand by to make sure the doctor didn't make some sort of mistake that permanently damaged or killed his son while he set the boy's broken bones. He naturally ignored the weakling's whining that he leave.
After realizing the futility of his efforts, the doctor shut up and got back to work. It was amazing to see how fast the Earth creature's emotions shifted. Every time the doctor even glanced up at him, he got angry and annoyed. When he shifted his attention to his patient, he would become sad and concerned. When his son began to regain consciousness and whimpered in pain, so many emotions flickered over the doctor's face at once that it was almost impossible to tell what the man had been feeling.
"Nurse, get the sedatives for the special patients." the doctor said after Kakarot whimpered a second time.
Special patients? Has this doctor treated offworlders before? If he has, why didn't he have any regen tanks? Bardock wondered as he watched the doctor consult some sort of chart that he had quickly pulled out of a binder, and prepare the medication.
The doctor's mutterings of hoping that he'd gotten the right species alarmed him. Taking drugs meant for another species was often a very quick and easy way to die, even for the more resilient of species. Saiyans could survive the effects of just about any beating that didn't kill them before it was over, orally ingest just about any and every poison out there without getting more than a bellyache, but an overdose or a dose of the wrong drug given intravenously could easily be fatal. Before Fasha had joined the team, he had lost a team member that had been dumb enough to try getting high on the pharmaceuticals he had salvaged from a planet they had cleared out. One quick prick of the needle, and he was gone.
He quickly grabbed the incompetent doctor's arm before the man could inject his son with the unknown substance.
"What's in this?" he asked, looking closely at it's contents. Whatever it was, it was completely clear, and that told him nothing, which was unsettling since just about every class of medication in the Cold Empire was color-coded for swiftness and ease of use by even the dimmest of mercenaries.
"It's a sedative to calm the patient before he wakes up." the doctor said, volunteering no further information even after he made it clear he wanted more.
Since the doctor didn't clarify his statement, he would have to assume that he either didn't know the substance's chemical components despite the fact that it was the responsibility of a medical professional to do so, or had assumed that further clarification of its contents would go over his head. He wasn't an idiot, far from it in fact. Despite their meathead reputation and love of violence, Saiyans were smart enough to reverse-engineer tech they took a shine to. One of the reasons Vegeta had been destroyed had been due to the fact that they'd gotten a little sloppy in covering the fact that they'd reverse-engineered just about everything and knew how it worked better than the repair techs the Colds had sent. While on downtime between missions and during the flights that were too short to bother sleeping, but long enough to get extremely boring, he had studied biology and chemistry and used that knowledge combined with his knowledge of Ki attacks to create an artificial moon for support on planets that were moonless or had inconvenient lunar cycles. He believed that his particular range of studies may have been a byproduct of his spending so much time in the med-center.
A sedative - even one for a species that was biologically similar to a Saiyan - could contain any number of chemicals that could negatively impact his son's health if it didn't kill him outright. Two things he couldn't allow to happen. Especially when it was only a few short years until Frieza was defeated.
"What's in this?" he asked again, demanding further clarification.
"I told you, it's a sedative." the doctor replied.
"You're not giving it to him." he said as he dropped the syringe containing the sedative and crushed the offending object beneath his boot. "In fact, I don't want you anywhere near him."
He threw the incompetent doctor into a wall, feeling no remorse as he did so. It was a dead certainty that the man would have killed someone through his stupidity in the future if he hadn't done so already. An incompetent doctor is often worse than no doctor at all, and had no value in the universe. He ignored the screaming nurse as he gathered up his son and as many of the medical supplies he as he could carry one-handed and left to tend to the boy's injuries himself.
Edited 4-23-15