Red Herring
Vegeta finally had a plan. It was brilliant, and now, knowing that Frieza was in another galaxy for an indefinite period of time, he knew he could pull it off. But he needed help from his pack. He entered the code to Bulma's laboratory and carried her in, ignoring her protests and questions until he reached the desk with her computer and set her down on her feet. He pulled off his scouter and handed it to her. "Girl, I need you to upload the coordinate information from my scouter to your computer."
"What? Why?" She set the scouter on the desk and sat down tiredly.
He rolled his eyes impatiently. "Because anything I do on the scouter can be traced by Frieza's technicians. If you put the information in your own system then I can look through it without raising any suspicion because no one will know I'm doing it. Now hurry up!"
"Fine, fine." Bulma opened one of the drawers and pulled out a pocketknife with a screwdriver small enough to remove the plate from the scouter. "I don't really see what the big deal is with this thing."
Vegeta leaned against the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you want me to stay on this mudball or not?"
Bulma's eyes shot up to him as a grin spread across her face. "You're going to stay?"
"If you shut up and do what I tell you, maybe. I have a plan, but I need to know that it'll work before I make my final decision."
She didn't like taking orders, but if it meant Vegeta would stay then she was willing to set aside her pride for a while and listen to him. If he had a plan, she wanted to hear it. He knew infinitely more about interplanetary travel than she; he would better understand distances, time, speed of travel, and all the logistics involved. He also knew Frieza and how he would react to different things, such as him deciding to stay on Earth instead of returning to his life as a slave. While she was musing these things, she set up a wireless connection between her computer and the scouter and started uploading the information. She was astounded at the sheer amount of information the scouter contained. At the rate it was going, she wasn't sure her computer had enough memory on its hard drive to contain everything in the scouter.
Bulma propped up her feet on the desk and crossed her arms behind her head. "So you mind telling me your scheme?"
Vegeta shrugged one shoulder. "I'll tell you when I find out how long the trip from this planet to Frieza's base planet 108 is."
"How long will that take?"
"Depends on how fast the coordinates upload."
The scientist looked at the progress bar on the screen and frowned slightly. "It might take a pretty long time. It's going fast, but there's a hell of a lot of stuff to upload. We might be here a while."
The tip of Vegeta's tail flicked when he heard that. He didn't want to wait. Now that he had an idea and some hope, he wanted to find out if it was even possible to go through with it. If it wasn't, he would either have to come up with something else fast or give up and leave Earth. "Can't you make it go any faster?"
"Afraid not." Bulma stifled a yawn and stole a glance at the clock. It was getting late, already after 11:00PM, which was well past her usual bedtime.
"Go to bed, Girl." Vegeta pushed away from the desk and started pacing. He felt restless. He hadn't trained much the past few days since his mind wouldn't stop wandering to his problem. Now he was burning with energy and excitement.
"No way." Bulma stood up and stretched. "I'm staying up so if you need my help I'll be here. But I'm definitely going to go make some coffee. Late nights kill me. I'm getting old."
Vegeta snorted. "You would be more helpful when you're fully awake and your brain is properly functioning." He didn't want to admit it, but he was glad that she decided to stay up with him. Solitude had been what he needed, but now he was getting tired of it and wanted to be around his pack more. Anyway, once he found the information he needed, he had a slew of questions to ask her. Maybe having her around was a good idea. It beat having to wait until morning to get his answers.
Bulma started up the stairs. "Yeah, yeah. I'll be back in a few minutes. You want any coffee?"
"No."
"Suit yourself." Having reached the door, Bulma left the laboratory to go to the kitchen to brew some energy.
When she disappeared out the door, Vegeta reached into his bodysuit and pulled out a small remote. He pushed three buttons and returned it to its place against his chest. He could feel his palms sweating and his heart hammering in his chest. He was excited, but nervous. He was no optimist. As much as he wanted things to work out in his favor for a change, he was a pessimist through and through. He expected to find base 108 to be little more than a hop, skip, and a jump away from Earth. Frieza could probably cross the distance in three days' time. Then he would blow up the planet with him and his pack and comrades still on it. Frieza would no doubt find out what he was scheming and come to put an end to it with an iron fist. He went over to the computer to check up on the progress. He groaned when he saw how much longer it was going to take. Four hours! That was entirely too long to wait. He needed to know, and he needed to know now if his plan would work. His fingers were itching to pick up his scouter, cancel the upload, and find out immediately how long it would take to travel from Earth to base 108. Throw caution to the wind, he didn't care! But he did care. It was more than his life on the line. The lives of the remains of his race and his pack depended on him finding a way to weasel out of his catch 22 without botching it up because of impatience or carelessness.
Ten minutes later the door to the laboratory opened again and Bulma came down the stairs holding a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. She went to her computer and sat down. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"
"Hn."
Bulma laughed. "And what's that supposed to mean this time?"
"It means you might want to go look in the back yard," Vegeta said right as the ground shook.
Bulma nearly spilled coffee down her shirt when she was rocked by the shaking. She slammed her mug down on the desk and sprang to her feet. "What was that?"
"My space pod."
"Your space pod?" Bulma covered her heart with her hand to calm herself down. She should be used to ground-shaking explosions by now, after growing up at Capsule Corporation, hanging out with superhuman friends, and now housing three saiyans at the compound.
Vegeta grunted and strode over to the computer to see the progress of the upload again. He growled when he saw that the time to completion had gone up since he last checked. His tail twitched and flicked with his agitation.
"Hey, Veggie, relax," Bulma said. She reached out and patted his back. "I don't know what your idea is, but it'll probably work. You're almost as smart as me, after all."
He gave her a withering glare. It only made her smile broaden. "Idiot girl."
She shook her head. "I've told you, I'm not a girl anymore, Veggie."
"I'll stop calling you that when you stop using that childish nickname."
Bulma threw her hands up in surrender. "Ok! Fine, Vegeta!"
He smirked and resumed his pacing through the laboratory. His eyes scanned over the various mechanical parts littering the floor and work stations. Most of them had a fine layer of dust coating them, indicating they had been abandoned quite some time ago. There were spots and puddles of oil dripped across the tile from one work station to another, and where there wasn't machinery on the tables, there were tools of all different kinds. The walls were covered in framed awards and blueprints that were taped up for easy reference. He was surprised that the woman would choose to spend so many hours in such a dump. It had a dirty, unpleasant odor and it was generally uninviting. Yet she seemed very much at home amidst the heaps of garbage.
"So why is your space pod here? I thought you were planning on staying." Bulma blew her coffee to cool it before taking a small sip.
Vegeta crossed his arms over his chest and stopped pacing. "I want you to replicate it."
Bulma spat out her coffee. "You want me to what?" she screeched.
He winced at the volume of her voice. He didn't think he was asking anything too unreasonable. She proved herself to be a technological genius when she was a girl, how could this task possibly be too daunting for her? Besides, it wasn't as if her father couldn't help her. "What? Aren't you smart enough to figure it out?"
"Well, I – I – Oh! Of course I am, Vegeta!" She slammed her fist down on the desk, making her coffee slosh out of the mug. She quickly scooted her chair away so the coffee wouldn't run off the desk and into her lap. She stood up and crossed her arms in a mirror image of her saiyan friend. "But, you see, it would take who knows how long, and hell, I don't even know if we have the right materials on Earth."
"I'm not telling you to finish it tonight. You should have adequate time to complete it."
"Why do you need another space pod anyway? Is yours broken?"
"No." He wasn't going to explain yet why he needed her to build him a new space pod. He was still waiting for the upload to complete. He absolutely refused to tell her his plan until he knew that one vital piece of information. It was the key that would make or break the whole idea. He wasn't going to waste his time explaining his thoughts if they were useless anyway.
"Man, Vegeta," Bulma groaned. She rubbed her forehead. "You're asking a lot of me."
"I'm not asking."
"Pardon me. You're demanding a lot of me. What if I can't do it?"
"You'll do it. If you're concerned about materials you can use the scraps from Raditz's space pod. I understand Kakarrot's brat destroyed it during their battle." Vegeta checked the upload progress again. He wasn't happy with what it said. He raked his hands through his flame of hair.
She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess he did. Is that why you need another pod? So Raditz can leave too?"
"No. Not exactly." Vegeta was tired of waiting around. He needed to do something before he went crazy while the upload slowly progressed. "We might as well bring the space pod here so you can examine it."
"Good luck getting it in here." Bulma picked up her coffee and took another sip.
Vegeta looked up at the door at the top of the stairs. That was the only entrance to the laboratory, and it wasn't big enough to fit the space pod through. He smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. "You've got to be kidding me," he grumbled.
"Don't worry about it. We can take it to one of the labs at headquarters in the morning." Bulma sat down and crossed her legs. She held her mug with both hands, enjoying the warmth spreading up her arms from it, and nursed the hot beverage.
One corner of Vegeta's mouth turned down. "That'll go over well. Your employees will see it and recognize it from the news and then you'll have a mess on your hands."
"Why, Vegeta," Bulma said sardonically, "I had no idea you'd care about scaring the poor, pathetic humans!"
He sneered. "I don't. But I do want them to stay out of the way."
Bulma snorted and rolled her eyes. She should have known better than to think he would care a thing about the human populace. Of course he only had his own interest in mind. That was one thing she could always count on with him. He was goal-oriented, driven by his own needs, even at the expense of others. She tucked her hair behind her ear and spun around in her chair a few times. She was already getting bored and it hadn't even been a full hour yet.
"I don't know where else we could take it. We can't get it into my dad's lab either."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"Whatever, we'll figure it out later."
"Hn."
From there the conversation died. Bulma tried to amuse herself by tinkering around with some of her half-completed gadgets, but she was too tired to do much of anything with them. Vegeta continuously paced the length of the laboratory, sometimes muttering to himself under his breath in his native language. His tail uncoiled from his waist and curled through the air behind him, sometimes looking like a question mark following him around. His brows furrowed as he lost himself in thought. At first his pacing annoyed Bulma; she normally didn't like being around anyone who was visibly agitated because it tended to rub off on her, but she soon found his behavior rather entertaining, and she started giggling as she watched him. He didn't notice, much too absorbed in his thoughts to care. And so the next three hours passed quietly.
Bulma folded her arms on her desk and rested her head on them at 3:00AM. She drank the whole pot of coffee in an attempt to stay awake, but she was simply too tired. She couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. She figured in such an uncomfortable position she would only be able to sleep for a few minutes anyway, so she allowed herself to nod off.
She was jolted awake when her computer made a cheerful sound alerting her that the upload was finally complete. She yawned, rubbing her eyes, and sat up to look at the screen. Her eyes widened when she saw how much information was displayed, and it was only a small fraction of the total. She spun around in her chair to tell Vegeta that the upload was complete, but she didn't see him anywhere. "Vegeta? Hey, you in here?" She was met with silence.
'Wonder where he went.' Bulma stood up and stretched her hands over her head. Her legs felt like jelly she was so tired. More than anything she wanted to drag herself up to bed, but she figured she should find Vegeta first. She looked around her lab one more time before shrugging and trudging up the stairs. 'Maybe he went to get a snack or something.'
She sluggishly walked through the hall to the kitchen. As she expected, the light was shining under the door. Someone had to be in there. She pushed the door open and first looked over at the refrigerator, but no one was there. She turned to the table, expecting to see Vegeta sitting there shoveling food into his mouth, but she didn't see him eating. He was sitting there, but his cheek was resting in his upturned hand and his elbow was resting on the table. His other hand was resting in his lap. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and steady.
"Vegeta?" she whispered. "Hey, you awake?"
She padded over to him when he didn't respond and reached out to touch him. She withdrew her hand when she remembered what he did to her when they were kids. The only broken bone she ever had was from waking him up. It was a lesson well learned: never wake Vegeta up. She didn't want to test his temper, so she silently backed away from him and left the kitchen, turning the light off on her way out. Instead of returning to her laboratory, she went upstairs to her bedroom. Not even bothering to change into pajamas, she collapsed on her bed, pulled her covers over her body, and fell asleep.
Vegeta woke up disoriented when the lights turned on and he heard heels clicking across the floor accompanied by an off-key song. He opened his eyes and looked for the source of the noise, ready to blast it, when he saw Mrs. Brief opening the refrigerator to pull out some ingredients to start breakfast. The thought of breakfast instantly made his stomach growl, which caught the blonde woman's attention.
"Oh, Vegeta, I didn't know you were in here. Up early today?"
He stood up and stretched. "Never went to bed."
"My, you must be tired. Why don't you go sleep before breakfast? I'll make sure to get you up so you don't miss out." Mrs. Brief smiled at him as she started measuring flour into a large mixing bowl.
"No, I'm fine." He rubbed his burning eyes. "I'll be in the girl's laboratory."
"Oh? What are you doing in there?" she asked with a suggestive quirk of her eyebrow.
Vegeta missed the subtle implication, which was just as well. He grabbed a bunch of bananas from the counter on his way out of the kitchen. "Might've found a way to stay here. Need to research."
He shuffled down the hall to the laboratory. He hadn't meant to fall asleep in the kitchen. He was only there to get a drink and a snack, but he ended up nodding off at the table. On the bright side, the upload should have been completed, meaning he would finally be able to find out the information he needed before putting his plan into action. He entered the code to enter her laboratory and opened the door. The lights were off, meaning Bulma wasn't in there. Shrugging, he went downstairs and walked over to the computer. There was a stupid screensaver with pictures of Bulma and Yamcha appearing all over the screen. He nearly gagged. He sat down at the computer and moved the mouse to make the screensaver go away. What he saw made a smirk curl his lips. There it was, all the coordinates of the known planets in all of Frieza's galaxies.
'This is planet 1076XR and base 108 is planet 906MI.' He found the exact coordinates of the two planets and, a few long calculations later, had the approximate time for travel between the two planets in a space pod going at average speed. 'Eleven absmonths. That's more than enough time.'
He stood up so fast he knocked the chair over and rushed out of the laboratory to find Bulma. He was about to ascend the stairs when he changed his mind. She would be grouchy from lack of sleep and would more than likely scream his ears off. They were ringing just thinking about it. He shook his head and turned to head to the indoor garden where he would no doubt find Dr. Brief on his morning ride. He ran to the garden and threw the doors open, which startled Dr. Brief and nearly made him fall over as he made a sharp turn to the left.
"Vegeta, my boy! There you are. Did you sleep in?" he asked once he got back in balance.
"Didn't sleep," Vegeta mumbled. He growled when he realized the absent-minded scientist was once again distracting him from what he needed to say. "I need you to come outside with me."
"Outside? What for?" Dr. Brief stopped and parked his bicycle. "I'll have to get my coat. It's probably a might chilly this morning."
"Whatever, just hurry." Vegeta tapped his foot impatiently until the room started shaking. He was full of excited energy. He didn't want to wait one minute to get started. He followed Dr. Brief out of the indoor garden and through the halls. At the front door Dr. Brief donned a heavy jacket and opened the door. This time Vegeta went first and led him around the compound to the back yard where his space pod was sitting in a small crater.
Dr. Brief shoved his hands in his pockets when he saw it. "What in the world is this?"
"It's my space pod," Vegeta answered, his tone revealing his impatience. "I need you and the girl to make a replica of it. I only need one for now, but if you can build another one or two later, I'll need them." He opened the hatch and gestured for Dr. Brief to come over and look inside. He pointed to the controls. "This is the control panel of the ship. If you remove this plate here, you can access everything. The fuel line is over here, and this is the oxygen tank."
Finished with the small tour of the small ship, they stepped out of it and circled around the exterior. Dr. Brief marveled at the technology. How something so small and simple-looking could traverse entire galaxies was mind-boggling. He made a fist and knocked on the metal with his knuckles. He didn't recognize the metal. "I think we can probably do it, son, but we don't have all these materials on Earth. I'm not even sure we have an suitable substitutes."
"Not a problem. Use the materials from Raditz's space pod. It was destroyed by Kakarrot's brat." He felt like he was going to have to repeat himself a lot between Dr. Brief and Bulma if he didn't manage to get them in the same place at the same time soon. He hated repeating himself and explaining things and wanted to do it as little as possible while still getting the job done.
"Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about that."
"Hn."
"So what do you plan on doing, if you don't mind my asking?"
Vegeta rested his hand on the smooth metal of the pod. "There's a tracking system in each of the pods that's impossible to disable without destroying. If my pod were to suddenly disappear, it would arouse suspicion."
"I see." Dr. Brief pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and put one in his mouth. He chewed it for a minute while he thought about how he was going to make a copy of the space pod. Maybe he could even improve it. The pod seemed a little cramped inside. "I'm not sure how making another pod will help anything."
The saiyan smirked. "I'll explain later." He crossed his arms over his chest. "You're the mechanical genius and the girl is the technological genius, right?"
Dr. Brief nodded. "That's one way of putting it."
"I need you start on the space pod right away. All you need to do is copy the design. Raditz can help you build the new one. He's an idiot, but he follows orders well enough." Vegeta started walking back to the compound.
The old scientist chuckled and shook his head as he opened the hatch as he had seen Vegeta do before. He sat in the seat, pulled a small pad of paper out of his pocket, and started taking notes on the design of the space pod. Normally he wouldn't start work until after breakfast, but the urgency radiating from Vegeta was enough to make him change his routine. He had a feeling time was of the essence. Anyway, if whatever Vegeta had up his sleeve would enable him to stay on Earth, he was willing to comply. He didn't know if he and his family could stand losing the surly saiyan again.
Vegeta ran upstairs and kicked the door to Nappa's guestroom open. He ignored his old bodyguard jumping straight up in the air in surprise and snatched his scouter from his nightstand. He rushed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him, and went back downstairs to Bulma's laboratory. He sat at the desk and scrolled through the vast amount of information uploaded from his scouter on the computer. There was so much more information contained in it, it would be a shame to lose, but getting his plan to work was more important. Besides, the information he wanted to save was already saved in his memory. He didn't really need outside storage for his memories.
'Where did that girl put Raditz's scouter? It's probably here somewhere.' Vegeta started rifling through all the drawers of the desk, but he didn't find any mechanical devices aside from something that looked like an oversized pocket watch. He tossed it aside and raked his hand through his hair. He stood up and started searching through the piles of junk in the laboratory. After searching for over half an hour, he still hadn't found it. Growing frustrated, he ran up the stairs and headed for the infirmary to the room where Raditz was kept for the past year. He looked around the small room and could have laughed when he saw the scouter with the dark green screen sitting on the small table next to the bed. He grabbed it and carried it back to Bulma's laboratory.
'Frieza probably thinks Raditz is dead. That's just as well. I'll have to confirm that when I send my purge report.' There were tracking systems in the scouters like in the space pods that likewise couldn't be deactivated without being destroyed. If Raditz were presumed dead, no one would give a second thought to his scouter being destroyed, thus having the tracking mechanism offline. Perfect.
He turned his head when he heard someone knocking on the door to the lab. "Vegeta, honey, breakfast is ready! Would you mind getting Bulma out of bed? She's being stubborn again."
Rolling his eyes, Vegeta went up the stairs and opened the door. Mrs. Brief was already prancing back to the kitchen, so he went upstairs and barged into Bulma's bedroom. Her face was buried in her pillow and her blanket was covering everything but the crown of her head and her leg, which had found its way off the side of the bed. He snickered, wishing he could take a picture and use as blackmail against her sometime in the future. Dismissing that thought, he went to the side of the bed and yanked the covers off. She groaned and groped around on the bed for her missing blankets, but she couldn't find them.
"Don't want to get up," she murmured into her pillow.
Vegeta grabbed her around the waist and heaved her over his shoulder. "I don't give a damn what you want. We have work to do today, so you're going to get your lazy ass up."
Bulma squeaked in surprise. "Vegeta? No! Vegeta, put me down! Put me down right now!" She tried beating her fists against his back, but to no avail. He hardly even felt it. She screamed and hollered the whole way to the kitchen.
He dropped her in her chair and took a seat next to her. He smiled smugly when he saw the others at the table chuckling at her behavior. He thought it funny how she didn't want to be called 'girl' anymore, yet she still insisted on acting like a spoiled little child. He laughed when he saw her glaring at him.
Though she was upset, Bulma found that Vegeta's laughter was highly contagious and started laughing with him. Her embarrassment disappeared as he continued laughing even as he started eating his breakfast. She poured herself a cup of coffee and started picking at her food. She wasn't very hungry, but she knew she needed energy for the day. She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, only five hours, but she had a lot of work ahead of her. Vegeta wasn't going to go easy on her, and for once she didn't mind. If it meant keeping him on Earth, it was worth the discomfort of short nights and long days.
Vegeta was the first of the saiyans to finish eating after the Briefs. He thought it was the perfect opportunity to explain his plan while his comrades were too busy eating to protest and the Briefs were gathered together and attentive. "I've come up with an idea that will allow me, Raditz, and Nappa to stay on Earth instead of returning to the lizard as ordered."
Nappa's eyes widened while Raditz started choking on his food. He beat his chest with his fist to clear his airway. Bulma and Mrs. Brief squealed with joy while Dr. Brief merely smiled and nodded for him to continue.
Vegeta looked first at Dr. Brief. "You will design a replica space pod for future use. Then you, girl, will create a system that will forward all incoming transmissions on Nappa's and my scouter to Raditz's scouter. He is assumed to be dead by Frieza, so no one will think anything of his scouter's tracking device being taken offline. It takes 11 absmonths to travel to Frieza's base 108 where he wants us to report after purging this planet. That will allow enough time for the dragon balls to recharge and you can wish for your idiot mate to be revived."
"What about you? You said it takes that long to get to the base," Bulma said, worry creasing her brow. "So you are leaving?"
He shook his head. "No. I am going to send our space pods back to base with our scouters in them. That way Frieza will believe we are on our way after completing our mission. This is why transmissions need to be forwarded, in case anyone tries to contact us during the journey. We will have to be able to answer them or they might suspect something is amiss."
"Sounds reasonable enough," Dr. Brief agreed. "Do they have any way of contacting you directly through the pod, though? What if they try that?"
Vegeta frowned slightly. "They can, and I have considered that possibility. Usually, they try the scouter first and only resort to using the pod communication system if they are unable to contact us through the scouter. It is much less efficient and more prone to interference and failed transmissions. I think it is worth the risk to disregard that system."
Bulma was starting to catch on now. "So your space pods will make it to base with no one knowing you're not aboard them. By the time they find out, a whole year will have passed here. Then it would take at least another year for anyone to come here from that base, and by then you'll have been able to make your wish with the dragon balls."
Raditz swallowed his last bite of food and held up his hand. "Hold on, Vegeta. It might take them a year to come from base 108, but what if Frieza sends soldiers from closer planets? There's got to be bases closer than that. They could be here in weeks!"
"So what if they can?" Vegeta huffed. "I'm not concerned about any of Frieza's soldiers. They're weaklings. Even the earthling warriors could defeat most of them single-handedly. Besides, I think Frieza will want to come kill me personally." He smiled grimly.
"I don't know about this," Raditz sighed. "It sounds awful risky."
"It is."
"But it means you get to stay on Earth!" Bulma cheered. "And anyway, by the time that freezer guy gets here, Vegeta will have been able to make his wish with the dragon balls. He'll have no trouble defeating that creep."
"What are you going to wish for, anyway?" Raditz asked.
Vegeta shrugged. "Immortality, I guess."
Bulma's grin faded. "Immortality? Vegeta, are you crazy? That's a terrible wish!"
"I do not recall asking for your opinion," Vegeta snarled.
"Consider it a free service then." Bulma stood up and started carrying dirty dishes to the sink to wash. "You'd be alive forever, Vegeta. Long after everyone else is dead. Do you really want that? There has to be some other wish you can make that will help you defeat that guy."
"Hn." Vegeta had considered that. He didn't want to outlive his whole race and his pack. But he didn't see any other way to win. He would never be powerful enough to defeat Frieza. He needed to be immortal so that he could keep fighting until he was able to wear Frieza down enough to kill him. That was the only way. He could wish for enough power to defeat him, but that would be cheating. He shook his head. There was time to think about his wish later.
Bulma could see she had at least planted a seed of indecision in his brain, so she figured she shouldn't push the matter or he would make up his mind he was going to make that wish if only to spite her. "I'll get to work on your scouters as soon as I've showered and changed."
Dr. Brief crossed his arms behind his head. "I still don't understand what you need another space pod for if you don't intend to leave Earth."
"It's for Plan B. I would rather not have you stranded on this planet if things don't work out. They almost never do. I want you to have a way to escape in case I am unable to defeat Frieza or he comes sooner than anticipated."
Bulma dropped the plate she was holding. It shattered when it hit the floor. "You want us to leave Earth? Are you crazy?"
"It's better than dying," he growled. "Besides, you might not even have to use it. It never hurts to have a means of interplanetary travel anyway."
"Why would we ever want to go to another planet?"
"I don't know, for a nice vacation?" Vegeta sighed exasperatedly and stood up.
"Oh, very funny," Bulma snapped. "You just don't want to stay with us. We're probably too weak for you, right? Is that it? I can't believe you!"
"Shut up, girl!"
"Stop calling me that!"
"Stop acting like one!"
"I'm not!" Bulma screeched, stamping her foot.
Vegeta snorted. In his opinion, she just contradicted herself. "Nappa, Raditz!" he barked. "Get off your lazy asses and go train! We have two years to get ready for Frieza."
"Yes, sir!" The two large saiyans jumped out of their seats and ran out of the kitchen to go find a suitable training spot.
"Well," Dr. Brief said, standing up, "I'd better get to work on that pod. I'll be outside if anyone needs me."
"Don't forget your coat, sweetie!" Mrs. Brief called as he walked out of the kitchen.
Bulma furiously scrubbed the dishes, hardly able to rein in her anger with the saiyan prince. She was sure he was planning on leaving them. He found a way to escape his master and he was going to use them to do it, then leave them to defend themselves against him when he came looking for Vegeta. She froze when she felt something warm behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Vegeta standing there watching her.
"What do you want?"
He scowled at her but didn't immediately reply. He could sense her anger, but he couldn't understand the reason behind it. He devised the whole plan with her safety in mind. Did she resent him for wanting to protect her? Or was there some sort of misunderstanding somewhere along the way? He clenched his hands into fists at his sides.
"Nothing." He turned and stalked out of the room to go to the indoor garden to train. He didn't have to play any part in the plan yet; he was leaving it up to Bulma and Dr. Brief to manage their parts without his assistance. He would better spend his time training, growing stronger, than sitting in a laboratory overseeing their work. He had two years to get strong enough to finally defeat the scourge of his life. Two years wasn't long, considering how many he'd already spent trying to gain enough power to have the advantage. He didn't believe in the legend of the super saiyan anymore. It was an old tale told to young saiyans to motivate them to train and battle hard. He'd been working himself to death his whole life and it hadn't paid off. There had to be some way to gain power faster than ever before. Maybe then he could win.
It took Bulma almost two weeks to get an untraceable forwarding system set up on the scouters. When she finished that, she started helping her father map out the circuitry of the space pod, working more on the computer while he focused on the more mechanical aspects of the pod. The mind-blowing advanced technology was no match for their combined genius, and soon they had full and thorough blueprints drawn with dozens of pages of notes taken. They were ready to start building a new space pod.
Vegeta did not keep a close eye on them, trusting them to do their work well, but he did ask for updates on their progress at meals. He was anxious for them to hurry, but he didn't think breathing down their necks was the best way to get them to work faster, so he refrained. Over a month had passed since he first told them his plan. Each passing day made him more nervous. He expected at any moment for Frieza's ship to arrive on Earth and blast them all to the next dimension. He hadn't been given a deadline to complete the purge, but that didn't mean he had a lot of time to spare. It would be better to get his plan into action sooner rather than later.
When Bulma ran to the indoor garden to tell him they were finished, he was more than ready to hear it. She threw the doors open and shouted, "Vegeta! Where are you? We're done!"
He had been in the middle of his kata when he heard her shouting. He stopped immediately and phased over to where she was standing. "You're done?"
She nodded. "Yep. In record time, I might add."
"What record were you beating?" He smirked as he strode past her to go to outside where his and Nappa's space pods were resting.
She turned and ran after him, but she didn't catch up until he stopped outside. He opened the hatch to his space pod and entered the coordinates to base 108. He closed the hatch and went over to Nappa's space pod to do the same thing. When both pods were closed and ready to go, he went back inside and headed for Bulma's laboratory. He went to the desk where the three scouters were set and picked up his own. He put it on and pushed the button to send a transmission to Frieza's technicians. He had to wait a minute before the connection went through.
"Base 257, report."
While giving his report, Vegeta picked up Nappa's scouter and left the laboratory to go back outside to the space pods. "This is Vegeta. I have completed the purge of planet 1076XR. Confirm Raditz's death. Nappa and I are heading directly to base 108. It will take approximately 11 absmonths. Send my report to Lord Frieza. Over."
"Copy."
"Also tell Lord Frieza that I am not going to destroy the planet. It will be marketable in several years when the vegetation has recovered from the purge. Out." Vegeta pushed the button to cut the transmission. He opened the hatches to the space pods and put the scouters in the seats, then entered the command to automatically begin stasis five minutes after launch. He wanted everything to be as realistic as possible.
He stepped back from the space pods and muttered, "Here it goes." He pulled the remotes from his bodysuit and entered the command to lift off. Bulma stood close to him and held onto his arm when the pods slowly lifted off the ground, then shot into the sky. The gust of wind would have blown her off her feet if she hadn't been holding onto him firmly.
"Please, Kami, let this work," she whispered.
They stood there for a few minutes, looking up into the dreary gray sky long after the space pods disappeared from view. Bulma shivered and moved closer to Vegeta until she was pressing her body against him. He didn't seem to notice the cold of late November. His body was as warm as ever. Bulma was elated that he was really staying with them, but she held herself in check when she felt like jumping and shouting for joy. Some of Vegeta's nervousness had rubbed off on her. He still hadn't told her much of anything about Frieza, but she could sense that he was actually, truly afraid of him. And so she prayed that his plan would work. If it didn't, the space pods leaving was the beginning of the end for them.
A/N: And so the plan is set into motion... guess you'll have to wait to see how that works out, eh? I'm still stuck on 57. It's downright frustrating. Oh, and more reviews than Rediscovering Honor and almost 16 chapters fewer? I'm impressed. Thanks for all the reviews! Keep 'em coming. :)
Beta'd by lilpumpkingirl