I can't even apologize for why this chapter is so late in coming. I've got a thousand good reasons, but all of them seem lame when I consider how long its been. Anyway, please count this as a Christmas present or something. Enjoy

Chapter 5: Missed Chances and Misscommunications

As it turned out, we had worried for nothing.

Or rather, we had worried for the wrong thing.

My father wasn't dead. But we lacked the creativity to fathom Friezas twisted mind so we assumed his being alive was the best thing.

My father returned two weeks later than expected but very much alive. He called for a holiday and told the Saiyan people that things were not as we'd feared. He tapped into the coffers and imported enough wine and meat for a 2 day feast. While the Saiyan people made merry and enjoyed the revelry, my father called a private meeting of his most trusted officers and elite forces.

He informed them that things weren't as we had feared. They were worse.

Much worse.

Of course, I was still 6 years old and wasn't supposed to know about this, but I spied on the meeting. By hiding in the air vents. My father informed them that immediate counter measures must be taken. He ordered that the rate of the infant missions be stepped up. That he'd neglected sending more of his children off world for far too long and he wanted everyone over the age of 10 sent at once to a school-different schools. Around the galaxy. We had allies in the Eastern Galaxy, he told Zorn to check to see what sort of schools were available there that would take Saiyans.

"Friezas words were pretty. He was cordial, kind, accommodating." My father admitted when asked for the fifth time how things had gone. "But I don't trust him any further than it takes a shit to hit the floor!"

"He was tookind and accommodating. He is looking to set up an empire here, and wanted those present to join his federation. To sell our souls to him is more like it. The Kiotes told him that 1st night at dinner, where he could take his hospitality, they refused to even consider the bargain and Frieza...they didn't make it to breakfast the next day. Their ships were torn down for parts."

The Kiotes were a fairly new group but they weren't half bad as warriors or rivals for colonial expansion.

They were kind of arrogant, thinking they could count themselves equal to us, but Father had told me that we Saiyans hadn't wiped them out yet because our occasional conflicts with them made very good training missions for young Saiyans in need of the experience and besides, who doesn't enjoy a bit of healthy competition?

Mother had told me that they were extravagant. Their queen never traveled with less than a battalion of her finest warriors. The King too. They were different in that they had a weird government, something about a split monarchy with the King being in charge of parliament and the Queen leading congress while a speaker of the house controlled the judicial branch. Like I said, weird.

A Saiyan is master of himself, but will follow only one leader. Which is why we had either a King or a Queen, never both simultaneously. The only ones who could even be in a position to lead were those with an Alpha Trait, but you had to have a really strong one to be able to hold sway over all the Saiyans, also, my fathers line was the only family that possessed the unique ability to form a telepathic bond with as many Saiyans as we pleased. Most Saiyans were limited to only a few. 12 was about the max, even for someone with a strong variety of the Alpha Trait.

I was six and I had formed over 75 of these bonds, I could communicate with anyone of my siblings through Saiyan MindSpeech if I wanted to, and I did it almost instinctively. I could summon my companions to me, or my servants just with a thought. As I got older, I'd learn to wield the delicate threads of the mindspeech and be able to have actual conversations with anyone within a certain range of me about anything. For now, I could feel and understand intent and I could make my own intent clear also.

Someone asked about what was to be done with the other royal children. The younger children...with me.

My father was silent at that.

"We mustn't arrouse suspicion." he said at last. "I cant have all my children vanish in a weeks time or less. The older children, they must remain and continue to work and live for the Empire. The younger children...I will send them with their mothers on holiday...to enjoy the colonies in the Gamma Star System. It must be done circumspectly. I have reason to believe we've been under surveillance already. I want them gone in a years time." Father told them, careful not to mention what would become of his youngest children...What would become of me.

Nothing much was accomplished that night, it was just a meeting, just to let them know what Father had learned and what sort of provisions would need to be made over the coming months. They talked alot about getting Saiyans off the homeworld, Father was tense and his words ominous. Someone made an optimistic suggestion, I dont even remember what it was, but Father, in that moment just looked...

There is a story. About a man so arrogant that he challenged the wisest of the Kais to a duel. They dueled and the man won but only through trickery. As punishment, the Kais granted him his greatest desire. They gave him knowledge of the future. You see, this man was so arrogant and boastful but his greatest fear was his uncertainty, so he always carried the means to cheat or betray with him, lest one day his power prove insufficient, he would have the means to overcome by trickery. What had began as this warriors precaution had become a habit and now cheating was a way of life for this man who had always been arrogant but was once honest.

The man, at first, thought that he'd truly got one over on the Kais, but he soon realized the grave mistake he'd made. For in gaining knowledge of the future, he'd lost the ability to have hope. How can anyone have hope when they know what is going to happen? Its like hoping you will somehow survive a bullet, fired at point blank range, into your skull.

I later realized that my father had become the man from that fable. He had seen the future and he knewwhat was happening; knew that there was no hope. At the time, I was just a very scared little boy who regretted having spied on this meeting. As the weeks passed, I could feel the facade that my father worked hard to maintain weakening under the stress and the strain of ruling while trying to avoid servitude to another.

I watched my siblings play and train and work and live and they truly were oblivious to the impending threat. The very real danger that was on their doorstep. They worried only about where their next meal was coming from and if they'd have the right answer next time father asked them a question.

I'd have traded nearly anything to be amongst their ranks, but I, as the Crowned Prince, couldn't afford to be caught off guard, my ignorance could be very costly to my people. Father used to say that about himself and I had decided early on that the same applied to me. It wasn't idle curiosity that drove me to spy on my fathers secret meetings, but the fact that I might indeed become a boy king and if that were to happen, I didn't want my ignorance to cost my people our place in this world.

Frieza called on my father constantly, there were weird rumors that were denounced officially and weirder reports that didn't make sense unless the rumors were true...people went missing.

Ships were found abandoned, but the insides covered in blood. My father left short notice on a trip to investigate something. He went with just Zorn, left all his guards home because he didn't trust Frieza not to try something.

A couple of days after Father had left, Nappa and I were sparring in the training yard when an alarm flashed and a second later a small ship was closing in fast. I stood, transfixed watching it fall, sucked in by the gravity and then I was under Nappas arm and we were moving-fast.

I didn't even see where the other 5 guards of my private detail came from, but Nappa threw me into a small room, two of my guards took up posts in the room with me, two more were just outside the door. I could hear them with both my ears and my mind. The fifth guard was doing recon work to identify the ship that had come into Royal Saiyan AirSpace without clearance. Nappa was just down the hall, waiting and watching.

An hour later the door was opened and Nappa came in to get me. "Stand down men, Lady Kumba has called for her son. Come along, Prince Vegeta."

He took me to my mothers study. I hadn't been in this room for a long time now. But like I said, she was from a family of scholars, she was the only concubine to have her own study, but then again, she was the only one who'd thought to ask my father for one in the early days of their union. When I walked in, mother looked visibly relieved.

I noted that Tarble wasn't around.

"Vegeta, listen to me." she said quickly. She wanted me to learn to speak the old way, using SaiyanMind Speech. Not passively, like I had been doing all my life, but fluently. She was going to teach me and I had my first lesson that very day.

In the early days, Saiyans didn't use a verbal language. We could sense the variations in one anothers ki and could use our telepathy to clarify the reasons behind what ever it was we were feeling. Over time the language became fuller, more expressive and we learned to communicate Telepathically without ki. Naturally, if not trained or taught how early on, then we used the most ancient form of the MindSpeak language. Changing our ki and then using pulses, memories and images to explain why our ki was the way it was. It was crude and unrefined but adequete for basic communication of wants and needs.

Modern Saiyan MindSpeak allowed us a more regular grammar and made the language that much more expressive. It was especially popular with the very old and the very young. While many races loose their eye sight, or their hearing and sometimes even their sense of smell with age. We Saiyans tend to retain those senses, few Saiyans lived to old age but those who did sometimes lost their voice.

Some specialist thought it was caused from using ki blasts from our mouths. Others said we ripped our vocals up with all the screaming we do during powering up, others said it was a natural course of life and a small price to pay for a life as a warrior. Besides it was nothing to worry about, after all a language had been devised for just this reason

Mother begin giving me lessons, and using the mindspeak with me more regularly. She pushed back my morning practice. I still got up at the same time, but I had an hour with her, then went to the train just as day was breaking. We could no longer train in the yard outdoors. We trained inside, where it was stuffy and hot and you could only jump but so high. I didn't like it, but I didn't complain.

I wanted to ask about that ship, about my father, but I knew better. I was afraid to know. I didn't want to be like the man from the fable, the man who couldn't even hope anymore. My father returned just one day shy of a months journey. He and Zorn were both alive but the mission hadn't gone as they had hoped.

I began spying a lot. Mostly I didn't learn anything but when it came to spying on what happened in my mothers room, Tarble was good for this one point. In that he could get into a room and the adults ignored his presence. He was the one child of my fathers who commanded no special consideration, servants and my father alike, they ignored him. Which is why I took the advantage to bug him and send him to mothers room to sleep with her awhile.

I knew that she'd let him lay on the edge of her bed, and if Father wished to stay with her, he'd have one of the servants and a couple of guards take his son to his own bed.

I listened in on my audio reciever, as Tarble, gullible, trusting, naive, little old Tarble dreamt on with a wire transmitter hidden with in his spiky black hair.

Planet Sorri, father confided in my mother one night, was gone.

She asked him what he meant. She asked where the Sorrians had gone, how could they move the entire population.

"I didn't say they moved. I said its gone." My father laughed a hollow, humorless laugh. "and I mean its gone."

Mother was silent for a long time. I wasn't sure I understood either. How do you move a whole planet?

Mother asked him how he knew and what was the significance of such a thing.

"We were going to stop for fuel but there was nowhere to stop. Sorri is gone and in its place is a cloud of space dust...charred ruins are now asteroids. The moon is obscured by the cloud of space dust. Its the only thing in that quadrant with an orbit or gravitational pull."

There was silence and rustling after a while. I heard my mother whisper and my father sigh...followed by silence. There were little sounds every few minutes but at the time I had no idea what they could be. I didnt know to be embarrassed that I was listening to my parents love for one another, I didnt' even recognize the sound of them getting intimate. A few minutes later, someone came to fetch Tarble away and I was left with an uneasy feeling.

Maternal affection is displayed among Saiyans with nuzzling, scenting and massage. Embracing a small child was not unheard of but it was unusual. Mothers wanted their children to be independant and usually avoided holding or carrying any child old enough to walk under their own power. Romantic affection, is not too different. There is a lot of scenting and nuzzling of glands that goes on. Saiyans arent natural kissers but we do occassionally embrace a lover.

All told, my father had sired 37 children during his reign as King. 31 had been born alive. Only 22 had survived their early years of life and almost 10 of them even made it to young adulthood before Frieza showed up on the scenes. Only 2 of my fathers children would survive the Saiyan Genocides. 2 in 37, hmm...Thats barely a 5% chance of survival, now hows that for odds? My fathers last child to be born wouldn't survive the occasion and would claim one of his 5 surviving concubines when it went. I wouldn't have minded so much if it hadn't been my own mother who bore my fathers last child.

A human might think it strange that my father continued to have children after I had been dubbed his heir, but it wasn't strange to we Saiyans for a number of reasons, the first of which is that he was a man with a harem for crying out loud. Secondly, we Saiyans had a very high death rate and a low birth rate, not exactly the ideal situation for a race that wants to expand. Thirdly, what sexual being doesn't like sex? I mean, he could've had his children mixed in a petri dish and grown in a tank if it was just about an heir. But it wasn't. He liked the female companions he had and he obviously enjoyed them as his lovers, unfortunately two of his concubines died in childbirth, he never did get around to officiating replacements. I wonder sometimes even now if he would've had he been given the chance to.

Anyway, one day while I was having a mindspeak lesson, she told me about the baby. I didn't understand yet, I wasn't quite seven years old yet. As with Tarble, there was no outward indication that she was preparing to spawn or otherwise with child. "The baby does a lot of growing on the inside first. Its taking on the perfect form, the best shape." She explained to me. "Its a very small baby for a long time, only in the last month does it grow big enough to be born and get outside the womb."

"How do you know?" I wondered, looking at her, trying to see if there was a difference. She looked tired, but she always looked tired these days, she was still beautiful, the only thing I noticed was her lips were chapped, they had been for a long time. She looked the same now as she did all my life. Yet she was telling me soon her stomach would grow round and a little baby would come out of it.

She just smiled at me and told me that mothers knew these types of things and I accepted that. I wasn't sure how to feel about her having another baby. I still thought that Tarble had been a mistake but there was a part of me that wanted this baby, but for selfish purposes. Mother had liked Tarble a lot when he was an infant, even though he was a source of worry for her. Caring for him had made her happy, now Tarble was going on 3 years of age. I thought maybe caring for this baby could make her happy now.

I also hoped that this baby would make Tarble as miserable as his coming had made me. I was still annoyed by his passive attitude. He never felt or said or did anythingthat made him worth the trouble in my eyes. I was grateful for Nappa, he'd become a new mark of distinction for me and hearing Vegeta and Tarble from the same person in the same breath was a rare occurrence. Tarble was nothing like me and I did my best to ignore him as much as possible.

I had to work extra hard not to be upset in mama's presence. Now that I was learning the MindSpeak I didn't want anything to slip and hurt her feelings. I wanted to be strong for her because of fathers constant absences and the continuous strain on his family because of it. We were used to fathers being gone. Honestly we rarely saw him, I wasn't kidding when I said that he spent one or two days with his family a month. But he was usually on the planet, just occupied. When he wasn't on the planet, we had never worried about him before. Now that Frieza was around, everyone worried about everything.

Especially all these strange calls and little acts of destruction that continued to sabotage our operations. After Sorri vanished, we recieved distress calls from one of our new colonies but in the time it took for my father to get to the comm. tower, the colony was silent. Two days later, reports confirmed that the colony was gone. The planet in ruins. The few corpes that could be identified as Saiyans were shriveled and crisp.

Not burned, per se, but as if every ounce of liquid-water, blood, even urine and snot-had been sucked out of them.

We could only guess that a 'meteor' storm of unusual magnitude had rained upon the planet, torn a hole in its stratosphere and caused all the breathable gases to ignite or burn up and leave the Saiyans to die a horrific death. We could only assume that the blobs of the the thick, gelled substance had been the servants and non-Saiyan creatures on the planet. No one questioned how a meteor shower could have possibly struck from practically all angles at once.

Because we all knew that it couldn't have, but we simply couldn't say how any one could have performed such an attack in such a short amount of time.

Just like with Tarble, my father wasn't home when mother went into labor with their third child. This was a little girl, it took three days, which wasn't too bad, but I could feel mothers pain and hear her thoughts faintly in my mind even from her room. By the second day her thoughts had become fevered and erratic and medtechs were anxious.

For the first time in his life, Tarble was being difficult. He wanted to see mother and no one could console him. His power level was only about 6 then, but he was a Saiyan and of Royal blood. No one was sure what to do about him, he'd always been...fragile. His power level continued to flux, even as he grew, which was odd and there was nothing aggressive about him. No one was supposed to know that he'd been born with a brain injury. It was minor, a certain region in his brain didn't work properly, which was why he was so...off. His nerves suffered because of it and he couldn't control his power level. A doctor had told our parents that he would never learn how.

He was weak and pretty useless, but mother was oddly attached to him, she was always worrying about him and letting him get away with murder. Anyway, when he started acting up, for some reason mother thought it would be a good idea for meto get him. I didn't mind the break from training, I wasn't able to concentrate with her in the back of my mind anyway.

I could hear Tarble screaming just outside mothers door. About half a dozen of my siblings stood outside their mothers quarters and watched in shock as docile, mild little Tarble transformed into a little demon, hitting, kicking and screaming. He had knocked one nurse out-she lay crumpled in the corner, blood trickling from her head.

Two doctors were holding him-or trying to, each of them held on his arms but he kicked and thrashed with all his Saiyan might, when their balance was off, he pulled his arms together and knocked their heads together, they crumpled to the ground and Tarble raced for the door. I got to him first.

"No! No! I want her. I want mama! Lemme go!" I shook Tarble and yelled at him to shut up. He seemed to come back to himself then.

I pressed my ki down on him, willed him to be calm. It didn't work perfectly, but he did comply with my wishes for him to shut up and be still. He started to cry and I hated him because he was always crying. No one even bothered to give him pep talks about it, no one ever told him to be strong, to remember the proud history of we Saiyans and draw strength from the memory of our ancestors. I had began to hear that sort of crap more often than my own name in the past several months.

It took a little coaxing but I got him to settle down and began to lead him away, but I wasn't sure about where to put him. I wasn't even sure where his room was, as most of my fathers children roomed together, in the Royal families suite. But I wasn't sure which of the boys rooms was his. Or how I was going to leave him in his room when I found it and suddenly, I felt very much like child and I wished that mother would tell me what to do and how to do it because I didn't know the first thing about taking care of...anything really. I was taken care of, the greatest effort I had ever put forth to nurture any living thing was lifting food and putting it in my mouth. That was it.

Kakara, my fathers first officiated concubine, and therefor his oldest mate in terms of length of the relationship, and the unofficial leader of his harem and mother to 7 of my fathers children came and took Tarble away. He sobbed openly but she led him away and took him to her quarters. I never did thank her, when I opened my mouth, not sure what I would say to her, she said that I had more important duties to attend and walked away.

I stood there for a few more minutes then I turned and stood outside my mothers room, gazing at the door. She was silent but I could sense her pain...The doctors had picked themselves up and gone back into the room, a maid was reviving the nurse.

Vegeta...
I felt her concious brush mine and immediately I perked up.
Mother?
...Thank you...
He cries so much, what am I supposed to do, mama? I said, wanting to have a normal conversation with her. Complaining about little brothers was relatively normal, right?
She didn't respond.
Father has been called. He's on his way, he'll be here in 2 days. I informed her. I felt a twinge of sadness from her.
Dont worry, I bet he names the baby in an hour tops.Father hadn't been happy about this baby. This one had been an accident, mother had worried a lot that he didn't want this one. The longer he took to name a child, was usually percieved as him having mixed feelings about a child. Or he simply put it off until he had time for us again, which is how one of my sisters had gone a month without a name. He'd seen her, but didnt pronounce her name until much later because he'd gone and gotten wrapped up in work.

Vegeta, I know you...are busy, mother said to me. But please, take care of Tarble, okay?
I sighed audibly.
Yes mama. I said obediently. Okay.Then I turned and stalked off, back to my training.

I never have known whether or not she meant for that to be her dying request of me or not. But those were the last words I ever heard from her.

I learned that she was dead just after lunch the next day.

Father attended her funeral rites, and had her cremated. Her remains were stored in the mortuary vault along with those of members of the Royal Family.

Tarble didn't attend. I dont think anyone told him she had died.

He kept asking about her, if she were okay? He wanted to know had her pain gone away.

I assured him that she was no longer in any pain.