Chapter Five - Last Minute Preparations
Krillin happily pocketed the capsule case that now held his wife's purchases. Yamcha did the same a moment later, both men glad they wouldn't have to lug around all those boxes and bags anymore. "Oh, aren't we supposed to meet Bulma soon?" Krillin asked, noticing the time on the clock on the store wall.
"We've still got twenty minutes." Hotaru said with a glance at the clock. "The coffee shop she said to meet her at isn't that far. We can still poke around the jewelry store a bit."
The four of them made their way toward the door and outside once more. Turning toward the jewelry store right beside the capsule store they then froze. There were four people standing before them they'd not expected to see, two of whom they'd not seen in more than five years. Hotaru's eyes widened, her mouth opened, and then a smile spread across her face. "Sango!" she cried moving forward quickly and hugging her friend.
Mijima was more interested in the man beside the silver haired woman. The one holding the silver haired infant. The one smiling and looking happier than she'd ever seen him look. He was still dressed the same as ever but looked quite different with such a peaceful and happy look in his eyes. "Gainin..." she said smiling.
"Oh, what are you doing here? Why didn't you tell me you were coming? When did you get here? How did you get time off?" Hotaru asked in rapid fire succession as she pulled back from her friend.
"We just arrived." Sango said laughing. "And we wanted it to be a surprise. We're here for the tournament. Competing in it, actually. Even ambassadors as busy as me can swing a few weeks off for something this big." She paused for a moment, her smile growing a bit, and then continued. "And I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is Hiroshi, our son." she said, motioning to the infant.
"Your..." Hotaru started, looking over toward the sleeping child.
"Gainin?" Mijima asked, the shock evident in her voice and in her eyes.
Her brother nodded. "Surprising, isn't it?" he asked, looking down at the kid in his arms. "I'm still getting used to it myself."
"I..." Mijima started. Her mouth kept moving but no more words came out.
"I know." Gainin said laughing softly. "It's a lot to absorb, isn't it? Things have... changed a lot since we lived with our father, haven't they?"
Mijima nodded. "Yeah. They have." she said, casting a glance toward Krillin.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Galactic Games Arena, Control Room
Vadora sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Soon as she'd returned to the palace with Bulma and the others she'd set off for the Galactic Games Arena leaving Mango in charge of the Queen's security. She had other matters to deal with. She'd been put in charge of organizing the final preparations for the tournament. Not an easy task, even with the crew of one thousand she had working with her.
Right now she was trying to figure out why the Barrier Field Generators weren't working. Without those the simplest energy blast could cause major damage to the stands. And cause the deaths of numerous spectators. Definitely not something you want to happen at the first official formal function of a new ruling government. The barriers were intended to prevent that.
Capsule Corp., with Bulma heading up the project, had spent three years developing these new units. They were capable of completely resisting anything less than fifteen million without issue. That meant the average person wouldn't stand a chance of buckling the barrier. Even the former King turned Senator, the strongest of the base level Sai-jins, would have trouble breaking through this system.
True, Senator Vegeta's power was over fifteen million, but even being over fifteen million wouldn't ensure breaking through. The system had redundancy back-ups for reinforcing the barrier. Technically speaking, it could double its resistancy power if the area of impact was small enough. Basically, less than ten feet in diameter. Still not enough to contain the numerous Super Sai-jins that would be participating, the powerful Piccolo, or even Senator Vegeta if the attack was large enough. But it was a good safety measure just the same.
Well, if it worked. Otherwise it was just a waste of time constructing them. Bulma had already been over the systems three times in the last two months. There was absolutely nothing wrong with them. Each unit was functioning. The Erido Generator that powered the system, separate from the one that powered the rest of the stadium, was operational. The data line to the computer was intact. The operating software on the control computer was working fine, no bugs or errors.
"So why the hell isn't the system engaging?" Vadora groaned.
"Umm, sorry to interrupt Captain..." a voice came from behind her.
Vadora turned and saw the young Captain of the arena's security force, her white and yellow armor glinting in the light from the monitors around the room. She was about six foot tall, exceedingly tall for a Sai-jin female, had spiky hair that almost rivaled that of Vegeta and his father, and much softer features than you'd expect on a powerful and battle hardened soldier. Even if she was only just over twenty. "What is it Mellona?"
"Well, another problem." she said with a sigh.
"Of course. I should have known. What now?"
"Well, I just got a call from the Palace. Seems the Arena A Barracks served bad food at lunch today. Four hundred and seven of the four hundred and eighty three personnel that reside there have food poisoning. They'll be out of commission for the next three days."
Vadora groaned, turned back around, and put her head down in her arms. "How many does that leave you with?" she asked, her voice muffled by her arms.
"Four hundred and two." Mellona replied.
The other woman straightened up and looked over at one of the terminals checking out the security plans real quick to refresh her mind about them. "That definitely wont work." she said after a moment. "We need at least six hundred to cover this size of an area effectively with the amount of people we'll have here."
Vadora sighed again. "Let me check something." she said as her fingers danced across the keyboard. A moment later she smiled. "Perfect, this will do nicely. I'll have the Gold Squad's 5th and 6th divisions fill in for your missing men. There's two hundred and twenty of them in all. How's that?"
"That works ma'am."
"Alright, dismissed."
"Umm, actually, there's one other issue."
"What?"
"The head of maintenance says the back-up battery for the main back-up generator must have been faulty. It's completely dead. He needs a replacement."
"Tell him to check the stock room, there should be three other batteries in there."
"Well, he said this was the last of them, that he's already changed it three times."
Vadora closed her eyes and groaned again. "Alright. If that's everything you can go."
Mellona bowed and left, not that Vadora noticed, she was back to staring at the screen that showed the current state of the barriers. They were still off even though she'd turned them on almost a half hour ago. Reaching over to the switch she flipped it again and shut the system down. As she heard the click of the switch she noticed the screens flicker.
She froze in her current position and narrowed her eyes a little. In a rush of movement she stood and moved over to another terminal. Leaning over the chair, not bothering to waste the time to sit, she punched in a few commands. A moment later a 3D model of the GGA appeared on screen. She located the control room first and then checked out the locations of both generators, the stock room, and the back-up battery control core.
The generator for the barrier field system was about twenty feet to the right of her location, a hundred feet below her. The stock room was five feet more to the right than that and a floor lower. The back-up battery control core was located directly to the right of the barrier generator. To the right of that was the generator for the primary GGA systems. She cast her eyes to the left of all this and looked.
That's where the staff cafeteria was located. "The power's gone out in there about a dozen times in the last two weeks." she said thoughtfully. Moving from that terminal she returned to where she'd been before and punched in several new commands. She watched as the on screen read-out shifted and the Barrier Field Generators linked up to the primary Erido Generator. Taking a deep breath she reached over and flipped the switch to activate the system.
There was a loud whine from outside the room, dozens of sparks of light from below, and then a red light shimmered through the air for a second before vanishing. Vadora smirked. The barriers were now on-line. "So, then, what the hell is draining the power of everything down around the Erido Generator for the system?" she wondered.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Sai-jin Palace, Conference Room
Hotaru had spent the twenty minutes she'd intended to use for jewelry shopping talking to Sango while Mijima talked to her brother. Kazuki and Yuki had left for the hotel shortly after they'd met up. That's when the Tanarian Queen learned that Kavar, Aiko, and Akira had all made it into the tournament as well. Eventually Yamcha managed to get a word in and remind his wife that they were supposed to be meeting up with Bulma. Sango and Gainin decided to come along as well.
They'd sat at one of the outside tables the cafe offered with Bulma and Mango and spent almost two hours just talking and hanging out. Mango almost forgot after a bit that three of those present at the table where royalty, they seemed just like any average people. Apparently everyone else thought the same as no one seemed to recognize any of them.
Eventually the group made its way back to the palace. The drawing for the tournament was going to be held soon and they wanted to see who would be fighting who. It'd be a good chance to see just how interesting the tournament would be. Now they, along with the others from Earth and Tanaria, were gathered in the conference room waiting for the drawing.
"So, they were all just unconscious?" Raditz asked a bit shocked.
"Utterly." Vegeta replied. "And they've got some rather nasty bruises now too, from where the knockout blows landed. They were seriously out matched by who ever found them before us." The kids all glanced at each other, unnoticed by the adults. They were all thankful when the conversation turned off to another topic.
"So, how was the movie?" Yamcha asked, looking toward Videl and Gohan. The two teens had decided to go check out a movie in the city after they'd arrived.
"Eh." Videl said shrugging. "It was ok. Not much in the way of plot though, mostly just stuff blowing up."
"Sounds good to me." Toma said grinning.
The conversation was cut off there as the drawing came on the screen in the room. "Welcome to the drawing for the primary tournament of the Galactic Games ladies and gentlemen!" a male voice said happily as the image panned over the GGA. "We had over ten thousand people sign-up to compete but, as you know, only 32 can compete in the main tournament, and only one can be called strongest in the galaxy!" The screen shifted to the grass fields outside the arena and the pink skinned alien that was the source of the voice.
"The preliminary matches to determine those 32 competitors for the tournament were held over the last two months all over the galaxy. The last of the matches was held, and the last of the finalists determined, just four days ago. And now, after running the names of our 32 fighters through our computer and having it randomize them, we have the battle list for the tournament."
The screen changed to show the tournament tree so that each competitors name could be displayed as they were announced. "Match 1, Dubibub Vs. Eskarga! Match 2, Cheri Vs. Kazuki! Match 3, Tatamo Vs. Mijima! Match 4, Aiko Vs. the Tanarian King, Yamcha! Match 5, the Tanarian Princess, Akemi Vs. Krillin! Match 6, Pug Vs. Piccolo! Match 7, the Sai-jin Prince, Trunks Vs. Tien! Match 8, Vadora Vs. Sango! Match 9, Toma Vs. Kavar! Match 10, Niono Vs. Videl! Match 11, Mango Vs. Gainin! Match 12, Gohan Vs. Yuki! Match 13, Senator Vegeta Vs. Akira! Match 14, the Tanarian Princess, Sakura Vs. Tangerie! Match 15, Raditz Vs. Goten! Match 16, the Sai-jin King, Vegeta Vs. the Tanarian Queen, Hotaru!"
The screen held for a moment and then changed back to the alien. "And that's our tournament folks! Be sure to tune in in two days for the first round of matches!"
"Well, this should be interesting." Raditz said. "Doesn't look like I'll get passed the second round, though..."
"I feel bad for Yuki." Hotaru said. "That's probably the worst draw of the entire tournament, fighting Gohan in the first round."
"Lord Vegeta!" a familiar voice called from the doorway as the doors slid open.
"What is it Vadora?"
"I need a full sweep of the arena, ASAP."
"What? Why?"
"I've figured out why the barrier system wasn't working. Something was sapping out all of the power. From the Erido Generator, the Back-up Battery System, the back-up batteries stored in the stock room, and even some of the appliances in the staff cafeteria." Vadora explained. "I don't know what's causing it, it only started a couple of weeks ago. But there's the chance..."
"Right." Vegeta said with a nod. "I'll send a sweeper team over within the hour."
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Unknown Location
Ravenna stood pouring over the data that filled the screen before her. It was flowing almost faster than she could keep up with it. "Any change?" her father asked.
"Lots." she replied, keeping her eyes on the monitor. "The energy disruptions in the fleet outside have been halted completely now. Once they managed to get the shields up the drains stopped, just like Razor said they would."
"What about the charge?"
"Still increasing." she replied. "Looks like the dimension barriers are thin in about eight points across the North Galaxy alone. Seventeen across the universe. Three of the North Galaxy points are on Planet Vegeta alone..."
"To be expected." Razor said entering the room. "The powers that have resided there near constantly over the millennia of existence would cause weakenings. It's the same on the Changeling homeworld, though to a lesser extent. That's why there are only two weakenings there."
Ravenna nodded. "One on Earth and one on Tanaria as well... but none on Namek?"
"Parunga's doing, no doubt. Don't forget, he restored the planet a few years back. He probably repaired the fabric of space in the process." Razor explained. "So, what's the estimation now?"
"About five more days." she said. Her eyes narrowed then as new data entered her monitor. "Shit."
"What's wrong?" asked her mother.
"Transport 13's power core is cracked from the drains." she said. "The ship's energy is starting to leak, the entire thing is destabilizing..."
"Can they fix it?" her father asked quickly.
"They're trying to but they're not sure. The cargo is being transferred to other transports now, just in case. But they're too scared to move... him."
"Can't blame them, really." Razor said walking over beside Ravenna.
"I don't care how scared they are." Raven's mate growled. "Moving him to a secure location is top priority. Tell them if anything happens to that cargo they'll have more to fear than an unconscious Sai-jin!"