Chapter Nineteen
The incident on Imecka had made Pan nervous. She knew she had to get one of those prismatic cloaks Sulfuri had mentioned for the Para Brothers' ship; even if they found a way through without one, they'd need it to take off again. Unfortunately, equipment like that was bound to be regulated. It might even be illegal. And the charming government Imecka had been struggling under before she, Trunks, and Grandpa had overthrown it had a policy about illegal contraband – namely, that it was illegal to own it, but not to buy or sell it. So Trunks had been allowed to buy illegal spaceship parts for his illegal spaceship, but once he'd gotten it pieced back together, they'd confiscated the ship and arrested them… or at least they'd tried to. They hadn't actually been able to arrest them until Grandpa had decided he wanted to be taken before their corrupt ruler.
Pan watched the tents and the people milling through them. "If only I knew where to start."
Pan, are you there?
Pan ducked behind a tent, in a grimy gutter. It was as densely-packed as the rest of the market district. She didn't want to look like she was talking to herself, so Pan pulled out her phone and held it to her ear for show.
"Sonpara, it's great to hear from you. I've just found out there's a device that'll get you through the Prismasphere. I'm looking for one right now."
Sonpara waited to respond. When he did, his voice shook with affected cheer; a red flag for a voice Pan only heard in her head.
Oh, no need to do that. It turns out we found a way through. We found a ship that must have one of those cloak-thingies preparing to land, so we just coasted in on its Prismatic wake. We're through the Prismasphere and in Ketchyn's upper atmosphere.
"Already? Why didn't you tell me?" Pan asked.
No reason, Sonpara thought. We figured we'd wait until we were clear o the ship and had landed safely. It's kind of the same ship that we thought was following us earlier, and we don't want to touch down too close to it.
"You mean the same model."
No, the same ship.
The nervous laugh, the strained voice, that it was Sonpara and not their leader Bonpara who'd reached out to her… something was really wrong. "What's the part you're not telling me?"
There's nothing I'm not telling you!
"I know you're holding something back. Spill."
No, there's really nothing. You've got it all wrong. The fields around Asphodel are flat and we've located several confirmed to be free of sinkholes or catacombs. Now all we have to do is dodge all these lasers that ship has been shooting at us for the past ten minutes and shake them off our tail so they won't see where we land and follow us, because otherwise we're all going to d… dammit!
"You're being shot at?" Pan tried to keep her voice down, but a few heads still turned her way.
And I wasn't supposed to tell you. Bonpara didn't want you to worry.
"It didn't work! I'm worried! How are your new turrets holding up?"
They work great. It's just our computer wasn't programmed for automated combat. Our old employer, and thank you for confirming he's burning in hell, thought that since the jobs he sent us on primarily involved stealth and treasure hunting, we didn't need it. So Bonpara and Donpara have had to switch to manual, and it's taking both of them at the controls to keep up the kind of evasive maneuvering it takes to escape these guys. I don't know who's piloting that crate, but he's good. Maybe too good, even for us. I didn't know anyone could squeeze that kind of speed out of a relic like that.
"And that means?"
I'm the only one available to man the turrets, and I really suck at it.
Ever since Pan had arrived on Ketchyn, she'd encountered one massive quandary after another. Pan was no stranger to massive quandaries, but these were different. These were quandaries where the only available decisions were bad ones.
Right now, for instance, she had two possible plans of action. The first would be to let Sonpara work the turret controls he was firing for the first time in his life against someone he described as being deadly skillful, and that path almost inevitably led to the brothers being shot down and killed. The second? Pan was not new to turret controls. She could operate them through him using telepathy.
That would require her to seclude herself out of the public eye and tune out her immediate surroundings on Ketchyn, projecting her mind onto the ship. Syncing that firmly to someone else's head would render her, for all intents and purposes, unconscious. She'd be totally vulnerable.
Like the last time, it was no choice at all. She had to save the Para Brothers' lives.
"Here's what we're going to do," She said. "I need to get out of this busy marketplace, and when I do, I'm going to take the controls from you."
But Pan!
"Don't tell me it's too dangerous. I already know that."
I wasn't going to, Sonpara thought. I was going to tell you that when Giru was playing reverse-mole for you against General Rilldo, he told us you really suck at this, too.
"He said what? That little braggart! He'd think so, wouldn't he? He was a war machine programmed to shoot cruisers out of the sky and I was just a kid." Little as Giru looked like a war machine, that was true, and Pan counted it an advantage. She doubted even the best flesh and blood opponent could give her the kind of thrashing he had. "I was holding my own against him, wasn't I?"
Bonpara's going to be so mad at me… Sonpara thought.
"I'll give you a signal when I've found a safe place," Pan said. She pretended to hang up.
Pan checked the sky. Its blue pulsed slowly indigo, but it was difficult to tell how close it was to changing. Her 'safe place' couldn't be too far away. She didn't have that kind of time, and more importantly, neither did the Para Brothers. A picture popped into her head, and she decided it was the best she could do on short notice.
The copse of trees where Pan had fought a squid on the first day of her journey wasn't far, and now that she could fly to it, they were there in minutes. Once she landed, she ran all the way to the cavern near the spring.
"Sonpara, I'm ready," She said.
Pan leaned back against the wall. She closed her eyes. The connection with Sonpara was already there. She followed it. The cavern blurred, joined with a vision of screens and controls. The harder she tried to read the screen, move the controls, the less of the cavern she could see. There was still a ghost of its image in her eyes. It was enough time to see men enter the cavern. Nondescript men with unfamiliar faces.
Planet Traders. Live ones this time.
She tried to pull back out of Sonpara's head, but it was too late. It was a struggle just to keep the sight of the approaching Planet Traders in her eyes, and she wondered if she should let it slip away. She didn't know if they were there to kill or abduct her, only that it might be better not to helplessly watch like this.
Suddenly, another figure dropped from the cavern roof between Pan and her would-be attackers: a Brenchian man with long hair. There was no way he could have been there before, or Pan would have seen or sensed him. He landed on one knee, and spread his arms before he stood. The Planet Trade men stopped, but did not lower their guns.
"You amateurs think you're up to fighting me? I'm insulted. You should know better. I know who sent you, and he should know better," the newcomer said. Her mind added a crackle to the radio. "At least I don't have to argue with the others over my slice. I'm the only guest at this party. The whole pie is mine. There is no pie, by the way. I'm talking about you. I don't know if I was really clear on that. And when I say 'party' I mean 'curbstomp.' Let me tell you what's going to happen after you open fire. You're going to empty those squirt-guns of yours first. It will do nothing. You'll try to throw a punch. Slow. Weak. Like flies, except I'd have to shoo flies. In the end, you'll be slumped against the cavern wall, out of ammo, worn out, all 'why is he not going down?' Then I'm going to peel your faces off with my fingernails and gouge your eyes out of their sockets. Did I say that last part out loud? Sorry, those things just slip out these days. Lord Frieza says he's working on it. But seriously, save a bullet for yourself. If you're still alive when this is over I'm actually going to do that. Ginyu Force! Jeice! Tou!"
Little as Pan liked the sound of that, she couldn't afford not to trust this strange man. She released the picture and let the Para Brothers' ship come into total focus.
Pan stretched her fingers (really Sonpara's) over the twin triggers. The screen showed her a facsimile of space; or at least, high up enough in Ketchyn's atmosphere it still appeared to be space. A cruiser zipped behind them like an insect. Brilliant stars bombarded the ship, only those weren't stars, they were shots fired as detected and mapped by the computer, so many and so rapidly they'd blended right into their surroundings. One burst beside her. It looked like a tiny pop, then a dust ball. That dust could become just as deadly as the cannon.
Another made a white-hot beeline for the screen. Pan fired. It popped; too close. It would have been worse if the shot had connected, but she had to fire quicker.
Blips filled the space.
Which one should I stop first?
She decided on the closest. She lined it up in her crosshairs and fired. A flash marked her success.
The turret grew sweltering. Even though it wasn't Pan feeling the heat, she was sure she was sweating back on Ketchyn. She fired. Her shots matched her heartbeat; as it sped up, so did they. Sometimes the ship would bank and she shot wide. Sometimes a blast would only just miss. Flashes peppered space around each ship.
The cruiser made an unexpected decision. Its cannons went quiet and, with a burst of speed, it shot around them.
A siren blared in Pan's head. Giru used to do that. It was a trick; he'd always have a second ship waiting to eradicate her. There was only one cruiser, she was certain of it, but Pan was sure there was some nasty surprise waiting for them if they sped up to catch it.
"Sonpara, tell your brothers they're driving into a trap. They need to slow down and lose altitude."
Sonpara smacked the radio button. She didn't hear the Para Brothers' exchange. Instead, she heard gurgled screaming that must have been coming from the cavern. She sure felt it when the ship dropped, though; at least, Sonpara did, and she got his sick stomach.
She knew they'd be dodging something, but even Pan had to admit to a twinge of utter astonishment when a boiling ball of plasma hurtled past the top of their ship, into space.
"Was that a Supernova? Did someone on that ship just fire a Supernova at us?" Pan yelled.
The cruiser hadn't expected them to dodge it, either, and hovered in place, waiting for them to combust.
Pan lined up her crosshairs and fired.
The ship's wing flashed and cracked. The cruiser's nose dipped first. The rest of it followed that downward trend, though. It plummeted out of the stars, through the swirling color of clouds, down to the ground.
The computer screen changed to map its descent, highlighting all the landing spots it projected would be a safe distance from its crash site.
One of the landings spots was in sight of the copse!
"Guys, you see where I'm pointing?" She hammered Sonpara's finger on it. "I'm going to break contact. Land there. If everything goes well, you should be able to see me. Also, you can hide the ship in the forest."
"You got it," Sonpara said, radioing his brothers.
Pan woke in the cavern as if the whole scene had been a dream. She was still there after all? She sat up. When she braced her hand against the floor, it landed in something warm and sticky that clung to her fingers.
Her first instinct was to find the man who'd introduced himself as a member of the Ginyu Force… a group papa only spoke of in hushed, haunted tones… but he wasn't in the cavern anymore. In one sense, nobody was in the cavern anymore. Her attackers were dead. Some of them even looked like they'd taken Jeice's advice to turn their guns on themselves. The nearest Trader's eyes were wide and lifeless, but at least they were still in their sockets. Pan pulled away from the wall, dodged through a slumped arm. She thought she was going to throw up.
These were more Planet Trade men. Why had a member of the Ginyu Force killed them? Why had they attacked him in the first place? And where had he gone?
Scrawled on the wall, she found something like an answer.
Midnight came. Your coachman had to turn back into a rat.
Pan didn't need another incentive to break free of the cavern and into the outside air, but that gave her one.
Yes, the sky was indigo.
Yes, it was racing.
Yes, that was bad.
ooo
There were so many ways Pan wanted to greet the Para Brothers, the only familiar faces she'd seen all week. She could have hugged them for coming all this way. She could have tried to hide her relief by chewing them out for letting that cruiser follow them here; that was Grandma Chi-Chi's favorite tactic, and Pan admitted she wouldn't mind resorting to it, the way she felt. Unfortunately, haste gave her room for neither. No sooner had the dinged-up metal mushroom landed and Bonpara disembarked that Pan shook him.
"Do you remember that hologram you projected on Gelbo to make yourself look like one of the locals? Do it now. Your computer has Sutova profiles in its databanks, right? Disguise yourselves as Sutova."
Bonpara must have sensed her urgency, because he didn't ask. He pushed a series of buttons on his spacesuit, and his image flickered digitally; he faded back into view as an ogre-faced Sutova man. The other two followed. It was disorienting to still recognize them in the face in spite of how different the rest of them looked.
"Your hand's bleeding," He said.
"It's not my blood," She said. "Hold on tight."
One Transmission later, the four of them stood before the only place she could think to stash them this time of night: Flint's art gallery.
"Hide here. If you want a cover story, ask for Flint and tell him your friend Pan sent you to see her painting. Whatever you do, don't go outside for the next two hours. The air goes bad and will make you see things, or at least that's what everyone tells me. I've had a few close calls but I haven't been stuck in it yet."
"Woah, you can't just drop us here and leave. We're already imagining the worst."
"The short version is that I have to fight the leader of the Planet Trade Organization in minutes, maybe seconds. Just hang tight. Remember, ask for Flint. I'll be back for you after dawn."
Bonpara gave her a firm fist-bump. "Be careful."
Pan tried a weak smile before charging out of the gallery.
ooo
Pan considered running as far as she could into the wilderness and risking the Vile Wave compromising her perspective. She didn't know she had many other options. The hunting lodge would provide no protection even if she could reach it, and she couldn't. She couldn't go back to the city or any of the small towns between them, for they were too densely populated. She couldn't go back to the Manor or the farm for the opposite reason: there was no ki to latch onto, and she didn't have time to fly. She didn't even have time to change out of this stupid dress. But just as she was about to give up, she felt a familiar energy signature flare up to fighting strength. It was faint, but it was also alone, and in an unfamiliar place on Asphodel's outskirts. One her map marked "Tower of a Thousand Eyes."
Seizing onto it, she leapt into the Teleportation Zone.
She appeared beside an old plinth holding an even older bust. She saw its dour, squashed Sutova face for a brief instant before a familiar voice touched her ears.
"You received my message, such as it was. Good."
As usual, it was difficult to pick him out of the background. "King Sulfuri. You meant for me to find you?"
"I hoped you would. I knew your time was running short and that you hadn't picked a battleground for tonight. I thought this place ideal. It's the sort of vacant ruin you've been favoring, it's shelter enough from the outside, and symbolically, I can think of no better place to thwart a modern enemy. It is from this watchtower that we saw and routed the armies of Blendarr. Now that we are Blendarr there has been no need for it. And I understand you have some way of reading energy, not just whose it is but what they're doing with it, so I came here and knocked over a few statues."
Pan could find them, at least, smashed in a row. Mentally piecing together the fragments, she thought they were all the same man. King Flare, perhaps? She wouldn't know. She'd never seen so much as a portrait. The man Incendria described as Ketchyn's puppeteer was even more invisible than his son.
Sulfuri did finally stir in the shadows, but it was only so he could brush past her on his way to the door. "I hoped you'd recognize it as an invitation. Good work. I won't be staying, of course. It's not my place. I dictate wars. I don't fight them. That's how a smart king rules. Look what wandering onto the battlefield got Frieza. Perhaps he's not the best example, though. He was never truly a king."
Sulfuri, a ghost of a shadow, slipped from the tower so quietly Pan couldn't be sure he hadn't always been there. His words echoed behind him with the click of the closing door.
"But in this day and age, are any of us?"