Human Hospitality
by scoutergreen
Chapter 59
Full Circle
As Vegeta's pod approached Planet 79, his pulse quickened and he moved fast in order to secure the respirator over his nose and mouth. A communication screen above his head flashed and ordered him to prepare for a hard landing.
He caught the scent of a fast-acting sedative in his mask and knew his body was about to go limp. Secured into his deep chair with the help of a heavy harness, Vegeta could do nothing but wait for the inevitable crash. He only hoped his pod's navigation system would manage to direct him towards the actual landing pad and not towards the surrounding concrete and steel structures.
Limbs as heavy as iron, the Saiyan watched with horror as he plummeted towards the landing pad. His pod had turned itself around and the window was set to make contact with the ground. Then, he was upside down. As it got closer, he squeezed his eyes shut in time to hear a horrible crunch and feel the brutal force of his pod smacking the steel railing circling around the landing pad before actually hitting the pad. Although restrained in the harness, Vegeta's body was shaken like a rag doll's, and he heard the wet snap of his collarbone breaking. He hung upside down, unable to move or speak.
When Vegeta opened his eyes, his vision had gone red.
"Keep your eyes shut! Keep 'em shut!" A muffled voice ordered him from outside the badly damaged pod, and he heard the crunch of glass breaking and the scrape of metal as the bent door was forced open.
He felt himself dropping into somebody's arms before he was laid out on a springy surface.
"Somebody get medical here immediately!" The voice was clearer now, throaty and feminine at the same time. Somebody was working with calloused hands that were huge and heavy and strong. Groaning from the pain, he managed to crack an eye open before realizing his vision had gone red because he was bleeding profusely. Had his eyes been damaged? He could swear one of them strung and burn terribly.
"My eyes! My eyes!" He began, daring to move his arms before the agony of broken bones caught up with him and he forced himself to remain still. Vegeta sensed he was laying on the landing pad.
"Where the hell are the medics?!" The woman's voice was getting angry. Vegeta had started whimpering, terrified he'd gone blind for good.
"They're coming, girl! Keep it together! We've got pods 242-J and 653-S landing in two minutes, so you'd better get that Saiyan off the landing pad!"
"Those pods are designated to land on pads 5 and 7! We've got an injured solider on pad 3, and I am not prepared to move him!"
"Then you have twenty seconds, girl!"
The siren of a medical transit vehicle filled the landing bay. Vegeta felt himself being practically thrown onto a stretcher. The calloused hand met his and he squeezed it for a split second before being whisked away into an ambulance.
Then there was the feeling of warm, viscous liquid surrounding his body. A tube went down his throat, which he always hated. A small respirator system was inserted into his nostrils and taped into place before he became completely submerged in what felt like gel. Vegeta surrendered to the velvety, warm darkness and lost all sense of time.
Twenty hours later, Vegeta left the hospital, dressed in a fresh new uniform and his mood particularly sour. He had not gone blind, but the doctors had been unable to prevent a fine scar from forming across his face. Apparently his face had been badly cut up by shattered glass, and he was lucky to have made it out without losing an eyelid or the tip of his nose.
As he'd been getting dressed, a nurse had advised Vegeta that his comrades were already at home and waiting for him to return. The prince responded to this bit of information by rolling his eyes and hissing at the nurse.
The day was hot and the air was sticky. After enjoying the artificially cooled air of the medical centre, Vegeta wasn't enthusiastic about making his way home on foot. Flying was forbidden on Planet 79 (unless one had express permission to do so) and taxis tended to be very expensive. He wanted to take the train, but he couldn't get a new transit card without a guardian. Having just turned fourteen, Vegeta was subject to strict spending limits while on leave, and sometimes a ride in a luxury taxi (the prince refused to take public taxis) could eat up more than half of his daily limit, which meant he wouldn't be able to order all the food he could typically eat in a single setting.
"Hey!" A throaty voice called out to Vegeta as he made his way down the street.
Vegeta ignored the voice. Probably a beggar or club promoter, he thought, either way I've got nothing for them.
"Hey, kid! Stop! I wanna talk to you!" The voice was louder this time and approaching quickly.
Vegeta whipped around, preparing himself to strike down an assailant, and instead froze in place when he realized there was a tall woman approaching him. She did not appear threatening, and after finding himself frozen, Vegeta finally realized he recognized that voice. Had she been present at his crash-landing?
He started moving again, assuming a powerful stance. Right hand still aching, he forced it into a tight fist and grimaced. "What do you want?" He started, looking her up and down for any obvious weaknesses. He set his scouter to do a quick scan and his eyebrows rose when the reading on her attack power came up as 575. Not bad, he thought, especially for a civilian...
"Hey, I'm not trying to fight you!" She brought her hands up and flashed a big smile, "I saw your crash and wanted to see if you were alright, that's all..."
"Uh-huh," Vegeta managed to look her in the eye, surprised by her height, "I came out alright. Now, I must leave. Good bye," he turned around and set into a brisk walk.
"Wait!" She easily caught up with him in about five steps, "let me buy you lunch. Are you hungry? I'm starving!"
"Fuck off!" Vegeta didn't turn around this time.
"I've got your pod, kid! And your little pack, too! I was gonna show you what happened but I wanted to grab something to eat first, that's all!"
The Saiyan stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. Had she been the one to pull him out?
"Alright. This had better be a good meal..."
An hour later, Vegeta found himself sitting in a tiny restaurant with this towering woman named Malar, who was rather funny and quite knowledgeable when it came to pods. She had insisted he order a dish consisting of thin noodles, a pungent green sauce, grilled sea insects, a large fried bird's egg, and chopped vegetables, and to his surprise it was absolutely delicious. He wound up ordering the same dish again, requesting two additional eggs and more vegetables.
"Come by my shop and I'll show you the work on your pod. As weird as it sounds, Vegeta, your accident helped me prove a point to Frieza and his henchmen about your specific line of pod presenting frequent and pretty serious problems. What really hammered it in is that your kind of pod is really popular with elite soldiers..."
"Oh, so that means Frieza will be inclined to actually give a fuck is what you're saying," Vegeta dug into his second bowl of noodles, grinning when he broke open the still-runny egg yolk.
"That's one way of putting it," the woman called Malar responded immediately.
Vegeta cracked up laughing and had to set down his thin metal eating sticks."Anyway... you must have met my comrades after I was dragged off the landing pad, yes?"
"Oh yeah," Malar rolled her eyes, "the tan one with that damn ponytail had a bit of a hard landing himself, but the emergency airbag system deployed on-time and he made it out in decent enough shape to start soliciting me for sex when he was waiting for your other comrade. Maybe the landing messed with his head?"
"Eugh!" Vegeta's nose wrinkled with disgust at the thought of bothering a woman that way. He didn't understand why Raditz was always interested in having sex. It was disgusting! "My partner Raditz is an idiot! The landing didn't do shit to his already-scrambled brains. Did he at least stop bugging you? I'll kick his ass if he didn't... believe me, I can!" Vegeta took another bite of egg and noodle, totally loving his meal.
"That won't be necessary. He didn't seem to get the hint so I kicked him in the balls."
The Saiyan cracked up and quickly spat his food into his napkin so he could laugh without choking to death in the process.
After a week and a half of travel, Vegeta not only had his bearings, but he was in the process of docking at a small station. It was a typical commercial place, catering to all sorts of travellers seeking a place to eat, visit a doctor, watch a movie, and interact with other lifeforms. PTO soldiers were not unwelcome at commercial space stations, but their presence did tend to make people wary.
His communications panel was pretty much gone. He could make outgoing calls, but they were dropped seconds after a connection was established. Incoming calls never connected, and the signal sounded strange on the speaker system. All the screens kept flickering. The lights worked, but the microwave in his kitchenette was effectively dead.
When Vegeta docked his ship and disembarked, he wasn't entirely surprised when an attendant avoided his gaze and tried to make himself scarce.
The first place he went was a crowded, brightly lit pub. While he was recognized, nobody seemed intent on confronting him. The woman serving him was attractive and remarkably cheerful, and it left Vegeta in a rather good mood. He ate four different kinds of meat and gorged himself on fresh vegetables, drank a large bottle of light-bodied wine, and finally finished his meal with a plate of sugared fruits. After all he had been through, Vegeta deserved a good meal.
Next, stomach very full and a bit tipsy from the wine, the Saiyan went to a shop and absentmindedly browsed the selection. He spotted bottles of the delicious fruit liqueur he'd always enjoyed and requested four. With the knowledge that he had so much money on his ghost card, Vegeta purchased a variety of snacks some would classify as "junk food", jars of preserved fruit, bags of dried meat, a heavy blanket, and a large first aid kit to supplement the medical supplies he already had.
"Tell me," Vegeta watched the petite shopkeeper as she nervously wrapped up his purchases, "is there a mechanic on this station?"
Wide-eyed, the shopkeeper shook her head and gently set his bottles of liquor in a canvas bag. "Not a good one here. Is your ship functional, sir?"
"Yes. How far until a good mechanic?"
"Ah!" She stopped wrapping his food and brought up a holographic screen. "Let's see here," she typed in a series of coordinates and brought up the location of the station they were aboard, "here's us," she pointed to a red circle on her screen, "but if you travel to quadrant four, section three of this place... um, coordinate number 7972-XYG, you'll be in the vicinity of a place called White Star. I don't if they're still there, but I've been told there's somebody who can help you out. A good mechanic, as you say. You don't wanna get service here, sir. Just being honest..."
"Honesty's the best policy when your life is on the line..." Vegeta leaned over the counter and looked at the screen, taking in the image and memorizing the coordinates. It would take perhaps three days to reach this next station, and Vegeta was willing to take the risk.
Weighed down by packages, Vegeta boarded his ship and set out into deep space once more.
White Star, as it turned out, was like a large docking bay attached to a tiny station. He was surprised to find the docking bay mostly empty, aside from a random collection of ships and vehicles, some obviously disabled while others were in perfect condition.
Inside the station, he found an empty shop, darkened mechanical bay, and a large, clean restaurant. It wasn't too busy, just enough patrons to give the place a sense of life; likely soldiers or other travellers just wanting to take a break from travel and enjoy a good meal. It was air conditioned and bright, and small television sets played an episode of some Galactic Standard soap opera, providing just enough white noise to make all conversations indistinguishable.
There was something about the place that made Vegeta feel like he'd been there before, and he couldn't figure out why.
Vegeta took a booth in a back corner and pulled out the menu card. It was standard diner fare for the most part; small cuts of meat with (relatively) local vegetables and some kind of dipping sauce, noodles in bone broth or pungent sauces (which could be questionable) with toppings, breads, ground meat dishes, and fruit selections. His stomach rumbled, and Vegeta began to wonder why somebody hadn't greeted him yet.
"I'll be with you in a moment!" A tall woman with her back turned to Vegeta prepared cocktails at the bar. Was this woman working in the restaurant by herself? There was something very familiar about her raspy voice... still, bad service was inexcusable...
He resumed looking at the menu card and only looked up as the woman approached. She was tall and curvaceous, dark-skinned, with a beautiful face and weary grey eyes. Vegeta's mouth dropped open when he realized who she was, and the woman in turn stopped dead in her tracks and the thin tablet she was carrying in her right hand tumbled to the floor.
"...Malar?!"