Childhood
Chapter 1.4
Off to Work.


Waking to the sound of his alarm, Garagus climbed out of bed and stretched out until his bones clicked.
He could see Rhuba and Celerave curled up in bed still and wished he could lie in to.
But he had to get ready.

After having a quick breakfast, brushing his teeth and wetting his face, Garagus returned to the bedroom to find Celerave lying over her mother.
His best guess is that she started to wake up, began crawling towards the door and then gave up.

Lifting her up from the bed, Garagus softly kissed her before laying her back under the covers.
When he tried to let her go, her tail wrapped around his wrist, refusing to let go without some prying.

"I have to go to work,"

"No…" Celerave rolled over, her bright red eyes looking up at him. "take me with you."

"You have your own work to do with Mum." He said, petting her head before walking to the wardrobe.

He felt Celerave watching as he got dressed and packed an overnight bag.
It's no secret that he's missed during his time away.

It's a familiar feeling. Leaving two Saiyans while he left for space.
However, at least this time it's different.
The employer this time isn't a monster and the time away is days at most instead of months.

Due to reservation laws on Dapume, the largest mining operations in the system happen on other worlds, but Garagus' destination was just beyond the asteroid ring, the planet Kola, third closest to the sun.

His job was simply to fly to these mining plants to drop off supplies and collect refined metals. Then fly to another station to do the same.
Working to his own schedule provided that he arrives at A and B on time.

As soon as he was finished getting ready, he noticed Celerave wasn't in bed.

Heading out to the ship, He began the power up sequence and preflight checks.
Without a copilot, set up takes a little longer than usual, but some of it is automated.

He had time to look in the bedroom.
Then he looked in the ship's second bedroom.
Walking up to the bed, he threw the covers off revealing Celerave lying flat out hoping she'd be undetected during take-off.

"If you came with me, I'd put you to work."

"I would'n mind!" She insisted. "Pleaze let me go?" She gave him hopeful eyes, but soon found herself being carried back into the house.

"You don't want to work with me. It's boring. You'd be tapping buttons. Space really isn't all that fun."

"so is harvest."

"Yeah, but you like the Al'Colics." Garagus reminded her.

"no I don't…" Celerave pouted as she was plumped back down at the front door of the house.

"Don't be like that." Clapping her head, Garagus reminded her that she and Rhuba both have a job to do. "If you do it well, someday I'll teach you to fly the ship."

Celerave didn't look hopeful. 'Someday' promises are always so far away.

"Be good for your mum."

Leaning against the wall, Celerave watched her father board the ship.
She couldn't see him through the window, so wasn't able to wave back at him as he started to lift before disappearing over the trees.

No matter how many times she watched him go, there was always a feeling of being left behind.
Deafly silence was creeping in with the cold morning air that made her skin crawl.

Going back inside, she debated whether or not to watch TV or go back to bed.
Instead, she had a better idea.
Prove to her father and mother that she can be good and responsible.

After fastening her boots, Celerave put on her green jacket with reflective sleeves before going around the back of the house to get the wagon.

It was light and easy to push or pull while empty, but Celerave's destination was far off in the mountains.
When she arrives there, her job will be to help the Al'Colics with their harvest and in exchange, a good portion of her labours will fill her wagon to bring home.

Normally, Rhuba would let Celerave pull with the tow rope while she pushed from behind.
Celerave liked to feel that she was in charge of the wagon, but really, her steering was less taxing of a job compared to putting muscle into lifting the wheels over rocks and logs.

An issue she soon came to realise thirty minutes into her travel, when the soft soil started to incline.
Her boots sunk into the dirt, but she was able to get purchase around the roots of trees or on boulders coming from the ground.

The wagon rattled and bevelled with the terrain, but Celerave was determined to make it all the way there.


At the house, Rhuba had just woken up and gone through her morning routine.
Since Celerave wasn't in bed, she assumed she was out training with her father.
Once dressed for battle, she skipped out the door, only to pause at the sight of the absent ship.

Running back inside, Rhuba checked under the bed, in the closet, in Celerave's Hideaway, and then grabbed her scouter.


Garagus was sipping a hot bitter drink made of beans.
The ship was being loaded with food and mining equipment and in a moment, he'd be expected to sign them off before heading into space.

But his scouter started bleeping in his pocket.

"Oh, Retro military~" Chuckled one of the workers.

When Garagus answered the call, he heard Rhuba asking if Celerave was with him.

"I left her on the doorstep. She's not with me." Pushing a button, his scouter detected Celerave's location. "I'm picking her up near you."

On her end, Rhuba also detected her location. She was about three miles away.

"I know you're helpless without me, but that device you called me with could have found her for you with fewer button presses~" Garagus heard her angrily hang up as he smugly sipped his bean juice.


Celerave had made it to the top of the second big hill.
The Al'Colics' civilisation was in plain sight. But it was still far to go.
The direct path was cut off by a winding river she'd need to go from her mistakes earlier, Celerave let the wagon reverse down while she simply held the rope and slowly followed.

Suddenly, Celerave felt a gust of dirt and rocks spray over her, followed by the thunderous clap of the sound barrier breaking.

When she turned around, she found Rhuba standing in a dirt crater. "You've been told not to wander off on your own!"

Lifting Celerave by the collar, Rhuba pulled her back up onto even ground before landing a sharp smack on her behind.

"Ahow!" Celerave jumped from her toes as her hands reached back.

"It's bad enough you came out here without telling me, but look at this!"

Celerave looked with teary eyes as Rhuba pulled on the rope attached to the cart.
The girl started with the excess rope coiled around her shoulder, but as Rhuba demonstrated, carelessness got the better of her.
If the cart got away from her, the rope would have tightened around her neck.

Rhuba had little doubt that with Celerave's wits about her, she could untangle herself or stop the cart in its tracks with one hard pull.
But concentration and coordination tend to fade when the airway is cut off.

The girl wouldn't look at Rhuba as she was untangled. Once the rope was free, Rhuba gathered it all up and threw it into the wagon, apart from one strand still latched onto the hook.

"Come on. We might as well go." As Rhuba made moves to hide Celerave's tail, the girl resisted.

"no…" Celerave backed away from her, moving neither towards the house nor the Al'Colics.

"Celerave, come On! I can't trust you at the house while I'm harvesting. So you either come with me or we spend the entire day inside. I'll go myself once your father gets home tomorrow."

"But I wozn't even bad!" Celerave whined, looking up at the set of unimpressed eyes staring back.

"Get in the wagon."

Backing away more, Celerave bumped into a tree.
In a rush, she started climbing.

"I'm not coming up there after you!" Rhuba called to her. "Get down now!"

Celerave hugged onto the tree once she was thirty feet up. The tree wasn't very tall, but the branches were dense.

"Get down now, Celerave." Rhuba went over in her mind what the outcome would be if she missed a day to ground Celerave. The Al'Colics probably won't mind, but it will be embarrassing to explain.
"Last chance. Either we go together or I take you home and go alone tomorrow!" Walking up to the tree, Rhuba put her foot through the bark, splitting the trunk at the base so it fell toward her.

Celerave cried in panic as she started drifting forward, but just before the crash, Rhuba raised her hand and caught the tree, but Celerave was unable to stop herself from hitting the ground.

"So what's it going to be?" Letting the tree fall at her heels, Rhuba stood over the girl.

Still unable to look up, Celerave mumbled that she'd go with Rhuba to the Al'Colics.
She watched in frustration as her mother pulled out the rope and let the wagon lead as she slowly walked down the hill behind it, the very thing Celerave was attempting to do before she was stopped.

"Are you coming?" Rhuba asked.

"yes…" Celerave held the front of the wagon and steered as they made their way down the hill. There was still a very long way to go, around ten miles in fact.
And the only sense of direction was the mountain ahead, and the lightly trodden path from the last year of Rhuba taking Celerave on foot.

In years gone by, Rhuba would fly there with Celerave riding in the wagon.
It's an offence for vehicles to tar the natural beauty of the landscape from the temple grounds. And although Rhuba flying isn't against the rules, the Al'Colics have been gracious and welcoming to her family and she didn't want to risk offence.
As such she'd land just outside of view before walking in.

Now that Celerave can walk the nearly 14-mile hike, an old habit from when she was just a baby kicked in.
Get the girl tired.

The walk would usually consist of chatter. Celerave was curious about almost everything she saw.
During the flatter paths where Rhuba was able to move the wagon on her own with ease, Celerave would climb the trees and swing along the branches to occupy herself.

But the next few miles were walked in silence this time.

As they approached a stream that they would normally rest at, Rhuba realised that in her haste to find Celerave, she'd neglected to pack a lunch.

"We can leave the wagon here for ten minutes." Rhuba pushed the break down with her foot before looking for a break in the trees to fly through. "Ready to-…"

Celerave pulled two Fusion bars from her pockets. Each one contains over nine thousand calories. Typically used by expeditionists and long-term hikers to stay alive, but Saiyans can eat a few a day and still be hungry.
With neither a word nor a glance, the girl handed Rhuba a bar, and upon a quick look, Rhuba saw that it was a savoury flavour, despite Celerave favouring the sweeter ones.

Celerave struggled with the foil wrapper and eventually just ripped the bar in half to save the effort.
After eating the two halves of the energy bar, she bent down to start collecting shards of silver foil that escaped the tearing.

Rhuba watched her while quietly eating her own.
Celerave was wrong to come out here by herself. But the fact that she considered bringing food she herself doesn't like, but Rhuba does, means she fully intended to rendezvous along the way.

Stuffing her own empty foil in her pocket, Rhuba cleared her throat.
"These bars aren't very healthy on their own." Usually, she'd pack a proper lunch. The Fusion Bars are only meant for a little extra energy over such steep hills.

"not allowed to cook…" Celerave mumbled, her bottom lip still sticking out between her puffed cheeks.

"I'm sorry for smacking you." Rhuba sighed. "But you need to understand how terrifying it is for me to wake up and find you missing."

"Why?"

Rhuba proposed how she would feel to wake up to find her parents missing. "What would you do then?"

"I'd watch TV…"

"You wouldn't be even a little worried?"

"Wowied about what?"

Rhuba had to catch herself from yelling. The flippant and nonchalant answers Celerave was giving did not match the wide curious eyes she was staring back with.
She's not being petulant or playing dumb.
Rhuba and Garagus spent their childhood knowing every venture outside could mean not returning home. A life of war.
A life Celerave has been spared.

"What if you were out here without me, and the wolves came back?" There were of course far worse creatures out there than bad dogs, but there's a reason Celerave was sheltered.
The threat of wild animals was enough this time to pull her from bliss to the dangers of reality, at least a little.

"You're not a bad girl. But you can't disappear like that. I've already said about the rope around your neck. Be more careful with that from now on, and always tell me when you go somewhere."
It was her daughter's carefree desire to go off on her own that made Rhuba so afraid to teach her how to fly.
Learning how to lift off from the ground is the first and last hurdle, beyond that she'll be free to discover how fast and how far she can go without any further lessons. It'll just be practice before she needs to be tracked down from the other side of the world.

"We still have a long way to go. Are you ready?"

Celerave wiped her fingers on her shorts before grabbing the rope from the wagon.
Like before, she wrapped the tow rope over her left shoulder and under her right and was extra careful not to let any of it go around her neck.
She didn't even remember how it happened when Rhuba showed up.
Carelessness.


Around forty minutes after his talk with Rhuba, Garagus decided to call again to make sure she and Celerave were okay.

"She's a rascal." He laughed. "But I'm a little proud she got that far on her own. Good for her."

Rhuba was reluctant to let praise of bad behaviour reach their daughter's ears but did pass on that he was glad she was alright.
"Have you left the planet yet?"

"Um…" Garagus looked at the third of Zol's planets rapidly approaching. "I'm a minute away from docking."

"Well then get OFF the scouter!" Rhuba scolded before hanging up herself.

Garagus rolled his eyes as he matched orbit with the planet below for a nice easy descent.
After doing it so often, he could fire in the buttons one-handed while sipping tea.

The first time he laid eyes on the strip mines of Kola, Garagus fell victim to the same thoughts as every other visitor.
Most people have a moral objection to such displays of pollution and destruction.
However, with no terrestrial life to complain about the huge unnatural trenches stretching across the surface so wide that it can be seen from orbit, or the black plume that tars whole canyons, mining and refining could continue unimpeded.
Kola was never going to be habitable. Dapume is.
So the consensus is to keep Dapume as is, and import minerals from the barren planet.

Without a thick atmosphere, the smoke and fumes don't ascend from the refinery. They're instead vented into one of the original mining trenches.
Averaging 10,000 feet in depth, the smoke forms a thick opaque fog that blocks light completely.
Normally, you'd see several mining pits in operation and 'pools' of fog in the abandoned ones closer to the smelting stations.

But as Garagus came into land, he could see smoke spilling out onto the surface and into the active mining pits.
He'd already dressed in his space suit, sans the helmet in preparation for landing.
Upon reaching the docking bays, he could see the flashing alerts.

Sound cannot travel on the planet, so when the flashing lights go on, everyone is expected to set their comms to channel 1.
This relays the situation to all, but only transmits information and those in crisis cannot report back through this channel.

"Smoke is flooding mining pits 19, 20, and 21. All mining staff must evacuate and be counted. Team leaders can report missing persons on channel 2. Anyone trapped can request assistance on Channel 3."

The broadcast went on to inform pilots to remain on their ships until the smoke is cleared.

Garagus had already depressurised his airlock and was waiting for the exit to open.
Stepping out onto the dock, he saw search and rescue fly over to the active mines. Their spotlights are unable to shine into the fog.

Having made up his mind, Garagus set his coms to channel 2.
There were hundreds of sub frequencies, most already had an operator getting information from people stuck in the fog.
Garagus listened for an operator on standby.

"You're through, what's your emergency?"

"I'm a pilot that just landed and I have this-"

"If you don't have an emergency, please keep this line clear."

"No, I think I can help. I have a scouter that can track everyone's life signs." As he spoke, Garagus started putting together his space suit. "Just tell me who I can lend it to."

"Thank you for your suggestion, but you'll do better to stay in your ship than bothering out rescue teams."

With that, the connection was cut.
"Well then…" Garagus sighed as he continued sealing his suit.

It went against his instincts to put the helmet on before the scouter, but the plan was to hand it over.

Upon leaving the ship, Garagus had to conform his mobility to blend in with the other workers as he ran towards the flooded mines.
The whole time, listening to reports coming in.

Someone was reporting in that drill operators were seen alighting from the cockpit as soon as the warning went out. But the smog fell on them, and they've been unable to find their way out.

The good news is that their space suits have an abundance of air for hours yet and the fog, though distressing, is pretty much harmless to those in their suits.

The bad news is the danger that lies hidden in the fog. Any machine left running will be doing so without making any sound.
Conveyor belts, drill heads, sharp rocks and cliffs could be a single step away.

When Garagus arrived at the affected mines, he was awestruck at the ominous sight. A waterfall of smoke poured into a mine from a burst pipe.
It didn't pour exactly as water would. The mist had a wider spread as it dropped below. But among the fog were particles of caked black dust and soot from years of buildup with no cleaning.

However, those caught in the mist were not keeping it together.
Their view was shrouded in dark grey.
Every other step would be bumping into a wall, a vehicle, tripping over a drill, or someone grabbing onto them for dear life.

The only sound they'd hear is the vibrations with every step, a constant hissing from air regulation inside the suit, and their own breathing.
Others would have that and the constant chatter of different channels in their ears as they desperately tried to get through to someone who could help them.

Rescuers were abseiling into the pits. Each one is equipped with multiple tethers. One for themselves, and spares for whomever they find.

Despite wearing a space suit, it was a reflex for each one to hold his breath as they descended into the fog. But their training didn't take long to remind them to keep breathing and stay focused.

Touching down on the ground, the ambience was spooky.
Since no one can't speak to anyone they encounter, all they can do is spread out and hope to find someone while taking direction from those above.

Outside the mines, Rescue commanders were coordinating the rescue while listening to calls for help through the comms.

"One of my drillers fell. His suit is fine but his leg might be broken. I've tried reaching him, but he's not responding anymore!"

For those literally in the thick of it, they were almost blindly searching with their hands for anything that felt remotely man-shaped.
Once they found someone, they'd unlock one tether from their belt and lock it onto their suit. Then give a signal for the line to be reeled back in, lifting the miner out of the fog.

Going from walking blindly to being randomly restrained while a line is attached to being hoisted up hundreds of feet per minute was a frightening experience.
And undignified.
After all, the rescue crafts didn't have the capacity to hold dozens of people at once. So the miners were left tangling by marionette strings.
Maintaining personal space became impossible as more and more were pulled out.

However, the rescues were slow and very unorganised below the surface.
The lights were almost useless, so the rescuers were just as blind as those they were attempting to save.

Then suddenly, an order was called out for rescuers apart from team leaders to withdraw from the fog.
At the same time, all the miners were told to hold their position exactly.

In ones and twos, the bulk of the rescue teams were pulled out until a more manageable number was remaining.

Having reached the rescue commanders, Garagus watched as his scouter was plugged into a portable computer and tracked those in the fog.
However, although it could track a high number of entities, it had trouble doing so while broadcasting it to dozens of recipients.

The compromise was to withdraw most of the rescuers and give the remaining units an active location of those trapped in the fog.
To make sure it worked, those needing to be rescued were advised to hold position in case their signal was lost.
Should that happen, their last position should still be accurate.


Once the last person was rescued, and the airbus was taking the few injured back for medical assessment, the rescue chief returned the scouter its owner.

"I've written so many requests for these things to be standard issue. Not in the budget." He threw his arms up. "Well, I'll be adding this in my report."

Garagus didn't receive much thanks other than a pat on the back from some of the team leaders.
Which was good. He didn't want the attention. To that end, he didn't even give his false name.

But he did look forward to telling Rhuba and Celerave about his day at work when he returns tomorrow.
Then again, maybe it's better that he doesn't…


Author's Note:
I learned today that Akira Toriyama has passed away last week.
May the Nimbus Cloud carry ye to thy rest.