I don’t own DBZ or any of it’s characters.

Stormy Bond
By: Bulmaveg_Otaku

"The government I cast upon my brother, and to my state grew stranger, being transported and rapt in secret studies… Bring once perfected how to grant suits,…new created the creatures… to the tune what pleased his ear… - Prospero (1.2)

If it's true that history repeats itself, then the quiet still of the night would have been broken by the warning cry, "The Saiyans are coming! The Saiyans are coming!" Instead, the artificially cooled air of the Briefs' master bedroom was silent except for the soft singing of the professor to his daughter. His three year old daughter, Bulma, who had nightmares on a regular basis, could only be consoled back to sleep by being held in her fathers arms. Her trembling and crying would stop as she listened to his strong baritone voice as it quietly hummed the songs whose words he had long forgotten.

"Is she asleep yet, dear?" his wife asked from the bed where she was lying under a thin sheet, her body illuminated by the moonlight poring through the windows.

"Yes," Dr. Briefs paused in his song long enough to reply and then started again.

"Then why don’t you take her to her room and then come to bed?"' she asked, but she already knew the answer.

The doctor did not reply, only continued to fill the space with hushed melancholy lullabies and wear circles in the rug at the base of the bed. The quiet peace of Bulma's breath and the moonlight and the breeze ruffling the curtains made the rest of the world seem farther away. The weight of his own flesh and blood nestled in his arms, against his chest made the demanding workload of his days fade to meaningless static. The smell of her freshly washed hair, as it tumbled in a delicate blue cascade over his cheek and neck turned the existence of the Council of the Federation and the threat of an alliance with the Saiyans into the stuff of dreams that your forget once you wake.

A shift in the air caused his daughter to rouse slightly and shift in his arms, sighing deeply, her breath shuddering before calming back into the cool silence of deep sleep.

"Shhhhhhh," he whispered, his lips poised on the crest of her pink cheek. "I'm here, Bulma-chan. Your father is here. He will keep you safe and stop all the evils of the world from hurting you."

"You know that isn't true."

Briefs and his wife both gasped as they turned towards the sound of the strange voice. A dark silhouette was outlined behind the fluttering curtains. Slowly the figure stepped past the pale lavender drapes and into the faintly moonlit room.

"You know as well as I, that if you keep her here she will have to face the darkness of humanity and all it's flaws. You also now that, in these times, very few escape unscathed."

"Who are you?" Briefs whispered harshly, causing Bulma to stir in her sleep again.

"The bringer of bad news, I'm afraid." The solidity of the voice joined the solidity of the body as the intruder wandered further into the light. Hard, shinning armor, erratic rigid hair, dark, like the eyes, and one swishing furry appendage that swayed in the space behind him. "I'm here warn you. Warn you to leave Chikyuu tonight and never return. To will tell you to pack up only your most prized possessions and flee without looking back

"What do you want Saiyan? You know that nothing you say will convince me to turn away from my people and my world. Don't waste your breath or my time. I won't leave. The people need me…"

"You won't leave? Not even if I told you that your people don't need you any more? You won't go? Not even if I were to say that your assistant, Dr. Gero, has usurped so much of your power that the people only listen to his voice now? That their listening to his voice right at this moment as he is convincing your council to join forces with the Saiyans and telling them that you have become incompetent as a scientist and a politician. You won't leave even though I've come to warn you that your partner and my king have joined forces to destroy you… and your family."

"I'm listening…" the professor said through gritted teeth. "What is your message, warrior?"

Something about the urgency in the man's voice, a man of a usually stoic race, made his gut wrench as well as his curiosity peak.

"As I have all ready stated, Gero and My Liege have made an alliance. Gero promised to give over the power of Commander-in-chief to my king, allowing Saiyan soldiers into Chikyuu space under Saiyan command, as well as a tidy tribute every year in return for Saiyan assistance in over throwing your influence in the council. The short of it is, we get Earth if we take you out. Their plan is to arrest you from your beds later tonight and have you executed without trial, you and your family, as well as anyone loyal to you. I suggested to the king that you be spared your lives, but he has promised nothing, so I came alone, to warn you." The Saiyan stood with his shoulders squared and his chest raised. "If you leave now, taking only the necessities and fleeing with your family, you should be able to escape from Gero's betrayal. I believe that if you are gone, Gero will forget about you, as long as you are no longer a threat to his power."

"You're suggesting we run?" Dr. Briefs said with a bit of irony. "Would you run, Saiyan?"

"No, but then again, I'm not as weak as you, and my loved ones are old enough to fend for themselves. Besides, I'm hardly an innocent."

"And my people here?"

"Without you, they are no threat."

Briefs stood silent once more, weighting the out comes of all apparent options. "We leave." he said and handed his daughter to his stuttering wife.

"But, dear…"

"Now. Gather some things and get Bulma to the emergency escape pods, I'll be right behind you," the professor had the kind of tone that his wife knew not to question.

"Alright, but hurry," she said before rushing out of the room.

Dr. Briefs moved to the desk he kept in the corner of their room and began downloading all the files he thought he'd need into the EEP's main computer system. The Saiyan stood silently behind him and waited while the doctor worked. That done he put a security lock out on all of the computer files he knew that Gero would be drooling for access to once he was out of the way. In little or no time he had lessened Gero's victory from to complete to technical.

Finished with that he turned and almost ran into the tall alien warrior. "I thank you for your assistance, but I think I can manage it from here."

"I'll wait till you've departed."

"Ok," the doc sounded unsure and as he looking into the obsidian eyes of the informer he saw only truth and honor and remembered the debt that he owed this stranger. As he was walking past the tall alien a question passed through his mind and he paused to ask, "Why are you doing this? Why help a few weak humans?"

"I am a man of honor. My people believe in facing our enemies in broad daylight, in fighting without shame and facing defeat or victory with the same passion. But what this man Gero has convinced my king to do regarding your family is cowardly and a disgrace to all Saiyan kind. That is why I have come to warn you, so that I can save my liege from murdering children in their sleep and undermining all that I thought Saiyans stood for. We may be cold-hearted warriors, but we are not with out honor and morals, and I am not without mercy."

Dr. Briefs considered this and marveled at his ability to remain prideful and arrogant in the face of his own seemingly humble acts.

"Can I ask your name?"

"Bardock."

"Well, Bardock, I never thought I'd see the day that a Saiyan would stand against murdering innocent people…" Briefs said as he scooped up some of his possessions and headed for the door, the Saiyan trailing behind him. "It about time."

Just before entering the escape pod, the doctor turned around and put his hand on the door frame. "Thank you," he said simply as the door slide shut and closed off his view of the man that had saved the lives of him and his family. "Good bye," the professor added as the computer announced it's launch and sent the small pod shooting faster then the speed of light through the cold expanse of space towards the unknown.

"By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,… hath mine enemies brought to this shore…" – Prospero (1.2)

"Come on, Teed-yar, I have to get this food replicator up by dinner time, or we're going to have to eat dad's stewed Yamen root for dinner again." The voice that came from inside the guts of machine against the wall was firm, but full of good humor and determination. It made the small, blue figure leaning curiously over a chunk of mettle and wires that resembled robotic road kill, turn immediately. Teed-yar quickly replaced the drooping light to shine on the mass of cables and tubes on the inside of the malfunctioning equipment with only a slightly guilty shrug.

"Sorry, Lady Bulma."

The headless body sighed and then tensed again as "Lady Bulma" reached to the back of the contraption. "How many times…" struggled, but patient words floated out of the old fashioned looking replicator. "Hand me that adantine circuit we got at I-trade today, would you?" A hand appeared and then quickly disappeared with the requested tool, "…have I asked you…." there were a few grunts and metal clinks, "…NOT… neutron regulator… to call me… almost got it…"

There was an electronic chirp and a fizzled shock. "Ow!" she exclaimed and made and a rapid exit from inside the machine barely missing hitting her head on the top of the hole. "Lady Bulma. It's just Bulma." She sucked on the long cut and burn on her finger.

"As you wish, Lady Bulma." Teed-yar said with an innocent smile. If she hadn't known better she'd have thought him a child. In appearance and sentiment he was, but he was almost ninety years old, and as good with a soldering iron as any earthling engineer. He was a handsmar Yardrat, simple, childlike, peaceful, but not, by any means, stupid. Handsmars often had trouble grasping the idea that their human neighbors and friends did not want to be their superiors. Their deep respect for them kept them from being able to reply with that simple request.

The Headrma, however, understood and could be trusted to only use their first name. They understood that, thought they were revered as "Protts perro o'milan" (House of metal dwellers) among the handsmar and had brought many gifts to the Yardratins they did not seek this notoriety, but only to help and live in peace. They respected the Briefs for their humility and didn't promote their worship among the other part of the population.

Bulma, just sighed and sucked on her finger. Deep down she knew her battle would never be won and stood up to replace the front panel. "Well, I think it's fixed."

Teed-yar smiled up at her. "No more of Duk's stew" Duk was Yardratin for Lord or Great one, and although the small alien looked up to her father, she knew he understood about her father's stew.

"That's right. No more of father's stew." She encapsulated her tools and took her small friend by the hand. "Lets go find him and tell him the good news." She also wanted to get back to her personal lab and putt the finishing touches on her latest invention…

I the long maze-like hallways they passed several smiling Yardrats that waved and greeted them warmly. Bulma couldn't help but smile. These were her friends, this people of small, bright, kind aliens that had welcomed them with open arms, and hadn't taken no as an answer as far as hospitality was concerned.

It was times like these that she wished things would never change. That she would always be safe amongst her blue family, but there was also certain sadness that she felt, knowing that they would not always be safe.

She had found a copy of SISC, (Saiyan's Intergalactic Species Compendium), and looked under Yardrat. It had a few numbers and statistics that she didn't find interesting, but a couple lines at the bottom had stuck out at her and been sitting bad with her ever since.

"The Yardratin are docile, blue humanoids that are the main inhabitants of the Planet Yardrat (Quadrant 716C, Spectronide Galaxy). They are sentient, but primitive, and have no advanced technology. Projected date of Class P6-3 assimilation: 3.29.3856"

She'd looked up Class P6-3 assimilation and found it just the chocolate covered way of saying purge. That had sent her reeling with a momentary panic attack until she realized that it wasn't scheduled for another 200 years or so. The "Primitive Yardrats" weren't a priority, being so far out of the way and just an none technological threat they only required six third class soldiers for the entire planet, or so the empire seemed to think. And Bulma wasn't about to inform them otherwise, but since her family's arrival thirteen years earlier, Dr. Briefs had turned the planet Yardrat from sitting target to well protected fortress.

At first, the doctor had been hesitant about sharing technology with the natives, not wanting to alter their culture and hoping to live in quiet isolation with his wife and daughter. However, after a few weeks of curious Yardrats breaking through his intricate defenses, proving their ability to adapt and understand complex concepts, he opened the doors and let them in.

They quickly learned anything he would teach them, and the doc started to see that the Yardrat weren't primitive because they were stupid, but merely because they had no reason to be otherwise. On the contrary, they were very intelligent, and, after they were convinced by Dr. Briefs of the need for security, extremely inventive and productive.

There were a few conditions, though. After being brought before the Yardrats "Supreme council" they made he promise not to teach them build any weapons or items of destruction. The professor was ok with that, in fact, preferred it, because, although his love for their culture motivated him to try and protect them, he did not want to change their peace loving ways.

That was why, thirteen years later, the planet was equipped with several defensive mechanisms. Sensory equipment controlled from the Briefs own home, an electromagnetic disrupter field around the planets orbit, and a few other localized touches, underground bunkers, energy cloaking devices, and tractor beams were scattered across the face of the small green planet.

There was factory production and mining started by the Yardrats themselves, and anything they couldn't produce naturally they could purchase at I-Trade a solar system over. Dr. Briefs had managed to set up his own private laboratory with inexhaustible recourses and unlimited, anxious-to-help workers. It was a dream come true.

Rounding the corner, Bulma and Teed-yar spotted Manka-yar, a his family member of some sort. (the Briefs had yet to grasp the Yardrat family system, or even learn how they reproduced… they figured it wasn't polite to ask…)

They spoke briefly in Yardrat, and then Teed-yar begged Bulma's forgiveness, and ran off with his kind on some urgent errand.

'See you later…" she said, amused and continued on her way. As she was rounding the last corner she came face to face with a dark-haired, hunched, and badly scarred man. She shrieked a little and then calmed as she realized who it was. "Oh, Yamcha, you scarred me!" She exclaimed, and hand on her chest.

Yamcha sneered and sniveled a little before retorting defensively. "Sorry, Bulma, I should have a bell around my neck to warn you when I plan to show my ugly face, that way you can run away and avoid me as usual."

"I'm sorry, Yamcha, I didn't mean it like that." Bulma starred at the floor guiltily. "I don't know why you have to get so upset. You just startled me, that's all." Bulma felt bad, because she knew he was partly right. Every time she saw his looked at his face she cringed and wanted to look away.

Kind-hearted as she was, she knew that this hurt him, especially since she knew that he liked her. Logically, they made sense. He was the only human man she could remember ever seeing, besides her father, and they were light years from Chikyuu, but she could hardly stand to be in his presence.

Her parents had found him at I-trade, a slave to a vicious clan of pharynges who had beaten him mercilessly about a year and a half after they had escaped from Chikyuu. He was only nine, and evidently had been a slave for less then a year. News of Gero's exploitation of third world peoples had resulted in such an ethnical and moral monstrosity.

Feeling guilty for abandoning his people to Gero's insidious power, her father and mother had freed the small boy and brought him back with them, but the damage had been done. He'd been violent in the beginning, throwing fits and wreaking whole rooms at once, but Bulma's mother had persisted with unconditional kindness and patience. Eventually he'd calmed down enough to be taught by her mother and then employed by her father. He'd been a great help in the fortifying of the planet, but as the years passed and his affection grew for Bulma, things got difficult. She wanted only to be his friend, and her rejection of him as more caused him to get bitter and resentful, and since her mother's death almost a year before, his moodiness and complaining had gotten almost unbearable.

Bulma had pleaded with her father to send him away, but his fear for the planet's security held his hand. They couldn't risk him running into anyone from the Empire and spilling their little secret hideout all over Gero and the Saiyan Kings 'things to destroy this week' list.

"Maybe if you weren't so frail, maybe if you weren't prancing about instead of working like the rest of us, you wouldn't have been here where my hideous face could startle you," he spit hurtfully. He putt his face closer to hers, and she was forced to look at the wrinkled red skin that covered half of his face and smell the perpetual stink of burning flesh. She smelt in anytime she was close to him, but figured was more her over active imagination, then really there.

The things he'd been through that year of his life were horrible, and most definitely not his fault, but she couldn't keep from turning her head away and gasping for air.

"That's right, turn from me. Ugly Yamcha, only fit to do the work you see as beneath you, not worth looking at, that's me." He pulled back, snarling and stepping back. Bulma couldn't help sigh in relief. "Someday… You'll.." he stopped and held his face in a disfigured frown. "You're father wants you in the command room."

"Thank you," she peeped and stepped around him, fighting not to run down the hall to her father's call.

"That's right, I’m just the messenger, not worth your spit, but one day…" Yamcha sneered and then followed her down the hall, limping slowly.

***

"Any idea where we are?" The tall Saiyan king asked angrily. He sounded like he was about to start blasting lieutenants. After being pulled from hyper-sleep, he'd been informed by a now deceased soldier that they were "lost."

"No, My Liege, we are still having trouble with our navigation computer." The captain of the ship said bravely, "My estimate is we are somewhere in the Lukra or Spectronide galaxies. One of our best technicians is working on fixing it as we speak."

"I don't want your estimates, I want to know where we are. The King of the Great Saiyan Empire does not get lost!"

"We're doing all we can…"

"And we're just supposed to cruise blindly through space until you get the damned thing fixed?!" the king shouted? When there was only oppressed silence, he consciously calmed himself and lowered his voice. It wasn't wise to panic.

"Gero, why don't you go have a look at it? Your supposed to be a technical genius after all."

The old man leaning casually against the far wall shrugged. He'd been awakened with the king and joined him on the bridge a few minutes earlier. "Space navigation isn't my specialty, but I'll have a look." He followed a petty officer out of the room with a confident stride and left the king to his ranting.

"Sir, scanners have picked up a habitable planet only 14,000 parsecs from out current location and closing," one of the pilots called out.

"Scan it for energy readings…" the Captain started.

"Don't bother," King Vegeta scowled pridefuly, "Saiyans don't stop for directions. Just get the damned thing fixed. I'll be in my quarters."

 ***'

"Sir, the ship is closing fast. Readings now indicate a small Saiyan royal transport. Energy scans are picking up two dozen regular Saiyan readings, and six or so higher level readings, three of which are extremely high." The words stuck Bulma as she entered into her father's control room.

She exchanged nervous glances with her father, Yamcha's harassment forgotten, and stood against the railing with her serious looking father.

"It's probably safe to assume that the king is aboard, as well as the prince and possible Lord Frieza of the Koldin Clan of the Planet Icera, as well as a couple elite soldiers… What are we going to do, father?" Behind them Yamcha entered silently and placed himself in the shadows against the back wall.

Dr. Briefs ignored his daughters frightened tone. "Are the on an intercept course?" he asked the small Yardratin sitting at the front of the room. There was a tense pause and then…

"No, it looks like their course passes right by us. Then must just be on their way through." Everyone sighed.

"Good, radio all the settlements, tell them to put up their energy cloaking shields and lay low. With any luck they won't even notice we're here."

Yamcha took that as his cue to slither up next to the professor and whisper in his ear, "What could the king, the prince, and the kings fight-hand man be doing all the way out here?"

It was the question they were all afraid to ask. If Bulma's assumption was correct, then what were the odds of the king an his closest subjects doing out here on the edge of known space?

"And if Frieza is with the king," Yamcha continued, "the what's the likely hood that Gero is with him also?" Complete silence.

"Is there any extremely low power readings onboard?" Briefs asked.

"I didn't see any… oh, wait, there it is. One human range reading." More silence

"10000 parsecs and closing." Pause.

"Have they sent and sub-light communications since coming into range of our sensors?"

"No, sir."

"Isn't this fate? Here's your chance to bring that traitor to his knees…" Yamcha tempted.

"The last thing I want is the three most powerful monsters in the universe pissed off and on Yardrat. We wouldn't stand a chance."

"That's not true. You know Bulma's completed her little secret weapon, with that you could bring the empire crashing down. You could save the universe. The opportunity had been handed to you…. take it while you have the chance."

"5000 parsecs."

"Sir, don't let this slip through your fingers…"

"Shut up, Yamcha." Bulma hissed. "We're not ready. People would die, and I'm not sure…"

"Who would die, them or us?"

"3000 parsecs."

"I'm not sure we could deal with them anyway. My invention hasn't been tested yet. I don't know what side effects it could have. They might be permanently damaged, or worse, killed."

"Good, better for us and the rest of the universe!" Yamcha argued.

"No!" Dr. Briefs interrupted. "Enough! I will not risk becoming them, even to stop them.

"1000 parsecs. They will soon be passing by," came a Yardrat's mechanical reply.

"Put it on screen," the doctor ordered softly. A satellite image of the ship appeared on the front wall. Bulma glanced sideways at her father. She knew he wanted to do just as Yamcha said. Take them down, make them pay, but he was too good a man, to kind a person to be able to.

On the other side of her father she could see Yamcha seething. Bitter and vengeful he had more reason to hate Gero more then any of them. He had seen, first hand, the changes Gero's power hungry appetite had made on Chikyuu. He'd dissolved the council, taken total control and handed it over to the Saiyan's rule in return for complete control. Over the years they had heard news through travelers at I-trade. Gero had been climbing the ladder with his technical achievements by making weapons beyond any man's imagining. He'd turned Chikyuu into a wasteland, mining his recourses and exploiting the general populous until the human race was not much more then slaves, miners, and drifters. And Vegeta and Frieza were worse.

Her father would be completely just in ridding the galaxy of the tyrants, but no. Bulma knew they would pass safely by and go on their merry path-of-death-and-destruction way.

On the screen a small explosion rocked the aft side of the spaceship.

"What the hell?" Her father exclaimed. "Geedge-yar, what happened?" he leaned frantically over the railing, but kept his eyes fixed on the screen watching the speeding ship start to tilt from the explosion and move towards the planet's atmosphere.

"There appears to have been an explosion, caused possibly from impact with a foreign object, or maybe it was something internal…" Geedge-yar's voice faded off as everyone watched in horror a the ship began sinking towards Yardrat.

***

His world was red and glowing, and there was noise, painful shouting and roaring. Prince Vegeta's newly wakened senses flinched under the blaring environment. His head was pounding and swimming as he tried focusing his eyes.

'Where am I?" he wondered, taking in the class in front of him and the metal room with out. 'Spaceship…home from diplomatic voyage… Mayoshins…' Things were slowly clearing up. 'Something is wrong… the alarms… why did I wake up…?'

Suddenly his whole world was shuddering and roaring and he felt his brain rattle inside his head. 'An explosion… We're under attack? Who would dare attack a Saiyan royal transport ship? They must be insane…' and then everything went dark and silent.

After a second, a few emergency lights came on, but that was it. Gravity kicked in slowly and the price sank to the floor of his stasis pod. He still felt incredibly weak, the dead of hyper sleep having not worn off yet, but he managed to put a hand on the glass in front of him. Pushing was no use, his arms were still numb.

'I have to get out, have to push free.' He tried, but he couldn't get his limbs to respond, the pain in his head was still throbbing.

A face appeared on the other side of the casing. White skin, blood red lips and eyes… "Frieza…" the Prince whispered. "What's happening?" He said weakly, struggling to straighten his neck and hold his head high.

"What?" Frieza held a hand to the side of his head. There was a mocking smile on his lips that froze Vegeta's blood.

"There's just been a change in flight plan. Instead of Vegetasei, you'll be getting an all expense paid trip to the next dimension." The white Icein held up a hand and prepared to blast him in his weakened state.

Vegeta had never liked his father's advisor and right hand man, and now he knew why. "Coward…" Vegeta whispered, rolling his head to the side and trying to get feeling to his right side. 'If only I can reach the eject pad…'

Frieza only grinned and collected his energy. Vegeta closed his eyes and prayed for a chance for revenge in the next life…

"Frieza! Something's wrong! I can't get anything but life support online…" In the split second that Frieza's head was turned, Vegeta's eyes flew open and he made one last attempt to escape. Flopping his numb hand against the front panel of stasis pod he managed to spend the last of his energy and hit the escape launch button by his right hand.

Frieza was too late to realize the metal walls closing around the Prince's case and by the time he released his small blast, the circular pod was already streaming towards planet fall. His ki blast nearly rocked it slightly off course, and his curses could be heard throughout the dead floating ship.

***

Bulma's eyes were wide with fear as she watched the second explosion shake the small spacecraft. It was falling straight towards the planet. A few seconds later they saw the ship go dark and shudder as it hit the planet's protective field.

"Dammit, Geedge-yar, What's going on up there?"

"I believe there was a second impact, sir, and now the ship is caught in out electroma…"

"I can see that, but why?" Dr. Briefs sounded frantic.

The small blue alien turned respectfully in his seat and looked at them with sad eyes. "I don't know, sir, but it looks like we're going to have some visitors." The frantic air seemed to want to scream, but there was only the sound of electric machinery buzz, and agitated breathing.

Bulma's heart seemed to stop in her chest. 'But we're not ready! Just one more day, one day of warning, but not now… ' she thought, her mind was a whirl with all the implications, all the plans that needed to be made in an instant or they were all doomed. 'Run and hide, little friends!' she wanted to yell, but instead her attention was pulled back to the screen.

"Dad, there's a pod!" She pointed and watched as the sphere released from the ship, was rocked by a flash of light and then fell from view towards the atmosphere. Things seemed to move in slow motion. Everyone was silent, but frightened and things were rapidly falling to shit.

"I hope your ready, 'cause here they come…" Yamcha said with half a smirk. It seemed he would be getting his way after all.

The room sprang into action as Dr. Briefs started shouting orders. "Yama-yar, get that pod in a tractor beam. Try and put it down outside of Mandrain-drat, as soft as possible. Geedge-yar, watch the ship. Anymore pods disperse I want them all set down together. They'll be too far out of range by now, but maybe you can contact Yakar-drat and get them to put them down in the Splangy desert or somewhere nearby that's unpopulated. Bulma, get your new invention, Dragy-yar, go with her, bring back the specs to me, I want to get them in production as soon as possible. After you send the specs with Dragy-yar, Bulma I want you out to that pods crash sight ASAP. Bring whoever it is back alive, and don't get yourself killed."

"Yes, father," she replied, jumping forward, Dragy-yar behind her. She raced to her private lab, her mind still anxious, but definitely more at peace. Her father knew what he was doing. He would save them all.

***

"Gero, what's going on?!" the Saiyan King demanded as he stepped into the stasis room.

"I'm not sure, My liege, we seemed to have hit something. All power is down, except life support. We have to escape ."

The king watched Gero as he moved swiftly for an old human, launching the rest of their company, Nappa, Raditz, Bardock and Frieza, who was now siting quietly in his pod waiting for launch.

Climbing back into his own empty pod, Gero waved frantically to King Vegeta. "Sire, now."

"Where's my son?" the king asked suspiciously, noticing that the princes pod had not been there when he'd entered.

"Your son Vegeta has already launched, and we must go, too." Gero assured the tall man. When the king hesitated he added, "The planed is habitable, your highness. He will be fine."

"Of course he will. He's the prince of the strongest race alive…" the king began anther racial pride rant as he climbed into his own pod. "He is one of the strongest ever, a legendary, a little thing like this is nothing to him!" he was still talking as the class slid down. Hitting the emergency launch pad with his fist he watched the metal doors close around his forming pod as he yelled, "LONG LIVE VEGETA!" and launched into the atmosphere, Gero right behind him.

"The kings son, Ferdinand, with hair upstarting- then like reeds, not hair- was the first man that leaped; cried ‘Hell is empty, and the devils are here’." – Arial (1.2

"Sir, four, no, six more pods have launched from the ship. I've sent word to the command base in Yakar-drat and they said they have the pods in sight. They'll set them down safely."

Dr. Briefs sighed, "Good. Where is the other pod now?"

"About to set down about four nanosecs North east of the village."

"Right, radio Bulma's lab, send her the coordinates so that she can get out there as soon as possible. Yamcha, hold the fort here, I have some things I need to do. Tell me immediately if there are any new developments, and get some trackers on those survivors I want to know where they are and what their doing ever second."

"Yes, sir."

And with that the doctor rushed from the room.

***

Bulma rushed into the room. It was small and cluttered, but she went right to the blueprints on her desk and handed them quickly to the panting Dragy-yar who was stumbling into the room behind her. His small legs had had trouble keeping up with her tall human ones.

"Quickly, Dragy-yar, take them to the command room," she said as she turned back to her desk and began rummaging through the bits and pieces there until she found the object she was looking for, or kit of objects, as the case was, then she sprinted back out the door and down the hallway to the launch bay. She only hoped she wasn't too late…

On the small hover cycle she sped out of the compound and over the dusty streets of the Yardrat village. All around her were randomly scattered mud houses made of the green dirt that covered the entire surface of the planet.

On the bike's display she had the coordinates sent by Geedge-yar, but she hardly needed them. There was massive amounts of smoke coming from the north east, which she could easily follow. She rode over several small hills until she got close enough to where she was going to smell the smoke and ditched it on the rise of the last hill.

'I need the element of surprise," she thought, leaving the noisy bike and crawling the last few feet up the hill on her stomach, her newest weapon held in front of her like a shield.

As she peeked over the crest and spotted the crash sight, she couldn't help but gasp. She could see the pod sitting in the middle of a crater, at least twenty feet in diameter. 'I guess Geedge-yar missed the whole "gently" part of dad's instructions…' She surveyed the surroundings and then pulled a pair of binoculars out of the field pack she gotten off the hover craft.

She could see the numbers on the side of the pod, it was from the ship "Vegeta III". 'How unoriginal,' she thought as she scanned over. Broken bits of shrapnel, singed metal, and the door. It was open.

'What the…' she didn't even have time to finish that thought before a pair of rough hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her to her feet screaming.

***

Dr. Briefs entered his own lab, that was larger then Bulma's and much less cluttered and walked to the back of the room with an ominous look on his face. He stopped in front of a black filling cabinet, covered in dust and shadows in the far corner and raised his hands hesitantly.

He knew what he was about to do was against the agreement he had with the Yardratin council, but in his mind, it was the only way to stop them all from being slaughtered. "They will understand," he said firmly and his voice echoed in the large metal room. His hand pulled open the top drawer, reached inside, and removed two red-labeled capsules. Just before he had the chance to press the button on the first one a voice came over the com on his desk.

"Dr Briefs?"

The doctor jumped and nearly dropped both the capsules. He walked to his desk calmly, trying to sooth his rapidly beating pulse and pressed the "open line" button. "Yes?"

"Thought you'd like to know sir, all the pods have touched down now."

"Good. Where did the last few end up?" he asked grabbing a pen and piece of scrap paper.

" Splangy desert, sir, just like you requested. They're just south of the Keebly Mountain range."

"Give me those exact coordinantes," he said, touching the ink to the paper.

"65 degreed North, by 32.76 degrees west."

"Alright," the professor said, writing them down, "Thanks, Geedge-yar."

"You're welcome, sir." The doc was about to go when the Yardrat asked, "What should we do about the ship, sir?"

"Huh?" Briefs asked, confused.

"Well, it's crashing, sir."

"Oh, right. Radio Manklar-drat. Have them land it close to them. Tell them to treat any of the injured, but keep them in stasis if they can till I give word. Oh, and have a repair team investigate the ship and fix it if they can, just in case."

"Done."

"Is Dragy-yar back with Bulma's plans yet?"

"Just now, sir."

"Good. Yamcha, run them down to Meek-yar immediately and tell him to start construction ASAP. If he has any questions, Bulma should be back soon and I'll send her down, so have him hold them. Tell him to do just what he can."

There was silence on the other end.

"We just got word that the Yardratin Council wishes an audience with you.." This time the voice was Yamcha's. He sounded pissed, as usual.

"Tell them they'll have to wait, I'm a bit busy right now. Over and out." He released the com and moved back the middle of his lab, holding the two capsules in his hands he pressed the first one and tossed it a few feet away.

A metal casket with glass case appeared out of the smoke, looking much like a Saiyan stasis tube, only the occupant of this one was most decidedly not Saiyan. It contained a beautiful blonde woman. She appeared to be sleeping. Dr. Briefs hesitated, wondering if one would be enough, but then he decided that safe was better then sorry and popped open the other capsule.

It was the same kind of case, only the occupant was a young man with dark hair and perfect skin. Slowly the professor entered the code on the side of the first box and watched the front hiss and slide open and the girl open her cold blue eyes.

She sat up stiffly and looked around slowly. "Where am I?"

"My lab, planet Yardrat. Do you know who you are?"

"Yes." she replied coldly and stepped out of her container. "I am android 18 created in the year 3638 by Dr. Gero on the planet Chikyuu. What year is it now?"

"3653. Do you know who I am?"

"You are Dr. Trunks Briefs, owner and founder of Capsule Corporation and officially, my owner." she looked him up and down with her piercing, ice blue eyes for a second and then looked beside her to the other case. "Are you going to wake my brother?" she asked, curious.

The question took the doctor by surprise, as he had never expected the androids to refer to each other as family. These creations of Gero's were the last thing that he made before betraying his boss to the Saiyans. Dr. Briefs had decided that if Gero was going to steal his life's work, then he would take his. An eye for and eye and all that. He'd grabbed their capsules from Gero's lab just before joining his wife and daughter in the escape pod.

"Yes," he finally replied and moved to do just that.

***

"Stop that infernal racket!" her captor ordered in a deep, course, male voice, moving one hand to cover her mouth, while holding her firmly against him by the waist with the other. Bulma thrashed and tried to bite at him, but evidently he'd expected that. She couldn't sink her teeth in, at any rate, and so continued to try and scream, though her voice was muted. It wasn't that she expected anyone to hear her. Mostly, she just wanted to piss him off, stupid and counteractive as that seemed, she couldn't help herself. She didn't like being sneaked up on, and she hated being restrained.

The man shook her gently and ordered her to stop again. When she didn't he turned her around in his arms and looked her square in the eye. "Stop that now, or I'll…" his voice drifted off as their eyes connected. She froze, her voice caught in her throat.

'Dark eyes… and handsome,' she thought. He was the only man she'd ever seen, besides Yamcha and her father, but if they were all like this…

'Blue eyes… and gorgeous,' Vegeta was thinking on the other end of that stare. 'She looks human, but like no human I've ever seen…'

Bulma was the first to come back to her senses, surprisingly enough. "Or you'll what?" she asked impertinently.

He seemed shocked, but gathered his thoughts fast enough, scowling at her and shaking her a little more. "Or I'll kill you, that's what."

"Oh," Bulma said, looking down. "You didn't have to sneak up on me like that. You scared the shit out of me."

"Well, just because you're loud enough to hear miles away, doesn't mean the rest of us have to be. You weren't paying attention. It's not my fault you had your guard down, so stop whining and tell me where I am." the arrogant prince demanded.

"No," she said at once, defiant with her chin held high and her eyes not turning from his again.

"No?" Vegeta asked, stunned. He wasn't used to not getting what he wanted, right when he wanted it. "Tell me or I'll…"

"Yeah, you'll kill me, I know, but I'm not accustomed to giving out information to strange men that are holding me very improperly, against my will."

"So, you'd give out information to strange men that were holding your improperly if it was your will?" he smirked.

Bulma's mouth dropped open. 'The very idea of this creep! What an intriguing thought…' she frowned, fighting the desire to blush and swoon. She hadn't been raised a fainting twit, she wasn't going to start acting like one now. "That's not what I meant, now put me down," she said.

"No," the prince responded mocking her tone.

"Ooooh," she huffed and tried kneeing and kicking at him, but he was holding her to close.

"We seem to have a stalemate, little woman. You won't tell me where I am, and I won't let you go. So now I’m faced with the question of whether or not to just kill you and find someone else to torture my location out of, or just wait until you submit to my obviously superior will and tell me." He was smirking despite himself. "And then I'll kill you."

"Well, you'd better just kill me then, cause I'm not going to submit, especially if your going to kill me anyway. Do I look stupid?'

'Not really,' Vegeta thought. "Yes," he said.

"Humph," she said and continued struggling. After a second she remembered she was still holding the binoculars, and her new weapon. Using one hand was difficult, but she managed to pull out a gun looking device from her kit and get one of the small circular disks into place. Then she pressed the gun against his side and pulled the trigger. The disk sank into this skin and quickly dissolved into his blood stream.

"Ouch," he growled, not loosening his grip for a second. "What was that? Some kind of weapon?"

"Kind of, only no weapon you've ever seen. You should be getting weaker in a few minutes."

"Ha!" Vegeta laughed cruelly in her face. "As if some primitive device could slow down the Prince of all the Saiyans, mightiest race in the universe." Truth be told, he was already weak with the lingering effects of the stasis and then there was the crash…

'So, he's the prince…' she logged that information away. "Not primitive," she said with a confident smile, "brand new technology, my own design, thank you very much. You've never seen anything like this before, but trust me, you're going to be feeling it real soon…"

They waited, at a stand still, his arms wrapped around her body and her arms pinned almost completely to her side.

***

"Dr. Gero created you to be slaves, slaves that would destroy anything they were instructed to. When he betrayed me, I took you with me because I knew the kind of damage he would do if he could use you unrestricted."

"And because you wanted revenge, right, Dr.?" the dark hared, boy android responded.

Dr. Briefs was becoming increasingly disgruntled by these androids by the minute, they treated each other like family, could grasp concepts like revenge and betrayal, and were itching for their freedom. From the moment they had stood in silent greeting to each other they'd both been asking questions like, "Where were they?, and, "What kind of defenses did they have?" Everything seemed to be leading up to, "And how difficult would it be if we just decided to blow you and your family off the face of the planet and escape?"

The doctor was glad he'd installed a failsafe obedience system as a break between major projects a few years back. The system that Gero had initially would have gotten them all killed.

"Irrelevant. We're running out of time. As you have probably noticed, I installed a new voice recognition/obedience/restraining device in your central neuron system. This means you can't hurt or kill anyone unless instructed by me or a member of my family, and you are obligate to fulfill every command under penalty of neural meltdown. I installed them as a precautionary device, and hope that they will only have to be in place for a short duration."

The androids, who had previously been staring blankly at him with their cold lifeless eyes, seemed a bit surprised by this.

"I'm willing to make you a deal." he offered shortly.

"What kind of deal, Dr.?" The android numbered 17 asked, curiosity in his artificial voice.

"I never believed in Gero's artificial life programs. You're too close to the real thing for my likes, and the slavery issue bothers me. I would like nothing else but to give you your freedom and let you go. I can't however, at this point in time."

"They why did you wake us up? Just to give us discourses on AI slavery ethics and a couple history lessons?" Her words were bitter, but her tone remained curious.

"We have an emergency and I need your help." The professor said taking a deep breath and swallowing the lump in his throat.

***

Bulma hadn't quite realized the implications of their positioning until the uncomfortable silence magnified the awkwardness of the entire situation by a hundred times. She found herself looking at the corded neck of the dreaded Saiyan prince, while waiting for her ki-paralyzing serum to kick in. It was weird, but tons better then looking into his impossibly deep eyes.

As she was avoiding contact, and searching the unthreatening part of his body as if looking for the answers to the cosmos, she noticed the cuts and bruises that were scattered over all of his exposed skin. She could feel little spots of blood starting to seep into her clothes where ever they were touching.

"Your hurt," she whispered and looked up at him suddenly. She hadn't realized what bad shape he was in till now, but it only made sense. With what he'd been through, an exploding space ship, chaotic planet falls complete with not-so-soft landing on hard, green, Yardratin soil, he was lucky to be alive. If her recollection of his pods condition was accurate, he should probably be dead.

"Humph," he grunted and looked away. Vegeta was too busy struggling to stay on his feet to argue with the woman in his arms. What ever she'd done to him was starting to have an effect. He could feel his power draining out of him slowly, leaving him with only his drastically decreased physical strength. Not that he'd let her know. He'd stand there till his head fell off and his body rotted away before showing weakness to such a weak creature…

"Your power should all be gone by now, so why don't you just release me and let me help you?" she said half impatient, half pleading.

"No, I don't need your help." It was all he could do to stop his voice from cracking. 'Damn witch! What did she do to me?' he wondered as his eyes began drifting shut. They snapped open again as she began to struggle. He hung on with all the pride and stubbornness left in him, which was quite a bit.

"Just, give. It. Up." she said through clenched teeth. He still had a pretty strong grip.

"Shut up, woman, and hold still," he growled. "You did this too me. How am I to know you didn't sabotage my ship and bring me here for your own foul purposes. You obviously have the technology…" he admitted grudgingly, although he couldn't remember the existence of any advanced worlds that weren't already conquered in this half of the universe. Not that he really had any idea which half of the universe they were on, but they could not have been that far off course…

"I didn't sabotage anything. Do I look suicidal? We really wanted you to pass by with out any kind of interaction, but, unfortunately, we were left with no choice. The ki-paralyzing serum is for my own protection, and it's temporary. I just want to you get healed and get the hell off my planet, preferably leaving it still intact. " Bulma said solidly.

Vegeta was starting to lose focus. His vision was swimming, leaving the face before him a pair of bright blue eyes, hopeful and determined in the midst of a peach and blue haze.

"You can trust me… I promise not to let anyone hurt you…" he heard as his eyes betrayed him and slid closed against his will. His last thought was an impression of calm relief.

***

Dr. Briefs sat in anticipatory panic as he waited for the android's answer. Technically, they really couldn't say no to him, and he'd have their assistance either way, but it would just make him feel so much better about things if they were helping "willingly".

"And if we comply with these commands, then, when your emergency is over, we are free?" 18 asked.

"Yes," Briefs replied.

"To go anywhere we want, under your little conditions?" 17 specified. He didn't want to miss out on getting the most from this deal because he wasn't sure what the fine print said.

"Under the conditions I have stated previously, yes. I'll give you a space ship, if you require one, and you will be free to leave. I'll also offer my home as a place of refuge, somewhere where you can get supplies or repairs, or information, anything you need."

The two artificial beings nodded to each other and then looked at Dr. Briefs. "You have a deal," they said together.

"I'm so glad," the professor smiled. "Now, first things first, I’m going to give you these communicators so that I can get a hold of you at any time, let you know what's going on and give you then next task on the list. If all goes well, you should be out of here in a few weeks."

The androids watched with cool appreciation as the doctor rummaged around the room looking very much like an absent-minded professor. He found the sheet of paper he'd written the Saiyans coordinants on and handed it to 17. Then he went to a drawer to find three communicators.

"Your first task is to go here, and find the landed pods and their occupants. Once you find them, keep them busy. Distract them. Beat them up if you have to, but don't kill them or injure them seriously. Gero will probably be with them, so watch out that he doesn't get his hands on you. Just keep them out of the villages and inhabited areas. I don't want the death of any Yardrat's on my hands. Is that all understood?"

"Clearly," 17 replied, looking down at the sheet of paper.

"Oh, and feel free to have a little fun with them, I don't want this to be all work and no play. Have a good time. They should be nothing compared to your strength and intelligence, and Saiyans do so hate to lose at anything and they have pride like… well, they have a lot of it."

"Anything you say, Dr." Android 18 replied with a small smirk. After getting them all equipped the one-time owner of the biggest grossing company if half the Milky Way, turned to go, but stopped to one last thing, almost as an after thought.

"If there is a Saiyan there called Bardock, then that Saiyan is not to be harmed, but instead treated with as much respect as is appropriate. I own him my life and the life of my family."

"Understood." 17 replied. It seemed they could also grasp the concepts of gratitude and respect.

***

Bulma could tell she was going to have a heck of a time getting the Saiyan prince from around her body and onto her motor bike. He was like lead weight on her stomach as she laid there underneath his collapsed form struggling to get free. It took her almost ten minutes to wiggle out of that prison of warm arms and chest and crawl out into the cooling air of the day. She ran to her bike, drove it over to where he was lying on his stomach, his face in the dirt and breathing with difficulty, and rolled him over on his back.

Using the bike's small first aid kit she decided to patch up some of the worst of his wounds before trying to move him. Dad wouldn't be pleased if he bled to death before she got him home. She scanned over his prone form and decided to just start at the top and work her way down. He had so many cuts and abrasions, she didn't know where to start otherwise.

She used an antiseptic cloth to clean the cut on his forehead and the abrasion on his chin. All the while she studied his features. Heavy brow, still creased in a stubborn frown, high cheek bones, sharp features and straight, proud nose and chin. And then there was his hair, straight, tall, course looking, but actually soft to the touch… Everything about him shouted royalty and power, even in his weakened, injured state. She partly wished he would open his eyes and let her see into them again, but then she wouldn't be free to gaze at him so freely.

Now that the threat was gone she found her self being able to admire the prince's qualities. She finished with his face and moved to his neck and shoulders. His clothing was ripped and torn to be more of a nuisance then functional, so she used the kits scissors to cut his shirt from his bleeding body. He'd been wearing some kind of clingy stasis suit that luckily had two pieces instead of one. She was enjoying the view of his exposed chest, smooth and defined… but she wasn't sure she was ready to see anymore then that. Mom had explained the difference between boys and girls at a young age, and as far as she knew Saiyans and humans were almost identical as far as outward anatomy was concerned. She could quote name and function for every body part on both Human and Saiyan, but she didn't really want to SEE it.

She tried to clean the wounds on his back, as well, but this proved very difficult. She rolled him on his side and tried to reach him that way, but he kept rolling into her lap. The difficult part was she found herself wanting to leave him there.

She allowed herself to sit for just a minute, her arm behind his neck and her hand on his chest, and just look him over, despite the fact he was covered in blood

"Amazing…" she whispered. "He is so beautiful." She ran her hand over the defined ridges of his shoulders, down over his pectoral muscles, brushing her finger tips lightly over the rough skin of his nipples and then down over his stomach.

"Two, four, six… eight…" she marveled that, despite his short frame, he could fit in an eight pack. He had a perfect, belly button, a shallow inny, and his whole body flexed when she ran a finger over it. 'So,' she thought with much amusement, 'the Saiyan prince is ticklish.' She wanted to laugh out loud, but knew it would spoil the quite mood. She sighed and rolled him over again to continue her first aid.

She cleaned the wounds on his sculpted back, and pondered the meaning of several crisscrossing scars that ran over the length on his shoulder blades. As she moved lower she felt her anticipation grow as she grew closer and closer to his tail that was curled around his waist. There was a small cut near the base of his fuzzy length that she wasn't sure she should bother. She knew how sensitive their tails were…

Curiosity, combined with some mischievously risky part of her, made her continue lower. Hesitant fingers brushed against the base of his tale, not-so-accidentally, in her attempts to clean the small cut, and she froze as she realized his whole body had tensed as if preparing for great pain. She couldn't move her hand, the back of it pressed lightly to his tail. 'If they are this sensitive then maybe I shouldn't be touching it…' the thought left quickly as he seemed to relax when no pain came.

She continued cleaning his cut, being much more thorough then was probably necessary, it wasn't even bleeding very badly. She found herself extremely amused at the muscle in his back that would twitch every time she brushed her fingers against his tail.

After all the blood was gone, and she realized that it wasn't even bleeding anymore, she abandoned all pretenses and decided to try a little experiment. Slowly she wrapped her nimble fingers around his tail and began petting it softly. When he seemed used to that she used a little more pressure until she realized that there was a faint vibration coming from his chest. She listened carefully. 'He's purring!' she wanted to giggle and laugh until she couldn’t breath anymore, but she also wanted to make sure he didn't stop. It was such a pleasant sensation, the vibration passing from where her right leg was pressed against his back that was moving up her stomach and touching her heart with a warm buzz.

It was almost like a drug, that purring, and she wanted more. She carefully unwrapped his tail from his waist and was surprised when it moved easily into her hands, almost of it's own free will. She stroked and caressed it, and let it's soft fur run through her fingers. The purring was getting decidedly louder, and penetrating her even more deeply.

She leaned back, closed her eyes and let herself become overrun by the softness of the curious appendage and the purring, and the warmth and… something else. A small smile fixed itself on her face and she continued, not caring about anything. Not caring that her father was waiting for her at home, and not worried that there were probably several deadly members of the Saiyan race wreaking havoc somewhere on her beloved planet. And she wasn't concerned in the least for her new weapon, that was now sitting forgotten in the green Yardratin dirt. Her mind was blank, only letting waves of emotion pulse through her.

She was just getting a hold of herself, thinking that her first encounter with a non-family or mutant man was turning out to be rather a success when the purring stopped abruptly.

***

Amidst the rubble of the scarred earth and battered pods, things had been quiet for almost a minute when the first struggling body appeared. Gero lifted the pod's door with a bloodied knuckle and crawled onto the side of the crater with heaving breaths. "I'm too old for this," he said as he collapsed against a large bolder and lay in the shade it afforded. He let his breathing slow and the pain in his body numb to a hazy ache while his eyes wondered over the crash sight before him. Four pods were cradled in the planet's strange green earth, crater upon crater. By his calculations there should have been six pods. The princes pod was absent, as expected, but the other two should have been near by…

One of the other pods shook and then rolled over, the door blasted off it's hinges. The king crawled out of his pod, anger on his face, and his eyes searching for answers.

"Your majesty, thank the kai's you're all right."

"Of course I’m all right, Gero, don’t be a simpleton. Where's my son?" King Vegeta demanded with solid royalty.

Gero just glanced at the other pods and shrugged non-committedly. The king started towards the two, still occupied pods and began rummaging through the wreckage. Punching his hand through the side of the first one he ripped a hole in the theoretically indestructible pod to reveal an unconscious Frieza. As he was tossing the limp Icein to Gero's feet, the other pod was cracking open to reveal a slightly flustered Bardock.

The whole scene was like some kind of bizarre hatching of prehistoric dinosaurs, only these dinosaurs were primates, not reptiles. Well, except for Frieza, and no one was really sure what he was.

"Is he dead?" The king asked, nodding to his white right-hand man after he'd surveyed the landscape and decided there were no more pods in the vicinity that he could punch holes and drag half dead bodies from.

Gero stumbled over and checked Frieza for life signs. They were relatively strong. "No," he managed to creak out through chapped lips.

"Where are the other pods?" Bardock asked, speaking for the first time. He was sitting atop his own pod.

"I was just wondering the same thing…" Gero said trying to pear over the crest of the large pitted crater. "Surely they would be close by."

"Nappa, Radditz, and…" Bardock paused, "and the Prince."

"They aren't close by," the king said, that much is obvious. Bardock, put on your scouter and see if you can get any readings."

Following his master's bidding as quickly as possible he retrieved his ki scouter and levitated into the air. Taking a panoramic reading, rotating slowly in a circle he called down to the others. "There are may low-level readings, barely registering, so the planet must be inhabited." He paused. "Two high level readings about sixty clicks to the north. Looks like Radditz and Nappa." He finished his circle and sank unenthusiastically back to the ground. "Nothing else." He swallowed and looked at his king with the dreaded explanation in his eyes. "There's no sign of your son."

"He's probably unconscious, or trying to keep his power level low so as not to attract any unwanted attention. You said he launched earlier, Gero? Which way would he be?"

"If my calculations are correct…" Gero started, staring at the sky in contemplative searching.

"And they always are…" Bardock whispered a little bitterly under his breath. Gero already new, and he knew they knew he already knew, but he always put on a show anyway.

"Then he should be several hundred clicks in that direction," Gero said pointing to the east.

"Well, then, wake up Frieza so we can get looking for my heir." King Vegeta said, rising out of the crater and drifting towards the direction Gero had been pointing. The other two pods forgotten, they began their search.

***

Radditz and Nappa, first class Saiyan warriors and elite royal guards of Prince Vegeta, found themselves in a much different situation then the other five survivors of the Vegeta III. Currently they were standing in the door way of a now demolished hanger bay, watching the smoke clear and double checking to make sure there weren't anymore little blue aliens running around. They all seemed accounted for in the charred smelly pile of fried Yardratin.

Neither of them were smart enough to recognize them as Yardratin on their own, but had been told by the blue weaklings that had introduced themselves with smiles and hands outstretched before the blasting had begun. Sadly, both of the tall Saiyans were the "kill first, ask questions later" type, and it had proved fatal to the naïve, trusting, and altogether too friendly Yardrats.

After dusting off their hands they gathered anything they could find worth salvaging from their pods and began searching the compound. They were indeed curious as to how they had ended up on this third-rate planet of idiots, but didn't think to ask any one, but instead just killed anything that dared cross their path.

***

Dr. Briefs stumbled back into the main control room, nearly out of breath, and gasping questions on their status. "Where… are the… Saiyans… now? Is… Bulma back, yet? What's the word on the… spaceship?" He slumped into his chair and waited for answers.

"Well, sir, as I said, they were all brought down in the Splangy Desert, but after I took a close up reading by satellite I found out that only four of them reached the desired destination. It seems that the Slether-drat settlement on the North West boarder grabbed two of the pods with their tractor beam and laded then in their docking bay."

"What!?" Dr. Briefs gasped sitting up in his chair and staring at Geedge-yar like he's announced they'd decided to announce Fridays as Hawaiian shirt day. "What's the word?" he asked, trying to calm down.

"We lost contact with them about two minutes ago." Geedge-yar said, looking down.

"Why wasn't I contacted immediately?" he demanded answers, looking first at Geedge-yar and then turning to Yamcha, who was crouching against the side wall.

"It just happened so fast…" Yamcha tried to cover, "and I knew you'd be back here soon, I didn't want to worry you." Yamcha was close to whimpering now.

The professor merely ground his teeth together and tried to get a hold of himself. 'We just lost hundreds of innocent Yardrats and he's whining. He makes me sick…' was the first thought that popped into head, but then he took a deep breath and calmed his nerves. From the moment the Saiyan ship had started coming down, he knew that casualties were inevitable, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"What about Bulma?" he asked hoping for a more favorable answer then he'd gotten from his first question. From the look on Yamcha and the Yardrats faces he knew he wasn't going to get one.

"Still no word. She's just sitting out there with who ever came out of that pod." Geedge-yar said, when Yamcha only glared at the floor pitifully. He brought up the satellite picture on the big screen. It showed two red dots, side-by-side, on the edge of a large depression with many heat spots, much like a wreaked pod would look.

There was silence in the room once more.

"Should we send a rescue crew?"

Pause. The doctor knew that sending more people could put his daughter et even more risk then she already was, and if she wasn't in danger, she'd be upset that he hadn't trusted her. But he didn't want to just leave her there to fend for her self. Competent young woman that she was, she was still his daughter.

"Not yet, wait a little longer." It took everything in him left to say it. For all he knew he was condemning his only family remaining to a painful and horrible death, but it was all he could do. Besides pray.

Trunks Briefs, scientist and ex-entrepreneur, slouched in his chair and sighed, "I'm getting too old for this," under his breath.

***

"What the hell do you think your doing?" Vegeta growled after grabbing the woman's hands and holding them away from his tail. He'd woken slowly, feeling the familiar sensation of someone petting his tail, and wondered why his father hadn't woken him when they'd landed. At first he supposed he was on Vegetasei being treated to a welcome home gift, per his father's harem, and wasn't about to object at all. For some reason he was exhausted and ached all over. A little physical pleasure would be just what he needed.

He'd opened his eyes, and glanced over his shoulder at the woman giving him such a thorough tail job, and caught his breath. She was beautiful, gorgeous even. Long blue tresses, full pouting lips, pressed together in concentration, and her body arched to show off it's dimensions nicely. She was leaning back, her eyes closed, his most sensitive appendage in her hands, wrapped casually around her forearm and twitching like a feline that had just been fed. And her skin… was glowing, with a green tint.

In a matter of half a second, he realized that her skin wasn't glowing, it was dusted lightly in green dirt, green dirt that covered the planet he'd crashed on.

When he'd realized this and come to attention he'd stopped purring, and she'd opened her eyes and looked down at him with a visible traces of fear and surprise on her face.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked again.

Bulma was so surprised that he was awake she was having a hard time thinking, and the crushing grip he had on her wrists wasn’t helping either. "I…" she glanced at their tell tale positioning and noticed the blood on her hands and swallowed heavily. 'What was I doing?' she wracked her mind, trying to remember, but everything was blurry. "Well, I was…" she looked at his back, twisting away from her and noticed the cleaned cuts. "I was cleaning your wounds, and I'm done now, so I needed to wake you so you could get on the bike, cause there's no way I’m ever going to be able to carry you and you wouldn't wake up and so I thought maybe… and I suppose I got… a little… carried away…" She rambled on trying to cover, and hoping he couldn't read the blush on her cheeks as anything more then embarrassment.

When she shut her mouth, finally, he glared into her eyes, trying to read and see if she was lying. She raised her chin and dared him to call her a liar. He just stared into her face, studying her, memorizing her features, and she could feel the heat rising up her neck and onto her cheeks.

Then, with out warning, or ceremony, he nodded, seemingly convinced, and promptly passed out again.

Bulma heaved a sigh of relief, glad she didn't have to face his insanely intense eyes for another second and let her hands rest on his side. His ringers were still wrapped around her wrist, but they weren't quite as tight as before, so she managed to pull her hands free after only two attempts.

She was free, but that had not solved her problem. He was still lying against her, unconscious and as heavy as a small bolder.

"Now what?" she wondered aloud and slapped herself mentally on the wrist when the first idea that popped into her head was, 'his tail is free, now, he's asleep again…'

"This is going to be a long day…" she said and rolled Vegeta on his stomach.

***

"Yamcha, I want you out on reconnaissance. Follow those two that got out of hand. Warn all those in their path to evacuate. I don't want you to do anything, other then get people out of their way. Hopefully, they'll join up with the others as soon as possible."

"But…" Yamcha started to object.

"But nothing. I don't want you getting under foot here at the base, and I need someone out there. Just keep in close contact with the base and don't take any steps to stop them yourself." Dr. Briefs said and stood from his chair. "I've got some things to do. If you need me, I'll probably be at the council later, so…" his voice faded off and he exited.

He was fighting the impulse to wish Yamcha would screw up somehow and get himself killed, because that wouldn't be very human of him, although it would fix some of his long -term problems. Knowing his luck, today, however, it would never happen. Yamcha would be safe and not get killed by rampaging Saiyan warriors. He tried to smile as he made his way out of the compound and towards the gardens.

***

"Split up. Stay with in sight of each other, but if we spread out we'll be able to cover more area. I want my son found, as first priority, and then we'll figure out a way to get off this rock," King Vegeta said as they took off, heading East.

Bardock flew to the north and the king dodged to the south, leaving Frieza, who was carrying Gero, in the middle. When the others were out of even Saiyan hearing range, Frieza turned a purple glare on the old man hanging from his fist.

"What the hell went wrong, Gero?!" he spat maliciously.

"I'm not really sure. Everything was going according to plan until the stupid power went out," he replied. Gero was doing his best to sound official and calm, although that was exceptionally difficult, considering he was being flown fifty feet off the ground, by an exceptionally pissed off, not to mention powerful, Icein with a headache.

"So, your explosions knocked out the power to the ship. I should have known you would batch so simple an assignment…" Frieza growled.

"It wasn't my explosions. My calculations were exact, and the charges set nowhere near the power grid. What happened wasn’t my fault. Besides, who are you to accuse me of botching things up? It was I who disabled the navigational system, and set up the charges that would disable the engines, and got you free time with the little prince, but you couldn't manage to pull off one simple little murder. Now we're stuck searching this hideously green planet for the one person who should be space dust right about now." Gero responded defensively with more then just a touch of condescension in his voice.

Frieza brought Gero up face to face with him and stopped flying suddenly. "You pathetic little weakling, it you that distracted me from doing my job. If you had waited just two more seconds, we wouldn't be worried about finding the prince in one peace and ready to take my head off!" Frieza was very nearly yelling and Gero was starting to become afraid that the others would hear.

"Arguing will get us no where. We still have a very good opportunity to rid ourselves of the weak Saiyan king and his lousy excuse for an heir. The first chance we get you have to dispose of the King and his mindless body guard, and then we'll continue the search for the prodigal son on our own. He has to be injured and weakened after a blast like that. He won't be any problem at all. In fact, there's a good chance he's already dead." Gero said with his sickly, evil grin.

"That still leaves us with the task of hunting down those other two morons and getting rid of all the evidence." Frieza argued a bit more, not quite ready to be at peace with his traitorous companion.

"A simple feet. If you get rid of the two idiots, I can figure out a way to get away from here and figure out a cover story. You might have to destroy the planets population, to get rid of witnesses and make for a good revenge story about local natives killing the king and his son in their sleep or some other such Saiyan bull shit. I'll be so glad to get rid of their useless carcasses."

"Just don't forget the deal, Gero. I become ruler of the Empire and you continue to work for me. I certainly hope you would consider putting a knife in my back just like you are the King of the Saiyans. Remember, that with out me, any third class warrior could take you out and claim the throne."

"I'll remember. There is some advantage to being a genius, and good memory and judgement are just a few of them." Gero said and then the laughter began. The senseless, maniacal laughter of madmen and murderers, after all, they were.

***

Yamcha was also leaving the compound, only by the garage instead of the gardens. There was a serious scowl on his marred face and a muttered curse on his breath. He knew Dr. Briefs was just trying to get him out of the way, sending on him on some half-assed important job any simpleton Yardrat could have done.

Yamcha was getting tired of being taken for granted, and not being trusted. He had to find some way to get the respect he deserved on this shit-hole of a planet. The Briefs thought they were better then everyone, playing god and king and ruling over everyone, although they were too good to pay any real attention to the ones who did the real work. Except when they were ordering them around. Unless you were working, you weren't worth their time. Or so they thought…

Yamcha felt a little guilty about thinking bad about the family of the woman that had saved him and taught him everything he knew. Mrs. Briefs had been decent and patient with him. And now she was gone. The only one worth knowing was dead.

He'd put the others in their place and they'd see what their wife and mother had seen in him. She'd believed in him and trusted him, and soon Bulma and her father would, too.

***

"What is it, Bardock?"

"My lord, there is someone coming on the horizon, but I’m not getting any reading." Bardock said, squinting through his scouter and looking towards the East. He'd flown close enough to call to Frieza and Gero, who had, in turn called to the King and they were now gathered together once more.

"Yes, I can see it, too," the king replied stopping in mid-air. "There's two of them, flying this way, but, if they have no power reading, then how can they fly?"

"Do you suppose they could be a threat?" Frieza asked.

"Most likely," the king grunted. "It's best to be prepared." He took a mid-air ready position and they waited.

Frieza took advantage of the last few seconds before the approaching pair arrived by quickly depositing Dr. Gero behind a rock on the ground before he flew up to take stance beside Bardock and the king. They all waited with tensed shoulders and fists clenched as the two figures grew and became more detailed and focused.

Flying side by side, with immaculate precision, the two androids stopped with in ten feet of waiting warriors, who were, needless to say, very shocked to see a pair of human looking youths approaching them with such calm abandon.

"Who are you, and what is your business with the King of the Saiyans?" Bardock demanded, hovering ever so slightly in front of his king protectively.

"Just a pair of curious siblings who are wondering what such famous warriors are doing on our small, humble planet," the dark hared male replied, the faintest hint of humor in his voice. He exchanged meaningful glances with the blond woman and then they hovered closer, not seeming to move any part of their bodies.

"To what do we owe the great honor of having the great King Vegeta and his… associates?"

"Maybe we should be asking you," Bardock stared them down, not impressed or intimidated by the pair in the least. "Our ship was damaged in space by some unknown source and we were forced to crash land here, but I get the feeling you already knew that, didn't you?"

"How very astute of you," the boy responded. "You may take relief in knowing, however, that if we had been responsible for the damage to your ship you would be dead..."

"Not stranded," the woman finished. "It appears that whoever tried to kill you, screwed up royally," she punned, looking first at Frieza with a cold stare and then glancing down at the ground where Gero was peaking from behind a small boulder.

Gero saw the woman turn her head towards him and jumped back behind the rock. "It can't be…" he muttered. He looked back around the rock and squinted up at the hovering group. "If only I could see better…"

In the sky, Frieza was challenging the pair of androids with a livid scowl on his face. "Surely you can't hope to survive facing the greatest warriors in the galaxy. Why did you really come out here, other then to get yourselves killed?"

"We were sent by our… employer…to stall you." Android 17 said, dropping all pretenses and crossing his arms over his chest. "And we're going to do just that."

"You think you can stall us?" the King spoke for the first time. "Now that we know your true intentions, how are you going to stop us from leaving?"

"We just are," 18 said slowly, mimicking her brother and taking a wide shouldered stance.

The king and his subjects might have started laughing at a frail looking woman threatening to take them all on, if it hadn't been for the serene confidence in both their faces. The eerie half smiles on their faces making their blood drop a few degrees.

"Permission to put these crazy children out of their misery, your majesty," Frieza said, clenching his teeth and fists, his tail twitching with anticipation of the fight.

"Denied," King Vegeta said firmly. "Just beat them up a little. I want them conscious and able to give information."

"Understood," the Icein growled in grudging obedience. He flew forward suddenly to attack 17, but he just wasn’t there when he went to land his punch. Frieza looked shocked as he turned to look at 18, who was only three feet away, and smirking at him like he's just fallen for some hilarious prank.

"You missed," she said, moving closer and whispering in his ear before she nodded slightly to the spot just above them.

Frieza looked up just in time to see the bottom of 17 foot as it connected with his forehead. Frieza shot to the ground like a falling comet and connected with a thunderous crash. Dust flew everywhere and blocked their view of the fallen Frieza.

Bardock was staring in amazement at the dust cloud at their feet. When he looked up, he was startled to find 18 only inches away, looking at the ground as well. He gasped slightly and jumped back a few inches.

"Well he didn't last long, did he?" she asked, looking up slowly and fixing him with her almost translucent blue eyes. Before he knew it, his arms were pinned behind his back and his tail was being tugged on ever so slightly. He winced, preparing for pain, but it didn't come, it had been only a warning tug.

"Now, I suppose we should give you the options of doing this the hard way, or the easy way. Just as a matter of procedure, you understand. I have the feeling you are all going to insist that we continue doing this the harder way." Bardock heard the female's voice in his ear.

He ground his teeth together and bit his tongue.

"Well," she insisted, giving his tail another pull.

He hissed and tried twisting from her grip, but found it was beyond his capabilities. "Go, your majesty," he whispered finally. "Get away. Find your son. I'll keep her busy." He glanced at the ground where there was still no sign of the fallen Icejin.

"I will not run." Vegeta said, standing his ground and starting towards them slowly.

"Good for you…" came a voice from above. "You wouldn't have gotten far anyway. It was a good plan, in theory," 17 said, floating down between the still bound Bardock and the King, "but it was missing one very important fact." 17 punched Bardock in the stomach. He would have doubled over if 18 hadn't been holding him. "Me," the android leaned in and said to Bardock's contorted face. "and the fact that I'm faster then all three of you put together."

He caught the king's foot, seconds before it connected with his side and twisted it, sending the king flying in an out of control spiral.

"King Vegeta!" Bardock yelled and twisted in 18 arms again. He managed to find a weak link somewhere, (or more likely, she let him go), and pulled away speeding towards his falling monarch. That, however only made it easier for 17 to clothes line him.

Bardock fall part way before gaining control and looking towards an in control, although still flustered Vegeta. He had a tortured, helpless look on his face.

"Stay back, Bardock, and don't try to help…" the king growled, starting towards 18 again.

Android 17, who had begun flying towards Bardock with the intention of sending him the way of Frieza froze in mid-air and looked at Bardock with a calculating gaze.

"So, you’re Bardock." He said, folding his arms over his chest. "Too bad."

And with that he turned and flew back to assist his sister, although she was having no trouble dodging everything the Saiyan king threw at her.

"This day just keeps getting weirder by the second," Bardock, whispered flying up to stand with his king.

***

"Oh, Gerddie. Things have fallen apart, and I don't know if I can fix it this time…" Dr. Briefs said while he stood beside his late wife's grave, looking down at the rose vines that covered her mound and tombstone. "I wish you were here to tell me everything would be alright. If you were here I think I could think of some way to get us all through this alive…"

He sighed and stood quietly for a second. "I'm so worried about Bulma, dear. I don't know if she'll deal well with these rough Saiyan men. I'm going to try and keep her away from them as much as possible. She's got such a wonderful spirit. She's so kind and selfless, I don't want her to be subjected to their harsh reality." Trunks Briefs chuckled. "I suppose it was inevitable, though. I can't keep her locked up here like an artifact in a museum, even if the glass case would stop her from being ruined."

"I so wanted her to have everything we had. Love, family, comfort, someone to look after her and let her just be herself, and give her money and supplies to keep building her inventions…" His mustache twitched and he felt the forbidden swelling of heat under his eye lids. "You would have said I sound like a scientist trying to be a father, but all I ever wanted to be was a father, who was sometimes a scientist."

The quiet of the air seemed filled with words wanting to be said. It was almost overwhelming; at times like these he could almost feel his wife's presence… "I miss you, Gerddie…" he whispered.

Just then, the sound of a hover bike could be heard coming over the hill towards the compound.

 ***

Bulma was driving incredibly slow, trying to keep the unconscious Saiyan balanced, while steering the bike. Vegeta was sitting in front of her, his face forward, completely knocked out. She was beginning to think he had slipped into a coma, or something comparable.

In her attempts to load him onto the bike she'd had to lie it down next to him and roll him onto it. That had been the easy part, all though she was sure she'd opened a few of his cuts doing it. The hard part had been getting the bike upright with his heavy weight pulling down on it. Driving was no easy task, either, since he seemed to want to do nothing more then slide off one side or the other.

She couldn't leave him, and she didn't want to stay out in the open any longer, and so she was forced to push onward.

By the time she drove over the last hill, she was utterly exhausted, bruised, cut, and very frustrated. She might not have made it to the garage if her father hadn't come running around the side of the house, from the gardens, and caught her just as she herself was beginning to fall.

The hover bike came to a halt as soon as her weight was off the seat, and surprisingly enough the Saiyan prince stayed slouched over the handlebars. Bulma saw this from her father's arms and laughed bitterly.

"Sure, now he stays." She pooled the last of her strength and stood, the professor's help. She limped over to the bike and shut it off. Her father never moved his arm from around her waist, and the look on his face was near panic.

"Bulma, are you all right?" he asked. She thought he looked close to tears.

"Yes, yes, but he isn't. I gave him the ki sedative and he seems to be experiencing adverse side effects. We have to get him to the med bay, as soon as possible. You can put all that amazing technology that's been going to waste to work."

"You first. You need help, you can hardly stand."

"No, him first. I'm fine, I don't need help…" She reached to pull Vegeta off the bike, but fell to her knees instead. "Ok, maybe a little help would be fine. I can't carry him on my own." Bulma looked at her father with near panic in her eyes and pain in her voice. "Please dad, he can't die. You have to keep him alive until I can…" she looked down wondering herself what she wanted to say. 'Until I can experiment on my drugs? Until I can check on him myself? Until I can get to know who and what he is…?' Her mind wasn't functioning properly. 'Why am I so exhausted? Sure, it was a long trip, but I feel like I've been sucked dry…'

"Please dad, save him…" She was so insistent, that he really had no choice.

"Someone! Come quickly! We need help!" Briefs called at the compound. Almost instantly Yardratins started pouring from every door, as if they'd been watching, waiting for the call and too afraid to disturb the pair until then. They helped them carry the prince and Bulma inside, while one of them put the bike away. It wasn't far to the med lab, and once there, Bulma collapsed on the nearest table. Behind her they were dragging in Vegeta.

"Help him first, he might have head problems, too," she whispered coarsely, the last of her energy fading.

"What about you, Lady Bulma?" one of the med assistants asked, checking her pulse and vital signs.

"I'm fine! I just need… a little… nap…" she pushed the hands away and rolled over on her side. She tried to keep her eyes open and watch as they went to work on the Saiyan prince, but that proved futile. So as soon as she could see he was being cared for properly, she let them fall closed and went into a deep sleep.

***

Dr. Briefs watched as they healed the Saiyans wounds and hooked him up to monitors. In his hand he held his daughter's hand and he was squeezing it subconsciously as he remembered the exchange with his daughter earlier and her insistence to keep the Saiyan alive.

'What happened out there?' he wondered. Looking over at his daughter he felt his heart jerk in his chest. She looked so pale, so colorless. He called in more Yardratin to care for her more properly.

"Is there anything more you can do?" he asked a taller alien that was looking over some medical instruments.

"No, she is just exhausted. Some sleep and she'll be good as knew, Duk Briefs."

"All right. I have to go see the council now, I want you to alert me the second one of them blinks an eye lash." With all the stress in his life at this moment, the last thing he needed was his daughter lying on a med lab bed, no matter how minor her condition.

As he turned to leave he gave on last look to the unconscious Saiyan lying on his own table not three feet from his daughter. "What have you done to my little girl…?" he muttered before walking out.

"What is’t? A spirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, it carries a brave form, but is a spirit." Miranda (1.2)

Whizzzzz, bang! Shhwooosh, bam!

Radditz finished taking out the last of the Yardratin in the streets before joining Nappa in the small singed building on his right.

"This is getting rather tedious," he snarled, knocking over a table and chairs not big enough for his Saiyan stature. "We're no where near finding out where we are, and why we're here, or where the king is."

"Shut up, Radditz," Nappa said, sniffing the air. The room was dimly lit, and a few of their blasts had destroyed half the lamps in the room anyway. "Do you smell that?" He sniffed some more and jumped over the long table on his left. "It smells like… " he stopped. He'd found what he'd been looking for. He pulled a large cask made of unknown material up and set it on the table, a faint grin on his face.

"This must have been a temple of some kind," Radditz observed, looking around at the plain decorations and simple arrangement. Then back at Nappa, "That's what I think it is, isn't it?"

"Yes it is. Lamrasta Wine. Some of the best in the universe. A keg this big would cost more then a small fortune." Nappa said with awe in his voice. Any one on the elite force could have told you that Nappa liked his liquor. He pulled open the cork and took a big whiff before letting out an extremely satisfied sigh, complete with stupid grin. "Can't let it go to waste on these rotting pigs now, can we?"

"We really shouldn't, Nappa. We need to find the King an the others and make sure they're alive so we can get off this despicable rock. This vacant blue faces are starting to give me the creeps." Radditz stated stoically. Truth be told, he wouldn't mind a little taste himself. He wanted to be drunk at this point. Walking up with your face in control panel of your pod and stepping out to find your self in the midst of little blue men with sickeningly curious and admiring expressions can have that effect on a Saiyan.

"Lighten up, Radditz. For all we know the others are dead and we're stranded on this dead beat planet. Let's make the most of it, or the least of it, by drowning our worries in this gloriously tasty wine." Nappa's eyes never left the hole form which he could see the "glorious" liquid. The deep crimson reflected in his pupils and made him appear a little moon crazed.

"Well, I said my peace. Don't make me say I told you so. Now, where's a cup?" Radditz sat down on the table and stretched out his achy legs. Nappa just laughed and looked for something to served the wine in.

***

It appeared to Bulma that she was dreaming. Most the world was a hazy "almost-there" that she associated with dreams, but the door in front of her seemed very real. She put her hand against its rough would grain surface and gasped. If she slid her hand downwards, she was sure to get a splinter, but this couldn't be real. She'd never seen this place before, never been anywhere like it, and hope she would never have to be in a place like this in real life.

Everything was creepy and foreboding, all shadows and cobwebs, flying buttresses and long haunting hallways with columns. All the scene was missing was a few suit of armor. She pushed on the door, feeling a sense of urgency and morbid curiosity to see what was on the other side.

At first, all that greeted her was darkness, and cold, but after her eyes adjusted she could see the shape of a person against the far wall. She took a step towards then, and noted with inane detail that her feet made no sound. She walked slowly until she stood a few feet from the strange figure that appeared to be chained to the wall.

"Hello?" she whispered softly. She wasn't afraid, per say, just shivering from the cold and damp of the large room. The person lifted their head. Hair fell from their face and they connected eyes.

'Blue eyes,' she thought absently, 'just like me…' The light in the room increased, for no apparent reason, and she saw that it was, indeed, her.

She looked at herself with less then shock but more then indifference and moved to speak, just as she was addressed by the woman chained to the wall.

"Why did you do this to me?" the other she asked, pleading and hiding anger. "I'm so weak. I can't move and I can't get away. Why? This is killing me, can't you see. I can't stay like this, I need to be free, need to be strong…"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know…" Bulma tried to explain to herself, but she couldn't find words, explanation or otherwise. Things were fading and she was starting to lose touch with her surroundings.

"Sorry," she whispered one last time as the world disappeared.

 ***

He couldn't move. His legs and arms felt impossibly heavy and there was weight pressing on his chest. It was even difficult to breath. "Where…" he said hoarsely, trying to see through the blaring lights. The white light was blinding, and he struggled to even crack one eye, until a shadow moved over him, between his sensitive eyes and the bulb above. When he finally opened his eyes he could see himself leaning over his self.

"Why do you keep struggling? Just lie still and let me help you." Vegeta watched his other tell himself. It was like talking to yourself in a mirror, only with out moving your lips.

"Why am I restrained?" he growled, trying to sit up once more.

The other Vegeta seemed sad, remorseful and apologetic. Not like himself. "I’m sorry, but its for our protection. We can't very well let you go around killing us all, now, can we?" Vegeta 2 said, touching Vegeta 1's shoulder. "Just let us do this, and they you can go and you'll get your strength back."

"I promise, not to… hurt… anyone…" he said hesitantly. He was desperate to have the weight lifted.

"I wish I could trust you not to go on a killing spree, but till then… sedatives for you, buddy."

Vegeta never called anyone "buddy". Something was wrong here. Something worse then even his incapacitation and the lights. Something in his head. And something in his chest.

About the time he noticed the other him had no tale, the lights were growing so bright again, he had to close his eyes and just let the red glow overwhelm him…

***

 The red glow of light through the blood in his eyes lids stayed with him until he was able to focus on the rest of his body. He was slowly becoming aware of the pain that pulsed weakly through most of his body, and the fact that he was lying on his back. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a white, tiled ceiling. He could sense the presence of several others in the room and turned his head to the side.

In the back ground he could see several small bluish figures moving around, but more immediately he was faced with the sleeping face of the beautiful girl that had… accosted him… in the desert.

As she opened her eyes slowly, he fought the urge to smile at seeing her awake. She was so gorgeous. Not just her features, there was something in the depth of her eyes. Something he'd never seen in the eyes of any other woman before. What was it…? Intelligence…? Innocence…? Kindness…? A little of all of those, mixed with a passionate spirit he'd be hard pressed to find a rival for.

He was torn between raging anger at being so weak because of what she'd done, and the urge to go to her and promise his eternal loyalty. Something about her…

When she held out one half-limp hand he reached out with his own, as if on instinct, and laced his fingers with hers.

'What's wrong with me…?' he wondered. 'Besides the fact that I have no strength and I'm stranded on and unknown planet amongst strangers.' He had always been a man of short temper and quick reflexes, but at the moment he felt all the anger dissipate and was content to just lie looking into her face. 'And why do her eyes enchant me so…?'

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I promise not to hurt anyone…" he heard himself say, although later he would hardly believe it.

"Ok," she said and closed her eyes once more.

He watched for a second more, and then welcomed the invading sleep that fell over him in waves. For now, the feel of her fingers in his was enough.

***

"Human Briefs, you have broken your promises to us and we require explanation." One of the tallest Headrma Yardrat said from his place in the half-circle.

"I don't understand great ones," Dr. Briefs said, his hands folded respectfully in front of him. "What have I done to break our agreement?"

"The weapons, Duk Briefs. The one surrounding our planet that incapacitated the Saiyan ship and the ones we just discovered your daughter has used against the Saiyan Prince," a Yardrat next to the first answered.

"These are only weapons of defense, good council. They are only used to minimize casualties on our side…" the doctor explained quickly. It was true he had rationalized putting up the disrupter field, and Bulma's newest project had pushed the bounds of defense weaponry, but he had never thought that they would have to use them. They were precautionary only, but trying to explain precaution to the naïve Yardrats was like explaining nuclear physics to his wife.

"Never the less, they are weapons… and we may have let these pass, had you not the two abominations you sent out to meet the other survivors…"

Trunks Briefs felt his heart drop. He'd know he was crossing the line on that one, but in his mind, he'd seen no other choice. He told the Yardrat council this, but they only shook their heads sadly.

"There is always another choice. We are prepared to face the wrath of the Saiyans, but you have brought death and war to our planet, and we must as that you remove you and your family from our culture."

"But, you have to understand…" the professor started.

"We do understand, even better then you do, and this is our request to you. We will face our fate, but we will not ask the same of you. You are free to go."

"With all due respect, I don't think I can do that. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I just fled and left you all here to be slaughtered. I've lived amongst you and loved you too much to abandon you. Now, I know I have betrayed your trust, and I will honor your request to leave, but not until after I have removed the Saiyan threat." Briefs was hurt and panicking and he was feeling the heavy pain of loss under his ribcage, but he managed to speak calmly and rationally as he argued his position. "If you'll allow me, I have a plan that will see to it that the Saiyans leave in peace, with out any of their deaths. Those "abominations" as you call them have been instructed not to kill, and they are unable to disobey that command. I just have to work through a couple more things and then I think I can get them to go with out a fight. Please, I'm begging you to give me a chance, at least, and then I'll take the Saiyans and my family and go." He finished with pleading and sadness in his voice, but his earnest _expression and honest heart were what persuaded the Yardrat council to give their consent, with the condition that no lives were to be taken by his or his servants hands and that when he left, he left the planet just as it had been when he'd arrived.

"Do you realized the implications of that demand?" Dr. Briefs asked.

"We do. We will miss your family and all you have brought to this planet, but we lived with out it all before, and we will live with out it again."

"I understand," the doctor replied, bowing his head and feeling the pangs of loss increase. "I will try and accomplish my goals as soon as possible, so that we may leave you in peace."

"That will be well." The first Yardrat replied. "We will watch your progress and pray for your success."

"Thank you," the human responded and turned to go. "If you'll excuse me, I have many things to see to," and with that he left, never to see the council again.

***

The androids 17 and 18 had decided to devote most of their attention to beating the recently recovered, funny looking lizard man because he was the most aggravating with his mouth. He was constantly spouting idle threats and annoying insults that were growing tiresome.

It didn't take much to dodge the other two while they taunted Frieza with easy hits and laughter at his lousy attempts at retaliation. Occasionally, they would send the Saiyan king sprawling, but neither of them touched Bardock at all, after finding out his identity.

Gero had watched from the ground with ever growing amazement and ever growing rage. 'Those are my creations! The ones that were stolen from me the night that fool, Dr Briefs, took his family and fled. And now, here they are. If they are here, then there was a good chance that Briefs is here, as well, and if Briefs is here, then that would explain the power outage on the ship. My old partner must have put up some kind of protective shield…' the mind of the genius was suddenly at word, concocting an insidious plan.

High above, both the androids had sensed the almost non-existent ki emanating from the ground below. The tossed each other meaningful looks before 17 knocked Frieza unconscious again and held him up by the neck as they and turned to the king.

"You did know you are befriending one of the most despicable creatures of your time, don't you?" 18 asked with a snide smirk.

"And who would that be?" the king asked, a little out of breath. Truth be told he was aware that both Gero and Frieza were… despicable… and as such was not sure which on they were eluding to. If they had not both been a valuable part of his hold on the Empire he would have dispatched them long ago.

"Well, for starters, that man, Gero, that is hiding amongst the rocks down there." 17 said. "He is the one who made us, you know."

"Made you?" Bardock asked. "And what do you mean by that?"

"We are his creations," 17's voice was soft and bored sounding. "He built us out of metal and wires and made us the spectacular beings we are today."

Recognition dawned in the king's face and he drifted down and settled in front of Gero. "What is the meaning of this?"

"It's true, your majesty. These appear to be the prototypes for the army of androids I began constructing after our first alliance, but alas, they were stolen from me before I could complete them for you. Stolen from me by the man you had vowed to help me destroy, my old partner, Dr. Briefs. It seems this is the planet he's taken refuge on. He must have been the one to attack our ship and bring us here so that he could kill us all with his stolen technology."

Bardock was struggling to keep his astonishment suppressed. He looked like he wanted to say something, but held his tongue, never the less.

"Well," 17 chuckled a little, "you're part right. We were "stolen", if you will, by Dr. Briefs, and this is the planet he has lived on for quite some time now, since he was betrayed and forced from his own home."

"But he is not responsible for the attack on your ship, at least not the initial attack, and he has not sent us here to kill you. Only to entertain you, as his guests," 18 said with a lazy smile.

"What kind of man entertains his guests by attacking them?" Gero asked spitefully, forgetting, perhaps, that he was probably that kind of man.

"Well, the attacking part was mostly our own idea, since we were created for the purpose of killing and destroying, in fact he told us not to hurt you too bad…" 17 laughed as he tossed Frieza to the ground. "It's probably a good thing that Briefs stole us. Don't you agree, your majesty?" he said to the king. When the king didn't answer right away he continued. "After all, never trust a man with an all powerful android army. I’m sure, given time, we would have been sent after you, had we been allowed to remain in Gero's hands."

"Yes," 18 agreed, as if the idea had just occurred to her. "So, in reality, it's Dr. Briefs you should be thanking, and this ass you should be turning your anger on…"

The king considered it, but then shook his head. "You won't be able to turn us on each other so easily."

"You might listen to what they have to say, your majesty," Bardock spoke up from behind. "With all due respect they do have a point. You know, as well as I, that Gero is a greedy, devious man that would turn on you in half a second, given the chance. And he has, on more then one occasion, convinced you to fall to paths deemed unworthy by Saiyan tradition."

"What are you saying, Bardock?" the king asked with not quite anger in his voice, but something close.

"Just that we need to investigate this Briefs matter further before we decide any final course of action," Bardock said, bowing his head respectfully.

The king considered this until Gero spoke up again.

"It has always been a mystery to me, your highness, just how Briefs knew of our planned attack and managed to escape unscathed even before the first alarm was sounded…" Gero glared at Bardock with blatant insinuation. He'd always had his suspicions, but now he was almost sure.

There had never been any love between Gero and Bardock, to say the least, and the king had been aware of the tension between them since the beginning. But they had never come right out and accused each other of betraying him. The king was confused to say the least. And a confused Saiyan often becomes a frustrated and irrational Saiyan that will often resort to unnecessary violence without thinking of the consequences.

They were saved any erratic displays, however, by the tilting of the android's head and a blank _expression on their faces as if they were listening to something. After a few seconds they nodded and looked back to the puzzled trio.

"Well, as fun as it has been reminiscing, we must leave you for a while," 17 said as he started flying backwards slowly. "Don't do anything rash, while we're gone."

"See you soon," 18 said and blew then a kiss before turning and flying away with her counterpart. They flew at speeds so fast that the Saiyans in the group had a hard time watching them go, and Gero didn't even have a prayer.

'Well, this puts an interesting twist on things…' he thought, glancing at the unconscious Frieza lying a few feet, and wishing for the first time ever that the disgusting Icein was awake.

***

When Bulma opened her eyes the second time she was acutely aware that she had a splitting head ache, and that the cut on her finger was burning. When she moved to put the offending appendage in her mouth, however, she came to another realization. Someone was holding her hand.

She focused her eyes and they came to rest on a pair of dark, furrowed eyebrows and a firm frown. The eyes that belonged to them were searching her face seriously. The Saiyan Prince's gaze held hers steadily and she felt her blood freezing and boiling at the same time. Her face was hot and her hands were cold and her heart… was on fire.

She took a deep breath and pulled away, pulling her hand to her chest and sitting up. That caused the pain in her head to increase substantially and she put her other hand to her temple.

"Mmmmm," she groaned in pain. "Ow," she looked up again and found several Yardrats in long white coats looking at her expectantly. "How long have I been out?" she asked in a hoarse voice.

"Only a couple of hours," one of them answered timidly.

"A couple of hours!" she squeaked and turned to jump off the bed, only when her feet hit the floor another jolt of pain went through her head and she almost fell. Grabbing onto the bed she yelped in pain. "God Damn!" she yelled and slammed her had down on the table. That made her finger hurt more and so she stuck her finger in her mouth, let out another muffled curse and kicked the bed and stubbed her toe.

About that time, Vegeta grabbed her around the waist and pulled her onto his lap. "Woman, stop hurting yourself, or I'll make you stop," he growled in her ear, sending shivers up her spine. She just screamed and tried to get away, to no avail.

"Are you finished, yet?" he asked snidely after she'd stopped squirming.

"Yes?" she squeaked.

"Good. I'm going to release you, and I don't want to screaming or tumbling around like a crazed dragorat… got it?"

"Yes," she whispered, taking a couple deep breaths.

Very slowly Vegeta set Bulma back down on the floor and turned to stand himself while she straightened her clothes and got a hold of herself. She unconsciously started to suck on her finger again.

"Whers m fadr?" she asked the Yardrats that were just standing around and staring at the prince in curious fear.

"He's down in the production lab, My Lady, working on your new prototypes as we speak. He wanted you to join him as soon as you awoke," one of then replied.

"Ok, good," she turned to go. When she heard foot steps behind her she stopped and turned around, coming nose to nose with the Saiyan Prince. "You stay…" she took a step back and tried again. "You stay here."

"I will not," Vegeta said crossing his arms stubbornly. "I have nothing to do with these blue midgets. You are the one that can cure what you've done and I’m not leaving till I've got every ounce of my strength back." He sounded very resolved.

"You are going to stay here whether you like it or not, buddy. I won't have you following me around like some rabid puppy dog just begging to let him bite me." Bulma also sounded resolved. She put her hands on her hips and stood her ground in the middle of the doorway.

Something in her words struck a cord with him and he remembered the dream he'd had and gasped silently. Quickly he recovered and glared down at the girl, taking a step closer. "I will not hurt you, but I demand you free me from this physiological prison."

Something about his eyes, the way they were pleading and begging with her to give him back his strength, despite the rest of his hard features reminded her of staring into her own face with same _expression on it. For a second she almost gave, feeling a bit of his helplessness and wanting to show mercy, but in the end her pride conquered all.

"I'll see what I can do about getting things sorted out, but for now you'll just have to stay the way you are, right here."

Vegeta saw the flash of guilt and felt something in his chest tug at it, but he was not going to give in to this fiery wench. In a quick movement he picked her up and swung her over his shoulder. She commenced the screaming and pounding on his back and he commenced the wincing and the irritating ordering of the Yardrats to take him to the "production lab".

Bulma was furious as they started down the hallway following one of the smaller more frightened Yardrats. Despite the fact that she'd removed his ability to manipulate energy, he was still massively strong. She was contemplating adding a muscle relaxant to the mix when the reached the lab. She was still kicking, fighting, and demanding she be put down and he was still marching forward confidently. He was evidently healed and in perfect physical condition, again.

This was the scene that was presented for Dr. Briefs and the two androids as the stood looking over the last of the newest additions to his contraband arsenal.

"What in Kami's name…?" he stuttered staring at the couple as they came forward. Vegeta set Bulma down next to him after he was with in several feet. The androids had slipped into the shadows as soon as they had seen others entering the room. The doctor had instructed them to remain out of sight as much as possible around the Yardrats, and especially his daughter. She didn't know about them and he wanted to keep it that way. They just took the new equipment that the doc had given them and left quietly.

Once Bulma's feet were on the ground she scrambled to collect her self and sent a few eyefuls of daggers at Vegeta.

"What's going on here?" Briefs asked again looking very angry at Vegeta himself.

"I should ask you the same thing," was all Vegeta said, crossing his arms over his chest again.

The professor looked at his daughter for answers but she only sneered at Vegeta and said," He wanted to come."

"Right…" the doctor said, looking back and forth between his scowling daughter and the smirking prince. "Well, Bulma I’m glad you're here. I just sent out the next stage in my plan and I need your help."

"First, things first," Vegeta interrupted. "I demand an explanation. Who are you and why have you brought me here under such… disagreeable conditions?"

Bulma snorted. "And those "disagreeable conditions" are supposed to be our fault? You're the one that snuck up on me and attacked me. Not the other way around."

"If I'd attacked you, woman, you wouldn't be standing here now, you'd be dead, so just be thankful that I showed a little restraint and didn't blast you to hell the first time I saw you," Vegeta said, growling and leaning closer.

"Restraint? HA!" Bulma said folding her arms and not backing down a bit. "Just because you’re a barbarian that didn't kill me right then doesn't mean you weren't going to do it later. I tried to warn you, but you forced me to shoot you with my ki stunner gun. It's the only way I could ensure you weren't going to freak out and start killing anything that moved!" Bulma yelled in his face. They were inches apart, hissing and scowling like two tom cats preparing to fight.

"As if you'd be worth the energy it'd take to kill you. You're so weak I could kill you all right now, but I haven't and what thanks do I get? Telling and screaming from you and suspicion on every other side. Besides the fact that you should be bowing down and worshiping at my feet. I am the Prince of the civilized part of the universe, even if you aren't under the Empire's rule, yet!" Vegeta yelled back.

"Enough!" Dr Briefs yelled, silencing them both. Neither of them moved, though. Their pride wouldn't let them back down so easily.

Vegeta just stared into her blue eyes and fought the sudden urge to grab her and kiss her till she couldn't breath anymore. Another part of him just wanted to grab her and shake her.

Bulma was fuming. She'd never been this angry about anything before in her entire life, but at the moment she was experiencing her first homicidal thoughts. She was also experiencing her first urges to be in the arms of a man other then her father.

The whole time he'd been carrying her like a sack of parts down the hallway she'd been amazingly aware of his hand on the back of her thighs and the incredible amount of muscle under her stomach. Because his shirt had been destroyed he'd been given one of the Yardratin robes that was no more then a tight shirt to him. It's flimsy fabric was nothing between them. She wanted something from this man, and she only had a vague idea of what, so until she figured it out she was on mega-defensive mode.

Dr. Briefs couldn't believe the similarities between the Saiyan man and his Human daughter. They were both standing with squared off shoulders and arms crossed, both trying to kill