SINS OF THE FATHERS
By: Lisalu

 

PROLOGUE

 

It had been a mild summer. The rains had kept the heat at bay this year and the wilds of the Great Northern Forest were washed in the smell of green, growing things.

Son Gokou watched the two children, one pale and frail-looking as a breath of spring in March, the other tottering after the older boy unsteadily on small chubby legs, making frantic, fruitless attempts to grab his tail. A casual observer would have thought, judging from the boy's size, he was only three, perhaps four years older than the girl who stalked him, a furious Saiyan frown scrunching up her little face. The age difference was actually closer to sixteen years. The baby girl sprang forward and the boy casually stepped out of reach, leading her on a winding trek through the white billowing clothesline of freshly washed bed sheets. The girl suddenly darted forward with blinding speed and latched onto the bigger boy's tail like a lamprey, crowing with triumph. He regarded her coolly with huge dark expressionless eyes, and slowly began to sweep his tail back and forth, earning a high pitched squeal from his tiny passenger. After a moment, he curled his tail around before his own face, bringing her eye to eye with him.

He sniffed delicately.

"You smell bad," he told the girl coldly.

"Bleh," she said.

The boy's lips curled minutely and he cut his eyes toward the man who had set watching this odd interaction unfold. "And you have your father's gift for the glib turn of phrase as well, I see."

"She likes you," Gokou said blandly.

Gurasia issued a dainty snort. The tiny monkey was swinging from his tail now. He peeled her off and handed her to her father, holding her away from him as though she were a soiled diaper. Which, Gokou realized belatedly, was exactly what she was now wearing.

"I have come as you bid me, Son Gokou," the little Tsiru-jin said in his high voice, a soft sneer in his words. "To 'visit'. How long does this custom demand I stay?"

"As long as you want," Gokou shrugged amiably. "I haven't heard any yelling from the house in the last half-hour. Chi-Chi may have calmed down enough to fix dinner for us if you stay."

Gurasia raised one pale colorless eyebrow. "I would be reticent to eat anything your mate served me at this point." Gokou winced. Chi-Chi's reaction to the boy's unannounced arrival had been just short of incendiary.

"I have heard," the little Lord of Tsiru-sei went on idly, "tales of your three travelers here and there."

"They send a hyper-wave vidletter every month to Capsule Corp," Gokou said. "We'll be seeing them soon."

The boy nodded in agreement. "On Shikaji? In what, two weeks?" His red lips pursed in amusement at the look of unease on the big Saiyan's as he realized the Gurasia must have plucked the information from the surface thoughts of his mind. "You might want to watch your back," he went on lightly. "There is a political situation brewing. A grand Council of 'free' worlds is to be convened there. Shikaji is likely to be a very interesting place to be soon. I will be there myself to look after the interests of my people. This Council, among other things will be voting on 'The Saiyan Question'."

"Go on," Gokou said slowly, bouncing the wiggling baby absently on one knee.

"Your three merry wanderers have made quite a name for themselves in the last years. 'The Saiyans of Chikyuu', righting wrongs, defending the weak, foolishness such as that."

"That's not foolish, Gurasia."

"No? Tell me that again when the backlash of their deeds comes to your doorstep. They have made powerful enemies within the great Trade Houses and the Merchants Guild." The boy drummed his fingers slowly on the wood railing of the back porch, organizing his thoughts before going on. "This Council will be debating the wisdom of letting your race hold property of any kind, allowing as a given that any world harboring Saiyans must needs be enslaved or bought with the blood money of a pirate race. It may even be brought to a vote whether the "Saiyan Scourge" should be allowed to increase in numbers, 'once more threatening the peace and stability of the galaxy at large.' I think that was how the lobbyist who approached me phrased his prettily worded pitch. The fool must have thought me very callow and young to be so easily beguiled. If this Council rules the Saiyans to be outlaw as a race, my people, having been in effect your liege lords and your partners in crime, will very soon share the same fate."

"And you don't have your father's legions or fleets of mercenaries to fend off a crusade, do you?" Gokou had sensed there was an actual pragmatic reason for the young Tsiru-jin's sudden visit. He had waited patiently for the boy to speak his peace, knowing it must be vitally important for the youngster to risk breathing the same atmosphere as Vegita or Gohan, either of whom would make short work of him if they knew Gurasia was on Chikyuu.

"Not at present, no." The boy regarded him steadily. "If, however, the delegates were to see a pack of full-blooded and halfblood Saiyans standing at the shoulder of the defense orator on this issue, Saiyans who are more powerful than any living being has been since the times of legends, they might rethink their position, and save your folk and mine the bothersome business of a war." The tip of his tail swept lazily past the eyes of the girl on Gokou's lap and she followed its progress like of falcon tracking a rodent's track across the ground. "I think you would be sorry to kill legions of young, idealistic imbeciles sent to "free" Chikyuu from your evil clutches, young fools who did not realized that those who fed them such lies were only interested in the price such a green, rich, ore-laden world as this would fetch on the open market."

"I would find a way to stop them without hurting them." The Saiyan spoke the words with such utter confidence that the boy was momentarily taken aback. Gokou supressed a shudder as an all-too-realistic vision of such an invasion attempt floated past his mind's eye. He frowned. "Goten, Trunks and Bra didn't attract all this attention by themselves, did they? You make it sound like this has been coming for a long time."

Gurasia whipped his tail away from the small, grasping hand, holding it just out of reach tauntingly. "There are others. Half-breeds mostly, though there are a few stray full blood Saiyans like yourself. Less than two dozen adults in all, along with their assorted mates and offspring. They have gathered together on Madran under two brothers, Radu and Skoy. Your kin, I think. Your brother Raditz' bastards by some Madrani slattern. They have built a legitimate space ship foundry over the years with the aid of the Madran master engineers, and have become a serious threat to the shipwright monopoly of Maiyosh House. Maiyosh first attempted intimidation of Arbatzu, Madran's sister world and the main source of the brother's ore and metals. The Arbatzu-jin called to Madran for a "mediator" to bring about a peaceful resolution to the blockade of Maiyosh auto-mechs surrounding their world. The solicitors of Maiyosh brought forth documentation of a 400-year-old treaty signed by the Arbatzu-jin at the end of a laser cannon, and agreement of forfeiture of all properties and chattels should Arbatzu engage in trade with any merchant entity other than Maiyosh. They then announced their intention of foreclosure should Arbatzu-sei continue relations with Madran. This would have meant, in layman's terms, a hostile conquest of the planet, and the enslavement of the entire populace. The Arbatzu 'mediator', your very own Trunks, declared the treaty null and void. At which point, the entire Maiyosh delegation was forcibly defenistrated from the 476th floor window of the Arbat Capital Building by Goten." Gokou grinned. "Maiyosh House countered with a remote procedure call for the mechanized fleet blockade to attack the planet. Sadly, the signal became corrupt during transmission. Bra's doing, I imagine. She has her bitch of a mother's knack for the mechanical. The fleet of mechs crashed into one another in beautifully orchestrated sync creating a rather pretty light show for those on the planet below." Gurasia tittered softly. "I believe the net loss in credit to Maiyosh House for that little exchange may be measured in the hundreds of trillions." He cocked his head, huge dark eyes locking onto Gokou's, all trace of off-hand disinterest in the tale he was telling gone. "This Council on Shikaji will be composed, not of those your three have helped, but if the rich and powerful they have thwarted. Trunks and his companions have had many such encounters in the last three years, and the Heads of the great Merchant Houses are spitting mad. They have made, as I said, many enemies. But none so powerful and deadly as Maiyosh House. The new Prince of Maiyosh-sei is Burka, he is the grandson of one of my father's most affluent and frequent customers. Have you never wondered, Son Gokou, what the Tsiru-jin did with the worlds purged by the Saiyans? Burka Maiyosh the elder was our main buyer. It was all done discreetly, of course. Not one drop of blood ever stained the hands of the merchant prince. I will be on hand at Shikaji to remind his grandson, the Council, and the interstellar press, of the role Maiyosh played in the 'Saiyan/Tsiru-jin Scourge'. Perhaps you will be on hand as well, to provide with you silent presence alone, a deterrent to unkind thoughts toward you and your race. Oh, and do tell the Saiyan no Ouji that should anything unfortunate befall me during his visit to Shikaji, it would be tantamount to an invitation for the Allied Trade Worlds to attack Chikyuu. It would be held up as proof positive that you monkeys are incapable of stopping yourselves from killing everything in sight." He eyed the older man contemptuously. "You will like your nephews. They are idealistic fools like yourself." He bowed his head mockingly, eyes straying to the half-cracked back door of the house. "I thank you for your hospitality, Son Gokou, but I really must be going. I would die of shame were I to be the cause of any more discord between you and your lovely and gracious wife." A muffled, angry 'hmph' from the house told Gokou that Chi-Chi was listening at the door, had probably been standing there for some time. "Farewell," the boy said. "At least until you go to Shikaji, you and your little wedding party, and stop the avalanche your family has set in motion. Then you may all go hang for all I care." He eyed the girl in Gokou arms.

"Goodbye, smelly thing."

"Bye bye!" She vaulted off her father's lap and hugged his leg. The boy stared at her as though as poisonous viper had suddenly wrapped itself around him. Gokou retrieved her and watched the Tsiru-jin brush his leg off fastidiously. Then he was gone.

The big Saiyan stood silently, waiting until the door creaked slowly open behind him. "Gokou-sa…" She took the baby from him and quietly began changing her. The anger she's shown earlier was gone, but she still examined the girl for some sign of injury.

"He wouldn't have hurt her," he said slowly. "He was actually playing with her, though I doubt he realized that's what he was doing."

"I saw. Gokouko, did you have fun?"

"Boy go'd bye-bye," the girl said sadly.

"Yes he did," Chi-Chi replied. "Gokou-sa, should we leave Go-chan here?

It all sounds sort of dangerous. Or maybe I should stay with her…"

"If this Maiyosh House and others know about Chikyuu, it might be just as dangerous here. If we can stop this whole thing before it begins just by standing around and looking dangerous, then we should do it." He smiled, trying to hide his worry. "I don't think these are the kind of people who use force or ki attacks unless theirs backs are up against a wall. I think their power is all in lies and half-truths, twisted meanings…"

"Politics."

He laughed. "I think I'll just stand around like Gurasia suggested and look powerful. I don't think I have the knack for politics."

She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Honest men never do."

 

CHAPTER I: WORDS

 

Vegita stepped out of the gravity room and nearly stumbled over the tiny boy who was sitting patiently at the chamber's threshold. He found he always had to suppress a grin at the sight of the child's face, more a carbon of his own than either of his siblings. Black upswept hair, thicker than any human child's, with the last remnants of baby's bangs just beginning to stand on end, dark angular features, coal black eyes, and the high widow's peak of all his royal line. The boy was hunched over something, brow furrowed in concentration, scribbling furiously with a pile of his mother's brightly colored drafting pencils strewn around him. The boy looked up at him and smiled as he kneeled and peered curiously at this thing his son was giving so much intense effort.

"What is this, brat?"

"Picture." The child pointed proudly to the scrap of paper he had been mauling with Bulma's markers. If he had been under threat of death by slow torture, Vegita could not have said what the bright squiggles on the page under the boy's hand were meant to represent. "Poppa," the boy said helpfully pointing at one incomprehensible doodle.

"Ah…and this?" He fingered a segment of horizontal lines in red.

"Jisan Kakwat," the tiny boy said. "You knocked him down. See?"

Vegita grinned. He began to stand and his son thrust the paper up at him in one small fist. "For you."

Vegita stared at the child, his face blank, his mind retracing the steps of a path he had walked once before----walked poorly as he recalled. An image rose in his mind of Trunks at this same age sitting in almost exactly the same spot thirty years ago. Trunks had not spoken to him, had not approached him in any way. Even at two, his firstborn son had known better. But he had been there each day, waiting for his father to emerge from another grueling day of training, trailing silently in his footsteps as they went to discover what new culinary horror Bulma had prepared for their evening meal. He could remember, when Trunks had first begun this little ritual, almost as soon as the boy could walk under his own power, being honestly confused by his son's behavior, and wondering what the brat could possibly want from him. On the rare occasions he had found Trunks blocking the door as his youngest son was doing now, he had coldly stepped over the boy without a word. And now that time is lost forever and I cannot have it back.

He would not make the same mistake twice. He knelt and hoisted the boy in his arms. "We must find a special place to display this masterpiece," he told his namesake softly as he carried him into the family quarters.

 

Pan stood in the enormous walk-in closet in Trunks room and lifted the blue sleeve of one silk dress shirt, breathing in. Trunks-kun… He was so far away, had been so far away for so long, she could neither feel nor remember the touch of his mind or body. The night in the forest was like a dream, except on nights when the moon was full----on those nights, nothing else was real. The first full moon after Trunks departure, Vegita-san had pulled her kicking and screaming away from a nearly successful launch attempt of one of the Crane model ships in Capsule Corp's private hanger. She dimly remembered Vegita-san's angry words as she shrieked and thrashed in her father's arms. I warned you this would happen, boy! If you mean to keep her on Chikyuu for the next three years, you better damn well get used to this happening every full moon and prepare for it! It was as though it all came back on her once a month, the madness, the driving unthinking need to see him, be with him, have him as her own. And her parents had quickly learned to their horror that each progressive new bought of lunacy brought with it the added strength of those before it. She had broken the barrier of Super Saiyan three months later. After tearing off the new reflector Bulma-san had made her because she had been sure, at least for the moment, that it was strangling her to death, she had soared up into the sky determined to fly to wherever Trunks was without the aid of a space ship, bursting into a radiant golden halo of power when her father had tried to pull her back to earth. He had caught her just as she'd reached a height where ice crystals were beginning to form in her lungs. After that incident, her mother had tentatively broached the subject of amputating her tail. Ojjiisan had spoken to her parents for a long time, his voice---his new voice----wafting up into her bedroom from downstairs in the last hours before dawn. She could not make out his words, but the soothing sound of his warm baritone had lulled her to sleep at last. No one had mentioned removing her tail again.

But in spite of these things, her life had gone on, thought she had been sure it would fracture and fall into a million friable pieces without Trunks. Poppa had reluctantly agreed to home schooling for her education. Even before Ojjiisan had returned, before the journey into space, before Baby and everything that had come after his reign, school had not been easy on her, though she was very bright academically. The constant dissembling, the unspoken lies about who and what she was, always having to be so careful, coupled with the publicity of being the only granddaughter of Satan-sama, Savior of Chikyuu, had made school a constant strain. Ojjiisan Satan…he would have been so happy to see my wedding day….though he would have probably died of fright from the journey into outer space. Grandpa Satan had passed away over a year ago now, at the ripe age of seventy-six. She smiled sadly. He had died in the ring of heart failure, defending the title no one in her father's side of the family had ever had the heart to take from him.

It was how he would have chosen to go, she knew, but it still ached like a hole inside her chest, the place in her heart where he had been. Krillan-san and Juuhachigou-san would be absent as well, Marron in all her catty charm, having chosen to have her own wedding to some high stakes stock broker at Kame House on the same day.

So, she had studied at home under her father's tutelage, growing closer to her to him during a time in her life when most girls barely spoke to their parents. Last night at dinner, he had told her that she was prepped to ace the entrance exams of any university in the world. Something so sad and resigned had been in his face when he had spoken those words, she had barely held back tears until she could excuse herself from the table. She knew he was seeing everything he wanted for her----four carefree years at University, a peaceful, happy life full of friends and safety---slipping away.

He did not realize that a normal life was not possible for her. More than that, it was not something she had ever wanted, or even considered. Ojjiisan's blood ran too strong in her veins. She wished she could tell him that in a way he could understand. He knew this trip they were about to take would mean the loss of her. And though he would probably have given her to Trunks with joy in four or five years, he was heart-broken to lose her so many years earlier than he had ever imagined. She doubted he had even let himself consider the possibility that she and Trunks would not be returning to Chikyuu with them.

She eyed herself in the full length mirror at the end of the closet hallway. She was still small---she had not really grown and inch since she was twelve or thirteen. Her cheekbones were more prominent, face less rounded---more and more a woman's and less a girl's. Her curves had finally ripened and filled out in all the proper places. Her body was toned and strong in a sleek way that hid the cut of muscle until she flexed. She had trained almost constantly in the last three years, coaxing her father back into a regular routine with herself and Jjiisan. It took the edge off the almost constant feeling of restlessness and anxiety that hung over her like a shadow, even when the moon was sickle. She smiled slightly, a thrill of anticipation pulsing through her. This time tomorrow, she would see him. Would he like what he saw?

"He'll think you're beautiful," Bulma-san said from the doorway. Pan looked down, embarrassed. Had her thoughts been so evident on her face that Trunks mother, even without the low-grade telepathy Saiyans possessed, could read her? "The ship'll be ready in an hour. Are all your things on board?" Pan nodded. Bulma-san looked pensive as she walked to join her before the mirror. "I come here sometimes. When I miss him. He's all over this room, isn't he? He's also a packrat, like my father was." She reached up on tiptoes to pull something from a high shelf, a dark, tatty scrap of cloth.

"Trunks' baby hat. See the little horns?"

Pan stared at it. "That's really…"

"Ugly?" Bulma-san grinned. "To this day, Vegita denies having given it to him, but I know I didn't and neither did my parents. I just found him wearing it one morning in his crib. He would howl whenever I took it away, even to wash it, so I just let him wear it all the time. At the time, I thought Vegita had put it on him because he was so unnerved at having fathered something with flat, pale hair." She eyed the girl in the mirror. "You're going to make a beautiful bride."

Pan cut her eyes downward, her face red. She did not meet Bulma's eyes, even the reflection of her gaze. Bulma gently raised the girl's dark hair in one hand and looped something around her neck. It was a silver necklace with one clear, perfect sapphire suspended from the chain. "You won't be needing your reflector any longer. I thought I'd give you something prettier to wear around your neck. It was my grandmother's. She brought it with her when the Briefs moved here from the West."

"Thank you," Pan mumbled.

"Let's see." Bulma turned her to face her. "Just beautiful." She tilted the girl's chin up, forcing her to meet her eyes. "We haven't talked for a long time, have we?"

Pan shook her head.

"I knew the girl you were very well, but the young woman---I barely know her anymore." Bulma was silent a moment before going on. "I saw the bite mark on Vegita's shoulder, Pan. And your mother filled in the rest of the details on what happened that night. Gohan-kun doesn't remember anything, thank the gods. And Vegita…I think his memories are blurred, but he probably remembers a lot more than he's willing to admit."

"Bulma-san---"

"Don't you dare apologize to me, young lady," Bulma cut her off. "Pan-chan, if anything had…happened between you and Vegita that night, it would not have been a betrayal on his part or yours. It would have been a tragedy----for all three of us." She took the girl's face in her hands and kissed her cheek. "You didn't do anything wrong, honey. I know your mother has told you this, but maybe you need to hear it from me. It hurts to think you won't even look me in the eye anymore. We're about to be family, Pan-chan. I want us to be close."

"Bulma-san…" She couldn't talk. She was choked on all she wanted to say and the well of relieved tears threatening to pour out of her. She had felt so guilty for so long, even against the voice of her rational mind, and had not known how to stop feeling that way. Poppa was right. Most of the problems in the world arose from people not communicating with each other. She hugged the older woman tightly, loosening her hold when Bulma gasped. "Sorry."

"Saiyan hugs," Bulma-san chuckled. "You'd think I'd be used to having my ribs compressed by now."

There came a ripple of tension, a swell in ki, rising with a faint rumble of angry male voices, all of which were growing steadily stronger, seeping up from the ground level of the compound. Bulma noticed the sudden look of veiled distress on the girl's face.

"Poppa and Vegita-san are arguing with Ojjiisan," Pan said. "And they're both mad."

"Kakarott." Vegita-san's face was waffling between shock, fury and sputtering outrage. "You---you actually lied to me!"

"Toussan, how?" Her father was saying. "How could you do it?!" The look of hurt betrayal on Gohan's face was something new and completely unpleasant to Jjiisan and it showed on his face. But he held his ground firmly.

"If I had let you know he was alive, you would have tried to kill him."

"Toussan…" Gohan shook his head, fighting to keep his voice from rising. "After what the boy did to Goten and Trunks. To all of us. After watching Pan suffer the way she has every month for three goddam years!"

He checked his temper again with effort. "Not only did you lie to us about Gurasia being alive, you let him come to our home, near Kassan, near little Go-chan. You invited him---!" Poppa stopped himself, perhaps realizing, Pan thought sickly, that if he didn't he would say things to his father he could never take back.

Vegita was not so encumbered. "Stupid, moronic, imbecilic, fool!!" He shouted. The blue-gray living room carpet under his feet was smoldering, turning black. "You don't even have the excuse of having your brains scrambled anymore! Why?! You let that little monster that set me to kill Bulma, to kill all of you, with nothing more than a touch live, then let it return in peace. Less than a hundred kilometers from where my woman and child sleep!" He shook with cold rage and a frightening look of near-hatred written across his dark features. Pan saw Chi-Chi and Bulma-san exchange almost fearful glances as her grandmother moved to where they stood at the landing of the main family living room. She suddenly realized that, at any moment, things might become in deadly earnest between Vegita-san and her grandfather. Maybe more deadly than they had been since her father had been a boy. Jjiisan bore the brunt of both tirades calmly, his eyes never wavering.

"I know you remember at least part of the Moontime, Vegita," he said.

"Enough to remember what it felt like to be the 'old you'. When you first landed on Chikyuu, could you have ever imagined in your wildest dreams becoming the man you are now?"

Vegita-san stared at him blankly for the space of three heartbeats. "We aren't talking about me---"

"No," Her grandfather said. "We're talking about a child who had only done this one bad thing in his entire life. And that under the direct influence of his father." He put his hand up as Vegita began to speak again, and amazingly, the Saiyan prince closed his mouth. Something in Son Gokou's face would not let him go on. "It's not just that," Gokou went on. His voice dropped to a level barely above a whisper, as his gaze turned inward. "When I was…away…for that one day, in the realm of Jouten, I saw things. It's outside of time. And when you dream there, you see the temporal plane spread out below you like an endlessly branching tree. A tree as large as the universe itself. Each branch is a possibility, and for each turn you make as you wind your way through the decisions and outcomes of momentous events, another billion possibilities branch out from there. From where we all stood three years ago, I saw something huge and monstrous waiting for us. And for every path we might take, of an almost infinite number of choices and roads, this threat stood in our way. There is, literally, no way in the universe around it. When we face it, we'll have to go through it. And if we lose, everything and everybody will be lost."

"When?" Gohan said softly.

"Maybe when Go-chan and Gita are grown. Maybe sooner. The time that this will happen isn't fixed, depending on the decisions we make…but it always comes." Vegita was silent, nearly mesmerized by the words of this man who had stepped inside eternity and come back to tell the tale. "And in every potentiality, I saw Gurasia, and his fate was indevisively bound up with ours. When Frieza conceived him, he had the power level of a god. Piccalo and the others believe that Gurasia will eventually become just as powerful. He's balanced on a knife's edge between good and evil. He may be that way his entire life. But this enemy we will be fighting is the death of life itself. And Gurasia's strength will be able to tip the balance in our favor. In the branches of time where it didn't, there was nothing after that. And the paths where Gurasia died as a child dissolved into nothingness with the coming of this thing. Whether he chooses good or evil, we need him. The universe needs him to be alive. I think he has a better chance of succeeding if he grows into a good man. And a child has a much better chance a growing to be good if he's not completely alone." He stared around at the silent, nearly awestruck faces, his eyes turning back to the here and now.

"When I let him live, I thought it was out of pity and because he was so young---and that was part of it. But the next night I dreamed, and remembered what I had seen."

"Do you ever see things like that now?" Bulma almost whispered.

"Not really. Every time I make a wish, I can feel a piece of Shen Lon's

soul pass through mine, and for a split instant, I see the entirety of time and space the way the dragons see it. The universe is enclosed like a transparent glass globe with everything that has been, is, and will be swirling inside like snowflakes in a crystal paperweight. You can't see the center, because it's infinite---"

"Toussan," Gohan said plaintively. "You're making my a head hurt."

"How do you know," Vegita-san rumbled, calmer now, but still unsatisfied. "That what you saw was the truth and not what the boy put in your head to save his own skin?"

"I know."

Vegita-san could only hold his gaze a moment before looking away. "I will… trust you in this, Kakarott," he said slowly, as though the words were sticking in his throat. Even Bulma blinked in surprise. "I will not harm the little monster…unless he gives me very good cause."

Poppa nodded as well. "I don't like it, Toussan. But I'll leave him alone, if you say we need him. I trust you."

Gokou let a relieved, happy smile wash over his face. A high, outraged squawk broke the tension in the room. In the playpen behind Gokou, Go-chan was holding onto Gita's tail, swinging him back and forth over her head by the hapless appendage. The tiny boy sucked in a lung full of air and shrieked like a fire engine.

"Go-chan!" Jjiisan pried her hand loose from the sobbing boy's tail. Bulma was there at once, soothing him with a nonsensical croon of comforting words. "It's not nice to pull tails!" He said sternly. His daughter laughed and hugged his neck. "So!" He said brightly. "Are we all ready to go?"

 

The rumble of the ship's engines beneath the floor was a faint soothing noise. It would be slightly over nine hours before they reached Shikaji.

Vegita heard the faint click and Bulma returning to their cabin, and the soft sounds of her moving about in the room outside. After a harrowing evening in Go-chan's company, Gita had collapsed in a pile of tiny arms, legs, and entertwined tails with the girl as though she were not the terror of his little existence and fallen asleep. Chi-Chi had offered to let the boy stay with them for the night. Vegita stared at the stranger in the bathroom mirror critically, a pair of Bulma's gardening sheers dangling lightly from one hand.

"Vegita, what the hell are you doing in th----oh my gods, what did you do to yourself?" Bulma stood aghast in the bathroom door, staring at the neatly clipped spikes of his dark hair, now shorn to less than two inches long. In the last three years, he had allowed it to grow back to its old length and shape. Now it was shorter than Gohan's, shorter than he's ever worn it, rounded to the curve of his head, instead of the flat cut he'd worn before.

He met her eyes in the steam-fogged face of the mirror.

"There will be people from every corner of the galaxy gathered for this summit." His voice was low and he reached back, drawing her hands around his waist. Without the cheat of his hair, they were exactly the same height. "I had a great talent for making enemies in my youth. If I appear to be just another half-blood, my face will not be examined so closely."

She smoothed her fingers along the ribbed muscles of his abdomen. His tail looped around her thigh, drawing a ticklish shiver from her as the tip brushed the back of her knee. "Are you worried?"

He snorted. "About being recognized by some nameless enemy I have given no thought to in forty years and putting you and the brat in harm's way? Or that the Tsiru-jin boy will take this opportunity to outdo his last attack on us? Or that this interstellar coalition of profit mongers masquerading as the birth of a galactic confederation will declare war on both Chikyuu and Madran and any other world that harbors the remnants of my race?" His mouth quirked. "Or that my son cannot seem to defend himself against Kakarott's girl-child and she bats him around like a cat toy whenever we set them down together?"

"Any of the above."

"I never worry, woman."

She grinned and began drawing slowly descending circles below his navel with one hand. She glanced into the mirror again. Neither of them looked a day over thirty. She had asked him not long ago, how long it would be until they began to show any hint of age. I am not sure…maybe fifty years, maybe a hundred…it is not in the nature of my race to live to see old age…Fifty years or a hundred, of unwithering youth. She smiled. "Worry's for weaklings, I hear," she said, brushing his ear with her lips.

"Even so." His voice had dropped to a rough whisper, eyes half-closed, as her caressing hand gripped him lightly.

"Vegita---" He turned without warning and lifted her, pressing her back up against the wall. The silk bathrobe she wore slipped open and halfway off, and he pressed his body against hers, parting her thighs with one insistent knee, his hot mouth trailing up the soft hollow between her breasts.

"I never worry," he repeated softly, his hands leaving a scald of heat where they moved over the curves and clefts of her body, until she was gasping against him as he played her senses like the strings of a harp. "I am more than able to protect what is mine," he husked in her ear.

"Vegita…" Sapphire eyes burning into his. He kissed the smooth line of her jaw and lifted her hips a little higher, brushing his hardness against the warm vale of her center, half a heartbeat from burying himself to the hilt inside her. Then she closed her thighs hard against his hips, her eyes suddenly blazing with…something.

"What…?" He tried to say. She smiled lazily and nudged the tip inside her, before clamping her legs against him again, barring any further entry.

"Are you happy?" She whispered.

What the hell kind of question was that? He growled, pushed into her a little further, but her hand moved up to his stomach, pressing gently, in and unspoken signal to stop. "Are you happy?" She repeated insistently. Her free hand snaked its way around and gripped his tail, squeezing softly. He groaned, half-insane with need for her now, tried to move, and again she stopped him with the flat of her hand..

"Bulma…don't…" He knew what she wanted, but he strangled on it, blocked by a lifelong, in some ways instinctive barrier of the action without the words, of doing rather than saying.

"With me…" She was saying softly. "With our children…with life…oh Kami, please let me hear it…" He was choking on the words clogging his throat, on his searing need for her, on his pride and the foolishness of giving voice to what she already knew. She tilted her hips up and he drove into her with a low growl that was half a sob. She locked both legs around him, pulling him deep inside.

"Yes!" He almost screamed in answer to her question. His lips against hers, breathing in the same breath she exhaled as he thrust upward, driving her a little higher up the wall. "Yes…yes…yes…" His voice tapered down into a raw whisper. He began moving inside her in a slow, agonized gentle rhythm. And suddenly, as though some floodgate inside him had burst open, he was speaking in a soft, ragged voice, words pouring out of his mouth, unable to stop them. "I never thought being alive…could be so good as it is…I never thought I would want to live as long as I have…" She was gasping and trembling like a leaf against him, eyes the deep, crystalline blue of Chikyuu's skies drowning him in their clear, bottomless depths. "But I do…I do…Because there is you…" She tossed her head back and sobbed as her first orgasm tore through her. He increased his pace with a shuddering hitch of breath, and broke the soft skin of her shoulder with his teeth, tasting sweet blood, pulling her up with him to another climax from the ragged edge of her last release. The end rose up through his body from where he was emmersed inside her, a backdraft of fire into his brain, tearing away pride and inhibition like paper rubbish swept away in a tsunami.

"I love you!" He cried, the words for once not ripped out of his clenched throat. The strength sighed out of his legs, and he slid down to his knees, arms enfolding her. "I love you…" He breathed in her ear, soft and low. She didn't speak, only clung to him shaking. After a long while, she turned her tear-streaked face up to meet his lips, and smiled like the dawn breaking on a good day.

"See?" She murmured. "All that wasn't so hard to say, now was it?"

"Extortionist," he managed to say, and she grinned. A thought, a foolish one perhaps, suddenly leapt into his mind. "Can you turn off the gravity stabilizers for this room alone?"

The soft hum of her chuckle vibrated against his chest. "Making love in zero gravity? What's that like?"

"Let's find out."

 

The Saiyan smiled an easy, charming smile across the polished, reflective surface of the conference table. Burka Maiyosh smiled back with relaxed good humor as though the barbarian had not just issued a veiled threat on his life. The deep healthy tint of his crimson skin did not pale. Not one hair of his immaculately groomed, slicked back ivory hair had been disturbed in the blinding blur of motion as the Saiyan had casually reached out and slammed the head of Maiyosh's Minister of Litigation down on the desk. It was the first time Burka had ever seen the solicitor at a loss for words. But then, he'd never seen the fellow unconscious until this moment.

"You must forgive Litigator Keruka," he said, a look of mildly embarrassed distress flitting across his features, as though one of the servants had accidentally spilled a drink onto a guest. "He is paid to be a strict interpreter of law and sometimes loses his grasp of common courtesy in his zeal."

The dark brows of the man across the table drew together, and his smile vanished. "The bride of the Saiyan no Ouji and her family will be quartered in the regent's wing of Maiyosh's palatial corporate estate, as will the Prince himself and the Madrani delegation."

Burka began to speak, studied the man's face, and thought better of it. He let his own smile fade and lowered his eyes thoughtfully, before raising them again, this time a studied look of resignation and grudging respect displayed for the benefit of his guests. "I see you have no tolerance for the Masque," he said shortly, looking for all the world like a man who had just removed a well-worn mask of his own with a sigh of relief. "It's an old, time honored game of verbal, legal, and political thrust and parry the Trade Houses play among themselves. Deliberate back-handed hamstringing, inconveniencing,

and insult of a commercial competitor is part of it. It's a game I'm afraid you'll have to take the time to learn if you wish to continue on your present path. But I must say, it's refreshing to simply speak and say what I mean."

The Saiyans simply stared at him, the "Saiyan no Ouiji" pleasantly expressionless as befitted a prince, the darker man's gaze still holding a promise of violent resolution to their suit should it not go as they wished.

Burka sighed. "I wasn't lying when I said quite a few of the other delegations had expressed concern about being quartered in such close proximity to Saiyans, but…You and your family and all your leigemen will be housed as befits the delegation of any Great House or royal dignitary," he said solemnly. The Saiyan Prince met his eyes for the first time, and Burka amended his original assessment as to which of these young men was the more dangerous. There was the same deep well of frightening power swelling below the surface in the this man, but while his kinsman had been nearly mollified by the honest approach he had just embarked upon, the fair-haired Prince eyed him with a blank, inscrutable look that Burka sensed saw through his every word and gesture.

"You might have simply invited us to supper," Trunks said quietly. "If you wanted to size us up in person."

Burka blinked. He had been lying, of course. Honesty was not refreshing---it was unnerving. But his instincts had been right---this young bastard was more intelligent than any Saiyan had a right to be. "As you say," he nodded.

Burka gestured idly to the armored man who stood at attention on his right shoulder. "My nephew and Captain of Maiyosh Security will secure the proper wings for you." Burka did not miss the dark flicker behind the eyes of the Prince or the look of unadulterated will to do murder on the face of Son Goten as they both spared a glance at his nephew.

"We would prefer someone else handle the arrangements," Trunks said in his quiet voice. Burka began to speak, but his nephew broke in, a look of mild annoyance dancing across his handsome features. "Let's cut the chase, boyos. I won't pretend we're all friends here like my uncle will." He looked them both in the eye with a directness that put a song in Burka's heart. Damn, but the boy had learned to play the game well in the last few years. "Warriors should be direct with each other and not nancy-foot around the subject. If you'll both think back, though, I think you'll remember I never did a damn thing to either of you personally. Even looked out for you on one or two occasions, I remember." The hard, soldier's set on his nephew's face always looked out of place on the red, elfin features shared by all the sons of Maiyosh-sei.

"You were scared shitless of us," Goten said flatly. He would have gone on, but Trunks raised a hand.

"I wouldn't want to put your nephew at risk," the Prince said without elaboration.

"Laki, my chief butler, then?" Burka suggested smoothly. It had suddenly impressed itself on him that if either of these men decided to end this interview and the problems he and his House posed them by simply ending his life, here was absolutely nothing he could do to stop them from doing so. "You have the word of Maiyosh House that everything will be to your satisfaction. I won't lie and say I wish you well in the political arena we'll be sparring in for the next few days. But I do wish you joy in your coming marriage, Trunks-sama."

There were other mindless pleasantries exchanged before the door closed behind to two young men, Laki escorting them out like the very soul of gracious courtesy that he was. A brave man. Burka would have to remember to give the man a substantial bump in salary for this little chore.

"You," his nephew said blandly," have got a pair of big, red corsian steel balls, Uncle."

"Oh, thank you…I think." Burka uttered a slightly shaky laugh. "The scouter beneath my desk shorted out when Son Goten thumped Keruka."

"You haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg," the younger man said. "You can't fucking imagine how strong they are."

"And you say their fathers are stronger?" Burka shuddered. "I'm in an unusual position here, my lad. We stand to amass more profit in the next few days than the last dozen generations of Maiyosh combined, if all goes well, but…I wonder if we aren't actually, propaganda aside, doing the galaxy a real service in removing the Saiyan threat for good. It would be an added feather in Maiyosh's cap if we actually ended up saving the future for posterity and all that." He smiled at the thought.

"If they don't get pissy and decide to fry us all to make their problems go away."

Burka shook his head. "They are willing to play by the rules for the moment. Interesting combination of genetic traits, both in the Chikyuu-jin and Madrani Saiyans. Who'd have ever thought breeding the monkeys with bright, crafty races would produce such a dangerous result." He shook his head. "A brilliant Saiyan isn't something I ever wanted to see. But that's what our little summit with the Bugs is all about. However things fall out in the circus I'll be orchestrating in the next few days, the Bugs will rid me of whoever is left standing at the end."

"I just hope---" His nephew began.

"Speak freely, lad," Burka said. "Your honest opinion has never cast a doubt on your loyalty."

"I hope you aren't making the same mistake with the Bugs that Lord Frieza ultimately made with the Saiyans, Uncle." The younger man tugged a the end of the long, ivory warrior's braid he wore. "Overestimating your ability to harness and reign in a force of nature."

"As long as we keep them fed, fat, and happy, the Bugs will be an asset," Burka said. "Bio-tech Department assures me they have a full proof method of extermination when the time comes. The lab tests were rather like watching someone pour salt on a slug. But that won't be for a while yet. And the beauty of the entire arrangement is that it can ultimately be blamed on the Saiyans.." He smiled beautifically at his nephew, the rose hue of his face deepening a shade with a flush of expectation. "And in the aftermath, Maiyosh House will simply step in and offer a helping hand to any world in need of our "Bug spray"---for the price of their fealty, of course." He eyed the other man speculatively. "I leave it to you to set off this pile of explosives we've assembled here on Shikaji in a manner that will suit our purposes."

"I know what to do, Uncle. Believe me, I know the Saiyans."

"We haven't discussed your bonus for all your good work on this project, lad. It should be a damn big one. The "Free Trade Coalition" worlds who've thrown their lot in with Madran---I think there are several dozen, all in the concentrated region surrounding Madran---will be needing a governor to remind them continually that the wages of defiance are high. Come to think of it…Chikyuu's in the same general region, isn't it? We'll throw all territories in the triangular sector from Madran to Abratsu to Chikyuu. How does that sound?"

"Thank you, Uncle," his nephew inclined his head. Every time he looked at the younger man, Burka was glad he'd had the foresight to take the angry, restless twenty-year-old boy he had been out of his domineering sister's hands and apprentice him to Frieza so many years ago. Every House should have one true warrior among its own sons to provide muscle where it was needed. And the boy's grateful thanks at having been rescued from his tyrannical bitch of a mother had blossomed into genuine love and allegiance.

He still did not know what to make of the lad's tales of death, perdition, and dragons, of dissolved timelines and narrow escapes from the wrath of an enraged Saiyan Prince. But it was good to have him back in the service of his family where he belonged, and he trusted the younger man's instincts where other warriors were concerned. And true loyalty was a quality that should always be rewarded.

"There is one more thing I would ask for…"

Burka grinned. "Knowing you, it'll be a woman."

His nephew nodded, an answering smile tugging at his mouth. "You know me too well, Uncle," he said, half lost in a fond memory of the silken feel of peaches and cream skin and the sound of broken screams. "I've got a fancy for something in blue," said Jeiyce.

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Table of Contents
Chapter 2