In theory, the Council was a gathering of equals. But Maiyosh House had called this great meeting of worlds together and organized the entire event. Maiyosh owned the world it was being held upon, had assigned each delegation this Seat or that, and chosen the Chairman of the Chamber, the Council's Speaker and official moderator----a delegate from Uspra-sei, one of Maiyosh's own satellite worlds. The Uspra-jin's deep, cultured theatrical voice announced the beginning of ceremonies and was introduced in a welcoming speech by Burka himself.

Trunks breathed in and out slowly during Maiyosh's opening remarks. The oration was a masterpiece of carefully couched innuendo and prettily veiled reminders to this delegation or that as to whom they owed their livelihoods, their loyalty, and in many cases, their continued breathing privileges. Trunks knew that in the seven years since his grandfather's death, Burka had managed to outmaneuver, bribe, or bully most of the other Trade Houses into a position beneath him. Nearly all of them owed him too much to gainsay him, and were on the point of having their merchant empires stolen out from under them by Maiyosh muscle or creditors. The man's speech would have put any son of the houses of Borgia or Medici to shame in the seamless way it conveyed gracious thanks and pointed threat in the same breath.

Trunks cleared and focused his mind in the way he had learned prep before a corporate face-off during his years as CEO of Capsule Corp. It was ironic that nothing in his life had prepared him for the next few hours so much as that hated job. He sat calm and composed in the foremost chair of the Saiyan Seat, his face a study in non-expressiveness. The others stood in a half-circle fan behind him, not quite at attention, but far from at ease. His father hovered on the back eaves of the Seat, half in shadow, but the pride that flickered around the edges of his ki, the brusque, edgy sense of his deep love, made Trunks' eyes threaten to burn. "Ottousan, it should be you sitting here, or at least at my side! This should have been your day…"

"It is not your day yet, boy," his father's voice rang in side his mind. "You have yet to win it. And it will go better if I am not seen at all…"

"…so many old friends and acquaintances," Burka was saying. "As well as a great many new faces. "Oram, the new Regent of Corsaris, holding the throne in trust for his grand-nephew until his majority." The vid feed showed a balding, fat man with a face that looked like freshly turned gravel stand and bow. "Masanji, the newest Chairwoman of Avariss House, my old friend and sometimes foe in the Trade arena." A middle-aged woman with the face of a school marm and the eyes of a shark. "And two newly risen, or should I say resurrected, stars among our fellowship of leaders: Gurasia, Lord of Tsiru-sei, and the Saiyan no Ouji, Trunks of Chikyuu, representative of the newly founded Free Trade Coalition and the interests of Madrani Shipping." The burr began before Trunks even stood, silently cursing the man for his deliberate introduction of himself and Gurasia in the same breath. It was the sound of tens of thousands of voices murmuring, some distressed, some fearful and angry.

And that was it for the moment. Trunks sat down, stifling a relieved sigh, and felt something warm and fluffy close around the hand he dangled from the arm of what would probably prove the be a very uncomfortable chair by the end of the day. The tip of Pan's tail squeezed his fingers lightly before retreating. He smiled, and settled down to wait through the myriad of minor issues and trade contentions that were nothing more than fillers for the real issues of the day.

"There should be some sort of limit set on the power level and technology levels of the inhabitants of any potentially colonizable world." Avarris had the floor. Trunks sat up a little straighter. Kami, had he been daydreaming? "A world with no space flight capability, whose populace is not even sufficiently evolved to the point where they can fly under their own power, should not be afforded the same protected status as a world that has these things. In fact, Avarris House has found that the natives of such worlds are often grateful for our guidance. Where they do lose a measure of control over the affairs of their homeworlds, they also have access to the luxuries and learning of the entire civilized galaxy…providing that the intelligence of such indigenous races is high enough to take advantage of such things."

His father's voice was suddenly in his ear. "The Avarris-jin have an average fighting power of 1500," Vegita murmured. "The Corsarians and House Timbat have less than 20."

Maiyosh was beaming. "Well spoken, Avarris. I second the motion. So we have any rebuttal before we cast a vote?"

Trunks stood, and the Chairman recognized him "This isn't our business," hissed Zoukin.

"It is," Radu whispered. "Chikyuu-jin have no fighting power to speak of, and neither do Madiani."

"I'm only curious," Trunks said slowly, addressing his words directly to Avarris. "As I'm still learning the fine points of galactic maritime and merchant law. Would a vote in favor of this motion mean that Corsaris, and even House Timbat would be subject to colonization by Avarris? Or for that matter," he glanced down at the scouter sweep his father had just pulled upon the Seat's terminal, "Surin, House Eridia, the Orsah Confederacy, Madran, or my own homeworld Chikyuu? It seems like a dangerous precedent to set in terms of common law. I had understood that the entire concern of this Council was the evolution of a galactic rule of law, where might did not give one rights."

There was a full five seconds of dead silence. Then…It began somewhere near the Corsarian Seat and spread like a rolling wave of thunder, until the noise of the applause was deafening. Behind him, he heard his father begin to chuckle wickedly. Trunks saw as the vid feed flickered past the Avarris Seat, that the woman looked ready to collapse in a fit of apoplexy. The motion was voted down by a sweeping majority.

And once the initial wall was breached, Trunks found himself catapulted into the arena of debate in every subsequent issue. And at each turn, in almost every instance in the linchpin of a decision that would subtly or bluntly undermine the rights or freedoms of some less powerful world or people, his father was there to provide some piece of information of insight that would hamstring Maiyosh's purpose or split the Houses on a vote. Sometimes it was only only a word that would turn the tide of the crowd's thought. "Oh Poppa, it should have been you here. You would have made a king out of legends…"

And on each of these occasions, when Burka or his supporters were voted down, curtailed, or blocked, the chairman of Maiyosh House's smile never faltered. He never betrayed anything other that his habitual good humor.

Trunks began to realize that this was not an act. This was the look of a man who knew, knew he would win the day no matter what.

This was no the case for Avarris. She glared across the two-kilometer stretch of space that separated her Seat from Trunks', as though she wished she could burn the Box Trunks sat in with her bare eyes alone. Finally she stood, thwarted one time too many for her apparently violent temper to bare, and broke into through the melodious voice of the Chairman of Debate, her voice harsh as an old crone's. "I call to the floor the opening arguments concerning the Saiyan Question!" She nearly spat.

"Who brings this issue to Council?" The Chairman asked, mildly miffed at this rude interruption, but on a minute gesture from Burka, he pulled the issue to the front of the docket.

"That would be me," Maiyosh said standing. "The issue, as my lobbyists no doubt eloquently put forth to each of you months ago, is one of safety. Mine, yours, everyone's. For three hundred years, the Saiyans of Vegita-sei, first by their own hand, then as soldiers of the Tsiru-jin Empire, were the terror of every inhabited world in this sector of space. I do not have to elaborate----the list of their crimes is too long to name, and the scars still run deep for many in this Chamber. It has come to the attention of many that in recent years, the race that purged more than two hundred thousand worlds in a mere three centuries of space flight capability, has made a resurgence. They have made their homes on out of the way worlds and begun to increase in numbers. The only good thing that Frieza ever did was to rid us all of that accursed race! I ask you all now, not for profit or power or any of the things that have driven many of today's issues----Can we in conscience, let them hold the slave worlds they have already taken? And just as important, can we allow that race to grow again to threaten all of our lives?" There were rumblings of agreement from all around the Chamber.

Trunks stood, opened his mouth to speak, but Gurasia beat him to the punch. "I have a question for Maiyosh, and for Avarris and several others, come to that." The boy said. "Where are the worlds that were purged under my father's rule now? I fear, if you all examine the file now on your Seat terminals, you will see records and accounts of worlds purchased by Maiyosh House and others dating back one hundred and forty standard years. Maiyosh's tally alone is in excess of seventy thousands worlds. If you check the dates of the purchase orders against the dates of the purges, you will find that nearly all were bought and paid for before the indigenous populations were annihilated. Alas, Lord Burka…it seems that the hands of Maiyosh House are as bloody as the Saiyans or the Tsiru-jin."

Burka hung his head against the cacophony of angry noise that swelled around him. "It's all true…" When he raised his head again, his eyes were full of tears. "I have known this my entire life, as have many of you. It has been the driving motive behind my financial aid and charities to many of the survivors of worlds who suffered under Frieza and Saiyan occupation over the years. I have tried in every way possible to make amends for the sins of my grandfather since I took the Lordship of Maiyosh House. And this is why I have felt driven to call this issue to a vote here today. I feel it is my personal responsibility to see that such a thing never happens again."

"If you feel so very badly about it," Gurasia suggested slyly, "why not give the worlds Maiyosh secured from my father and grandfather back to the surviving remnants of each native race?" There was thunderous agreement from every side. All eyes turned to Burka.

"My grandfather's dealings with Tsiru-sei and the Saiyans," Maiyosh said slowly, "will be a source of ever-lasting shame to Maiyosh-sei. I will pay a fee of apology to any and all survivors of any world named in your list, Lord Gurasia. And as for the stolen worlds….I will return them all, all seventy-fucking-thousand of them, where even one solitary survivor can be found!"

His voice began to rise. "If I must empty the very bottom of my coffers, I swear by all that is sacred, I will pay!" A mountain of applause and shouts rose around him, and the Lord of Maiyosh-sei bowed his head humbly. Through the jump cuts of faces flitting across the vid-feed, Trunks caught the slanting cut of the Tsiru-jin boy's eyes as he gazed directly into the vid-cam, seeming to meet Trunk's eyes. "The vow is legally binding!" The boy's chill voice echoed inside his mind. "He cannot support such a vow of restitution, Trunks of Chikyuu! Even his pockets are not deep enough…What is he planning?!"

"You speak of 'slave worlds'," Corsaris' gruff voice spoke up when the noise began to die down. "I have visited Madran. It is happy and prosperous…and outside of Maiyosh rule because of the Saiyans who dwell there. Tell the truth, Burka. Isn't this all just some elaborate mummery to tear down Maiyosh shipping?"

"Have I not just proven that money is not an issue in this matter?" Burka asked, guileless and hurt. "There may be worlds where the Saiyans dwell in peace with the inhabitants. But it may only be part of a greater plan. What if Madran Shipping is nothing more than a plan to bring forth a new fleet of Saiyan warships? So they live in peace on the worlds they inhabit for the moment. Many of you may be saying to yourselves, 'Why should we bother?' They will breed their own blood out within the population of these worlds within a generation or three. There are to few of them. But I will tell you a secret of the Saiyan race, a terrible secret of their unique genetic structure. One Frieza shared with my grandfather mere days before the destruction of Vegita-sei. It was Tsiru-sei's primary reason for wiping out the Saiyans in the first place. Many of you are aware of the malleable factor that allows them to continually gain strength with each new injury or physical trauma. A very few of you know that they can successfully interbreed with virtually any sentient species in the known galaxy. But the great secret is that their DNA is always, always 99.997% dominant! The medical stats are now displayed upon your individual terminals for your own experts to verify. Their 'half-blood' children will have some minute physical characteristics of the mother's race, but are, in essence, Saiyan. As will be their children and their children's children, and on and on until the entire planet is peopled by Saiyans. Their coloring and features may be slightly altered, but that is all! This means, my friends, that in a few short milennia, we will not have one planet Vegita-sei, but dozens!" Maiyosh's voice began rising, sweeping the crowd up in a rising storm of anger and apprehension. "Sufferers of Saiyan conquest and enslavement: Souros! Ansou-sei! Cros! Imcul! Shik! J'toub! Survivors of Saiyan purges: Danasti! Arlia! Tossab-sei! Rothspay! Spura! I call on you to urge your fellow delegates to side with me on this. An ancient practice of galactic common law allows that should one race pose such a threat as to endanger the safety and lives of all other races, they may be declared outlaw as a people, and subject to final sanction for the common good. It is a hard law, I know, written for use in only the most extreme of circumstances. But I beg you, in the name of your children and grandchildren's lives, support me in this! We must save ourselves while we can!"

There was pandemonium. Every delegate in the entire Chamber was on their feet speaking at once.

"Do it!" came the ice and honey hiss of Gurasia's mental voice. "Do it now before they storm both our Seats to the man!"

Trunks took a deep breath, stood slowly, and began to raise his ki, shielding his aura from the visible spectrum. Up and up, to just below the threshold of Super Saiyan. As he did so, the others did the same---his father, Gokou-san, Gohan, Goten, Bra-chan, and Pan, the tendrils of her thoughts caressing his wordlessly.

And the entire Chamber grew slowly still and silent as a fresh grave.

Faces of every conceivable description watched his, pale and fearful.

"If we blame the sins of the forefathers on the children," Trunks said softly. "We will all be at war with each other forever. If we hold the present generation accountable for the things their ancestors have done, no one in this Chamber will escape execution. All of our hands would be wet with blood. I can't speak for those who lived before me. But I honor life. I honor freedom. I honor peace. If I must, I will fight to defend all three. I would like to live my in peace, to live with and love and learn everything there is to know about my new wife. I would like to raise children with her on a peaceful green world and watch them grow up happy and strong. I would like to see all of these things come to pass for all of my people as well." He began to raise his ki still higher. "We do not wish any of you harm. We don't have plans to do any of you harm in the future." He pushed his power up over the brink of Super Saiyan, and the amber aura flared around him in a nimbus of radiant light. "But we will not allow ourselves to be wiped out, or any of the worlds who look to us for protection to be overthrown. And if we are attacked," Trunks finished, still in that same soft spoken, gentle voice. "We will defend ourselves."

In a house that held nearly a quarter of a million separate souls, not a sound stirred, except for the electronic whirring of a great many over-taxed scouters. When the Chairman of the Chamber called a two-hour recess for deliberation---and lunch---a few minutes later, a number of delegates nearly fainted in relief. And through all this, Trunks kept a careful watch on the face of Burka Maiyosh. Burka did seem surprised or even disturbed by Trunks' "rebuttal". Gurasia's words echoed once more in his mind.

Strength, Vegita thought with a grim satisfaction, was ever the deciding factor. Sentimental fools like Kakarott could claim that it was otherwise until the stars burned cold and fell out of the sky, but that did not make it untrue. His eyes swept across the press of figures clustered around Maiyosh in his Seat, searching for traces of familiarity, and his gaze froze. The effete, insectile face of one of the 'survivors' Burka had no doubt gathered from far and wide to drum up sympathy for his cause, telling their sad tales of Saiyan atrocity to any who would listen, was a cast of features from a race he knew.

Vegita stared a minute longer at the simpering looked of gratitude splayed across the Arlian's face as he salaamed once more to Maiyosh. He must have been off world when I…He frowned and finished the thought harshly.

"Vegita?" He rounded angrily on the fool who had just clapped a hand on his shoulder. The other Saiyan's smile slipped at the sight of his face, and Vegita cursed the man's unnerving insight that very probably could clearly see the course of dark memory his thoughts had been charting. "I think that's that," Kakarott said solemnly. "They'll vote the motion down."

"They will be terrified not to," Vegita grunted. "And justly so."

"Trunks was---"

"Trunks is a son of the blood of kings. And he proved his right to stand among all those who went before him today." His son's face flushed with a deep glow of pleasure at those impassive words, though the boy's features only shifted minutely. Trunks would have to learn to hide his thoughts and feeling a little better….but not now. His son nodded quiet thanks, then the Free Trade Coalition reps nearly dragged him out of the Seat and into the lounge beyond. He followed the growing throng and saw Bulma kissing Trunks cheek, her eyes feverishly bright in her pale face. Stubborn woman, he thought irritably. As usual, she would probably wait until she was coughing up a lung before she sought any kind of medical attention, though he understood her unwillingness to miss this Council for any reason.

"Was it true?" Kakarott said at his side. "What Burka said about Saiyans always breeding true."

"I…don't know," Vegita frowned. "It was known we could interbreed with most physically compatible races…but half-breeds were always killed wherever they were found for the purposes of racial purity." He felt something he could not quite define turn inside his chest at the thought that the Saiyan race would one day be great in numbers again.

"It's true," said Bra, balancing an apprehensive-looking Gita on her shoulders. "Zoukin discovered it several years ago in his medical research. There are differences in coloring, and the environmentally conditioned aspect of our inherent violent behavior will be missing, but we're all essentially Saiyan at the genetic level. I'm surprised Momma never discovered it."

"It'll take a long time, Ou-sama," Goten murmured in Saiyago at her shoulder. "But our people will live again."

Kakarott frowned worriedly at those words, but Goten had wheeled away to join the Madrani brothers, who were in the process of lifting Trunks up on their shoulders, before he could speak.

"…take Go-chan and Gita back to the rooms for a nap," Gohan's woman was telling Bulma. "Do you want to come and help with lunch? If we want anything to eat at all, it might be a good idea to do it now before all these Saiyans start in on the food."

"…still don't have much of an appetite," Bulma said, somewhat distantly. "And besides, I have a new toy here." She kissed Gita goodbye. Her gesture of farewell to Videl seemed…wrong. Her hands were moving over the components of the device in her lap in slow, dreamlike motion, as though she were half-unplugged from everything around her. He glanced down and saw the "toy" she was slowly dissecting--- and went cold with revolted rage. Tsiru-jin ki damper… He stalked over to her, eyes blazing with anger.

"Where the hell did you get that---that thing, woman?!" Though, of course, he knew where. She stared up into his enraged face, and he suddenly felt all the anger drain out of him. "You," he said quietly, hoping the knot of worry forming in his stomach did not show on his face like a fool, "are going to the infirmary now. If you do not go under your own power in the next two minutes, I will carry you there, willing or not."

"Vegita…" Gods, she looked terrible! How could he have not noticed it?

"Now." He pulled her up from the abomination she was splicing together with the shell of an energy rifle. He should have received an angry, loud-mouthed curse, or at least a word of protest, but instead she half-collapsed against him.

"I'll be fine," she whispered, and he suddenly felt the stab of worry shift to real fear.

"There's a medical suite down on the ground level," Kakarott said, his face grim.

Vegita lifted her up in his arms, feeling the slack, dead weight of her unresponsive body. Something was terribly wrong.

"Show me." He glanced back at the laughing mob surrounding Trunks, all their attention turned away for the moment. Then he followed Kakarott out and through the twists and turns that curled downward, zipping around reams of bystanders and hallway intriguers, streaking by them like the brush of a strong breeze, as they flew less than a foot above the floor.

The other occupants of the medic's offices scattered to either side like quail at the sight of the two men's tails. Vegita strode through the waiting room and kicked the chief physician's office door off its hinges. The Maiyosh-jin doctor regarded him with wide, stunned eyes as Vegita swept his desktop clear of paperwork and software with one arm.

"Vegita---"

"Shut up, Kakarott," Vegita said almost absently. "This woman is not well," he told the medic. "Make her well."

The balding, red-skinned man swallowed and motioned for Vegita to set his burden down on the desk. He ran a med-scan device over the shaking woman's body, peered at the readings, then looked critically into her blanched, almost expressionless face. "Standard type 1 humanoid mammalian physiology," he murmured. "Physically she seems to be in good health. But she is in some kind of shock." He glanced back at Vegita, all traces of fear gone in his intent examination of his new patient. "Has she recently suffered some kind of trauma? The death of someone close, or the like?"

"I'll be fine," Bulma's quavering voice.

"Stop saying that!" He said emphatically. "You are not 'fine'!"

Kakarott was silent behind him, but he felt the flicker of something cold, murderous and completely unlike the bigger man swirl through the flame of his ki for an instant.

The medic pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I can give her a mild sedative that will----" His words were cut off by a shockwave of energy that sheered off the outer wall off the office room, revealing the burning wreck of what had been the infirmary waiting rooms an instant before. Through the falling ash and smoke, a troop of red-skinned, armored figures strode toward them.

"Jeiyce." Kakarott's voice was so full of flat hatred that Vegita had to fight another annoying surge of curiosity. Behind and around the Ginyu, the smoking bodies of the poor bastards who had cluttered the waiting room lay in blasted pieces.

"Vegita, look what you've done!" Jeiyce said with a slight grin. "Preying on the sick and helpless."

"You fuck---"

"What have you done?" The medic cried in horror. "Captain Jeiyce, why---" A bolt of ki from the Ginyu's open hand cut the man in half.

Bulma was screaming, high and piercing in the sudden deadly silence. Maiyosh-jin warriors on either side of their captain were setting innocuous-looking black boxes on the rubble-strewn floor.

"Vegita!" Kararott shouted. "We have to go! Now! We can't---" The bigger man stepped back and stumbled, sinking to both knees as though the breath had been knocked out of him. "Run…" He hissed, and fell forward on his face. And Vegita saw that there was something…something crawling all over him.

"He's right about that, Vegita," Jeiyce said amiably. "You can't fight this."

Something brushed his ankle and Vegita saw with cold dread that his boots were covered with the black, clicking things. A draining, pulling sensation of weakness flooded him and he staggered, gripping the edge of the desk behind him. "Bulma…run…" But Jeiyce was suddenly right beside him, speaking in his ear like a child telling a long-kept secret.

"I fucked her, Vegita---your beautiful wife. Gave her the works back on Tsiru-sei. And you know how I like to serve my ladies. She didn't remember at first, but I gave her a little goose and tickle at the party last night to jog the old memory." Soft laughter. "From the looks of her, I'd say she remembers now. Don't you, Lovey?"

The world had gone blood red and still. Not even Bulma's angry, hate-filled shrieks of rage almost in his ear cut through the pounding in his head, the rising swell of blood rage that he knew in some dim corner of his mind might crack the mantel of this planet like an egg under a boot heel if he released it. He released it.

And in the same instant, it was all sucked away like sand beneath his feet in a rip tide, all leeched out of him, leaving him empty, without even the power to stand. A backwash of something…something not flowed into him and he screamed, falling to his knees beside Kakarott, trying to pull the nothingness out of himself, away from himself. It was as futile as trying to bail out the rising tide. A fist drove into his stomach, then another into his kidneys, and he fell onto his back. And the black things swarmed all over him.

"Bulma…" They had taken everything, so much energy that he could feel his own heart straining slow and laboriously, just to keep beating. He could not be weak! He had to stand, to fight, to avenge her….oh gods, to protect her!

But he could not move.

"Throw this one in the cage with the others and take princey here and have Hiru get him ready for the show," Jeiyce's voice was saying. His words ended in a sharp cry and a sizzling electrical crackle. "Good gods, you're a hellcat, aren't you?" The Ginyu chuckled painfully. There was the sound of a scuffle, and Jeiyce moved back into view, holding Bulma before him, her arms pinned to her sides. "Don't worry, Vegita," he said pleasantly. "I'll take good care of her." He slung her kicking and clawing up into both arms, and from somewhere, some last, raw morsel of unplundered energy, Vegita found the strength to reach out and grab the Ginyu's ankle.

"No…"

"Yes," said Jeiyce. The Maiyosh-jin aimed a quick, sharp kick to his head, and he knew no more.

* * * * *