Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Only the Weak ❯ Chapter 7 ( Chapter 7 )

Only the Weak

By Karete-chan

Chapter 7:

After the initial and sceptical testing of the new lasers, the rebel community went into overdrive. Through Hontij's various sources, the praise and offers of support for the new technology poured in. Bulma and her father, as well as the varied assortment of aliens who were trained in the area, set to work producing bigger, better and all around more useful things to supply to the scattered rebel groups.

Bulma's latest idea had caused something of a fuss.

"This isn't something that you can just pick up and use," Bulma tried explaining for the tenth time. "It has to be configured and reconfigured with every little change."

Hontij shook his head. "Bulma, I understand what you are telling me but I cannot allow this request."

"Why not?" she replied hotly, her blue eyes flashing. "I created it, why can't I over see its set-up?" She watched as the dark skinned man squirmed and sighed. "Does my father have anything to do with this?" she asked.

His eyes flicked to hers momentarily. "Well…yes and no."

"What's the no part?"

"Your male friend has expressed his displeasure as well."

Bulma's eyes narrowed. "Yamcha? He thinks he has the balls to get away with this?" she muttered to herself. "Oooh. When I get my hands on him…" Her hands balled into fists.

Hontij smiled. "The ship leaves for Yotemu-sei in two hours."

~*~*~*~

She looked down at her hands. The fingernails were broken and bloody in places, the rest of her long hands caked in grime. They looked like the hands of a sixty year old, right down to the shaking. She grasped them tightly, willing them to stop but it only made the shaking worse. It wasn't fear anymore; her body was beyond worrying about that, now she shook from fatigue.

In the last three days she had had but five hours rest. She was already losing sleep time due to the lessons she and the others were receiving from Petak and in hindsight she had been a fool saying no when the old man had insisted she stop for a while. Now with the constant summoning from Lord Zarbon to attend his aches and pains she was lucky if she even found the time to lie down.

ThreeBrown sat in her Lord's rooms now, awaiting him on her stool. The room became unfocused for a moment and she shook her head to clear her eyes. Her vision tilted crazily before righting itself and she wondered for a moment where she was. Then the door slid open and her Lord was standing there. She rose and bowed but he strode past, ignoring her, so she sat back down, thankful for the few extra moments rest.

When he emerged from his inner rooms he went straight to his chair. She stood, pulled her stool over and reached down for the clean cloth she had draped over one rung. Slowly she held it out to him. His eyes lifted to her hands.

"Not today," he said, his voice unusually soft, but he took the cloth from her none the less. She stayed still as he sat there seemingly entranced by the simple material, then he shifted, sitting on the edge of his chair. He draped the cloth over one arm of the chair and began to roll down the top of the left leg of his thigh high boots.

ThreeBrown's eyes widened as the smooth expanse of blue leg was exposed to her vision. Bruises marked the almost flawless skin and to her eyes were spaced far too evenly. They looked too much like fingerprints. Movement broke her thoughts as he wrapped his leg in the cloth then lent back in the chair. Her head swum and she paused.

"Get on with it."

Nodding absently, she placed her shaking hands on either side of his leg applying a slight amount of pressure. ThreeBrown felt muscles spasm slightly beneath the cloth and out of the corner of her still healing eye she saw his fist curl. Fear welled up inside her but she continued with her work.

Zarbon was tired. Ever since he'd climbed out of that tank he'd been run off his feet. The amount of loose ends he had had to tidy since the emergence of this latest rebel uprising was astounding. He sighed. No matter what the doctors said, using the tanks never left him rested afterward and the only rest he'd allowed himself were the times when he summoned the salve.

His eyes drifted shut. The slave's hands felt good today. His leg still ached from the little mishap he'd had earlier with Frieza. It really wasn't his week. Surprisingly enough he had noticed the look in the slave's eyes at the bruises their master had left. Not that she knew that Frieza had done it but she had recognised the pattern for what it was. Perhaps she wasn't as stupid as he had thought.

He dozed, letting his mind trace the pattern of her hands drifting over his leg. For someone so crude her touch was light, applying more pressure only where it was needed. She had strong fingers. He felt her gently place her whole palm against both sides of his leg and rub in a different motion to before. Then the pleasant sensation stopped. The release of pressure as her hands left his leg woke him from his dozing state. He glared at her.

She averted her eyes, grubby clumps of hair falling into her face and focused instead at a spot somewhere on the floor over near the wall. He raised an eyebrow and, as if sensing his mood, she bit her lip.

"Get on with your work," he said tersely.

Her eyes flicked back at his leg before she took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head. Anger welled up inside him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he growled, leaning forward. She cringed. "Is this work beneath you, slave?" he mocked as he looked down at his leg. "Are you too far above me in your filth covered…" he stopped.

The slave was still turned away from him, shaking from the anger she had heard in his voice.

"Leave," he said softly.

She did.

~*~*~*~

ThreeBrown reached the slave common room and stood outside gasping for breath. For the second time since she had met him she'd thrown caution to the wind and ran as fast as she could to get away from him. She grabbed at the wall as her head spun again, tripping the lock on the door. As the door slid open the roar of noise that hit her seemed abnormally loud. She stood on the threshold for a moment to gather her bearings, and then stepped inside. When no voices immediately called for her, her feet automatically turned towards the sleeping quarters.

No one barked a terse command as she disappeared down the dingy corridor and entered the room she shared with the others. She found herself sitting down on her hard bunk. Looking at the monitor in the wall near the door she could see that there was another scheduled work session in ten minutes.

ThreeBrown sighed. Perhaps just having a quite moment to herself might make things easier, and maybe she would skip the practice session tonight. Yes, then she could think straight again and not have this god forsaken headache.

~*~*~*~

It wasn't that she was ungrateful. If she thought about it, it was almost endearing in a way. Yet she was still pissed off.

Bulma watched the small pinpoints of light in the distance. The one she knew of as `home' had long since been lost in the billions of identical looking stars. Hontij had told her that they would only jump into hyper-speed after they had left the system. After that she would have nothing but white to stare at.

A grunt from the bed behind her caused her to jump, startling her in the quiet of the room. She glared at Yamcha's comatose form. My first trip into space and he has to spoil it by coming with me! Granted he'd done it to protect her but that didn't stop her from being angry at his crashing of her very first real adventure. None of that stuff with the dragonballs really counted. Hell, I didn't even leave the mainland. And just what did we get out of that? A pair of panties and…Yamcha. She stopped mid-thought. Her quest for the perfect boyfriend had been put on hold when she met him and he rid himself of his girl phobia with her. She sighed. He was endearing all right; when he wasn't being overly possessive and clingy.

She checked her watch and remembered she had a meeting with Hontij and the rest of the crew. Silently she slipped out of her room and made her way toward the bridge.

The motley crew - it was the only way she could describe them - reminded her of something out of `Treasure Island'. At least one of them had a peg leg of some sort, a parrot-ish creature sat upon the shoulder of another and one had some sort of metal revolving eye. She smiled sweetly at them.

Hontij, who was by far the most `normal' of the group smiled back and gestured her to take the empty seat. "I trust you and your male friend have settled in nicely?"

"Yeah, I bet they `settled in' all right," the one with the eye sniggered.

Bulma glared at him as the others laughed at his joke.

"Please," Hontij began, "can we leave the vulgarities until we are out of earshot? I would think that we are paying you enough for that."

There were some mutterings, that apparently meant, yes.

As the meeting began in earnest, Bulma zoned out. Every now and then Hontij would introduce someone who wasn't as vulgar, who usually turned out not to be crewmember, and she would force her brain to think of the correct response. Hontij would just have to fill her in on the rest later. Next time I'm flying in style, she thought, my ship is definitely going to have a stereo system. And a coffee maker.

~*~*~*~

A sudden noise penetrated the haze of her mind. What's going on? Who's yelling? They're going to get beaten if they don't shut up. ThreeBrown groggily sat up, her fists clenching in the sheets to support herself. Sheets? Oh shit no.

A lower guard burst into the room, the hallway behind him crowded with curious slaves. With a face like thunder he grabbed her by her greasy hair and dragged her from the room. Tears of pain and fear streamed down her face as he pulled her into the common room and tossed her into the middle of the floor. Salves scattered every which way.

"Right you lot!" he yelled to the onlooking room. "Girlie here decided that she was too good to join the rest of you scum for the cleaning duties today. Who says I make an example of her?"

Several people cheered loudly. The terrified girl got to her feet, only to be brought down again by the lashing end of an electro-whip. With tears running down her face and trembling she turned her face upward.

The guard stood above her, grinning. He placed a booted foot on the middle of her back and forced her down to the ground. The whip came down.

She screamed.

~*~*~*~

Bulma fumbled the capsule in her pocket as she watched the landing deck come closer and closer. Yamcha stood beside her, his eyes almost popping out of his head as he took in the incredible sight of the sprawling alien city. Silently Bulma hoped her new customers would be as impressed with her device as Yamcha was with their buildings. If this first sell didn't go well, then she'd just be demoralized for the rest of the places they had to visit.

It had taken them a week to reach this place. Yotemu-sei, Hontij had called it. It was the closest, neutral place near Chikyuu-sei that some of the rebel leaders had been able to get to. And from what Hontij had said, many of them were disappointed that it was not her father who had decided to come.

"Bulma-san and honoured friend Yamcha," Hontij appeared behind them. Bulma silently thanked Kami that he'd stopped referring to Yamcha as her `male friend'. "I have just been informed that several of the rebel leaders have been unforeseeably delayed."

"Delayed?" Bulma asked, tearing her view from the glittering city.

"I'm afraid so. This does mean that we will have to wait for them." His teeth glinted as he smiled broadly at them. "Happily, Yotemu-sei's capital has many things to interest travellers. I'm sure that the two of you will enjoy exploring it."

Yamcha's face lit up in joy. "You bet."

"Do they have a museum?" Bulma asked.

Hontij smiled. "One of the largest in the galaxy."

Yamcha groaned.

~*~*~*~

Nappa found Radditz down in the loading bay, a place his fellow Saiya-jin hung out because no one else ever went down there.

"Hey, brat! Guess what?"

Radditz growled at the older man. "What?"

"Apparently that rebel master-tech has been sighted."

"And? I care about this how?"

Nappa sat heavily on a crate. "Don't want revenge for the hole in your shoulder?"

"Not worth it," Radditz snorted.

"Not even if I told you the ship reportedly came from Chikyuu-sei?"

The longhaired Saiya-jin almost fell off his crate in shock. "You what?" he yelled.

Several of the nearby slaves jumped at his outburst, causing more noise as a stack of supplies tumbled over and spilt across the floor.

Nappa grinned. "Knew you'd like that." He sobered. "But unless Ginyu asks questions first before he blows the planet to smithereens, you'll probably never find out where it is."

Radditz groaned. "The Ginyu's? They couldn't organize themselves out of a paper bag." The young man put his head in his hands as a slave came over and retrieved a tin of something that had rolled near his foot.

Nappa sighed. "There is one thing you could do."

"What?" asked Radditz from underneath his mane of hair.

"You won't like it."

"Nothing could make me more depressed than I already am."

"Not even suggesting that you tell Frieza about baby bro?"

Radditz looked up at him from underneath a large lock of hair. "I've been wondering for a while if you were a bit crazy. Now I know that you are completely INSANE!" He leapt up, knocking Nappa to the floor and pinning him. "The bastard's going to kill us all eventually and you want me to go and tell him that we've been keeping a surviving member of our race a secret from him for," he paused, "twenty three years?"

Nappa nodded as best he could from underneath the younger Saiya-jin's grip.

Radditz looked at him incredulously. "I was hoping that you were joking." He got off the bigger man and kicked out viciously at a crate. It went flying into a slave, knocking them off their feet.

"You've got two days before the Ginyu's get to Yotemu-sei. What else is going to get Frieza to stop them from blowing up the planet?" Nappa rubbed his neck, where red marks were beginning to appear. "How else are you going to be able to find out where Chikyuu-sei is? The only people who know will be gone."

"He'll just destroy Chikyuu-sei anyway," Radditz answered, his back to the older man.

"Yeah but if you can convince Vegeta to ask him nicely…"

"Terrific, so first I get beaten up by our Prince for keeping secrets, then beaten again for asking a favour, then if Vegeta actually agrees, I'll get beaten for getting him beaten. Wonderful plan."

Nappa scowled. "You don't have to be sarcastic."

"I'm humouring you because you. Are. Insane."

"It's the only chance you've got."

Radditz turned and looked at Nappa who was still seated on the floor. His eyes travelled over the rest of the room. The slave he had hit had gotten up and was slowly limping away, refusing the aid of a dirtier slave who tried to help it.

He watched them leave. "I'll think about it."