Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Ransom Due ❯ Repo Man ( Chapter 4 )

Ransom Due: Chapter 4: Repo Man

 

“Intense? Life of a repo man's always intense.” - Harry Dean Stanton as Bud - “Repo Man”

 

===

 

Raditzu had headed back down to the lower decks to retrieve the slave from its coffin. He wrenched open the portal, reached in and grabbed the slave by the hair at the nape of her neck and hauled her out. She stood before him, arms crossed over her chest, and eyed him suspiciously.

 

“You could have at least knocked. Maybe a little warning next time, hmm?” she said casually, as if she weren't less than dirt on the heel of his boot.

 

“Silence!” barked, Daax, as if it were his slave to bark orders at. “You will follow us to the training deck for weapons practice. Move.” He shoved the slave ahead of them him in the narrow corridor.

 

Raditzu had been mildly annoyed with the way things had progressed, but his temper had worsened significantly when he'd suddenly gotten the distinct feeling that he was somehow already being edged out of the loop by both the captain and the slave. On top of that, he felt a slight twinge of possessive resentment towards the captain for making decisions about his property when realistically what happened to the slave really shouldn't have made a difference to him. At that point she was attempting to look back over her shoulder around the bulk of the captain. She momentarily made eye contact with Raditzu.

 

“So, ah, Boss…” she said, apparently addressing him. “You mind telling me at least some of the basics, like where I am?”

 

Before he could reply, Daax shoved her ahead again and answered for him.

 

“As you already know, you are aboard Freiza Galactic Unit 133, affectionately known as Missionary. Because you demonstrated proficiency with a weapon earlier, you will join squad 57 at weapons training. The squad is currently running through a purging simulation.”

 

They reached an intersection in the corridor. Daax snatched the slave's wrist and pulled her towards Raditzu before he veered off down the corridor that led to the lift to the observation deck.

 

“Have it prepped and send it into the weapons deck. Meet me on observation,” he ordered stiffly as he went, leaving the flustered Saiya-jin and his charge in his wake.

 

The thing was still disrespectfully looking him directly in the eye. Her own eyes, which had become a deep green with her transformation, wandered down to his tail, which had started flicking behind him with his agitation. Her face registered recognition at the sight of it.

 

“Heh, so you are familiar with Kakarott,” he remarked as he led her to the weapons locker. He stopped abruptly and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck again. “You're probably going to get killed at this little exercise, so you might as well come clean about how you came to be in my brother's spacepod.”

 

“What did the twit tell you? I suppose whatever it was wasn't very convincing…”

 

He shook her. “Was his mission successful?” He growled.

 

“You mean… purging? Yeah, your brother's a real powerhouse, I can say that much.” She winced, but looked him in the eye, again. “So if I'm going to be joining up here and doing some purging, what's the payoff?”

 

“You get to live. Why did he send you?” He emphasized the question by shaking her again, this time a little harder.

 

She snorted. “Har! If you call this living.” He gripped the back of her neck harder, even as he marveled at the fragility of the muscles there. She dared to meet his gaze yet again, her eyes snapping mischievously. “You could say we're… close. I've known your brother since he was a kid. He sent me `cause he knows I'm the best, why else?”

 

He wasn't sure he believed her, but she seemed to at least know who Kakarott was. He pulled her closer and took on a more intimate tone. “I'm scheduled to purge Chikyuu if it hasn't been already and draft Kakarott into the planet trade. If you live until that time and your race still lives, I promise I'll let you witness their destruction.” He pushed her on to the weapons locker and opened it. He shoved a standard issue blaster pistol and chest armor at her and pointed her in the direction of a solitary portal opposite the locker. “That's the prep room, get ready and go on through to the training deck. I'll be watching you so don't do anything stupid.”

 

-^-^-^

 

When he reached the observation deck, Daax was sipping a glass of greenish colored wine and surveying the scene in the training room below. He nudged Raditzu with his elbow in the same rib he'd almost shattered earlier. “This ought to be at least somewhat interesting, breaks up the monotony of travel, eh?”

 

Raditzu only grunted in reply. Below, squad 57 had split into two groups, each including approximately 50 grunts. One group had taken the defensive role and was currently trying to evade the other group by using the simulated city walls and buildings. All had been issued scouters, but they probably were useless for the most part because the majority of their ki signatures would hardly register on the instrument. All blasters were live in these simulations and Raditzu knew that standard practice put the better performing soldiers in the offensive role. Those with unsatisfactory performance were always relegated to the defensive role, and many of them wouldn't leave the training room alive. A quiet tension permeated the scene as soldiers tried to outwit each other. From observation, Raditzu could see that the defensive group had planned a strategy involving snipers posted in several key positions along the simulated rooftops and a reserve group that he assumed would blitz the offensive when they wandered into the range of the sniper fire. Two of the offensive scouts were just about to do so when he saw the slave open the portal to the training room. It was camouflaged as a door in one of the buildings behind the position of the assembled group of defensive soldiers who were ready to rush out and overrun the offense. Her entrance startled several of the grunts. Inevitably, at least one of them started shooting at her. Then all hell broke loose.

 

The forward snipers had spotted the offensive scouts and shot them down. He observed, unimpressed at the display so far, as part of the defensive reserve acted according to plan and rushed the advancing offensive. About ten of the rear defensive troops were dealing with the slave, who was using the portal door as cover and spraying the group with blaster fire. It seemed her first efforts with the energy weapon were clumsy, but after only a few misdirected shots, she managed to take down the first five grunts in the group raining fire on her position. She suddenly scurried out from behind the portal door and rolled across to the next building's entrance. She fired off a volley of blasts mid roll. He found himself intrigued by the fact that the pistol had already become an extension of her form, any adjustment she'd had to make to compensate for differences in the weaponry she was used to had been efficiently employed. She reached the far corner of the building and pressed herself to the wall as blaster fire shattered simulated masonry. She shimmied around to the door, but one of the grunts, a squat, dog-headed humanoid, had flanked her and popped out from around the opposite corner behind her, firing. She hit the ground again, blaster fire grazing the wall she had been up against. Dust sifted down from the singed wall, and she suddenly sneezed, triggering her transformation.

 

The transformed slave dropped the pistol as if it were a hot coal. Luckily the dust had obscured her enough that the advancing grunt could only take pot shots in the direction of her position and hope he would hit the target. Suddenly the slave sneezed again, this time in a rapid succession that left her in the stronger manifestation of her transformation. She immediately snatched the pistol up and rushed the advancing grunt, dodging his random fire. She made short work of her advance having taken the grunt aback by her initiative. She kicked out and flipped, snapping her feet at the grunt's weapon and knocking it loose. She followed up her landing with a shot at point blank range, which ripped through the dog-headed grunt's abdomen. She pulled the body in front of her as it collapsed, using it to absorb another volley of fire from the remaining grunts. Raditzu watched, not knowing whether to be impressed or dumbfounded by her actions. For a moment it appeared that she was intentionally drawing fire from the small group of soldiers that had stayed behind against orders to deal with her. However, from his position on the observation deck, it quickly became evident that she was positioning herself between the smaller group and the larger contingent that was locked in battle with the oncoming offensive. She skimmed along the wall of the building until she reached the door and then turned her blaster fire on to some of the unsettled masonry nearby, again cloaking her position with dust. Blaster fire from the rear group of defensive soldiers ripped through the dust cloud and into the backs of their comrades. Raditzu watched the defensive contingent start to fall apart as about half of the grunts in the main defensive thrust turned their attention and blaster fire on whoever was shooting at them from the other side of the dust cloud. A blind firefight erupted between the two groups of defensive soldiers. The slave, who had one foot in the door of the building, had gone into another sneezing fit that seemed to have left her in the weaker mode of her transformation. Raditzu squinted as he tried to discern what was going on within the cloak of dust. The slave lurched as she apparently realized she was gripping a corpse in front of her. She stared in confusion and terror at the crossfire erupting in front of her as she pushed the body away from her and instinctively clutched the pistol closer. The dust had almost settled and would reveal her position to all of the troops momentarily. She suddenly sneezed once more, and when the dust shifted again she was gone, having retreated inside the simulated building.

 

Raditzu turned his attention to the main group of combatants. The offensive group had been pared down by sniper fire, but the defense had ended up with substandard snipers, so they were nowhere near as effective as they should have been, and the offensive was slowly overtaking and advancing on the defense. Meanwhile the slave appeared on the roof of the building she'd entered. She kept herself pressed to the roof tiles and paused, seeming to aim at the sniper on the rooftop of the next building. He would've been out of range for an unskilled gunman, but after a minute of peering through the pistol's sights, she tore off a shot that hit it's intended target in the shoulder, causing the sniper to drop his weapon. Before he could react any further, she let off another blast that hit him squarely in the head. The sniper's body collapsed, rolling off the edge of the roof and plummeting to the ground below. The slave was already moving, navigating the roof at breakneck speed, she sprinted to the roof's edge and pushed off, just barely clearing the distance to the eaves of the roof the sniper had been positioned on. She clawed at the shingles, dropping the pistol, and managed to pull herself up and over the slight overhang of the roof. Within moments she reached the sniper's former position and was shouldering the rifle. She positioned herself low to the roof, and systematically shot down the rest of the snipers. Only one had managed to fire upon her, but missed the shot. Next she turned her attention to the melee below. The few defensive soldiers that remained went down one after the other. It seemed she handled the rifle effortlessly, without any sign of the learning curve that had been evident in her handling of the pistol. Two thirds of the offensive remained when it was all over with.

 

The defensive team was decimated, and Daax seemed more than pleased with the weeding out of substandard grunts. Raditzu generally found watching this sort of combat boring, but was piqued by the exercise. He wasn't completely sure that he should view the slave's apparent skill in low powered, weapons oriented battle as a positive thing. Daax genuinely enjoyed it. He'd been completely entertained and surprised by the slave's performance. He laughed deeply and slapped Raditzu on the back.

 

“Well, I hope she still remembers how to cook! Have the slave taken to the med unit and see if there's a way to better control the origin of her transformations. This is worth a few bad meals if need be. We're scheduled to enter orbit of the planet Beliye within 48 standard hours. I believe your slave is ready for a mission.”

 

Raditzu grumbled in concurrence and went to retrieve his charge from the prep room.

 

-^-^-^

 

She emerged carrying the armor and blaster. He immediately snatched the weapon from her and locked it in the weapons locker.

 

She looked him over again as he did this and said, “Since you seem to be a man of few words, I asked the squad commander about the situation while I was in the prep room. He told me you guys are just a bunch of inter-planetary repo men.” She chuckled. “Even though repo man's basically a loser's gig, I guess I can tolerate it for the time being. I can see why your brother isn't in such a hurry to sign up with this outfit.”

 

“Oh, really? And what exactly is Kakarott doing on your planet that would warrant his not even responding to the destruction of Vegetasei?” he asked as he pushed her again, this time in the direction of the lift so he could deposit her in the med unit.

 

“Well, lets see… go running back to a planet which is no more than an asteroid field, to go to work for little if any compensation when one could reign as despot on a perfectly comfortable planet…”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” he growled.

 

“Like I said, your brother's one powerful s.o.b. Mean, too. He terrorizes the population of my planet. Once a year he declares `Kakarott day' and randomly destroys a whole city. He'd wipe the floor with those guys back there,” she laughed again.

 

As they made their way to the med unit, she continued to weave a tale of the terror and death caused on her planet by his brother. Despite the fact that some of the exploits she described were quite un-Saiyan-like, on the whole, this story was believable. He especially liked the bit where Kakarott had methodically hunted down the strongest martial artists known on her world and exterminated them, leaving the remaining population devoid of much hope of ever escaping his iron grip. It was a story that could almost make him proud of his sibling.

 

When they arrived at the med unit, the blue skinned female technician let them in and examined the slave precisely. The slave grudgingly complied, though she continued to scowl at her master. Raditzu ignored her and watched the med tech with feigned interest. He had been particularly pleased with this tech, she was much less presumptuous than the last one that had served on Missionary, and much more pleasing to the eye, at least. She had soft features complemented by the mass of deep blue tentacles that sprouted from her head and framed her face. She had always been properly respectful to commanding officers and addressed Raditzu in kind.

 

“Sir, if I may?” she asked, keeping her tangerine colored eyes lowered. He nodded in the affirmative, so she continued. “As the captain described it, the transformative variable is a reaction that occurs within the nasal recesses of this creature. Normally there wouldn't be much I could do, but a collogue recently sent me an experimental serum that deadens specific neural receptors. I may be able to modify the formula slightly to achieve the desired effect.”

 

“Do it,” he barked.

 

“Woah… hold on now,” the slave started, backing away from the tech,” “I'm not gonna let you shoot me up with some experimental…”

 

“Hold her still if you don't mind” the med tech interrupted as she picked up a sedative hypo gun. Raditzu easily seized the slave's arms and wrenched them behind her back. He held her wrists with one hand while the other grasped a tuft of her hair and pulled to expose her neck for the med tech to administer the sedative. The slave's struggles abruptly stopped and she went limp with the injection.

 

“When can I expect it to be ready for regular duties?” he asked.

 

“Well,” the med tech replied, “one of two things could happen. Within, say, an hour or two I'll return it and you will have a modicum of control over the transformations. Or, the serum won't work properly and her brain will succumb to meltdown.”

 

“Fine. I'll expect to see you in two hours,” he said, intoning that failure was really not an option.

 

^=^=^=

 

True to her word, the technician arrived at his barracks with a vial containing what she explained was a particular histamine which she'd isolated from the formula. All he would have to do is open the vial within a couple of meters of the slave if he wanted to trigger the transformation.

 

“And where is the slave?” he asked.

 

“I left her in her quarters, sir. I thought…” the tech began nervously.

 

“Whatever,” he grunted. “Return to your post,” he ordered as he headed off towards the lower decks to test the effectiveness of the vial.

 

He'd found the slave's coffin empty, but was drawn by the sound of voices at the end of the corridor where there was a small common room. Upon entering he found the slave engaged in a wagering game popular among the infantry with a deep blue skinned alien he recognized as squad 57's commander and two humanoid aliens, both of which looked like they had just had the tar beaten out of them. One of them had a black eye. He was folding his cards when Raditzu entered. The slave laughed and began collecting the pool of bar chits in the middle of the table, oblivious to the fact that the others had nervously stood at attention when they became aware of the sub commander's presence.

 

“What the hell happened to them?” he asked, indicating the two injured men.

 

“Sir,” began the commander. “There aren't exactly a lot of female enlistees and I suppose these two crackers figured they could take out some of their, ah, frustrations on Lunch here. I found them in the middle of getting their asses kicked. It is doubtful such an occurrence would be repeated what with the beating she gave them.”

 

Raditzu turned a searing gaze on the two battered soldiers. He hardly gave them time to blink before he channeled his anger into a crackling ball of ki and flung it at them. The squad commander and the slave stared slack jawed as the stench of burnt flesh and ozone permeated the small room.

 

“Make sure the rest of your squad knows the result of touching my property without my permission,” he said to the squad commander in a clipped tone, his annoyance somewhat alleviated.

 

“Yes, sir,” the commander replied nervously.

 

The slave had gone back to collecting the bar chits. He turned his attention to her and grinned slightly. “I was going to order you to carry those for me. I could use a drink or two after the last few hours.”

 

“Don't I know it,” she said. “Are you gonna hit the bar with me, Boss?”

 

“No. I'm going to go have a few drinks. You are going to serve the Captain his supper.”

 

The slave gaped at him incredulously. “I see how it is, take all my winnings for yourself. I'd wager all of those chits you couldn't win them in a fair game.”

 

He wasn't going to let the slave challenge him in front of the squad commander. “Oh, really?” he sneered. “I'd wager them all that you'll be on your way to the galley within the next five minutes,” he said as he uncapped the vial the med tech had given him.”

 

“Oh yeah? Put your money…” she sneezed powerfully before she could complete her jibe. The transformed slave stood staring at the armload of drink chits she was holding and then looked to Raditzu questioningly.

 

“Deposit those in my quarters and then report to the galley,” he ordered, his grin broadening slightly.

 

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly and then scurried off towards the lift to the upper decks.

 

Satisfied for the moment, Raditzu dismissed the squad commander and went to report to the captain.