Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Ransom Due ❯ Bathwater ( Chapter 10 )

Ransom Due - Chapter 10 - Bathwater

 

"There will always be survivors." - Robert Heinlen

 

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When she opened her eyes she was greeted by the sight of her own hands clutching two small curved blades, both of which were glazed with blood. She was only dimly aware that she was still in the epicenter of the crater Nappa had created where there used to be an expansive swamp on the then dark side of planet Frieza 75. She found herself staring at the blades and the blood, horrified, her mind refusing to really accept that the extremities were in fact hers. She had no time to get her bearings in any case; her bewilderment was cut short by a sharp command.

 

“Lunch, move!”

 

She looked up just in time to get a glimpse of an enormous cone of ki energy as it streaked towards her. The next thing she knew it was thundering past below her as something had swept her off her feet and straight up into the air several hundred yards in the space of a half second. Her ears popped painfully with the change in altitude, adding to her disorientation. She had then seen the expanse of the crater and the source of the blast. Nappa was staggering around almost directly below, both hands clutched to his face.

 

“I'll kill you! I'll kill you both for this!”

 

The big Saiya-jin's threats were slung upward, followed by another wildly aimed wave of ki from his open mouth. It screamed past just to her left, close enough that she felt a burst of warmth along with it.

 

“Damn! That was way too close.” She was only dimly aware of the voice, deep and familiar, and the solid grip that suspended her so far off the ground. Her gaze drifted to her hands again as they went slack and the blades slid from her grasp and tumbled to the ground that became blurred beneath as she was carried away.

 

The flight proved to be a short one, and she found herself deposited on sandy ground beneath the cover of some thick underbrush that was covered in thorns. She absently thought that she must have been scratched all over by the barbs, but the pain didn't register. She was too immersed in the sickening thought of her hands laced with blood. It seemed as if it was supposed to mean something, but she couldn't place her finger on what, and it only became more difficult to make sense of it the more she thought about it.

 

“Fool! Haven't you heard a word I've said?”

 

“Uh…?” She rasped, sulfur clogging her throat as she tried to focus on the voice addressing her. Her eyes were burning and the figure in front of her was little more than a smudge to her perception, although she could tell it was leaning hard on the trunk of a stunted tree. She was reminded then of her master's horribly broken leg and vaguely remembered that she had been at death's door, and probably still was because of the planet's noxious atmosphere. She shivered in a sudden cold sweat. Another wave of vertigo swept over her as she tried to speak, but all that she produced was an additional feeble croak.

 

She thought she heard her master issue another stream of curses, and then they were airborne again for what seemed like a short time before they landed, this time in a place that seemed to have more overgrowth. After she was set down she relinquished the effort of sitting up and lay prone on the ground. She stared up into the inky violet of the brightening sky. She noticed several small red lights whipping around above her head and gathered they must be getting nearer to civilization. Her head seemed to clear a little bit and she noticed that the air didn't seem to taste so acrid anymore. She wiped at her stinging eyes and tried to make out more of her surroundings.

 

They appeared to be at the edge of what might have once been agricultural land or else a natural rolling meadow of sorts. A small copse of sagging trees with amber fern like leaves concealed their position from the air. The ground beneath was carpeted in a soft ocher moss. The sound of running water caught her attention and she turned her head to see a small creek, somewhat murky with sediment yet much clearer than the canal in the swampland had been. The burbling sound of the water made her throat feel all that much drier, to the point where she couldn't resist the idea of drinking from what had become a very inviting stream. She rolled over to her stomach and managed to get up on her hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the water. She plunged both arms in up to the elbows and scrubbed wildly, although the blood had rinsed away easily, before cupping her hands to drink.

 

“Please tell me you're not such an idiot that you'd drink that.” Raditzu sat at the base of a large boulder tinged amber with lichens next to the creek.

 

“I…” She attempted to reply but it came out as little more than a wheeze punctuated by a hacking cough. He cut her off anyway.

 

“It will only serve to cake your throat more thoroughly with sulfur if the parasites don't turn your bowel inside out first.” He sniffed as though trying to punctuate his superior knowledge of the locality but ended up hacking a few times himself before spitting yet another glob of bloody phlegm to the ground beside him. “Though why I care if you poison yourself is quite a mystery to me. Heh. It seems to have become somewhat of a running joke, don't you think?”

 

She tried not to stare as she knew how much he hated that, but the extent of his injuries held her attention for longer than she should have let it. One eye was almost swollen shut behind the lens of the borrowed scouter, and the other side of his face looked as though it had been scraped horribly or was just crusted in dried blood. Rivulets of blood also traced from both corners of his mouth. It looked as though he had attempted to splint the broken leg at their last stop with strips of bark and the thorny vines she remembered. Sweat stood out on his forehead and streamed down from his temples mingling with the blood. She watched almost mesmerized as the partially shattered chest plate of his armor heaved slowly with his labored breathing.

 

What she could see of his eyebrows suddenly knitted sharply as he lurched to his feet and limped, a lot more swiftly than she thought possible, over to her position. She flinched and quickly looked away at his approach, automatically expecting some kind of physical blow, but he simply wordlessly hefted her up and took to the air once more.

 

She was still trying to make sense out of what had happened. “Waking up” in strange places in the middle of doing even stranger things had become a simple fact of life for her. She couldn't even remember when, if ever, it hadn't been so. She had actually found it somewhat difficult to deal with overhearing her counterpart during her lapses, let alone being completely privy to everything that happened. The things that the other did were completely insane, things she wouldn't even think of doing let alone carrying out. And the things that she said? It was completely inconceivable on many levels that she had survived so long under her master's thumb considering the near constant scathing diatribes that seemed to fall from the other's lips without any hesitation whatsoever. She construed that she should have been reeling in a state of semi-shock just knowing the course of the evening's events. Maybe it was because of whatever happenstance had caused her to be able to witness the other as though from afar, but this return to consciousness seemed vastly different from all the others, as though she had literally fought her way to the surface of a bottomless pit.

 

She replayed what she could in her mind's eye, trying to piece together events enough to know how to proceed in the situation at hand. As she did, two things struck her as out of the ordinary. First, the fact that her master had actually saved her from certain death by snatching her up into the air in the initial midst of her confusion. Not only that, but it was the only time she knew of that he had called her by name, any name, since fate had thrown them together. Second, she had been able to take several normal breaths and could see clearly immediately after regaining control, as though the effects if the poison atmosphere had abated, if just for a short while, before they hit her full force again.

 

By the time they reached the city proper, she decided that she was only more confused about the whole thing than when she had started. All she knew for sure was that she got a terrible sinking feeling in her gut just thinking about the episode.

 

They continued on to the outskirts of the city where the vast docking stations for visiting spacecraft were located. By the time they landed near the gangplank leading to Missionary's primary airlock, the small white sun had broken the horizon and the sky had lightened to a dazzling amethyst. What had been a balmy evening was fast turning to a sweltering, humid morning. She gathered that by the time the sun reached its zenith the entire locale would become a deleterious sulfuric sauna.

 

Upon entering the ship they were greeted by a rush of cool air as the climate control system was automatically running to offset the already oppressive heat of the day. She tacitly allowed herself to be dragged along as they made their way to the medical unit at a pace that had degenerated to a slow lurch. The entire ship seemed eerily quiet as most of the crew had been granted some kind of shore leave for the tournament event. When they arrived there, the first thing Raditzu did was push her roughly into one of the regen tanks and slam the hatch shut. Thankfully, the medical technician had returned earlier than most after what had probably been a grueling stint manning a regen tank at the arena. She looked at the flustered Saiya-jin questioningly for a moment, she wouldn't have dared to actually voice her concerns, and then proceeded to set the controls for the chamber.

 

Raditzu immediately turned on the technician. “Idiot!” he ranted “Tend to me. You know it would cost me the price of ten slaves to run a cycle on that chamber, and such use is highly discouraged. I just put it in there because I can't trust leaving it to its own devices for a minute let alone the time required for a regen cycle. I believe its injuries are incidental, it'll survive anyway.” The technician gave her a pitying sidelong glance through the chamber's glass dome. Clearly she didn't trust the Saiya-jin's prognosis, but there was nothing to be done about it. She turned away and went on to prep the next chamber. “If I find that thing has moved by the time I get out of here, punishment will fall on your head,” he threatened as he stepped inside.

 

Accompanied only by the hollow sound of the respiration system of his chamber as it worked, Ranchi found her sense of impending doom only worsened as she waited for the cycle to finish. She knew he had already been angry by the end of the tournament. Knowing exactly what the other had done after that only made the sense that she should be walking on eggshells all the more acute.

 

When the cycle finished, she was able to see him step out, ki flaring for a split second to speed the evaporation of excess fluid from the chamber. He hardly bothered with dressing, not that he tended to wear much more than standard issue armor anyway, hastily throwing on the usual black briefs and retrieving the scouter before focusing all his attention on her. She instinctively pressed herself to the back wall of the chamber as he jerked the hatch open and reached for her. Before she knew what was happening, he had her by the hair at the nape of her neck and was pushing her down the corridors towards his barracks. She was reminded that ignorance would have been bliss as suddenly the existence of the capsule full of stolen goods hidden so close to where he had a hold of her came to mind.

 

“What's the matter? You didn't think I was going to let the old General get his hands on you, hmm?” he chided in a deceptively gentle tone.

 

“I, uh…” she realized her voice was shaky, and she didn't really know what to say anyhow.

 

“How silly,” he continued. “Of course I would have killed you myself before I let something like that happen.”

 

By then they had reached his quarters and he pushed her inside. His free hand reached up to scroll through something on the scouter, then he let go of her hair and slid his hand down to the collar at her neck, sliding two fingers underneath it to release the locking mechanism. He tossed it and the scouter onto his desk and then pointed her in the direction of the small washroom that was a standard attachment to only an officer's room.

 

“You're filthy. Clean up,” he ordered.

 

She took a tentative step backward, not knowing how to react. Being offered the use of his private facilities would normally have been considered a rare privilege.

 

“Well!? Hurry up,” he barked. “I don't have all day here.”

 

“Ah… a-aren't you going to turn around?” She stammered, even as she realized that she shouldn't really be questioning him at all, but it was too late.

 

“No.” He growled. “As it seems any number of things could happen the moment I take my eyes off of you, modesty seems beside the point, does it not?”

 

It occurred to her that he was right and mortified as she was knowing he was watching, modesty was the least of her concern because she was going to have to do something with the capsule full of stolen goods. Leaving the scarf in her hair while in the shower would undoubtedly seem odd, and she really couldn't pass up the chance to wash her hair. She opted to turn around herself, hoping he wouldn't notice that she kept the scarf with her when she tossed aside her clothes after shedding them. She hurried into the small compartment and set it down on a ledge near the shower, deciding she would simply replace it when she was finished and just pray he didn't find anything strange about it since she had worn it all the time.

 

Despite the harrowing circumstances and the initial sting of hot water on the various scratches and abrasions she'd sustained, the shower was wonderful. For a moment she was almost able to relax as she let the steam clear her throat somewhat and she washed away the sheen of sulfuric dust that had clung to her over the course of the evening. She was loathe to finish up, but she dared not take any more time than was necessary. She stepped out gingerly, glad that she was familiar enough with the room form having cleaned it to know where to find a towel quickly. She hastily dried off and wrapped herself up, then pushed her wet hair back in the scarf.

 

Raditzu hadn't moved. He leaned against his desk, still watching her as though she would try tearing out of the room or worse at any moment. Unsure of what was expected of her, and well beyond too terrified to ask, she stayed put. It was only half a moment that felt like an eternity before he beckoned her with a slight gesture of his hand. She balked at the notion yet had no choice but to comply.

 

She had barely crossed the threshold when she found herself pinned to the wall nearest the desk by something constricting her about the waist. She cried out and clawed at it unconsciously, realizing too late that in doing so she had dropped the towel and the unfamiliar prickly feeling against her bare skin was the coarse fur on his tail. The next thing she knew he had a fistful of her hair again. He pulled it roughly to turn her face up to his.

 

“Look at me!” he demanded. Being an uncharacteristic request from him, she hesitated.

“You look me in the eye,” he demanded again, “and you tell me how.” His grip tightened slightly and his arm shook as though he were using any sense of restraint he had to keep his anger from exploding. “How is it that you could draw blood draw blood from an elite warrior?”

 

She had no idea how to even begin to answer such a question and, terrified almost beyond reason, she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. Knowing that weeping would most likely do more harm than good, she bit down hard on her lower lip in attempt to staunch the flow as she looked up at him. He pressed closer to her and continued his demands.

 

“And how is it that you manage to vex me so?” His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “I have half a mind to find out just how fragile you really are.” His eyes burned into hers, filled with intensity from a mixture of anger and obvious arousal. “Trust me. There is no limit to the depravities I could force you to endure if I knew you would survive them.”

 

At that point she lost any control she had. She struggled futilely as tears spilled and a quiet whimper escaped her. She found herself begging in earnest for some kind of mercy, hardly hearing her own words. “Please! I don't know how any of this happened, just don't hurt me I…” She was still grasping wildly at his tail, which suddenly relaxed.

 

“Bah! If you can't even manage to deter me in such a manner, there's just no point.” He pried her fingers from his tail, and then released her completely. She slumped to a sobbing heap on the floor. He prodded her with his foot. “Huh. Pathetic,” he sneered before lifting her up under one arm and carrying her out of the room and down the corridor to her own quarters where he left her. Before he shut and locked the door behind him, in a cold, empty tone he said, “You will not speak of this. Ever.”

 

She threw herself down on the small bare mattress in the room, the dire helplessness of her situation suddenly painfully apparent. Worse still, it seemed even his curt rejection stung on top of everything else. She was suddenly terribly cold. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them and cried until exhaustion overtook her.

 

As she slept, she dreamt of running through the ship's corridors, which seemed to be an endless, unfamiliar maze, pursued by something she couldn't quite identify but which carried with it an empty darkness that threatened to engulf her. She finally came to a portal, which she wrested shut to keep the thing a bay, and there she came face to face with her counterpart who stood at the door, a long rifle supported at her shoulder as though at guard.

 

“You know that we're both going to die if that thing gets through this door,” she said flatly to the blonde.

 

“Well, I've been trying to cover you. Besides, keeping that door shut is your job, not mine. I just run interference.” The reply was not venomous, in fact, it was almost completely devoid of any emotion.

 

She could feel the force of something heave at the other side of the door as she put every ounce of strength into pulling it to. Then she suddenly woke, her heart pounding wildly. The room was deathly quiet save for the subtle hum of the ship's engines as it seemed they were well underway to their next destination.

 

She took a couple of slow, deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself and wound up coughing. It seemed as though every part of her ached and upon further inspection she was covered in scratches and bruises, but at least she wasn't so cold anymore. Someone had apparently visited while she slept, covering her in a blanket and leaving a clean change of clothes and some dry rations. She gathered that it had been her master as only officers had the codes to unlock portals on the ship and she was relatively sure the captain didn't really care what happened to her now that squad 57 had officially “disbanded” after the mission on Andolonusia. More aptly put, she was the only surviving member of the squad.

 

The rations were enough for one day. Judging by what became terrible hunger pains, it was several before her master returned. When he finally did, it was only for a brief visit and it seemed from the exchange that if any more provisions would be coming anytime soon, they would be few.

 

“I've made a decision,” he announced sanctimoniously as he stepped just inside the room letting the door lock behind him again. She put an effort into keeping her eyes respectfully downcast but briefly noticed that he was avoiding looking directly at her as well. “Within the next few standard hours we will be arriving at an outpost station on the edge of a vast rift in space. The captain has allowed me the leeway to choose between disembarking in my pod to plot a shortened course directly across the rift to your planet or remaining on board for the standard year it will take for the ship to go around. I have chosen the former. As such, you will not accompany me. You will remain here until my return…”

 

“I… I don't understand. You said before that…”

 

“You are not required to understand, you are only to obey me without question!” He advanced on her a step as he railed and she realized that she had neglected to react to his threats or even worry about having questioned him as though a heavy void had settled on her that by comparison rendered anything he was going to do incidental. She suddenly stopped bothering to process what he had just said to her and just accepted it as fact. The solitary thought passed through her mind that this was what it was to be completely broken, followed directly by the recognition of the feeling in an almost overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

 

He seemed to note this and composed himself, continuing. “You will not leave this ship, this room, unless I command it, which will be seldom if ever. Whatever it is that Kakarott is doing on your world, however he has insinuated himself upon your people, if for some reason he wants as souvenir, he's going to have to pay top dollar. Credits he will have to earn in service to the trade. So everything works out quite nicely.” He frowned slightly, abruptly changing his tone. “Believe me when I tell you that finding yourself as the very last of your race brings with it a burden of loneliness that is nearly unbearable.”

 

He turned to leave then, but paused, not turning before closing the portal, to add invectively, “Of course, if Kakarott has no interest there's always Zarbon. He seemed taken with you. Rumor has it he keeps a collection of living `rarities' in permanent stasis.”

 

She sat in near shock for an undetermined period, the finality of what he had said actually slowly dawning on her. This was the end. Within a few hours there would be no more chance of a life other than this except maybe something worse. A picture suddenly materialized in her mind's eye of the dream and her relinquishing her pull on the portal door and she was overcome with resolve not to let that happen. Whatever else she would have to face, making sure that whatever was on the other side never saw the light of day was paramount. Everything else she could take in stride if necessary.

 

*You might be willing to lie down and take it but I'm not!* The statement surfaced in her mind abruptly and her nose started to itch furiously without warning. She gasped and covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

 

*You can't! It'll only make things worse!* she screamed mentally in return even as her efforts were rendered unsuccessful.