Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Requiem in Blue ❯ Chapter Eighteen: Kalahd’Nihr ( Chapter 18 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

The main entrance to engineering folded like paper against Turles’s blast.  Bulma marveled for a mere second at the technology of the kei jal’a.  Why had they hidden it for so long?  Was that so surprising now?  Turles’s twin, Kakkarot, made a quick, snide comment about his brother’s display.  Bardock snapped.
“Shut up fools!  Wait for the smoke to clear…”  As the words left his mouth, the rest of Squad #5 assumed battle stance, and Bulma thought she could hear the gentle rumble of their growling excitement.  The smoke began to dissipate, and a quiet hissing became audible over the growl.  Bulma saw the gleam of Aisu-jin skulls just as Bardock pushed her to the side.
“Down!!”  He bellowed.
Bulma had enough time to be irritated by the sharp pain that raced down her side as she hit the floor.  But the sound of the jal’a charging and recharging, coupled with the screams and curses from the Aisu-jin and the firing of their plasma rifles drowned out her exasperation.
The plasma rifles!  Bulma reached carefully inside her tunic and felt for the stunner.  She recalled the Aisu-jin at the holding wing when she’d rescued Brolli, and the way the stunner’s pulse had stolen the plasma energy.  She’d employed the same knowledge on the Aisu-jin plasma rifles when Vejiita had taken them down.  Could it be of help now, she wondered?  Bulma squinted and looked up from her prone position.
Bardock was roaring now, and she could see that despite the kei jal’a the Saiya-jin were having difficulty avoiding the plasma blasts.  Carefully, she twisted her body around and inched forward toward the broken door on her elbows.  If the Saiya-jin saw her doing it, they’d surely interfere.  But if she could get a good enough shot…
From here she could see Bardock spitting curses at the Aisu-jin, circling the area and waiting for a good shot while his squad did much the same.  Bulma felt sweat break out over the back of her neck, and the beat of her heart wracked every bone with a shaking pulse.  She had to get to the mainframe.  Since the fall of Chikyuu, she had not wanted so very much to live.  Brolli’s last, desperate attempts to save her did nothing to alleviate her desperation:  her deep remorse.
Slowly, as some dust cleared, Bulma had a clear shot of one Aisu-jin officer and its rifle.  Her blue eyes widened briefly and a stream of sweat inched down her temple.  In an instant she was aiming the stunner directly at the creature’s weapon, and fired it once… twice!  The blip of it was too low to be heard amidst the riot, but satisfaction came from the soft and dimming groan as the plasma rifle deactivated and shut down.
Before she could be discovered, Bulma fired four more shots, each at an armed alien.  With each shot, her lips tightened.  One…two… three… four!  And just like that, the only noises were the incredulous voices of the Aisu-jin as they tried in vain to revive their disabled weapons.  Bulma felt her upper lip quirk in satisfaction.  
“What the fuck…?”  Bardock’s voice echoed in the quiet hall.  His head turned swiftly, knowingly toward her.  The look was not one that she expected; it was concerned, and he knew.  Bulma saw that Bardock’s eyes could see what she was doing, and that he did not need to ask.  His sons were not so discreet.  Turles laughed aloud.
“Hah!!  Kantak!  She’s created a reverse plasma wave!  Look at them!”  He pointed toward the fumbling Aisu-jin, who were hissing and spitting threats now.  “They don’t know what to do.”
Bulma had a brief second to wonder how in the names of all the gods Bardock and his sons were knowledgeable in such complicated science.  But Turles lifted one massive arm and aimed it in the general direction of the other aliens.  Above her sudden fear, she was reminded of Raditsu…  The squad around them sneered and charged their jal’a.
“Stop!!”  Bulma was shocked to hear Bardock’s voice join her own.
“Use your brain, yu’Ma!”  Bardock continued, “If you blow the controls by accident we’ll never get off of this shit heap!”
Kakkarot laughed once and stepped next to his brother, one finger extended toward the lizards.  Bulma watched, stunned, as the other of Bardock’s twins sent a beam straight into the heart of each Aisu-jin with absurd accuracy.  The engineering wing was now quiet.
Bulma stood, but before she could enter the vast rooms, Bardock pushed past her.  His eyes betrayed the same discerning suspicion she had seen a moment ago.  As he and the rest of his squad began securing the rest of the wing, he nodded to her.
“Find the mainframe, Bulma-kalzan.”
She nodded in reply.  It took but a moment for her to recognize the location of the mainframe.  But as she announced her discovery, and drew closer to the computer gird, she cursed.  Its configuration, its structure, everything about it was different than any ship she had so far seen in the Videon Galaxy.  As she touched the screen, Bulma was thankful at least that she could use a universal code to hack into it.  But once inside… Once inside, she realized that even if she could discern the Aisu-go characters, she would not know which module to hack to disable to cloaking systems.
Bulma stayed her thundering heart.  There must be a way.  There had to be a way.  She would not die on this ship, damn it she would not!!  Her fingers trembled over the touch screen.  There was heat beside her suddenly.
“What’s taking so long?!”  Bardock’s hissing voice was right next to her ear.  She looked at him only briefly, then back to the screen.  She entered another pass code protected area and cursed again.
“This mainframe access is not an Andor-Class Galactic Fleet interface.  I’ve never seen one like this before, I--?  I don’t know if I can hack it.”  Bulma hoped that she shake in her voice was not evident.
“It is An’dor-Class.” Bardock said, his voice shattering to her ears.  “It’s an older version.”
Bulma felt her cheeks burn with the intensity of her embarrassment.
“How the fuck do you know that?!”  She snapped at him.
“I used to work with them on Vejiita-sei;” he replied snidely, urgently, “the Empire hasn’t used them for decades, Bulma-kalzan.  Will you argue with me or ask for my help--!”
His hushed voice was interrupted by the shouting and screeching of Aisu-jin guards.  They were coming toward engineering.  Bulma turned her head toward him and felt her upper lip quiver into what felt like a sneer.  The gods take him!!  
“Tell me how to get to the structural workup screen then, dammit!”  She hissed.
“This interface will not have cloaking structures in that module--!”
“Then tell me how to get to them, all the gods!”  
By now, her face was inches from his.  Bulma thought she could just about feel the humidity of the sweat on both their cheeks, and she swallowed deeply.  The ship shuddered then, and Bardock’s mouth quirked into a half-smile.  Bulma felt her eyes widen until the vibration of the ship was visible.
“That would be my eldest son, Bulma-kalzan.  Look at the top left of your screen, there should be an entry screen for ‘temp modules’, if you can read the Aisu-go.”
Bulma scanned the screen, looking for the Aisu-go characters for “temporary”, hoping to all the gods that her genius would not fail her now.  There!!  Elated, she touched the entry, steadying her feet as another quake rocked the floor beneath her.  Raditsu had given up on her… His shots from the ship’s bridge on the vid screen would be as useless as if he were firing in the dark, though, if she did not de-cloak the Aisu-jin fleet soon.  Then there would be a moment, however brief, during which she would have to contact him on a pirate frequency or risk him hitting the ship dead on while they were still aboard…
“Next module--??”  She hissed at Bardock.
“‘Pre-emptive battle module!’”  He replied, keeping his eyes steadfast on the gaping, destroyed hull door.  His breath was quickening.  “They are coming, Bulma-kalzan.”
“I know, dammit…!  Alright!  Yes, this is it!  I see the cloaking shields.”
Sweat dripped, unchecked, from her temple and down to her chin as she watched the workup expand.  She could see the flagship’s system, and splaying out from there, what appeared to be the rest of the fleet.
“Is this interface also accessed by the main network for all ships in the fleet?”  She asked Bardock urgently.
“It should be…”  Bardock replied, almost lazily.  Bulma’s head snapped toward him.  “If not, then at least you can access the individual networks from each workup.”  A grin spread gaudily across his mouth, and Bulma’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re a scientist.”  She said, merely waiting for the confirmation.  She looked back to the screen when another Aisu-jin voice, closer now, echoed down the hall.
“I was…” Bardock said, “but I told the king some things one day: some things he did not particularly like.”  The smile broadened.
“I suppose then that your station as squad commander was well-deserved?”  Bulma almost smiled with him.  But before he could reply, she had begun deactivating the shields – one by one.
“Yes!”  She felt the laughter of release begin to bubble up her throat.  “Yes, they’re down!  They’re down!!”
Bardock reached in front of her and across the touch board until he was slamming his palm onto the hailing frequency key.  
“Tell it in Aisu-go!”  He shouted.  “Tell it to hail frequency 46Z 9!  Do it now!!”
Swallowing a gulp of air, Bulma spoke the words.  The ship shuddered again, and they both gripped the edges of the touch board for stability.  It seemed an eternity passed before a voice came through the speaker dome above them.
“This is frequency 46Z 9!  Bulma-kalzan, that had better be you or I will incinerate that fleet ship with you, my father and my prince aboard!”
Bulma had never been so relieved to hear the sound of Saiya-go.  The laughter that had bubbled up in her throat quickly turned to a sob when she recognized Raditsu’s voice.
“Raditsu!  I have disabled the cloaking systems, we will need transport immediately!”  There was a soft hissing in the corner far above her head as the hull began to shake apart inside engineering.  “Immediately!!”  She shrieked.
“Bras da’ga!” He shouted back in defiance.  “Where is Vejiita-Zarshi?  We have medical teams waiting for the Kassha’hal--!”
“Brolli is dead!” Bardock interjected.  Bulma saw the panic on his face as the floor jarred him to the side.  “We will bring Vejiita-Zarshi back alive if the Aisu-jin haven’t torn him up yet!  Your torpedoes have breached the hull of this fucking beast, Raditsu, now give me a transport location!”
There was a brief, agonizing moment of silence during which Bulma remembered her will to live.  She shut her eyes as another tremor wracked the floor, and the desire grew inside her chest until it was nearly bursting out of her throat.  She willed Raditsu to answer.  She begged the gods for Vejiita to be alive, to find him before they could transport off the Shafuri.  And she begged for their mercy…  Mercy for her murderous endeavors, mercy for her quest of vengeance!  Mercy… mercy!!
“The sick bay, Kantak!”  Raditsu exclaimed through the speaker.  “Your signal will be strongest there.  Go now!”
Bardock’s arm was around her waist before she could protest.  He lifted her off of the shaking ground and charged his jal’a, then shouted to his squad to fly toward sick bay.  As the air grew heavy with electrical smoke, and the breeze from Bardock’s flight swirled it around her, Bulma prayed.

Before he careened into the corrugated steel wall, Vejiita had time enough to curse that bitch of a Chikyuu-jin aloud.  Having been kicked (actually kicked!) by that tech-perv lizard down the hall, his back hit the studded surface and he gasped for air as the floor came up to meet him.  If that traitorous whore hadn’t sold them out then perhaps he wouldn’t be face down on the filthy floor, still disoriented from plasma poisoning and depleted of his energy.  Vejiita growled and pushed himself up, knives of pain cutting into his biceps and forearms.
“You’ll have to try harder, Aisu-jin pig!”  He bellowed, rushing forward as it recharged its rifle and resumed fire.  He dodged quickly enough to avoid the plasma blasts, but not as quickly as he should be moving.  Vejiita snarled as he dodged a final blast and twisted mid-air before driving his boot into the ugly face of the Aisu-jin firing at him.  When the alien hit the floor, choking for breath, Vejiita sent a charge of energy directly into his chest and chuckled with glee as it destroyed the cavity of the Aisu-jin’s bowels.
“Better luck next time.”  He muttered, disgusted that he should have to waste his energy on such filth.  Vejiita stepped over the body; it was the last one in the way of the sick bay security panel.  He slammed his fist into it and growled as it spit sparks and electrical smoke into his face.  With his other hand, Vejiita threw a quick blast of energy into the panel, and smirked when the entrance to sick bay swished open in front of him.  Infiltration was much easier when his resources weren’t at the mercy of mindless orbs.
He rushed into sick bay and tore apart the shelves; there had to be numbing agent in here somewhere!  Ever since blasting out the so-named dampening orbs in a fruitless effort to save Brolli, his legs and arms had been screaming with agony.  Vejiita realized that at some point his innards would rebel, and he hoped to all the gods that by then he’d be on speedy recovery in his own restoration tanks, on his own ship.
Another tremor ran through the floor of this ship, and Vejiita’s heart jumped.  Somewhere, the hull had been breached and, little by little, the rest of the fleet ship was decompressing.  He had little time but said a brief, profanity-laced prayer to Vash’halla that he would make it out of this alive.  Vejiita laughed sharply and closed his fist around a handful of numbing agent vials on the floor.  He opened one, frantic with his desire to be relieved, and pressed some of the oily, viscous gel onto the back of his skull.  Just as the drugs had begun to take their effect, voices permeated the silence of the shattered hall outside.
Vejiita tensed.  Let them come, he thought.  If he was to die here, on this heap of frozen hell, then let them come so he could die a warrior’s death.  Raditsu’s attack had already clearly begun; the Chikyuu-jin had failed.  The clarity broke Vejiita’s repose, and he stood up straight, ready to assault the next lizard who clamored through the door.
The sound of Saiya-go, though, made him cock his head.
“This way, you shit-eaters!  Don’t you know your way around an An’dor Class fleet ship?!”  
Vejiita nearly cackled aloud at the sound of Bardock’s voice and rushed toward the open door of sick bay.  He arrived there just in time for Squad #5 to touch down near the bodies of the Aisu-jin Vejiita had vanquished moments before.  Bardock’s sons gazed at the carnage, and then back to their prince.  Vejiita did not miss the gleeful grins on their faces as they, this time, saluted and bowed to him.  The rest of the squad followed.  Bardock chuckled, and when Vejiita saw him the older Saiya-jin placed Bulma gingerly on her toes next to him.
“I see you’ve been busy, Sire.”
The ship shuddered again, and all were rocked from side to side.
“We must get inside sick bay!”  Bulma’s voice warned, and though he was loathe to trust her Vejiita had no choice but to obey.  As they and the rest of Squad #5 began to crowd into the room, Vejiita felt more Aisu-jin ki signatures behind him.  As the lizards rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, they shouted words Vejiita did not understand and assumed firing stance with their weapons.  A voice beside him cursed in Saiya-go.
“Zarshi-kalan--!  Ta’sham!!”  It was Kakkarot, one of Bardock’s twins, and he was pushing Vejiita to the ground with one heavy arm.  Vejiita felt a brief moment of annoyance before he rolled into sick bay and Kakkarot’s agonized voice echoed down the hallway.  A small plasma wave whooshed over his head, and two other Saiya-jin leapt out of the way.  When Vejiita had regained his footing, the Aisu-jin voices were calling out again, but this time their voices were riotous, joyful.  He squinted, and Bardock called out to his son.
Kakkarot was on his knees, grasping his now ruined arm and panting heavily.  The plasma wave had mangled his arm, and the injury would certainly kill him.  Bardock cursed beside Vejiita and roared.  The prince could feel Bardock’s aura grow heavy with rage and power, but he reached back and put a hand to the bigger warrior’s chest.  Kakkarot glanced back at them.  There was an eerie silence in the hall.
“Kantak…?”
Bardock reached out for him, and Vejiita’s jaw clenched.  One of the Aisu-jin cackled and shouted another order.  
“NO!!”  Vejiita pushed against Bardock’s chest again and shoved him backward just as a second plasma wave hit Kakkarot in his opposite shoulder.  The wave dispersed from there and hit the doorframe, and as the group inside dove for the floor Vejiita could still hear Kakkarot calling for them.  
After the doorframe had finished collapsing, silence fell over the room like a blanket of heavy and suffocating fabric.  Vejiita struggled to his feet and brushed debris from his arms and legs.  The others were getting up, and when Bardock had gained his footing, he rushed at the prince with such speed and ferocity that Vejiita barely had time to brace himself.  The older man gripped the collar of his battle suit and squeezed.  
“Vash’halla take you!”  Bardock hissed into his face.  “You let him die, the gods damn you!  You let him die!!”
Vejiita was aware that a few other members of Bardock’s squad, including his son Turles, were attempting to pull him away unsuccessfully.  Vejiita reached up and took both of Bardock’s shoulders in his grip.
“Let go of me you arrogant fool!”  He pushed on Bardock’s shoulders and fed a few bolts of energy into them.  The Commander snarled and stumbled backward, but only a few feet.  Turles helped his father to steady his footing.
“Would you rather have died as well, you idiot?”  Vejiita spat.  “He is dead anyway!  Better he faced his death now by his enemy’s hand rather than bled to death before we could get him to a re-gen tank!”
Bardock continued to glare at him, and Vejiita could see the anger of a thousand war gods in his black eyes.  A dull boom echoed in the room, reminding everyone of the still imminent threat from outside the collapsed door frame.  Turles gripped his father’s shoulder as Bardock straightened his back and growled.
“Our prince is right, Father…”  
“The Aisu-jin will tear his body apart before they kill him!”  Bardock shouted, despair evident in the words.  “All the gods, they’ll keep him alive if only to torture him, making an example for all of us!”
“He will die before they have the chance,” Vejiita answered gravely.  “By now the plasma has eaten away his heart, Bardock.  And you will show me more respect from this moment on, or gods help me I will keep you alive to make an example of!”
There was silence, but for the noises outside the wreckage, until Turles pressed his palm flat on his father’s chest and nodded.  Bardock, though his breath was heavy and his brow furrowed, lowered his eyes once.
“Suukah.”  
The other warriors echoed the word, and the floor of the ship shuddered once more.  Vejiita nodded to Bardock and saluted him.
“I will see that he is given a proper ceremony once we are safe.”
“If you are done mourning,” came a voice from the other side of the room, “we must all be within two feet of one another for Raditsu’s transmission to be successful.”  Bulma was brushing some dust from what remained of her clothes, and making her way to the sick bay comPanel.  She pressed her finger onto it and over a few of the keys.
Vejiita glanced at Bardock and headed over to where she stood.  The others followed, but he could feel the Commander’s eyes on him like a ray of red sun.  The renegade soldier would not soon forget this, he knew.  It was another blow to his pride.
As Vejiita approached, Bulma spread two fingers over the touch screen and pressed both down at the same time.  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and sighed.
“Aash’an Raditsu, can you hear me?”
All were quiet, praying to any god who would listen as the sound of the Aisu-jin trying to break through the debris got louder.  Finally, after what seemed an eternity the reply signal chimed through the panel, and Bulma was smiling.
“Bulma-kalzan, I’ve never been so happy to hear from you.”
Vejiita saw her smirk.
“Likewise, Aash’an.”  She replied.  “Can you get us out of this hellhole?”
“Give me a moment to zero in on your frequency.”
The ship shuddered again, and Vejiita heard the Aisu-jin shouting.  They’d broken through the first obstacle.  His body shook with fear and excitement all at once.
“We don’t have a moment, Raditsu.”  Bulma told him, her voice amused but shaken.
Vejiita waited.  They all waited on the heels of one female’s genius.  But for all the chaos around him, he may have chuckled aloud at the irony of it all.  Instead, the next tremor shook through him like the fingers of the Blood Goddess:  slick and red with terror.  His eyes came wide open, straining with all the fear he had felt in all his life.
Raditsu’s voice floated through the comPanel.
“I’ve got you.  Stand by…”
The Aisu-jin plasma blast came through the wreckage, punctuating the tense silence.  Vejiita blinked, and the room faded from view.