Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Space Station Z ❯ Over and Out ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: DBZ and its characters are not mine. As if we all didn't know that already.

Space Station Z

Chapter Two

By RM

"I hate to say this but I lied," Bulma announced as she kneeled, shifting her weight onto the balls of her feet. "We're going to blow up."

Chi Chi looked over at Bulma as Krillin chuckled and continued assembling some components together for the main circuit board.

"You promised we wouldn't!" Marron countered and pouted.

"This whole thing is just impossible sometimes!" Bulma stated this time, very frustrated with the amount of work the ship had taken just to get running properly. This was the last time she'd ever cut corners and go with used parts.

"It's not impossible," Chi Chi reassured her blue haired friend. "Look at all of the work our space gadgets require. We've been quite lucky so far."

"That's Russian technology for you," Krillin replied, tightening a bolt on a cover panel he had just finished.

"Oh," the dark haired Russian woman replied with a slight edge to her voice, "and you mean to tell me that your American parts are any better?"

"Ah…" Krillin began as he realized that maybe this wasn't such a good topic to get into at the current time.

"The cold war is over you two," Bulma pointed out before grinding her teeth together as she tried to budge a much too heavy panel to inspect the forward propulsion systems. "Besides, if it makes you feel any better, we didn't buy our parts from either country."

Chi Chi eyed the bald midget once before grunting and continuing with her work.

"Where is that Yamcha anyway? I thought he would have those figures by now?" Bulma muttered distractedly before the heavy panel slid and banged against the floor, only to be followed by a relatively harsh string of French profanity.

"At least the gravity works," Krillin mumbled, throwing down his screwdriver to help Bulma with the panel. "Hey Marron, come over here and make yourself useful."

Bulma's younger sister rolled her eyes as Krillin ordered her to come and help out by holding the panel against the wall with her body weight. Wasn't there something that she could do that didn't require physical effort?

"I'll go see if I can rustle up our other grease monkey," Krillin stated tiredly, instructing Marron where she should sit to help out.

Chi Chi tugged at her tool belt as Krillin made a reference to that pig that was on the ship with them. It had been three weeks since the little `cupcake' incident, and even though things had been going smoothly between the pair, she still couldn't help but grip something tighter while imagining it was his neck.

"And don't go blowing up on us," Krillin shot over his shoulder as he opened the small hatch and continued through on his way towards the living quarters. "I'm not wearing clean underwear, and I wouldn't want to disappoint my mom when they find my body."

*****

He was trapped in space.

He was stuck on the toilet.

And it was all complements of that black haired… thing… of a chemist. He frowned as he sat there, realizing that for the most part, it was his own fault for being such a glutton. But he just couldn't say no to that banana crème pie. Or rather, what looked and smelled like a banana crème pie. And that… thing… probably knew it.

His abdominal muscles clenched once again and he felt like his ass was on fire. When the wave passed, he rested his head against the cold tile of the wall, the room being small enough for him to do so. He closed his eyes and promised himself that he would live through this, that he would make it out alive. And he would never eat another banana crème pie as long as he lived.

"Hey! Are you OK in there?" He heard someone bang on the door. The American.

"Yeah," Yamcha managed evenly, covering up the complete turmoil in his bowels.

"Did you finish working out those figures for the drive systems?" Krillin asked this time.

No, Yamcha thought, he hadn't. Crap. When the thought entered his brain, as if on cue, another wave passed.

Krillin leaned against the outside of the bathroom door and gave another slight knock. "Hey buddy, take it easy in there. Look, I always leave a pad and pencil under where the extra paper is stored. Get to work on those figures OK?"

Yamcha blinked at Krillin's muffled instructions and reached down to find the pad and paper. As he pulled them out his face hardened in resolve. Despite his predicament, he would get those figures done on time. Numbers and figures flashed across his line of vision as he worked quickly on the mind numbing solution to the problem at hand with the propulsion. True to the male species, he did some of his best work on the toilet.

*****

She yawned and brushed her long, blue hair out, watching it undulate in the air as if it were underwater. With every subtle movement of her head, it would bend and sway in a new direction and then she'd just start thinking that it needed to be brushed again.

Placing the brush in a small, plastic container, she clamped the whole thing down with a small strap built into her dressing cabinet. When they had finally repaired the forward propulsion and drive systems, the gravity stopped working. She rubbed her eyes with both hands and tried not to scream at the day's events. If it wasn't one thing, why did it always have to be another?

"I know," Marron sighed quietly from her bunk, which had been locked down due to the gravity problem, "I wanted a piece of that banana crème pie too."

Bulma peeked through her hands to raise her delicate, blue eyebrows at her little sister.

"I mean, that Yamcha. He's just such a pig!" The younger sister continued on, "don't they have pies in Europe?"

"Did I hear someone mention that we have a pig on board?" Chi Chi interrupted, shutting the hatch behind her and floating towards her own bunk.

Bulma smiled at her friend and decided that while she would have liked to have some private time alone in her own room, she was glad for having to share her quarters with the other woman. That, and she was glad that she wasn't the one who had to share with Yamcha. She was sure her Russian friend felt the same.

"I thought you were watching your figure?" Bulma finally turned to face her sister.

"I was," Marron semi-pouted in response, "but what's the point?" She added before plopping her head back down on her clamped down pillow, having little effect in her weightless state.

"You're throwing in the towel already?" Chi Chi commented as she began to re-braid her hair for bedtime. "What? You're not going to try to pick up any Martians?"

"What for?" Marron sulked. "We're already over two months past Mars. What would Martians be doing this far away from home?"

Chi Chi giggled quietly while Marron continued to fume at her bunk, entertained by the younger woman's train of thought. When she turned around to climb into her own spot, she regarded the other women carefully, without trying to be too obvious. Marron was more her peer than Bulma in age. They were only four months apart. But on the intellectual level, the older Briefs woman was a little more her style. Although she also had to admit that Bulma was still much smarter in every respect than she could ever hope to be.

"What do you think they'd be like?" Bulma asked as she stared at what used to be the ceiling when there had been a proper `up' and `down'.

"Who?" Chi Chi asked after a moment, climbing into her sleeping bag and adjusting the harness.

"Martian men… " Bulma trailed off, a slight dreamy quality to her voice.

"I imagine they'd be a lot like my ex-boyfriend," Chi Chi snorted in disdain.

"How so?" Marron chimed in. She was a bit curious about the other woman's past, and also quite happy that the topic was something she was capable of actually discussing.

"He spent too much time away from the sun and it took me years to prove to my father that the guy actually existed," she replied with a flick of her braid. The thick plait only sailed around her head slowly until it stopped at the opposite side of her head from where it began its orbit.

"So… why did you date him?"

"I guess it was because he lived a completely different lifestyle than I did," was the reply. "It was… exciting." She shrugged as the other heads in the room nodded and light sighs escaped into the breathable atmosphere.

"The real question is," Chi Chi finally asked as she cocked an eyebrow, "why did you ever date Yamcha?"

Bulma stopped dead in her tracks halfway up to her bunk. She blushed a bit at the fact that she had actually been quite smitten with the handsome Italian for quite a spell. She turned slightly and coyly looked about the room until she settled her gaze on her dark haired friend. "I… "

"Bulma!" Krillin shouted as he pushed through the now open hatch of the room. "You'd better come quick and take a look at this!"

All three women were rather alarmed at the entrance of their comrade, and both Chi Chi and Bulma practically sprang from their seats at their bunks. Marron tried to push herself up, but the fact that she was already strapped down spoke volumes, and it came mainly from her mouth.

"Get me out of this thing!"

Chi Chi floated over to help Marron with the safety device while Bulma and Krillin sped down the hallway, using the overhead handrails to propel them towards the small bridge.

"I noticed the fluctuations a while ago, but I guess I dismissed it as little more than a magnetic field!" Krillin hurriedly informed her.

"Magnetic… " Bulma began to question loudly as the whole ship shuddered, trembled and suddenly all out shook. There was a terrible grinding sound followed by a loud boom and the ship began rolling over slowly just before the lights flickered out.

"Ah, I hope that explosion wasn't something important," Krillin's voice sounded over a sizzling series of pops in the darkness.

Almost as suddenly as it had gone out, the lighting came back. It only lasted long enough to spit out some sparks before going out again.

There was another loud boom and the small craft began to shake violently once again. Bulma was terrified and although she wasn't the only one, it didn't really provide her with much comfort. It almost seemed as if the ship was being pummeled by something, although according to calculations they shouldn't be near the asteroid field yet.

Finally setting hands in the cockpit, the pair hurriedly pushed over to the controls. Lights flashed all over the boards, but Bulma found that she was more concerned about what was going on outside of the ship.

Krillin immediately began pressing buttons, only to find that most of the systems had been knocked offline.

"This really sucks!" Marron cried almost hysterically as she and Chi Chi made their way into the cockpit. The Russian looked towards the other woman as she grasped her firmly by the back of her shirt, convinced by now if she hadn't been already, that Marron possessed a keen gift of the obvious in specific situations.

Behind her, Bulma could faintly hear the sounds of the ship and her sister's voice over the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. The scene outside of the ship was all… wrong. At first, there was nothing, and while that was mostly normal for outer space, at the same time, it wasn't normal. After a few moments however, she noticed a faint trace of lights everywhere, and they were bending in every direction.

The ship began to hum from its violent shaking and Bulma and Krillin were forced to grip the console to remain in a fixed position. Chi Chi, who had retained her vice-like grip on both the overhead rail and Marron, was holding both to keep them from face-planting on the large view screen.

The deafening roar intensified until suddenly, everything stopped. The ship floated smoothly as the consoles beeped and flashed, the only other sound in the now cramped cockpit besides the whimpering was the heavy breathing.

A tired yawn sounded from the hatchway as Yamcha floated in the corridor. His eyes were barely open and they were somewhat glazed over, his long, black hair in disarray. He held onto the guide rail with one hand and began scratching his backside with the other.

"Something going on out here?" He mumbled, pushing himself through the opening just before a very dismayed Bulma grabbed him by his nose and pulled him in to occupy the space next to her.

"Do you see that?" She asked weakly, afraid to speak too loudly for no particular reason.

"Yeah," Yamcha replied, waking up more by the second and not really liking it. "It looks like a prisma… "

But he never got to finish his interpretation as the ship jolted violently, and the corridor exploded.

*****

Yes, that's my part two. And while it may seem a bit short, chapters will probably get longer as more characters are introduced. And you'll be meeting more of them shortly. And when I figure out where to stick the rest of them, you'll be the first ones to know.