Chapter 5
Bulma got up out of her chair and began feeling around for the emergency backup switch. The ship should never have completely shut off like this.
"What's wrong, Bulma?" Kuririn called out through the darkness. "Why are all the lights out?"
"Damn!" She said angrily, flipping the backup switch on and off again repeatedly. It had no effect. She knelt down and yanked one of the emergency kits out from under her seat. "Well this is just perfect!" She snapped, fishing out a flashlight. "They've taken control of the ship. I don't know how they did it, but our friends from another world have pulled our ship into theirs and shut off our power."
"How could they have done that?" Gohan asked, as Bulma turned on the flashlight and began digging under her seat again. "Their ship was exactly like ours, wasn't it?"
"I don't think so," she replied. "That blip on the radar screen was much too big to belong to a ship our size. They must have deceived us somehow."
"Yeah," Kuririn said, as Bulma tossed him and Gohan each a flashlight. "But just who are 'they,' exactly?"
"I don't know," Bulma said, walking over onto the entry deck. "But I'm going to find out. No one hijacks my ship without a fight. Are you two coming?"
"We're with you, Bulma," Kuririn said, as he and Gohan hopped out of their chairs. "Let's just hope that we're not in over our heads." They walked over and stood next to Bulma on the entry deck.
"Piccolo!" Bulma commanded. The platform slowly lowered itself to the floor of the enemy spacecraft. Warily, Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan crept out from under their ship and peered out at their surroundings.
"What is this place?" Kuririrn wondered aloud. Suddenly bright lights snapped on above them, making them jump.
"It looks like a hangar," Bulma said. "See! There are some of those little robotic pods that attacked us earlier!"
"Where is everybody?" Gohan asked as they explored the hangar. "I'd felt sure that we'd be greeted by armed space pirates or something. Pretty rude hijackers, huh?"
"Look!" Bulma said, pointing to a hallway on the other side of the hangar. "I don't see any other doorways. Come on. It might be a trap, but we don't exactly have a lot of options, here."
"I guess you're right," Kuririn agreed. "But we'd better be careful."
Cautiously, they crept over to the doorway and peered inside. No one was in there. It was dimly lit for as far as Bulma could see. Constantly watching all around them, the three wary travelers made their way down the hallway.
"Well," Bulma said after a few minutes. "Maybe this place isn't booby-trapped after all." Just then, gunports opened in the walls, and they were suddenly aware that Bulma had spoken too soon. The guns began firing a barrage of bullets at them, and they were forced to run the gauntlet down the hallway. More guns appeared on the walls as they ran. They'd fallen into a trap, all right!
"Look!" Kuririn shouted over the sound of the bullets. "There's a light up there! Turn right!" They dove into the new hallway, frantically checking the walls for more gunports.
"If you think that you can kill us with a few pieces of lead, then think again!" Bulma screamed angrily.
"Don't make them mad, Bulma," Kuririn said. "They have an advantage over us, you know. We're on THEIR turf."
"I don't care!" Bulma snapped. "We didn't do anything to them! They have no right to attack us like this! When I find whoever's behind this I'll give 'em a few real reasons to shoot at me!"
Suddenly, large, metal doors dropped down from the ceiling behind and in front of them. Before they had time to react, a strange, corrosive goo began oozing out of the walls. A little bit dripped onto Kuririn's hat and began eating it away. Bulma yanked it off of his head and threw it onto the ground. The trio quickly flew up a few inches to get out of reach of the smelly acid.
"What should we do?" Bulma asked, as Kuririn quickly grabbed his hat before any more of the stuff could get to it. "We can't stay here much longer. I'm sure we can avoid this acid for a while, but the fumes are too overpowering. We've got to get out of here!"
"One exit, coming right up!" Kuririn said, and he blasted through one of the doors. They flew away from the poisonous fumes as quickly as they could, and ran down all kinds of hallways. After about five minutes of running like this, they stopped to catch their breath and try to figure out where they were.
"You know, I'd swear I've seen this hallway before," Bulma panted.
"I've been thinking the same thing," Kuririn replied. "I think we've been going in circles."
"I'm beginning to feel very unwelcome," Bulma said, scowling. "I wish I could at least see who I'm running from. I'm tired of running blindly."
"Hey, look at that!" Kuririn said, pointing at an odd panel on the ceiling. It was somehow different from the others.
"Hmmm..." Bulma said, floating up so she could see it better. "I wonder what will happen if I move this thing around..." She was answered by a new doorway opening next to Gohan.
"Should we go in?" Gohan asked. "It's probably another trap."
"I know," Bulma sighed. "But we have to keep moving. We're bound to come to the end of this string of booby-traps sooner or later. Besides, we can't go back. We know what's waiting for us back there."
They decided that she was right. They stepped boldly through the doorway, which snapped shut almost immediately.
"Here we go again," Kuririn grumbled. Suddenly the floor gave way beneath them, and they realized in horror that they were about to be sucked out into space! As they fell down a chute toward certain death, they simultaneously realized what had to be done. Bulma, Gohan, and Kuririn stretched their arms downward and shot enormous Kamehamehas toward the void, propelling themselves back up the chute. They flew down the new corridor in this way until Bulma found a switch on the wall that closed a hatch between them and outer space. Panting, they looked at each other in exhaustion. Fortunately, they were all still alive. The only loss was Kuririn's hat, which he'd lost while propelling himself back up the chute.
"I'm getting really tired of this," Bulma grumbled.
"I'm just plain getting tired," Kuririn groaned. "Not to mention hungry."
Bulma's stomach growled in agreement. They hadn't eaten much today, because of their inactivity on the ship.
"Is it just me," Gohan asked, sniffing the air, "or do you guys smell food too?"
Bulma and Kuririn sniffed too. "You're right!" Kuririn said. "Where is it coming from?"
"Come on," Bulma said. "Let's find out." They followed their noses until they came to a large room. There was a table in the middle of the room, covered with delicious-smelling food. The table even came complete with three chairs. Bulma's stomach growled louder now, and and her mouth watered with anticipation, but still she was nervous.
"All right!" Kuririn and Gohan exclaimed. They ran to the table and sat in two of the chairs.
"Hold it, guys," Bulma said. "I smell a rat."
"All I smell is this great food," Gohan said, staring at the dishes in front of him.
"How do you know that the food isn't poisoned?" Bulma asked them. "I'm sure that whoever prepared this table also set all those other traps for us. How do we know that this isn't just another trap? Why should we believe that they've changed their minds about us?"
"Well, let's just sit down for a while at least," Kuririn said, eyeing the food longingly. "You're tired, aren't you?"
"All right," she sighed. She sat down in the other chair. She just couldn't shake her apprehension.
"You never know," Kuririn said, poking at his plate of food. "Maybe they're about to reward us for making it through that funhouse of theirs."
"I doubt it," Bulma said, pushing her plate of food away so she wouldn't be so tempted to stuff her face. "That's way to farfetched to me. I think that's your hunger talking, Kuririn."
Suddenly a knife shot through the air toward Bulma's head. She leaned her head away as it struck her chair.
"What the?" She exclaimed, looking at where the knife struck. It must have struck some kind of light because it (the light) was blinking on and off.
"Get out of here! Quick!" Bulma barked, jumping up from her chair. "It's another trap!" She tried to push a confused Kuririn and Gohan away from the table toward where they entered. Suddenly a shadow appeared over them. Gohan and Kuririn bolted before Bulma realized what was happening, and with a loud clang she was surrounded by darkness. She could hear the muffled voices of Gohan and Kuririn and their fists as they pounded on the outside of her metal prison. She tried to feel her way to a wall, but was grabbed tightly around the middle by an unknown attacker.
"Whoever you are, you'd better let me go right now!" She said angrily, struggling to get her arms free. Suddenly a hole opened above her and she could see in the light that a big metal claw of some kind was holding her.
"Huh?" She said. "What happened? Where did this come froooooom!" She shrieked as the claw lifted her up to a platform high above the floor. She struggled violently to free herself.
"Freeze, or we'll shoot you!" Someone said next to her. She suddenly realized that was surrounded by children with guns pointed straight at her head.
"Bulma!" Gohan and Kuririn yelled. "Are you all right?"
"Forget about me for the moment!" She called back. "You two need to watch out too! You're surrounded!"
Kuririn and Gohan gasped as they realized she was right. It was as if these children had appeared out of nowhere. They were all armed and they all had their guns pointed at Kuririn and Gohan.
"What the hell is wrong with you kids?" Bulma snapped at the armed children crowded around her. "First you attack our ship, then you make us go through all kinds of deadly traps, and now this! What kind of sadistic misfits are you anyway? We didn't do anything to you!"
"Liar!" The boy closest to her exclaimed. "It was your kind that robbed us of our parents and our planet! We have every reason to destroy you!" He pushed his gun closer to her face.
"Rapid teleport!" Bulma yelled. Now that time had stopped, she was able to free herself from the metal claw that held her. She figured as much. It was only logical that machines that were powered by electricity would be easily manipulated during teleportation. She floated out in front of the platform and turned around to look at the children some more. She couldn't switch back to real time just yet. She had to think. Perhaps she had been wrong in assuming that their aggressors were totally deserving of a severe beating. They obviously had mistaken Bulma and her friends for someone else. Someone terrible. Maybe they should try to talk things out before doing anything rash. Bulma decided to try to talk things out first. Still, it wouldn't hurt to take precautions. She took the guns from the hands of each of the kids on the platform and tucked the stack of weapons under her arm. She snapped back into real time and allowed the kids in front of her to react. They jumped back in fear and confusion when they saw her hovering there with their weapons.
"Now just calm down," she said, trying not to sound threatening. "If you're afraid I'm going to hurt you, you can rest assured that I won't. I don't fight children. I just want to know who you guys think we are."
"Don't play dumb with us!" The same one said to her. "We know you're three of Freeza's cronies!"
"Freeza?" Bulma said, genuinely confused. "Who's Freeza?" Suddenly she sensed a rise in ki down below. Kuririn and Gohan were getting angry. They were ready to fight.
"Uh-oh!" She exclaimed. This wasn't good. They certainly didn't want to fight these kids. A lot of innocent lives could be lost.
"Here! Take these!" She said hurriedly, shoving the pile of guns at the one who had snapped at her earlier. "I've got to stop my friends from making a big mistake!" The boy fell back from the weight of the guns as Bulma shot down towards Kuririn and Gohan. They were just about to fire energy blasts at the crowd of angry, threatening children when Bulma touched down in front of them. Gohan stopped himself in time, but Kuririn let a small energy ball escape from him. Bulma blocked it without too much difficulty.
"Hold it!" She said angrily. "Will everyone please just calm down?"
"What's the matter, Bulma?" Kuririn asked frustratedly. "What are you doing?"
"Kuririn, I'm ashamed of you!" She scolded. "How can you even bring yourself to fire on innocent kids like that?"
"'Innocent?!'" Kuririn said incredulously. "What do you mean 'innocent?' They were about to shoot us!"
"Why shouldn't we?" The oldest-looking one asked angrily. "You did the same thing to all our parents!"
"Huh? What do you mean?" Kuririn asked, shocked right out of his anger.
"Kuririn," Bulma said, "these kids think that we helped some guy named Freeza destroy their civilization and their parents. That's why they attacked us."
Before anyone could say anything else the whole ship quaked violently, and bulma was nearly knocked off her feet. An adolescent girl ran out to report.
"Zeshin!" She cried to the older-looking boy. "We've entered an asteroid field! The ship will be torn to bits if we don't do something, and that last impact has already caused some small fires in the eighth and ninth sectors of the ship. They're too close to the fuel lines to be insignificant for long."
"Bun, you're in charge!" Zeshin barked at the one who had snapped at Bulma earlier. "Assign some people to watch these three and send the rest to go handle those fires with me. You go to the bridge and try to fly our ship through these asteroids. Now let's move!"
Bun quickly did as he was told. Soon the whole ship was a bustle of nervous activity. Only ten children had been assigned to to watch Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan, and the poor kids were so nervous and scared that they weren't even paying attention to their captives.
"What should we do?" Kuririn asked Bulma. "Should we leave while we can? When they get past this asteroid field they'll probably try to execute us again."
"Yeah, but look at them, kuririn! They're just kids! How are they going to get themselves out of this? We've got to help them!"
Suddenly of the steel panels above a large group of the kids began creaking and groaning. Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan nodded at each other and flew over toward the panicking children, just in time to keep the thick chunk of metal from crushing them. The children looked up in shock and fear as their rescuers dropped the panel harmlessly off to one side.
"Are you all right?" Bulma asked them. Gulping, they nodded back. She smiled warmly at them and then turned back toward Gohan and Kuririn.
"Here's my gameplan," she said quickly. "Gohan, Kuririn, I want you two to try to keep these kids out of harm's way and help them put out those fires. While you do that, I'm going to go to the control room and try to help them pilot us out of danger. With luck, we'll show them that there are decent people in this universe yet!"
"Let's do it!" Kuririn said.
"Yeah!" Gohan agreed.
"All right!" Bulma said, turning to head toward where she'd seen Bun go before. "Now, you two be careful!"
She ran through the hallway past dozens of panicking children. Luckily, she didn't have far to go. She suddenly found herself standing beside Bun, who was frantically trying to keep the ship from hitting the giant asteroids. Bulma quickly studied his actions so she could get the gist of this ship and how it worked. Smiling happily, she discovered that it was not unlike those of her home planet. She could do it all manually by keyboard, too.
"Move!" She ordered, shoving him out of the seat and sitting down. Immediately she began typing out commands to the ship's main computer.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Bun asked her viciously.
"Keeping us all from getting killed, that's what!" She retorted.
She deftly maneuvered the ship past the enormous rocks, to the amazement of Bun, who had stopped complaining by now. After about twenty minutes of hard, strenuous dodging, they were finally past the field of asteroids, and Bulma rested her fingers.
"Whew!" She said. "That was close!" She turned to smirk at Bun and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.
"Hey!" She said angrily. "What's the matter with you people? Can't you get it through your thick skulls that we're not here to hurt you? I just saved your lives, for Kami's sake!"
"Ha!" Bun growled. "You only did that to save yourself. You three don't give a damn about people like us. You've got to be in league with Freeza. Only people associated with him could do what I've seen you three do today."
"Put your weapon down, Bun," Zeshin said. He had just arrived with Gohan and Kuririn. "These three aren't with Freeza. I'm sure of it now." He told them about how Gohan and Kuririn had rescued other kids countless times after that.
"These guys can't be with Freeza," he claimed, "because Freeza's men would never do something like that."
Bun looked close into Bulma's eyes. After about a minute he seemed satisfied. Bulma had not noticed it before, but Bun looked a lot like Yamucha.
"I believe you," he said to Zeshin. "I don't see the evil in her eyes that I saw in the eyes of Freeza's soldiers." He turned to walk out. He stopped and tousled Gohan's hair as he left.
"I'm sorry we doubted you," Zeshin apologized. "We're all pretty jumpy around here. Freeza's still looking for us."
"Who is this Freeza, anyway?" Kuririn asked. "What exactly did he do to you and your homeworld?"
Zeshin shuddered. "Freeza and his minions are the worst kind of evil. They came to our planet and killed all our parents. Only we children were able to escape. But even so, of all the ships full of children that flew away, only our mirrored one has thus far escaped destruction from Freeza. All the rest of our brothers and sisters have been killed at the hands of that maniac."
"Why did Freeza kill all your people?" Bulma asked.
"They wanted to sell our planet to a barbaric race of people who had destroyed their own planet with wars and pollution," he said disgustedly.
Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan looked at each other in amazement. This was all too familiar.
"These people sound a lot like Saiyans," Bulma said. "The Saiyans tried to do the same thing with our planet. By any chance, did Freeza and his men have long, furry tails?"
"No," Zeshin said. "Some of them had tails, but they weren't like that. They seemed to be from lots of different races of people, but they could all do what you three can do. You know, shoot energy from your hands, fly, things like that. Anyway, to tell the truth, I've never seen Freeza before. None of us have. All we've seen are his soldiers."
"Oh," Kuririn said. "So where are you all going now? You can't very well go back to your own planet now."
"Yeah," Zeshin said. "I know. So we're going to the planet of one of our homeworld's trading partners. They said that they'd be glad to take us in."
"That's great," Bulma said happily. "At least you all have a place to go."
"Where are you three going?" He asked them.
"We're going to the planet Namek," Gohan answered. "And it's very important that we get there soon."
"It's strange that you should say that," Zeshin said. "We passed Namek only two weeks ago. We know a shortcut, if you're interested."
"We sure are!" Bulma said, grinning at Kuririn and Gohan, who grinned back. Zeshin gave her the coordinates, and they all went to the hangar, where all the rest of the children were waiting to bid them farewell.
"Goodbye Zeshin... Bun." Bulma said, shaking their hands firmly. Kuririn and Gohan did the same. "I sincerely hope that you all make it to where you are going."
"And the same back to you," Bun said. "I'm sorry I ever made such an accusation. You three are the best aliens I've ever seen. And I've seen quite a few."
Bulma and Co. laughed at this innocent but hilarious statement. Everyone waved goodbye as Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan got into their ship and sped away.
"Where were they going, anyway?" Bun asked Zeshin, as they turned to go back toward the bridge.
"Namek," Zeshin replied. "I hope they make it safely there."
Bun suddenly grew strangely pale. "What?!" He exclaimed. "Run that by me again!"
"Namek," Zeshin said again, looking at his friend in puzzlement.
"Oh no!" Bun said, clenching his fists. "No! They can't!"
"What in the world has gotten into you?" Zeshin asked him. "Why shouldn't they go to Namek?"
"Because," Bun said, shaking angrily. "I overheard one of Freeza's soldiers say before we left that Namek was Freeza's next primary target."
On to the next Chapter!
