Chapter 6
"Alright, guys, there it is!" Bulma exclaimed. "Namek!"
Gohan and Kuririn ran up from their bunk to look out the window at the green sphere before them. That had really been a worthwhile shortcut! It had only taken them three days to get here after leaving their friends in the mirrored ship.
"It's beautiful," Gohan breathed excitedly.
"What say we go in for a closer look?" Bulma asked, with a glint of excitement flashing in her eyes.
"Yeah!!" Gohan exclaimed. Kuririn smiled at Bulma. They were finally there!
"Buckle up!" Bulma ordered. "We're going down!" She waited for them to strap in, and then gave the computer the landing commands. The ship zoomed down toward the surface.
"I hate this part," Kuririn muttered, as the ship quivered in its entry.
Suddenly the ship began rolling to one side. The ship's computer was going crazy with warning signals. The whole left half of the ship was not responding to its commands. Bulma suddenly realized that she had made a grave error in her program. Well, there was no time to fix it now. She was going to have to land the ship manually.
"What's going on, Bulma?" Gohan asked. "Why are we rolling?"
"The ship isn't responding to my flight program," she said, grabbing the directional levers to level out their flight path. "I'm going to land us manually. Hang on. We're in for a bumpy ride!" She worked fiercely at the controls to stabilize their flight path. She finally got the ship upright, and worked to slow their descent, which was much too fast for comfort. After a couple minutes of careful slowing, the reverse thrusters quit on her. This was bad. She could still steer, but she had no way of slowing them down. The ground was rapidly approaching. There was nothing but trees below her. She had no choice. She had to try to slow them down somehow.
"Hang on guys," she said, easing the ship down toward the treetops. "This is gonna be rough." She eased the ship closer to the trees. Carefully trying to avoid trees large enough to tear the ship to bits, she let the ship fly into the large canopy of leaves. Immediately, the ship jerked from the shock, and it was pulled farther down into the forest. A loud grinding noise told Bulma that the legs were scraping the ground. There was nothing she could do. She'd lost all control of the ship. She watched helplessly as they crunched through trees as if they were twigs. They did seem to be slowing, at least.
Suddenly a huge tree loomed ahead of them. They were going to hit it! That tree was big enough to stop them, and if it did, it would certainly stop them hard.
"Brace yourselves, guys," Bulma said, gulping. "This is going to hurt!"
With a sickening crack, the ship slammed into the massive tree, jerking Bulma forward so hard that her restraint harness nearly snapped. Then, all was silence. The ship had stopped.
"Are you guys okay?" Bulma asked, unbuckling herself from her chair and turning around to check on Kuririn and Gohan. They were paler than usual, but seemed okay.
"I'm all right," Gohan said, unbuckling his restraint harness.
"Same here," Kuririn said, doing the same. "But that sure was a bumpy ride."
"Well, at least we landed safely," Bulma said. "Come on. Let's go look out the window to see where we are."
They ran up to the window and looked past the big tree toward the horizon. There was nothing but trees for as far as the eye could see.
"Wow," breathed Gohan. "Now I know why the planet was so green. Look at all the trees!"
Bulma gasped. "Whoa! I'm glad this big tree was here," she said, pointing down, "because look where we are!"
Kuririn and Gohan looked at where she was pointing and gasped too. They were right on the edge of an enormous cliff!
"It's a good thing we stopped when we did," Gohan muttered. Kuririn and Bulma nodded in agreement.
Kuririn studied the trees for a few seconds. "Hey, Bulma," he said suddenly. "Are you sure this is Namek?"
"Well," she answered, "I'm sure I followed Zeshin's directions exactly. This must be Namek."
"But I don't see any Nameks yet," Kuririn said. "And I'm sure that if there were any, at least one would be here by now."
"I know!" Gohan exclaimed. "Why don't you check your dragon radar for dragonballs, Bulma?"
"Good thinking, Gohan!" Bulma exclaimed. She dug through her bag to find it. Suddenly the ship lurched forward, sending Bulma crashing into the control panel. Then the ship was still again.
"Both of you get in your seats and buckle up!" She ordered, trying not to move too much. But before anyone could do anything else, the tree that was holding the ship up lurched forward again, only this time, it went over the edge of the cliff, and the ship followed it down. That was the last thing Bulma remembered.
On to the next Chapter!
