Chapter 9
"Wahoo!" Kuririn shouted.
"Yippee!" Gohan whooped.
"Thank Kami," Bulma sighed.
They had made it! For real this time! They were finally standing on Namekian soil! Bulma's eyes glistened in the light of the three stars spreading glorious daylight all around her. They'd been through so much on this trip. She'd almost begun to think they'd never make it here, but they had. She closed her eyes and slowly took in the sweet-smelling air. No pollution. No noise. Just quiet, peaceful, pristine nature all around. Namek was beautiful.
"Bulma!" Kuririn exclaimed.
"Huh?" Bulma started, shaken from her reveries. "What?"
"Weren't you listening?" Kuririn asked impatiently. "I said, get out your dragon radar and let's begin looking for the dragonballs!"
"Oh! Right." She said, nodding. She took out her dragon radar and turned it on. "Hey!" She exclaimed. "Look at this! Here they are! All seven of them! And there are four all together in one place already. That's odd. I wonder why they aren't spread out more than that?"
"But they're here, right?" Kuririn said excitedly. "There are dragonballs here! We'll get to wish Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Yamucha, and Piccolo back!" He and Gohan began to dance a little jig together and Bulma got caught up in the fun, laughing and dancing with them. They couldn't possibly be happier than they were right now! Suddenly Gohan stopped.
"Hey guys," he said, turning away. Kuririn and Bulma were still laughing and dancing together. "Guys!" He said again, tensing. They stopped and looked at him.
"What is it, Gohan?" Bulma asked him, noticing how tense and nervous he'd become. "Do you sense something?"
"Yeah," he replied. "I sense some very powerful auras of ki out there." He pointed toward the horizon.
Bulma and Kuririn concentrated on where he was pointing. "You're right," Bulma agreed. "Kuririn, do you think they could be Nameks?"
"I don't know," Kuririn said uncertainly. "They feel kind of unfriendly to me."
"Me too," Gohan said nervously. "They're pretty far away, so it's difficult to tell, but I've got this bad feeling that those kis are evil."
"You think so?" Bulma said skeptically. "I don't know. Kaio-sama said that the Nameks were a peaceful race. We must just be a little jittery. Come on. Let's go introduce ourselves. My dragon radar shows that the four dragonballs I noticed earlier are over in that direction anyway. Maybe they're gathering them together."
"You must be right," Kuririn said, nervously waving his fears aside. "Come on. Let's go meet some Nameks!" Kuririn and Bulma began to walk away.
"You coming, Gohan?" Bulma asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. It was then that she noticed that he was shaking. She stiffened. Something was wrong.
"What is it, Gohan?" Bulma asked nervously. He couldn't speak. He could only point to the sky. Even before she looked, Bulma could feel an eerily familiar ki source above her. She looked up in terror to see a familiar sight streaking across the sky. As she concentrated her senses on the ki emanating from the space pod, she began to tremble.
"It's Ve- Ve- Veg-..." She stuttered.
"Vegita!" Kuririn exclaimed.
"What are we going to do, Kuririn?" Gohan asked, still shaking. "Now that Vegita's here, we're gonna have to fight him for the dragonballs!"
"Not if he doesn't find us, we won't!" Kuririn said, smacking his fist into the palm of his other hand. "We'll just have to beat him to the dragonballs. Right, Bulma?"
Bulma wasn't listening. She had opened her communications case and was setting up her satellite link-up.
"What're you doing?" Kuririn asked her incredulously. "This is no time to make phone calls! We've got to hurry up and get those dragonballs!"
"Here," Bulma said, tossing him the dragon radar. "You two go after the dragonballs. You're right. We need to start right away. But I need to stay here and call Kamesennin so he can tell Goku that Vegita's here. We'll need Goku here as soon as possible."
"Oh yeah!" Kuririn said, smacking his forehead. "Goku! That's quick thinking, Bulma! All right then. We'll go, but what will you do when you're done with that?"
"Oh, don't worry about me," Bulma said, waving him away. "I'll stay here with the ship, at least for now. I've got to unload a lot of stuff. Besides," she added, looking thoughtfully at the ship. "I've decided to try to make another dragon radar while I wait for you guys to come back. I may even leave if I get it built before you return. It might be best for us to split up and search. We can cover more ground faster that way."
Kuririn tried to protest, but he could tell by the look she gave him that there was no point in arguing with her. "Are you sure, Bulma?" He said, making one last effort. "I didn't want to say it before, but it has to be said. You know as well as I do that you're not quite as powerful as Gohan or I am. The three of us together would have a rough time with Vegita, and I just don't want to take the chance of letting you get caught alone with him."
"I know," Bulma said reassuringly. "But you're going to have to trust my judgement on this one, Kuririn. I'll be careful. Besides," she said, "I'll prefer to be alone, so I can go at my own pace. If I have to teleport, or do something strenuous, I don't want to have any extra passengers. Please, Kuririn. Don't try to argue with me on this. I'll be all right."
Kuririn sighed. He hoped she was right. But he had hoped even more that she would listen to reason. He had a bad feeling about this, but he knew that there was no way he was going to win. "All right, Bulma," he said, shaking his head. "You win. I just hope you know what you're doing. Come on, Gohan. We'd better hurry if we want to beat Vegita to those dragonballs."
Bulma suddenly felt the sharp twinge of a powerful ki hit her senses. She looked up to the sky to find its source, and began to tremble.
"Kuririn!" She cried, grabbing his arm and pointing to the sky. "Kuririn! It's another Saiyan space pod!"
Kuririn and Gohan gasped. "No!" Kuririn gasped. "But Vegita and Goku were the last Saiyans! How can there be another Saiyan landing here?"
"I don't understand it either," Bulma said. "But one just did, and he feels even stronger than Vegita!"
"Quick!" Kuririn said. "Mask your ki! I forgot! If Vegita's here, and now another Saiyan too, then we have two enemies with scouters to contend with. We don't want to be detected!"
Bulma and Gohan quickly suppressed their power as low as it could go. They were all extremely worried now, and with good reason. One Vegita was bad enough, but another, even stronger one was way too much for them to handle.
"Hey," Gohan said suddenly. "Do you guys sense that? There are two relatively weak kis coming from that way." He pointed to a bluff in front of them.
Bulma and Kuririn nodded in agreement. Bulma wondered aloud if they could be Nameks.
"I think so," Kuririn said. "I can't tell what kind of ki it is, but they aren't nearly as strong as Vegita is, or even any one of us."
"They're almost here," Bulma said nervously. "They'll appear around that bluff at any second."
"Get ready," Kuririn said, "to power up with your ki masked, just in case these two aren't the Namek welcoming committee." Nervously, they watched the bluff. Sure enough, two figures flew around it and down closer to them and their ship. The two strangers talked quietly to each other, pointing toward Bulma and her friends.
"Funny," Bulma said, taken aback. "I didn't imagine that Nameks would be dressed in Saiyan armor. And somehow, I thought they'd be a little greener." It was true. These definitely were not Nameks. They were clad in the same armor that the Saiyans wore, but they looked a lot less human than Saiyans did. Suddenly one of them extended his right arm, pointing it toward the ship. Bulma sensed a blast of ki coming.
"Run!" She cried, and she and the boys darted away from the ship as one of their visitors fired a small but damaging blast straight through it. Bulma gasped in horror and flew over to her poor ship to inspect the damage. It looked impossible to repair. She glared at the two soldiers in rage.
"Who are you, and why have you done this?" She demanded angrily. Kuririn and Gohan flew up behind her for support.
"Well, I guess there's no harm in telling you," the one who had damaged her ship said, grinning at her, "since you'll all be dead in a few seconds."
Unfazed, Bulma just hovered where she was, silently waiting for the soldier's testimony. She wanted to hear him out before she knocked him out, at least. Seeing that she didn't appear to be intimidated, the stranger continued.
"We were sent by Zarbon, Freeza's top officer, to eliminate three small ki readings that had appeared in this area. Those are you three, so I guess it's time for you to say goodbye!" He and his companion prepared to fire.
"Good night!" Bulma retorted, and she darted forward and slammed their heads together. She then smashed the now unconscious pair into the ground. She, Kuririn, and Gohan flew down by their ship and masked their kis again.
"Was I right when I heard them say that they worked for Freeza?" She asked Kuririn and Gohan.
"That's what I heard," Gohan replied. Kuririn nodded in agreement.
Bulma sighed. "I don't know who this Freeza is exactly, but I have a feeling that we don't want to meet him if we can avoid it. Come on. Those two have scouters on. That means they tracked us here. We need to move to a different spot before Freeza sends more scouts after us. Besides," she added, turning to look sadly at the craft that she and her father had worked so hard on, "the ship's beyond repair now, anyway." She paused, and gritted her teeth. Now how were they ever going to get home? Kuririn and Gohan looked at each other uncomfortably. Bulma just remained where she was, unmoving and silent. She made no move to carry out what she had just ordered. She just stood there, staring at the ship, with its gaping hole and cracked frame. Kuririn was afraid she was going to cry.
"Bulma," he said finally, putting a hand on her shoulder, causing her to face him again, "we'd better get going. Freeza knows where we are now, like you said, so we need to get away from here as soon as possible." Bulma nodded.
As fast as they could, they all grabbed whatever they thought would be necessary from the ship, and left the rest where it was.
"Just keep your ki suppressed and walk as fast as you can," Kuririn said, giving Bulma back her dragon radar and trying to take her mind off the fact that they may never see home again. "You keep an eye open for a good place to set up camp, Bulma," he said. "But we have to make sure it's at least a couple hours away, so we won't run the risk of getting found again." Bulma nodded in agreement, and they began walking.
After about a half an hour of silence, Gohan broke in with something that he had obviously been pondering for a while. "Hey guys," he said. "I've been thinking. D'you guys think that Vegita's in league with this Freeza guy? It sounds like it could be possible, since he and the Saiyans do pretty much the same thing with the planets they conquer."
"It certainly does seem likely," Kuririn replied, looking thoughtful for a moment. "They both sound about as bad to me." They all agreed that it seemed more than coincidental that Vegita and Freeza were in the same line of work and on the same planet at the same time. It appeared that they had both Freeza and Vegita to contend with. They developed an even greater disliking for both of them because of this supposition.
Not much else was said during the rest of their travels through the verdant, scenic landscape. After about an hour and a half, they came across a small cave in the side of a mountain. They decided that this would be an ideal place to set up camp. It was hidden, it was far from the ship, and it was relatively safe. After they'd stored all their things in the cave, they took a brief rest.
"So this is what we're reduced to," Bulma said angrily, shaking her head. "Hiding out in caves. I hope Yamucha and the others appreciate what we're doing for them."
"Aw, come on, Bulma," Kuririn said, smiling warmly at her. "I know you. You'd do just about anything to help Yamucha get back. You can't fool me."
"You're right," she sighed, smiling slightly. "I would do anything to bring him and the others back. Living in a cave won't be too great an inconvenience for me, anyway," she said, holding up one of her capsule cases - the one with the house capsules in it. She grinned at the puzzled look on Kuririn's face. "I brought a few house capsules with me," she explained. A couple of them are small enough to fit in this cave, so we won't be too badly off. Still," she said, clenching the case tightly in her fist and looking down at her feet. "It just makes me so angry that this Freeza character has forced us into hiding like criminals." Suddenly she stopped. She had just felt an incredibly large wave of ki hit her. Kuririn and Gohan must have sensed it too, because they were now all looking in the same direction - the one that the eerily powerful ki was coming from.
"Everybody hide in the cave!" Kuririn yelled, suddenly very terrified. "Push your ki as close to zero as you possibly can! I've never felt such a powerful ki before!"
"How many strong fighters can there be out there?" Bulma asked, trembling nervously.
"I hope they didn't detect our ki and send a search party," Gohan commented uneasily.
"Oh my God!" Bulma exclaimed, covering her mouth, and pointing to a growing speck in the distance. The rapidly approaching enemies felt extremely powerful, and extremely evil. And to make things worse, they were heading straight for the cave!
Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan stayed hidden in the cave, frozen in silent terror. Within only a matter of seconds that seemed like hours, the fast-moving pack of villains had passed over their hiding place and was gone. Bulma sank to her knees, breathing heavily. Just the feel of those kis was enough to make her weak in the knees. Bulma wondered how on earth - or on Namek in this case - they were supposed to search for dragonballs with adversaries like those flying around?
"H- h- hey, Bulma?" Gohan said suddenly, turning pale. "Didn't you say earlier that there were already four of the dragonballs in one place?"
Bulma immediately understood what Gohan was driving at. Her hands shook as she took out her dragon radar and turned it on. As the painful truth showed up on the screen, she closed her eyes in quiet acceptance.
"They're moving along the same path as those strong ki sources - and fast." She said quietly.
"I knew it," Kuririn sighed. "Well, I guess we'd better go see what we're up against. What do you say, Gohan?" Gohan nodded in reply.
"Are you coming too, Bulma?" Kuririn asked her.
"No," Bulma replied emphatically. "I'm going to keep with the original plan, only this time I've got a lot more to report to Goku. You guys go do what you need to do. But I'm still sticking to our previous plan and going after the other dragonballs after I construct another dragon radar. Don't worry. I won't take any unnecessary risks, but I hope you won't either. Remember this: they have four of the dragonballs, but if we get the other three, then they won't be able to call the dragon anyway. We'll worry about getting their four then. Don't you guys try to be heroes, okay?" She gave Kuririn the dragon radar once again, and once again began setting up the satellite uplink.
Gohan and Kuririn could see the sense in Bulma's words. They all promised each other to be careful, and Gohan and Kuririn left Bulma to her task. Bulma sighed. She had at least a couple of hours' worth of work ahead of her, not to mention the time it would take her to fill Roshi in. Oh well. She quickly set out to finish her work, because she had big plans for when she finished.
On to the next Chapter!
