Greg Black

Knives in the Dark

Prologue

The universe slowly aged, as all things do; in each cosmic eyeblink, civilizations began, rose, and fell without notice. The gods still looked after life where it existed, but the universe itself had no concern with such trivial matters. On such a large scale, the history which shall be related is less than insignificant.

But for that insignificant life, the story that is about to be told was an event of monumental proportions. Greater ones had taken place; but such things were few and far between. Still, as so many stories do, this one takes place on Earth. But it does not start there....

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The ship would have screamed towards the blue-green planet were it not for the vacuum of space. It was severely damaged, something that could be seen by even the untrained eye. Every system was offline, and there was no time to do anything but prepare for impact.

The passenger cast a mournful eye on what had once been his proud possession; it would last less than a minute now, even if it survived the entry into atmosphere. He climbed into the escape pod, and left the dying vessel. He knew he would be drawn to the same planet anyway, but the escape pod at least had heat shields, and some padding; a small chance to survive was better than none.

Another planet, another place of refuge, each one the same....Hopefully, he will pass by Earth until I have another way off the planet. Perhaps I should warn the inhabitants as well. He let such thoughts play through his head. The less he thought about impact, the less worried he would be.

Chapter 1

Yamcha woke to a bright morning, but he still felt a chill every time he woke up. Another day, another night alone. He had found no one after losing Bulma to Vegeta. Once, he had entertained the notion that she would come around; by now he knew better. It still hurt, but it was an old wound, and he knew the perfect salve: training. Even if he would never be as strong as any of the Saiyajins, he would make sure he could at least try to fight any new menace that arrived. Buu had shown him how weak he had become when he was lax; even though he couldn't have fought the monster, the glancing blow he had gotten when Buu fired his Genocide Attack was something he could have avoided if he had stayed in form.

Yamcha activated the gravity adjuster he had bought from Dr. Briefs, and pushed it up to 120, his current maximum. It took him a few moments to adjust to the increased weight, then he started his pushups. For a second, he thought of how he had bumped into Bulma when he came to buy the machine; she had scolded him, and acted as though they were still together, even when Trunks had been standing beside her. She still hadn't realized how much pain she had caused him. Angrily, he pushed the thought out of his head-at this gravity, training took concentration.

It took him a few minutes to register the bright light that flared outside his window because of his involvement with his training. When Yamcha realized what had happened, he raced outside to investigate. He could feel a ki, but it was weak, weaker even than the human norm; the kind of fluctuation he was feeling meant that it was dying.

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Yamcha wasn't the first outside the wreckage. He could see Vegeta, Piccolo and Kuririn already on the outskirts of the huge crater that the crash had left. Yamcha greeted Piccolo and Kuririn, and ignored Vegeta; Kuririn greeted Yamcha back, while Piccolo gave a nod of his head and Vegeta was angered by being slighted. /Good/, Yamcha thought. /See how he likes it/.

Kuririn spoke first. "What do you think it could be?"

Piccolo took up the query. "It's definitely alien in origin, and a ship at that."

"Fools, that's obvious! What's to debate?"

Kuririn gave Vegeta a look of disgust. "What I mean is, what kind of ship is it? Was it here to trade? Or here to invade?"

Yamcha spoke up. "I know there is a ki around here, I felt it; but it's close to death, and it's not in the ship."

"Where is it? I feel nothing."

"That's because you don't have enough practice, Vegeta. It's west of here, about 2 kilometers away."

With that said, Kuririn left, followed closely by Vegeta, Yamcha and Piccolo. Yamcha fell quickly behind. He realized he had left the gravity on; the personal model he had bought from Dr. Briefs was still in operation. He reached to turn it off, then decided against it; unless he was going to fight, he was still in training. Still, he turned the gravity down to 50x to make flight easier.

They reached another crash site, but this one stretched for only a few meters; the object that had hit was much smaller than its predecessor. Kuririn was the first one into the crater. Here he saw a long metal object twice his size. He tried to open the door on the side, but it had been welded shut by the heat from atmospheric entry. However, this obstacle didn't last long. With a skillful wielding of his ki, Kuririn managed to cut the cylinder open.

A man fell out, without much ceremony; he was unconscious, and badly injured. Kuririn felt for a pulse, and found one. It was weak, though, and without treatment the man would obviously die.

Vegeta snorted. "Why do you care about this stranger? He could be an enemy, for all we know!"

Piccolo responded in Kuririn's place. "Even if he is an enemy, he is weak, and he has little strength now. If he tries to attack, we can easily defeat or kill him if necessary. Besides, we aren't asking you to take care of him."

Kuririn took the limp man over his shoulders. "Vegeta, call Bulma and tell her that she has some new tech toys to play with."

"Why should I call her? This isn't my responsibility!"

"Because if you don't, I'll tell her you've been keeping secrets from her."

Vegeta paled, and Yamcha had to struggle to keep from laughing; if Bulma thought Vegeta had kept anything from her, he'd go hungry for weeks.

"You can sort this out between yourselves. I'm going to talk to Dende about this." And without another word, Piccolo shot off into the horizon. He was out of sight in a few seconds.

"Yamcha!"

"Yeah, Kuririn?"

"Why don't you tell Goku and the others about this? They probably didn't notice it; we only did because we were in the area. I'll take him to the hospital."

"Why not just give him a senzu bean, idiots?"

Yamcha shot Vegeta a mixed look of pity and contempt. "Karin doesn't just pull them out of thin air, Vegeta. He grows them, and it's not the right season now. Ask all we want, he won't have any to give us. Besides, if he is an enemy, restoring him to full strength that fast is the last thing we want."

"Whatever. It doesn't matter."

Yamcha left before his temper rose anymore; he wasn't sure if he would be able to keep any control, the way Vegeta was acting. Again, he considered shutting off the gravity machine while he flew to save time, but again he decided against it; he had more than enough time to get there. His ki left a white trail across the sky.