The New Age Empire v2: Book 2

~Chapter 6: The Knowledge of Space~

Gohan answered his call, much to Goten's surprise, and he smiled in greeting.

"How's it going out there in space, Goten? Having fun?"

"Niichan!" he wailed. "Tousan has another kid we don't know about!"

The look on Gohan's face was priceless. "He *what*?" He saw his younger brother motion to Taura behind him and the other young man bravely stepped forward. "He's even younger than I am!"

"Is this your brother?" he asked Goten. "My, he looks a lot like you."

"It seems everyone does these days," Vegeta couldn't help but say.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Taura. I'm a merchant." He puffed up with pride. "I saved all of the money myself to buy my own business and now I trade on the Floor!"

"Er, nice." He turned to see Bulma stomping back into the lab with a frown on her face. "Um, Bulma-san? I think you need to hear this."

"What is it Gohan? I'm not in the best mood right now. That stupid Vegeta threw a tantrum in the bowling alley because he lost."

"That sounds about right." Vegeta smirked.

"Oh!" she looked at the screen as if she had just noticed it was there. "Um, hi. I'm Vegeta's mother."

Neither Taura nor Kallen answered her. The younger of the two scratched his head and asked the question both were thinking. "Miss Bulma-san? How can Vegeta be both here *and* there at the same time?"

She laughed. "Vegeta, my son, is there. Vegeta, my mate, is here. Oh, here he comes now."

"I was this close to a strike Kakarott! I swear it!" He held up two fingers to illustrate. They were mere millimeters apart. "Then the damn ball just swerved off to the side and right into the gutter!"

"I told you that you should have gotten the bumpers Papa!" Trunks laughed.

"Hell no!"

"Tousan," Gohan started as his father came into view of the screen. He wanted to ask him calmly but Goten interrupted him.

"YOU CHEATED ON KAASAN!" he screamed at him.

"Huh?" Was all he said. "What are you talking about, son?"

"Wow! You two do look similar, Goten!" Taura said as he peered closer. "Papa! I finally meet you!"

Everyone except Gohan gasped and turned to look at him. This included Bulma, ChiChi, Vegeta, and all of the kids. Just as ChiChi was about go pull some sort of weapon from her interdimensional storage space, Goku said something.

"I have no idea what he's talking about. I only have three children; Gohan, Goten, and Mia."

"There you have it." Gohan said calmly. "Tousan doesn't lie about anything."

"I have a picture right here," Taura dug it out and pressed it to the screen. "This is my papa. My mother gave me the picture."

"Wait a second, that's not tousan!" Gohan gasped just as his father said 'That's not me!'. "That's Tares!"

"Who?" Asked just about everyone there.

"He was this saiyan that came to Chikyuu when Gohan was just a child and planted a tree, the Shinseiju, that stole all of the planet's life energy. That was about, I'd say, twenty-five years ago." Goku explained. He nodded at the young man and Kallen's surprised look. "Hai, Gohan's thirty-two. Saiyans age really well. But unfortunately, Tares did look exactly like me."

"Did?" Taura asked.

"Yes," he looked down. "Sad to say I had to create a Genki-Dama and kill him. He was evil and refused to reform."

"Personally," Vegeta said suddenly, "I think he looks remarkably like Bardock, Kakarott's father. Without the scar across his left cheek of course."

"My tousan?" Goku asked with interest. "You've met him before?"

He snorted as if it was no big deal. "Of course I did. I was only a child at the time but he was summoned to the throne room for some small, trivial matter. I think it had something to do with Raditz..."

"Before I forget, there's something I have to tell you about Agalar." Vegeta told them. "And it's not good by the sound of it." He explained to them the trials and what happened to the water if you didn't take them. As he talked about what happened to the water after two hours his father looked stricken.

"I'm coming to you." He grabbed Goku's arm. "Kakarott-"

"Right." He raised his fingers to his forehead but V.J. stopped him before he did the technique.

"Don't you want some magical water to give to people? You know, have them be indebted to your for all eternity?"

His father's eyes lit up in silent pleasure. "Eternal indebtment with no bankruptcy to bail them out..."

"Papa!" Jakina's small voice rang out. "Don't think that way!"

He blinked and his eyes cleared. "Oh, yeah... Right."

"What do you want us to do, Papa?" V.J. asked. "Come back to Chikyuu or go in search of those magical holding containers?"

"There's a one out of a thousand chance they'll find them," Kallen added not so helpfully. "For each year they have been missing."

One could practically hear the final question music in Jeopardy playing as the silence continued on and on and on. Finally, after several long minutes, Vegeta answered.

"Continue on but keep us updated frequently. At least until you go out of transmission range anyway."

"That can happen?"

"Of course it can boy!" He hastily corrected himself at Bulma's glare. "I mean Vegeta. Unless you can find the technology to upgrade the radio, I'd say about three more light-years and then you'll be too far."

"If we need help, what are we supposed to do?" His son asked. "Send you a letter?"

"I recommend you get better technology," he told him. "Or shall I send Kakarott as a messenger?"

"Tousan, can you sense our kis anywhere in the universe?"

Goku thought. "Well, I sensed Brolli's all the way from the southern part of the universe so it's safe to say that when you cross over into eastern part of the universe I'll still be able to find you.

"It depends on where the Knowledge Giver, Grynth, is located Mr. Goku. Your son and Vegeta have a map of the system where Agalar is located but that's only the system. Do they have the coordinates as well?"

"Of course we do!" Vegeta grinned as he told her. "They were easy to obtain."

A line creased Kallen's forehead when she frowned. "That doesn't sound right. If I know my universe correctly, that is the coordinates for the Dynr system. The Dynrians are most famous for their rude and unfunny comedic attempts."

Both Goku and Vegeta's mouths dropped open and the latter began to shout. "KAIO-SAMA!" Goku grabbed his arm and they disappeared for the afterlife. A around twenty minutes later they were back and Vegeta wore the most annoyed expression.

"He is the worst kaio in recorded history!" Vegeta complained. "So because of that we went to see kaioshin."

"What happened?" Gohan asked him.

"He refused to tell us anything." He pushed Gohan out of the chair so he could sit down himself. "That was rude."

"Well, guess you have to visit Grynth after all." Kallen grinned. "And I also guess you'll have to let me come along since I alone know where he lives."

"That was sneaky," Vegeta told her. Then he grinned appreciatively. "I couldn't have done better myself."

"Can I come too?" Taura asked. "I can just follow you in my ship but Jas would have to come with me since he's in the Criminal Work Program."

"You have that on your planet too?" Bulma asked curiously. "What did Jas do?"

His usually happy face grew grave. "It's best that you don't know, Miss Bulma-san."

"You know that's kind of catchy," she mused, trying to break the awkward silence. "Miss Bulma-san."

"You do know that in English Standard you just called my mother Miss Mrs. Bulma, right?" Vegeta asked with amusement.

"I have?" His face took on a very red shade. "Forgive me, Bulma-san."

She smiled. "It's alright."

"Where is Grynth?" Vegeta asked. "Does he live far from here?"

"There's an asteroid that doesn't show up on radar around thirteen light-years southeast from Astra. Grynth has rigged up a cloaking shield around it so that no one can ever hope to locate him."

"But you have." The older Vegeta said with doubt.

She nodded once. "Yes. But I don't want to go into what happened. It's too personal."

"Papa, we'll proceed to upgrade our radio but if we can't don't expect any further contact from us for at least a month. Finding Grynth, finding the containers, locating Agalar, completing the trial.... Honestly, it might take even longer." Bulma's eyes widened as she was about to protest when her mate spoke up.

Vegeta, a frown on his face, made a decision. "As your father and King of Chikyuu, I want you to come back here after you find the magical holding containers. The actual trip to Agalar can wait a while."

"No Papa," Vegeta shook his head. "We can't do that."

"And why not?" his mother demanded to know. "That's a perfectly good decision!"

"Kaasan, Papa wanted us to find this planet for him and everyone knows why." He smiled slightly. "Turning back after we find the containers is pretty useless."

"Besides, King Vegeta," Kallen said grimly. "I think there are more people after them."

"How do you know that?" Goten asked her.

"Why wouldn't they be? The Springs of Agalar are in the universal public access database."

"Is that like an electronic library?" Gohan asked curiously.

She shrugged. "I guess."

"How can we view it on Chikyuu?" He looked so eager that Kallen laughed.

"There are special devices that allow you to access it. They're called UPADs. I'm guessing that you would like one."

"Of course!" He smiled dreamily. "All of the knowledge of the universe at my fingertips..." His younger brother coughed strangely and it sounded suspiciously like "nerd". Nevertheless Gohan heard him.

"You see Goten, thinking that way has people calling you a baka."

"You're in denial, niichan. You're a nerd! Besides, this bastard over here is the only one who says that about me."

Everyone expected Vegeta to yell at him but he only smiled and rolled his eyes. "Baka."

"I am ending this transmission," Vegeta interrupted. "Contact me again when you either have the containers or you have my spring water." He added something at the glares of ChiChi and Bulma. "Or if one of you are dying. Then I will send Kakarott to your rescue."

"No wait!" Gohan pushed his finger away from the 'end' button. "Go buy me a UPAD and I'll send Tousan to pick it up for me. How much does one cost?"

"Three hundred rubians," Kallen told him.

"How much do you guys have left?"

Vegeta remembered that he hadn't gotten a chance to spend anything. "Seventy-five. What about you Goten?"

The larger hybrid blushed. "Um, some change. I have no idea what you call it."

"They're called rubles and you have seventy-five in change."

"I have twenty more dollars, how much would that bring us to?"

"One-hundred fifty-five seventy-five." She smiled at Gohan. "But I will be kind and add the additional one-hundred forty-five rubians to the total."

"You don't have to do that!" Gohan told her.

"It's alright. You can repay me later." Then she frowned. "How are we supposed to give it to you? I meant to ask that before when you when Goku and King Vegeta vanished."

"My tousan!" he said, clearly proud of him. "He has this teleporting technique that can get you anywhere in the universe in a second."

"Oh! That's how he did it!" She looked at Goku in admiration. "That's a wonderful sounding technique."

Goku flushed with pleasure. "Yeah, well..."

"So we'll be back in a few hours with your UPAD, Niichan." Goten smiled and ended the transmission. "Ja!" Then, eager to get a chance to buy something else, Goten and the others headed off to the Floor.

***

"I can't blieve this," Vegeta complained once the screen went blank. "Here I am, *this*," he did another illustration with his fingers, "close to becoming stronger than you, Kakarott, and all of this crap had to happen."

"Look on the bright side, Vegeta," Goku said as he followed the king out of Bulma's laboratory toward the training room, "our sons get to see the universe!"

"Oh joy," he said sarcastically, "Oh rapture." He quickly looked around for nosey ningen. "No one's watching us now?"

"Vegeta, we can make the glass opaque remember?" Goku said with a grin.

He blushed very slightly because he really didn't remember and snapped. "Of course I do Kakarott! I was just testing you."

"You know, Veggie," Goku began as he stretched, "you seem more crabby than usual."

Vegeta was half tempted to snap at him again but he thought better of it. He could hear Jakina now, 'Papa! That wasn't nice!'. "It's this job," he sighed. "I thought it would be fun."

This made the other saiyan raise an eyebrow. "You actually were looking forward to having fun?"

He nodded. "On Vegeta-sei the job just looked so great! You know, ordering everyone around and making people bow and beg at my feet..." He trailed off as his eyes got that dreamy look of rememberance in them again.

"That's the problem," Goku informed him. "You're thinking like a saiyan."

He blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah. See, you and I are the only saiyans on a planet ninety-nine point nine percent inhabited by ningen. They don't do things the same way that you're used to, Vegeta. On Chikyuu countries are primarily run by sweet talking the masses. The ningen call it 'politics'."

He nodded like someone being told the meaning of life. "I see."

"On Vegeta-sei the government was run by fear. You scared people into doing what they did. Here if you did that they would try and impeach you. Besides," he smiled slightly, "that wasn't really right in the first place."

"Impeach me?" Vegeta asked incredulously. "I lead them! How can they impeach their leader?!"

The other's grin grew even wider. "Oh they'll find a way. Believe me."

This gave the king a lot to think about. Maybe he wasn't running things the right way considering the only knowledge he had of ruling came from his 'dear' departed father. He thought for a brief moment about going to the public library to research everything and then remembered a little thing called the internet. 'Why travel outside and be mobbed,' he thought, 'if I can find just about anything I want on the world wide web?' Absentmindedly he wandered right out the room towards the hall and left Goku staring at his back with a bemused expression.

"He was actually listening to something I said? Imagine that..."

Vegeta's spotted Bra's laptop sitting on a end table and took it to the living room. Bulma had made modifications to it and now her computer was able to pick up the internet satellite signals by using an internal antennae. She thought it was right up there with creating Mirai Trunks' time machine. Sure, she didn't do it personally but since it was her older counterpart's project she took partial credit for it as well.

Vegeta opened Internet Explorer and groaned when he instantly got an error message. Nope, Windows has not gotten any better in the future. Cursing both Microsoft and Bill Gates' descendants, he chose Netscape instead and goes straight to amazon.com.

"Hmm," he mumbled while typing in 'politics' in the search engine. Over one-hundred results came back. "Ningen have written a lot on this subject. Unfortunately most of it is about their former leaders." After looking for nearly half and hour he found a few perfect books. One was entitled 'Win Them Over! A Guide to Modern Politics' while another read 'Against All Odds: How to Stay Sane in the Government'. He took out an account and charged it to Bulma's Capsule Corp. credit card.

"Hey Veggie-chan," Bulma said as she sat down next to him. "I have an idea."

Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the couch cushions. "Does it involve public speaking in any way?"

"Er, no."

"Good. I'm all talked out."

She smiled and shook her head slightly. "Vegeta, I have the perfect way for everyone to get to know you."

One eye cracked open to look at her. "Does this involve the embarrassing telling of baby stories?"

"Iie," She laughed. "As if you were going to tell me any. My idea is this: We can have a ball."

Confused, he asked a question. "What do you mean by that? How is a spherical object supposed to help me?"

"Not a ball, ball but a dance, ball!" She got up and began to gracefully glide around the room. "You know with fancy dresses and perfect decorations and wonderful food. It can be held in two weeks and we can have it open invitation so that everyone who can make the trip can come." But Vegeta barely heard her because his mind was stuck on one word.

"Dance? As in make a fool of myself, dance?" He groaned loudly. "This can't be happening."

"Of course you would have to dance silly!" She smiled at him. "Why wouldn't the guest of honor dance at his ball?"

"Why is this a good idea again?"

"During it you can chat with everyone and they'll get to see how great a person you are."

"Can't I do that from a television broadcast?"

"No, those are really impersonal."

He looked at her with a pleading look on his face. "Isn't there something I can do or say to make you change your mind?"

She shook her head. "My mind is completely made up. No, sex won't work this time."

"Damn," he sulked. "I'm going to train with Kakarott. Leave me alone until dinner. Whose turn is to cook tonight?"

"Trunks'."

He smirked. "On second thought, *don't* call me."

"His food isn't that bad!"

"Compared to yours, of course not. No one's is *that* bad."

Not bothering to even pretend that she was angry, she walked off in the direction of her lab. "I'm taking lessons, remember? For that remark you have to be my taste tester for a week."

The saiyan froze in his steps and dashed off after her. "I'm sorry! Please don't make me do that!"

"Nope, begging won't work this time."

"Please!"

Bra and Pan both shook their heads as they passed by them in the hallway. "Remember that test we did last week?" The blue-haired one asked her best-friend.

"The DNA one? Hai."

"Are you sure the results were right?"

Pan grinned. "Bra-chan, we did it three times."

"How about once more?"