The New Age Empire v2: Book 2

~Chapter 7: A Man Called Grynth~

They returned to the ship an hour later after finding a cheap store and haggling with its owner. Vegeta, with his dangerous annoyed expression, and Goten, with his Son charm, got the price down to only one-hundred fifty rubians. They didn't need Kallen's money after all.

After the device was safely in Gohan's eager hands and the mechanics at the docks had installed their brand-new radio system and hyperdrive (both courtesy of Kallen), the trio boarded the ship and lifted off.

"Now are you sure your ship is going to be okay in the hold?" Goten asked the woman. She nodded and leaned back into her chair.

"Of course it is. Minimization is not a new technology you know."

"I still don't see how you can shrink something if it isn't inside a capsule," Vegeta told her. "I didn't think it was possible."

"You saw it happen," she retorted. "Believe it."

"I didn't say that I didn't believe! I said that I didn't know how it was done! I don't think you know any more than I do."

"Excuse me," Don said. "But if I may interrupt?"

"Yes, Don," The self-appointed captain said. "What is it?"

"I believe that we are under attack."

Eyes wide, he punched the button for the external camera and saw two dark green ships tailing them when the screen popped up on the viewing window. "How do ya know they're attacking us?"

"Camera three," he said calmly. Vegeta had another window pop-up on the large window and saw two more slightly above their ship shooting brilliant red beams at them.

"What do I do?" he asked him frantically just as the first impact was felt.

"I suggest you have Goten and Kallen man the guns while you radio Taura for backup."

"Good idea!" He grinned as he moved over to the smaller console. "Goten, you and Kallen go do what he says. Make sure you don't waste our weapon energy for nothing. How good is your aim, guys?"

"Absolutely perfect," she said with a grim smile. "I've logged in over one-hundred hours at the shooting range."

Goten blushed. "Um, twenty-four hours playing Super Mario Brothers Duck Hunt."

Vegeta felt a sense of dread. "Just do your best, okay Goten?" 'Kami,' he prayed silently, 'please don't let any enemies come from the right. Please!' he waved them towards the guns just as Taura appeared on the smaller monitor.

"Vegeta what the hell is going on out here?"

"I have no clue," he swiveled the chair back towards the main viewing window to watch where the enemy was coming from so that he could give his gunners a little help. A smaller window popped up in the lower right hand corner and a coldly smiling alien with long green hair appeared.

"We want the ring," he informed him gruffly, "and we will give you five minutes to hand it over before attacking again."

"Why is the ring so special?" he asked with feigned ignorance. "What does it mean to you?"

One black-gloved hand came down hard on the console in front of him. "It means everything! You have no idea how important that map is to our empire!"

"Oh I don't, eh?" He smirked. "I think I have a clue." Hitting another button he opened a radio link to the young people at the weapons. "Guys, you may open fire onto their ships."

"Right!" The strange man's face twisted in rage as he cut the transmission immediately.

Vegeta sat back in the captain's chair and watched the ships move from the screens still up in front of him. He was feeling the same way he always did in the middle of a battle even though he was using something else besides his fists to win. Don's voice disturbed his thoughts.

"You are new to space battle aren't you?" he asked.

"Well, yeah. Of course I am."

"Oh so that's why you aren't trying to avoid their missles. Two will impact in three, two, one..." A large explosion rocketed the ship and threw him forward onto the console.

"What the hell am I supposed to do?!" he screamed in frustration.

"Fasten your restraint for starters. You can make the jump to hyperspace before they release more missiles."

He punched in a hasty combination of buttons, praying to kami that he didn't make a mistake. Studying the users manual in your spare time wasn't as good as learning from his mother personally. He felt a lurch as the engines tripled their output and and he was pressed backwards into his chair.

"What did you do?" Goten asked as he struggled onto the bridge against the forces of their jump.

"I used the hyperdrive. The missiles can't impact if we're going too fast."

"Good idea," he said as he finally was able to take a seat. "Did you tell Taura what was going on?"

"Iie.. shit!" He brought him up on the small monitor and told him the exact point they were going to reenter regular space. The slightly older man processed this quickly and grinned.

"Well, at least we get to finally see what this new drive can do."

"You haven't used it yet?!" he asked in surprise.

"Well, no. We got it installed a few days before you got to Astra. The Day of Commerce only happens once a month so Jas and I wouldn't be back for a little while."

"We will make the jump in fifteen seconds," Don told them. "Thermal weapons are now offline until we reenter normal space."

"But those people just launched heat-seeker missiles that will impact in approximately fourteen seconds!" Kallen said as she checked the radar.

"We're not going to make it!" Goten wailed.

"Keep calm!" Vegeta snapped before he counted down under his breath. "Five, four, three, two..."

"One," Kallen whispered.

They all felt the beginnings of impact for a split-second and then it suddenly vanished as everything around them blurred to black. Vegeta released the breath he didn't know that he was holding and folded his arms behind his head.

"Yeah, I totally pulled that off. No problem."

"No.. problem?" Kallen asked in a stunned voice as she took the seat behind him. "No problem?"

Goten voiced what she wanted to say but could not. "No problem? How was that *not* a problem? We almost died back there! Battles where I can beat someone up with my fists is one thing but battles with spaceships are completely something else!"

He waved his words away with a casual grin. "Relax, Goten. It's all relative."

Blinking in confusion, Goten scratched his head. "Huh? I didn't even understand that."

"Apparently neither does he," Kallen snorted. "I'm going to get some sleep. Wake me up when we're back in normal space." She disappeared down the corridor and Goten continued to frown at the younger man.

"It's all relative? *How* is everything relative exactly?"

"Um," he thought about it for a second, then realized that he didn't really know. "How about some food, man? You must be pretty hungry by now!"

Refusing to be sidetracked by stuffing his face, he turned his chair to face Vegeta. "If you're not going to answer that, how about this: What's up between you and Marron?"

"That's easy! We broke up before we left Chikyuu. I'm a free man now."

His mouth fell open. "What happened? You two seemed so happy together."

"Well, I thought and it became apparent to me that we broke up for the same exact reasons she and niichan did." He leaned forward conspiratorily and Goten was eager to find out. "We weren't compatible."

Slightly disappointed, he turned away. "Sure you weren't."

"Goten, she's like Videl in a way." When he offered an explanation for his earlier words the other hybrid was all ears. "She wants me to pretend to be something I'm not."

"What's that? Nice?"

He snorted. "Iie, baka. She wants me to pretend to be ningen. *Completely* ningen."

"Ah I see," his brow furrowed as he thought. "Niichan let Videl change him though."

"Exactly! I can't handle someone like that and neither could niichan. Our personalities won't let us."

"That and because you're both Vegeta's offspring," he grinned. "If *I* loved her I wouldn't care."

"Look at Goku-san and Gohan," he said almost too inaudible to hear. "They act more like ningen every day. Your tousan and niichan are forgetting their heritage!"

Goten growled slightly and glared at Vegeta. "Don't say things like that about my family. We aren't completely saiyan anyway."

"You and Gohan aren't," he told him. "What's Goku-san's excuse?"

That said, he and Goten refused to speak to each other for the rest of the ride.

***

On the reentry to normal space, Kallen joined them on the bridge before anyone had to go get her. Vegeta and Goten still refused to even look at each other.

"What happened in here?" she asked curiously as she took her seat behind Vegeta. "I sense hostility."

"If you do then it's coming directly from that bastard over there," Goten said in a voice full of anger. Vegeta pretended that he didn't hear him and proceeded to bring up Taura on the large screen.

"You there, Taura?" he asked.

"We've *been* here," was the response. "I guess our drive is faster than yours. You haven't noticed?"

"Don, put Taura on the viewing window. Use the rest of the screen for cameras one through three."

"Done, Vegeta. Are you and Goten going to make up soon?"

Instead of answering his question, he turned to Kallen. "How did you know that we were reentering normal space?"

She smiled. "It's from years of traveling on spaceships. While I was sleeping, my body felt the decrease in forces and therefore I woke up. Simple really."

"I see... Why did you ask us to wake you then?"

Grinning, she said, "Just in case my body decided to sleep-in this time. Are we on our way to Grynth's now?"

"All I need is the coordinates."

"Can't give you that," she said as she stepped over to the console. "Besides, I only know a general area." She typed in something on the console and her next words were for Don's 'ears' only. "Look for a Class C formation."

"I understand, Kallen. ETA is approximately four hours."

As the silence stretched on, Goten was hard-pressed for something to do to occupy his time. He couldn't eat because they really needed to save food, he didn't want to train alone, so he decided to half apologize to Vegeta.

"I apologize for being so short with you," he told Vegeta without looking at him. "Can we talk to each other again? I'm getting bored."

"What about me?" Kallen asked with amusement. "I'm back here too, ya know!" He smiled apologetically and waited for Vegeta to say something.

"Goten, I had no right to say that your niichan and your tousan were acting too ningen. Actually, Goku-san is happily situated between the two. Gohan, sad to say, as lost it completely."

"Yeah, he is a nerd. I wonder how he likes his new toy." Goten walked over to the monitor and dialed up Bulma's lab. "Hey everybody! How's it goin'?"

"Goten are you homesick or something?" Bulma shouted from across the room where she was installing *something* into what looked to be yet another spaceship. "You call really often."

"Where's niichan? I would think mister scientist would be helping you."

"The strangest thing happened," She stopped momentarily to wipe the sweat from her face. "He stopping working *way* before he usually does."

"Why is that? Was their some other important scientific discovery and he ran to check it out?"

She turned and grinned at him. "He and Videl just up and decided that they were going to take the kids to the park. So they conviced Mia to join them and now Bra, Pan, Jakina, Magori, Moura are having fun on the playground."

The two demi-saiyans were beyond speechless. "What happened to him? That's not the niichan I know!"

She momentarily disappeared out of view but her voice was still heard. "He just realized he hasn't been spending a lot of time with his daughters. I mean, even Vegeta spars with Bra and Trunks at least once a week!"

"So who compared him with Papa?" Vegeta asked.

"ChiChi."

He grinned. "Of course."

"So does he like his gift?"

"Very much. He's in love with the thing constantly calling everyone in the palace to check out what he was reading. He seems particulary interested in Naoni and Son-kun does as well."

"What is-"

"Naoni is a theory that we have in outerspace," Kallen said quietly. "It has never been proven as of yet but everyone is working on it. The theory states: It is possible for every single living organism in the universe to coexist peacefully with each other."

"Yeah," Goten smiled faintly. "He and tousan would love to see that."

"But Goten, with people like Frieza floating around I don't ever see it happening. Look at how many people everyone had to fight over the years! This is one of the few times things have been even slightly peaceful."

"Is peace truly possible?" Kallen asked aloud. "Or is it merely a dream that we mortals use to comfort ourselves?"

"Why sound so cynical?" Bulma asked with concern. "Someday we all may learn that killing each other over silly reasons isn't the answer."

"I'm sorry Bulma-san, but I've seen far too much to believe it." She shook her head. "Eighteen years growing up on a planet that's reknown for its decietfulness and fifteen years in the Imperial Army."

Goten was curious. "How old are you anyway?"

"Son Goten!" Bulma snapped almost exactly like his own mother. "You never ask a lady her age!"

"It's alright, Bulma-san. I don't consider myself a lady. Not anymore." She turned slightly to Goten. "I'm thirty-three years old."

Vegeta, although he was good at hiding his emotions, felt incredibly sad for his new friend. Kallen seemed like a nice person but something horrible had happened in her past. Somehow he could sense it. All of them in their silence at Kallen's words had completely forgotten Bulma.

"Are you finished with me?" She asked while waving a cordless drill around. She narrowly missed smacking Vegeta who had walked up behind her.

"Onna, watch it!" he said with mock anger. She jumped and it fell from her hand. In a move that was too fast for either Bulma or Kallen to see, her mate caught it before he landed on her toe and he laughed. "You and your power tools."

"If you're quite finished irritating me," she growled, "leave me alone. I need to get back to work." Vegeta picked her up and threw her over his shoulder like she was a sack of flour. "How many times I have to tell you that I'm *not* food! Kami!"

"Now I know we're done with you, Kaasan," Vegeta said while shaking his head. "Talk to you later. Ja." After cutting the connection, he asked Don a question. "How much longer now?"

"Three hours, forty-five minutes."

"Kami, I can't take much more of this maddening boredom!" Goten complained. Kallen had departed once again for her bed. Vegeta and Goten had to share now.

"You wanna spar?" Vegeta asked him hopefully.

"Sure!"

***

Three hours, thirty minutes later they were entering an vast asteroid belt about a small solar system. Fifteen minutes after that Vegeta, with help from Don, made a landing onto the craggy rock face. After firmly securing the ship and retrieving three spacesuits from the hold, they carefully made their way to the only building on the surface after waiting for Taura to join them. The weighted boots were hard to walk in but they prevented them all from floating away in zero gravity.

Once the door was firmly closed and the dead air was filtered back outside, they were all allowed out of the air lock and into the main part of the building.

"Welcome back, Kallen. I see you and your friends require information." Grynth held up a tray. "Tea? Coffee? Cookie?"

Neither Goten nor Vegeta knew what to expect but the man in front of them was definitely not it. He didn't look overly knowledgeable about *anything* besides how to be a good host. He was an older looking man with a balding head and tiny spectacles perched upon his nose. He waved them towards the sitting room with a smile and set the tray onto the coffee table.

"I apologize that this isn't a social visit," Kallen said sincerly. "But my friends require information on Agalar for their king. Taura's just tagging along for the ride."

"Ah Agalar," he settled into a comfortable tan arm chair as Goten helped himself to both tea and a handful of cookies. "The Planet of Many Names. Some called it the cursed planet while still others consider it heaven. Would you like to know the facts and decide for yourselves?"

"Yes please," Vegeta said politely. Normally he wouldn't be but Grynth was so kind it seemed pointless to be rude. "I would like to form my own opinion."

His eyes turning distant, he told them the truth about Agalar. "The planet was once populated by a race of people that were curious about perfection. They loved to talk about it, they desired to have it. It is safe to say that they were obsessed with it. After discovering that nothing they could do would cause a baby to be born perfect, they developed special springs by weaving powerful spells that allowed the drinker ability beyond belief. Knowledge, Power, Immortality, Wisdom, Creativity, Luck, and Love; these are the things the Perfection Seekers craved so these are the Springs that were created. Decades it took them, some wizards dying as they gave too much only to have younger, more powerful wizards take their place. But the Springs have never been used. The Perfection Seekers died before they could partake of them."

"What happened to them?" Goten asked in a hushed voice, unwilling to break the mood Grynth had created. He had stopped drinking his tea half-way through his words.

"No one knows; not even I." His green eyes settled on Kallen. "That may forever remain a mystery."