It wasn't the first time that I had killed something -- as a human, I had hunted as a kid, and as a Saiyan, I’d hunted a lot more to feed a growing number of the black holes our kind called stomachs. So, the act of taking a life was something I had gotten used to. The blood didn't really bother me, neither did the butchering. But I had never killed something I could call sapient.
I've never killed a person before. It was easy to dismiss the Gordanian as something lesser. Tempting, even. He was a slaver who came here to kidnap two of my friends from their bedrooms. I'm pretty sure on a karmic scale, I had gained a few karma points from his death. The Vega System and the galaxy at large, was probably a little better without that Gordanian in it. And I'm sure I had inadvertently avenged countless other aliens that had found themselves enslaved because of that one Gordanian.
But I'm not sure if I wanted to desaiyanize him like that. Maybe he had a family. Maybe there was a nugget of goodness inside of him that never got a chance to flourish because of his culture and no one ever offered a hand to show him a better way.
It felt like a dangerous road to tread because everything I could use to justify killing the Gordanian, I could just as easily apply to the Saiyans. I didn't see much of it because I only saw planet Vegeta, and only for a day -- but my race practiced slavery too. We conquered planets and committed genocide, and the closest thing we had to a legal system was the notion that ‘might made right.’ So, I didn't want to go down that road.
“Koriand’r and Komand’r will both make a recovery. As shall the three Gordanians that you fought, with the four others also being captured,” Master Ulf announced himself from behind as I sat on the spike that I’d modeled after Naruto’s Sage training. I had sensed his approach long beforehand, so I knew he had been watching me for some time. “They are being interrogated now, and we are investigating how a team of Gordanians managed to slip through our security. But, the most likely reason is that a bribe was accepted to let them pass through.”
I breathed in deeply, centering myself and resisting the urge to fly to make the exercise a little easier. “Did they say why they were targeting them?”
“No, but I can imagine the answer,” Master Ulf said, without giving the answer. When I opened my eyes, glancing his way, he shook his head. “That is an explanation best given by the sisters. If they wish to tell you, and I imagine they will, then they can tell the story much better than I. However, I did not come to discuss them. I sense the disturbance in your spirit. The death of the Gordanian troubles you.”
My lips thinned and the seat under me wobbled as I started to lose my balance. I regained it a split second later, mulling over my thoughts and how to best voice them. “I killed him by accident,” I admitted. “I only meant to knock him out of the fight, but I killed him instead.”
“You are someone who values control quite highly, but I don't believe that is what troubles you so deeply,” Master Ulf remarked, and rightly so. He might not be able to fly or throw ki blasts, but he couldn't convince me that there wasn't something weird going on with the guy.
“I did the right thing. I don't have any regrets about saving Kori or her sister. The Gordanians made a series of decisions that led to their defeat and one of their deaths at my hands.” I voiced, taking another breath as I remained perfectly still. “I just thought it… was easy. Too easy. I always thought there would be this… weight that came with killing another person. And there is, it's just… not what I thought it would be.”
Master Ulf hummed at that while I turned my gaze up to the stars. The night sky was absolutely full of them. And, in that sea of prices of light, were the twenty-eight planets inside the Vega System, with one of them being the Gordanian homeworld. On which, there could be a family of Gordanians waiting for their spouse, parents, brother, and so on to come back.
“Amongst my people, there has been a debate about the responsibility of strength. Those who are strong have a responsibility to use that strength for the betterment of all as that strength is the shield and sword of our people.” That sounded familiar. “But for thousands of years, we have debated to what degree this is true. The Citadelians have waged a war of conquest on the Vega System for centuries by this point. With our strength, should we not turn our blades against them to protect the weaker races of the system?”
I expected a greater answer to the question than a shrug from Master Ulf.
“Perhaps,” he continued. “But are we compelled to spill our blood and the lives of our warriors on behalf of those we do not know? Are we responsible for the actions of the Citadelians with our inaction? We do not know. We cannot know. There is no right answer, but there is a correct one.”
“Don't suppose you'll share?” I asked, looking back down at him.
“For myself,” Master Ulf started, “I choose to accept the consequences of my actions even before I know what they might be. Such as yourself, for example.” That caught me off guard a bit, and he chuckled warmly. “You could use my teaching for evil. You told me you are here to prove that your ways are better to King Vegeta, but that could be a lie. It is not often I have been deceived, but I have been before.”
I wasn't really sure how to respond because, when he put it like that… “But you still decided to train us?”
“I did. Because I decided that you were more likely telling the truth, and I have no wish to hamper your efforts to improve the lives of your people.” He stated with a gentle certainty that felt utterly unyielding. “Should you prove me wrong, then it shall be my duty as a teacher to rein in my wayward student. Even if that leads to my death. I accepted all of this the moment I decided to accept you as a student. Just as you must accept all that comes from your own actions.”
I looked down at my hands m, seeing that they were clenched into fists. “How do I know I'm making the right decision?”
“If you ever learn, then I would ask that you share with your mentor,” Master Ulf chuckled. “I can only advise that you do what you believe to be right. Always. It does not matter if it's illogical, foolish, dangerous, or difficult. Follow your heart and your conscience, but accept everything that is the result of those decisions. Both good and bad.”
Yeah. I think that I could manage that. Even if it did sound a lot easier said than done.
…
“You have our sincerest gratitude for your aid, Tarble,” Kori said, bowing her head when I went to visit her in the medical wing. Komand’r was next to her, her expression guarded and complicated before she, too, bowed her head.
“My sister is right. You not only saved us but a great deal more than you know,” she admitted.
Behind me, Caulifla perked up, “So, you're someone important then?” She asked, and she already guessed that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill slave raid. They were deliberately targeted. Cabba and Rafitz were by the door, half guarding it and half listening.
“We cannot know for certain why we were targeted exactly,” Komand’r said, raising her head. “What Tarble did to us is… extraordinary. It's possible that we were targeted because of our unique abilities. However, it is just as likely that we were targeted because… we are the princesses of Tamaran.”
I already knew that, so I didn't react much. The others, however, sputtered.
“What? No way! You can't be royalty-- everyone knows that people with royal blood are a bunch of idiots who can't do anything for themselves!” Caulifla protested.
Raditz was quick to join her. “Yeah! My Dad says that royalty is just another word for an idiot!”
Go on. Both of you. Keep on digging your graves. I couldn't wait to remind you of every word you said when you found out who my ‘father’ was.
“Perhaps this is true of the Saiyans, but things are different on Tamaran,” Kori said, raising her head before she reached out to grab her sister's hand. “We were sent to Okaara in secret. You see, Tamaran has been under siege by the Citadelians for over a hundred years. Our people are fighting valiantly, however…”
“We’re losing,” Komand’r admitted with a growl. “We were sent here for our protection, as the Citadelians wouldn't be so foolish to attack the Warlords of Okaara. But we were also sent here to learn their ways, to become warriors, so that when we return to our homeworld, we could break the siege of our planet!” I let that wash over me -- that hadn't been part of Teen Titans, I don't think. Or it was never stated outright.
Kori continued, “Our capture would have been most disastrous. Not only for us, but for our people as I do not doubt the wicked Citadelians would use us against our parents!”
I tilted my head back as I looked up at the ceiling. “So, I probably blew your cover then, huh?”
“Do not blame yourself, friend Tarble! You have given us a most wonderful gift!” Kori swiftly reassured me, but it didn't quite do the job. Maybe their cover would still be intact if I hadn't drawn attention to them.
“What happens now?” I asked them, looking back down to see the sisters share a glance. Komand’r’s expression tightened before she answered.
“We will likely return home,” Komand’r admitted. “The Citadelians now know that we are here, and even if they do not attempt to capture us again, they will monitor our every move with their spies. We must return home before they are ready to capture us when we leave Okaara.” That was about what I expected. It was the smart call.
The Citadelians could use spies to sabotage their education. They could learn every strategy that the two came up with to fight the Citadelians years before the fight began.
“And if the Citadelians win?” I asked, a hard note entering my voice.
“Then Tamaran shall be conquered and our people enslaved,” Kori said with sorrow. “Already, they conduct slave raids on the surface. Our people are… most prized as slaves because of our joyful nature and boundless strength.”
Damn it all.
“I'm pissed,” I uttered, crossing my arms and tilting my head back, and behind me, I heard Cabba chuckle warmly. He saw right through me. “I'm pissed off to hell and back.”
“My apologies?” Kori said, not sure what I meant.
“Boss isn't angry at you,” Cabba reassured them while I started to fume. Master Ulf’s words rang in my head like a bell… and what was right and what was wrong couldn’t get much clearer than this. “The Citadelians made him mad.”
“Oh, they did more than make me mad, Cabba. I'm pissed off,” I corrected. And there was a bit of that anger directed at myself. I hadn't meant to, but I’d set this in motion. Because of me, the Citadelians found them, and they had to leave before they were ready. I'm not sure if it would have changed anything for them as I didn't know the outcome of this conflict, but… I didn't care. And I was angry.
More than that, I was angry because I knew Kori was a good person. Even if I didn't know her from Teen Titans, I knew enough of her from the last six months we trained together. Kori was a genuinely sweet and kind hearted person who wore her heart on her sleeve. Komand’r was more reserved and scathingly sarcastic, but I don't think she was the same girl who would try to deliberately hurt her sister like she did in the show.
They didn't deserve this. Something bad was happening to people that I knew were good, and that annoyed the hell out of me. As a human, my options were limited on what I could realistically do about the situation.
But as a Saiyan?
Caulifla gave me a sly grin, “So, whatcha’ gonna do about it?” she asked me, though her smirk told me she already knew.
“It's obvious, isn't it?” I asked, speaking clearly as I looked at the puzzled Tamaraneans. “I'm going to kick that siege force off Tamaran. Then I'm going to give them an ass kicking so bad that they never come near it again.”
I was biting off more than I could chew again, but it felt right. I'm not sure about that whole responsibility stuff that Master Ulf was talking about, but I just couldn't stand the idea of doing nothing when Tamaran got conquered. I didn't have it in me to fight this fight against the whole galaxy as a matter of principle, but I liked Kori and Komand’r. They were friends.
And friends didn't sit on their hands when their friend's planet was being conquered and their people enslaved.
“You can't be serious,” Komand’r started to deny, making Caulifla snort dismissively while Kori looked at me with a sense of wondrous disbelief. “For what? Why?”
“Because I want to, and because they pissed me off,” I said, hopping off my chair as a plan started to form. “If you have any info on their forces besieging your planet, then let me know. I want to start planning while we have access to that war simulator.” Caulifla delivered a little punch to my shoulder as I started to walk away, approval shining in her eyes.
The two sisters had a harder time believing it. “You’ll make an enemy of the entire Citadelian Empire. They have connections to the Trade Organization!” Komand’r said, trying to see what it would take to make me back off. She just didn't accept that I could decide something like this so easily. For seemingly no gain.
“That's fine. I’m pretty sure the Trade Organization was going to do something to piss me off too, eventually,” I replied dismissively. I wasn't willing to fight the whole universe for the sake of people that I didn't know, but I would for the sake of those that I did.
It felt right. It was objectively stupid, sure, but I didn't mind being a little stupid. Or even a lot of stupid.
“You-!” Komand’r started, her frustration mounting but it left the moment I looked back at her and she saw that I was serious. Kori’s expression wavered and a smile grew so large it could have consumed her face.
“Oh, what joyous news! Friend Tarble, Caulifla, Cabba, and Raditz… how can we ever repay your generosity?” Kori questioned, jumping up to give Caulifla a big hug that had her struggling for air.
“We don't-” I started but Komand’r silenced me with a look.
“We will repay you for your aid. Name your price, and if you can truly destroy the Citadelian fleet… on my word as princess of Tamaran, you will receive it.” I saw it in her eyes that this was a matter of pride for her. I got pretty used to it back on Planet Vegeta. As Prince Vegeta hadn't been kidding that Saiyans always had their pride.
I gave it a moment of thought before giving my answer. “A ship.”
“A… ship?” Komand’r echoed while Caulifla started turning purple from the hug.
“A spaceship. A fast one, but the most important feature has to be a gravity chamber that the four of us can train in,” I said, figuring that was light enough of a reward that they could repay without issue while satisfying her pride that this wasn't just a favor owed. “Ideally, if it could go as high, or even higher, than a hundred times the standard gravity, that'd be perfect.”
Komand’r blinked while the others started prying at Kori’s hands to release Caulifla, only to find themselves falling for the same trap. “Why?”
“Saiyans got stronger to adapt to Planet Vegeta’s intense gravity. So, I figure that we’d get even stronger if we had to adapt to even more intense gravity,” I answered with a shrug, glancing at Cabba, who was trying to tap out of the hug. She even got Raditz with the other arm, and I'm pretty sure I could hear his ribs grinding against each other.
Komand’r nodded, accepting the proposal before offering a hand. I went to shake it before Kori dropped my teammates and tackled me with a hug so fierce, I thought one of my ribs was going to give out.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!” Kori cried out and…
Come what may, I couldn't see myself regretting this decision.
…
The decision was a bit hastily made, but things were in motion. It was barely two days later before I found myself before the Attack Balls that we had arrived in. And it was there that I found Master Ulf. He smiled as he greeted us, offering a bow of his head. “I thought I should see off my wayward students, however brief they might have been.”
“Sorry,” I offered, touching down with the others. Our departure was a secret, but I'm guessing that it was something that some people saw coming. I had intended our stay on Okaara to be longer, a couple of years even, but that wasn't in the cards in light of the situation.
“There is no need for apologies, child. You are doing what you believe to be right,” Master Ulf said before he reached into a pouch at his hip. What he pulled out was a pale white disk-looking thing, and while it was small in his fingers when he passed it to me, it was the size of my head. “Since your studies have been cut so short, I have taken the liberty copying most of what you would have learned during your stay.”
I was a little touched. “Thank you, Master Ulf,” I said, bowing to the man. I still wasn't sure what his whole deal was, but I really had lucked out running into him first.
“Farewell, my student. Until we meet again,” he said, offering a bow as well before he began to leave. The others shouted their own farewells and we'll wishes at his back, but he didn't turn around or slow. Before long, he vanished in the forest, leaving us alone.
I glanced at the assembled crew, seeing expressions of hopeful optimism to resolute determinism. “Is everyone ready? Once we start this, there's no backing out,” I said, looking at all of them one by one. There was no way that Kori or Komand’r would back out, but the others…
This was our first real mission. We had similar mock missions back in the Wilds, but this was the real deal. People were going to die, and there was a risk that it could be us if we weren't careful.
“Please. As if we'd let you solo an entire fleet,” Caulifla said, telling me she was in. I looked to the others to see that they were of the same mind.
“Well, you'll have to work hard to beat me to it,” I said, reaching into my bag to start tossing out air masks to my team. Apparently, Kori and Komand’r didn’t need one as they could breathe in space. How? No idea, but they could. “Remember the plan, though. We’ll be separated, so we won’t be able to easily reinforce one another. If you find yourself getting overwhelmed, head down to the planet, and we can regroup.”
I spent the past two days in the simulator to figure out the best way to handle the fleet besieging Tamaran. The good news was that their numbers were pretty static, and their positions hadn’t changed much in the past fifty years when the two forces forced each other into a gridlock. The Citadelians got absolutely wrecked whenever they attempted to do a ground invasion, but the Tamaraneans now lacked a space fleet to actively combat the besieging ships.
So, a painful reality set in. Tamaran still had its independence, but it was politically isolated. Trade was nonexistent, too, so they couldn’t get the resources that they needed to rebuild their infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Citadelians continuously raided the surface for slaves and to destroy any attempts at rebuilding their spaceships.
“We aren’t going to fight them all now,” I told them, looking at everyone. “Our goal is to destroy enough to get them to break the siege. Whatever manages to retreat, we’ll have to fight again when they relocate their fleets in a second dedicated attack.” That’s what happened in the simulations, at least. I found the points in the formation where we could do the most damage as quickly as we could, but we couldn’t manage to destroy all of the fleet. There were thousands of ships.
A garrison that was as much keeping the Tamaraneans on their planet and to discourage any… ‘poaching’ from other slavers.
From there, the battle would go one of two ways. They would cut their losses, or they would stand their ground. We could deal with either. However, the Citadelians had six star fleets in the system, so they would have plenty of strength to mount another attack. But from what I understood, they couldn’t throw everything and the kitchen sink at us without risking their grip on other planets in the system. So, we would have to endure a storm of two star fleets in the odd three months it would take them to remobilize.
“So, destroy as much as we can without sticking our necks out? Got it. Gosh, you’re such a worrier,” Caulifla remarked, dismissing my concerns with a wave of her hand, but there was something to prove in her eyes.
“Good luck. And remember, whoever destroys the least amount of ships has to cook for the others,” I said, earning a few chuckles before we began to enter our Attack Balls. I got in my own, while Kori and Komand’r got in one, Cabba and Raditz in another, and Caulifla going solo.
Fixing the mask to my face, I checked the sealing as the door to my shop closed. With my mask in place, I set the navigation system and input the destination for every ship. All were to Tamaran, just different spots in its upper orbit. With the destinations imputed, the read-out was fifteen minutes until we arrived at our destinations. The only reason why it wasn’t faster was because I activated the stealth mode, which should allow us to arrive unnoticed.
With that, the ships rose up and we took off, leaving Okaara behind.
I closed my eyes, giving myself a moment to think as we broke through the atmosphere and continued to sail through space. I meditated, feeling my ki throughout my body, testing and flexing it in preparation for what was to come. Fifteen minutes proved entirely too long and entirely too short as it felt like it took forever to reach my destination while leaving me with not enough time to prepare.
All the same, my ship slowed to a stop, and I could see a number of ships through my window. They were arranged in a grid pattern, though that pattern was tighter around points of interest. There were clusters of hundreds of ships while the unpopulated parts of the planet were covered by one every couple of hundred miles or so.
The door to my Attack Ball hissed as the interior was decompressed before the door opened. Moving forward, I felt the vacuum of space in all of its glory. If I were a human, then I would have violently decompressed. Instead, my skin felt a bit itchy and my eyes a little dry. Thankfully, Bardock had shown us a trick of the trade back on Planet Vegeta -- a thin layer of ki over our exposed points to keep our insides inside worked like a charm. Taking a moment to get used to the sensation, I began to fly forward.
Their ships were ugly, I decided. They were both blocky and smooth, which gave the impression of two slapped-together designs. I could make out the different classes of ships as I approached -- there were the destroyers, the frigates, and the carriers that would have hundreds of starfighter ships aboard. Then there were the ships that were designed for long-range space-to-ground bombardments.
“Sorry about this. But aliens don’t have a Geneva Convention,” I said, jade green ki gathering in my palms. There was no point in reaching out and trying to communicate. There was no talking them down. And even if there was a point, I’m not sure if I would -- we needed to hit fast and hard, and the element of surprise was a big help there.
I always knew I would end up killing at some point. I didn’t know when, where, or why, but I always knew deep in my heart that it was only a matter of time. Like, if I went to Earth and I stumbled across the Joker? I was gonna Hakai him into nonexistence. I had prepared myself for it. And I had prepared myself for this.
So, there was no point in dwelling on it any longer. I made my choice. All that was left was following through on it.
I blasted forward, parting my hands as I flew through the space between two ships. Ki blasts flung themselves from my palms, tearing through the armor plating of the ships like they were made out of wet tissue paper. Explosions were weird in space, I quickly found out -- they flashed and lingered, like balls of light emerging from the ships. The weird thing was that there was no sound, even as I hit something important and one ship began to blow up.
Continuing my strafe, I continued to bombard the ships that were starting to react to the sudden attack. My eyes found the flagship -- a massive spaceship that was in the general shape of a trident. Ki gathered to my hands, and I started peppering it as I flew to it, then by it.
I knew that I was powerful, but it was a little hard to gauge when I was surrounded by peers. I didn’t have any feats like blowing up a moon to drive home how powerful I had become. However, it was driven home when the flagship began to rip apart, my rapid fire ki blasts tearing through it like it was nothing.
The amount of power in my hands was almost unthinkable. Unimaginable. It was simply inhuman in nature -- a human might be able to push a button to launch a nuke, but I merely needed to flick my wrist to produce the same effect.
It was easy, I found, as I blitzed through the formation, leaving utter devastation in my wake. It felt… like I was a kid kicking over an anthill. It was a simple act of no consequence for me, but to them, it was a cataclysm. And all they could do was swarm angrily, hoping to reach me but never coming close. I didn’t need techniques or to focus my power. I barely needed to even try. It was like the warships were toys.
The fleet scrambled to intercept me, starting to send out starfighters, only for me to destroy their carriers. They tried to take a defensive formation, only to find that grouping up made it easier for me. Within minutes, I was floating in a sea of wreckage and scrap of hundreds of ships. And, between the pieces of wreckage… were the bodies. I didn’t go out of my way to kill anyone, but it was unavoidable that people would die when I started destroying their ships.
I made that choice. Just as Master Ulf said -- I set out on this course knowing where it would lead and the ramifications. The consequences. My eyes were wide open, and I still chose to go through with it. It was sad. Just a little. But not even Superman could save everyone.
Within ten minutes, the cluster I was in destroyed. The ships on the fringe were moving, trying to group up, and I let them. Just for a moment. They were doing what I hoped they’d do -- they were concentrating their numbers and digging in for a fight now that the shock had worn off.
The next stage of the plan was similar to the first, only things were a bit messier. I flew to the clusters, dodging the laser-based beams that they fired in my general direction. The fact of the matter was… I was fast. And I was small. They didn’t even come close to me before I was amongst their formation, tearing them apart.
Another five minutes later, that cluster was destroyed, and I moved on once more. Only this time, when I flew to a third cluster, I saw that I wasn’t attacking it alone.
Kori and Komand’r were strafing the ships much like I was, sending waves of starbolts into their hauls. They didn’t have the same devastating effect mine did, but they still punch through the thick armored plating. Their eyes glowed -- lime green and dark violet, respectively -- while their expressions were furious snarls. This was personal for them. This was their people, and this fleet had been a boot to their necks for a century.
They weaved between the ships, unleashing all that anger and aggression upon it. The effect was every bit as devastating as my own attacks.
Fifteen minutes was all it took, I saw as the ships began to change their trajectory. They flipped before accelerating, speeding away from Tamaran as fast as they were able to. I saw streaks of light across the atmosphere -- despite destroying hundreds of ships, there were hundreds more that were escaping. They would regroup somewhere nearby, but I had no idea where.
But they would remain there until the Citadel sent reinforcements, and we would have to fight those hundreds of ships once more.
However, for now, our mission was complete.
Joining the two sisters, the three of us began to descend to the planet itself. Tamaran was kind of a funky-looking planet -- its surface was stark white with purplish red lines stretching across its surface. And I saw it was because most of the foliage was white in hue, but there was still plenty of color to be found on the planet.
Our destination was a city that was located on a mountain- or, rather, it was the mountain itself. The ant metaphor from before felt a little uncomfortable now as I realized that the capital of Tamaran weaved itself through a mountain, setting up platforms in valleys and plateaus. Almost all of which possessed defense platforms, which were targeting us as we descended, but they didn’t fire.
At the very top of the mountain was a tall spire, and it was to that one they led us to. We were anticipated, I saw -- there were warriors with blasters pointed up in our direction, while a large man wielding an axe was ready to start swinging. Only for it to fall limply from his fingers when he saw us.
“My buglandorfs?” The man said, and my translator didn’t know what to make of that. “You-I-how?!” He said, reaching up for them and Kori laughed brightly as she dove into his arms, and he seemed far more used to her hugs than any of us.
“We are victorious, Father! The Citadelians are gone, and the siege is broken!” Kori announced to the jubilation of the warriors around what I’m guessing was the Tamaranean king. “We could not have done it without our new friends -- meet Tarble!” She introduced me with a dramatic flair as I touched down on the landing pad. All eyes immediately went to me and they stiffened.
“A Saiyan?” Kori’s father questioned, a certain… harshness in his voice.
“He helped us, father,” Komand’r spoke up, her voice just as hard. “And he gave us this…” she said, her hands and eyes glowing. There were sounds of awe from the others, others suspicious. But, none could deny that it was an incredible sight.
The king was visibly chagrined and inclined his head to me. “You have my thanks, Saiyan Tarble. I am King Myand'r, and you have my word that you will be repaid for this kindness.” Myand’r said, tumping his chest with a fist.
Hm. “It’s a little early for that,” I replied, accepting his words for what they were -- well-meaning, but I could see his guard was still all the way up. “The Citadelians aren’t gone for good, yet. I figure we have around three months before they can mobilize another invasion.”
King Myand'r breathed in slowly and offered a curt nod. “Then let us make the most of the time that we have.”