#guwar

[18 August, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

"Treekul! I need your help."

Guwar found her in one of the common rooms of the cult's underground complex. He hadn't seen her since they first arrived together on Nagaoka. At first, he had been too occupied with his indoctrination and the rituals that followed. Later, when he rose through the ranks to become one of the cult's Executants, he had greater privileges, but he was too busy with various missions to wonder what had happened to her. But now, when she was the only one on the planet who could help him, he discovered that she was much easier to track down than he expected.

The alien woman looked up from the yellowed parchment she was reading and her eyes lit up at the sight of him. "Guwar!" she cried out. "I was starting to think I'd never see you again."

She met him in the middle of the room and embraced him somewhat awkwardly. They had never exactly been friends to begin with, and their current positions in the cult didn't call for much fraternization. Fortunately, the others in the room were of lower rank, and dared not to question the behavior of a Priestess and an Executant.

"Listen," she said as she pulled him close so no one else could hear. "I need to talk to you. Alone."

"As you command, Priestess," Guwar said immediately, making sure everyone could hear. "Right this way."

He hadn't been expecting her to need anything from him, but it made things simpler that way. When they first came to Nagaoka, Guwar had assumed that Treekul would be executed immediately. She wasn't a Saiyan like the rest of them, after all. Surprisingly, she was allowed to live among them, even receiving the rank of priestess. But instead of robes, she was fitted with a strange dress of red strips of fabric, and he had never known her to provide any counseling. Guwar didn't know what to make of it, but he was more concerned with his own problems instead of figuring out her status.

"If you needed to speak with me so badly, why didn't you just summon me?" Guwar asked in a low voice when they were in an empty hallway.

"I didn't know I could," Treekul said. "You mean it was that easy?"

"You're a priestess," he said. "We're bound to follow your orders."

"Yeah, but I don't want the boss to know what I'm up to," she said.

"The boss?"

"Trismegistus," Treekul said. "I just started calling him that at some point and... Oh, it doesn't matter."

"Well, if anyone asks, you can tell them you're helping me," Guwar said. He led her to his quarters and swung open the door. "I need to understand something and you're the only one who can decipher--"

"We need to get out of this place," she said the moment the door was closed. "Right now."

"You're forbidden to leave, Treekul, everyone knows that. Trismegistus made it very clear."

"Did he tell you why?" Treekul asked.

"You're an alien," he said. "You could betray our secrets."

"Then why did he make me a priestess?" Treekul asked. "Why is he training me in alchemy? Why didn't he just kill me from the start?"

"He has some use for you," Guwar said. "And if you would have preferred execution so badly, I'm sure you could have found a way by now. You still live because you must see the truth in this place. Don't deny it."

"He's insane," Treekul said. "All he cares about is controlling people, and some bizarre plan for the Saiyan species. He's only keeping me around for his own amusement!"

"That's his right!" Guwar said. "You should be honored he's letting you learn from him at all. The Jindan power won't work on you because you're not a Saiyan. If he can impart some of his wisdom to you, then you could become a great help to us--"

"Sure, that'd be great," Treekul said. "The only trouble is that he isn't teaching me anything at all. He's just putting me through pointless exercises to keep me busy, or to test my compliance."

"He's testing your resolve," Guwar said. "You can't learn the deeper secrets unless you've proven your dedication to his teachings. Don't you get it? He could make you so much more than you already are, if you'd just let him."

"All I want," Treekul said, "is to get as far away from this planet as I can."

"Then cooperate," Guwar said. "The Executants and other priests are allowed to come and go as we please, because Trismegistus trusts us to carry out his will." He grabbed a stack of papers from his writing desk and shoved them into Treekul's arms. "You can start by checking my work."

"What is all of this?" Treekul asked.

"Trismegistus ordered me to calculate a mathematical model of the war effort," he explained. "The tactics don't make much sense from a conventional standpoint, but he told me that it was all based on geomantic adjustments."

"He's tampering with galactic ley lines?" Treekul asked. "That's crazy."

"It's brilliant," Guwar said. "Luffa can kill all of our warriors, but it won't do her any good in the long run. Eventually the galactic ley lines running through Federation space will be permanently shifted to ensure our ultimate victory. Trismegistus wants me to refine the calculations to improve the process."

"You can't just move cosmic ley lines," Treekul said. "It would take more power than... No. He could do it, couldn't he?"

"The trouble I'm having is that I keep running into a brick wall on the math," Guwar said. "His methods are based on an algorithm by another alchemist, the first Trismegistus, he said, but that work was for a smaller scale. I'm sure I could adapt it, except the algorithm itself doesn't make any sense. It doesn't look like it would work at all, which means any model I build will also fail. I've gone over it a hundred times, and I think I'm missing something on the geomancy side of things. That's where you come in."

"Me?" Treekul asked. "What good can I do?"

"It's no different from when we collaborated on the search to find this planet," Guwar said. "You used a geomantic compass to triangulate the locations of alchemical artifacts. This is just the same thing on a bigger scale."

"I don't..." she trailed off as she looked at the papers he had given her. For a moment, it was like it was before they found Nagaoka. He was a Saiyan mathematician, and she was an archaeologist specializing in alchemical artifacts. Guwar had come to despise those times, before the Jindan potion increased his strength, and made him a somebody for the first time in his life. And he was certain that she had grown as well. Whatever Trismegistus had taught her, he was sure that it had made her more powerful. She still opposed the cult in her heart, but she couldn't help but improve in this kind of environment. And working together, they could do almost anything...

After a few moments, she shook her head and shut her eyes tightly. "Guwar this is nothing like what we did before. Using the ley lines to find a planet, that's one thing, but what Rehval is proposing is just..."

"All I need is for you to verify the core principles of geomancy," Guwar said. "The algorithm has to work, Treekul, or he wouldn't be using it, but the computer can't make heads or tails of it, so--"

"What computer?" Treekul asked.

"On the ship I'm using. Rehval has one set aside for me to use for my work."

"Then you can take me off the planet," Treekul said. "You Executants can come and go as you like, right? I'll help you with this, but you have to smuggle me out of here, drop me off on some other world. That's my price."

"I can't do that," Guwar insisted. "I have a lot of pull here, but not enough to take you away from the master. He'd remove my Jindan power for sure."

"Would that really be so bad?" Treekul asked.

"Are you kidding?" Guwar said. "I'd be even weaker than I was when you first met me."

"That never mattered to me before," Treekul said. "I... well, I respected you as a scholar. That, and the whole space pirate thing you had going for you. That was pretty cool."

"Well that wasn't enough," Guwar said. "Not for me. I wanted more from you than respect, woman. But I could tell you weren't interested, not the way I was before."

"I didn't think you'd be interested in me," she said. "Besides, Endive was crazy about you, and I didn't want to try to get in the way of that."

"Endive?" he asked. "That's ridiculous. She wants nothing to do with me. Even now, when I've become as powerful as I am."

He wanted to believe her, of course. The truth was, Guwar was interested in them both, but with Endive, it was more of a matter of lust and pride. The idea of such a magnificent specimen at his side was very captivating, but Treekul had Endive beat on personality. He could have conversation with Treekul, and her strange hair and lavender skin had grown on him over the time they had spent together. For a moment, he allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy that strength didn't matter, and that both women were infatuated with him at the same time, and they had just been too intimidated by his brilliance to make a move.

"Rehval has her so brainwashed that she only wants what he tells her to want," Treekul said. "Just like he has you running in circles trying to solve his equations."

And that was the proof Guwar needed, the proof that Treekul was lying to him. For he knew that the cult hadn't brainwashed any of them. It had simply reinforced truths they had all known from the beginning. The supreme value of strength, the importance of ruthlessness. Endive outranked him, so if she was truly in love with Guwar, she could have ordered him to her bed whenever she wanted. But she never did, because she was waiting for him to prove his worth, one way or another. And he would. Rehval Trismegistus had promised Guwar great rewards for completing this model, and Endive would be one of them.

"I don't buy it," Guwar said. "You're a priestess, aren't you? If you wanted me so badly, what's stopping you? I'll do anything you ask, short of taking you off the planet."

"Yeah, well that's not how I like to socialize," Treekul said. "I didn't ask for any of this, and I'm not going to exploit my 'power' over the rest of you like that. And even if I was willing to stoop that low, I wouldn't waste time on you now. I liked the Guwar from before. This guy I'm talking to now.... I... I don't know who you are anymore."

They stood there silently for a minute or two, and then Guwar shook his head and pointed at the door.

"Enough of this," he said. "Work on the equations or don't. I'll give you whatever I can in return, but I still can't take you off the planet. There's no use discussing that."

"Oh, I'll help you, Guwar," Treekul said. "It's not like I have anything better to do with my time, and it seems to be the only way I can get through to you."

Guwar thanked her for her cooperation as she left, but he doubted that she would take the problem seriously. At the very least, he could be certain that she wouldn't tell Rehval that he was having trouble with his assignment. She was so suspicious and paranoid towards the Master that he doubted that she would tell him much of anything. And even if Guwar had no intention of giving her a lift in his ship, he could still use that as a bargaining chip to keep her quiet. He sighed and returned to his notes. He would work in his quarters for a while, then return to the ship to check his figures against the computer. Treekul had helped in one sense, at least. Even if she didn't check his work, she still gave him the motivation to solve this problem, if only to prove to her that Trismegistus truly was the great man he claimed to be. Treekul was a reasonable woman, and once he laid out the calculations for her, she would have no choice but to accept the truth. Even if it took weeks to sort things out, Guwar was certain he could find the answer. The numbers wouldn't lie.

*******

[15 September, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

The numbers just wouldn't add up.

It was all supposed to tie together. The algorithm was supposed to work, and all he would have to do was refine the calculations and build a more robust mathematical model for Rehval's plans. Each battle was supposed to tug on the cosmic ley lines that supposedly governed the currents of fate in the galaxy. It was all supposed to work.

Only it didn't. He had gone over the figures for over a week now, and they simply didn't fit. Guwar had checked and double-checked the numbers, and the results just didn't match up with Rehval's plans. Rehval had boldly predicted victory within months. Guwar couldn't even extrapolate a duration of time that was a real number.

So he checked population growth models and tried to determine if the Jindan cult's population was sustainable. It would be, provided a stable birth rate, and with the cult's emphasis on breeding, that seemed to be a safe assumption. But that only meant the war with the Federation would go on indefinitely. Rehval could keep sending cultists to invade the Federation, and Luffa would continue to kill them, and he would have more to make good the losses.

What did that leave? Luffa wasn't immortal. Eventually she would die of old age, and the stalemate would be broken. But that would eventually happen anyway. If Trismegistus's grand scheme was to wait out the clock, he could do it without squandering his resources. Instead, Rehval had insisted that victory was imminent, and the lives he had sacrificed at the front would not be in vain.

And Guwar believed him. He had believed him before, and he still did now. Rehval was Trismegistus, the Holy Inventor of Jindan, the King of the Saiyans, the One Who Would Transform the Universe. He had transformed Guwar, changing him from a nobody into a great man. It was all true. It had to be true.

Because if it wasn't true, then Trismegistus was a fraud.

If it wasn't true, then Guwar wasn't a great man. Being an Executant was meaningless. He was nothing more than a patsy, no matter how strong the Jindan potion had made him.

He didn't want it to be a lie. And so he checked his figures again. And again. And again. He searched for proofs that would save him from the dilemma. He racked his brain for theorems that could help him escape. In the end, all of his mathematical skill could only offer him a more beautiful expression of the same problem. Rehval's geomantics plans would make perfect sense. The war would end in Jindan victory precisely when he said it would. Beginning with that premise and working backwards, Guwar could solve the equations and find the conditions necessary to support that truth. In the end it boiled down to a simple falsehood:

Two equals three.

This non-answer stared him in the face as he feverishly re-checked his work. It had been staring him in the face the entire time. He had already established that Rehval's strategy was impossible. "Two equals three" was just another way of saying it. Two, of course, did not equal three, and never could.

The contradiction was too awful for him to put into words. It was like being diagnosed with a terminal disease, only Guwar considered this much, much worse. At least a doctor could be wrong, or a patient's body might prove more resilient than anyone imagined. Even the hardest sciences allowed for a slim chance of things turning out differently. The law of gravity was only "true" until someone found a way to prove it false. That was incredibly unlikely, but never impossible.

Two, however, was incapable of being Three. There was no bargaining with this, no semantic argument to be made. A layman or a freshman philosophy student might blithely wonder if numbers really had any meaning after all. But Guwar was a mathematician, and his training forbade him from dismissing this, no matter how badly he wished otherwise.

The numbers didn't lie. They couldn't lie. Worst of all, it had been Trismegistus who told him to consult the numbers in the first place. Trismegistus, the Thrice Blessed, had made a mistake. There could be no new model, because the algorithm is was to be based upon simply couldn't work.

And as his mind raced for a solution to his dilemma, he considered checking with Treekul, to see if she had come up with something he could use to make sense of all of this. It mathematics couldn't save his faith in Rehval, then maybe alchemy would. But first, he remembered what she had said to him in his quarters.

"He's just putting me through pointless exercises to keep me busy, or to test my compliance."

He hadn't taken her words seriously at the time, but now he began to wonder. Was this just another pointless exercise? If Rehval would waste Treekul's time, why wouldn't he do the same to Guwar? Was all of this just a test to see what Guwar would do? Was he supposed to admit that the task was impossible to prove his honesty? Or did Rehval expect him to falsify his results to demonstrate his blind obedience? Or had Rehval gone mad, and he truly had no idea how flawed his plans truly were?

No matter how Guwar looked at it, he had spent the last six weeks in a spacecraft for no good reason.

He would have to come out sometime, and what was he going to do when he finally did?

*******

[16 September, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

He found Treekul in her quarters. It was a violation of protocol to barge in on a priestess without being summoned, but he was past caring about such things. She didn't move from her desk.

"You were right," he said. "You were right about everything. We have to get out of here."

"Who's 'we', Guwar?" Treekul asked. She didn't bother looking up from her work. "I'm getting out of here, on my own terms. Are you asking me to invite you along?"

"Rehval's lying to us," Guwar said. "He asked me to verify his claims... no, he told me to, but I can't. The numbers just don't line up. He doesn't care about winning the war, he just wants me to tell him what he wants to hear."

"Who are you trying to convince here, Guwar?" Treekul asked. "Me or yourself?"

"I'm trying to tell you that I'm on your side now!" he hissed. "I want out. I'll do whatever it takes to get out. If we work together, we'll have a much better chance of--"

She looked up from the grimoire she was reading and smiled distantly at him. "You really think it's that simple?" she asked. "I've had time to think it over, and it just won't work. Twenty minutes after he notices you're gone, he'll withdraw the Jindan power from you. You'll lose all the power you've gained in this place, and then some."

"You... you said you didn't care about that," Guwar asked.

"On a personal level, I don't," Treekul said. She finally rose to her feet and looked him in the eye. "The point is that you'll be no match for whoever they send after us. And they will send someone. Endive, probably. She knows where I live. Hell, Rehval probably extracted all sorts of information from me with his potions, and I don't even know about it. I'll probably never see my home planet again."

"They didn't send anyone after Salziff when he left the cult," Guwar countered. He was a little surprised by the desperation he heard in his voice. Salziff had been their last lead in their search for Nagaoka. It was strange now, to think back to a time when Guwar so badly wanted to find this planet, and now he wanted to leave. He tried not to think about how weak and sick Salziff had been, or how Salziff had warned them to stay away from the cult. All he wanted to remember now was that Salziff had quit the cult and lived to tell about it.

"Salziff didn't quit, he was kicked out," Treekul said. "And losing the Jindan power turned him into an invalid. Is that how you'd want to end up? Don't you get it? They let him go because he was no threat to them. If anything, they used him as free advertising. If he kept his mouth shut, fine, but if he told anyone what he knew, it would only attract other Saiyans curious about how to get stronger. It's how we ended up here in the first place."

She picked up her stylus and poked Guwar's vest with it. "Salziff was a rule-breaker. They made an example out of him. You, on the other hand, Executant Guwar, have an outstanding service record. You're in too deep. You know too much about the cult and how it works. Rehval shared his war plans with you, for pity's sake. He can't let you go."

A chill ran down Guwar's spine, and he felt like something inside his head was collapsing in on itself. "I... I hadn't thought of that," he said.

"Of course not. Why would you? You thought you were on the winning side, right up until you checked his math. That's how he breaks people, Guwar. He gives them everything they thought they wanted, and then, when it's too late to back out, he betrays them somehow. He doesn't want us to trust him. He wants us to serve him even though we don't trust him."

A glimmer of hope suddenly dawned on him. "Then... maybe the plans he asked me to check were a phony," he said. "He was just testing me to see if I'd defy him."

"No," Treekul said, snuffing his idea before he could even consider it. "If the plans were fake, there'd be no test. He wants you to know what he's up to, and that it won't work the way he tells everyone. That way, if you continue to serve him, he'll know he rules you completely, in spite of your better judgment. If you cut and run, then it only proves you weren't worth having in the first place."

"I don't believe this," Guwar said, planting his hands over his face. He turned away from Treekul and lowered his head, as if trying to hide from the truths she was speaking.

"You had the right idea from the start, Guwar," Treekul said. "I can't escape, not the way I am. The only chance I have is to learn from Rehval, until I have enough power to escape him without being hunted down."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Guwar said. "He's not going to teach you how to leave this place!"

"Not directly," Treekul said. "It'll take a while. I'm an alchemical historian, not an alchemist like him. I'll never reach his level, but there's things I can find that he won't know to look for. Take a look at this."

He turned and saw her smiling as she pointed at a page from the grimoire she had been studying. Among the lines of tiny, alien characters and symbols, there was a woodcut image depicting a crude diagram of the galaxy, with various lines criss-crossing it like a spider's web. Surrounding this were various alchemical notations, along with an inscrutable face in the galactic center, which implied that the galaxy itself was a living thing.

"Rehval claims he can manipulate cosmic ley lines," Treekul explained. "I thought that was impossible, and maybe it is, on the scale he's talking about--"

"It is impossible," Guwar insisted. "I wouldn't be talking to you right now if it wasn't!"

"Maybe so," Treekul continued. "But these texts suggest that you can nudge them a little. A primeval Makyan used a spell to camouflage his planet from geomantic triangulation. I'm betting Rehval used something similar to hide this world. If I can learn how to do it myself, I can create a refuge where he'll never find me."

Guwar couldn't believe what he was hearing. "'If'?" he asked. "You don't even know if he can do it. How long will it take you to learn?"

"Like I said," Treekul replied. "It's a long game, but it's the best chance I have. In the meantime, I'll have to figure out how to counterfeit enough precious metals to pay the bills while I'm in hiding."

"We don't have time for that!" Guwar said. "If he learns what we're planning, he'll--"

"He already knows I don't want to be here," Treekul said. "He's toying with me, so the only choice I have is to play along and wait for an opening. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to get back to this..."

She turned to resume her reading, but Guwar grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her out of her chair. "You little fool!" he growled. "You said yourself that this is exactly what he does to control people! All you'll end up doing is entangling yourself even further!"

"What's your point?" Treekul said. "I'm already trapped here. Worst case scenario, I get so drawn into this world of his that I end up enjoying it. You and Endive don't seem to mind."

Guwar's eyes went wide with horror. Treekul was his only ally in this nightmare, and she had practically resigned herself to her fate. He had never felt so alone. Even when he had literally been alone, he had always felt enough confidence in his ability to overcome any obstacles. Now, there was only himself and his power, and these belonged Trismegistus, who surrounded him on all sides.

He lowered Treekul back to her seat, and she returned to her work. There was the chance, however slight, that her plan might be his only salvation, but he doubted it. The look he had seen in her eyes was all too familiar. He had seen it in the faces of all the other Saiyans who had sold their souls to Trismegistus, only to swallow their regret later on. Like them, Treekul would tell herself she was biding her time, and Rehval would just manipulate her into doing his bidding.

The same thing would happen to him, sooner or later. The longer he remained here, the tighter Rehval's grip would become.

And so, Rehval turned and ran. If Treekul realized that they would never see each other again, she didn't bother to react. Guwar himself felt strangely empty about it. It was as though he knew he ought to care, but couldn't bring himself to do so. He supposed that if he made it to safety, he would have plenty of time later to regret leaving her behind.

*******

Leaving Rehval's base of operations was exceedingly simple. As an Executant, Guwar knew where all the ships were kept, and he had license to requisition one at any time, no questions asked. He briefly considered taking steps to cover his tracks, like entering false data into the flight log to throw off any pursuers. He also considered sabotaging the rest of the fleet to slow down the inevitable manhunt. But he dismissed these ideas almost immediately. The longer he delayed his departure, the greater the risk that he would be caught before he could even get off the planet. Like so many of his past adventures in space piracy, his best chance lay in outer space, where the playing field would be somewhat more level. There, he could pit the technology of his own stolen ship against those that followed him. Rehval could remove the Jindan power from him at any moment, but it wouldn't diminish his own skills as a pilot.

And so, he simply returned to the science vessel he had been using for his work, and launched it into orbit. He charted a course towards Mundokuul, then set the ship to proceed along in the opposite direction. There were no inhabited planets along that path, but he planned to alter course several hours later. With any luck, he could throw his pursuers off-balance by heading for nowhere in particular. Eventually, he would find a spaceport, steal another ship, and repeat the process until he was far enough away to breathe a little easier.

But he knew that wouldn't solve anything in the long term. He knew that Rehval had the means to track him down, however long it might take. Treekul's talk of "nudging" cosmic ley lines to create a hiding place seemed far-fetched to him. Still, the very fact that she was seriously considering it meant that Rehval would be very difficult to avoid. He believed that it was best to act immediately and risk the consequences of his haste, but now that he had taken that step, he began to appreciate just how weak his position really was.

As the hours passed, he also found time to second-guess his decision to leave. All he had left was his Executant uniform, which was meaningless in the outside universe. The privileges that came with it-- the food, the women, the authority-- were all behind him now. He was back to being plain old Guwar again. Less than Guwar, really, once the Jindan power was finally removed from his body. If Treekul had come along, it might have made things easier for him. Now, all he had left was abstract solace of mathematics. For however long it lasted, he was free once again to admit that two was not equal to three.

Perhaps mathematics was all that remained for him in life. He had plundered planets to sate his Saiyan craving for battle, but the galaxy had clearly become too intense a place for a small fry like him. The future would be dominated by monsters like Rehval and Luffa, and those who served them. All that remained for men like Guwar was to struggle to stay out of their way.

"At least I've had some practice staying one step ahead of the monsters," Guwar mumbled aloud to himself. "I managed to keep away from Luffa, so how bad can Rehval be...?"

Then it suddenly hit him. Luffa. The only reason the Super Saiyan had ever persecuted him was because she was hunting Rehval. And now, here he was, running away from Rehval because he knew too much about his organization. He had been so worried about Rehval punishing him for treason that he never stopped to consider why it would be so important to Rehval in the first place.

As he consulted the star charts for the distance to Federation space, he considered the risks. Luffa might destroy him on sight, thinking him to be an enemy. The Jindan Saiyans currently attacking the Federation might turn against him as well, assuming Rehval informed them of his betrayal. On the other hand, Guwar knew Rehval's war plans, including when and where he planned to deploy his forces. Surely that intelligence would be enough to get him into Federation territory without being attacked.

And then, even as he began to feel some semblance of confidence in his survival, he felt a strange tingle in his body. It began in his abdomen, and radiated outward. Guwar had never experienced the Withdrawal before, and though he had expected it, he had no idea how it would feel when it finally happened. Acting more on instinct than anything else, he got up from the pilot's seat of his ship, and retreated to the rear cabin, where he sought the relative comfort of the cot mounted to the inner hull. Instead, he was assailed with an intense pain, and he collapsed onto the deck.

As he lay in a fetal position on the floor, he clutched at his stomach with fingers that were so numb that he felt like they belonged to someone else. He saw a purple aura surrounding his body, and it seemed to grow brighter as the pain increased. Guwar was tempted to beg for mercy, but he bit his lower lip instead. There was no one to hear his pleas, even if he made them. At least if he endured this agony in silence, he could preserve some small remnant of his Saiyan pride.

And then, just when it seemed that it would never stop, and he would be unable to endure any more, the pain vanished, leaving him only with the traumatic memory of the suffering it had caused him. Gingerly, Guwar rose to his knees, and as he pulled himself onto the bunk, he sensed his own ki, now purged of the Jindan power, and diminished.

He was surprised by how empty it felt. By his estimate, Guwar figured he was now about as strong as he had been at ten years old. Strangely, he was grateful for this, as he had feared he would lose much more than that. But the true dread he felt was at the absence of Jindan in his body. He felt like an empty vessel, bereft of purpose. In a way, it hurt worse than the physical pain that was still fresh in his mind. Now, at last, he realized why Rehval was so eager to use the Withdrawal to punish his unruly followers. The loss of Jindan, however temporary, was far more terrible than the ecstasy of receiving it.

Guwar lay on the bunk for several hours after that, with only his despair to keep him company while he waited for his ship to reach the next stop on his journey. When the computer finally called out to him to request a new heading, it took him forty-three minutes to pull himself together and return to the controls. He would go to the Federation and find Luffa, no matter the risk, if only for the slim chance of repaying Trismegistus for what Guwar had just endured.

*******

"You could have gone with him," Rehval said. He had just received the report of the stolen starship, and he had completed the mystic ritual he used to withdraw his alchemical power from Guwar. With that task completed, he reclined in the chaise lounge in the middle of his study. "Some would consider it a rather romantic adventure. The two of you together, roaming the galaxy in exile."

"You'd find him eventually," Treekul said. She was sitting on the floor, studying parchments she had arranged in a semicircle around herself. "And you would have him killed, I assume."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Rehval said. "Guwar has served me with distinction up until now. Perhaps he needs some time away to remind him of where his home truly is. He might still be redeemed."

"And if I had gone with him?" Treekul asked.

"Then I would have had you brought back here, alive and unharmed," Rehval said. "So it would be a pointless journey, but I suppose you could have enjoyed it as something of a vacation."

"I'd rather focus on your lessons," she said. "It's a much better use of my time, isn't it?"

"I'm gratified to hear you say that," he said. "With Guwar absent, I'll need everyone to work that much harder to pick up the slack. Now, I believe you asked me to teach you about ley lines."

"The texts you provided me are incomplete," she said. "I've run across this sort of thing before. The ancient masters would encode their greatest secrets using an energy imbalance. Too much sulfurous essence, or not enough, and you can't see the text well enough to read it."

Rehval smiled. "The key is to balance the sulfurous essence with the mercurial," he explained. "An influx of masculine energies to counter the feminine, for example. Any man would suffice, but only I have the expertise to do it properly. Assuming you're interested, of course."

She rose from the floor and approached him. "Well, why not?" she asked. "I've come this far, after all."

He embraced her when she was close enough, and they shared a kiss to begin the process.

[October 25, 233 Before Age. Despye.]

"The shipyard has a few surface-to-orbit cannons. Here, here... and here."

From inside his cell, Guwar pointed at various spots on a map printed from his ship's database. It had always been his plan to share this information with Luffa once he reached Federation space. He hadn't really considered how that handover would work. In hindsight, he supposed that it had been naive to think that he would just tell Luffa what she needed to know and that would be that. They didn't trust him, not completely. And so he was confined to a holding cell while a blue-skinned alien interrogated him over and over.

"Good," she said as she scribbled notes onto a pad. "What sort of ships do they have in the yard?"

He sighed before answering. "Mainly surplus Camelian cruisers, a few privately owned mercenary craft, all stolen, of course. There's some freighters for covert ops and troop transports, but most of those were already deployed. Our warriors would take them to various star systems and then hijack other ships, then take those into Federation space. That's how we managed to avoid being traced back. But you already knew that from the last four times I answered this question."

"Just seeing if you can keep your story straight, Guwar," she said. He didn't know her name, or even what planet she came from. He didn't think she was very strong-- not by Saiyan standards, anyway. But then, he wasn't very strong himself anymore.

"Tell me about the Jindan formula," she said. For a moment he thought she might have read his mind, but he knew this was impossible. It probably wasn't a coincidence either. She kept asking about the same things over and over, expecting to catch him in some lie.

"Trismegistus created it," he groaned as he explained it again. "The rest of the galaxy knows him as the Saiyan King Rehval, but you have to get to a certain rank in the cult before he reveals that to you. Some Saiyans can't handle the truth, so he wipes their memory and makes them repeat the indoctrination until they can accept it."

"Not what I asked," she said.

"I'm just trying to keep this interesting," he said. He got up from his seat in the cell and paced around a bit before sitting back down. Her chair didn't look that much more comfortable than his, but hers had a thin layer of cushioning that he envied.

The alien put her pen to her lower lip. "Oh, it's already pretty interesting, Guwar. Keep talking."

"The Jindan potion makes Saiyans stronger. Something about tapping into a wellspring of energy from the earth, and using it to supplement the life energy in the body. Rehval makes this potion and you drink it." As he mimicked the act of putting a goblet to his lips, he paused as he recalled the rush of ecstasy he felt as he received the power. In that moment, he had felt like he could do anything. It seemed like a hundred years ago.

"Is that how you get the Mindworm?" she asked.

"No, that's a different procedure," he said as he tapped the side of his head. "Your mistress already knows about the Mindworm."

"Mistress?"

"Well, you work for her, don't you? Like, her butler or something."

She laughed quietly and jotted something down in her notes. "Butler, right. Okay."

He shrugged and decided there was no point in prying. "The Mindworm attacks anyone who tries to probe our minds. It protects his secrets. And it's permanent. The Jindan Power, he can take that away whenever he wants. He withdrew it from me while I was on my way here. The catch is, he takes some of my own power with it. Like he's collecting interest."

"So you end up weaker than you were before you started," she said. "I thought I sensed something weird about your ki."

"You can sense my ki?" he asked. He suddenly felt very exposed. Her left eye, the one that wasn't covered by the patch, seemed much more intrusive as she stared into his cell.

"Oh, I can sense more than that, Guwar," she said. "Ki, temperature, heart rate. Why do you think I'm doing this interrogation instead of her? I mean, she's got better things to do, but besides that."

"You're what, then? Some sort of lie detector?"

"Not exactly," she said. "Let's just say I've learned how to interpret a Saiyan's pulse. But enough about me. Tell me about the Nagaoka system again. You said Rehval's on the second of four planets, right?"

"No, I said there was only one planet. Nice try."

She smiled and glanced down at her notes.

"This is a waste of time!" he said. "I already told you everything you needed to know. I thought Luffa would be halfway to Nagaoka now. The longer she waits--"

"You let us worry about that, Guwar," she said. "All you have to do is answer my questions."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, but I probably won't answer."

"Can Luffa defeat him? I mean, she's the Super Saiyan, but is that enough?"

The alien looked up at him with a serious expression. "She's more than enough, Guwar. But you already knew that, didn't you? Otherwise, why else would you risk everything to come here?"

"I... I'm just hedging my bets," he said. "The universe has gotten too hot for Saiyans lately. It's all coming down between Luffa and Rehval, and anyone who doesn't pick a side will get caught in the middle. Rehval's insane, so there's only one other choice."

"You're lying," she said. "If all you cared about was saving your own skin, you'd have taken your ship as far away from here as you could go. Rehval's got you worried. Not just about yourself, but for everyone."

"You can tell all that from my body heat?" Guwar scoffed.

"No, I can tell from your answers," she said. "You're in a big hurry for us to stop this guy, even though he's already punished you for turning against him. And you keep talking about how all the Saiyans will be doomed unless she saves them. You've seen the light, Guwar. Just like I have."

There was nothing he could say about that. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, or that he didn't believe her, but the truth was that he wanted her to be right, at least as far as Luffa being able to win. So instead of saying anything, he just turned and faced away from her, but only for as long as it took for him to pace the length of his cell. She was still there when he turned around.

"Let's move on to those spears you guys always use," she said. "What's the deal with those?"

*******

While Zatte questioned Guwar on Luffa's ship, Luffa herself was briefing the Federation Council, along with its top military commanders, on their planned counterattack. Despye prided itself on the image of a pastorial, agrarian society, but it was also home to a powerful military-industrial complex. Prester Ganzut wore a simple pair of pink overalls and often carried a ceremonial pitchfork when conducting political business. He even smelled of hay, suggesting that he had always just stepped in from tending his fields, though Luffa suspected that he used some sort of farm-scented cologne. The more she got to know the man, the less and less he seemed like a simple man of the land. Watching him host the Federation's leaders in a heavily armored amphitheater only made it that much clearer to which world he belonged.

"Federation observatories have confirmed the presence of a star system in the coordinates you gave us," Marshall Booth said as he addressed the delegates. Luffa didn't care much for him either, but at least his red military uniform told no lies about his agenda. "We don't want to send scout ships, since it might tip our hand, but we've managed to verify just about everything else that Guwar has told us so far. He even told us about an upcoming raid, and gave us the codes to disable their ships. We defeated them easily."

"It's a little too good to be true, isn't it?" asked Emir Plair of Porpozit. He was an ophidian being with thin legs and arms, and a forked tongue that darted out of his mouth every so often. "We've been fighting these cultists for months, with no end in sight, and suddenly this defector shows up on our doorstep and tells us everything we need to win?"

"Attacking Nagaoka won't be a walk in the park, Emir," Luffa said. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in her chair. "I intend to personally kill every Saiyan on its surface, but we'll need a whole fleet to surround the planet so no one escapes. And we'll need a second fleet to guard the first one from any counterattack. Rehval won't go down without a fight, and Guwar tells me that his Jindan powers are strongest there."

"We ought to contact him first, shouldn't we?" asked Jett Farthing, Leader-1 of Kiqs IV. He looked like a pile of tentacles stuffed into a blue robe. "Once he finds out that we know where his lair is, he might be open to negotiations."

"He's not interested in negotiations," Luffa snarled. "I tried playing nice with him before, and he lured me into a deathtrap. Drang Dedruhn still hasn't recovered from that charmed necklace he gave her. I won't underestimate him again. Besides, why would any of you want to talk peace with that bastard, after everything he's done to your people?"

"Yes, the element of surprise is vital to this offensive," Booth added. "Even if the cult knows that we have Guwar, they won't know when we'll strike, or how our attack will be carried out. We may not get a second chance at this."

"Rehval seems to take that planet pretty seriously, but he'll abandon it if he thinks he's cornered," Luffa said. "Don't forget about those rock-creatures he's been manifesting on your planets. If he can control those things from another star system, then he probably has some way to escape Nagaoka in an emergency." She punched her open palm as she spoke. "That's why we've got to hit him hard and fast, and from all sides. If we catch him off-guard, we can disrupt his contingency plans before he has a chance to use them."

"Seems t'me that's exactly what he'd want you to try, darlin'," said Prester Ganzut. "You take a fleet all the way out to Nagaoka, and leave our homestead vulnerable to his next attack. If I were him, I'd already be on my way here, leading my own fleet into battle while yours heads to an empty planet."

"We thought of that," Luffa said through clenched teeth. Her tail moved in such a way that would have made her growing irritation very obvious to anyone who understood Saiyan body language. But to the aliens delegates of the council, she simply appeared to be slightly anxious to get underway. "The entire Saiyan Free Company will be going with me to Nagaoka, along with the third and sixth fleet from the Federation Navy. Booth will be taking the ninth fleet to the Gelbo System, about halfway between Nagaoka and here. The rest of our forces will remain in Federation space to deal with any new invaders. From Gelbo, Booth can coordinate with both fronts, and deploy reinforcements wherever they're needed."

"Will the remaining fleets be enough to protect us?" asked Saith Reinar of Rastraw II. Her exoskeleton clicked and the gold bangles on her six limbs clinked as she trembled with anxiety. "We've all seen what those Saiyans can do once they reach the surface of an inhabited world--!"

"Which is precisely why we must intercept and destroy incoming ships before that happens," Booth said. "I have already issued new shelter orders for civilian populations, and local defense forces have been mobilized for--"

"None of that will mean anything if a band of these Saiyan fanatics get past your fleet!" said of Bort Samsa of Drakkenfilt. His body was covered in a thick layer of symbiotic moss, which made his form difficult to make out. "They've managed to do it time and time again during this war, even with all of our forces on the defensive! And now you want to send troops to Gelbo!?"

Booth didn't have a tail, although Luffa could imagine what it might have looked like if he had one. "We have to take the offensive," he insisted. "If we adopt a siege mentality, then the enemy will simply wear us down."

"Hold on a moment," said of Chet Vil, President of Boiperpei. He spoke slowly, more deliberately than the others. While they seemed more terrified of the risks, he talked as though giving a speech to his caninoid constituents back home. "In these unprecedented times, it's clear that there's a great deal at stake. And I think that what we should be focusing on is finding a way to attack the enemy and defend our territory at the same time, without dividing our brave fighting forces. It could be very beneficial to the Federation. Why, just think of what we might accomplish, not only in this war, but in future conflicts."

"You're an idiot," Luffa said. "I only came here to brief you all on my plans, so that you could prepare your people for what might happen if anything goes wrong. I'm not interested in suggestions, especially nonsense. You're up, Dotz."

Nearby, Dotz rose from her chair and gingerly waved to the councilors, then clasped her hands together for a moment, before fidgeting with the purple shawl that hung around her neck and shoulders.

"We've been briefed about your psychic, Madam Federatrix," said Tak-Tik of Kopey. "And we know that her predictions are no guarantee of success."

"Dotz can see the future a lot more clearly than anyone else in this room," Luffa said with a smile. "And she's accurately predicted every Jindan attack inside of Federation space. The only reason we've taken as many losses as we have is because we couldn't always keep up with the invasions, but she always knew where they would show up, and when. Tell them what you told me, Dotz."

"W-well," she began. "I've been trying to improve my abilities lately, for the war effort and all. When Luffa told me about this attack on Nagaoka, she asked me to find out if the prisoner she captured was telling the truth about it. I saw a battle taking place there. Very terrible, but I can't tell anything specific about it. So there must be something there worth fighting over."

There was a rumble of murmurs from the council, and Luffa gestured for Dotz to continue.

"As for the Federation, um, well I'm sorry, but I don't really see any fighting inside your territory, not with Saiyan invaders anyway. Other enemies are harder for me to forsee, unless you have one in mind that you want me to look out for."

"I can't be sure of Dotz' maximum limit," Luffa explained, "but she's forecast battles a month before I fought them. The accuracy gets kind of fuzzy further out than that, but it won't take more than two weeks for the fleet to reach Nagaoka. Dotz says the cult won't make a move while we're gone, and that's good enough for me. Even if something did happen, you'll have Booth's group one week away at Gelbo."

"Convenient, ain't it?" asked Prester Ganzut. "That the enemy'd suddenly stop attacking us like that, for no good reason."

Luffa turned to look at him with an eager gleam in her eye. "Oh, I'll give them a reason to stop attacking, Prester," she said. "They won't attack the Federation because they'll all be dead after I finish attacking them. Or maybe they'll win, and you all can negotiate a settlement over my dead body. Either way, the war will be over, which only confirms that Nagaoka is where the last battle will be fought."

"And we should accept this as fact? Based on the words of this... this confidence man?"

Luffa shot a dirty look at a woman who now stood up from the group. "Do you have a problem, General Bailgrad?"

The general made a self-satisfied smirk as she peered over her glasses to look down at Luffa on the floor. "Not with you, Madam Federatrix, but I have a duty to object to the quality of your advisors. It's shameful enough that our entire defense is centered around 'psychic' visions, however accurate they may be."

"Dotz's prophecies are legitimate, General," Luffa growled. "I wouldn't have consulted with her if I didn't believe in her abilities."

"It's not a question of ability," Bailgrad replied. "It's a matter of allegiance, of competency. How can you trust someone who's not even a Federation citizen, who has no stake in this war? Why, just look at him."

"What?!" Luffa snapped.

"Really, Luffa, I'd like to think that women have made some genuine progress in this society. You're a role model, and it's very damaging to your cause when you humor such infantile notions that biology can be circumvented, simply by dressing up like my grandmother. How can we even take seriously a prophet who doesn't know whether he's a--"

As Bailgrad spoke, Luffa stretched out her hand, and quickly twisted her wrist, pointing her index and middle fingers toward the ceiling. As she did, the general suddenly exploded where she stood. Everyone around her cried out in terror, and yet, the force of the blast was directed upward, the energy so carefully controlled, that the people nearest to Bailgrad felt only a stiff breeze. As for the general herself, nothing remained but her shoes, and a plume of smoke that rose up from them.

"I'll only say this once," Luffa said. "Dotz has saved countless lives in this war. She has my complete confidence. If any of you dare to insult her like that again, I will slaughter you without hesitation. Now. Does anyone else have anything to say?"

No one did. And so Luffa adjourned the meeting, and gestured for Dotz to follow her back to her ship.

"Y-you didn't have to do that," Dotz finally said.

Before Luffa could reply, she noticed Prester Ganzut running after them from the corridor.

"Luffa, wait!"

"The meeting is adjourned, Prester," Luffa said coldly.

"Beggin' your pardon," he said, "but you know it ain't that simple. That wasn't some buck private you just destroyed. Bailgrad's got a lot of friends on Despye. Lot of pull in the rest of the Federation too, f'r that matter."

"Hah! Not anymore, she doesn't," Luffa said with a smirk.

"Consarn it, I'm serious, Luffa!" Ganzut said. He wore the pink overalls of a simple Despyan farmer, but he was as much a career politician as the rest of them. His snowy white hair and leathery skin only meant that he had been doing it longer than most. There was a time, not so long ago, when she found him and others like him to be somewhat amusing.

"So am I," Luffa said. "I protect all of you people by choice, and somehow you think I'm just going to sit quietly and lick your boots while you disrespect my comrades? Think again, Prester."

"I know what you're capable of, ma'am," he said. "And personally, I think Bailgrad deserved what she got. Not much of a general if she couldn't see the tactical flaws in pissin' you off."

"She wasn't a general at all," Luffa said. "Just another pencil pusher behind a desk, handed a title she was never qualified to hold. Just like all of those 'friends' on Despye you were warning me about, Prester. Now that I think about it, maybe someone needs to clean things up on this planet of yours."

He chuckled for a moment, and then his eyes went wide as he realized she wasn't joking. For a split second, his arm reached out, as if he meant to grab her by the shoulder. Perhaps this was how he was used to scolding other women of Luffa's size and stature, but he thought better of it, and kept his hands to himself.

"It don't work that way!" he said, almost pleadingly. "Can't you see that? I thought you woulda learned by now how complicated this stuff is. The government only works when it keeps enough of the people in line. Sometimes that means making compromises, darlin'. You scratch someone's back so they'll scratch yours later. You learn to eat slop and like the taste, because not all of us can break a mountain in two, or shoot lasers out of our hands. It's all a popularity contest, and--" he paused to glance at Dotz-- "beggin' your friend's pardon, there's a lot of rotten ideas out there that are a lot more popular than you are."

"Is there a point to all of this, Prester?" Luffa asked.

"Dagnabbit, I'm tryin' to tell you that if you keep throwin' your weight around, there won't be any Federation left to run! You probably don't look at the polls, but folks ain't as keen on you as they used to be. Some of 'em think you're a troublemaker, and there's plenty others who say you started this whole war, just so your Saiyan buddies could take over. Nobody can stop you, but if you push them too far, a bunch of 'em will die trying, and they'll ruin everything else while they're at it. So just... just back off a hair, is all I'm sayin'."

"Is that all? Fine. Here's what I say."

She grabbed Ganzut by the front of his pink overalls, and lifted him off his feet with one hand. Dotz gasped at the sight of this, but knew better than to interfere. To Ganzut's credit, he didn't panic, though it was clear from his expression that he would have much rather stayed on the ground.

"You probably think I don't keep up with current events much," Luffa said as she stared into his eyes. "I'm so busy fighting your wars, or looking for my own battles, so you figure you can do as you please while my back is turned. That's what got Bailgrad killed, Prester. She got so complacent, so used to thinking she was untouchable, that she forgot how to behave when I was right in front of her."

Ganzut tried to talk, but there really wasn't anything he could say at this point, so he ended up just making a series of nonverbal grunts. Luffa smiled.

"The fact is, I have been paying attention to what goes on in the Federation. The deal was that all of you kings and ministers and presidents would work together and keep things running smoothly while I protected you. And you've done a halfway decent job, but there's plenty of corruption and inequality in the system. Humanoids like Dotz don't get the respect they deserve. The outbreak of space cholera on Fedender is being completely mishandled. Some third-rate celebrity has been stirring up a campaign to harass Ichthyoids on Eetie, based on some laughable conspiracy! Oh, and one of your own department heads has been withholding technical services to farmers with malfunctioning equipment. Are you going to tell me to back off from that, Prester?"

"W-we're workin' on that!" Ganzut said.

Luffa dropped him to the floor. "Work harder," she said. "Because when I get back from Nagaoka, I may just decide to take matters into my own hands. And you might not like the way I solve problems. I won't be very popular by the time I get done, but that's never mattered much to me before."

She turned and left with Dotz. Ganzut gathered himself from the floor, coughing and struggling to catch his breath.

*******

"What did he say then?"

"Nothing. What could he say? He probably thought if he argued with me anymore, I'd kill him like I killed Bailgrad."

"Would you?" Zatte asked.

"Nah, he's not such a bad guy," Luffa said. "He's in a difficult position, or at least what he thinks is difficult. I killed Bailgrad because she was an embarrassment. She owed her life to Dotz's predictions. A little courtesy is a small price to pay."

After the conference, Luffa had returned to her ship, which she and Zatte prepared for the long trip to Nagaoka. Together, they took inventory of the supplies in the cargo bay.

"Is that what's next for us?" Zatte asked as she checked the expiration date on a crate of flour. "After we settle things on Nagaoka, I mean. I was starting to think you were planning to leave the Federation for good."

"Oh, I thought about it," Luffa said. "Trouble is, there's nothing else out there for me. I started this alliance to make things simpler for me while I hunted down Kandai. Ever since then it's been more trouble than it's worth, but there's no bigger battles out there for me to find. I might as well stay put and hope the competition comes to me."

"You don't think Nagaoka will be big enough for you?" Zatte asked.

"To tell you the truth, it doesn't matter much anymore. I... maybe this won't make any sense, but I'm sick of this war. When it started, it seemed like a proper challenge, but I've just been fighting variations of the same battle over and over again. The only real issue is keeping my injuries under control, and making sure we get to the next planet in time. It's more about time management than combat. The enemy knows they can't match my power, so they're just trying to wear me down, so what could they hope to do when they're on the defensive?"

"They might have a secret weapon or two," Zatte offered. "Something Guwar doesn't know about."

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but I think they would have used something like that by now," Luffa said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. When this is over, there probably won't be any new fights for a while, and I think I'm okay with that. I think I'd rather wait for something big to show up instead of trying to force it. I just have to keep busy in the meantime."

"So this social justice campaign is your new hobby?"

Luffa lifted a tank of potable water to read the lot number on the bottom. "I'm not looking forward to it, if that's what you mean. I just know there's a lot of people like Ganzut who feel like they're stuck, and to me it doesn't seem all that hard to get them unstuck. There must be something I can do, and I'm not afraid to bust some heads to make it happen."

"Well I think it's perfect," Zatte said. "It might take you a while to get the hang of it, but with your power, there's no limit to the good you might do for people. Not to mention all the other Saiyans."

"What about them?" Luffa asked.

"Well, with Rehval defeated, they'll have to recognize you for what you are, right?"

Luffa put down the tank and shook her head. "You're a dreamer, Zattie. You ought to know by now how stubborn my people are."

"Seltiss is starting to see it," Zatte said. "And Guwar too. They won't admit it, but I can tell. They wanted Rehval or someone like him to prove you wrong, but now that they see him for what he really is..."

"I can see it now," Luffa said. "'And that's the story, children, of how Old Luffa got all the Saiyans to start planting trees and lobby for fairer transportation laws.'"

"Hey, don't sell yourself short," Zatte said. "You can do anything you set your mind to. And don't worry about getting bored. Trouble usually finds you sooner or later."

"Hah! I hadn't thought of it that way," Luffa said. "Maybe it won't be so bad after all."

[6 August 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space]

Immediately after the battle on Zenj I, Luffa underwent another round of mycotherapy treatment. It was a radical application of synthetic fungal DNA, which Dr. Topsas had devised as a way to heal all of Luffa's injuries as quickly as possible. Luffa's very first session lasted three days, but he had managed to refine the process since then, and this time Luffa only had to stay immersed in the stasis fluid for two.

Zatte counted down the hours and minutes until she could see her wife again. In recent days, she had comforted Luffa while she rested after a battle. It had been a very spiritual experience for her, and even if Luffa didn't share in that aspect of it, the lovemaking was great too. This time there would be a delay, but Zatte didn't see why anything else needed to change. And yet, when Zatte went to find her on the third day, Luffa had already left the sickbay, and had gone to the ship's gymnasium.

The entire star-yacht belonged to Luffa, a "gift" from a wealthy deathmatch promoter who desperately wanted her to go away. But Luffa usually slept in the gym, rather than any of the ship's luxurious cabins. She would spend time in Zatte's quarters, especially after they were married, but the gym was where she went to be alone, and Luffa generally preferred to sleep alone.

As Zatte entered the gym, she ignored the toppled exercise machines and torn mats. The place had been a mess for years, as Luffa used this space to let off steam. Now, she was lying on the pile of mats and towels she used for her bed, staring pensively at the ceiling.

"There you are," Zatte said. "I thought you'd head straight for my room, but I guess you wanted me to find you..."

She knelt down on the deck beside Luffa, who slowly rose to a sitting position.

"Hey," Luffa said, kissing Zatte on the cheek.

"What's wrong?" Zatte asked. What she really wanted to ask was: "Is that all? We're apart for three days and all I get is a lousy kiss on the cheek?"

"Nothing, I'm just... I'm tired, and I needed to think."

"I thought you'd want to... discuss what I did on Planet Zenj," Zatte said.

Luffa took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah, you saved that kid," she said. "Hell of a job. I'm proud of you."

"It was nothing," Zatte said. "I... I meant what I said back there. I can't die without you. I'm sure of it. And when I'm around you, I feel like I can do anything."

Zatte was sure that Luffa would jump up and push her against the wall. Not too rough, but not too gently either. And Luffa would have some stern words for her about being more careful, and Zatte would fire back with some stern words about picking up the pace, and this would go on until they were too busy kissing to talk. Instead, Luffa just made a weary smile and squeezed Zatte's hand.

"Sorry, I'm just not in the mood, right now, Zattie," Luffa said.

"Oh. No problem. I figured you'd want to spar later on, but we can skip straight to that if you want."

"I can't spar with you for a while," Luffa said. "That mycotherapy junk worked pretty well, but Doc wants me to heal up from the last beating I took."

"Well, I won't tell him if you don't," Zatte offered with a smile.

"Sorry," Luffa said. "I'm playing it his way this time. It's been working out pretty well so far. I'm starting to think these medical types had the right idea all along."

"Okay, but you only use a tiny fraction of your strength when you spar with me," Zatte said. "What's the harm?"

"Probably none, but he told me to rest and that's what I'm doing. Dotz thinks the next attack will be a few days from now, and I need to be ready."

"Come on," Zatte said. She gestured toward her legs, which were clad in form-fitting black fabric adorned with neon purple highlights. "I wore your favorite training gear."

"Hey, if you want to train on your own for a while, that's fine by me," Luffa said. She rose to her feet and walked slowly to the door. "But I think I'm gonna soak in the hot tub for a while, so drop by if you need me."

She walked around Zatte to proceed on her way, but Zatte grabbed her by the arm to stop her. Luffa was somewhat surprised by how forcefully she pulled.

"I do need you," Zatte said. "For sparring."

"Zattie, I can't right now--"

"Don't give me that 'doctor's orders' bull. You'd do it if you wanted to."

Luffa raised an eyebrow. "What is this?" she asked. "I thought you only put up with the sparring sessions before. Now you're demanding it?"

"I'm part of this war too," Zatte said. "I'm here to support you, and I can't do that properly if I'm not at my best--"

"And the only way you can improve is by sparring with me personally?" Luffa asked. "That's crap, and you know it. There's other ways to train."

"Physically, but not spiritually," Zatte insisted.

"Spiritually?!" Luffa asked.

"The work you make me do," Zatte said. "Sensing your ki up close. It's a purifying experience that helps me--"

"You mean on top of the incense in the bedroom? And the litanies you recite before and after we... well... you know."

"When we have sex," Zatte finished for her. "Just say it. We have sex. Honestly, you can be such a child sometimes."

"Me? You're the one who keeps turning our whole marriage into a shrine! What's the matter? You don't trust Providence to make sure I'm doing their work right?"

"It's me I'm trying to improve!" Zatte said. "I have to consecrate myself as much as I can for the next time we go into action. I thought you understood that."

"I thought I did too, but lately you've been taking it to a whole other level. Frankly it's gotten pretty ridiculous. Are you going to follow me into the head and sing hymns every time I flush?"

"Very funny," Zatte said. "I'm just a joke to you now."

"What do you expect from someone as childish as I am?" Luffa snorted.

"Are you going to spar with me or not?" Zatte asked.

"No," Luffa said, "I'm not." And then she walked out the door.

Left alone in the gym, surrounded by broken machines, Zatte considered taking out some frustrations of her own.

*******

[7 August, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Guwar was finally happy. He had everything he ever wanted, and more. Once, he had been a below-average warrior, but thanks to the wonders of Jindan, he had become one of the strongest Saiyans alive.

He wasn't the strongest, by any means. The Legendary Super Saiyan still held that rank, though Luffa was an enemy to the cult, and its leaders preached that she was a heretic and an impostor. Guwar wasn't entirely sure how Luffa could be both of those things at one, or why exactly she was evil incarnate, but Luffa was a threat to everything he had achieved in the cult, and that was enough for him.

After Luffa, there was Trismegistus, the founder and leader of the cult, and the inventor of the Jindan technique. One of the advanced rituals for cult members was the Trial of Revelation, where Trismegistus would meet with initiates and reveal that he was actually the Rehval III, the Saiyan monarch who evacuated his throneworld and vanished without a trace. Perhaps for some of the cultists, this was a bitter pill to swallow, but Guwar had found the whole thing anticlimactic. He had always tried to steer clear of the Saiyan Kingdom in the past, but that was mostly because he didn't think they had anything to offer him. If he had known the king was an alchemist with the power to make Guwar stronger, he would have thrown in with Rehval a long time ago.

After Luffa and Rehval, there were other mighty Saiyans, all of them enhanced by Rehval's magic potions. Many of the Jindan Priesthood were immensely strong, though not all of them.

Then there were the Executants, a group of elite Jindan warriors charged with special missions for Trismegistus. Guwar had been promoted to this level. He wasn't the strongest of the Executants, but he wasn't the weakest either, and simply holding the position was enough to satisfy him. Before the cult, Guwar had been a nobody. Now, he was one of their heroes. He was their champion.

Having returned from a recent assignment, Guwar strode confidently through the underground halls of the Jindan Sanctuary, their sacred base of operations. His brothers and sisters in the alchemical faith nodded reverently to him as he passed. He took his meals in the Holy Refectory, along with the others who had earned the privilege, and he was permitted to eat meat and drink wine, a special dispensation for those who demonstrated exceptional loyalty.

Then there were the women. Trismegistus forbade monogamous pairings within the cult. Instead, he had devised communal breeding pits, and arranged for certain groups of participants to make use of them. Guwar didn't understand most of it. Rehval claimed that he had the means to determine which Saiyans would produce the most powerful offspring, but he never shared his methods with Guwar. All Guwar knew was that he had been sorted into Eugenic Group Red, and he was authorized to procreate with anyone else in Groups Red, Purple, and White. The other colors were off-limits to him, but this only meant that he couldn't sire children with them. As an Executant, Guwar had special permission to help himself to any lower-ranking cultists he found pleasing. It had bothered him at first. Saiyans were a notoriously prudish species, and even the mere mention of intimacy was enough to make them uneasy, but somehow Rehval had made it all seem quite normal. You had your assigned breeding duties, you went where you were sent, and you did what was asked of you, for the good of the cult. Guwar rather enjoyed it this way. It took a lot of the awkwardness out of sex.

There were, of course, some things denied to him. Guwar had never thought of himself as greedy, but somehow his thoughts always drifted to what he couldn't have. It was as though having more only inspired him to want more. As he entered the corridor leading to the Executants' quarters, he passed his own cabin and knocked on the door of another, the irony of his desires seemed especially poignant.

"You're back already?" asked the woman who answered the door.

"It was an easy assignment," Guwar said. "The man I was supposed to kill had lousy security. I'd have finished even sooner, but Trismegistus wanted me to keep a low profile."

"Mm-hmm," she said as she put her hands on his arms. "And now I suppose you've come to collect your reward for a job well done, is that it?"

"You're not my first choice," Guwar said, but you're a fine woman, Zhidarr. "And you seemed to enjoy it well enough the last few times..."

"Well, you're not my first choice either," she said, but you smell nicer than most of the ones I end up with, so that's something at least." She led him inside and began removing parts of her uniform. "Let's make it quick, though. I have my own missions, you know. I'm leaving for Dubois III in a few hours."

"Dubois?" Guwar sat on the side of her bed and started pulling off his boots. "What the hell's in the Dubois system?"

"Beats me," Zhidarr said. "I haven't been briefed yet. Hopefully it's full of Federation soldiers. I'm itching to get into the war."

"No one's come back from Federation territory since the fighting started," Guwar said. "I wouldn't be so eager to volunteer."

"And that's why you're sharing a cot with me instead of Endive," Zhidarr scolded him. "Come on, don't deny it. You'd be knocking on her door right now if you could. But she outranks you, which means you have no right to request her for procreation privileges."

"So what?" Guwar asked. "For her I should go to the front and get killed by Luffa?"

"You should go to the front and get promoted," Zhidarr said. "Think about it: the first one to fight in Federation space and return alive. You'd be hailed as a miracle. Let's face it, it's the only way you'll ever outshine Endive. She's so far above the rest of us it's ridiculous."

"Well, thanks for the advice," Guwar said, "but I can't have sex with her if I'm dead."

Zhidarr tossed her body armor to the floor and approached the bed. "Well, you won't be spending so much time with me once I get sent to the Federation," she said. "I've decided. As soon as I'm promoted ahead of you, I'm cutting you off. No offense, but I've got better things to do with my time than keep you warm."

"Too bad," Guwar said with a smirk. "Of course, if you die on the front, Trismegistus will have to promote someone else to replace you. Maybe she'll enjoy my company a little more."

"The others died because they were weak," Zhidarr insisted as she climbed onto the bed and mounted him. "Their bodies were too flawed to make full use of the Jindan power. That's why the master sends them to their deaths, you know."

"'The Federation is a crucible,'" Guwar said, repeating the sermon he had heard from the priests when the first reports from the war came in. "'Many are sent, but only the worthy will return.'"

"You say that as if you don't believe it," Zhidarr said.

"I believe Trismegistus knows what he's doing," Guwar said. "Our power comes from him, so it's his right to use us as he sees fit. If he wants to purge the rolls, so be it. I just don't understand it from a strategic sense. How do we win a war if all our soldiers die?"

"You talk like an outsider sometimes, Guwar," Zhidarr said. She kissed him and patted him on the cheek. "Trismegistus has a plan for us all. None can understand his ways, not even his loyal servants. If it made perfect sense to me, then I'd be scared. If I could figure it out, so could our enemies. All we can do is trust, and place our faith in his wisdom."

Guwar couldn't argue with this. Rehval's military plans were bewildering to him, but so far he had done right by Guwar. Others may have been killed, perhaps needlessly, but Guwar was still alive, still powerful, still successful and admired among his peers. As long as Guwar prospered, it didn't really matter to him how Trismegistus prosecuted the war.

Or did it?

*******

"Ah, Guwar, there you are."

Guwar had only visited Trismegistus' inner sanctum a few times. Most of his orders had come down through official channels, or Trismegistus had come to him. The first time he had visited this room was when the Thrice-Blessed chose to reveal his true identity to him. Guwar shrugged and wondered why it mattered. Of course King Rehval would want to hide from Luffa. It only made sense for him to create a new identity, a new secret base, and a process to carefully vet his followers. The only real surprise was that their shadowy leader was a Saiyan himself, since Saiyans weren't known to dabble in alchemy, but Guwar was a mathematician himself, and never so he never paid much heed to stereotypes.

"Reporting as ordered, Master," Guwar said as he lowered himself to one knee.

"I have something new for you," Rehval said. "And I thought I should brief you on this personally."

"A new mission?" Guwar asked. This is it, he thought to himself, he's sending me to the front.

"Relax, Guwar, I'm not sending you back into the field already," Rehval said with a chuckle. "You just returned from Thoall, after all. I take it you've already helped yourself to your rewards?"

"Um, yes sir," Guwar said, awkwardly thinking back to Zhidar's cabin.

"Good man," Rehval said. "Zhidar or Potei?"

"Uh, Zhidar, sir."

"I thought so. Always one or the other. You should really broaden your horizons, Guwar." Rehval rose from his dais and gestured for Guwar to stand. As he did, Rehval approached him and clapped his hand on Guwar's back. "There are some excellent women in the technician section that I think you'd enjoy."

It had been easier for Guwar to discuss this sort of thing when he hadn't known that Trismegistus was a fellow Saiyan. Abasing himself was one thing, and talking openly about sex was another, but what was truly disturbing how easily it came to King Rehval. Guwar had often heard talk of the king wanting to force the Saiyan culture to be more like the rest of the galaxy, and now he was finally beginning to see just how cosmopolitan he really was.

"I, uh, well... once I've found something that works, I like to stick with it, sir," Guwar said. "Less disappointment that way. Uh, you mentioned an assignment?"

"Right," Rehval said with a grin. "You pull this one off for me, Guwar, and you can have anyone you want, whenever you want. I know you've had your eye on Endive since before you joined us. She's always been out of your league, right? Well, not for much longer, I think. Here."

He picked up a portable data drive and handed it to Guwar. "I've ordered one of the ships to be prepared for your personal use," he explained. "Not that you'll be going anywhere for this job, but I think you'll need its computer core. And I've assigned some acolytes to assist you while you work."

"I don't understand," Guwar said. He held the drive in his hand and stared at it closely, as though expecting its plastic surface to offer some clue about its contents.

"Of course not," Rehval said. "The war doesn't make any sense, Guwar, not to anyone but myself. I send my followers into Federation space, and they all die, one by one. The only reason Luffa hasn't gone on the offensive is because she doesn't know where to find me, and she can't conduct a search without leaving her territory undefended." He walked idly across the room, pausing to wipe the dust off of a shelf full of old scrolls. It was strange to see him without the heavy crimson robes he normally wore. His simple red shirt and linen shorts seemed unworthy of his stature. Guwar supposed that this was a sign of how much Rehval trusted him.

"The answers," Rehval continued, "are contained in that drive you're holding. This isn't a war for territory, or something that can be measured in casualties or starships. This is a holy war, Guwar. You do understand that much, don't you?"

"Of course, Master," Guwar said.

"You used galactic ley lines to find this planet," Rehval said. "That's why I hid my world from the universe. Not out of cowardice, but to challenge my followers to find me. Only the resourceful could discover my truth. For instance, you used your mathematics background to devise an algorithm for interpreting geomantic signals. That's why I needed you for this work, Guwar. You're the only one I can count on to check my calculations."

"Calculations?"

"You'll find it all in that drive," Rehval said. "Our goal is not just to empower ourselves with Jindan, Guwar. We aren't just trying to win the war, either. You are all the essence of the divine reagent, which I will use to transmute the entire universe. That is why my body remains here, on Nagaoka, while my earthen avatars fight Luffa in my place. The true victory lies here. This is where the blessed reaction will begin. If Luffa were to destroy this planet, it would upset my plans. That's the other reason I've worked so hard to keep its location secret."

"This has something to do with the galactic ley lines," Guwar said. "I never understood what they were or how they worked, but I got the impression that they were like a network of pipes running through every star and planet, and there was some sort of power coursing through them."

"That's not too far off," Rehval said. "Except the lines don't exactly channel power in the conventional sense. More like... possibility. Things are possible on Nagaoka that can't be done anywhere else. The lines that converge here give this planet immense alchemical potential, and if we can direct more lines towards Nagaoka, there may be no limit to what we can accomplish."

Guwar liked the sound of that. If Rehval could become even more powerful than he already was, then there would be nothing that could stand in their way. Not even the Super Saiyan would be a threat. And as Rehval's power increased, how much more generously would he reward his servants...

"My work is based on an algorithm designed by the original Trismegistus," Rehval said. "I named myself after that ancient master to honor him, and to claim his legacy. He had found ways to manipulate ley lines, but he lacked the raw power to attempt anything on a large scale. That is why I need you to go over his work, and build a more robust mathematical model."

"I'll get started right away," Guwar said.

"I knew I could count on you, Guwar," Rehval said. "As much as I prize Endive's service, this task will be more important than anything she's ever done for me. Consider this your path to becoming the First Executant."

Guwar liked the sound of that even more. He could have Endive whenever he wanted. Not to mention a few other high-ranking Executants he wouldn't mind socializing with. They would all adore him for his great service to the cause. And all he would have to do is ply his trade for a few hours. A day at most. He had drawn up mathematical models in his spare time for fun. How hard could this be?

*******

[7 August, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

Zatte stewed in her frustrations for a full day, and when she was ready to face Luffa again, she found her in the star-yacht's hot tub. Dr. Topsas had restricted Luffa from so many activities, it was just about the only thing left for her to do. Luffa didn't look up at her, and she didn't know how to begin, so she just started talking.

"I wanted to apologize for yesterday," Zatte said.

Luffa glanced up at her. "I shouldn't have mocked your faith," she said. "It defines you as a warrior."

"No, you were right," Zatte said. "I have been going overboard lately. Receiving training from you is... well, it's important to me. It makes me feel like I'm actively doing something to prove my support."

"Sometimes, you have to do nothing," Luffa said. "I'm not soaking in this thing because it's fun, you know. I wanted worthy opponents to fight, and now I've got more than I can handle. I have to play this carefully or I'll let them win."

"You're right," Zatte said.

"Doc doesn't even want me cooking for a few days," Luffa said. "I hate that."

"We've got enough leftovers to last a while," Zatte said. "And there's always the backup rations."

"You guys deserve better than rations," Luffa said. "But I have to play this smart. I learned that from you."

You learned it from Keda, Zatte thought to herself. The Dorlun child was much more sensible than either of them, but the pain of her death was still sorely felt, and so the two of them had a tendency to avoid speaking of her.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Zatte asked. "Anything at all?"

Luffa shrugged. "I don't think so," she said. "You're welcome to stick around, but I think what you really want is a place to channel all that pent up energy. I don't think I can help you there. Not for a while, anyway."

"Sounds like we both have the same problem," Zatte said. "We might as well be miserable together."

She sat down at the edge of the tub and took off her boots, then dipped her ankles into the bubbling water. "Is this what it's like to be you?" Zatte asked after a few minutes. "I mean, being so riled up and not being able to cut loose?"

"I was going to ask you the same question," Luffa said. "For the first time in years, I'm having to conserve my strength and wait for the right moment. And there's no clear path to victory. Best I can hope for is to go from one battle to the next."

"Huh. I guess we've got a lot more in common than I thought," Zatte said.

*******

[15 August, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Blusser didn't know what Guwar's assignment was, but she was deeply honored to assist him while he carried it out. All she really knew was that he had boarded a scientific research vessel which the Jindan Cult had captured several months ago. At first, she assumed they would be flying the craft to some distant star system, but instead the ship went nowhere, and Blusser and her fellow acolytes were tasked with standing guard on the tarmac to make sure he wasn't disturbed. On occasion, they went inside to serve him meals. She had done this herself yesterday afternoon, and she was impressed with his charming disposition. Executants like Guwar represented the finest warriors the cult had to offer, and everyone spoke so highly of Guwar. On top of that, he was a scholar too. Blusser never had much interest in math, but somehow he was able to explain complex ideas in a way that made them easy to follow, even if she didn't remember most of it. He was a fascinating man.

Her relief arrived at the shipyard, carrying a crate containing his dinner. Blusser took the crate and went inside the ship to deliver the meal before leaving. She had to perform some rituals with the priests, and then she would turn in and report to the shipyard the next morning to do it all over again. But the priests weren't expecting her for another hour, so she hoped to spend some more time enjoying Guwar's company.

The ship was designed for a crew of three, but it had a rather spacious common area. There, Blusser found a large triangular table with papers scattered across the surface. Three computer terminals were located at each corner of the table, although one of them had been torn off of its mounting and was now embedded in the wall. Guwar was nowhere to be found. Blusser guessed that he was in the head, or perhaps taking a nap in one of the cabins on the deck above. She laid the crate down on the deck and started arranging the dishes on the table for him. When she finished, and he still didn't show himself, she began to worry, and so she searching the rest of the ship.

At last, she found him in the engine room, seated at its single workstation, his face buried in his folded arms. There were papers here as well, some of them crumpled up into little balls.

"Uh, Executant Guwar?" she said, unsure how to proceed. "I'm sorry for disturbing you, but I wanted to let you know that your dinner is ready."

He looked up at her, his expression weary and frustrated. He seemed to be a completely different man than the one she had spoke with yesterday.

"What?" he asked. Then: "Oh, yes. Fine. Whatever."

"Is everything all right, sir?" Blusser asked.

"Everything's fine," he said, not even trying to hide his insincerity. "You can go now."

She put her hands together and looked away from him awkwardly. "Well, I was just thinking, if you had the time, I'd like to hear more about that theorem you were telling me about yesterday. I--"

"I said you can go now," Guwar snarled. "Can't you see that I'm busy?!"

He grabbed a tool from the desk and threw it at her. Blusser dodged it easily enough, but decided to leave before he could try again.

As she hurried out of the ship, she passed by her relief, standing guard outside.

"Better give him plenty of space," she warned her. "That job he's working on must be a lot tougher than we thought!"

[14 November 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Zatte was a Dorlun, born with a unique ability to manipulate energy. She mostly used this for bending light and other radiation around her body, to make herself invisible, or for deflecting ki to protect herself or to hide her own power level from those who could sense it. She had accompanied her wife, Luffa, the Legendary Super Saiyan, on what she considered to be a holy mission to Nagaoka. Luffa had sworn to destroy the planet, and the wicked Saiyan cultists who lurked beneath the thick grey clouds of the Nagaokan atmosphere.

Mostly, Zatte's job was to keep the ship running and coordinate with Luffa's attack fleet. And she was more than happy to do this. This was Luffa's epic story, and Zatte was simply honored to be a part of it. The Dorlun culture prioritized survival, and the Dorlun religion commanded its people to stay alive so that they might eventually find a worthy cause to support. Zatte believed that Luffa was her cause, a pivotal figure destined to change the course of history, what the Dorluns called xan-nil'Dor. Zatte's life had become a swirling mass of contradictions since she realized Luffa's importance. It was hard to balance out all her roles-- loving spouse, devoted disciple, martial arts student, sensible advisor, down-to-earth sidekick-- but now those roles seemed to have finally converged into one. As Zatte stood on the bridge of Luffa's yacht and watched Nagaoka, she felt a serenity in her heart that told her that everything had worked out for the best. Luffa would triumph, and the universe would prosper. All Zatte had to do was follow her beloved the rest of the way.

And then the bombardment failed. Every ship in the fleet fired conventional weapons on the planet, and nothing happened. It was like some enormous force field surrounded the entire planet, but Zatte couldn't locate a power source on the surface big enough to support such a technology. She had never heard of a force field big enough to shield an entire planet, but she knew such a device had to run on something.

Undaunted, Luffa went to the cargo bay to fire on the planet herself. As the Super Saiyan, Luffa's power was greater than any other Saiyan in the universe, greater than the firepower of the entire fleet. For a moment, Zatte felt reassured. Nagaoka would be destroyed in an instant, and its secrets would die with it. From the bridge, Zatte could sense her bride's immense ki energy building. On the viewscreen, she could see the lance of golden energy streaking out to the planet.

And then the energy faded away, only for the planet to split it up and shoot it all back from a hundred different directions. Even if there was a force field big enough and strong enough to do this, there was too much cohesion in the reflected energy. It should have just diffused evenly, leaving little more than a harmless wave of radiation. To split a beam into dozens of smaller beams was something more like Zatte's own innate ability, but how could anything achieve this on a planetary scale? It was impossible, unless...

Her mind raced with horrified speculations, but soon the answer appeared before her as she watched the clouds on Nagaoka shift and swirl until they formed the image of a man's face. She instantly recognized it as the likeness of King Rehval III, the Saiyan monarch who abandoned his kingdom to start his bizarre alchemical cult on Nagaoka.

And then, as the lips of the cloud-image began to move, Zatte could hear his voice in her mind. "Hello, Luffa. I'm so glad that you've finally arrived. Now, at last, we can put all of this to an end."

Saiyans all had a low-level telepathic ability. Over a limited range, they could send their thoughts to other beings, like a sort of mental walkie-talkie, although they lacked more advanced mind-reading powers. Luffa could read minds, but only by making physical contact. In this case, it seemed like Rehval was projecting his thoughts across a much larger range, not just addressing Luffa, but anyone nearby. Zatte began to wonder if the entire fleet could hear this.

"I'm sure you remember Pozet," Rehval began, and Zatte's heart sank. She remembered Pozet well. Zatte had killed that horrible creature aboard this very ship. It had tried to prevent her from rescuing Luffa on planet Pflaume. It should have marked the end of that nightmare, it looked like Rehval wasn't finished with it yet.

"Homuncular synthesis is one of the greatest tests of an alchemist's skills. Many of the greatest alchemists die without ever achieving it. I actually pulled it off on my first try, but I didn't feel like I had truly mastered the technique until I created Pozet using folicle samples from your wife. She's an amazing woman, really. My compliments."

Zatte forced herself to look away from the viewscreen and get back to the computers on the bridge. The energy bursts from the planet hadn't been aimed at anything in particular, but a number of ships had been hit anyway. She needed to contact the fleet commanders and get them to back off from Nagaoka before something else happened.

"I created Pozet to act as that serial killer," Rehval explained, "which I used to lure you to my trap on Pflaume City, but she was also a peace offering if you changed your mind and decided to see things my way instead. I thought we could join forces, Luffa. I thought there would be no limit to the things we could achieve together, but you rejected my gift and you spurned my friendship, and now you've come here to destroy me. Fortunately, Pozet served a purpose for that scenario too."

"No," Zatte murmured to herself. "No, no, no..."

"I made three of her, Luffa," he said. "One to present to you, the second to act as my 'serial killer'. You and your lovely bride made short work of them, but the third Pozet I used for my research. I was fascinated with the energy manipulation powers, you see. Imagine what a Saiyan could do with that sort of ability! Imagine what I could do with it, the greatest Saiyan of all!"

Zatte looked up at the viewscreen and clutched at the fabric of her shirt over her heart. She didn't know exactly what all of this meant, not yet. She didn't know how Rehval had become so powerful, or what he planned to do with that power, but she knew that it would be something terrible.

And worst of all, he had used her to make it all possible.

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Despye.]

Prester Ganzut paced in a tight circle around his office in the capital city of Despye. There had been no word from the Federation fleet they had sent to Nagaoka. He didn't expect to hear anything, since they were avoiding communications to prevent anyone from learning of their counterattack. He would only receive word when the battle was over, and by his reckoning, the fleet would have just arrived in the Nagaoka system. A cold pitcher of iced tea was waiting for him at his desk, slowly soaking the wood with condensation. Every time the pitcher caught his eye as he walked around the room, he told himself that he would drink it later, but he never got around to it.

Nothing would be the same when this was over. Even if Luffa won the battle, she had all but promised to bring sweeping changes to the Federation when she returned. He had no idea how drastic those "changes" would be, and she probably had no idea herself, which was what made her so dangerous. Even if it all went perfectly, he doubted that her plans would bode well for his career.

As he mulled over his political prospects, the ground began to shake under his feet. He wasn't sure what to do about an earthquake, as this part of the planet had never had one before. Just as he decided to take cover under his desk, two of his security detail rushed into the office and escorted him to an emergency transport. This was standard procedure during an attack on the city, but he couldn't hear any air-raid sirens or any other sounds he had come to associate with a battle.

The way to the transport was underground, connected to his building by a tunnel, but before they could reach it, they found the entire entrance smashed into rubble. A large column of earth was rising out of the ground, and the tunnel entrance simply had the misfortune of being located in its path. So too, was the ceiling above them, and the upper floors of the building.

His security team managed to get him outdoors, and they even evacuated most of the other people inside, but as Prester Ganzut watched the Despye Executive Hall being impaled by a giant column of rock and dirt, he was certain that there had to have been causalities. Angrily, he demanded an explanation for what was happening, even though he doubted that anyone else had one to offer.

Then the great tower of earth began to shape itself, like clay in the hands of an invisible sculptor, and Ganzut suddenly knew.

"The cultists!" he gasped as the column finally took the form of a man. He had heard of this taking place on other planets, but Luffa had always been there to stop them before they could do any real harm. But Luffa was at Nagaoka, supposedly fighting the cultists, wasn't she? If so, then she wasn't fighting them hard enough for Prester Ganzut's liking.

"Prester Ganzut, I presume!" the earthen giant said aloud. It looked right at him, and Ganzut's blood ran cold. "Good day to you, sir. I'm King Rehval III, also known as Trismegistus. Well, this is an avatar of me, anyway. My followers planted it here so that I could talk to you when the time was right."

"This can't be!" Ganzut said. "You... can't be here! Luffa's fortuneteller, she told us there wasn't gonna be any more attacks from you Jindan Saiyans!"

"Fortuneteller?" Rehval asked. By now, the avatar was so detailed that Ganzut could see the look of surprise in its "eyes". "Well, now, that does explain a few things. I expected her to defeat my warriors, but I could never understand how she always seemed to know exactly when and where to find them. Such a resourceful woman. Well, Luffa's fortuneteller was right, Prester. There will be no more attacks on your territory. Right now, my avatars are rising up on planets all over the Federation, but they aren't going to fight. They'll just be standing by, awaiting your unconditional surrender!"

"Surrender?" Ganzut asked. "Are you sayin' you already defeated her at Nagaoka?!"

"Prester, you don't understand!" Rehval said with a laugh. "I don't need to defeat Luffa, anymore than I have to attack you. As of today, I've become invincible, and Luffa? Well, she's simply no longer relevant!"

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Chai I.]

A similar scene was playing out on the grounds of the Imperial Palace on Chai I, seat of the Camelian Empire.

"The war with the Federation was never about conquest or revenge, your Majesty," the rock-Rehval explained to Zinenz 15, the Emperor of Camelia, who had been playing cricket on horseback when the avatar rose up from the field.

"It was a diversion," Rehval continued. "Luffa had to stay put inside her own territory to defend it from my warriors, while the rest of you watched from the sidelines, believing that I was only interested in the Federation. All the while, my agents were traveling to your planets in secret, and pouring a special potion into the soil of your planets."

"All of them?" Zinenz 15 asked with some skepticism in his voice. His mount was very nervous in the shadow of the earthen giant, but the emperor did his best to stand his ground.

"Enough of them," Rehval replied. "The figure that stands before you know is more than powerful enough to destroy Chai I with ease. I can't destroy every planet in your empire so quickly, but I can threaten enough of the important ones to throw Eternal Camelia into turmoil."

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Festid III.]

"Unless we submit to you, is that what you're saying?" asked General Zinfandel asked.

"Precisely," said the rock-Rehval that had manifested on Festid's capital city. "You cannot defeat this giant creature that stands before you, General. The potion that animates it was already absorbed into the very matter that makes up your planet. You might destroy this physical form you see, but another will rise out of the ground to replace it, again and again, for as long as I see fit. Luffa has the power to break the spell, but your armies simply don't have what it takes. You'd only destroy yourselves in the attempt."

"Or we could simply take the fight to you, Your Majesty," Zinfandel suggested. "Killing you on this planet, you mentioned, Nagaoka, would surely disrupt your control over this thing you have created."

"Indeed it would, General, which is why I've taken measures to protect myself," Rehval explained. "Even now, my stronghold is under attack by a Federation fleet, led by Luffa herself. The entire planet is impervious to her strongest techniques. Even if she could find a way to reach the surface, she would have to fight through tens of thousands of my followers. Each of them has been empowered by my Jindan potion. Luffa struggled to defeat twenty of my warriors at a time. How can she hope to beat them all at once?"

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Goldwall.]

"This planet has seen enough tyrants, Rehval. I won't allow it to be dominated by another, no matter how powerful."

These were the defiant words of M'ranga, formerly known as Ensign Liberty, now the Kami of Planet Goldwall. Being a goddess was still new to her, and her performance of the role was highly unorthodox. When the giant Saiyan-thing emerged from the dirt, she descended from her Heavenly Lookout and met him directly, rather than watch passively from a distance. The gods of the higher realms might not have approved of this hands-on approach, but Ensign Liberty was a revolutionary, and to her the divine hierarchy was just another power structure to be questioned whenever possible. Likewise, she saw King Rehval as simply another bully.

"I respect your position, Your Grace," the rock-Rehval said. It knelt before her in a mocking show of respect, and kept angling its ear closer to M'ranga as if straining to hear such a tiny creature. "For the time being, I'll allow you to indulge in whatever comfortable slogans you like. Devastating your planet right now wouldn't accomplish anything. I don't want to make an example of Goldwall, but if it comes to that, I'd prefer to have witnesses to see it happening."

"Then wh--?" M'ranga began to ask, but then the earthen giant rose to his full height and looked away from her.

"I only produced these giant avatars because I wanted to inform you all of what was happening," Rehval said. "The Age of Trismegistus has begun, but it hasn't really reached you just yet. For now, this is mostly just to prove a point to Luffa, but once I've finished discussing it with her, I visit all of your worlds again, and I'll explain exactly what it is I expect from each of you."

M'ranga continued speaking after that, delivering a fiery speech about freedom and the irrepressible spirit of sentient beings, but if the rock-Rehval could hear her, it gave no response whatsoever.

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

"It's amazing, truly amazing," Rehval said as he bathed in the glowing red liquid that filled his sunken bathtub. It was a public section of his compound, and his followers were encouraged to enter and watch him soak. Some fell prostrate at the edge of the bath and worshiped him, while a parade of attendants added scented oils and other chemicals to the liquid as he soaked in it. Behind him, Treekul lounged on a mat and massaged his neck and shoulders.

"Tell me about it, boss," Treekul said. The hair on her head was over two inches long.

"I'm everywhere at once now," he said. "Not literally, but but I might as well be everywhere. I'm talking to a thousand people at once right now. I can see them, Treekul. They all look so outraged, so envious of what I've become."

"I'm sure Luffa looks pretty ticked off right about now," Treekul said with a smile.

"Oh, I can't see her," Rehval said. "But I can see her ship, and all the other ships she brought along. They're just hanging there in space like little toys. And beyond them, the stars, my kingdom. My laboratory. The very clouds have become my eyes, Treekul. I can see it all as easily as I see you."

He looked back at her, and raised one of his hands to caress her cheek. She pulled back at the sight of the crimson fluid still dripping from his fingertips.

"Oh, it's harmless, I promise," he said. "I've been drinking different potions and rubbing ointments into my skin for weeks to prepare myself for this. Without all those treatments, all of this would be useless, like stewing in melted candlewax."

"That's what you said about this lotion, too," Treekul replied. She held up her hand to show the oily film she had been rubbing into his shoulders. "And you talked me into that, but let's just say I'd like to know more before I jump in there with you. How did you pull all of this off?"

"It's like I told you from the beginning, my Apprentice," Rehval said. "The energy of living things is what gives rise to ki. Saiyans have more of it than most, but it never seems to be enough, and there's more than one way to get it. There's untapped power within the very planets themselves. My namesake, the original Trismegistus, found ways to study that geomantic energy, but he lacked the vision to do anything with it. I named myself Trismegistus to honor the fulfillment of his discoveries."

"I thought you took that name to claim supremacy over all other alchemists," Treekul asked. "You know, 'Look at me, I'm the best.'"

"Well, that too," Rehval said with a satisfied smirk. "I can have more than one reason."

"Yeah, I guess you can have anything you want now," she said as she went back to rubbing his shoulders. One of the attendants handed him a crystal sifter of wine, and he sampled the bouquet with relish.

"I had more than one reason for keeping you here, too," he added. "Of course, I couldn't let you just tell outsiders about this place. Not until I had its defenses prepared, anyway. It took some doing to incorporate Pozet's abilities into my link with the planet's geology. But besides that, I needed someone I could talk to. Someone removed from the Saiyans, who could appreciate everything I put into this plan."

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Well, it's not like there's anywhere else for me to escape to, is there?" she asked. "You've practically conquered the whole universe, so I might as well stay here where all the magic happens."

"Exactly," he said. "Admit it, you didn't think any Saiyan was capable of this sort of genius. We're all nothing but brutish warriors to you."

"I gotta admit, I have been rethinking a lot of old attitudes since I got here," Treekul said.

"The whole universe has looked down their nose at the Saiyan species," Rehval said. "And rightfully so, because many of us believe in the same stereotypes. I tried to reverse that perception, to play the dignified statesman, an ambassador of goodwill from the Saiyans to the rest of the galaxy, but I knew they didn't really believe me. They thought I was a curiosity, or an aberration. Sooner or later, they expected me to revert to type. What those haughty princes and emperors didn't understand was that I was counting on them to underestimate us."

He raised his glass to toast the worshipers at the opposite end of the bath, then drank. "That was how my flock was able to seed so many worlds in such a short span of time. No one thinks of a Saiyan using stealth. They expect us to crash onto a planet's surface and run wild, pillaging everything in sight. No one imagines a Saiyan infiltrating a group of tourists, or a work crew. No one is on guard against a Saiyan stepping out of sight and pouring a vial of liquid into the soil near a government building. And even if that Saiyan were spotted, no one would understand what he was doing. They wouldn't even know he was a Saiyan, not without a tail to give him away."

Treekul gestured at everyone else in the room. "That's why you had everyone lop off their tails?" she asked. "So they'd be sneakier?"

"More than that," Rehval said. "I did it to prove that we no longer need the tails, that we're so much more without them. Look at Nagaoka. Surrounded by clouds, its moonlight is useless here. Even if you had a tail, on another planet it wouldn't be good for more than a day or two. But I've channeled the geomantic currents of this solar system. The planet's relationship to the moon serves me at all times, without a tail. That's progress, Treekul. Why would anyone want to escape from that?"

*******

"Aren't you forgetting something, dad?" Seltiss asked from the bridge of the SFC's command ship. It was unnerving to stare into the eyes of his image on Nagaoka's surface, but she fixed her gaze anyway, determined to show her resolve.

"Ah, Seltiss," Rehval said telepathically. "I hear you've kept busy while I've been away. I'll admit, I was somewhat surprised when I found out you had joined forces with Luffa."

"You were surprised? I thought you were dead," Seltiss shouted. "Or that you had gone totally freakazoid after you evacuated Planet Saiya! Then this cult shows up and I thought some lame-o wizard was trying to enslave us all! Turns out it was you all along."

"Then you should be relieved," Rehval said. "The Saiyans are in no danger from me. The Jindan power is a way for them to become stronger, and a way to make myself stronger in return. That's how I've made all of this possible. By merging my spirit with the planet, and drawing power from my followers, I--"

"You've empowered yourself," said Xibuyas, who stood beside Seltiss on the bridge. "But only yourself, from what I can see. You say you have rock-avatars on a thousand key planets, ready to destroy them if anyone defies you. The only way to stop them is to destroy Nagaoka, which you've made indestructible. That's not like you, Your Majesty. You always taught Princess Seltiss and me that wielding power was a much more subtle art."

"Yeah," Seltiss added. "It's a scalpel, not a club. That's what you always told us. Its like a strategic game. You make one move at a time, building your position until you can win."

On the viewscreen of Seltiss' ship, the clouds on Nagaoka chuckled in time with Rehval's telepathic laugh. "Don't you understand, children? It was a game, but it's over now! I've won! I wielded the scalpel, since long before you were born, and now the surgery is finished! The game is over, and this is the end of history. Whatever happens from now on will be decided by my power, and mine alone. This was always the point, Seltiss. It was always about securing the future of the Saiyans at the top of the universal food chain. Everything before today was a means to an end."

"But you've forgotten something, dad!" Seltiss insisted. "Whatever this creepy future is you've envisioned for the Saiyans, it can't outlive you! Who's going to maintain all of this when you're gone? You need heirs for that, and right now you haven't got any!"

She was trembling now, and Xibuyas nearly reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, until he thought better of it. He knew this was something she had wanted to say to her father for a long time, and now that the moment was finally here, she was building confidence in her words. Seltiss pointed her thumb at herself, then poked her own chest with it, deforming the logo of whatever musical act was featured on her 7000-credit t-shirt.

"I know about your eugenics plans, dad," Seltiss said. "You told me about it often enough. The genetic profiling, the incubation chambers, that was only just the beginning. You wanted to breed a stronger generation of Saiyans, and you wanted your descendants to be the strongest of each new generation, right? That's why you needed Xibuyas! He was your special project to make an ultimate Saiyan, but you needed me to bear his offspring, so they would share your bloodline!

"Well guess what? Xibuyas and I aren't playing along anymore. You may need us, but we sure don't need you, not anymore! So even if you are invincible, your new era won't even last another century... unless!"

Her lips curled into a triumphant smile, like a high-stakes gambler on the brink of winning the pot. Xibuyas couldn't help but smile himself. He didn't understand her fashion sense, or why she insisted on dyeing her black hair pink, or how she could possibly think Luffa was "cool." Xibuyas only knew that he admired this girl more than he could possibly express.

"We can work something out, father," Seltiss said. "You'll have to agree to share power, and grant certain concessions to my Saiyan followers. They have their pride, you know. They're not about to start bowing down to you like some sort of graven image, not when they came to me to get away from your bogus brand of order."

The cloud-image of Rehval seemed genuinely impressed by her bold demands. "Concessions," he said, as though trying the word on for size. "Interesting, Seltiss. Suppose I agree to your terms. What do I get from you in return?"

Seltiss relaxed slightly. "When we're older, Xibuyas and I will produce those heirs you want," she said. "And the two of us can take over your rule when you... well you know... die. And I can talk the Free Companions into a working relationship with you. They can act as enforcers, since you and yours are probably, like, stuck on that planet for the long term right?"

Xibuyas chuckled quietly. Luffa and her Federation fleet would be furious over this, but what could they possibly do about it? She had them over a barrel. As powerful as Rehval had become, she was the one person in the universe who had something he wanted. He watched Rehval's face on the atmosphere of Nagaoka, curious to see how he would react.

The face in the clouds simply laughed.

"Seltiss, Seltiss, Seltiss," he said as the cloud-image shook its "head". "I'm impressed with how far you've come. I really am. Organizing this Free Company of yours, building a coalition against me, well I knew you would try it, but I honestly wasn't sure how well you would succeed. You really are my twenty-seventh greatest creation."

"You... you knew I would turn against you?" Seltiss asked.

"I raised you, my dear. Sent you to all those private schools to teach you political theory. I chose those programs because I knew they would fill your head with ideas about taking bold steps to secure power, and how important it is for leaders to take initiative. I wanted you to grow up looking for ways to seize power from me wherever you could. At first, it was just so you would be a worthy successor if something ever happened to me. But when I abandoned Saiya, I knew you might start gathering all of my enemies together. Every Saiyan who would oppose my rule, all united under one banner. And how thoughtful of you to deliver them to my doorstep!"

"You wanted me to do this?" Seltiss gasped.

"Either this, or maybe you'd get them all killed in a war you couldn't win. Or they'd abandon you in disgust and recognize my power as the only one that works. But this! Oh, you've made me very proud. Your sisters were never capable of this kind of leadership, Seltiss. That's why I chose you to be the one who bore Xibuyas' children. It had to be you."

"Well it won't be!" Seltiss shouted. "I'm not your puppet, dad! I don't care how powerful you are, I'm not going to play along with your sick plans!"

She began to stamp her feet on the deck, not quite hard enough to smash the deckplate apart, but enough for everyone on the bridge to feel the rumble.

"We won't do it!" Seltiss insisted. "You can send your goons to chase us all over the galaxy, but you'll never get your heir! And Xibuyas can beat those rock monsters of yours. Luffa's already shown us how! So unless you plan to die of old age on that planet of yours, you'd better--"

Rehval started to laugh again.

"Seltiss, do you really think you were ever that important to my plans?" Rehval asked. "Would I really let a spoiled teenager out of my sight if I actually depended on her cooperation?"

"You knew you couldn't stop me, so you didn't try!" Seltiss protested. "That's why you didn't send your men to stop me from rescuing Xibuyas from Pflaume--"

"I let you have Xibuyas," Rehval said, "because I had no further use for him. He failed to defeat Luffa, and I knew he wouldn't bother me too much while he was with you, so I abandoned him. Just like I abandoned you when I had no further need of you."

The cloud image shifted, forming a planet-sized monochrome photograph of a cryonics laboratory. A scientist could be seen handling frozen embryos.

"I wanted grandchildren through you and Xibuyas," Rehval expained, but I never needed your cooperation to get them. I took genetic samples from both of you when you were small children, and sent them to a facility that specializes in genetic engineering projects. It's on Planet Bliff in the Nullon Sector. I'm telling you this because one of my avatars is already on the planet, ready to protect it in case one of you tries to interfere with my business there."

Seltiss was horrified. "You... you what?"

The image in the clouds shifted into a wider view of Rehval, soaking in his alchemical bath, surrounded by his faithful. "I saw great potential in both of you, but I had to see what you could do in practice, and I didn't want to risk losing your genomes if you got yourselves killed. You see, Seltiss, I want a line of descendants, but not as heirs. No, I needed you to produce a line of enforcers. Saiyans of royal blood who would go out and handle provincial matters in my new kingdom. You would be the matriarch of that line, and I think you'd be very good at that work. But your sons and daughters will fill the role just as well. I wanted you to cooperate, I really did, but I only needed one thing from you, and..." he paused to chuckle, "I already have it."

In the cloud-image, Rehval clapped his hands together with great enthusiasm. "As for my death, I wouldn't mark your calendars anytime soon. I'm not just bonded with the energy of this planet. I am the planet now. Its vast geomantic energies are mine to control, like the ki of my Saiyan body. The process has merged us in a way that I can't quite put into words, but I think I'll have plenty of time to figure that out. We Saiyans think of planets as things that are fairly easy to destroy, but Nagaoka is now a planet that can defend itself. Or rather, myself. And we think of Saiyans as creatures with a finite lifespan, but I've become so much more than that now. How long does the moon live in the sky? Well now I am the moon. I am the sky. I am the planet. So now that we've got that straightened out, let's talk about the concessions you can make for me, my daughter."

Xibuyas saw Seltiss trembling again, but this time it wasn't out of anxiety or excitement. Now, it was despair. He couldn't help but share it. He wanted to call Rehval's bluff, to say that it was impossible for him to do the things he was claiming. And yet, he knew he owed his life to Rehval's alchemical skills, and he had fought the rock-Rehval creatures before. As for Nagaoka, he could sense the strange power of this planet, and he had already seen how ineffective their weapons were against it.

"Every Saiyan who partakes in the Jindan potion has given me a portion of their energy," Rehval began. "Every Saiyan who does not, will be considered an enemy of the state. You, Seltiss, my daughter, will bring your followers to the surface of Nagaoka, and they will join me. Any who refuse, well, that's fine. I can destroy you here and now, or my followers can hunt you down later. I know there are other Saiyans out there who haven't taken sides yet. I'd like your help in finding them, Seltiss. But I don't need your help, and honestly, I don't mind taking my time. Those other Saiyans are no threat to me."

*******

Aboard Luffa's star-yacht, Luffa and Guwar watched Rehval from the open door in the cargo bay. The force field that maintained the bay's atmosphere offered a perfect view overlooking Nagaoka, and Rehval's telepathy relayed everything he had said to Seltiss.

"I'll go ahead and offer an invitation to Luffa as well," Rehval said. "No harm in that, since I know she won't accept it, but I would suggest that you consider the alternative, Luffa. You can't defeat me here. Even if you reached the surface, you'd never stand a chance against my armies. You can defeat my avatars, true, but you'd have to get to them first, and it'll take you weeks to get back to your precious Federation. If I were you, I wouldn't bother. I'll command my avatars to destroy any planet at the first sign of your approach. The Federation will surrender to me, immediately, I think. And you... well, I guess you can roam the stars, Luffa. No inhabited planet in the universe will dare accept you, not if it means incurring my divine wrath. I suppose you can find some remote world to settle on, or just fly your star-yacht as far as you can go until it runs out of fuel.

"I'm willing to let Guwar return the fold as well. Yes, I can sense you aboard Luffa's ship, Guwar. You were part of my plan, after all. I knew my scheme would make no sense without an understanding of what I intended to do with this planet. That was why I took you into my 'confidence', Guwar. I knew your faith in me would falter, and that you would go running to the only person you thought was strong enough to stop me. Hopefully, you see just how wrong you were to doubt."

It horrified Guwar to hear Rehval speak to him directly. He hadn't wanted to come along on this mission at all, and he had hoped the cult wouldn't learn of his presence on Luffa's ship. But now, Rehval had seen him, and.... forgiven him?

"I hope you appreciate my revenge, Luffa," Rehval went on. "I sacrificed so many of my favorite things when I tried to kill you on Pflaume City. And then I had to give up my kingdom on Planet Saiya. Well now I've taken away the thing that matters most to you, Mrs. 'Super Saiyan'. I've taken away your relevance. I've become more powerful than you now, and that makes your power meaningless. Now you can slither under a rock, the way I only seemed to do when I left Saiya. The difference is that I came here to achieve an even greater glory! While all you can do is decide how you want to die. Have fun making up your mind, woman."

Here, the telepathic words of Rehval Trismegistus came to an end. Luffa didn't move as she watched the clouds resume their natural patterns. She didn't move when Guwar approached her.

"I guess that's it then," he said with a sigh. "He played us all. Nothing left to do but head down there and accept d--"

Luffa powered down, her gleaming yellow hair resuming its natural black color. She turned and shot Guwar a murderous glare. "I'm going to kill them," she said. "Every last one of them."

"What?" Guwar asked. "Whoa, wait, you heard what he said! You saw what happened when you fired on the planet. There's nothing anyone can do! Let's just be glad that he's being graceful enough to let us join him. I mean, I've been there before, you know. The cult's not so bad, once you get used to it--"

There was a loud "crack" as Luffa swatted her hand across Guwar's head. Guwar himself didn't hear it, as the force of the blow killed him a split second before the sound arrived at his ears. The last thing to go through his mind was the right side of his skull. For a brief, horrific moment, his dead body remained standing, and then it finally collapsed, as though remembering what it was supposed to do.

Luffa turned and walked out of the bay.

[8 February 233 Before Age.   Planet Quadzityz.]

Unless Luffa acted quickly, the Planet Quadzityz was doomed.  

Only moments ago, she had battled a Saiyan possessing unusual powers, powers that were now seeping into the ground where his corpse now lay.    Luffa didn't understand the unnatural ki energy that was contaminating the soil, but she had her suspicions, and they didn't paint a very optimistic picture.    As the ki soaked into the ground, it was absorbed into the soil, seemingly infusing it with power, a power Luffa sensed to be unstable.   With each passing moment, the contamination expanded deeper into the ground and across a wider area.    Luffa was beginning to think that it would eventually explode.   The only question remaining was how much of the planet's crust would be destroyed when that finally happened.  

Luffa had tried to quarantine the affected soil using her own ki energy.   As a Super Saiyan, her power was far greater than the energy she was trying to contain, but she had to exert a greater effort over a large volume, and with each failed attempt, the volume of soil to contain grew ever larger, and the problem became that much harder to solve.   Brute strength wasn't enough; she lacked the 'leverage' necessary to accomplish the task.   She felt like a champion weightlifter trying to pick up a barbell with both hands on the same end.

She was worried about her wife.   The dead Saiyan, Jolok, had managed to damage Luffa's communicator, so there was no way to warn Zatte about the impending catastrophe.   She was tempted to simply abandon Quadzityz to its fate, grab Zatte, and get to their ship before it was too late.   The act of a coward, but in her heart of hearts, Luffa always thought of herself as cowardly.   Her immense Super Saiyan power didn't make her any braver; it just made her more secure against most threats.   If anything, being a Super Saiyan only made her more afraid of situations she couldn't punch into submission, like the one that was unfolding before her eyes.

On top of that, there was the Mindworm.    Jolok never said how he acquired his strange increase in strength, but he did mention that his benefactor wanted to keep it secret.   To protect Jolok against telepathic intrusion, he was given the Mindworm, a psychic 'program' that replicated itself in Luffa's mind when she tried to probe Jolok's mind for answers.   It didn't actually do anything to Luffa's own consciousness; it simply copied itself over and over again, taxing her own mental resources.   It felt like the telepathic equivalent of eating something much, much spicier than expected, and being overwhelmed by the hot sensation.   Luffa had managed to dispel the worst of its effects, but she was still distracted by the lingering "heat" in her brain, as the Mindworm still struggled to continue growing in her thoughts.  

She slapped her hands on her cheeks and shook her head.   "Focus, dammit!" she said to herself.   "Everyone on this planet is dead if you don't do something!   Chanisp would have figured this out by now!"

Chanisp was the last Super Saiyan before her, and Luffa often looked to the ancient hero as a source of inspiration.   The stories said that a demon cut off his tail to prevent him from becoming a Giant Ape under the full moon, but Chanisp refused to give in to despair.   He trained in secret, shoving heavy blocks of cut stone for lack of any other means, pushing his body to become stronger and stronger, until he no longer needed the Giant Ape form to claim victory and avenge his lost tail.  The moral was that a Saiyan was greater than the sum of his parts.    Denied one path to success, a worthy Saiyan would always find another.   Luffa looked at the end of her own tail, which glowed yellow from her Super Saiyan form.   She supposed looking at her tail was one thing she could do that Chanisp never could.   There had to be a way out of this.  

And then she had it.    Chanisp beat his demon by moving large blocks of granite.   Luffa would do the same.  

She flew two miles from the center of the ki-infused mass, and dove straight into the ground.   Had anyone been there to witness it, they would have seen a brilliant golden light shining out of the tunnel she had created.   A moment later, the hole in the ground expanded into a trench, as Luffa carved a path through the bedrock below.    Once the trench formed a complete circle around the affected soil, she began to cut at the bedrock beneath it, slicing through millions of cubic feet of rock with a thin beam of ki energy.   When she was finished, she imagined the result looking something like a giant mudpie, four miles across, sitting upon a rocky crust.    

Moving such a massive object would be impossible, even for her.   Cutting it into smaller pieces would certainly help, but it would take days to move them all one by one.   Fortunately, Luffa didn't need to move the entire thing.     She tunneled under the center of the "mudpie" and charged enough ki to destroy it.    She had enough raw power to destroy the entire planet if she wanted, so blowing up a small piece of it was easy.   The trick was to direct the destructive force up and away from the part of Quadzityz that she didn't want to destroy.    If Jolok's ki had been allowed to explode on its own, it would have potentially damaged the planet's crust, or worse.   Luffa's plan would do a lot of damage to the surrounding area, but with any luck it wouldn't be much worse than the devastation caused by the war she was trying to stop.

She sensed the outer fringes of Jolok's power in the soil, and focused her attack on it.    At the same time, she enveloped the entire "mudpie" with a ki field that would help channel the force of the explosion straight up.    All of this seemed rather strange to her.    Usually, the things she did with her Super Saiyan power were just a scaled up version of things she he had used her ki for as a teenager.   What she was doing now felt more like some sort of engineering problem, even though the techniques she used were simple enough.   There was no enemy here except for time and uncertainty.  

When Jolok's posthumous ki energy finally detonated, the force of it proved almost too much for Luffa to hold.   Her own power was superior to his, but the mass of the soil was a factor now.   Somehow, Jolok's power had infused into the earth itself, making things difficult.    That was why Luffa had made the "mudpie" so big.   There was enough "good" dirt surrounding the "bad" dirt that it helped dampen the lateral force of the explosion.   Luffa just had to make sure nothing got through.    It was hard work, but reasonably straightforward.   After several minutes, the destruction subsided, and Luffa could sense no more of Jolok's ki in the "mudpie".   As she burst through it to emerge onto the surface, she saw that the soil that remained had been completely reduced to ash.   There was no trace of Jolok's body at all, which was hardly a surprise, since the corpse had been at the center of Luffa's maelstrom.  

The Mindworm still bothered her, but it had faded into little more than a mild annoyance.   In another hour, it would probably be gone altogether.    She wanted to lie down for a while, but there was no time for that.    There was still a war going on, and she had just lost a lot of time saving the lives of all the people who were trying to kill her.   With a sigh, she flew back to the island she had been using as her base.     The mystery of Jolok's appearance on the planet would have to wait.  

*******

"Why hasn't Unit 6 reported yet?   Captured?!   Then we'll have to divide the Third Corps to hold the perimeter... What do you mean there's no way to reach Third Corps?   Blast it, you had better be working on it, mister!   If I don't get--!"

The commanding general of the Red faction had been having a bad day.  Luffa had destroyed his cyber-slorgs, mechs from the Green Army had nearly taken his headquarters twice, and communications had been spotty at best.  So when the invisible intruder crept up behind him and injected him with an anasthetic she had stolen from his own medical staff, she decided that it was probably the best thing that had happened to him all day.   By the time he woke up, she planned to sabotage his base to such an extent that he would be completely unable to command his troops.    Maybe he didn't want this unscheduled vacation, but from the sound of his voice, he probably needed it.  

When the general's staff rushed to check on their leader, Zatte picked them off one by one.   A kick to his adjutant, then an elbow to his staff sergeant, and then she drew her pistol and stunned the two guards as they entered.    The pistol was a last resort, since Zatte's energy manipulation powers couldn't hide the sound it made when it fired, but the guards were the last resistance she faced, and once she kicked their weapons away, she allowed herself to become visible again.   Taking a seat next to the sleeping general, she put a portable drive of music into his computer, and hummed along to the tune as she began disrupting the Green Army's logistical network.    

Several minutes later, she sensed Luffa flying towards the base, and when she crashed through the ceiling, Zatte turned her chair around to meet her.

"Rough day, sweetheart?" Zatte asked.   Luffa was covered in dirt, sweat, and probably slorg remains, though it was difficult to tell.  Disheveled as she was, Zatte had seen her in much worse shape.

"Are you all right?" Luffa asked.  

"Sure," Zatte said.    "What happened with that Saiyan?    I couldn't raise you on the communicator, so I thought he must have damaged it.   Then your power skyrocketed..."

"I almost got you killled," Luffa said.  

"Oh?" Zatte said.   She stood up from the chair and approached her.    

"I was thinking... maybe you should get to the ship and get into orbit where it's safer," Luffa said.  

"I think I'm safe enough right here," Zatte said.  

"Somebody could drop a bomb on this place any minute, and I wouldn't be able to sense it," Luffa said.  

"The base has alarms for that," Zatte said.   "I took out a lot of their systems, but not the early warning stuff."  

Luffa smiled somewhat bashfully.   "Uh... something else then.    There's enemy mechs in the area."

Zatte pointed at the general sleeping in his chair.    "Not anymore," she said.   "You can thank him for that when he wakes up."

"Oh.   Well good," Luffa said.  

"Are you batting your eyes at me?" Zatte asked.  

"Huh?   No, I'm just blinking.    Got some dust in my eyes from earlier."

"There's a sink in the general's quarters," Zatte said.    "You can go freshen up."

She took her hand, as if to lead her to the general's room, and Luffa suddenly pulled her close and embraced her.  

"I really think you should get to the ship," Luffa said in a low voice.    

"Only if you take me," Zatte said.    

"I can't.   I need to get back out there."

"Stay," Zatte said.   She reached for the back of Luffa's neck and ran her hand through her short yellow hair.    "I want to hear how you almost got me killed."

"It's... kind of embarrassing, really," Luffa said.   Her throat was suddenly dry.  

"Well, let's go to the general's quarters," Zatte suggested.  She pointed at the soldiers she had knocked out.    "Plenty of privacy there.   Not that these guys are going to give us any trouble."

Luffa looked over Zatte's shoulder to see them.    "You took them out yourself?" she asked.  

Zatte showed her the knuckles on her left hand, which still bore bloodstains from one of the soldiers she had punched.  "Does that answer your question?" she replied.

"You're good," Luffa said.   She looked at Zatte's hand like it was a sacred relic.    

"You still think I'm in danger here?" Zatte asked.  

"Yes," Luffa said.   "I know you can handle yourself, but..."

"Go on," Zatte said.  

Luffa leaned in closer and spoke softly into her ear.   "There's certain risks involved, and I wouldn't want to expose you to--"

"To this?" Zatte asked as she moved her left hand closer to Luffa's nose.  Zatte didn't really understand Saiyans--not even after marrying one-- but she knew that the smell of enemy blood on her person drove her wild.   Her left nostril twitched, and they both smiled.    

"Maybe we should go to that general's quarters," Luffa said.    

"Absolutely," Zatte said.   She put her hands on Luffa's hips and worked her fingers into her pants pockets.    "It'd give you a chance to get more comfortable."

*******

An hour later, the General in command of the Red faction awoke.     Finding his subordinates missing, the base empty, and his communications equipment inoperable, he located a weapon and staggered through the corridors in search of answers.    Eventually, he made it to his own quarters, where he found two alien women making love in his bed.

"What in blazes--?" he gasped.   There were no words to adequately express his shock.   It was truly the last thing he expected to find, and he had no idea how to respond.  Luffa's nonverbal yelp--roughly transcribed as 'blaaap!'-- was probably more indicative of the common mood of all three persons in the room at that moment.    Without really thinking, Luffa swung her arm out to fire a ki blast at the general, and might have killed him on the spot if Zatte hadn't reached out and caught her.  

"Don't shoot him," she cried.    "We need him to surrender his troops!"  

"What the hell are you doing in here?!" Luffa shouted at the man.  

"I--!   I--!" In that moment, the general wasn't entirely sure what he had ever been doing anywhere.   It had finally dawned on him that one of these women was the Super Saiyan who had been shellacking his armies all day long.   In all the confusion, he had completely forgotten about the plasma weapon he had in his right hand.    Truthfully, he had forgotten that right hands and plasma pistols existed as concepts.   Now that he remembered, it all seemed very pointless.  Falling back on his earliest days of basic training, he dropped his weapon and raised his hands over his head.

"Luffa, he lives here," Zatte said.   As Luffa had gathered up his bedsheet to cover herself, Zatte resorted to using one of his pillows and a bath towel that happened to be lying beside her.  

"I thought you knocked him out!" Luffa said.

"I did," Zatte said.  "The sedative must have worn off... What time is it?"

"If you had just gone back to the ship like I asked--" Luffa groaned.  

"Oh, you knew what you were doing," Zatte said.   "Telling me you 'almost got me killed', like you don't know how much that turns me on..."

Luffa was already blushing, but somehow she managed to turn a shade redder.   "Zatte, he's standing right there!" she growled.  

"So?" Zatte asked.  

"So you don't need to tell him every detail of--!"

"Luffa, he saw us," Zatte argued.   "What am I gonna tell him that he doesn't already know?   What did you do with my underwear?"

Luffa turned even redder.   "Don't talk about--!    Arrgh!"

"Honestly, you can be such a big baby sometimes," Zatte grumbled.    "Like you'll shrivel up and die if anyone finds out you have a sex life.   Oh, that's why I couldn't find it.   He's standing on it."  

The general looked down and saw pair of briefs under his left boot.   "I... I... surrender," the general said.  

"You stay out of this!" Luffa shouted.

"Hi," Zatte said as she waved hello to him.    "Can I just get you to move your foot...  Thanks.   Yeah, so I know I'm not supposed to say this, but she and I are married, and we have sex all the time.   It's pretty terriffic."

Luffa covered her head with the sheet and lay in a fetal position on the bed.    

"You'd think one of us would have sensed you coming down the hall," Zatte said with a shrug, "but I guess we were distracted.    You know how that goes."

"Uh... uh-huh," the general said.   He finally found the wherewithal to move towards his chair, and he gingerly lowered himself into the seat.    

Zatte turned herself and her clothing invisible as she dressed herself.    For a moment, the only evidence that there was anyone else in the room was the depression Zattes's body made from sitting on the bed, and the whimpering heap that lay under the covers.  

"So yeah," Zatte said, "we need you to order your troops to stand down.   I mean, as awkward as all of this is, we did capture you just now."

"Of course," the general said.  "Of course..."

"Luffa will escort you and your troops to the island with the other prisoners, and it shouldn't take too much longer to get everyone back home."  

"Anything you say," he murmured.  

Zatte finally faded back into sight, now fully dressed.   She fetched Luffa's gear from various parts of the room and tossed it all onto the bed.   "She's actually really nice once you get to know her," Zatte said as she gestured to the bed.    

Suddenly, an alarm sounded through the halls of the base.    Zatte  and the general both looked up when they heard it, for both of them knew what it meant.  

"Enemy mechs," Zatte said.    "Guess they didn't know the base was already captured.   Hey, Luffa!   Break time's over, buster, we've got company."

"Go away," Luffa said.  

Zatte tossed Luffa's clothes on top of the covers and took the general's hand.   "Let's give her a minute to straighten up," she said as she led him out of the room.    

The two of them were about halfway down the corridor when Zatte heard a loud crash from inside the general's quarters, indicating that Luffa had smashed her way out through the ceiling on her way to deal with the mechs.  

"So," she said to the general.   "While we're waiting for her to deal with that, maybe you can tell me what you know about that other Saiyan who showed up a little while ago.   You know, the one who almost blew up the whole planet?"

*******

Later, after the Green faction surrender had been completed and Luffa had replaced her damaged communicator, she focused her efforts on shutting down the Blue forces.   Her main objective was to destroy any and all slorgs on the planet, and since the slorgs were being used by the Red faction, she knew she would find slorgs wherever she found their prey.   As she fought on the flight deck of one of their flying fortresses, she and Zatte discussed what they had learned from the Green general.

"The Greens had no idea that a Saiyan was on the planet," Zatte voice explained into Luffa's earpiece while Luffa ripped apart a plasma turret.    "The general's no dummy.   He knew any Saiyan activity on Quadityz was sure to draw you into the war."

"That goes for all three sides," Luffa said.   "But I'm here anyway, on account of the Reds using slorgs.   I'm thinking someone decided that I was going to pacify the sector sooner or later, so there was no use in holding back.   Right now, the war is about which side can make the greatest gains in the rest of the sector while I'm bogged down on the planet.   Even if Quadzityz was completely destroyed, or made uninhabitable, it would still--   Hang on a second."

Luffa stopped speaking while she confronted a mech.   The machine was twenty feet tall and shaped like a winged man.   A pilot rode in the robot's chest, and fired cluster bombs and missiles at Luffa in a desperate attempt to distract her from the flying fortress.   Luffa could have destroyed the entire vessel in a single blow, but her goal was to disable its offensive capabilities while sparing its propulsion.    That way, when its commanders ultimately surrendered to her, it could follow her back to her demilitarized island under its own power, and thus make a very tempting target for the Reds.   The only downside to her plan was that she had to fight very carefully, holding back most of her power and carefully choosing her targets, while the enemy could strike back with no such constraints.   Accordingly, the mech's pilot used Luffa's own tactics against her, positioning himself in such a way that Luffa would risk hitting the fortress if she attacked it.    

To cope with this, Luffa decided to go on the defensive, hoping that would throw the pilot off balance.   When she flew away from the mech, he hesitated before chasing after her, and this allowed her to circle around and flank it.  

"Okay, I'm back," Luffa said as she cracked the mech's cockpit and hauled the pilot out into the open.   She tossed him to the flight deck and watched him scurry back to the relative cover of one of the hangars.   "Where were we?"

"Jolok's employer," Zatte said.  

"If he had one," Luffa replied.   "Maybe he really was a lone wolf looking for revenge."

"It's a safe bet that someone paid him to come to Quadzityz," Zatte said.   "Sure, he might have had personal reasons for coming here to attack you, but he still had to arrange for transportation, and any of the warring factions would have been happy to reimburse him at the very least.   Small price to pay for taking you out."

"Yeah, that adds up," Luffa said, "but whoever paid his way wouldn't have done it directly.   Most people know that hiring Saiyan mercenaries is a great way to get my attention.  They must have gone through a middleman."

"And if there really is someone secretly setting up mercenary work for one Saiyan, then he probably knows where we can find others," Zatte concluded.  "Maybe we finally have a lead on this."

"It's his accomplice that worries me," Luffa said.   "I only sensed him for a second, but it was definitely another Saiyan energy."

"You think he's still on the planet?" Zatte asked.

"If he was working with Jolok," Luffa speculated, "then he probably bugged out when he thought the planet was going to explode.   If he was an independent operator, then he must have had some other business on Quadzityz.   He must have been suppressing his ki so I wouldn't notice him.   Something must have gone wrong, and he had to reveal his power."

"Then he probably fled as soon as that happened," Zatte said.   "We might find a clue in the general area where you sensed the guy.  If he left in a hurry, he might not have been too careful about covering his tracks."

"We can check it out after I get the planet pacified," Luffa said.    

"Wait, really?" Zatte asked.

"Something wrong with that?" Luffa asked.  

"I'm just surprised you're willing to wait that long," Zatte explained.   "I know how badly you want to find King Rehval.   I thought you'd want to drop everything and check this out."

"A few more hours won't change anything," Luffa said.   "It'll be easier for us to investigate when we don't have people shooting at us.   I'd ask you to go alone, but the area's too big for you to cover by yourself.    But if you want to get a head start, that's okay with me."

"No, I agree," Zatte said.   "I'm just impressed, is all."

"You've seen the devastation on this planet, Zattie," Luffa replied.   "There's kids who don't even have clean water.   I can't call in a Federation relief fleet until this place settles down, so every minute I waste, things get a little worse.    I never should have let it get this bad in the first place..."

"You were busy putting out fires in other parts of the galaxy," Zatte said.   "You can't be everywhere at once."

"No," Luffa admitted.   "But I can still do better.   I have to do better."

There was a pause in their conversation, during which Luffa descended below the flight deck and began smashing weapons systems and disarming soldiers as she made her way to the engine room.  

"Tell you what," Zatte said.  "We have a name.    Maybe I can pull up some information on Jolok.   Find out what he's been up to before he came here, and where he's been."

"He mentioned passing through the Reelor Cluster," Luffa said.  "You might start there.  Also, see if you can find any records on a fortune teller who was recently hospitalized.   He told me he used the Mindworm on some poor lady before he suckered me with it."

"You think she might know something?"

Luffa grabbed a rifle from a soldier and struck him with the butt of it to move him out of her way.   "No," she said, "but she didn't recover from it as quickly as I did.   If she's still alive, I thought I might be able to help her..."

*******

Many light years from Quadzityz, Lesseri and her team were putting as much distance between themselves and Luffa as possible.   With no particular destination in mind, Endive had set the autopilot and joined the others in the ship's mess, which they used for conferences.    

"I still can't believe we pulled that off," Guwar said.   "When I sensed your ki for that split second, I thought we were done for..."

"We would have been," Lesseri said, "if that other Saiyan hadn't shown up when he did."  She picked up the sculpture that had been sitting on the table, and set it back down again.    "We even made a little profit along the way.   I don't know how much ruthenium is going for these days, but if it's worth more than gold, there ought to be enough in this trinket to finance the rest of our search."

"So who was that Saiyan anyway?"  Treekul asked.    She was the only non-Saiyan in the party, as evidenced by the lavender hue of her skin, and the dark green stubble on her head.   "I can't sense power levels like the rest of you, but Guwar made it sound like he was almost as strong as Luffa."

"Not quite that powerful," Endive said, "but he did manage to keep her occupied for quite some time, which is a feat in itself.   He was definitely Saiyan, though I've never sensed a ki like that from any Saiyan I've ever met."

"He's a Jindan user," Lesseri said.   "He had to be."

"Maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusions," Guwar said.   "Most of what we know about Jindan is speculation at best."

"There's no other explanation," Lesseri insisted.    "He was no match for Luffa, at least not when she's being serious, so I have no idea why he tried to challenge her, but there was something... off about his power."   She pointed at Guwar and Endive.   "You both sensed it too, right?"

Endive nodded.  "There was something unusual about him.   Perhaps he was connected to Salziff."

"Salziff?" Guwar said.    "What's he got to do with any of this?"  

"You know him?" Lesseri asked.   Her left eyebrow rose as she waited for his response.

"We've met," Guwar said ruefully.   "I wouldn't call him a friend.   And he definitely wasn't that jacked-up Saiyan who showed up and got in Luffa's face.   The ki was all wrong for Salziff."

"Well some time back, he paid a visit to the same man we stole this from," Lesseri said as she pointed to the sculpture.   "He wanted the same artifacts we did, the pot and that scroll."

"It's not a pot, it's a retort," Treekul said.    "You use it for distillation, although the runes inscribed on its surface could--"

"All I know," Lesseri broke in, "is that a Saiyan named Salziff was trying to get alchemy stuff from a private collector on Quadzityz, and then we show up and do the same thing."

"You think Salziff is a Jindan user, too?" Guwar asked.  

"Or maybe he's looking for Jindan users, just like we are," Lesseri said.   "Either way, he seems to know something we don't, and since Treekul's going to need some time to work with those items we stole, I say we track him down and ask him a few questions in the meantime."

"He's no pushover," Guwar warned her.   "He's nowhere near as strong as that guy who confronted Luffa on Quadzityz, but Salziff is nothing to sneeze at."

"Three against one?" Lesseri said.  "I like those odds."  

"But how will we find him, Lesseri?" Endive asked.   "He'll be hiding from Luffa just like every other Saiyan in the galaxy."

"We don't have to find him," Lesseri said with a gleam in her eye that matched the reflection of the light on her teeth as she smiled.    "We have something he wants, remember?   He was begging that Quadzity collector for the scroll and the pot... excuse me, the retort.    So once he finds out we have it, he'll come to us."

[30 January, 233 Before Age.   Planet Server’la.]

Over the next six weeks, Guwar had learned a great deal about his new partners, but very little about the object of their search.

Treekul, the only non-Saiyan in the group, was an alchemical historian.    She knew a few techniques for preparing mystical elixirs and so on, but her main focus of study was the lore.    Unlike the sciences of chemistry and biology, which made progress through rigorous documentation and peer review, alchemy was a secret discipline, with reclusive masters teaching on a select handful of students.   When they recorded their work at all, it was always done in an esoteric style.   Simple instructions were expressed as complex riddles.   Ingredients were given symbolic codenames which would be meaningless to the uninitiated.   Typically, an alchemical scroll promised much: immortality, mastery over living things, the power to transmute lead into gold.   But once you actually sat down and read them, they delivered very little: Vague sermons, arcane philosophical tracts, and references to other works which were conveniently unavailable.   Guwar had heard about this sort of thing, and always assumed it was an enormous bluff, no different from the way he would use the Saiyans' reputation to make himself seem more powerful than he actually was.  

And yet, Treekul seemed to be able to make sense of it all, at least to a certain extent.   She had shown him a few documents she had worked on in the past, and explained how she was able to filter the "important stuff" from the "crap", as she put it.  Part of the alchemical tradition was to deliberately add a lot of pointless fluff to one's writings, in order to disguise the true wisdom and to trick the unworthy into dismissing their sacred knowledge as nonsense.    "Once you've studied enough of their writings," she had told him, "you can start to decode it, and see what they were really talking about."

Treekul hailed from the Planet Clytemnestra, whose people had pale purple skin and dark green hair.   Treekul preferred to keep her own hair as short as possible, as she said it helped her focus on her research.    "Don't ask me why, but that extra quarter inch of growth on my head just makes me nuts," she had said one day while he saw her applying a trimmer to her scalp.   As a result, Guwar noticed that she tended to leave tiny green clippings behind everywhere she went.  

Endive, one of the Saiyans, was usually the one flying their ship.   She was a smuggler by trade, though she liked to find a good battle between jobs, much the same way that Guwar did when his mathematics skills weren't needed.   Like Guwar, she had been forced to scale back her recreational fighting ever since Luffa had begun cracking down on Saiyan activity.  

"I tried getting as far from Federation space as I could," she once told him.   "I found a nice little civil war on Rofos III.    They had mechs, triffles, and all sorts of interesting weapons.    I was in heaven... for all of two weeks, and then she showed up and ruined the whole thing.  That was when I made up my mind.    One way or another, I refuse to be pushed around again."

Endive never had much to say, but Guwar enjoyed hearing it, if only for the chance to admire her looks.   She had woven the end of her black hair in to a short, thick braid, which hung between her shoulder blades like a piece of halyard rope from a sailing ship.   The bridge of her nose was at a steep angle, which he found aesthetically pleasing, especially whenever she frowned.  Luckily for him, she frowned quite often, since the ship's navigation system wasn't quite up to her personal standards.    She and Treekul had recruited him into this group by tricking him into thinking he would get to sleep with one or both of them.   Watching Endive handle the controls of the ship, he often wished that there was a way to take her up on it.

As for Lesseri, he had dealt with her in the past, though he had always known her to be a ruthless, indomitable warrior.   For years he had envied her superior strength and financial success.   For example, the ship they now traveled in was hardly luxurious, but it was fast and well-armed, and comfortably quartered six people, which made it far nicer than the broken down one-seater Guwar had left behind on Paxul's Planet.   From afar, he had always thought Lesseri to be the model of what a Saiyan should be: a warrior who could go anywhere and do anything she pleased, because she had the might to enforce her own will.  

Now that he had lived with her for a while, and seen her ship from the inside, he realized they had more in common than either of them probably cared to admit.   Lesseri thought of herself as a weakling compared to other Saiyans, just as he saw himself.  This surprised Guwar at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.    There was always a bigger fish in the pond.  He had always thought Lesseri retreated from untenable situations because she was so cold and calculating, but the truth was that she was afraid of dying, just like everyone else.   She was farther ahead of him in the search for greater power, but the gap between them was insignificant compared to how far they each had to go.    In spite of their past enmity, Guwar was beginning to like her.   When their quest led to searching a tomb on an abandoned planet, he was happy to join her.

"I killed my mother," Lesseri told him as she punched her way through the wall that surrounded the necropolis.  They had been talking about family, and this was where the conversation had led.  

"Why?" Guwar asked.

"You know those procedures where you can have your embryos removed from your womb and gestated outside of your body?"

"No, I had no idea you could do that," Guwar said.   He had no interest in procreation, and since he lacked a uterus, he cared very little what others did with theirs.

Lesseri shook her head.   "Men," she groaned.   "A lot of Saiyan women do it when they get pregnant.    Back when Planet Saiya was still up and running, they practically ordered people to do it."

"Okay," Guwar said.  "What about it?"

"My mother did it through a private company, only she never came back to get me when it was time.    Growing up, it kind of pissed me off.  My sister, she used to make excuses.   She thought mom must have died in battle, or she couldn't pay the bills or something.    When I got older, I tracked her down.   Wasn't even that hard.   She wasn't even trying to hide."

"Must have been a hell of a fight," Guwar said as he doubled checked their coordinates.    

"Nah, I checked her out first before I confronted her.   She was too close to me in power.   I might have won, but there was no guarantee, and I wanted a guarantee.   That was how we both ended up training with Luffa."

Guwar nearly dropped his scanning device.   "You trained with Luffa?" he asked.  

"If you can call it that," Lesseri said.   "Mostly it was Luffa and her alien wife scolding us like we were naughty children.   The leader of the group, guy named Zaperc, he tried to start this 'movement' where we'd learn to become Super Saiyans ourselves.   My mother joined on, and so did I.    Didn't want to risk her learning anything that might make her stronger and protect her from my revenge.    Anyway, Luffa found out about Zaperc's group and took over the whole thing.   Not that there was much to take over, but I guess she didn't like the idea of trash like us taking her name in vain.  Anyway, I waited until the right moment, then I rigged a bomb on my mother's ship.    As soon as things went pear-shaped, I knew she'd try to run for it, and sure enough--"

Lesseri clapped her hands together for effect.    "Boom.  Luffa didn't like it, but she didn't care much for my mother either, so she just sort of stood there while I left."

"What did your sister think?" Guwar asked.

"Beats me," Lesseri said.   "I haven't seen her in years.   She might be dead.    Hold on, I think this is it."

Near the center of the necropolis was a large mausoleum that looked like a great stone chrysalis.   There were small alien creatures clinging to its surface, and the glossy surface of their chitinous shells made the entire structure seem almost alive.

"Yeah, I think this is the one we want.   Let me take some readings before we smash our way in.   Wouldn't want to break anything important."

"So what happened after that?" Guwar asked.

"After what?" Lesseri replied.

"After you killed your mother," Guwar said.   "I've never gotten revenge for anything before.  I wondered what it was like."

"To be honest, it felt kind of empty," Lesseri said.  "I didn't regret it, but I'd spent my whole life on that one goal, and then it was over.    Mostly, it stuck in my craw that I wasn't strong enough to kill the old bag directly.   Luffa had no business giving me her opinion on it, but she was right.   It would have been more satisfying to fight her instead of blowing her up.    Mom didn't deserve the honor, but at least if I'd beaten her fairly, I would have had something to be proud of."

"I suppose so," Guwar said.

"That was when I started looking for ways to get stronger.   I've had enough of people pushing me around like I'm some bystander.    Being a Saiyan used to mean something, but lately it just feels like it makes you a patsy for King Rehval, or Luffa, or anyone else who happens to hit the genetic lottery.    I wanted to make my own opportunity."

"And that was how you met Treekul?" Guwar asked.

"Exactly," Lesseri said.    "I've heard rumors about Saiyans using a technique called 'Jindan' to increase their power.    I know we haven't told you much about it, Guwar, but that's only because we don't know much more than you do.   It's not easy finding a Saiyan these days, so if there's anything to the rumors, these jacked up Saiyans are staying out of sight."

"If that's true," Guwar reasoned, "then maybe this Jindan thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.   The Saiyans who use Jindan still have to hide from Luffa just like the rest of us."

"Could be," Lesseri said, "but it could also mean that they don't want the competition finding out about their secret.    If everyone could use it--whatever 'it' is--then we'd all be right back where we started.    And even if it doesn't make you as strong as a Super Saiyan, it could still be a big gain.   I don't know about you, but I'll take whatever I can get."

"I'm picking up some unusual readings," Guwar said.   "But nothing Saiyan."

Lesseri checked her own scanner and then compared her results to his.    "Yeah, Treekul was afraid of something like this.    We'll have to take a few precautions before we break into this thing.   Give me a hand, will you?"

*******

Thousands of years ago,  a brilliant scholar was interred in a mausoleum.   Over time, his students were buried nearby, and as the scholar's wisdom of the natural world grew into legend, a superstition arose that those who were buried near his tomb would pass on a blessing to their descendants.   Centuries passed, and the scholar came to be revered as a god, whose worshipers believed would one day rise from the dead and rule over the planet.   It was said that those buried in the necropolis that surrounded his tomb would be revived as his holy servants.

Before the planet's intelligent life forms vanished, their history included several wars fought over this sacred ground.    Conquerors thought that by controlling the necropolis, they could convince others of their supremacy.    New religions attempted to assimilate the necropolis's mythical status into their own theologies.   During more enlightened times, scientists would attempt to study the graves to learn the truth behind the legends.   But the scholar's mausoleum was never successfully breached, for when the ancient one was having it built, he planned to take his greatest secrets with him into the hereafter.    To ensure that graverobbers would not plunder his great writings, he treated the interior of his tomb with a concoction of his own making.   It would make the stone heal itself when broken.   In case this was not enough to dissuade intruders, he prepared a guardian, an unliving creature that would become active when fresh air entered the tomb.   Its creator had named it Qursss, and it drew strength from the very earth surrounding the mausoleum.   Once unleashed, it would not rest until it had destroyed all living things in the vicinity.   When its grisly task was finished, it would lumber back into the tomb, which would then reseal itself.  

And so, when the first breeze of fresh air entered the tomb in over fifteen centuries, Qursss stirred and reawakened to its strange un-life.   A blue flame ignited from a pile of ashes, and then it grew, transmuting into a vaguely humanoid form cast in minerals and the bones of its past victims.   Without hesitation, it rushed towards the source of the air current, and wailed its fearsome warning to any who could hear.  

"Woe betide you, graverobbers!   Know that you have summoned Qursss the Unquenchable, and for daring to defile my master's resting place, you must pay with your lives!"

It saw light from the fissure in the stone, and then the crack exploded into an opening large enough for a person to enter.  

"Yeah, I see it now," Guwar said as he peeked inside to look at Qursss.    "We'd better lure the thing outside before we proceed."

Qursss roared as it chased after Guwar.    "Mortal fool!" it shouted.  "You have sealed your doom this day!   Qursss shall pursue you to the ends of the--"

It paused at the threshhold of the hole in the mausoleum.  Guwar stood just outside, waiting patiently for Qursss to follow him.    The only thing missing from this scene was the ground.  Guwar was standing in midair.    

"Looks like you were right," Guwar said.    "This creature's immortal, but it doesn't seem to be able to fly."

Beneath them, Qursss could hear a second intruder, and its primitive intellect slowly realized that she was carrying the entire mausoleum in her arms.     "Aw, well, if he’s too shy to step outside," Lesseri said, "I guess I'll have to give him some encouragement!"

The whole structure began to shake, and Qursss lost its balance.   Unable to react in time, it tumbled forward, and as it fell, it realized that it was thousands of feet in the air.  

It wanted to threaten its enemies, to warn them that such trickery would avail them nothing, since Qursss would follow them and destroy them for as long as it took to restore its master's tomb.    But it had already noticed the ocean below, and Qursss knew that its master had designed it to sleep in the absence of fresh air.    No, there could be no reprisal.  Qursss would sink like a stone once it hit the water, and Qursss would fall dormant for a very long time.   Perhaps one day, when the oceans themselves boiled away, Qursss would stir once more, but that would not be for a very long time.   There was absolutely nothing it could do.    The enemy had won.    

Its final thought, as its monstrous body shattered upon the water's surface, was to wonder why its master had never thought to give it wings.

*******

[31 January, 233 Before Age.    Interstellar Space.]

"What I don't understand," Guwar asked Treekul, "is how you found that planet in the first place.    It was uncharted, and it looked like no one had been there in centuries."

"Geomantic extrapolation," Treekul replied as she ran her finger over the text of the parchment the Saiyans had removed from the mausoleum.    "You're sure this was the only scroll you found in the tomb, right?"

"Positive," Guwar said.    "What was that you said a second ago?"

She sat up from her bunk and finally looked at him.   "Geomancy," she said.   "In my line of work, you can't rely on the people who write these things to actually help you by citing sources.    Sometimes you have to use other methods to connect the dots.    That planet you and Lesseri went to, I don't know what it's called, or the name of the guy who wrote this scroll, but it's written in the same language as the last four scrolls I studied, and uses symbols and notations he would have learned from an older master known as 'Server'.   Not his real name, by the way.  None of these guys ever used their real name."

"You... you really haven't answered my question," Guwar said.  

She pointed to a disc-shaped object hanging from the opposite wall of her cabin.    It appeared to be made of wood, and hundreds of tiny characters and sigils were written upon its surface.   "That's a geomantic compass," she said.    "Normally you use it for aligning ki energies with planetary fields, but a specialist can use it to locate objects bound by special connections.   Server's other disciples had most of the information I needed, but not all of it, so I calibrated my compass with information from the scrolls I had, and used that to point me in the general direction of the one that I didn't.   It's taken a lot of course corrections to narrow it down, but considering how long the planet's been lost, I think ten days was a pretty decent turnaround."

Guwar was beginning to understand how some of his clients felt whenever he explained the more complicated aspects of probability theory.   "Look," he said, "I just want to understand how this gets us any closer to Jindan.   Does that scroll mention it?   Does that mean it was invented thousands of years ago?"

"No, of course not," Treekul said.    "You have to understand how this works, Guwar.    All we really know about Jindan-- and I'm using the word 'know' very loosely-- is that it makes Saiyans stronger somehow, and it just happens to share the name of one of the terms used for the golden elixir, a central concept of alchemical thought.    Until we find out more, our best chance is to dig through old writings, and hopefully find scrolls and records that were used to invent this particular Jindan.    We do that, and we'll have something resembling a lead to what you three are after."

He made a long sigh when he heard this.   "It all sounds pretty hopeless," he said.  

She smiled and lay back down on her bunk.   "Trust me, Guwar, I've been digging up old secrets my whole career.   If there's something to be found, I'll find it.    It just takes time.  And the occasional defiling of an ancient burial ground, but you and Lesseri didn't seem to have much trouble with that at all.   Even if it takes us a year to hit paydirt, wouldn't you say it was worth it?"

Guwar supposed he couldn't argue with that.   "I guess I'll leave you to your work then," he said as he rose from her chair and headed for the door.   "I could use something to eat anyway."

"Hey, drop by anytime," she said.  "It's good to bounce ideas off of you.   Oh, could you toss me my trimmer before you go?   My scalp's getting a little itchy."

*******

[9 February, 233 Before Age.   Thalos I.]

Days later, with nowhere in particular to go, the Saiyans decided to land on a planet to indulge in some hunting and gathering.    Guwar preferred gathering, as it made more sense from an efficiency standpoint.   The ship's sensors could tell him where to go to find abundant supplies of edible plants, and he could collect those much more quickly than he could chase down a comparable mass of wild animals.   Most Saiyans didn't look at it that way, and so when Lesseri and Endive chose to hunt large reptiles on the western continent, he wasn't surprised.

What did surprise him was when Endive approached him later, while he was bundling his first batch of roots and berries for the cargo hold.   They weren't supposed to meet up for another hour.

"I thought you were hunting," he said.  

"I decided to see if you needed any help," she said.    "Lesseri has things well in hand."

"She usually does," Guwar said.   "But I think I've covered my end pretty well."

"What do you think of our little band so far, Guwar?" she asked.    

He finished weaving a simple rope and began wrapping it around a stack of starchy plants he had found in a marsh.    "I'm used to working alone," he said, "but so far I'm impressed with the operation.   All of you are professional, sensible.   Treekul's a bit flaky, but she's an alien, so I won't hold it against her."

"Have you considered what will happen when we succeed, Guwar?" Endive asked.    She took a seat on one of the cargo crates and put her palms on her knees.  

"We'll all get stronger," he said.  "Much stronger, with any luck.   I, for one, plan to be able to write my own ticket."

"And what about Lesseri?" she asked.   "She's stronger than both of us right now.   It stands to reason that if our quest succeeds, she stands to become even stronger still."

"That makes sense to me," Guwar said slowly.   "What's your point, Endive?"

"Merely that we should be considering our own separate interests at this stage of the partnership," she replied.   "Our working theory is that there are already Saiyans out there using Jindan in secret.   They will not be pleased to see three more added to their number.   For every Saiyan that learns the secret, it depreciates in value."

"And if we were talking about treasure," Guwar surmised, "sooner or later we'd have to decide if it would be better to split it two ways instead of three."

"I see this as no different, Guwar," Endive said.    "The other Saiyans may try to stop us from reaching our goal.   But they may find two Saiyans easier to accept into their domain than three.   And if they happen to be fairly weak Saiyans--like you and me-- well, we'd hardly be much of a threat to their plans, now would we?"

"What exactly are you suggesting, Endive?" he asked.   He tried to keep his tone neutral, hoping not to tip his hand.   At the moment, he saw no compelling reason to turn against Lesseri, but he didn't want to appear to reject the idea, just in case she was on to something.

"For the moment, nothing at all," she said briskly.   "I simply wanted to share my appraisal of the situation.   When the time comes to make a decision, there may not be a chance to confer privately, Guwar.  So I thought we should discuss certain... contingencies in advance."

He was about to ask her what contingencies she had in mind, when the communicators on their wrists began to chirp.   It was Treekul.  She had found something.

*******

The closest thing Lesseri's ship had to a meeting area was the mess hall situated between the cabins and the cockpit.  Treekul presented her findings on a small display screen normally used for entertainment purposes.  Guwar found her delivery surprisingly polished and scholarly, considering that she was giving it in her pajamas, which bore flecks of green hair clippings from the last three times she trimmed her scalp.  

"I know a lot of what I just said went over your heads," she said as she finished explaining how she arrived at her conclusions.   "I just want to give you a bird's eye view of what I've done, so you won't think this I just pulled all of this out of my ear.  

"We've trusted you this far, Treekul," Lesseri said.   "And I think we get the general idea."

Lesseri had put her feet up on the table and crossed her ankles.   Endive was busy eating some raw meat from her hunting, while Guwar sat on the table itself.   He had some question about Treekul's data, but he decided to save them for when he could speak with her in private.   He suspected that the others would do the same.  

"All right, then here's the bottom line," Treekul said as she tapped the screen to advance to the next image.   The good news is that my theory was correct, and we've been on the right track.    We've established a line of spagyrist masters who studied techniques for increasing physical attributes.  We're talking about simple stuff, like healing minor injuries, or improving concentration, but each record we've found states that the masters were looking ahead to a refinement of the research.   A 'golden elixir', or a perfection of what they had begun to explore.  They called that ideal experiment 'jindan', which means whoever invented what we're looking for must have based his research upon their earlier work."

"But the scroll we just found was never used by anyone," Lesseri said.   "That tomb hadn't been touched in centuries, and the wax seal on the scroll itself was unbroken."

"Right, but it did give me more information to plug into my calculations," Treekul said.    That means my geomantic measurements will be more precise from here on out, and there's a lot less guesswork about where to look next."  She tapped the star chart on the monitor, causing it to zoom in on a single star system.   "Turns out we'll have to go to the Quadzityz System after all," she said.

"That whole sector is a war zone," Endive said.  

"Fine by me," Lesseri said with a smile.   "With all the fighting, we can slip in, take what we need, and no one will notice we were there.   We might even score some plunder if we have time."

"Yes, that does sound quite pleasant," Endive replied,  "but that isn't my point.  A stray bombardment could destroy our objective before we even have a chance to reach it."

"Not to mention the mercenaries working that sector," Guwar added.   "Saiyans or not, some of them are bound to be stronger than us.    If we're not careful, we could find ourselves outmatched.   Then we'd be the ones getting plundered."

"It's worse than you think," Treekul said.    "I monitored the war reports from that sector, just to get some idea of what we'd be getting into.    Turns out the fighting has escalated even more than we knew.   Someone brought slorgs into the conflict."

"Slorgs!" Endive said with a gasp.    "Then it's only a matter of time before Luffa gets involved!  She'd never tolerate a slorg infestation anywhere near the Federation border."

"And that brings me to the 'Bad News' part of my presentation," Treekul said with a sigh.   She tapped the screen one more time, bringing up an image from a news periodical.   The photo accompanying the article showed a Saiyan with glowing yellow hair and tail, holding a Quadzity armored troop transport over her head.    Terrified soldiers were fleeing from her as she smashed the vehicle into a large boulder.

"Luffa's not just going to get involved on Quadziityz," Treekul said.    "She's already there."

[20 February 233 Before Age.   Mundokuul.]

Guwar had never heard of Planet Mundokuul until Salziff warned him never to go there.    According to Salziff, Mundokuul had been the first step on his path to ruination.   The young Saiyan had sought the secret to increasing his already incredible strength, and so he had discovered the mythical technique known only as Jindan.    Guwar and his comrades wanted the same power, and so they had journeyed to Mundokuul to retrace Salziff's steps, despite the fact that Salziff had practically begged them not to repeat his mistake.  

In light of this, Guwar had expected Mundokuul to be a grim and harrowing place.    The Jindan cult was actually located on some other world, one Salziff couldn't identify, so Guwar half-suspected that they would be met by mysterious agents, who would give them encrypted coordinates that would reveal the way to their lair.

Endive, one of the two Saiyan women who had recruited him on this quest, had a different idea.   "We'll probably get there and find an empty planet with a single occupant," she had said one night before they had embarked on this next leg of their journey.   "The cult would naturally blind him and cut out his tongue to ensure that he never betrays their secrets.    When we arrive, he'll hear our footsteps and activate some mystic gateway leading to their inner sanctum.   And from there?   Who can say?   We shall either grow stronger or we shall die."

Guwar usually admired Endive's flair for storytelling, but not when he was one of the characters she was threatening to kill off.    

Lesseri, the strongest and unofficial leader of their group, had a more minimalist attitude about it.    "The 'cult' angle is just to frighten people off," she had said.   "Everything about this Jindan business has been an IQ test.  You have to do all this legwork just to find the right place to go, and the only catch to joining up is that you have to follow orders.    They're just some group looking for worthy henchman, and that's fine.   As long as they hold up their end, I'll do whatever they want.   You ask me, Mundokuul's just another hoop we have to jump through to prove we can follow instructions without losing our nerve."

None of this answered Guwar's question to Lesseri about what she expected to find on Mundokuul when they arrived.    Lesseri simply didn't care what the planet was like, or how many sapients lived there, or whether they would be greeted by gloomy thunderstorms to suit the ominous mood of their search.   To her, it was all an abstraction; the only reality was what she had to do to get stronger, and what she would do with that power once she had it.    

Treekul, on the other hand, had no desire to visit Mundokuul at all.   The rumors about Jindan only promised power for Saiyans, and Treekul was no Saiyan.    Her only interest in this venture was a chance to investigate the possibility that Jindan was an application of alchemical techniques for *ki* manipulation.   She was no warrior, just a historian with an interest in mystic secrets and ancient scholars.

"The fact is," she told him, "I don't even know why you three brought me along.   Mundokuul's the next-to-last step in your search, and according to Salziff, you'll find out what to do when you get there.    You don't need me to lead the way."

"Let's just say we don't trust Salziff," Guwar said.    "He told us where to go, and then he warned us not to go there.   So maybe he was lying about Mundokuul.   Maybe there's nothing there.  Or maybe there really is, but he didn't tell us everything we need to know because he's afraid that we'll succeed where he failed.    You're our insurance.   If anything goes wrong, you can use that geomantic compass of yours to tell us if we're going to the right place.    If not, you can sniff out a new lead."

"The cult might not see if that way," Treekul said.  "They only want Saiyans, so if they see me hanging around, they might take it the wrong way.     They might even punish you three by association."

"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Guwar assured her.   "Hey, don't be so glum.    Think of this as a research expedition."

Treekul seemed to find little solace in this.    

When they finally reached the planet, however, they were all surprised by what they found.   Though isolated from the rest of galactic civilization, Mundokuul appeared to resemble a vacation resort.   The planet was tidally locked with its star, with one hemisphere continuously bathed in sunlight, while the other was hidden in permanent shadow.    As such, the only population centers were located on the dark side of the planet, since the day side was too hot for most organic life forms.  Somehow, the weather patterns on Mundokuul allowed the night side to have temperate climate, despite the absence of direct sunlight.  It was a mystery that might have fascinated meteorologists, but the Saiyans and Treekul were only interested in the cult.

Lesseri led the group into what appeared to be the planet's capital, and they found only night clubs, lounges, and other entertainment establishments.   Neon lights flashed and blinked at them from every available surface, while fog machines and argon-ion lasers were found in almost every building they entered.  Electronic music and enthusiastic party-goers could be heard no matter where they went.

"All right, let's try to reason this out," Guwar suggested as they sought refuge in one of the quieter clubs.   It was a burlesque, but the tables furthest from the stage offered a semblance of tranquility.   "Does anyone sense *anything* Saiyan about this place?"

Lesseri shook her head.   "The only Saiyans on this planet are the ones sitting at this table," she grumbled.   A cheerful robot tried to recite the appetizer menu to her, and she swatted it away like a fly.   Everyone else in the building was too focused on the show to notice.  

Endive rested her elbows on the table and steepled her fingers.   "Perhaps this is Luffa's doing," she suggested.   "That Saiyan on Quadzityz who attacked Luffa might have possessed the Jindan secret.   Luffa could have overpowered him, forced him to reveal the same information we obtained from Salziff, and she shut down the Jindan cult before we arrived."

"But there's been no fighting here," Treekul said.   "I don't know much about the Super Saiyan, but from what you've told me, she's not exactly subtle."

"What if Salziff was lying to us from the start?" Guwar suggested.   "He told us to go to Mundokuul because he figured he'd be dead by the time we found out it was a trick."

"No, he warned us *not* to go," Endive reminded him.   "He expected to die soon anyway.   Why would he want to trick us?"

"I don't know," Guwar admitted.   "But it sure looks like he lied to us, doesn't it?"

"Forget Salziff," Lesseri said.   "You're right about one thing, Guwar.   He probably is dead by now, so it doesn't really matter if he was trying to trick us or not.  And while we're at it, let's forget about Luffa too.    If Supe really did knock off the Jindan cult, then whatever they could have taught us would be worthless, wouldn't it?"

"What are you saying?" Endive asked.  

"I don't know," Lesseri muttered.    "I guess my point is that if this is a dead end, so be it, but let's make sure it's really a dead end before we decide where to go next.  The last thing I want to do is find out later that we had the right place after all, and have to double back."

"We could start wrecking the place," Guwar suggested.   "Blow up a few of these clubs, shake some of the tourists down, that's bound to get someone's attention.

"Probably Luffa's," Lesseri said.   "No, the cult's managed to stay under the radar for a while now.   We're not going to get anywhere with brute force."

Guwar couldn't dispute the logic of that.   "Okay, the opposite, then.   Maybe we just settle in and spend a few weeks here.    Let them find us."

"If they want us," Endive said.  "It's possible that they might have no interest in three Saiyans with our power levels.   We've made tremendous progress so far.   Let's not back off now."

"What about Treekul's geomantic calculations?" Guwar suggested.    "Now that we're here, she might be able to narrow down our search."

"Might be worth a try," Lesseri said, "but Salziff didn't have a geomantic compass, and he still found his way.   I feel like there's something obvious here that we're missing."

For the next several minutes, they sulked at their table, indifferent to the merriment and debauchery around them.    Then a waitress approached the table and began setting out food.

"We didn't order anything," Endive said.

"Compliments of the management," the waitress said.    She paid little attention to them as she laid out napkins and utensils.   "It's against the law to waste food on Mundokuul.    So at the end of every shift, we serve all the leftovers to whoever is in the house, free of charge."

"That seems like a crappy way to stay in business," Lesseri said under her breath.  

"Well, most folks come here for the talent," the waitress said, pointing at the stage.   "And we find that the free samples encourage customers to pay for more later in the day.    If you're new to Mundokuul, you should really try the mollusk medley.    Oh, and if you want any liquor, there's a robot around here who can help..."  

As she said this, she noticed the broken machine lying on the floor behind Lesseri's chair.   "Ah. Well I see you've met the robot.   Well, I'll be back later if you decide you want anything else."

"Hold on," Guwar said just as she turned to leave.   "You said it's against the law to waste food.  Whose law?   We've been all over this city and it's all casinos and dance halls.   Where are your leaders?"

"What, you mean the governor?" the waitress asked.    

"Yeah, I guess," Guwar shrugged.    

She smiled and pointed back at the stage.  "He's not due to perform here until next month, but I'm sure there's a concierge who could look up his bookings for you."

"Never mind," Guwar said.  He joined the others in staring down at their plates as the waitress dragged the robot back to the kitchen.  At last, Guwar picked up his fork and began eating.   The women stared at him quizzically until he said: "Hey, we're going to be here a while longer, right?   No sense thinking on an empty stomach."  

"Maybe we need to be thinking about the dayside of the planet," Treekul offered.   "I mean, if I was running a secret organization, where better to hide it than an uninhabited wasteland?"

"It wouldn't take long to make certain," Endive said.   She picked up a shellfish and cracked it open with her bare hands.     "We could take the ship into orbit and run a full scan of the planet.   Honestly, we should have done that before we landed, but who would have expected it to be like this?"

Lesseri's meal included a meatloaf-style dish, which she scooped up and ate from her hand like a piece of fruit.    "Gotta admit, this stuff isn't half-bad," she said.  

"We might try searching the area around the planet's magnetic poles," Treekul added.    She popped an appetizer in her mouth and nodded with approval at the taste.    "The planet's ley lines would converge there, and it might be a suitable spot for a base."

For the next two hours, they discussed possible ideas and courses of action.    Then, Guwar heard a strange noise, and he felt sick to his stomach.  He tried to get to his feet, but fell out of his chair instead.   As he struggled to stand up, he noticed that Lesseri and Endive were having the same problem.  

"Guwar?" Treekul asked.   She appeared to be unaffected.   "Hey, what's wrong with you guys?"

He tried to speak, but found that he couldn't make his voice work.    At last, he collapsed onto the floor, and the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the shoes of their waitress as she ran over to respond to Treekul's call for help.    

*******

[21 February, 233 Before Age.  Nagaoka.]

Guwar awoke to find himself in an unfamiliar place.   He could tell it wasn't Mundokuul, because he could sense that the gravitational force was slightly higher.  He looked up and saw the ceiling of a cavern, illuminated by a series of torches.   He looked around for his companions, and found only Lesseri and Endive, lying unconscious beside him.   Looking down on them were a group of humanoids wearing scarlet robes, their faces obscured by hoods.   Each of them carried a spear in their right hand.    

"You are Saiyans," one of the robed ones said in an ominous voice.    "Have you come seeking power?"

"Y-yes," Guwar said.   "Are you...?  Is this...?"

"Silence," the speaker commanded.   He turned to one of his fellows.   "Bring the alien."

Guwar slowly rose to his feet.   His best guess at this point was that there was something about the food on Mundokuul.   Perhaps it was drugged, and only a Saiyan appetite could ingest enough to take a sufficient dose.   He didn't feel any lingering side effects, but then he would have had no idea what to expect.    Maybe it wasn't a drug.  Maybe there was some other trick to it, a trick that only worked on Saiyans.    Once they were rendered unconscious, someone connected to the cult could collect the new recruits and transport them to... wherever they were now.  

As the robed figures shuffled around and made preparations, Guwar said nothing.   There was no point in asking questions now.   These people would give him whatever answers they saw fit, on their own terms.   All he could do was wait patiently and take in his surroundings.

He noticed that there were glyphs and other markings on the walls of the cavern.   It was difficult to make them out in the torchlight, but he thought he recognized a few of them as alchemical symbols from Treekul's notes.    Among these, the most prominent was an arc, which represented a moon in its crescent phase; a circle with a dot in the center, which symbolized a star; and a cross, which was often used to represent a habitable planet.  

Once, Treekul had lectured him for over an hour on the multitude of interpretations of the cross symbol: the four cardinal directions, a small plant sprouting from the ground, the tetravalence of a carbon atom, a chromosome, a four-armed sea creature revered as a symbol of life and prosperity, and so on.   Guwar had been especially bored that day on the ship, but Treekul's enthusiasm about certain subjects was a passable form of entertainment.

A pair of cultists approached and collected Lesseri and Endive from the floor.    As they took them, he looked down and saw that he was surrounded by a shallow trench that formed a perfect circle around him.   Another pair of robed figures brought clay jars filled with some liquid, which they then poured into the trench until it was full.   For a moment, Guwar wondered if it was blood, but the smell of it was all wrong.   He could only be sure that it was definitely not water.  

Guwar then noticed that they were chaining the women to a set of wooden posts.   This made no sense to him, as any Saiyan would be more than strong enough to break free of such a crude pillory.   Was it a ceremonial humiliation?   Were they going to do something similar to him?     Were there different initiation rituals for men and women?   Or had he been chosen in favor of them?

Then, at last, another acolyte entered, carrying a prisoner in his arms.   It was Treekul.    The alien woman seemed to be wide awake, though she appeared to be exhausted from her captivity.   Guwar noticed that her dark green hair, which she normally kept trimmed to a thin layer of stubble on her scalp, had grown at least a quarter-inch since he had last seen her.   How long had they been here?   Treekul's clothes--a maroon romper with black leggings and white boots--had been brand new on Mundokuul.   Now, they showed signs of wear, and there were holes in the seams of the fabric.    His own leotard and body armor looked to be in decent shape, as did Lesseri's singlet and Endive's skirt and chestplate.  

As he struggled to make sense of this puzzle, a man approached him and presented him with a ceremonial dagger.   The gilded handle was crafted to resemble the head and neck of a serpent, with rubies serving as its eyes.   Guwar couldn't be sure of the blade's composition, though the moon symbols engraved upon it suggested silver, which Treekul had told him was a chemical element closely associated with moons in alchemical tradition.

"You hold the sun and the moon," the man said, his lips barely visible from within the shadows of his hood.  He was pointing at the knife as he spoke, and then he directed Guwar's attention to the posts.    Treekul was being chained to the third one, between Endive and Lesseri.    She struggled in vain, and tried to talk to her captors, as though she could somehow negotiate or charm her way out of this.    Yet, she never begged for mercy, which Guwar found rather impressive for an alien.   He wondered if he was starting to fall in love with the girl, but he had more immediate concerns at the moment.

"Now you must complete the circle by drawing the blood of the world," the man continued.    "The world gives life, and you must return that life to the world.   Stain the sun and the moon, and cross the river.   Put the knife into the world, and you will know the power of Jindan."

"Blood?" Guwar asked.    "You mean my own blood or...?"

"Strength must come at a price," the man said.   "Life is built upon death, and so must strength be bought by sacrificing weakness."   He pointed to the three women.    "You must choose, brother.   Which will you sacrifice for your own empowerment?    Choose wisely, and prosper.    Choose poorly, and die."

Guwar was beginning to get the idea.   For a moment, he considered that it might be a trick question.    Perhaps he was supposed to kill all three, but that seemed excessive.   If "all of the above" were an option, then why bother presenting it as a choice?   Likewise, choosing to kill none of them was out of the question.    The cultist specifically called for death in exchange for power.   It wouldn't be enough to wound one of them, and apparently only one of them would be deemed an appropriate sacrifice.  

Guwar was a mathematician, which was something of a rarity among Saiyans, but he had a talent for it, and his alma mater had been too frightened of his power to turn him away.   They probably would have awarded him a diploma just to be rid of him, but he earned his degree, and he had proven it on any number of consultation jobs.   For him, this initiation was simply another puzzle to be solved, another abstract conjecture to be falsified or proven out.   The cultist had told him to choose wisely.   Guwar knew no other way.

Superficially, Treekul seemed to be the logical choice.    If only one sacrifice was correct,  the answer couldn't be to kill a Saiyan, since there were two Saiyans in the set of available options.   In most respects, Treekul was unique.   To kill Endive would beg the question of why one *wouldn't* kill Lesseri, and vice-versa.

But the obvious choice wasn't always the correct one.   Treekul's uniqueness implied that he ought to consider factors that made the others unique as well.   Lesseri was the stronger of the two Saiyans, so perhaps that made her a better sacrifice.   If one of them was to be the price for Guwar's own empowerment, then Lesseri's life seemed like a greater payment, which would suggest that Guwar would receive a richer reward.  

On the other hand, perhaps the price to be paid was simply one life, any life, no matter how great or small.   In this model, sacrificing Lesseri's enormous power would be like putting a ten-credit coin into a vending machine that didn't dispense exact change.   You would get your five-credit snack, but it would still be a waste of money.   That suggested Treekul was the correct choice, as her death would be like tricking a vending machine with a slug.  

The dilemma between Treekul and Lesseri forced him to consider Endive's qualities now.    Factually, he could think of nothing that made her stand out.   She was the best pilot of the three, and a cunning tactician, but these didn't seem important enough to make her a worthier sacrifice.    The more he thought about it, the more he searched for a logical answer, the more his mind kept drifting back to the answer that made the least sense of all.    Of the three of them, Guwar found Endive to be the most attractive.   Her figure, the shape of her face, the cold, inquisitive look in her citrine eyes, the scent of her hair, all of it appealed to him in a way he was far too embarrassed to admit.    But the cult had no way of knowing this, and besides, it was purely a matter of opinion.    

He wondered, then, if that might have been the point all along.  Was the quality of his sacrifice a matter of what he, Guwar, was personally willing to give up?    If that were true, how could the cultists possibly know his feelings towards these three?   Then again, they seemed to know his name, and Treekul's condition suggested that they had been held here for some time, even if Guwar couldn't remember it.   Had the cult interrogated them, only to use some strange power to erase Guwar's memory of it?    There were stories about Luffa having the power to read minds.   What if the Jindan cult had discovered the same ability?    

He approached the three women, making sure to step over the trench filled with unknown liquid, and looked them over more closely as he considered his personal feelings towards them.    Killing Lesseri would be the most satisfying choice for him.    She was an arrogant bully, who only invited him on this quest because she needed an extra set of hands and few other candidates.   He fully expected her to turn against him whenever it suited her purposes.    Surrendering his body and soul to the Jindan cult was one thing, but joining it alongside Lesseri annoyed him to no end.   How much easier his life would be, he thought, if he could use this initiation to put her out of his misery once and for all.    He doubted that he would ever get a chance like this again.    The Jindan cult had presented her to him on a silver platter.

As he looked at Lesseri's unconscious body, he had to admit that he feared her.   Even now, helpless and chained to a post, she still towered over him.    The torchlight danced across her dark brown skin, making her impressive musculature look even more dangerous.   Part of him was tempted to kill her on sheer impulse, and let the chips fall where they may.   If the cult killed him for making the wrong choice, then he would at least die knowing she would precede him into hell.  Instead, he stayed his hand.   The cult clearly had no need for Lesseri, or else they wouldn't risk her life on Guwar's decision.   There was no need to take reckless chances when it was possible the cult might dispose of Lesseri for him.  

He looked at Treekul, and she looked back at him.   At some point, the cultists had put a gag in her mouth, and now her eyes silently pleaded with him to spare her.   She was afraid, and he couldn't blame her for being afraid.   Even if he spared her, there was no guarantee that the cultists would allow her to live.   She wasn't as pretty as Endive, of course.  Treekul's incessant hair growth disgusted him, and the way she constantly trimmed it reminded him of a landscaper mowing grass.   Her scent had a sort of garlicky, metallic quality to it, another reminder that she was no Saiyan, no matter how similar their anatomies were.    Still, she was attractive in her own right, and something about her lavender skin and green hair appealed to him.    And she was easy to talk to.    She actually enjoyed hearing him talk shop about mathematics, which was a rare pleasure for him.   Nor could he deny the emotional impact of her being aware of what was happening.   If he chose to kill her, she would see him take the knife and plunge it into her heart.   It would be no simple matter.   Perhaps that was what the cult was looking for.   They were waiting to see if he could cast aside sentiment in favor of power.   He believed that he could, though he had to admit that it wouldn't be as easy as he once thought.    

That brought him back to Endive.   Ravishing as she was, Guwar doubted that she had any interest in him.    He had seen calculators with more personable than Endive.   She could be social, yes, even cheerful, but he had come to realize that she cared very little for anyone or anything but herself.    She had approached him once, seeking an alliance to betray Lesseri, and he quickly recognized that she would betray him as well, if it suited her purposes.  Now he was in a position to betray her, and he couldn't help but appreciate the irony of it.    If he killed her, it would save him from having to look over his shoulder for her in the future.    If he spared her-- and if the cult deemed to let her live-- then she would be in his debt.   If he could convince the cult to grant her admittance as well, then... well she would be even deeper in his debt, wouldn't she?    That appealed to him greatly.   At least then, she would have to feel something towards him, even if it was resentment or obligation.  

Minutes passed, and the robed figures stood silent, waiting for his answer.    The only sounds were the crackle of the torches, and Treekul's muffled whimpers.   At last, Guwar made up his mind.  He selected his victim, raised the knife to her chest, and with a single, unwavering motion, he thrust the silver blade deep into her heart.   He waited before removing the knife, both to reflect upon the moment, and to allow her blood to spill out of the wound until both the knife and his forearm were coated in scarlet.   When he was satisfied that she was dead, he withdrew the knife, and walked back to the circle where the test had begun.   He knelt down, and noticed a crack in the cavern floor.   He wedged the knife into this space, and watched the blood drip down into it.    He never looked back at the three women.    Instead, he raised his head to the man who had given him the knife.  

"Excellent, Brother Guwar," the man said.   He pulled back his hood to reveal his face.   There was some grey in his hair and mustache, and some wrinkles in his brown skin, which would make him at least seventy years old for a Saiyan.  "Rise, and be welcomed."

Guwar stood up, and the old Saiyan clasped him on the shoulder.    "Tell me," the robed Saiyan asked.  "How did you reach your decision?"

At last, Guwar looked back at his handiwork.   The other cultists were already removing Treekul's body from the post.    "It was simple," he said.    "At first, I thought it was a test of what I was willing to give up, so I thought about what I wanted from them.   Then I realized that once I passed the test, my own wants would be secondary.   From here on, it's what *all of you* want.  That's what comes first.    And I don't know much, but I do know that you want Saiyans, and you want secrecy.   Treekul is no Saiyan, and her skills could be used to expose you.    She had to die.   There was no choice at all."

"Well said, Brother Guwar," the old Saiyan replied.   "The Jindan power shall be yours."

"Great," Guwar said.   He turned back to the old man and pointed his thumb back at Lesseri and Endive.    "What happens to them?"

"You'll find that out," the old man said, "after you wake up."

“Wake up?”

*******

Guwar's eyes went wide as he realized he was lying down.   He sat up as quickly as he could, and saw that he was still in a cavern, just not the same one he had seen only moments earlier.   There were torches, but they were arranged in a different fashion.   The walls had been hewn to make the cave more closely resemble an artificial enclosure.   The symbols inscribed on the walls were still there, though the arrangements were different.   There was a robed man there to greet him, an old Saiyan with grey hairs and wrinkles in his dark brown skin, but he was not the same one Guwar had seen before.   His face was narrower, and his nose was shaped a bit differently, and his hairline was further back on his forehead.  

"Where am I?" Guwar asked.   He finally registered that he was wearing a red costume of his own, not too dissimilar from the black attire he had worn until Mundokuul.   He was sitting in a cot, and next to him were Lesseri and Endive, both clad in matching garb.   They had also awakened, and as they looked around the room, he suspected that they shared many of his questions.

"It was all a dream?!" Lesseri blurted out.    

"In a manner of speaking," said the robed Saiyan.   "Our master, the holy Trismegistus, devised an elixir which induces a vision of his own design.    I administered this elixir to you once you arrived from Mundokuul."

"Then the test...!    Everything that happened," Lesseri said as she struggled to put it together.    "None of it was real?"

"The test was real enough," he said.    "Had you chosen poorly, you would have remained in that vision.    Trismegistus sees fit to animate those who fail the test.   They roam our caverns as sleepwalkers, believing they are in the waking world, when they are truly prisoners in their own minds.    We use them as menial servants."

Guwar took a deep breath as he considered the implications of such a fate.  

Lesseri seemed even more relieved.   "Then my mother," she said.   "She didn’t survive the bomb I put on her ship.   She's not the founder of your order at all, is she?"

The old Saiyan chuckled.   "The elixir produces a different reality for all who drink it," he explained.    "Some visions can be very... unsettling.    But to answer your question, no mere woman could aspire to the glory of Trismegistus.    Our Saiyan pride is not lost by devoting ourselves to him, for there is no shame in abasing oneself to the almighty thrice-blessed."

"Whatever you say," Lesseri said with a profound sigh of relief.    "As long as that old hag stays dead... and as long as we get the power we were promised."

"Naturally," the robed Saiyan said with a smile.   "Our master knows the way of the Saiyan heart.    He will not forsake your fondest desire.  You will be strong, Sister Lesseri.   Stronger than you could have ever been.   Now, if you have all gathered your wits, let us proceed to the assembly.    There, you shall reap the rewards for your search."

The three of them stood up to follow him out of the room.    Guwar hung back for a moment, as he noticed Endive had finally turned to face him.  

"Guwar..." she said with some surprise in her voice.  

"Yeah?" he asked.    

"Nothing," she said.    "It's just... good to see you are still alive after all."

She hurried after the others, and Guwar followed her.    Unless he was mistaken, Endive's words suggested that she had faced a similar challenge to his own.    In that vision, she had been the one with the knife, and he had been her chosen victim.     He wasn't sure whether that was a good sign or not.

[12 December, 234 Before Age.  Tulon II.]

Guwar was a Saiyan.    That used to mean something in the galaxy, but not anymore.  

Like all Saiyans, Guwar had a prehensile tail covered in brown fur.    His hair was black, and it never grew beyond a certain length.   Some Saiyans had very long hair that went down to their knees, while other Saiyans had very short hair, which never went further down than their neck.   Guwar's hair was somewhere in between.   When wet, it would hang down past his shoulders, but it normally  stuck out from his head like the branches of a tree, paying little heed to the force of gravity.    For the most part, the Saiyans were like most humanoid life forms, though their tails invited comparison to lower primates, such as monkeys, which the Saiyans found offensive.    No sane person wanted to offend a Saiyan, though, because even the weakest of their species was powerful enough to cause widespread devastation.  Generally, the best way to deal with a Saiyan was to be very polite and give them whatever they wanted.  Guwar had made a very good living by this rule.    He wasn't very strong by Saiyan standards, but his people's fearsome reputation was more than enough to compensate for this.  

To be sure, there were other powerful beings in the galaxy, warriors strong enough to fight a Saiyan and win, but Guwar had a way of dealing with the likes of them as well.   Under the light of a full moon, a Saiyan would transform into a massive ape-like creature, and become even stronger.    This power was something of a bluff, since full moons weren't always easy to come by in the universe.   Some planets had no moon, while others had such long lunar cycles that it was impractical to wait for a full moon to appear.   A lot of Saiyans relied heavily on this transformation, but most beings had never actually witnessed the Oozaru power, and fewer still knew how it worked.   A Saiyan needed his tail for the transformation to happen.   And the moon needed to be full, and visible in the sky.    An injured tail or a passing cloud could put an end to the transformation very quickly.    Many Saiyans cut off their tails to blend into alien societies, or because Saiyan tails were the weakest, most vulnerable part of their bodies.   For them, the ape form was impossible, although most of the galaxy didn't know that.    They just knew that some Saiyans could turn into giant apes, and maybe they knew it had something to do with the moon, but that was about it.    That made Guwar's life much easier.    He still had his tail, but he didn't particularly care for turning into a giant ape.   Still, the mere possibility of it was enough to make stronger warriors keep their distance from him.  

Guwar liked to fight.   All Saiyans did, but what made him different was that he was a mathematician.  Between battles, he would hire himself out for consulting gigs, usually actuarial work, or the occasional engineering firm in need of a continuous model.   He had written a few papers, although he couldn't find any journals interested in publishing them.   When the work dried up, or he felt the urge for combat, he would fly to some unsuspecting planet and pick a fight.   It might have been more efficient to pursue mercenary contracts, but Guwar preferred the spontaneity of a surprise invasion.   It intrigued him to see how different planets mustered defenses against a single, unexpected enemy, and there were no consequences if he decided to cut and run.   When he had his fill of excitement, he would go to some other planet and use his fearsome reputation to get a little more than his money's worth in food and entertainment.   It was a good life.  

Rather, it had been a good life, but things had changed over the past several months.   There were two main powers in the Saiyan community.   The first was the Kingdom of Saiya, ruled by the Rehval Dynasty.   The royalists had never bothered Guwar much.   They believed in banding together under a single ruler for the good of the species, but they had never done much to force Saiyans to join their cause.    Guwar liked the freedom to live on his own, and King Rehval III didn't seem to want to press the issue.   Things changed with the emergence of the second main power: The Legendary Super Saiyan, Luffa.    Guwar knew very little about her, except that she despised the royalists and she might not be a Saiyan at all, but some kind of alien impostor.   Whatever she was, Luffa possessed unimaginable strength, enough to fight the entire royal military all by herself, and win.   For a time, Guwar had managed to avoid both of these powers, but when he looked back on it, he was rather surprised that the the two of them had managed to avoid each other for as long as they did.  Eventually, when they did cross paths, it led to conflict, and the rest of the Saiyans were the ones who paid the price for it.    

Guwar wasn't sure what exactly happened between Luffa and Rehval.   He only knew that Luffa had it in for the king, and that Planet Saiya had been evacuated to escape her monstrous wrath.    King Rehval had gone into hiding, it seemed, and he had taken his entire kingdom with him.    No one knew where they were now, or if they still lived.    But Luffa wasn't satisfied with that, and so she had been taking her frustrations out on every Saiyan she could find ever since.  

"Where is he?" she asked as Guwar pushed his spaceship to its maximum speed.   He had opened the hailing frequency just in case there was a chance of talking his way out of this, but he could see that it was hopeless.  

"I don't know, dammit!" Guwar replied.   "I only came to this planet for a little fun!   I don't know anything about Rehval, and that's the truth!"

"I'll be the judge of that.   Shut down your engines."

Guwar switched off his  communications system instead.   There was no point in responding to Luffa.   He couldn't tell her what she wanted to know, and if he said what he really thought about her, it would only make matters worse.  

His raid on the Tulon System had been going well, right up until he got the alert signal from his ship.    He suspected that Luffa was keeping tabs on Saiyan activity, looking for people like him to shake down for information.   He had narrowly escaped her twice before in the past, so he had begun setting his ship to warn him if it picked up any other vessels on the long-range sensors.   Most likely, someone on Tulon II had contacted Luffa and ratted Guwar out.   That annoyed him greatly.   Not so long ago, a frightened civilian would never have dared such a thing.   Now, they treated Guwar like a rodent, and Luffa was the exterminator.

His only advantage in this situation was that he had made it to his ship and reached outer space.   If Luffa had caught him on the planet's surface, it would have been all over.  She was too strong to resist and too fast to escape, and her senses were too keen to hide from.  There were rumors that she had psionic powers too, but no one seemed to know for sure.   Guwar had no intention of sticking around to find out.   He loved a good fight as much as the next Saiyan, but going toe to toe with Luffa was just asking for a beating.   Here, in the vacuum of space, the playing field was leveled out somewhat.   It was his star drive pitted against hers, and Saiyan power was mostly useless.   If Luffa tried to use her awesome strength to attack him, she would risk damaging her own ship in the process.    So as long as Guwar had a head start, he had a fighting chance to escape.   Luffa's star-yacht wouldn't have much in the way of weapons, so--

Suddenly, his entire ship shook, and the lights flickered.   His console showed damage to the hull from a plasma bolt.   Luffa had opened fire on him.  

"She put armaments on a star yacht," Guwar muttered as he began plotting evasive maneuvers.    "Because of course she did."

He didn't know why she traveled in a pleasure craft.    Guwar guessed that she had stolen it, since that was the same way he acquired his own ship, which he renamed the *Busty Bartender*, mostly because it was a stupid name, and it amused him to hear spaceport officials say it with a straight face.  He supposed that Luffa had armed the ship to the teeth, just to deal with anyone who might try to attack her during a spaceflight, where she would be most vulnerable.    Guwar, on the other hand, was always in a hurry, and so he had customized the *Bartender* for speed, speed, and more speed.   All he had to do was get clear of the star system, and then it would be safe to activate his superluminous drive, and he was sure that Luffa would never be able to catch him.  

There was the chance that Luffa might blast him to atoms with her next shot, but he was betting she wouldn't take it that far.    She wanted information, and she wouldn't get it from a dead man.   No, she would do everything she could to take him alive.   Then she would interrogate him, and once she was satisfied that he truly didn't know anything useful, *then* she would kill him.   Or maybe she would just beat him up and turn him over to the authorities.    He didn't want to find out.

Muttering a prayer to Spaceshippius, the Camelian God of Spaceflight which he had just made up, Guwar diverted power from his aft deflector shields to his sublight engines.   He performed a few corkscrews and barrel rolls, hoping to keep Luffa guessing, and he kept checking the telemetry readout on his console.    He just had to stay ahead of her until the moment he was clear to jump to superluminous.    Only seconds remained.   Luffa fired twice, but both shots missed.    Judging by the power readings from her ship, the blasts were meant to cripple his ship rather than destroy it.   Things were looking up for him.  

Then he saw something that looked like a torpedo closing in on him.    He checked the sensors for its configuration and payload, and then he realized he didn't need the sensors, because he could *feel* the torpedo's energy.   He then realized it wasn't a torpedo at all.    Luffa had put on a spacesuit and was flying after him under her own power.  

Guwar called up a visual on the aft camera, and saw what looked like a tiny spaceman burning with a golden flame.   He'd heard ghost stories about space travelers seeing things like this, but it was much more terrifying to live it.   Like most Saiyans, Guwar could sense ki, the life energy possessed by all living things.  He had sensed Luffa's power some time ago, and was duly impressed with its magnitude.   Now, she had pulled out all the stops, just to get the extra burst of speed that her ship apparently couldn't provide.   Or maybe she was going to fire at him with her ki attacks, which were surely more powerful and more precise than her ship's plasma cannons.  

Out of desperation, Guwar pushed the sublight engines beyond their design limits.    One of them overloaded and shut down, but he didn't care, so long as it gave him the extra burst of speed he needed.   He heard a strange noise in the hull, and he hoped that it would only mean a painful repair bill.   If he survived this, he swore to himself that he would never swindle a repair crew ever again.  

Then, just as Luffa had nearly intercepted him, he saw that he was at a safe distance from Tulon's star, and he activated the superluminous drive, pressing the button with both hands.   The starfield before him changed into a familiar pattern of streaks of light, and when the readouts confirmed that Luffa was no longer in range, only then did he lean back in his seat and breathe a sigh of relief.

"Too close," he grumbled.  

Now that he was safe, he just had to figure out how much damage had been done to his ship.   While he was at it, he would have to think about how was going to pay for it since he had left all of his plunder behind on Tulon II.

"Well," he said to himself, "maybe I can swindle just one more repair crew..."

*******

[15 December 234 Before Age.  Paxul's Planet.]

Guwar was pleased to find a repair crew with an opening in their schedule, but their early estimates weren't looking good.   It would cost ten thousand credits just to repair the damaged engine.  They hadn't even finished examining the hull.   Worse, they were adamant about removing all the modifications that he had paid for over the years, since most of them had been outlawed by recent safety regulations.     If that wasn't bad enough, they intended to charge Guwar for that labor.   So if he wanted to reinstall those modifications, he would have to pay the bills, take the ship to another star system where the safety regulations weren't in force, and pay to someone else to put the engines back the way he wanted them.  Guwar considered trying to intimidate the repair crew into overlooking the modifications, but after the run-in with Luffa, he wasn't feeling particularly intimidating.    Besides, the crew seemed more afraid of the regulations than of a Saiyan who needed their help.

By mid-day, Guwar was giving serious thought to stealing a whole other ship.   It wasn't like the Busty Bartender held any great value to him, especially since he came away from Tulon II empty-handed.   This was a perfect time to cut his losses and start over, seeing as reality had pretty much taken the decision out of his hands.  

He stopped at a cafe and nursed a strange juice blend for about an hour while he scribbled mathematical proofs onto a bunch of napkins.   For now, he thought, he could simply relax and clear his mind.   Acting rashly would only make his situation worse, and now that he was safe on Paxul's Planet, he could take his time and plan his next move carefully.  

This was what he told himself, right up until the long shadow appeared over his table.    

"Long time, no see, Guwar," said the person who was currently blocking his light.

He looked up to find a Saiyan woman, 70 inches tall, with long, shaggy hair that ran down to her hips.  Her dark brown skin emphasized the contours of her muscular body, as well as the triumphant smile on her face.  Her tail was hidden beneath the green pantsuit she wore, but he knew she was a Saiyan because he had met her before.  

"L-lesseri," he said.  "I didn't think there were any other Saiyans in this sector."

She laughed and took a seat next to him.    "That's the idea, Guwar.   The Super Saiyan's got it in for all of us these days, right?   Anyone who doesn't keep a low profile, they end up meeting her.   So I keep my power level suppressed, travel under false credentials, and I try not to stand out too much.   Same as you, I'll bet."

Before he could answer, she put her arm around his back and clasped her hand onto his shoulder.   She squeezed just hard enough to make it clear that she could hurt him if she wanted to.   Guwar already knew this.   His past dealings with Lesseri had made it very clear to him that her power was on a level that he couldn't touch.   Lesseri was nothing compared to Luffa, but Guwar was weaker than either of them, so it wasn't much of a consolation.

"Where's the money you owe me?" she said in a low voice.  

"Well, it's funny you mentioned Luffa," he said with a mirthless chuckle, "because that's exactly why I don't have it with me,"   His failed raid on Tulon II wasn't specifically for the sake of repaying his debts, but Lesseri didn't need to know that.  

"What a coincidence," Lesseri said.   "I had to back out of a contract a few months ago because Luffa was sighted in that sector, which is why I'm suddenly short on funds.   So I decided to call in some markers, and a buddy of mine spotted you on Paxul's, so here I am."

"Look, what do you want me to do?" Guwar asked plainly.  "I can't pay you back, and if you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already--"

"I'm taking your ship," Lesseri said.  

"Its worth more than I owe," Guwar said evenly.  

"We'll chalk up the difference to interest," Lesseri said.   She poked her finger at the scribblings on one of his napkins.    "You're a math guy, right?   You can figure it out."

Guwar already had.   He was planning to abandon the *Bartender* and the repair bills that went with it, but if Lesseri was going to take it off his hands and forgive his debts, then so much the better.   All he had to do was make sure he didn't look too happy about it.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me a lift to the next system?" he said.

"The next system is Quadzityz, little man," Lesseri said.  "You don't want any part of that action, I promise you."

She was right.   The fighting there was a little too intense for his liking.   He was mildly surprised that Lesseri wanted anything to do with that war, but as she said, mercenary business was difficult for Saiyans these days.  With Luffa was targeting them for questioning, Lesseri couldn't afford to be choosy about the jobs she took.   Besides, Lesseri had a tendency to cut and run when the mission got too tough.   Just because she was going to Quadzityz didn't mean that she planned to see it through.

"I'm only six inches shorter than you, Lesseri," he said, pretending to be hurt by her words.

"Well, I'm still not giving you a ride," Lesseri said.    "If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to call the local law enforcement," Lesseri said, patting him on the cheek.    "Or you could always contact the nearest Federation embassy, and tell Luffa about your grievance.   I'm sure she'd be very interested to hear your complaints."

"Look, you've got the ship," Guwar groaned.   "You don't have to rub it in."

"You're right," Lesseri said.   "Just transfer the registration to me, and I'll be on my way."

He had wondered when she would get around to this part.   If Lesseri had planned to simply take the *Bartender*, she would have gone to the spacedock and literally picked it up.   She only needed Guwar to make the transaction nice and legal.    Well, as legal as it could be, since it was already stolen property.  Lesseri probably wanted the registration to be made out to whatever alias she was traveling under.

He sighed and pulled the identification tags from his pocket to begin the transfer.  

*******

"Time was, being a Saiyan actually meant something," Guwar moaned to no one in particular.    He wanted to find a way off Paxul's Planet before Lesseri inspected her new ship, but all of the off-world transports were booked solid.   Hijacking a ship was still an option, but he wanted to save that as a last resort.   He had come to this planet to lay low until Luffa left the sector.    Now that he needed to worry about Lesseri too, he couldn't afford to take chances.   The best possible course was to leave the planet as quietly as possible, but if that didn't work, he was better off staying put.   Lesseri might come looking for him, but that was still preferable to having Luffa on his trail.

He had found a seedy bar on the edge of the spaceport, and continued scribbling formulae on napkins while a robot served him liquor.  It was likely that alcohol would only make things worse for him, but in his current state of mind, Guwar couldn't see how he could sink any lower.  

"Used to be, a guy like me could walk into a place like this and everyone would cower before me as soon as they noticed my tail," he grumbled.   "Now what do they do?    If I so much as step out of line, they call the Super Saiyan to run me off.    Just like she ran off King Rehval, and all of his generals and soldiers, apparently."

"Query: Would you like more brandy, sir or madam?" the robot asked as it wheeled past him.  

"Why not?" Guwar muttered.  

"Precondition: This unit is not authorized to extend credit.    Service will resume once payment has been made, in the amount of--"

Guwar shooed the machine away.   He was well aware of his bill, and he wasn't interested in getting a guilt trip from an automated recording.   It was time to face facts.   The galaxy was getting too hot for fighting.   His best bet now was to fall back on his mathematics degree and find some honest work.   The next time he got the craving for battle, he would just have to stifle it, or maybe settle for a hunting expedition on a planet far enough from the Federation that Luffa wouldn't be able to find him.    Times had changed, whether he liked it or not, and he couldn't keep living his life as if the change hadn't happened.   He'd told enough of his clients that whenever he explained his stochastic models.   You couldn't predict chaos, but you could at least account for it and accept that it was real.

"Stifle it!" he growled.   "Might as well ask the wind to stop blowing.    Talk about denial.    You can't ignore the implicit parts the model either.    All math and no fighting makes Guwar a very tense boy."

"Excuse me."

He looked up from his notes to see an attractive alien woman standing by the stool next to his.    She was holding a bottle and a glass, which she pointed at the empty stool.    "Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked.

"Go ahead," he said.  

"Thanks."  She hopped onto the stool and began struggling with the cork on her bottle.    "Nnf... say, would you mind...?"

He sighed and took the bottle from her, and removed the stopper with a single tug.    

"Thanks," she said.   "I love this stuff, but they don't make it easy to serve.   Care for some?"

He looked down at his own glass and decided this was the best thing to happen to him all day.    He quickly swallowed the last dregs of his own drink, and passed the empty glass for her to fill.

"Thank you," he muttered as she slid the glass back too him.  

"Oh, don't worry about it," she said.   "I can never finish a whole bottle by myself.   I've got a rule where I always find someone to share with whenever I order one of these.  It beats drinking alone, and I've met all kinds of interesting people that way."

Guwar sampled the beverage and decided he liked it.    It was a fruity, but not too fruity, and there was enough of a kick to make it worth his while.   If the only price was keeping this woman company, well, he was beginning to consider it a bargain.

"You're a Saiyan, aren't you?" she asked.   "I noticed your tail when I walked by.    It looked like a fuzzy belt, but I saw it twitch a minute ago."

"Yeah, I'm a Saiyan," he said wearily.    "For all the good it does me."

"It sound like you've hit a rough patch."

"You could say that," Guwar said.  

"I always heard you guys were unstoppable," she said.   "Hey, what's all that you're writing?"

"Oh, this is just a theorem I was playing with.    The only proof on record is very cumbersome, so I thought I'd try to come up with one of my own, something simpler."

"I didn't know Saiyans did homework," she said.  

"Well, this one does," he said.   "Not that I'm making much headway with this either."  He crumpled up the paper and tossed it over his shoulder.   "It turns out some of us are more stoppable than others."

"Tell me about it," she said as she placed her hand on his.   "I like hearing other people's problems.   It helps put my own in perspective."

And so he did.    If Guwar was being honest with himself, he was already talking about his problems as it was.   At least this woman wanted to hear it, and maybe a sympathetic ear was all he really wanted.   It didn't hurt that the face attached to that ear was rather attractive.   Something about the light playing off her red hair was especially pleasing to him.  

They talked for almost two hours, and when the bottle was empty, she took his hand in her own and smiled at him.  "You know," she said, "I have a roommate who's interested in Saiyans too.    Maybe you'd like to come home with me, and I can introduce you."

"Is that so?" he asked.    "Another blue-skinned girl like you?" he asked.

"Not like me," she said, "but I think you'll like her.    I'm sure the three of us can have some fun together."

Saiyans were very prudish creatures, though Guwar always enjoyed the way aliens would practically throw themselves at him whenever they happened to find him attractive.   It was an obscene display, but he was drunk and lonely enough that he didn't mind at all.    After all the trouble he'd had, it would be nice to spend time with some uninhibited alien women who wouldn't try to interrogate him or shake him down for money.   He accepted her invitation, and she paid his bill and bought him a mass transit token to her apartment building.   It was actually a hotel, but Guwar wasn't familiar enough with Paxul's Planet to recognize the difference right away, and the liquor had dulled his powers of observation enough that he didn't notice things like the concierge desk on the ground floor.    

"Hey, I'm back!" she called out as she opened the door to her room.   "I met someone in town.   Thought you might be interested in some company, so I brought him over."

She turned to enter the bathroom, and gestured for him to come inside and make himself comfortable.    

"Oh yeah?   Who is he?" her roommate called back.  

"He's a Saiyan!" she answered from the bathroom.   Guwar made his way into the room and tried to follow the sound of the roommate's voice.  It was coming from a balcony at the end of the room.   Then she stepped through the patio door and switched on one of the lights.

"What a coincidence," the roommate said as her tail waved into view.   "So am I."

She was wearing yellow pants and a black shirt, and she began to crack her knuckles as she stepped towards  him.    "I've got some questions for you, Guwar," she said ominously.  

"I... I don't know anything about King Rehval!" he said in a panic.    Running wasn't an option.   He had walked right into her lair, and this time they were on a planet's surface instead of the somewhat level playing field of outer space.     Fighting was pointless.   Luffa had defeated dozens of Saiyans without even trying.  

"Who said anything about him?" she asked as she stalked closer to him.   "I'm after Lesseri."

"Who the hell is Lesseri?!" he asked.   The idea of Luffa terrorizing Lesseri for a change appealed to him greatly, but he wasn't so petty as to give away information over a minor grudge.   If Luffa really did have telepathic abilities, it wouldn't matter if he told the truth or not.    Otherwise, it was best to play dumb.   If Luffa thought he had valuable information, then it was time to find out just how valuable it was.

"Lying just makes me angry, Guwar," she growled.   "I went to a lot of trouble to find you, and now it's time to find out if you were worth the effort."

She grabbed him by his shirt and lifted him over her head.    "Tell me where she is!" she demanded.   "Or I promise the next few minutes will be more painful than anything you could imagine."

"I don't... know!" he insisted.   He was surprised that she hadn't probed his mind already, though he wasn't sure how that worked.   Maybe it took her a while to prepare for that, so she wanted to soften him up first.   Until then, his best bet was to play dumb.    He had to keep stalling until he could find a way out of this.  

"You'd better tell her what she wants to know, Guwar," the blue-skinned alien said as she stepped out of the bathroom.   She was holding a red wig in her hand, and she was wiping off the blue on her face to reveal a lavender complexion.    "She doesn't take no for an answer."

He ignored the alien woman.   Her part in this already said and done.  What mattered now was Luffa.   He tried to use his ki sense to get an idea of her intentions.   It would take only a sliver of her full power to kill him, but was she actually using that much energy, or was she only summoning enough to manhandle him?   One thing was for certain: the terror of being roughed up by a Super Saiyan was a fantastic way to sober up.    One look into those pitiless eyes of hers was enough to send chills down his spine--

And then he finally paid attention to the ki he was sensing from her.    

"You're not Luffa," he said.    

The Saiyan woman smirked and tossed him onto the hotel bed.   "Smart boy," she said.  Her accent was suddenly different.     She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small communicator.   "Come on up," she said into the speaker.    "I think this is going to pan out for us."

"I don't get it," the alien woman said.   "How'd he figure out you were a phony?   You've got the same hair, and the yellow pants and everything."

The faux-Luffa tore off her wig to reveal a much greater volume of real hair underneath it.    As Guwar tried to understand how the wig worked, the impostor looked at her accomplice impatiently.   "Ki signatures are like fingerprints, Treekul.   He must have met the real Luffa before, and when he sensed that my power was different from hers, he knew I was an impostor."

"Wow," Treekul said.   "You guys have all kinds of powers."

"Wait, I don't understand," Guwar said as he sat up on the bed.   "What's all this about?"

“This was a test, Guwar," the Saiyan woman said.   "We needed to see where your loyalties lay.   Whether you could keep a secret.    Luffa has been shaking down every Saiyan she can get her hands on, so we needed to see if you'd talk if she ever caught up with you."

"You're royalists?" Guwar asked.   "I wasn't lying when I said I don't know anything about King Rehval."

"We've got nothing to do with King Rehval," the Saiyan said firmly.    

"Who's King Rehval?" Treekul asked.  

"Listen, just finish changing out of that disguise, would you?" the Saiyan woman said.    "I don't know why you had to wear it in the first place."

"Because, Endive," said another woman who entered the room, "Luffa's wife is an alien with red hair and blue skin.   I've met her before, and I wanted to find out if Guwar had run into her."

Guwar was surprised to see Lesseri again, though her involvement in this explained why he was being tested to see if he would betray her.   "Lesseri, look," he began, "if this is about the repairs on my ship--"

"Oh, forget about your ship, Guwar," Lesseri said.    "I only took it from you to piss you off and to see how you'd react.   What do you think, Endive?"

The fake Luffa crossed her arms and regarded Guwar like a piece of meat.    "He kept his cool, more or less.   It didn't take him long to see through my disguise, but he never came close to selling you out.   Impressive, since he had no particular loyalty to you in the first place.   I think we can use him."

Lesseri nodded with approval and turned to their alien comrade.  "How about you, Treekul?" she asked.   "You talked to him all night."

Treekul shrugged as she patted her genuine hair, a layer of pine green stubble covering her scalp.   "He's broke and desperate," she said.   "He's real good at math, but he's sick of running and hiding, same as the rest of you.    I think he'll fit in just fine."

"Fit into what, exactly?" Guwar asked.   He was somewhat irritated at being kept in the dark, but he couldn't argue with Treekul's assessment of him.    He really didn't have anything better going for himself, and it sounded like Lesseri was about to offer him a way to turn his fortunes around.

Lesseri approached him and smiled broadly.   "Let's just say that we're all sick of looking over our shoulder, watching out for Luffa," she said.   "We think there's a way to do something about that, and we need your help to make it happen.   If it works, we'll all become stronger than we've ever been.   How does that sound to you?"

It took a moment for Guwar to register what she was saying.   When he finally took it all in, he nodded slowly.  "It sounds pretty good," he said.  

Lesseri reached out and took his hand in her own to pull him up his feet.   "Good," she said.    "Then let's head back to my ship, and I'll tell you everything we know about Jindan..."