Today was a normal day. Well, just another day. I was sitting in my new captain's chair. It had a tall back and by tall, I mean twice my height easily, it nearly touched the ceiling and all. I fit in it perfectly. I could lean my elbow on the armrest and lay my chin on my hand with my legs crossed like brooding royalty just fine.
We were at a small port, primarily to drop off the cargo we retrieved from the freighter with the aliens. Everyone suspected it was something suspicious, which is why the hand off was somewhere neutral. I mean, the whole thing screamed trouble. I was just waiting for the call to action or something and I'd be rushing off.
If he didn't pay, we'd probably chase him down or something too… Mm… I think this was the first real handoff we did. Considering the other places with data or whatever that was wanted had scrubbed data files. There wasn't a market for zombies apparently or for rogue AI. Well, the rogue AI made sense… Don't think there's an AI counselor or rehabilitation program.
Mm… I could just imagine. Hello dangerous murderous AI how do you feel today? Sunny, with a side of MURDER! I lightly chuckled at my thought. Idly messing around with my telekinesis by moving around garbage. It was a thing… I was a little disappointed nobody asked, but apparently it was just another Saiyan thing to them. Which was a little insulting honestly…
The door to the bridge opens. The helmsman steps in with the instructor. The helmsman takes a moment to look over everyone. Before taking a step towards the middle of the bridge, just before me. A kind of stage for people to stand. I think rails are supposed to deploy for the captain to stand and watch over everyone. As it stood it made a nice announcement place. An orators stand.
"I got a new job…" His voice trailed off, but… I sensed no excitement. Instead, everyone looked like we were about to be sent to war.
"What's the job? And how did the hand off go?" I… have no idea who spoke. Definitely male, so not the navigator.
"The hand off went well…"
"Was it sketch as fuck!?" The navigator. Nailed it.
"Shockingly, no… It was a vintage racecar from the intergalactic rally." Uh, what?
"Apparently it was on the ship and a rich guy got desperate for it and posted the job all over the black market. The only reason nobody else bought the job was due to the shocking buy in and how suspicious the job looked."
That… Was kind of disappointing.
"Even better, we got a massive bonus. I went ahead and showed him the video footage from the attack on the freighter and the massive xeno swarm we dealt with. Not only did he pay for all of our expended goods, even giving us bonuses for those dead, but also tripled the payment."
From the shocked looks on everyone's face I don't believe this was standard.
"On top of that, he recommended us for another job. Even gave us the coordinates to the wreck in question. Which is why I am making this announcement. The job is optional, in fact it may not even be real. But… we have a lead apparently. Which is why I am bringing it to a vote.
Any questions?"
Nobody spoke, his words only made us more eager to hear the information.
"Good." He pushes a button or something and a hologram dominates the bridge. A slideshow! A power move! He taps a button as a woman comes on screen. Her species, meh… all the aliens start looking alike when you see enough of them.
"This is Doctor Cambridge, Bailey. She went missing near… fifty years ago." The hologram changes to a series of webpages. A doctor though?
"Rumor says she was contracted by a now defunct government to create a weapon. What weapon? Nobody knows. We do know she was a foremost researcher in just about every field. A genius of her time who is rumored to be a major mover and shaker in the fields she was involved in at her time.
The job is, specifically there is an open bounty for her research notes. A bounty, governments, especially a certain government will pay an insane amount for.
Her specific location, or last known location is unknown. Or has been unknown. Rumors are that her research facility tends to move around. What we received was her stations last likely known location."
Oh… That sounded sketch a fuck…
"Which is why I'm bringing this to a vote…" And everyone looked to me. Seeing my confusion, the instructor speaks up.
"You're the captain and honestly, if you said yes or no, we'll follow." A round of affirmatives follow. "Then why even call a vote if I'm making the decision."
"Just in case." Or so he says… I close my eyes, tail moving about.
"I find myself intrigued, but can we handle it?"
"I talked with George, the armorer and we can afford to outfit our entire defense team with high quality equipment, even refurbish our mecha to like new condition with the funds. Should we succeed the money is also more than enough for us to purchase a bigger ship."
"Do we need a bigger ship?"
"You wanted a gravity chamber, didn't you?"
Oh… wow. What a wonderful reply.
"Are you that confident in my ability?"
"From what I've seen I don't think a single research station, no matter how big, is enough to stop you. At worst we can let you clean up as we evacuate the ship."
I mean… he's not wrong.
"What's your thoughts crew? Helmsman has made himself fairly clear."
I shouldn't have bothered to ask… "Well, he's right." "I feel the same, even if you still won't call us by name." "You could probably just blow up the ship." Ah… the blind confidence in me. I looked to Instructor and he gives me a grin and a thumbs up. I roll my eyes, but I now know… I am the only one stopping them from taking this job. Which means…
"We're taking it. Make the preparations and let's go!"
The crew cheered out and began to get to work. Helmsman passed the navigational data to the navigator. It was a flurry of activity I didn't fully understand, but being in the center of it, sitting on my captain chair… Even if I wasn't directly doing anything I felt involved.
Days passed since our meeting. We made multiple stops as I watched crates upon crates of new equipment get moved in. I even noticed we took on a deluge of new crew members. I got strange glances, but nobody was stupid enough to challenge me whenever I walked around. During the days and weeks that passed me, and instructor essentially beat into the new recruits' heads the need for respect.
Our near daily spars were the talk of the ship. I was getting better at controlling my body, but even as I felt like I was making steady notable progress the burning in my blood didn't subside. Rather, the closer to the facility we got the more my heart seemed to throb. Like something important was waiting for me there. Something I needed, wanted.
In the weeks that passed I awakened the ki of a few other crew members, primarily those the instructor vouched for. Before I wouldn't have bothered, but since our spar that day I felt more accepting. No, instead I viewed him as more of an equal than before. Even if he was just a human. An oddity on this ship full of aliens.
The following weeks I found myself more approachable to the crew as my mind churned. My passing infatuation with instructor has long faded into the past and thankfully it wasn't captured and kept alive by the internet forevermore. Instead, a deep respect formed. Which made me wonder… I knew now companionship isn't what I wished for. I didn't want friends specifically, but I felt like it was important somehow to what I want. But I definitely knew it wasn't love that I was looking for.
Either way the days passed as we made our way to the destination. We were rapidly closing on the coordinates. The travel points were rather specific. We trawled past asteroid fields and nebulae. Which meant many hours just sitting on the captain chair. It was on the final jump, the tension in the air thick that somebody spoke.
"Say cap… What's it like being a Saiyan? I mean what's your culture like?" The helmsman asked and I found that odd. I took a moment to think of an answer. "Did you ever see my arena reveal?" "I mean… I think we all saw it, but it's always better to hear it directly from you. You were pretty vague."
I kind of was. "Any reason why?" "Curious." I looked over the crew and noted their perked ears. Curious, right. Well, a distraction would be nice.
"From the beginning? Like our origin story fine? I can work my way up. Give you the full history if you wish."
"Sounds fine. We got time."
The start was easy enough. "Our legends say we come from giant apes we called The Oozaru. And one day, they figured out how to attain a human form."
"Is that why you can transform?"
"Correct. That is why we can transform into a giant ape, or an Oozaru as my people call it. We do so on seeing a full moon from what I know or something similar." They nod, likely remembering when I transformed.
"We were always a warrior race back then. Saiyans grouping in groups and fighting each other. Typical monkey herd mentality I suppose. Our entire culture is based around might makes right or whatever.
Until one day the super Saiyan appeared among us. He singlehandedly united our people, or something."
"Didn't you call yourself a super Saiyan?"
"I'm not. It's fairly obvious when a Saiyan becomes a super Saiyan. I'm just trying to reach that level."
"And how do you know it's even possible to achieve that level?"
Anime…
"There are two confirmed people to have transformed. And well… They're strong. A super Saiyan's hair goes blond, and their eyes go blue."
Somebody whistles. "Can I continue?"
"Sorry, go ahead."
"Well, the appearance of a super Saiyan essentially began an arms race. I think. The details are spotty, but apparently there was a big fight. And apparently during the fight the sun got damaged or something. I don't know. It was that or the sun got too old and was about to blow. Or they damaged the planet too much, something like that."
I was getting strange looks, but I continued.
"So, when a victor was decided everyone realized the sun was going to explode, or the planet die, or… something… anyway, so they packed up and planet hopped until we found ourselves a new world. Killed the populace, stole their tech and planet from them. Except, when we got their tech, we realized we liked air conditioning and modern conveniences. Even if we knew shit about maintaining it.
Well, apparently our planet hopping and attempts at messing with tech got a big empires attention and they ended up showing up."
I was on fire. The words flow with incredible ease. I should be a damn historian.
"We made a deal with them. They provide us with technical expertise and support staff, and they provide us with targets to fight. Which led to our people being known as well-known mercenaries. Our objective was to clean off planets for the empire to move in and terraform to their liking.
Well, this continued and eventually it became so prevalent that we faced a massive population boom. I mean we actually had people to fight other than ourselves. Female Saiyan's quickly realized they hated carrying children and demanded a solution."
The bridge got oddly quiet as I continued.
"The solution was to take the unborn children and raise them in vats. Which allowed the female Saiyan's to fight more. A win-win. Well, that led into the need for improved childcare, but soon enough the Saiyan's came up with a solution. Let's send our young children to weak planets.
Which means children born straight from the vats are immediately given armor and put into an attack ball and set to attack a planet. Once we land, we either die, or kill off everything on the planet. Once done we can return and depending on our strength, we are either sent back out as cannon fodder, trained, or put through a captain program."
I took a moment to collect my thoughts.
"Wait, so… your pretty strong right? What was the training right?"
"Hm? Ah, no I was a talentless shit. I was just sent off to different worlds. Never really got the chance to chill at home before going back out. Didn't want to be relegated to the slave caste."
I heard some uncomfortable shifting.
"You… wait… That ship?"
"Right, I've had it since I was an infant practically. On my first mission I slept in it to hide from predators."
"And your armor?"
"Same thing really, all that's left are my boots. Kinda bummed about that." I point to them. Eyes watching. They were giving me odd looks.
"What?"
"I mean when did you… when was your first kill?"
"Mm… Hard to remember I mean I did kill a whole planet of aliens."
"Well… Fuck. And I thought I had a screwed-up childhood." The comm officer got up. "Sorry, I gotta…" He bolted out… The hell are they freaking out for?
"What about your parents?"
"Never met them to be honest."
Another left.
"How many worlds?"
"Three? Four?" The navigator stares and ends it with a slap to the table. "Right, that's fucked, I'm out." And ditches and so follows the rest of the crew save for the helmsman. "Well, glad you made it to this point cap." And he left… Huh… I looked around the empty bridge.
"Is it okay to leave the bridge unattended?" I was fairly certain I didn't know how to drive a ship. I shrug and just kept practicing my telekinesis. I mean, it does sound bad, but that's just how it is. No… That is strange, isn't it?
Something to think about. For now. I need the crew back in here. I left the bridge.