#which is of course about luffa's recipe for slorg hash

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (78/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[20 April, 234 Before Age.  Fanzer VI.]

Luffa crossed her arms as she paced around the office, her furry tail waving lazily behind her with each step.

“The truth is,” she said, “I don’t really do mercenary work anymore.   I stopped seeing jobs that appealed to me, and after a while I stopped looking  at the listings.  But money’s been a little tight lately, so I decided to jump back into the game.”

“Well, we’re glad you finally responded to our calls,” said the man behind the desk.   His lavende-skinned face was mottled with acne and wisps of curly hair on his chin and neck that might generously be described as a beard.   “The slorg infestation on our sister planet of Fanzer VII has gotten so bad that we’ve been forced to evacuate the whole planet.”

“Evacuated?” asked Zatte, who was admiring a small aquarium tank in the far corner of the room.   “We detected Fanzeri life signs there on our way into the system.  Are you sure you got everyone to safety?”

He gestured nervously at the question.  “Ah... well, we do have a small crew of... well, you might call them observers down on the planet.   They’ve been filming the slog population for some time now.   It’s part of a nature documentary, you see.”

“If they get in my way, I’m not responsible for what happens,” Luffa said.   “Now if you want, I can cover them while they leave the planet, but that’ll cost more.”

“Nature documentary?” Zatte asked.   “Who’d want to watch a bunch of slorgs?”

Luffa smiled.  “They’re kind of cute, really.   I mean, they’re not for everyone.   The six-inch teeth and venomous drool can be a turn-off.”

“What about all the tentacles?” Zatte added.

Luffa rubbed her hands together excitedly and licked her lips.  “We’re gonna have leftovers for weeks after this.”

“Um.   Well, the camera crews are very well protected,” the man said.  “And they know to stay put while you’re in the field.”

“Hmmph.    Have it your way,” Luffa said.  

“Now, uh...” the man wrung his hands together as he struggled to find the right way to approach the topic.   “You do plan to fight the slorgs in your transformed state, yes?”

Luffa looked at him skeptically.   “Depends on the situation,” she said.  “What’s it matter?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he said quickly.   “It’s just that we’ll be getting a lot of footage of you slaughtering them, and we’d like to know what we’ll be in for.”

“Are you making a movie here?” Zatte asked, suddenly taking a greater interest in the conversation.

“A movie?!”  He was starting to sweat.   “Why, whatever gave you that idea, Ms...  I’m sorry what was you name again?”

“Zatte,” she said.  

“Nice to meet you.  And will you be joining Luffa on Fanzer VII?”

“No, she won’t,” Luffa said.  “I need her in orbit giving me a headcount on the slorgs with the ship’s sensors.    Do you want me to transform for this mission?”

“Well, um... it’s entirely at your discretion of course,” he said sheepishly, “but I think it would satisfy everyone if you alternated a few times.”

“They are filming a movie,” Zatte said.   “They want you to switch back and forth because it looks cool.”

To emphasize this point, Zatte widened her stance, raised her fists to either side of her torso, and cried out: “HIIIIIIIIIYAAAAAHHHH.”  

Luffa looked back at her with a disgusted expression.  “Never do that again,” she said in a low voice.  

“Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh--” Zatte added.

Luffa ignored her and planted her palms on the edge of the desk.   “Are you telling me,” she said as she leaned in closer to the man, “that you people deliberately bred slorgs on your planet just so you could film me killing them all?”

“Well, that’s not quite true...” he said, tugging on the collar of his shirt.   “The fact is that we did it to film several other mercenaries in action, but the underwriters refused to insure the project unless we gave them additional help.  And you are a major celebrity in your own right, so it seemed like the perfect solution.”

“What other mercenaries?” Luffa demanded.   “If this a team effort, then I need to coordinate with-- What the hell is this?”

He had taken a flier out of his desk drawer and handed it to her.   The image printed on the front was a slick promotional composition, featuring four women in low-cut tank tops.  Each of them was bearing a large firearm and and aggressive expression.  Behind them was a slorg, who was pointing its tentacles in a suggestive fashion.    Luffa held it up for Zatte to see.

“You’d fit right in,” Zatte said with a smirk.

“You do want the slorgs killed, don’t you?” Luffa asked.   “Or would I just be there to keep these four alive while you film them?”

“Oh yes,” the man said, “we absolutely need the slorgs removed.   We’re expecting a shipment of tharrgs next year, and we can’t risk any of them interbreeding.   A litter of thlargs would be a serious setback to our production schedule.”

Luffa rubbed the bridge of her nose as she took all of this in.  “You’re lucky I like the taste of slorg hash so much, or I  would have stormed out of here already,” she said.  “As it stands, we need to renegotiate my fee.”

“Is that all?  Well, I’m authorized to triple your payment.   Honestly, we were surprised you were charging such a low rate in the first place.”

“Done,” Luffa said.  “Now let’s get on with this before I change my mind.   I need to talk to these ladies and patch their comm equipment in with my ship.”

“Oh, there was one other thing, before you go,” he said as Luffa turned to leave.    He reached into his drawer one more time and withdrew a manila envelope.  

Luffa took the envelope from him and looked at it.   “I don’t accept payment in paper bills,” she said.  “You need too transfer the money into my account.”

“Oh, that’s not money,” he said.  

“Then what is it?” Luffa demanded.

“It’s the costume we wanted you to wear while you fight the slorgs.”

Luffa looked at the envelope as if it were a live cobra.  She shook it slightly, and heard something jingle inside.  Then she heard Zatte giggling behind her.  

“If it doesn't fit, I’m sure we can have wardrobe make some adjustments,” he said.  

Luffa glared at him, and then slowly reached for his throat...

********

“I can’t believe you gave them all wedgies,” Zatte said.  

Luffa made a satisfied grunt as she settled into the captain’s chair of her star-yacht.  “I took care of their slorg infestation, didn’t I?   All it cost those slobs were a few hundred cameras and some wardrobe adjustments.”

“What do you want me to do with this?” Zatte asked, holding the manila envelope with Luffa’s proposed costume inside.    

Luffa shrugged.  “Put it in storage.   If you behave, maybe I’ll wear it for our anniversary.”

“I can hardly wait,” Zatte said.   “But we still need some income.   You’ve used up most of the money you saved up from before you started the Federation, and the Fed doesn’t pay you a dime.”  

“I know,” Luffa said.   “I never thought I’d need to worry about it.   Keda always handled my finances so well that it never came up.    I’d just head out  into space and people would line up to hire me out.   The galaxy’s gotten a lot more peaceful lately.”

“You can blame yourself for that, xan’nil-Dor,” Zatte said.   “No one wants to start trouble anymore now that they know you’ll come along to settle it.   You’re forcing people to accept that they can’t use war to solve their problems anymore.”

Luffa slumped in her seat.  “Yeah, but what happens after I die?   Does the whole thing start up again?”

“Maybe,” Zatte said.   “But if you keep this up long enough, maybe it’ll make the galaxy a more stable place.”

“That’s kind of a depressing thought,” Luffa said.  “Not that I wanted to spend my life beating up small fry, but it’s better than nothing.”

“We could always go back to Luffasworld,” Zatte suggested.   “You and I can live off the land for a while.”

“I’d get bored within a week,” Luffa said.  

“We could get jobs,” Zatte suggested.  “Construction, demolition, public appearances, restaurateur, there’s all sorts of things you could do to make some extra money.”

“I don’t know,” Luffa said.  

“What about the message we got from Drang Dedruhn, then?”  Zatte asked.  

Luffa drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair.   “She seemed a little... off somehow, didn’t she?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Zatte said.   “I’ve never met her.”

“Right, right,” Luffa said.  “Maybe it’s nothing, but she just didn’t seem like her old self.   That jewelry on her neck, for instance.   I’ve never seen her wear anything like that before, but I’ve been away from the Federation for a while.   Maybe she’s just trying something new.”

“Forget Drang’s fashion statements,” Zatte said.  “I’m talking about what she said.   About the Saiyan King asking you to return to your homeworld.”

“First of all,” Luffa said with a frown.   “That planet isn’t my homeworld.   I was born in my parents’ spaceship, at least twenty thousand light years away.”

“You know what I mean,” Zatte said.   “Your parents were born there, right?”

“Second of all,” Luffa went on, “it’s not the real Planet  Saiya, where the Saiyan people first originated.   That planet was lost to time, and probably destroyed in some great war.”

“Why do you think that?” Zatte asked.  

“Because that’s what happened to all our other planets,” Luffa said with a shrug.  “Every so often, a bunch of Saiyans try to establish a base of operations on a suitable planet, and the really successful ones end up attracting more Saiyans to their banner.  Eventually, it ends up becoming a ‘homeworld’, for lack of anything better to call it.  And sooner or later, they end up starting a war they can’t win, and the planet ends up becoming a casualty.   The Saiyans who survive the aftermath move on, and eventually the whole cycle starts over again.”

“Who would attack a planet full of Saiyans?” Zatte wondered.  

“Use you imagination, Zattie,” Luffa said.   “The Shockmaster could have done it, if he had a reason.   There’s no telling what kind of powerful aliens were running around in the old days.  They’d see a population of Saiyans the same way a Saiyan would look at an army of Dorluns.  Besides, you’ve seen how well Saiyans get along.   There were only eight of us on Nat-Chezz II, and all we did was bicker.   Hell, Lesseri killed her own mother.   Multiply that by a hundred thousand, and ask yourself how long a planet can last with all that infighting going on.”

“Are you saying that Saiyans aren’t meant to settle together in large groups?” Zatte asked.  

“I’m saying that this new Planet Saiya is a sham,” Luffa said.   “Sadala fell, and so did Guardenn, Tabul, Krispa, and  all the others before it.   But His Majesty thinks he has it figured out this time, so he named his planet ‘Saiya’ to convince people that it’s more legitimate, as if the name makes any difference.”

“Do you think that’s why he wants to see you?” Zatte asked.  “Maybe he thinks you can help him unite the Saiyans.”

“Hah!   If that’s what he thinks, then he’s a bigger fool than I imagined.  We’re enemies, remember?  Or did he forget about those ten Saiyans he sent to kill us two years ago?”

“Maybe he wants to make amends,” Zatte said.  

“Then he should send me his severed head on a platter,” Luffa muttered.  “It would be a good start, at least.”

*******

[21 April 234 Before Age.  Interstellar Space.]

“Come on, keep it up.   You’re doing great!”

When Zatte and Luffa sparred, they usually used the cargo bay, since it was the largest empty space on the ship, and the furthest away from any vital systems.  Luffa used only a tiny portion of her full power, while Zatte fought with everything she had, trusting Luffa to stop her before she did any harm to either of them.  

Zatte had a love-hate relationship with these sessions.   It was great exercise, and Luffa was probably one of the finest martial artists in creation, so there was definitely a benefit to it.   Furthermore, it was a guaranteed way to cheer Luffa up from even the foulest of moods.    And Zatte suspected that sparring was key to a healthy Saiyan marriage.  On the other hand, Luffa had a tendency to get carried away.  She would either push Zatte too hard, or drop her guard and let Zatte tag her a time or two.    

Today was no exception.  Luffa failed to block one of Zatte’s punches, and thus took a hard right to the face.  A trickle of blood slowly emerged from the corner of Luffa’s mouth, and she smiled proudly as she resumed blocking.  

“Would you please stop doing that?!” Zatte shouted.    

Luffa simply grinned and made a savage noise from her throat.   Sparring was fine, but Luffa craved genuine combat above all else.   In lieu of the real thing, letting your sparring partner get in a few free shots was a good way to satisfy the craving.  It was pointless to try to reason with her on this, so Zatte tried another tack, and turned her back on Luffa.  

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked.  

“Quitting,” Zatte said.  She walked to a rack on the wall where they had hung towels.    Zatte took one and wiped her face and neck.  

“But we just started,” Luffa whined.  

“I had a personal goal for today,” Zatte said.   “I was going to tag you at least once, and I did.    So I’m calling it a day.”

“But I let you--!”  Luffa was furious at being caught this way, but then she chuckled.   “Serves me right, doesn’t it?  I’ll have to be more careful.”

Zatte sat down on the deck and opened a bottle of water.  “Was it worth it?” she asked.  

Luffa wiped the side of her mouth and sat down beside her.   “Absolutely,” she said.    “You get a little stronger each time.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d be able to measure the difference,” Zatte said.   “As strong as you are, any improvement I make must be tiny.”

“Oh, I can tell,” Luffa said.   She looked at Zatte with a glowing admiration, which Zatte could only vaguely understand.  

“What’s wrong with King Rehval wanting to establish a strong Saiyan nation?” she asked.  

“What?” Luffa asked.

“We were talking about it yesterday,” Zatte said.   “I know you always used to say your mother was staunchly against the monarchy, but I want to know the political theory behind it.”

“Oh.   Well, it’s a matter of biology,” Luffa said.  

“Biology.”

“Right.   My people are just unruly by nature.   Trying to set up a kingdom for Saiyans is like building an aquarium for dogs.   It just doesn’t work.   The king has to keep his subjects on a tight leash, or they won’t obey him.   But if he tries to exert too much control, they’ll rise up and rebel.”

“So your mother left Saiya because the king was too strict?” Zatte asked.

“She left because he was too soft,” Luffa said.  “Rehval thinks the key to everything is to style his reign after leaders from other cultures.   He wears alien clothes, keeps his hair in an alien style, and he loves rubbing elbows with alien diplomats.  He practices statecraft and palace intrigue to maintain his power.   A worthy Saiyan prince would rule through strength and honor alone.”

“Like you?”

“Me?”

“You’re the only other Saiyan head of state I know.    You do run the Federation, don’t you, Madam Federatrix?”

“That’s different,” Luffa insisted.   “The Federation Council does all the governing.  I just make sure they don’t fight among themselves.”

“Maybe so, but you’ve done your fair share of meet-and-greets.   You went out of your way to recruit other planets to join the Federation.”

“Well, so what if I did?” Luffa said.  “None of those people are Saiyans.”

“But you are,” Zatte said.   “All of it was your idea, which makes me wonder if this ‘unruly’ talk is a lot of hot air.   Maybe you don’t give your own species enough credit.   You’re not a bunch of wild savages.   I think Rehval may have realized that, and he’s taking it into account.”

“You actually agree with him?” Luffa asked, visibly unsettled by what she was hearing.  

“I didn’t say that,” Zatte said.  

“I don’t see the Dorluns all gathering together on one planet,” Luffa muttered.   “It’d, sure make you guys a lot easier to find...”

“We’re supposed to scatter ourselves throughout the universe,” Zatte said.   “It’s written in the Dorlun Holybook.   If I get cut off from the others, that’s just how it has to be.   But that doesn’t mean the Saiyans have to do things the same was s my species.   They might be better off working together in the same place.   With the right leader...”

“Rehval?” Luffa asked.  “There’s nothing right about him.   He’s a disgrace.”

“Then overthrow him,” Zatte suggested.   “All I’m saying is that he might be taking the Saiyan people in the right direction, even if he’s only setting the stage for someone else to take over as their leader.”

Luffa laughed.  “Oh, that’d be rich.  Crown myself Queen of the Saiyans.  Mother would be rolling over in her grave if there had been anything left of her to bury.”

“Fine, fine,” Zatte said.   “Don’t be queen.   Appoint yourself Prime Minister, or Commander in Chief, or Venerated Sex Machine, whatever.  The Saiyans would still follow you.”

“The Saiyans hate me,” Luffa said.  “They think I’m an alien pretending to be a Saiyan because they can’t stomach the idea of a Saiyan who can change her hair.   Most of them think Super Saiyans are a myth, and the ones that don’t think I can’t be a Super Saiyan because I’m a woman.  Or they think I can’t be a woman because I’m a Super Saiyan.    That’s why the public is so confused about who I really am.   They prefer the lies and rumors over the truth.”

“But that’s exactly why you should take over the Saiyan homeworld!” Zatte argued.   “Then everyone would have to accept the truth!    They’d have to see you for who you really are, and then they’d finally love you, just like... well, the way I do.”

Luffa put her arm around Zatte and scooted closer to her.   “I’ve got all the love I need right here on this ship,” she said with a contented smile.   “As long as you know what I’m about, that’s enough.”

*******

[22 April, 234 Before Age.  Interstellar Space.]

Luffa’s star-yacht was designed to accommodate several dozen passengers.  In spite of this, Luffa usually slept on a pile of mats in the gymnasium.   It was a place she used to let off steam, and the broken and twisted exercise machines strewn across the deck bore silent testimony of this.  

On occasion, she would sleep in Zatte’s cabin, which was one of the more spacious guest rooms on the ship, but Luffa never slept well, and she worried that she might injure Zatte, or at least keep her awake all night.  It was one of the unspoken problems with their marriage.   Their frequent arguments only made it harder for Luffa to justify sleeping in her wife’s bed.   It was just easier to stick to the routine, to lie awake on the gym mats and wait for exhaustion to overcome her.   If the nightmares came, she would face them alone, and no one else needed to suffer.  

Two hours later, Luffa awoke with a scream, and realized she had transformed in her sleep.   The beach towels she used for  blankets were tangled around her ankles and knees, and she was drenched in sweat.   Fighting her panic, she grabbed her hair in her hands and levitated herself into the air, just high enough that she wouldn’t kick anything while she fought to power down.  

The key was to ride it out without tearing a hole in the ship.  As long as she exerted her strength against her own body, she could get through it.   Eventually, she shifted positions, curling up into a tight ball, and digging her fingernails into the flesh of her palms.  She hated to do this, because the wounds on her hands had worried Keda so much.   After Keda’s death, Luffa had resolved to stop, but it wasn’t so easy.   For a few minutes, all Luffa could think about was how brave Keda was, far braver than the “ultimate warrior” who was currently in a fetal position, sobbing over a bad dream.  

Little by little, she forced herself to calm down, at least enough to lower herself back down to the deck.  Her aura faded, and darkness returned to the room.  She smelled her own blood on her hands and took some strange comfort in the odor.    It was real: the pain, the blood, her hands, they were all real.     She was ashamed of her own weakness and fear, but she would be all right.  

And then the door slid open, and she was bathed in light from the corridor outside.    Luffa was startled, until she recognized Zatte’s silhouetted figure  step into the threshold.  

“I sensed your ki blowing up.   You okay?” she asked.  

“Nope.”  Luffa replied.  

*******

After tending to the cuts on Luffa’s palms, Zatte carried her back to her own cabin.    Luffa found this rather undignified, but supposed it served her right for waking Zatte up like this.   Besides, Luffa wasn’t so proud that she couldn’t appreciate being held.  

“I’m okay,” she murmured.   “I’ll just go back to the gym and--”

“I just want to make sure you’re okay, all right?” Zatte said as she opened the door.   “And I’d rather sit with you in a real bed than on the floor.”  

She gently lowered Luffa onto the mattress and wrapped one of the sheets around her.   “Tell me about it,” she said.  

“It’s... nothing you haven’t heard before,” Luffa said.  

“So bore me,” Zatte said as she lay down beside her.    

“It was the usual,” Luffa said.   “The Tikosi.”

It was a simple word that spoke volumes.   The Tikosi had massacred Zatte’s community, then took Luffa captive and tortured her for months as part of a cruel experiment to learn the secrets of Saiyan potential.  This alone would have been traumatic enough, but Luffa learned that her own father had conspired with the Tikosi.    Worst of all, she happened to be pregnant at the time, and so the Tikosi removed her unborn child, handing the remains over to her husband Kandai.

It was this terrible ordeal that had transformed Luffa into a Super Saiyan.  The Tikosi never dreamed that their experiments would backfire so disastrously.   Luffa’s father had believed that her power could be transplanted from one Saiyan to another, but he couldn’t replicate Luffa’s rage, or her compassion for the aliens who had risked everything to free her.   What Orij failed to understand--what all Saiyans failed to understand--was that mere ambition was only the beginning.   The true potential of the Saiyan race could only be realized through suffering and intense empathy.  This was Luffa’s greatest strength... and her greatest weakness.  

Zatte could relate to a certain degree.   She had lost her right eye fighting the Tikosi, to say nothing of her friends and comrades in the Dorlun colony.   And yet, she had found a measure of serenity at Luffa’s side.   It wasn’t quite as dark a bargain as Luffa’s, but the name “Tikosi” still held a similar meaning to both women.

“It was like... I was here,” Luffa said.   “On the ship.  And then I thought about my son, and I remembered he was back on the Tikosi planet, so I was suddenly there again.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“You miss him,” Zatte said.  

“I felt like I abandoned him,” Luffa said.  “Like I had to be back there, paralyzed and helpless, because at least then I was still with him, sharing his fate.”

“Listen to me,” Zatte said.  She sat up and took hold of Luffa’s shoulders.  “Listen to me.   You didn’t abandon your baby.   They took him from you, and there was nothing you could have done.”  

“I know,” Luffa said.   “But sometimes...”

“Go on.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Of course.”

Luffa took a deep breath, as though gathering the courage to ask.  “Do you miss the colonists as much as you used to?”

“No,” Zatte said honestly.  “I mean, losing that battle hurts, and I guess it always will, but it was years ago, and a lot’s happened to us since then.  I try to think of us as honoring their memory with our actions.   We stay alive, try to help other people out.    It won’t bring the colonists back, but it’s all we can do.”

“Is that how you feel about your eye?” Luffa asked.   “And Keda?”

“My eye?  I’m pretty used to that now.”  She ran her fingers over the patch that concealed the old injury.  “Sometimes I forget that I haven’t always been this way.   As for Keda... well, I don’t think that’s going to stop hurting for a long time.”

They were quiet for a moment, as they each considered what they had lost, and then Zatte realized what Luffa was getting at.   “Luffa, is that’s what’s eating you?   Do you feel like you don’t miss your son as much as you should?”

She looked down at her knees.   “Keda told me once that Dorluns don’t believe in revenge.    She lost everyone in the Tikosi attack, and she was still asking me to show mercy.  I didn’t really understand it, but that was why I didn’t kill all the Tikosi when I first transformed.   I couldn’t bring myself to attack the ones who couldn’t fight back.  

“The ones I really wanted to kill were my father... and Kandai.   Hunting him down was what kept me going for a long time.   But then we found him, and... Well, he’s been dead a long time, and my son is still gone.  Killing Kandai didn’t really solve anything.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Zatte said.  “You told me that Kandai said he sold your son’s remains to Planet Saiya.   And you seemed to want to do something about that after you finished the Shockmaster, but then you beat him, and you never brought it up again.”

“I don’t know what those bastards were planning, but it never really mattered,” Luffa said.    “Kandai thought it was for some genetic engineering research, but the Tikosi learned the hard way that Saiyans can’t be reduced to numbers.   At first I wanted to kill Rehval because it would give me another target for my wrath, but the Shockmaster changed my plans.   I trained to beat him, and married you... spent time with Doc and Keda and Wampaaan’riix and the others.   And then when Keda died, I realized that what happened to my son wasn’t the only thing motivating me anymore.”

She ran her finger along her abdomen, where Zatte knew there was a surgical scar from where the Tikosi had removed her child.   Then Luffa looked up at her and shrugged.   “It’s like your eye, I guess.  I’ve gotten used to it, maybe.”

“I think your dream says otherwise,” Zatte said.   “You still care about what happened to your son, Luffa.   It’s just that you’ve come to care about a lot of other things too.  That’s life.  The dead remain where they fell, and we keep moving forward.”

“All right,” Luffa said.   “What would you do about this if you were me?”

“If I were you?” Zatte said.  

“Yeah,” Luffa said.  

Zatte made a mischievous grin. “The first thing I’d do is step in front of a full-length mirror, strip down, turn Super Saiyan, and--”

“Cut it out!” Luffa said.  “I mean... I don’t know.   How would a Super Dorlun handle this?”

“Huh,” Zatte said.   “Now there’s a thought.   Do I have a tail in this scenario?”

“Sure, why not?” Luffa muttered.  

“I think I’d shave stripes into the fur,” Zatte said.  “Make it look really cute--”

“Zattie, please,” Luffa said.  

“All right,” Zatte said.   “If it was up to me, I’d go to Planet Saiya and settle things with King Rehval.”

“You’d avenge your dead son?” Luffa asked.  “That’s not very Dorlun at all.”

“I’m not talking about avenging anyone,” Zatte said.   “Rehval’s an unknown.  He made arrangements with your enemies, then he sent soldiers to kill us, and now he’s asking you to come meet him face to face.   Maybe he wants to make peace, or maybe he’s finally come up with a way to destroy you, or something else entirely, but you need to find out.   He’s too dangerous to ignore.  A Dorlun would want to assess the potential threat, and find exactly what his intentions are.”

“Then what?” Luffa asked.  “I should overthrow him and take over?”

“That’s up to you,” Zatte said.   “Aside from Rehval, the other Saiyans are no threat without him giving them orders.  Personally, I’d crown myself queen and have a harem of Saiyan babes give me foot-rubs all day, but that’s just me.”

“Hmmph,” Luffa said.   “He owes me an explanation at the very least.   And it’s not like I’ve got any other pressing business.  Maybe I’ve been avoiding this.  In a way he’s all I have left of my son.   Once I settle things with him... I really will have to let my boy go.”

“I’ll contact Drang in the morning and see what we can arrange,” Zatte said.   “Why don’t you lie down and try to get some rest?   I’ll wake you up if you start to have another episode.”

Luffa shook her head.   “Nah, I’ve kept you up long enough,” she said.    

“It’s okay,” Zatte said.  “I’m not really sleepy right now.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of wired myself actually,” Luffa said.  

“Well, if you need to work off some of that nervous energy...”  Zatte began.

“Yeah...?”

Zatte swung her legs around and placed her feet in Luffa’s lap.   “You could always give me a foot-rub.  You know, until I conquer Saiya and get the harem set up.”

Luffa shook her head and went to work.  

*******

NEXT:  The Homecoming