Venn had lived on Jumo for nearly a decade. It was a small asteroid in the 45+348n quadrant, generally known as a stop-over pebble where ships could re-fuel in their berths and where passengers could get some cheap food and a cheap bed. Of the few thousand people that could cram themselves onto Jumo, only about 10% lived there full time, in the apartments over the storefronts that line the asteroid's caverns. Ships came and went. People came and went.

Information came and went.

You see, that's what Venn trafficked. Information. He sat in his office and listened to the comms traffic. He watched the video feeds. Where did the ships come from? Where did they go? Who was on them? For the right price, he'd tell you.

He was watching a video feed right now, in fact, but he was off the clock. This observation was completely personal. Priceless. The two individuals he was watching stepped into a noodle shop, one that didn't have a camera. Venn lit a cigarette and changed the feed to the ship bay to look over the ship they'd come in.

A PTO shuttle, painted black in an admittedly-decent attempt to cover the numbers on the side. Another shuttle was docking a few berths down, this one painted blue. There was a smudge on the screen—pixelation where the black numbers were still peeking through the paint.

His comms crackled. "Niner niner zed one-three," a woman rasped, from a shuttle entering Jumo's orbit. "Niner niner zed one-three, requesting clearance to land."

"Jumo to niner niner zed one-three," the dock master replied. "Clearance granted. Berth sixteen. Niner niner zed one-three, dock at berth sixteen."

"Berth sixteen. Ten-four."

Venn took a long drag of his cigarette. He leaned over to his computer and clicked out to the larger radar. Two more shuttles were inbound, using civilian codes. The passengers were luckier than they realized, docking at Jumo berths only two weeks after the old dock master, Erryn, retired. Erryn had been a PTO captain for twenty years before her heart started skipping, and she'd taken the dock master job after her general pulled some strings. She would have recognized those shuttles in a heartbeat.

Just like she would have recognized Venn in a heartbeat, if he'd ever gotten sloppy with his disguise.

The camera outside his office picked up on someone walking towards the door. It was a man—tall, broad-shouldered, with a mohawk. Still in his damn jumpsuit, though he'd left the armor somewhere, thank god.

A minute later, someone knocked on his door. Venn blew smoke through his nose. "Yes?"

"Someone is here for you," Dickie said, poking his head through the gap.

"Send him in." To his credit, Dickie didn't ask questions. He just nodded and stepped aside to let the man from the video through.

He was taller in person, and looked down on Venn like he was an interesting bug in a dish. "You're Satoimo?"

"You want to get me killed?" Venn demanded. He glanced over at the door and waved at Dickie to close it. "I don't use that name anymore. I go by Venn, now."

"Sorry," the man said, shrugging in a way that didn't seem apologetic at all. "That was the only name I was given."

"Hm." Venn had been using this name for several years now, but that was a blink of an eye in space time. "Well, what's your name, brother?"

"Daikon." He folded his long limbs into a chair across from Venn. "I'm a captain under Prince Vegeta. I was a captain."

Prince Vegeta. Venn tapped out a cigarette and offered it to Daikon. "You're the superior officer then?

"Yes."

"You were on Lulani?" Daikon's gaze flashed to Venn. He nodded. "All those Saiyans on those shuttles—they were on Lulani, too?"

"Yes."

Venn nodded. They sat in quiet for a few minutes, sizing each other up. Venn used to have a build like Daikon, years and years ago—back when he reveled in being a Saiyan, rather than fighting to hide it. He was still tall like Daikon, broad-shouldered, but nowhere near as jacked anymore. Training and bulking was necessary when he was a soldier, after all. But after Frieza blew up his home and expected them all to treat him like their new king, Venn overrode the controls of his space pod, abandoned his assigned mission, and fled. He hadn't done so much as a push up since then. He hid his tail under his clothes and cut off his long braid. He kept it trimmed close to his head now, so it wouldn't spike out and give him away. But at least he's well-rested and well-fed, which he can't say for the soldier in front of him. Daikon looked exhausted. Dark circles sat under his eyes, and he looked drawn and dehydrated. But there was a hardness to his gaze. Determination.

Venn could work with that.

"Is it true, what they're saying?" Venn asked. "That there's a boy? A half-Saiyan boy?"

"His name is Gohan. His father is a Saiyan. His mother is an Earthling."

Venn lifted his cigarette to his lips. His hands were shaking. "Like the princess. Burma?"

"Bulma," Daikon corrected him. "They were on Lulani. Prince Vegeta handed them over to Serori and Parseri—the other captains—to get them off the planet. They made it. I saw their ship take off. They're alive."

"And," Venn swallowed. "The prince. Is he alive?"

Daikon hesitated. "I don't know. But we're also missing Nappa and Kakarott—"

"Who?"

"Gohan's father. He's…He's something else. There's a fire in him. Strength. Skill that can't be taught, or trained…" Daikon trailed off. He ashed his cigarette. "I don't know if the prince is alive. But there were still some shuttles on the ground when we left. If Kakarott and Nappa were with him, I'd bet he's still kicking."

Venn pushed to his feet and crossed to his window. He worked over a beauty shop on a busy street. Neon lights blinked down the way, where a bar was getting ready to open for the afternoon. A group of Saiyans were crouched outside a sandwich shop, shoveling food into their mouths. He reached up and laid his hand over the glass, as though he could touch them. "How many of you made it off Lulani?" He didn't ask about the Saiyan's on Frieza's ship. Everyone knows what happened to them. Venn couldn't get out of bed for days when he heard the comms. He'd only made it this far on the scrap of information that some of his people had fought their way off the planet.

"Two hundred and seventeen." The number was both a knife to the heart and a flicker of hope. They'd once populated an entire planet. Three billion Saiyans, reduced to a few hundred. But a few hundred of them had survived a kill order from the Planet Trade Organization. And the boy…the boy was proof that they could increase that number, even after what Frieza and the PTO did to their women.

Venn cleared his throat. Back to business. "You're all in PTO shuttles?"

"Not by choice, trust me. It's what they came down in to kill us all. We painted them on Bux." Daikon leaned forward. "We need your help, Sa—Venn. Taro was on Bux, and she told us that you can put us in the black. We need to go somewhere to lie low. Rest. Train. And…wait for the prince to find us."

Vegeta had been a teenager, the last Venn had seen him. Small, pale, and terrified of Frieza. But he'd not let his fear stop him from taking beatings for his men, and above all, he was proud of his heritage. Proud to be a Saiyan. Proud to wear the red cloak of Saiyan royalty around his shoulders. He would look for his people, if he thought he could find them.

Venn lit a new cigarette and sat down at his computer. "You'll need to scuttle the ships. Go to Kikolpan, I'll give you the coordinates, and find Eve. I'll give her a heads up through my channels. Then go to Ryo."

"Ryo?" Daikon asked, laughing. "You're kidding."

"I'm serious," Venn said, sending him a knowing smirk. "I worked there for a few months right after I bolted. The brothels are always looking for bodyguards, and the madams pay the secrecy tax. You'll be safe as long as you keep a low profile. Meaning, get rid of your jumpsuits and keep your tails out of sight."

"Do you want to come with us?"

Venn looked up from his screens, surprised.

Daikon shrugged. "We don't work for Frieza anymore. There are so few of us now. We should stick together."

"All the more reason for me to stay away from you all, frankly," he said, chuckling drily. When Daikon's brows drew down in offense, Venn held out a placating hand. "It's not like that. But you'll need someone out here, right? I'll keep an eye on you and an ear out for our prince."

"And the princess," Daikon added on. "Vegeta…he cares about her. Even if he's not…" he paused, choosing his words. "Well. He would want her safe."

The words settled into Venn's mind, loaded and heavy. He nodded at the other Saiyan. "I'll see what I can find. But you need to focus on your soldiers, Captain."

"Tch. I'm not a captain anymore."

"They don't give a damn about PTO ranks," Venn told him, jerking his thumb at the window behind him. "They're still looking to you for guidance, right?" Eyes on the floor, muscle in his jaw fluttering, Daikon nodded. "You're still their captain. They'll need you to be their captain more than ever. Shit, I haven't been a soldier for years, and I know I would need it. They're going to want normalcy, even if normalcy is following orders and a training schedule."

The captain seemed uncomfortable with the shift in conversation, so Venn changed the topic to coordinates and ship specs. He moved quickly, needing to get Daikon and the Saiyans out of Jumo before people started putting pieces together and making connections. Only when the other man stands up to leave did Venn give his last bit of advice.

"Hey, Daikon," he called out. The other man stopped, filling the doorway with his bulk. "Shave your goddamn mohawk. You stick out like a sore thumb."

The laugh Daikon let out is booming and genuine, probably the first one he'd had since Lulani, if Venn had to guess.

But then again, so was the smartass grin that pulled at Venn's mouth.

Hope.