Summary: A/U B/V....A ship carrying a group of clueless tourists, a blood-thirsty convict, co-pilot Bulma, and captain Yamcha crash-lands on its destination, leaving them stranded to fend for themselves. But they soon find out that they are not alone. Can they survive without killing each other first? This is very unlike anything that I have ever written before, but what the hell? I'm going to give it a shot. Loosely based on the Vin Diesel (ow-ow!) movie 'Pitch Black'.
P I T C H B L A C K.............................
............................................................a fic by Rhapsody~*
.................................................................................................... 1: Priorities
The convict watched the crew and passengers scurry about like little flies as they readied the ship for take-off, a simple task that he could have easily completed hours ago, and smirked. The bulletproof, shaded glass that made up his holding chamber was meant to keep out most sounds, but whoever had been in charge of its manufacture had really fucked it up; he could hear everything that was going on in the room. It sounded as if the passengers were beginning to worry about the safety of heading up for space. He had to chuckle a little at that. The technology had been undergoing multiple tests for years now, and besides, it wasn't as if they had meaningful lives to go home to. They were all the ship for one reason--to escape the harsh reality that was life. How did he know this? It was easy. The only available entertainment to him was the pathetic drama that they could provide. He was grateful that while he could still see them, he was invisible to their eyes, merely a shadow behind smoked glass. It was easier that way.
"Oh, Krillen!" the ditz of the bunch, Marron, cooed. "I know that this is going to be the best trip EVER!"
Her boyfriend, Krillen, shrugged. "Sure! Whatever you say, baby."
The convict rolled his eyes. The girl, Marron, was a classic ditz with her stupid comments and featherbrained habits, such as adjusted her water-bra every two seconds and giggling like a deranged cheerleader. Sure, she was kinda cute, but not what the convict would consider pretty. Apparently she didn't share his opinion, because at the moment she was examining her reflection in the glass of one of the passenger chambers and studying her breasts from all angles.
Her boyfriend, Krillen, wasn't exactly a modern Einstein either. In the convict's opinion, they deserved each other. Krillen was a sniveling, perverted little chrome-dome without a single functional brain cell to speak of. How he had managed to attract a gold-digger like Marron was anyone's guess. The convict didn't really want to know. Anyway, it sounded like Krillen was struggling to make ends meet and was currently between jobs, which wasn't surprising.
The automatic door to the passengers' chamber slid open with a little creak, and the self-proclaimed captain of the ship, Yamcha, stepped through with a smug smile on his pop-starish face. A slim, petite girl stepped through the door behind him. That was Bulma Brief, scientific extraordinaire. She was not only Yamcha's co-pilot, but had also decided to come along because of the scientific experiments she was conducting for her father, the wealthy owner of Capsule Corporations. She stopped and examined the creaky door, running her fingers up and down the control pad, her features twisted into an expression of concentration.
"Damned doors," she muttered to herself. "Yamcha, do you remember where I set down that oil can?"
The captain turned and gave her the up-down before answering. "Who cares? I have bigger, more important problems to worry about. Where are the rest of the passengers?"
Bulma paused in her assessments and furrowed her brows in puzzlement. "The rest of the passengers? You mean they're not all here?"
"That's what I said, isn't it?" Yamcha scowled at Krillen and Marron, who were now staring, and stormed out of the room.
"Oh, shit," Bulma groaned, tightening her ponytail. She offered the two passengers a tight smile. "Excuse us."
The convict watched her leave with a touch of interest. She didn't seem to like the captain. Perhaps she wasn't such a pushover after all. He hadn't been able to gather very much information about her as of yet. The girl seemed to be avoiding much contact with the passengers and Yamcha, who seemed to be more than eager to spend time with her. All that the convict knew was various facts about her family and their business, as well as her reasons for being on the ship.
As for good old Captain Yamcha, however... The convict knew plenty about him already. For he had met the supposed 'All-American', space traveling, world-recognized hero once before. The asshole had another agenda, for sure-- it was the reason that he wasn't still on death row right now. Yamcha was a bounty hunter, no doubt about it. There had been a club that the convict had used to visit, before the cops were constantly on his ass, that the bastard had liked to haunt every so often, and news of a reputation like that traveled fast. Not only that, but the intricacies of the captain's personality had become immediately apparent as soon as he had secured the locks of the chains that secured the convict's hands and slammed the door behind him. The man was a manipulative son of a bitch. The convict allowed himself a brief fantasy involving, Yamcha, him, and a long, sharpened butcher's knife, and then quickly brought himself back to reality. It would not be good to get into the habit of crime until he was sure that he could get away with it. All things would eventually being to come together in good time...
All of a sudden a tall, lanky man literally stumbled through the door and into the room, a goofy smile on his face. He was followed by a stern-faced young woman and a boy of about seven years of age. Both looked pretty exasperated with the tall man, who proceeded to babble as soon as he regained his balance.
"Wowee, guys, this sure is a great ship!" he exclaimed, dropping his bags at his feet. "Say, where's the storage compartment around here? And where am I gonna sleep? I have so many questions!"
Marron and Krillen simply stared open-mouthed at the loud stranger. Marron recovered first and extended a hand. "Hello there! I'm Marron, and this is my boyfriend Krillen. I know that we're gonna have SO much fun on Matari-sei together! I can't wait!" She then giggled hysterically and clasped her hands together in delight. "Who are your friends?"
The woman winced as Marron took her hand and shook it vigorously. "I'm Chichi, Goku's wife. And that is our son, Gohan."
Krillen recovered his power of speech and smiled. "Um, hi."
The tall man, Goku, then caught sight of the convict's chamber and approached it boldly. The convict's muscles stiffened and he obtained an expression of malice. Goku, unable to make out anything but the convict's shadow, took a step forward and tapped on the glass. "Who's that? And why is he all locked up in there?"
Marron grabbed his hand and pulled him away, watching the convict with wide, wary eyes. "Oh, no, Goku! You can never go near that chamber! He's the criminal that's coming along. Captain Yamcha says that they're just gonna ditch him on Matari-sei so that he can't kill any more people on Earth. He escaped death row once, didn't you know that?"
The convict scowled at her explanation. Ditch him? On a wasteland of a planet like Matari-sei? His blood boiled at the thought.
Chichi grabbed her child and covered his eyes protectively. "Kill ANY MORE people? That's ridiculous! How could they allow us to travel with a...a CRIMINAL?"
Goku scratched his head and shrugged. "Its gotta be pretty safe, I mean, he's chained up and that glass looks pretty tough."
Then Bulma walked into the room with her arms crossed. "Its safe. The glass is bulletproof." Her bright blue eyes studied the containment room. "You guys have nothing to worry about."
The convict studied her through narrowed eyes. She was undoubtedly one of the most attractive women he had ever seen--even prettier than the few he had hand-picked and killed in the past few years when he had been on his female-victim streak. If only he had met her when he had been free on the streets...he could have had a lot of fun with a body like hers. Dead or alive.
Bulma moved her eyes away from the convict's glass and steel chamber and proceeded to outline some of the basic rules of the ship the passengers. The convict sensed that she was creating the charade of being a hard-ass for her own benefit, and he could hardly blame her. Unless she proved herself to be an intelligent individual early on, nobody would take her super-modelesque self seriously. She had long, straight hair that fell to somewhere around her waist, judging from the length of her high ponytail, and striking blue cat-eyes. From the convict's angle, they appeared to be the color of the cloudless summer sky. Not that he had much to compare them to; he had spent the last few years in a maximum security prison where there wasn't much opportunity to see the sky. They brought him a fleeting sensation of freedom, and the convict decided that he would kill her last. Probably.
"But enough of the technical bullshit," Bulma dismissed after she had finished explaining the basics. "Step into your chambers, strap yourself in, and relax. We'll be taking off in about ten minutes." She then turned and walked out of the room, narrow hips swaying. The convict half-smiled and allowed himself one tiny little fantasy. Hell, it wasn't as if he had anything else to do.
..........................................................................................
Bulma pressed her palm onto the scanning lock beside the door of the control room. A green light flashed, the door slid open, and she stepped through. Yamcha was already pushing buttons and flipping switches on the control panels, an expression of extreme concentration on his handsome face. Bulma ignored a brief pang of lust and moved to assist him.
"You seem to be in a touchy mood this afternoon," Yamcha started, never taking his eyes off of his work. "What's wrong?"
Bulma shook her head. "I'm not sure that taking this--this CONVICT along is such a good idea. His presence makes the passengers nervous."
"Of course it does," Yamcha replied. "That only adds to the thrill of the trip. Once all of this is over, they will be able to reflect back on how brave they were to put up with his being here. Besides, the guy is contained in the most protective material on the market, and chained to the wall on top of that. There's nothing to worry about."
Bulma wasn't so sure. She crossed her arms and turned to face her captain. "I know that it was partly your idea to take him along. Why? Why would risk the safety of all of us like that?"
Yamcha slammed his hand down on the control panel and turned to look her in the eye. "You are in no position to question my decisions!" At the defiant look in Bulma's unusually colored eyes, his face softened, and he moved closer to her. "Besides, if the whack-job DOES escape, you have my word that you'll be safe." His hands moved to her waistline, and they both watched them caress her skin with feelings of apprehension.
"My safety should not be your first priority," Bulma protested softly, moving her eyes up to meet Yamcha's. "Its your JOB to protect the lives of those people, not the lives of your crewmembers."
"Oh, but your life IS my first priority..." Yamcha whispered huskily, pulling her body closer to his.
"I can take care of myself," Bulma said in a last attempt to defend herself. "I can take care of myself..." Her words were cut off when Yamcha covered her mouth with his and engaged her in a long, deep kiss.
When he finally pulled away, his lips were curled into a triumphant, domineering smile that sent a cold chill down Bulma's spine. "Now, no more arguments."
Bulma, for lack of anything else to do, nodded and went back to her work, her mind reeling. The last thing that she needed in her life at the moment was a steamy affair with America's most recent hero. She was tempted to laugh a little at the prospect of them having a real relationship, but knowing Yamcha, that would not have been a good idea. Besides, they were so...different. Bulma was definitely not attracted to his 'type' --the All-American, fresh-faced, I'll-save-you-fair-damsel-- kind of guy. She snuck a peek at him out of the corner of her eyes. Well, she USUALLY wasn't. Her heart seemed to be drifting towards all of the wrong places lately.
All of a sudden the engines started rumbling, and Yamcha was settling down into his drivers' seat. Bulma sighed and took her spot beside him, in the co-pilot's chair. She didn't even have the chance to speak the words 'lift-off' and they were off, speeding through the Earth's atmosphere.
..........................................................................................
It wasn't until they were safely out of the atmosphere and well on their way to Matari-sei, one of the most visited tourist planets in the galaxy, that Bulma left the control room to allow the passengers to come out of their chambers. Much to her satisfaction, the door of the containment room slid open without a single, faint creak. She hummed to herself under her breath as she unlocked each chamber and opened the doors. Since it had been at least four hours since lift-off, the passengers were napping peacefully. Bulma didn't bother to wake them, not wishing to have to deal with any unnecessary contact. From what she could tell so far, these were not the kind of people she cared to socialize with.
Once she had finished her business with the chambers, she turned to leave the room. Before she had a chance to leave, the convict's shaded chamber caught her eye. She paused in mid-step and studied the exterior of the holding chamber from afar, her nimble fingers itching to examine the superior, protective glass. Looking over her shoulder at the door to make sure that Yamcha wasn't anywhere close, Bulma approached the chamber cautiously.
She was in the middle of determining the exact thickness of the glass when the figure inside jerked suddenly. Bulma started and stumbled back in surprise. Heart pounding, she squinted to make out the convict inside. She was unsuccessful, and wondered if he had trouble seeing her also. By the way that he seemed to be waiting, tense and ready to attack, assured her that he had no trouble making her out perfectly. She wondered if the manufacturor had installed the glass the wrong way. She didn't have time to wonder long, because just then Yamcha bursted into the room. Bulma whirled around and wrung her fingers nervously behind her back. She hoped that the convict wasn't laughing his ass off at her awkwardness.
"Where have you been?" Yamcha demanded, running a shaky hand through his black hair. "Something's wrong, and I can't figure the damned thing out. Hurry your ass up and help me!" He hurried out of the room before Bulma had a chance to respond.
Letting loose a sigh of relief, Bulma turned back to the convict's chamber again. Much to her surprise, the convict had pressed his hands up against the glass, and she could just make out the whites of his eyes. She let out a little scream and fell back on her ass. Not giving herself time to look at the convict again, she got up and ran out of the room, trembling all over her body.
The convict smirked and leaned back against the uncomfortable, hard wall of his chamber. The girl needed a little scare to jolt her back to reality. It wouldn't do for her to feel TOO safe. Eyeing the open passenger chambers, the convict began thinking of more ways to make the unsuspecting tourists shit themselves in terror. As previously mentioned, he had nothing else to do.
..........................................................................................
Bulma entered the control room after taking a few minutes to recompose herself. Yamcha was scanning data on the computer screens wildly and entering codes here and there, sweat running down his anxious face. Bulma instantly forgot about her encounter with the convict and hurried to his side, checking the data for herself.
"What's going on?" she asked, bewildered.
Yamcha stopped his manic observations. "Hell if I know! We reached the outer limits of Matari-sei's atmosphere and the thing just started going crazy!"
Bulma narrowed her eyes at him suspciously. "Isn't this is just the sort of thing that they train you astronauts for?"
"Yeah well, I skipped out on that part of my training," Yamcha admitted hastily and angrily. "Its not your place to question my abilities, anyway."
"What ELSE did you 'skip out on'?!" Bulma demanded frantically. "Don't you even realize what could HAPPEN here? If something goes wrong, we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of escaping without injury!"
Yamcha suddenly grabbed her by the throat and pressed her up against a wall, his mouth curled into an ugly frown of unchecked anger. "Shut the fuck up! I know what I'm doing! Just FIX IT, goddammit! You don't have a choice!" His grip tightened on her delicate throat.
Bulma could hardly believe that just hours earlier, she had been kissing this man. The anger he was expressing seemed a bit extreme to her, but as he had said, it wasn't as if she had much of a choice. "Fine." As she was pinned up against that wall, she couldn't help but think that he had something more to hide, something more important than skipping astronaut lessons, something that he felt that he had to defend...
He released her and stormed out the room, probably to secure the supplies and alert the passengers of the current trouble. Bulma shook her head at the strange happenings of the trip so far and turned to the controls. Her scientific mind analyzed the situation quickly. They were going to overshoot the landing area by hundreds of miles, and the weather on the planet was not looking too good. Bulma swallowed, struggling to come up with a plausible solution for this...problem.
"Think, think, think!" she chided herself, pacing back and forth. If she couldn't steer the ship around the worst part of the storm, it would be thrown around like a child's play-thing, resulting in their eventual deaths. She suddenly got an idea and rushed to the controls, where she did some frantic damage control and settled back into her co-pilot's chair, praying for their lives.
"Well? Did you fix it?" Yamcha demanded as he re-entered, a ring of keys and a wicked-looking automatic weapon under his arm.
Bulma eyed his possessions and nodded. "I hope so. I've done all that I can at this point."
"Good," Yamcha plopped down into the pilot's chair and was silent for a moment. "You remember what I told you earlier, don't you?" His brown eyes were fixated on her intently, burning tiny little holes straight into her soul.
"Remind me," Bulma requested suspiciously.
"OUR lives are my first priority."
Bulma crossed her arms. "Yamcha, you can't do that. The passengers are the ones that you were assigned to protect! People back on Earth honor you for that reason--your ability to protect others in times of need. Don't tell me that you 'skipped out' on your rescue lessons, too."
Yamcha's expression darkened. "Fuck them," he said solemnly.
"That's all that you can say?" Bulma demanded, getting a little frantic. "Fuck them?!"
"Listen, do you want to survive or not?" Yamcha exclaimed, tucking the gun into his belt and gripping the keys. "Since you seemed to have solved the problem, we might not even have to WORRY about saving anybody's life."
Bulma's eyes went to the keys in his hands. "What did you use the keys for?"
Yamcha looked away from her, avoiding her eyes.
"What did you use the keys for, Yamcha?"
"I locked the passengers in their chambers," he replied coolly.
Bulma's jaw dropped in surprise. "But if we crash, they will have no chance of escape, no chance of surviving---"
Yamcha cut her off abruptly. "Save it for somebody who CARES! Bitch..."
"Oh my God." Bulma massaged her throbbing temples. "You are such an asshole. This is absolutely ludicrous. I can't believe that you would even THINK of doing such a murderous, crazy thing! You aren't any better than the convi---"
The computer screens went blank, the electricity cut out, and suddenly the ship burst through a group of clouds that had been obscuring their view, and Bulma and Yamcha were giving a devastating visual of the rocky ground of Matari-sei looming closer and closer. It looked as if they had front-row seats to the deaths of everyone on the ship, themselves included.
..........................................................................................
(A/N): And it only gets better from here.... What do you think? This is certainly not the normal type of story that I produce. It won't be so much science-fiction (I can't stand that particular genre, myself!) as it will be action and yes, you guessed it-- romance. I guess this means that its ciao for now! Please remember to REVIEW!
Contact me at: [email protected], AIM Hawaiian Babay
(Feel free to IM me, I always love a good chat!)
Rhapsody~*
..........................................................................................
P I T C H B L A C K.............................
............................................................a fic by Rhapsody~*
.................................................................................................... 1: Priorities
The convict watched the crew and passengers scurry about like little flies as they readied the ship for take-off, a simple task that he could have easily completed hours ago, and smirked. The bulletproof, shaded glass that made up his holding chamber was meant to keep out most sounds, but whoever had been in charge of its manufacture had really fucked it up; he could hear everything that was going on in the room. It sounded as if the passengers were beginning to worry about the safety of heading up for space. He had to chuckle a little at that. The technology had been undergoing multiple tests for years now, and besides, it wasn't as if they had meaningful lives to go home to. They were all the ship for one reason--to escape the harsh reality that was life. How did he know this? It was easy. The only available entertainment to him was the pathetic drama that they could provide. He was grateful that while he could still see them, he was invisible to their eyes, merely a shadow behind smoked glass. It was easier that way.
"Oh, Krillen!" the ditz of the bunch, Marron, cooed. "I know that this is going to be the best trip EVER!"
Her boyfriend, Krillen, shrugged. "Sure! Whatever you say, baby."
The convict rolled his eyes. The girl, Marron, was a classic ditz with her stupid comments and featherbrained habits, such as adjusted her water-bra every two seconds and giggling like a deranged cheerleader. Sure, she was kinda cute, but not what the convict would consider pretty. Apparently she didn't share his opinion, because at the moment she was examining her reflection in the glass of one of the passenger chambers and studying her breasts from all angles.
Her boyfriend, Krillen, wasn't exactly a modern Einstein either. In the convict's opinion, they deserved each other. Krillen was a sniveling, perverted little chrome-dome without a single functional brain cell to speak of. How he had managed to attract a gold-digger like Marron was anyone's guess. The convict didn't really want to know. Anyway, it sounded like Krillen was struggling to make ends meet and was currently between jobs, which wasn't surprising.
The automatic door to the passengers' chamber slid open with a little creak, and the self-proclaimed captain of the ship, Yamcha, stepped through with a smug smile on his pop-starish face. A slim, petite girl stepped through the door behind him. That was Bulma Brief, scientific extraordinaire. She was not only Yamcha's co-pilot, but had also decided to come along because of the scientific experiments she was conducting for her father, the wealthy owner of Capsule Corporations. She stopped and examined the creaky door, running her fingers up and down the control pad, her features twisted into an expression of concentration.
"Damned doors," she muttered to herself. "Yamcha, do you remember where I set down that oil can?"
The captain turned and gave her the up-down before answering. "Who cares? I have bigger, more important problems to worry about. Where are the rest of the passengers?"
Bulma paused in her assessments and furrowed her brows in puzzlement. "The rest of the passengers? You mean they're not all here?"
"That's what I said, isn't it?" Yamcha scowled at Krillen and Marron, who were now staring, and stormed out of the room.
"Oh, shit," Bulma groaned, tightening her ponytail. She offered the two passengers a tight smile. "Excuse us."
The convict watched her leave with a touch of interest. She didn't seem to like the captain. Perhaps she wasn't such a pushover after all. He hadn't been able to gather very much information about her as of yet. The girl seemed to be avoiding much contact with the passengers and Yamcha, who seemed to be more than eager to spend time with her. All that the convict knew was various facts about her family and their business, as well as her reasons for being on the ship.
As for good old Captain Yamcha, however... The convict knew plenty about him already. For he had met the supposed 'All-American', space traveling, world-recognized hero once before. The asshole had another agenda, for sure-- it was the reason that he wasn't still on death row right now. Yamcha was a bounty hunter, no doubt about it. There had been a club that the convict had used to visit, before the cops were constantly on his ass, that the bastard had liked to haunt every so often, and news of a reputation like that traveled fast. Not only that, but the intricacies of the captain's personality had become immediately apparent as soon as he had secured the locks of the chains that secured the convict's hands and slammed the door behind him. The man was a manipulative son of a bitch. The convict allowed himself a brief fantasy involving, Yamcha, him, and a long, sharpened butcher's knife, and then quickly brought himself back to reality. It would not be good to get into the habit of crime until he was sure that he could get away with it. All things would eventually being to come together in good time...
All of a sudden a tall, lanky man literally stumbled through the door and into the room, a goofy smile on his face. He was followed by a stern-faced young woman and a boy of about seven years of age. Both looked pretty exasperated with the tall man, who proceeded to babble as soon as he regained his balance.
"Wowee, guys, this sure is a great ship!" he exclaimed, dropping his bags at his feet. "Say, where's the storage compartment around here? And where am I gonna sleep? I have so many questions!"
Marron and Krillen simply stared open-mouthed at the loud stranger. Marron recovered first and extended a hand. "Hello there! I'm Marron, and this is my boyfriend Krillen. I know that we're gonna have SO much fun on Matari-sei together! I can't wait!" She then giggled hysterically and clasped her hands together in delight. "Who are your friends?"
The woman winced as Marron took her hand and shook it vigorously. "I'm Chichi, Goku's wife. And that is our son, Gohan."
Krillen recovered his power of speech and smiled. "Um, hi."
The tall man, Goku, then caught sight of the convict's chamber and approached it boldly. The convict's muscles stiffened and he obtained an expression of malice. Goku, unable to make out anything but the convict's shadow, took a step forward and tapped on the glass. "Who's that? And why is he all locked up in there?"
Marron grabbed his hand and pulled him away, watching the convict with wide, wary eyes. "Oh, no, Goku! You can never go near that chamber! He's the criminal that's coming along. Captain Yamcha says that they're just gonna ditch him on Matari-sei so that he can't kill any more people on Earth. He escaped death row once, didn't you know that?"
The convict scowled at her explanation. Ditch him? On a wasteland of a planet like Matari-sei? His blood boiled at the thought.
Chichi grabbed her child and covered his eyes protectively. "Kill ANY MORE people? That's ridiculous! How could they allow us to travel with a...a CRIMINAL?"
Goku scratched his head and shrugged. "Its gotta be pretty safe, I mean, he's chained up and that glass looks pretty tough."
Then Bulma walked into the room with her arms crossed. "Its safe. The glass is bulletproof." Her bright blue eyes studied the containment room. "You guys have nothing to worry about."
The convict studied her through narrowed eyes. She was undoubtedly one of the most attractive women he had ever seen--even prettier than the few he had hand-picked and killed in the past few years when he had been on his female-victim streak. If only he had met her when he had been free on the streets...he could have had a lot of fun with a body like hers. Dead or alive.
Bulma moved her eyes away from the convict's glass and steel chamber and proceeded to outline some of the basic rules of the ship the passengers. The convict sensed that she was creating the charade of being a hard-ass for her own benefit, and he could hardly blame her. Unless she proved herself to be an intelligent individual early on, nobody would take her super-modelesque self seriously. She had long, straight hair that fell to somewhere around her waist, judging from the length of her high ponytail, and striking blue cat-eyes. From the convict's angle, they appeared to be the color of the cloudless summer sky. Not that he had much to compare them to; he had spent the last few years in a maximum security prison where there wasn't much opportunity to see the sky. They brought him a fleeting sensation of freedom, and the convict decided that he would kill her last. Probably.
"But enough of the technical bullshit," Bulma dismissed after she had finished explaining the basics. "Step into your chambers, strap yourself in, and relax. We'll be taking off in about ten minutes." She then turned and walked out of the room, narrow hips swaying. The convict half-smiled and allowed himself one tiny little fantasy. Hell, it wasn't as if he had anything else to do.
..........................................................................................
Bulma pressed her palm onto the scanning lock beside the door of the control room. A green light flashed, the door slid open, and she stepped through. Yamcha was already pushing buttons and flipping switches on the control panels, an expression of extreme concentration on his handsome face. Bulma ignored a brief pang of lust and moved to assist him.
"You seem to be in a touchy mood this afternoon," Yamcha started, never taking his eyes off of his work. "What's wrong?"
Bulma shook her head. "I'm not sure that taking this--this CONVICT along is such a good idea. His presence makes the passengers nervous."
"Of course it does," Yamcha replied. "That only adds to the thrill of the trip. Once all of this is over, they will be able to reflect back on how brave they were to put up with his being here. Besides, the guy is contained in the most protective material on the market, and chained to the wall on top of that. There's nothing to worry about."
Bulma wasn't so sure. She crossed her arms and turned to face her captain. "I know that it was partly your idea to take him along. Why? Why would risk the safety of all of us like that?"
Yamcha slammed his hand down on the control panel and turned to look her in the eye. "You are in no position to question my decisions!" At the defiant look in Bulma's unusually colored eyes, his face softened, and he moved closer to her. "Besides, if the whack-job DOES escape, you have my word that you'll be safe." His hands moved to her waistline, and they both watched them caress her skin with feelings of apprehension.
"My safety should not be your first priority," Bulma protested softly, moving her eyes up to meet Yamcha's. "Its your JOB to protect the lives of those people, not the lives of your crewmembers."
"Oh, but your life IS my first priority..." Yamcha whispered huskily, pulling her body closer to his.
"I can take care of myself," Bulma said in a last attempt to defend herself. "I can take care of myself..." Her words were cut off when Yamcha covered her mouth with his and engaged her in a long, deep kiss.
When he finally pulled away, his lips were curled into a triumphant, domineering smile that sent a cold chill down Bulma's spine. "Now, no more arguments."
Bulma, for lack of anything else to do, nodded and went back to her work, her mind reeling. The last thing that she needed in her life at the moment was a steamy affair with America's most recent hero. She was tempted to laugh a little at the prospect of them having a real relationship, but knowing Yamcha, that would not have been a good idea. Besides, they were so...different. Bulma was definitely not attracted to his 'type' --the All-American, fresh-faced, I'll-save-you-fair-damsel-- kind of guy. She snuck a peek at him out of the corner of her eyes. Well, she USUALLY wasn't. Her heart seemed to be drifting towards all of the wrong places lately.
All of a sudden the engines started rumbling, and Yamcha was settling down into his drivers' seat. Bulma sighed and took her spot beside him, in the co-pilot's chair. She didn't even have the chance to speak the words 'lift-off' and they were off, speeding through the Earth's atmosphere.
..........................................................................................
It wasn't until they were safely out of the atmosphere and well on their way to Matari-sei, one of the most visited tourist planets in the galaxy, that Bulma left the control room to allow the passengers to come out of their chambers. Much to her satisfaction, the door of the containment room slid open without a single, faint creak. She hummed to herself under her breath as she unlocked each chamber and opened the doors. Since it had been at least four hours since lift-off, the passengers were napping peacefully. Bulma didn't bother to wake them, not wishing to have to deal with any unnecessary contact. From what she could tell so far, these were not the kind of people she cared to socialize with.
Once she had finished her business with the chambers, she turned to leave the room. Before she had a chance to leave, the convict's shaded chamber caught her eye. She paused in mid-step and studied the exterior of the holding chamber from afar, her nimble fingers itching to examine the superior, protective glass. Looking over her shoulder at the door to make sure that Yamcha wasn't anywhere close, Bulma approached the chamber cautiously.
She was in the middle of determining the exact thickness of the glass when the figure inside jerked suddenly. Bulma started and stumbled back in surprise. Heart pounding, she squinted to make out the convict inside. She was unsuccessful, and wondered if he had trouble seeing her also. By the way that he seemed to be waiting, tense and ready to attack, assured her that he had no trouble making her out perfectly. She wondered if the manufacturor had installed the glass the wrong way. She didn't have time to wonder long, because just then Yamcha bursted into the room. Bulma whirled around and wrung her fingers nervously behind her back. She hoped that the convict wasn't laughing his ass off at her awkwardness.
"Where have you been?" Yamcha demanded, running a shaky hand through his black hair. "Something's wrong, and I can't figure the damned thing out. Hurry your ass up and help me!" He hurried out of the room before Bulma had a chance to respond.
Letting loose a sigh of relief, Bulma turned back to the convict's chamber again. Much to her surprise, the convict had pressed his hands up against the glass, and she could just make out the whites of his eyes. She let out a little scream and fell back on her ass. Not giving herself time to look at the convict again, she got up and ran out of the room, trembling all over her body.
The convict smirked and leaned back against the uncomfortable, hard wall of his chamber. The girl needed a little scare to jolt her back to reality. It wouldn't do for her to feel TOO safe. Eyeing the open passenger chambers, the convict began thinking of more ways to make the unsuspecting tourists shit themselves in terror. As previously mentioned, he had nothing else to do.
..........................................................................................
Bulma entered the control room after taking a few minutes to recompose herself. Yamcha was scanning data on the computer screens wildly and entering codes here and there, sweat running down his anxious face. Bulma instantly forgot about her encounter with the convict and hurried to his side, checking the data for herself.
"What's going on?" she asked, bewildered.
Yamcha stopped his manic observations. "Hell if I know! We reached the outer limits of Matari-sei's atmosphere and the thing just started going crazy!"
Bulma narrowed her eyes at him suspciously. "Isn't this is just the sort of thing that they train you astronauts for?"
"Yeah well, I skipped out on that part of my training," Yamcha admitted hastily and angrily. "Its not your place to question my abilities, anyway."
"What ELSE did you 'skip out on'?!" Bulma demanded frantically. "Don't you even realize what could HAPPEN here? If something goes wrong, we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of escaping without injury!"
Yamcha suddenly grabbed her by the throat and pressed her up against a wall, his mouth curled into an ugly frown of unchecked anger. "Shut the fuck up! I know what I'm doing! Just FIX IT, goddammit! You don't have a choice!" His grip tightened on her delicate throat.
Bulma could hardly believe that just hours earlier, she had been kissing this man. The anger he was expressing seemed a bit extreme to her, but as he had said, it wasn't as if she had much of a choice. "Fine." As she was pinned up against that wall, she couldn't help but think that he had something more to hide, something more important than skipping astronaut lessons, something that he felt that he had to defend...
He released her and stormed out the room, probably to secure the supplies and alert the passengers of the current trouble. Bulma shook her head at the strange happenings of the trip so far and turned to the controls. Her scientific mind analyzed the situation quickly. They were going to overshoot the landing area by hundreds of miles, and the weather on the planet was not looking too good. Bulma swallowed, struggling to come up with a plausible solution for this...problem.
"Think, think, think!" she chided herself, pacing back and forth. If she couldn't steer the ship around the worst part of the storm, it would be thrown around like a child's play-thing, resulting in their eventual deaths. She suddenly got an idea and rushed to the controls, where she did some frantic damage control and settled back into her co-pilot's chair, praying for their lives.
"Well? Did you fix it?" Yamcha demanded as he re-entered, a ring of keys and a wicked-looking automatic weapon under his arm.
Bulma eyed his possessions and nodded. "I hope so. I've done all that I can at this point."
"Good," Yamcha plopped down into the pilot's chair and was silent for a moment. "You remember what I told you earlier, don't you?" His brown eyes were fixated on her intently, burning tiny little holes straight into her soul.
"Remind me," Bulma requested suspiciously.
"OUR lives are my first priority."
Bulma crossed her arms. "Yamcha, you can't do that. The passengers are the ones that you were assigned to protect! People back on Earth honor you for that reason--your ability to protect others in times of need. Don't tell me that you 'skipped out' on your rescue lessons, too."
Yamcha's expression darkened. "Fuck them," he said solemnly.
"That's all that you can say?" Bulma demanded, getting a little frantic. "Fuck them?!"
"Listen, do you want to survive or not?" Yamcha exclaimed, tucking the gun into his belt and gripping the keys. "Since you seemed to have solved the problem, we might not even have to WORRY about saving anybody's life."
Bulma's eyes went to the keys in his hands. "What did you use the keys for?"
Yamcha looked away from her, avoiding her eyes.
"What did you use the keys for, Yamcha?"
"I locked the passengers in their chambers," he replied coolly.
Bulma's jaw dropped in surprise. "But if we crash, they will have no chance of escape, no chance of surviving---"
Yamcha cut her off abruptly. "Save it for somebody who CARES! Bitch..."
"Oh my God." Bulma massaged her throbbing temples. "You are such an asshole. This is absolutely ludicrous. I can't believe that you would even THINK of doing such a murderous, crazy thing! You aren't any better than the convi---"
The computer screens went blank, the electricity cut out, and suddenly the ship burst through a group of clouds that had been obscuring their view, and Bulma and Yamcha were giving a devastating visual of the rocky ground of Matari-sei looming closer and closer. It looked as if they had front-row seats to the deaths of everyone on the ship, themselves included.
..........................................................................................
(A/N): And it only gets better from here.... What do you think? This is certainly not the normal type of story that I produce. It won't be so much science-fiction (I can't stand that particular genre, myself!) as it will be action and yes, you guessed it-- romance. I guess this means that its ciao for now! Please remember to REVIEW!
Contact me at: [email protected], AIM Hawaiian Babay
(Feel free to IM me, I always love a good chat!)
Rhapsody~*
..........................................................................................