As my ship finally broke the atmosphere of the planet that I'd set off for five weeks ago, I fingered the disconnected blue scouter in my pocket. I'd officially wasted eight weeks just flying from planet to planet. I couldn't help but sigh in relief as the Attack Ball finally landed with a brutal rattling.
But before I opened the ship's latch, I closed my eyes, sensing for my companions. It didn't take me long to find them. All four of them had landed in tight formation. No other lifeforms around for miles, at least, none that I could sense.
I'd ripped Mel's tail off and destroyed her spaceship, stranding her on that planet. To the others, and the woman, it probably felt like a terrible punishment, and it was, but it also meant that she'd probably survive the destruction of Planet Vegeta… unless my father finally grew a conscious, and decided to check up on me.
So, she'd definitely outlive most of the Saiyan Race. No doubt in my mind.
And without her Oozaru form, Mel wouldn't be anywhere near the strongest being on the planet. She'd have to grow, somehow, because an indiscriminately slaughtering, coldhearted beast wasn't going to survive on a planet like that as a weakling. A great punishment for a Saiyan. Not the strongest, on a planet of primitive beasts.
As for the other children, they'd all agreed to follow me. No surprise there. So, I'd programmed their ships along with my own, and we'd all blasted off. They'd wanted to know where we were going, but I hadn't bothered telling them. I'd had a plan for quite a while, and the first stop on it was a certain planet, located at the interstellar coordinates 7046-ZW. Also known as Planet Celatus.
"Haaaa…" As I escaped from my tiny prison, I was met with a lazy yawn from my right. Turning my head to see who the culprit of the yawn was, my eyes met with Pepper's as she stretched her arms in the air, clearly just as happy to have her freedom as I was.
Bringing her fist to her mouth to stifle the yawn, she looked down at me before asking "Alright, Prince, where are we?"
'Huh. She's kind of pretty.' An idle thought flashes through my mind before I answered. It's just an idle thought, though, nothing more. After all, I couldn't deny that part of me considered it incredibly nice that two full-blooded Saiyan girls had agreed to follow me, since Universe 7 Saiyan females had become completely extinct after Frieza destroyed Planet Vegeta in the original timeline.
For once, my father's idiotic traditions, rules, and fears had finally had an outcome that favored me, and the Saiyan race in general. How about that.
"The locals call this place Planet Celatus." I responded, as Lynn, Tommy, and Tater exited their respective spacecrafts behind us.
"The gravity here's so light. I feel like I'll float away if I jump too hard." Tater, a big guy, even for a nine year old, noted aloud.
"It's around a third of Planet Vegeta's, so that's not surprising." I replied to him, sweeping my gaze over my team.
Tater had short hair and a hefty figure. Even though our body armor expanded to fit us, his still seemed too tight for some reason. His brother, Tommy, had the opposite problem. He was tall and thin, like a beanstalk, with curly hair that extended to his shoulders. They both wore black underclothes, but Tommy's looked too big on him, just like Tater's looked too small.
As for Pepper and Lynn, they had fairly similar, average body types, with the only notable difference being their hair styles and the colors of their underclothes(Red for Pepper, and dark purple for Lynn). Pepper's hair loosely framed her face, spiky and messy like all Saiyans, but also tame in a different way, with a natural braid (which I didn't know was a thing, but apparently it was, for Saiyans), trailing down the side of her head. Meanwhile, Lynn had, for a Saiyan, weirdly straight hair that flowed halfway down her back. If Lynn looked like a dignified, normal member of society, then Pepper looked like someone that you'd meet in a back alley and turn the other way on instinct.
"So, why are we on some random planet that I've never heard of, Prince?" Tommy wondered, looking up at the mint-green colored sky.
"Stop calling me Prince. My name's Tarble, and I clearly don't have much of a right to any throne." I snapped, "I think that Frieza might be able to track our ships. That's the main reason why I shut my Scouter off and destroyed Mel's." I explained, "The natives of Planet Celatus don't have any relationship with the Frieza Force, but they do have interstellar technology. We can swap out our ships for one of theirs. Maybe even trade for a map of this galaxy. Celatus is also fairly close to our actual destination." I listed my reasons on my fingers.
"And where is our actual destination, Prince?" I rolled my eyes, not jumping at the sarcasm that Pepper was throwing out.
"I'll tell you, but only once we're actually on our way there. I'd rather be paranoid than dead." This particular planet was actually on Frieza's hit list. Based on the information I had on it, I had a sneaking suspicion that Planet Celatus, was actually a planet that had been mentioned in the Dragon Ball Z anime, in a side story where Gohan, Krillin, and Bulma accidentally crossed paths with a Celatus-made spaceship on their way from Earth to Namek. I didn't have any definitive information to back that up with, though.
Either way, it was one of the only planets we could go to. Populated planets weren't exactly commonplace. Populated planets that hadn't been conquered by Frieza or decimated by Saiyans? Even rarer. Especially so close by. Basically, in this section of the galaxy, there were about five, and that was it. Everywhere else was either basically devoid of life, or nowhere that I dared go to.
Luckily, one of those five possibilities was the planet Namek. Just had to get there without tipping Frieza off to the real destination.