Cold. Desolate.
Deep in space, two round pods with charred hulls streaked across the sea of stars at breakneck speed, trailing flames.
Inside the pod behind them lay Nappa, barely clinging to life. Before fleeing Earth, Vegeta had finally forced down his nausea and shoved the useless fool into the pod like a dead dog.
It wasn't for any other reason. The Saiyan race had only a handful of survivors left. Even if Nappa was kept around as cannon fodder, that was better than leaving him on Earth to rot.
"Just soak in that healing fluid, you useless fool!"
Meanwhile, inside the lead pod.
Thick, pale-green healing fluid had risen to Vegeta's neck. Beneath his oxygen mask, he breathed in ragged gasps, accompanied by the muffled pops of bursting blood bubbles.
His spine was broken in three places, and nearly every rib was shattered. Any other Saiyan would have passed out from blood loss and agony, but not him.
"An asteroid... Frieza..."
His tightly shut eyes snapped open, the whites crawling with jagged red veins that looked especially terrifying in the green fluid. Raditz's words were like a rusty, blunt knife, hacking at his nerves over and over.
If he didn't verify the truth, then all his pride over the past twenty-odd years, and his careful submission to Frieza, would be a joke!
"Once I've recovered..."
Vegeta glared at the planet drawing closer on the holographic screen, a tangible savagery in his eyes. "Frieza... You'd better pray Raditz was lying!"
During the long interstellar journey, his bones healed in the fluid, only to crack again under the pod's faster-than-light acceleration, then knit themselves back together. Fueled by his overwhelming hatred, the Saiyan instinct to grow stronger after nearing death was remaking his broken body at a furious pace.
Elsewhere,