Going Native: Smell of the Plan (ch.23) (Patreon)

Fasha let out a mindless scream of rage, veins bulging in her muscular arms as she clawed at her face, losing herself in the rage and pain. She would have clawed her eyes out if I hadn’t grabbed her hands to stop her from doing it. I’ve heard Fasha scream hundreds of times in the past four years -- at the team when one of them was pissing her off, at the enemy, I’ve seen her scream in frustration, delight and just because she wanted to. 

The sound of her screaming in agony was going to haunt me, I knew as I drove a knee into the back of her neck to knock her out. Thankfully, she went down, collapsing into a heap and finally going silent. I looked at her, her expression still twisted in pain, though it faded as the Wrath State diminished with every second. Letting out a small breath, I took in the room and how it suffered over the past two days. 

It reminded me of my room back in Planet Vegeta after about three months of fighting saibamen. Craters littered the ground, scorch marks, twisted pieces of metal laying about with the occasional hole in the wall. Now that I really looked at it, it seemed nearly identical, only it was about a thousand times bigger than my room on Planet Vegeta. Only now, instead of getting beaten nearly to death, I was training my team. 

My lips thinned as I delivered a kick to Fahsa’s ribs, hard enough to wake her from her stupor. She didn’t have any time to rest. None of us did. Things were going to come to a head soon enough, so we couldn’t waste a single second. 

“Fasha, get up,” I ordered, kicking her again and getting a weak groan that confirmed that she was still alive. It took her a few seconds to push herself up, crawling to her feet even if she swayed dangerously once she stood. She wiped some blood from her lip before spitting more out. Cuts and scratches littered her body, her armor broken in some places from where I hit her a little too hard. She was in bad shape. 

"Go get one of the others-" I started to order, some of my frustration leaking into my voice. We weren't making enough progress fast enough. On every front, we were falling behind. A three-day deadline seemed like it wouldn't even be close to enough. 

"I can try again," Fasha argued with a shake of her head. Her eyes were narrowed into slits, daring me to question the issue. I nearly did, but the only thing holding me back was the fact that Fasha knew her limits better than anyone else. If she thought that she could go again, then I would believe her. 

"Alright," I accepted. "Just remember that it's not about beating the pain or the rage. You have to find a balance between them. Too much of the rage and you'll lose yourself. Too much pain and you'll go mad." I reminded my tone even and earned a sharp nod from Fasha. I watched her settle into a wide stance, her hands clenched into fists as she hunched over, as if she could brace for the pain and rage. 

She took in a deep breath as I settled into my own stance, waiting for what seemed like the inevitable. My scouter counter shot upwards as Fasha's power lever climbed. After the past few days, they had nearly mastered that part of the process. Veins bulged in her face and neck, her eyes shifting to a feral looking yellow. She let out a strangled sound as she curled into herself, fighting against the rage and pain. 

"Aahhh…!" Fasha gasped out, gritting her teeth as she fought for control. Her muscles strained against her pink undersuit, trying to rip free of them but the synthetic fabric simply grew with them. More veins bulged as the power of the oozaru flowed through her. "Ahhhh...aHHHH!" She screamed, throwing her head back as if she could scare the pain into submission. It was a tortured sound that ripped out of her throat, of someone experiencing the kind of agony that couldn't be captured with mere words. 

It was a sound that I hated to come from one of my teammates, but one that I was coming to expect. 

"Find a balance! Focus on me! Focus on the fight, not the pain or rage," I coached her kicking off the ground to rush her. Fasha simply snarled in response, going to meet me halfway with a knee aimed at my face. I let my hopes soar as I dipped out of the way before I was forced to block an elbow aimed at my temple with my forearm. She was able to fight like she wasn't a rabid animal. That was progress. 

"Good, keep it up! Focus on that feeling -- that's the balance you've been looking for. Try to find it's center," I coached, flipping upwards to deliver an axe kick that Fasha managed to block. I saw a vein burst in one of her eyes, her face flushed as fat drops of sweat gathered on her brow. I knew it was an uphill battle but she was past the worst of it. "You can do it Fasha!" 

"I'm…!" Fasha managed to rasp out between clenched teeth, aiming an uppercut at my gut that I dodged with ease. 

The past two days made me reflect on my own first experience with the Wrath State and the things that had helped me stay in control. A powerful enemy for me to focus on was one of them. A goal also helped -- kill the Green Lantern, protect the team. Something to center me. The last piece wasn't any help to them. They didn't have years of experience of slipping into themselves, to control their thought in such a manner. When I brought it up, all of them gave me odd looks. Including Matillo. 

“Try to use a ki attack,” I ordered flipping away from her and dodging a jab with the same motion. Instantly, I saw the light from a ki attack form in her hands -- it wasn’t a technique, but it was the first step. It also meant that she was aware enough to follow orders. She fired a torrent of ki at me, as unrefined as an oozaru attack. At her power level, I didn’t have a choice but to block it. 

I caught the front of it with my hands, refusing to give any ground to the attack as Fasha poured everything that she had into it. All to destroy me. It felt weird touching someone else’s ki attack -- it was almost like pressing my hands against water lightly enough that the surface tension held up, but the water hand force behind it yet the surface tension wouldn’t break. 

This level of attack would wreck the base, and I didn’t want to risk anything happening to our base that was built in the center of a planet. It just seemed like a bad idea to me. Instead, I was forced to endure it until Fasha gave the attack up. I felt it surge, warning me that the source of the unrestrained torrent of ki was getting closer and I fought off a smile. 

As soon as she cut the attack off, I was already dodging, dipping underneath a roundhouse kick aimed at my head. She was able to use tactics. They were rudimentary, but it was better than the wild attacks I’ve been dealing with for the past two days. 

“Rah!” Fasha snarled at me, lashing out with a fist that I dodged. My smile was quick to fade as she attacked me again with another fist, the snarl deepening with each failed attack. I could feel the rage growing inside of her, fueled by frustration that she hadn’t beaten me into a pulp yet. I couldn’t let her get a few hits in either, because she needed to learn how to balance the rage and pain in spite of any outside influences. 

The scarabs wouldn’t let her get a free hit in, so I couldn’t either. 

“Fasha!” I yelled out, trying to get her to focus but the rage grew, her attacks became wilder until any semblance of strategy was lost. Now, she was attacking simply to destroy me, no thought involved. “Fasha, come on, you can do it. Just focus,” I tried to encourage her, only to get a mindless roar of rage in response. The dominos were knocked over, causing a cascading effect until she was completely lost. 

A sigh escaped me as I blocked a fist with my shin before I dunked her head, using it as a springboard to flip over her. I grabbed her unarmored tail, getting a shocked cry from her before Fasha stumbled. Then with a well placed kick to the back of the head, she dropped to her knees, then face planted. This time, however, she wasn’t immediately knocked unconscious. Her breathing was labored, and for a moment she simply laid down. 

“I can-” she started, knowing what was about to come out of my mouth, but this time I was forced to overrule her. 

“Get some rest, then you can try again in a few hours,” I said with a small shake of my head. Fasha struggled to push herself up only for them to give out underneath her. I grabbed her my the shoulder, stopping her from face planting again, and earned a weak smirk from her as thanks. Since she couldn’t stand on her own, I threw an arm over my shoulders and rose off my feet so that I would roughly be the same as she normally stood. 

I learned that the others didn’t appreciate getting dragged on the floor when they became too exhausted to continue. Weakly, she stepped forward, not arguing, though, from the weight, it seemed that she was forced to mime the action of walking since she was too exhausted to actually walk. Had I pushed her too hard? I wanted to make sure that everyone was in fighting shape in the off chance that the Reach decided to launch an assault. 

“You really are something, Tarble,” Fasha muttered, her voice slightly slurred. Um, I think I might have given her a concussion. Whoops? “I thought you were just making a big show of how hard the Wrath State is to learn...you make it look so easy…” she trailed off, her lips tugging into a frown before a sigh that seemed to deflate her. 

Then she chuckled, “Tora was freaking out when you broke his leg. Never saw that coming from you.” She commented as I lead her down the hallways. Now that we were a little more established in the base, I saw patrols walking the halls, still on high alert just in case there was something that we had missed. 

“Sorry,” I apologized, thinking that had been a little heavy-handed, but I didn’t know how else to make them see without teaching them the Wrath State. Now, hopefully, they understood what I was talking about. I guess some things you just had to experience for yourself. 

“Eh, don’t go apologizing for anything,” Fasha waved the issue away as we took a turn that lead us away from the training area. “I thought it was pretty funny after the shock wore off.” Of course, she would. We came across another patrol of aliens, who parted ways for us to continue by. I nodded at them, something that they returned. I’m not sure what the gesture meant, but they seemed to appreciate me acknowledging that they exist. 

“How are the others doing? You said the one with the scar was doing pretty well, right?” I asked, thinking I might as well get an update on the other class of saiyans. I haven’t had a chance to interact with them much beyond viewing some of their lessons when I went to pick up another member of my team to learn the Wrath State. 

From what I saw, it was true that it was a lot easier to learn how to control the oozaru transformation when you were stronger. Which was a very, very, very bad thing. 

“Lotuce?” Fasha gave a name to the face before giving me a small nod. “She’s pretty much got it. Now she’s teaching the others when you have one of us learning the Wrath State.” She let out a small huff as she sent me a lopsided grin, “now she’s dropping hints that she’s interested in getting some one on one time with you too.”

I thought about it for a moment before I nodded, “sure. I’m not sure how much good it would do, but if she thinks that she can learn it then I don’t mind-”

“You really couldn’t care less about the class issue, could you?” Fasha interrupted, earning a sideways glance from me. “I always figured you did since it was like all you did was work to become an elite-class. Well, when you weren’t sleeping for weeks,” she teased me as I fought off a frown. 

“No, I never really cared about being elite-class. I just wanted my family to acknowledge me,” I told her. I expected more teasing, or her to flat out make fun of me. Instead, a troubled expression passed over her face before she looked away. That was...weird. But maybe it wasn’t. Bardock had something akin to a family -- actually, given what he said to Vegeta, he considered Gine and their kids to be a family. Maybe she felt like she was missing out, or something? 

I’ll have to do something about that. If she wanted a family then maybe I could set her up with Parslee or Tora? Maybe Shugesh? They were always bickering back and forth, so maybe there was something there but they didn’t understand it? I would bring it up with Tora and Matillo. They would know what to do. 

Fasha fell silent, apparently deep in thought. We arrived at the makeshift barracks, the door sliding open to reveal one of many testing rooms. Synththread hammocks meant we could squeeze more soldiers in the large room. Each block, or testing room, held about five hundred soldiers, so this entire wing was more or less dedicated to living space. 

I flew her up to a hammock before tossing her in it. Fasha could stop the low gasp of relief as she sunk into the stainless fabric, letting her body rest. Before I could leave, she reached out and grabbed my wrist with the strength of a newborn. Looking back at her, she opened her mouth but nothing came out of it. She stared at me for a few seconds, closing her mouth and when she did speak, I’m guessing it wasn’t what she meant to say before. 

“What are our chances?” Fasha asked instead, asking a question that’s answer had been on my mind for the past two days. 

I looked away, my gaze landing on an alien showing off its stub of an arm to two other members of its species. One was missing a lizard tail, while the other was missing a leg. They were alive, but they weren’t in one piece. That more or less summed up the entire situation, didn’t it?

“Not good,” I answered honestly, looking back at Fasha. She nodded, likely expecting that answer. “So rest up while you still can.”

“Right back at you,” Fasha returned with resigned acceptance, her eyes closing as she quickly drifted off to sleep. I envied her. 

However, I didn’t have time to lay around. Ii left Fasha behind, letting her get some much-needed rest, and headed to the training room for the other saiyans. A knot of tension formed in between my shoulder blades, a constant reminder of the situation that we were in. My stomach growled, also reminding me that we were already running out of food and if it wasn’t for some kind of recycler that this place had then we would be out of water. 

My hands clenched as I flew a little faster through the halls, sticking to the ceiling so no one would have to move out of my way. This was a bad situation to start with and all the little problems were making things so much worse. 

I arrived at the training hanger in no time, forced to slow down or I would slam into the doors. When they opened, I was greeted with a deep bellowing roar followed by the sight of several oozarus going at it. The savagery in some of them made it easy to tell which ones were in control from those that weren’t. Borgos grabbed the face of one, clamping its mouth shut when one tried to fire off a ki breath attack. 

Even in a fog of mindless rage, the oozaru knew better than to continue the attack, else it’s throat would explode. In that moment of hesitation, Borgos grabbed the oozaru by the tail before slamming it into the ground hard enough the entire room shook. Apparently it was hooked up into a different grid than the rest of the base, so I could only guess what they were testing here. 

“My prince,” Matillo greeted, sending a nod at me. He was sporting some bruises, and his undersuit was torn badly enough that he ripped off the top half, revealing at least three centuries worth of scars that were scattered over his torso. I flew down to him, turning my attention back to the fighting oozarus -- the rest of the team was trying to control a wild one, and I noticed a few others helping the process along. 

Looking at it now, I knew the truth. 

“It’s not enough,” I said, hoping my words would be lost in one of the roars of an oozaru. Three days wouldn’t be enough time. Four days wouldn’t be enough time. A week wouldn’t be enough time. Unless everyone made incredible breakthroughs in the next few hours, then we couldn’t afford to try to break through the defensive perimeter the Reach set up on the remaining exit. 

Even if the wink drive was finished tomorrow, we wouldn’t be able to leave. With only me able to stay sane in the Wrath State, and five others that managed to master their oozaru forms, we wouldn’t be able to keep the pressure off the ship so we could escape. Meaning that food and water just became a real problem because we could be stuck down here for a few more days. 

However, it seemed that I wasn’t so lucky because my words caught Matillo’s attention if the glance he gave me was anything to go by. I could only hope that the other saiyans that were recovering didn’t hear me as well. 

Matillo nodded, “we’re progressing too slowly,” he agreed with a factual tone. He knew he was speaking the truth and I couldn’t bring myself to offer up any empty platitudes. It wasn’t a matter of lack of effort -- everyone was pushing themselves to their absolute limits, but it just wasn’t enough. 

“We need to think about food,” I told Matillo frowning as I watched the training. The out of control oozarus almost acted like Fasha -- in control for seconds before slowly losing their grip on their rage and urges to destroy. “We’ll have to stage a raid for supplies, but the Reach is going to be expecting it.” There was no way that they weren’t prepared for it. 

“Hm. Do we know where we could locate food and water?” Matillo asked, a deep frown on his face as he considered our situation. I could only wonder if he had ever been in such a position before. 

Thankfully, I could nod in confirmation at his question. “We have a couple of promising leads -- protein and moisture farms on a level before the cut off point.” There wasn’t much since the biological population on this planet was small, and they kept it so deep in the planet’s crust to prevent any chance of radiation contamination. “But they’re going to be heavily guarded since they’re the obvious picks.”

Matillo nodded, idly stroking his beard in thought. “If we do overcome their defenses, then they’ll bolster them later since we’ve proven that we can. It’ll make escaping more difficult,” he commented, his words make an unfortunate amount of sense. “Even then, the most we could manage is to get a few days worth of food and water. We’d be buying time, but the Reach will use that time against us.”

So, it was a choice between starving or risking being unable to escape with the few days worth of food we did get our hands on. 

“It might be expedient to simply kill off those that are too injured to fight when the time comes. Not only would it save us a considerable amount of food, but we could recycle the bodies for food and water,” Matillo spoke, his tone thoughtful. I went very still for a moment -- I’m not sure why it did, but the casual dismissal of life caught me off guard for a moment. Matillo, so far, struck me as very reasonable. He even supported me more openly than my team did since I’ve known him. 

But he was still a saiyan. 

Worse, I was forced to give the idea some thought simply because it was another option, bring my choices up to three. All three of them were terrible, of course but being a leader was rapidly becoming a choice of picking the least worse option. My hands clenched into fists, thinking back to those lizard aliens that had been talking in the barracks. If I gave that order then they would be kill-...executed in cold blood to be turned into resources. 

In a purely practical view, it was the best option. We would be turning deadweight and hungry mouths into food and water, increasing our stores and lowering our consumption of those stores at the same time. We already lost over a hundred due to wounds sustained from battle, if we ate the crippled and incapable, we could shave off nearly a thousand others. 

“I’ll consider it,” I said, swallowing a grimace as I crossed my arms. I...wanted a fourth option. A fourth option that wouldn’t result in our collective deaths, or having to eat our dead or murdering the crippled. Only that fourth option either didn’t exist or I haven’t found it yet. 

Matillo nodded approvingly, “You bear the burden of leadership well, my prince.” He said, laughing lightly when I couldn’t stop myself from sending him a disbelieving look. “I know the burden well,” he elaborated, watching the mindless oozarus with me. “Before your ancestor united the tribes, I lead my own for quite some time.” 

As if struck with a fond memory, one of his hands went up to trace the X shaped scar on his scalp. Despite the situation and the concerns that plagued me, I found my interest piqued. Matillo had answered a lot of questions I had on the trip here, but I still had plenty more. My interest must have shown because Matillo spoke, even though I knew better than to ask. There were so many things that I could do better with my time than listen to history lessons but...

“I actually tried to do the same as King Vegeta the First back when I was in my prime,” he told me, his tone wistful. “I went from tribe to tribe, challenging their leaders. In the beginning, for years and years, I was defeated each time. It was only when I began to refine my techniques that I met any measure of success.”

“Is that why your ki control is so good in your oozaru form?” I asked, earning a confirming nod. I still wanted to learn how to do that-

“I’d be happy to pass those techniques to you. It seems to be the least I can offer in exchange for the Wrath State,” he offered, nodding at me. “Perhaps, in time, you can master it so it won’t pain you so to remain in that state.” He said, his words loaded despite how lightly they were spoken. 

I shifted, nodding to accept the offer. The idea did have merit, after all. Right now, it was all or nothing. If instead of a times five, or a times two, the pain would be greatly diminished. 

“But, it was a great many years before I had defeated enough tribes to have something resembling an army. And, even then, there was only a few hundred of us, but at the time, that was the single largest tribe to be found on Planet Plant. Hm. Rival tribes all over the planet sent their children to mine to learn my techniques…” Matillo said, sounding like an old man talking about the good old days. 

“Eventually, I thought we had enough strength to take on the Truffles,” he continued with a small sigh. Given that King Vegeta the First was the one to conquer the Truffles, it was easy to guess how that ended. “We lost, of course. A crushing defeat, in all honesty. I didn’t use my head, I simply tried to overpower them.”

I watched the oozarus fight, Tora’s pinning one to the ground while he clamped its mouth shut and yanked on its tail. 

“I never heard anything about that,” I said, watching the mindless oozarus continue to struggle against my team.

“History only remembers the victors,” Matillo dismissed. “And that was a long time before King Vegeta the First was sent to what was left of my tribe. I think...about three centuries, at least,” Matillo muttered thoughtfully, stroking his beard with a few fingers. 

Wait. Three centuries before King Vegeta the First conquered the Truffles? Which happened about three hundred years ago? It was a simple math problem, but it didn’t add up. 

“...how old are you?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, looking up at Matillo with wide yellow eyes. At the very least, he was six hundred years old. Six. Hundred. Years old. I thought him being three hundred was ancient, but that was beyond my wildest expectations. 

Matillo gave a small shrug, “I’m uncertain. I know I was amongst the first generation to be born on Planet Vegeta, but we didn’t bother keeping track-”

“You’re over a thousand years old,” I informed, stunned at that revelation. There weren’t exact dates, especially since we were ignorant of the galactic standard measurement of time, but there have been twelve full moons on Planet Vegeta since we first landed there. A full moon only happened once every hundred years. Meaning that Matillo was somewhere around one thousand and two hundred years old. And he was still alive. 

He looked faintly surprised by the number, but not displeased. “Am I now?”

That was...amazing...and...not important right now, was it? If we didn’t get out of this situation then none of us were going to live for three more days, much less three centuries. 

“My old age aside,” Matillo said as if sensing my dread returning. “The point I was trying to make was that I understand the burdens of leadership. I didn’t for the longest time, nearly a thousand years apparently, but seeing King Vegeta the First rise to power, and now yourself...it makes me look back on choices that I made...and I wonder if things would have turned out differently if I had acted more like your ancestor.” 

I glanced at him, curious, “what do you mean?” Actual detail about King Vegeta’s conquest over the Truffles was rather lacking. All I knew was that not only did he win every single battle, but every victory was decisive. That, and he finished them off by using the full moon to slaughter their remaining holdout cities. 

“King Vegeta the First...hmm...he was never where you’d thought he’d be,” Matillo said, pausing as if he had to reach back in his memories, though there was a fondness in his voice. “That’s how he was always ten steps ahead of the Truffles. They were expecting a dumb brute, and every time he proved them wrong. He would only strike where they were at their weakest, and when they learned to expect that and prepared traps, he would attack them where they were at their strongest.”

Matillo smiled at a memory that only he could see, “surprise was his weapon of choice. I don’t know how he did it, but he was always out thinking the enemy. When they set ambushes, he ambushed them instead. When they were expecting a small force, he brought the entire might of the saiyan race upon them, and when they expected a large attack we were nowhere to be found because we were attacking somewhere else entirely.” He chuckled at something before he continued, “He used their arrogance and technology against them. Whatever advantage he could find, he exploited, and he did it while balancing the tribes by checking their- our aggression. He- My prince? Are you still listening?”

I wasn’t because my mind started to race as an idea hit me with the force of an oozaru sized fist. No, calling it an idea was too much. It was undeserving to even be called a plan. It was more of a desperate hope that there was a light at the end of the tunnel instead of more darkness. 

"Technician," I started, tapping on my scouter to connect to the tech-savvy alien. "I'm coming your way. Pull up everything we got from the Reach servers and a map of the planet." I ordered, flying up to see an amused expression on Matillo's face. I opened my mouth to apologize, but he simply nodded at me. Despite how unlikely it was, it was like this was exactly what he wanted. I returned it before blasting off, not bothering to wait for the door this time and punched right through it. 

Matillo gave me a piece of the puzzle. Bardock gave me another. I just needed a few more pieces then I would have a plan. Possibly a fourth option. 

My bad habits were biting us all in the butt. I was being too passive. I wasn’t trying to act, but still stuck reacting. I was waiting for another option to drop into my lap instead of creating it for myself. 

"Uhh, sure thing!" Technician said, likely figuring out I was talking to it. I flew through the halls, making my way to it, while my mind raced at breakneck speeds. In no time flat, I arrived, tearing through a door to catch Technician in the middle of bringing up what we had in the Reach. It looked over at me with wide eyes and a slacked jaw before it hurried to bring up what we had. 

"Show me our options for food processing," I ordered, flying over to the hologram. "And tell me what they do -- no details on how they work, I won't understand it," I ordered, watching the hologram shift to reveal some kind of cube. 

"Of course, but, uh, there are a lot of options here. We'll be here all day if I described them all. Is there anything, in particular, you're looking for?" It asked cautiously, wary that it would get a ki blast if I didn't like its answer. Which, given who my mother is, was fair. 

I thought about it for a split second, "something that can turn raw ingredients into food." I decided with a firm nod. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Technician blanch but obeyed. With a few keystrokes, my options were vastly reduced. Hopefully one of them would work. One of them had to work or this desperate hope was dead in the water. "That one, what does it do?" 

"It, ah, extracts nutrients from dirt and plant fibers-" that one was useless since there was no dirt or plants on this planet. 

"No, the next one. What does it do?" I interrupted the hologram displaying a large machine. 

"It breaks down biological matter into a paste," it answered with quiet disgust. Not sure why, but it was perfect. 

"That one. Start building them- wait, unless there was a reason not to?" I stopped myself before I could make a mistake that would cost us valuable time. 

"No, it seems to function but it was labeled a failure because the paste it creates is considered so disgusting that it has a negative effect on morale," it answered. Considering that morale couldn't get much worse, that wasn't an issue. I'll shove the stuff down people's throats if I had to. 

"Then start building them. Now, show me where biological matter could be found on the planet?" I said, turning my attention to the hologram of the planet. Unlike what I thought, the levels didn't go all the way down to the center of the planet. The levels simply replaced the planet's crust while the other layers were left undisturbed except for four tunnels that lead to the planet's core. 

"Uhh...sure...they would be here, and here -- they're used to create hard plastics…" two locations were marked on the middle floors of the planet’s crust. Far away from each other, nearly on opposite ends of the planet, but that was fine. Then it clicked in Technician's eyes what I was trying to do. "But they can be broken down for nutritional value as well. But, we would need a transportation method...the Capsules! I was studying them earlier -- a fascinating piece of technology that-" it seemed to realize what it was doing and closed its mouth. 

"Make those Capsule things too," I ordered, the hope slowly becoming a plan. The Reach would expect us to attack the few places that food was created on the planet. What they wouldn't expect us to do was attack what was essentially a compost heap. 

We hit them where they weren't expecting us. We misdirected them. We lead them by the nose in the direction we wanted then we ran in the opposite direction. 

A small team to hit the compost while others ran interference. 

"Now...show me weapons," I ordered, the plan still coming together. This needed to be more than a stopgap measure to dragging out our food stores. This needed to set the foundation for our escape. Another huge list appeared so I went ahead and narrowed it. "Bombs. Big bombs. Something that could take out a planet." 

"But Lord Frieza forbade-" 

"I'm not going to use it to blow ourselves up," I reassured to Technicians small relief. "But right now, time is on their side. They know they can simply starve us out while they're shoring up their defenses and I don't know if we can escape through their defensive posture. But, if we make them think that we’re going to take out the planet, then all of a sudden time isn’t on their side anymore. They'll have to prep an attack." 

This planet was simply too valuable to let us blow ourselves up with it. If they're willing to commit the resources to defending this place, it could pump out mountains of equipment for years. 

"But isn't that a bad thing?" Technician asked, and he was right. 

"It means we won't have until we starve to death to prep our exit," I confirmed, "but if we make them change their defensive posture to an offensive one, we can escape. They'll have to spread out their forces instead of clumping them up around the exit…" to that end, it might be a good idea to make a show of trying to clear out the tunnels that we collapsed. To make them think we were going through one of those exits… 

Except why limit ourselves to a premade exit? 

"And pull up...mining lasers, or something. Something powerful enough we could carve a new tunnel out of here rather than rely on one they're expecting us to leave through." Never be where they thought we would be. We separate their defenses, then make an exit where they're not covering. 

They would be able to react, but that was fine. One exit was on the other side of the planet, while the others were thousands of miles away. It wouldn't buy us much time, but in an operation like this, seconds would count. 

Divide and conquer. The oldest trick in the book. 

"And we'll have a force to harass them," I muttered to myself, plotting it all out. We wouldn't be fighting a concentration of the enemy forces, which immeasurably helped us. It could be the difference between fighting a couple of dozen scarabs from a couple of hundred. Even with the few saiyans that learned to control their oozaru form, and so long as even one member of my team managed to control themselves in the Wrath State, that should be enough for the ship to get into orbit where we could then jump away. 

“For bombs...we have this,” Technician said, showing me a thing that I’m guessing was a bomb. “However, it takes very rare minerals to use. We have most of them down here, but unoadium, if there's any on this planet, then it would be here,” it said, highlighting another level that was closer to the bottom level. I nodded -- while a team was securing compost, another would be checking that location. 

I would likely take that one since it was so close where the Reach was expecting us to attack. That’s where the fighting would be at its worst. 

“And lasers...we have a few options, but the most promising is this one,” It continued, bringing up a thing that I’m guessing was a laser. “It’s very energy-intensive, but it’s powerful enough that it should be able to tear through the crust in a few minutes, though it may take some time to get through the metal shielding,” Technician said, causing me to frown. A few minutes? That was far too long. That gave the Reach too long to react. 

But how could we make the laser go through the levels faster…?

“Those black hole missiles,” I said, picturing how they just deleted everything that they touched. “Can we make those black hole missiles?” I asked, getting a hesitant nod from Technician while he highlighted three separate locations. That was...not ideal but it was fine. I would be by myself, the others would break up in pairs...if worse came to worse, we could use another pair of saiyans to secure the simple objective. 

“We’ll use the missiles to cut down on the amount that the laser will have to blast through. Those missiles don’t seem to care about durability,” I noted, thinking that should help things along and judging by the enthusiastic nodding of Technician, it seemed to think so as well. Even better, we had the materials down here to make them. 

I smiled for the first time in what felt like years. 

“We have a plan.”