Chapter 16: The Rusty Scalpel
The void between stars was no longer a highway of potential conquests. For the three conscious Saiyans, it had become a grim, silent procession, a funeral march for the fourth. Their pods flew in a tight, diamond formation, a constellation of grief and rage. In the lead, Vegeta's pod was a sliver of contained fury, its trajectory a violent, unwavering line. To the left and right, Nappa and Raditz flew escort, their usual bullish confidence replaced by a watchful, nervous tension. And trailing behind them all, like a coffin being drawn by invisible chains, was Kakarot's pod. Its systems, beyond life support and basic navigation, were dark. It flew on autopilot, a silent, polished tombstone reflecting the cold light of distant suns.
Inside his own pod, Raditz couldn't tear his eyes from the scanner. The blip representing his brother's pod was a weak, steady pulse, a mocking contrast to the chaotic, flatlining vitals being fed to his scouter. The medical readouts were a horror show. Spinal fractures, massive internal bleeding, catastrophic organ failure. The pod's regenerative gel was a stopgap, a desperate measure to keep the spark of life from being utterly extinguished by the turbulence of travel. It wasn't healing him; it was preserving a corpse.
Nappa's gruff voice crackled over the private comm, a channel they'd opened without Vegeta. "The readings are getting worse. The tank is losing cohesion. The gel is saturated with waste. He's poisoning himself from the inside out."
"I can see that," Raditz snapped, his fingers white on the controls. He'd been running calculations, his mind a whirlwind of cold fear. The next target was a red dwarf system, days away. Kakarot had hours. Maybe less.
A new, sharper frequency cut into their channel. Vegeta. His voice was a low, dangerous vibration. "Alter course. New coordinates incoming."
A data packet screeched into their systems. It wasn't the next mission. It was the location of a Frieza Force Class-2 Orbital Outpost, a glorified fuel depot and repair station in a dead system on the edge of contested space.
"My Prince?" Nappa asked, confusion overriding his fear.
"The fool's pod is leaking radiation," Vegeta lied, his tone dripping with icy contempt. "It's contaminating our formation. We will dump him there for decommissioning. Perhaps the grunts can salvage the scrap metal."
The line went dead. Raditz and Nappa exchanged a look through their viewports, a rare moment of complete understanding. It was the closest thing to mercy they would ever get from their Prince. He would never admit to needing a subordinate, to saving one. But he would acknowledge not wasting a tool.
The shift in course was a subtle, grim adjustment. The diamond formation turned as one, a murder of carrion birds veering towards a barren rock.
The outpost, when it finally resolved in the main viewer, was a testament to the Frieza Empire's vast, uncaring reach. It wasn't a planet, but a massive, irregular asteroid that had been hollowed out and crusted over with modular metal platforms, docking arms, and communication arrays. It had no beauty, no design. It was purely functional, a rust-scabbed pustule on the face of the void. Pinpricks of light from viewports and docking bays did little to alleviate the overwhelming sense of desolation.
No challenge hailed them. No security sweep scanned their pods. Their transponders, broadcasting their Saiyan Elite designation, granted them immediate, unquestioned access. They drifted into a vast, poorly lit landing bay that smelled of stale oxygen, ionized engine fumes, and the distinct, metallic tang of neglect. The air was cold and carried the damp chill of a place never properly heated.
Their pods settled on the grimy deck with a series of echoing clangs. The hatch of Vegeta's pod hissed open before the landing clamps had even fully engaged. He emerged, a vision of pristine, aristocratic fury amidst the greasy, industrial squalor. His boots clicked on the stained floor. His eyes, burning with a cold fire, swept over the bay, finding nothing and no one worthy of his gaze.
A door slid open with a grinding shriek of metal on metal. A single Frieza Force soldier scurried out. He wasn't a warrior; he was a technician, his uniform ill-fitting and stained with lubricant. His face was a pale, amphibious green, and his large, bulbous eyes blinked rapidly in terror. He was followed by two others, similarly cowed and low-ranking.
"L-Lord Vegeta!" the lead tech stammered, snapping off a salute so sharp it was comical. "W-we were not informed of your arrival! To what do we owe the…?"
"Silence," Vegeta's voice cut through the man's gibbering like a blade. He didn't even look at him. His attention was on Kakarot's pod, which was now being attended to by Nappa and Raditz. "That pod. It contains damaged equipment. See that it is… processed." He turned his head, and his gaze finally fell upon the trembling tech. It was like being stared at by a black hole. "You have medical facilities here. Of what grade?"
The tech swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "G-grade 4, my lord! Fully automated surgical suites! Class-3 regenerative tanks! We are equipped for most field triage and…"
"Take me to them. Now," Vegeta commanded, turning and walking toward the door without waiting to see if he was followed. The tech scrambled after him like a frightened animal.
Meanwhile, Nappa and Raditz were manually overriding the seals on Kakarot's pod. The hatch opened with a weak, gasping sigh, releasing a wave of foul, coppery air and the cloying sweetness of spent nutrient gel. The sight within made even Nappa's hardened stomach lurch.
Kakarot was partially submerged in the opaque, pink-tinged fluid. His skin was deathly pale, almost grey. The horrific damage was even more apparent outside the pod's scanner, the caved-in chest, the grotesque angles of his limbs. Bubbles of blood frothed at his lips with each shallow, mechanized breath from the respirator tube.
"Careful, you idiot," Nappa growled as they carefully disconnected the lines and began to extract him. The feel of Kakarot's body was all wrong, loose and boneless in places, hard and jagged in others. They laid him on a repulsor-gurney one of the other techs had nervously brought over. The contrast between the bright, sterile white of the gurney and the broken, blood-soaked thing lying on it was obscene.
They followed the path Vegeta had taken, the gurney floating silently between them. The corridors of the outpost were narrow, cramped, and dripping with condensation. Pipes and conduit bundles ran exposed along the ceilings. The few soldiers and technicians they passed pressed themselves against the walls, their eyes wide with a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity. The legend of the Saiyans preceded them, but the reality, a Prince radiating murderous intent and two elites shepherding what looked like a corpse, was far more terrifying.
They reached the medical bay. It was cleaner than the rest of the station, but it had the same cold, utilitarian feel. The centerpiece was a large, cylindrical regeneration tank, similar to but smaller and older than the ones on Frieza's ship. Various sinister-looking automated surgical arms were retracted into the ceiling.
Vegeta was already there, arms crossed, watching as the lead tech fumbled with a control console. "The diagnostics are… are complete, my lord," the tech said, his voice shaking as he read the screen. His green skin had taken on a sickly hue. "The subject has sustained… I've never seen… multiple compound fractures, grade-four organ laceration, severe neurological trauma, spinal column fragmentation…"
"Can you fix him?" Vegeta's voice was low and utterly without patience.
"W-we can try! The tank can stabilize him! But the spinal and neurological damage… the automated systems aren't calibrated for that level of… for Saiyan physiology. It would require a manual micro-surgery suite. We… we don't have the expertise for that here. The tank is his best chance. It will take time."
Vegeta's lip curled. "Time is a luxury he does not have. Do it. And if he dies," he finally turned and looked directly at the tech, "I will personally repressurize this bay using your internal organs. Do you understand?"
The tech nodded, mute with terror, and began frantically inputting commands.
The transfer was a brutal, mechanical process. Robotic arms, cold and precise, lifted Kakarot from the gurney. They were not gentle. They clamped onto his limbs, ignoring the injuries, and plunged him into the thick, blue-tinged fluid of the tank. More arms snaked down, attaching sensors to his temples, his chest, inserting new, larger tubes into his airways. For a moment, he floated, limp and lifeless. Then, the tank hummed to life. Bubbles streamed around his body as the fluid began to churn, its nano-machines swarming towards the catastrophic damage.
Raditz watched, his fists clenched. This wasn't healing. It was industrial repair. They were tuning up a broken engine.
Vegeta watched for a moment longer, a look of profound disgust on his face. He had dumped his problem. The stench of weakness and mediocrity was suffocating.
"You two," he said, without looking at Nappa or Raditz. "Find the commissary. Or a training deck. I don't care. Do not bother me."
With that, he turned and strode from the medical bay, leaving them alone with the humming tank and the terrified, silent techs. The only sound was the gurgle of the fluid and the faint, steady *beep… beep… beep* from the monitor that meant, against all odds, Kakarot was still clinging to life. For now.
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