Vegeta was suspicious.
Things were going well.
Far too well.
It had taken the Saiyan Prince nine months to figure out his brother's technology well enough to bypass that irritating function that utterly rejected certain destination markers.
That was fine. Naturally, the chance that Tarble would make it so easy that all he needed to do was program a route that took him near Earth, then stop early, was slim to none.
In fact, if it had been that simple, Vegeta would have been even more suspicious of it.
As it was, any trip that generated a logical route that bypassed the Milky Way galaxy at all would immediately generate a long detour in the system.
Getting rid of that had been a long and annoying process.
But Vegeta had finally succeeded.
He hadn't been in a rush to do so. While the older Prince had been beginning to get impatient, he would likely be able to wait another year or so before his irritation got the best of him and he abandoned the larger, faster Emperor class ship in favor of an older, clunkier ship that didn't have such restrictions.
Luckily, he hadn't needed to do so.
Instead,Vegeta had turned his main focus to more lucrative ventures.
Expanding his own seat of power.
Already, Vegeta had been subconsciously filtering his subordinates into categories based on their current power levels.
Including Nappa, the twins, Mel, and a few others, Vegeta had eight subordinates of uncommon strength. He designated them as his elites, and granted them privilege over the others, so long as they stayed the strongest.
Each Elite got their own private gravity chamber. All others were forced to train in the other, large common gravity chamber, that had a much lower ceiling to it.
For the last ten months, most of Vegeta's personal life centered around training as hard as he could in his own gravity chamber, or attempting to hack the ship's systems so that he could return to Earth.
Meanwhile, the ship itself drifted through space, searching for Saiyan blood. If someone with the blood of a Saiyan was found, they would be immediately taken in by Vegeta's elites, willing or not, no questions asked.
Vegeta's force had ballooned considerably via that strategy. Most of the Saiyans didn't get along, but that wasn't an issue. His elites were loyal, and that was all that really mattered to the Prince…
No, Vegeta was the King of all Saiyans, now.
He'd earned that title. The Saiyans were a genuine universal power now. They had a command structure, they deserved a king.
The thought still made him grin.
The large, main gravity chamber had a limit of 100 times Earth's gravity.
The private ones went up to thrice that.
Vegeta, over months, had managed to partially acclimate to 100 times Earth's gravity.
The central, general gravity chamber was set to around thirty. Most of the elites had managed to acclimate to between fifty and seventy, though it varied.
Mel had managed to acclimate to fifty times before her pregnancy forced her to stop training for the sake of the child.
Overall, that placed the average power level, for Vegeta's elite force, at around 35,000 to 50,000. Mel was at the lower end of that average. Nappa was at the higher. The twins were higher, still, at around 70,000 individually.
When the twins worked together, they could likely take on an enemy with an average power level of around 100,000.
Even together, though, they couldn't take on Vegeta himself.
Dying back on Earth had been worth it for the new King of all Saiyans. His power level had skyrocketed upon death.
While Nappa had begun acclimating to the gravity chambers with a pitiful power level of 7,500, Vegeta's own starting point was considerably higher. Just over 50,000.
Considerable pressure had made that number shine. In the form of a fivefold increase.
Vegeta was now confident that he could take on the Frieza that he'd known. Just the suppressed Frieza, though. His gauge of ki output was poor at best, but he knew that his current level was at least comparable to what he'd seen the tyrant leak out when he got impatient.
To Vegeta, comparable meant that he was stronger.
Vegeta would never know how stupid that theory actually was.
That didn't particularly mean that Vegeta was an idiot, though. Getting stronger made several things abundantly more clear.
Abo and Kado, Frieza's most powerful servants, were both already at the level that Vegeta was, roughly.
They still feared Frieza.
Which meant that Frieza had power that he did not utilize in his daily life.
Vegeta didn't know how much… but he had to be somewhere comparable to Tarble's own full power. Maybe weaker, but comparable.
Vegeta still couldn't even perceive that summit.
Like literally. Tarble had folded his prior self, at a level of 50,000, without visible effort. Being close enough to Tarble's actual effort had literally killed him. That disparity likely hadn't changed much, even with how much stronger Vegeta had gotten.
But one day, he knew that level of power would be normal for him, too.
Tarble was strong, but he was also soft. If Vegeta came back, so long as he didn't actually cause damage, Tarble would likely be extremely lenient. He'd allow Vegeta to stick around… show his land a bit.
Not everything, but enough for Vegeta to leech off another breakthrough. Then another, and another, until Vegeta surpassed his brother and kept climbing.
Then, Vegeta would become a Super Saiyan, and the secrets would be passed down to Vegeta's own daughter, Eschalot.
Vegeta would die of old age as the strongest being in the galaxy, and leave the gift of power to the second strongest being in the galaxy, his own child.
"AHAHAHAHAHA!" The thought made Vegeta laugh like a crazy person, alone on the bridge of his ship.