Dragon Ball Z: Paradise Found

Return Of The Ace

"I wonder if the others have run into the same problem?" Krillin deflated in his seat. He drew his knees in and tucked them into his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "I've got a bad feeling that it's only us. As if we're always the butt of a joke or something..."

"Come to think of it, Chayote's been in space a whole lot, right? Has she ever struggled to find the money for ship parts and repairs?" Yamcha scratched his head, leaning over the control panel as he tried to unravel the knot of the sum of their problems.

"I'm not sure if we can just ring her up and ask her, right?" Krillin looked up at his friend.

"I mean... She has a cell phone. Bulma made sure of that. She knows how to use it too. Chayote's called me and received calls before. Our ship's got top-of-the-line comms that Earth technology can provide..." Yamcha shrugged, pocketing his left hand while his right scratched the back of his head. The scarred martial artist winced, almost as if thinking about this issue further caused him physical pain.

"Then what's the problem?" Krillin squinted at Yamcha.

"I mean... Can you maybe call her? Things are a bit awkward between us after the break-up..." Yamcha's cheeks flushed with red and his mouth molded into a wavy and awkward smile while he turned his embarrassed eyes away.

"Ugh... Fine," Krillin turned around in his chair. "Ship, I want to call Chayote on her cell phone."

The monitor screen overhead that had been stuck displaying the general atmospheric conditions on the outside flickered. A single line representing the continuum of the electromagnetic waves racing their way to Earth the best they could. Less than eighty seconds later, Chayote's face, surrounded by static, popped up on the screen. Judging by the shifting view behind her and the uneasy breathing, she's been busy and, on an occasion, the image of Future Trunks blitzing past her could be made out.

"Oh, it's you guys..." Chayote mumbled.

"Is this a bad time?" Krillin wondered.

"Huh? We're on a bit of a rescue mission. Trunks and I are pulling people out of harm's way. We've got to move quickly before one of the Androids shows up. They might have Puri's Ki draining technology with them, so we're sort of hit-and-running at the moment. Not picking any fights, just rescuing people, mostly." Chayote explained. Shouts and grunts that belonged to many different people of different genders echoed on the horizon, and occasional flashes of light and resonating explosions interrupted the call with static and booming noise.

"Oh... Okay, I'll try to make it quick. Yamcha and I ran into a bit of a problem. We ran into a supernova and our ship's a bit rattled. We need parts, but we don't know where we can get any. Plus, even if we could, we don't have any space money on us. I mean, we don't even know what the space-money is, that's how short on it we are. Wouldn't even know what it looks like if someone handed it to us, really. We can't even train because gravity tech could rip the ship apart for good and leave us drifting in space," Krillin explained their situation.

"Oh, that's fine. Just ask the ship to find the nearest space station. Think of them like space's supermarkets. They're littered with lowlife looking to make a quick buck on repairing your ship. Watch out though, half of them will do wonders on repairs, the other half will rip the functional parts out and scatter with your cash instead. You've gotta have a sense for those things and have some presence with those thugs. They've got to have a sense they shouldn't mess with you." Chayote explained while outracing combined barrages of anti-air plasma bolts and shredding mini-guns and answering with devastating Ki blasts that decimated the automatons patrolling the streets of the converted towns.

"Yeah, okay... A space station, that much we sort of could've figured out. But what about the money? Where do we even get it from?" Krillin wondered.