Chapter 30: The Prodigal Soldier
The silence in the cavern was no longer just an absence of sound. It was a physical presence, a thick, clotting substance composed of cooling blood, settling dust, and extinguished lives. The low, persistent hum of the Lodestar-class survey ship was the only intrusion, a vibration that seeped through the mountain stone, a reminder that the outside universe was not done with this world.
Kakarot stood amidst the carnage, his chest rising and falling in a slow, controlled rhythm. The frantic energy of the massacre had passed, replaced by a cold, hyper-clarity. His mind, sharpened by Moori's teachings, was no longer a battlefield of rage but a strategist's map. He looked at the bodies of Kael, Lyra, Shera, and the others, not with regret or triumph, but with clinical assessment. They were not people. They were variables that had been neutralized. The equation was now simpler.
His gaze then fell upon Moori.
The Namekian was on his knees, head bowed, his green hands resting on his thighs. He wasn't trembling anymore. The storm of grief and rage had passed, leaving behind a desolate, frozen calm. The light in his large, dark eyes had been extinguished, replaced by a void. He was a shell, a sentient monument to his own catastrophic failure.
"They are coming," Kakarot stated, his voice flat and loud in the deathly quiet. "The ship. It will land. It will scan. It will find this." He gestured with his chin at the cavern. "Or, it will find me."
Moori did not look up. He gave no sign he had even heard.
"I am not going to destroy it," Kakarot continued, walking slowly around the Namekian, a predator circling its broken prey. "That would be… inefficient. It would raise alarms. It would make me a fugitive. I am not ready to fight the entire Frieza Force. Not yet."
He stopped in front of Moori, forcing the elder to look at his blood-spattered boots. "I am going to use it. It is my ticket back."
Finally, Moori's head lifted. His eyes were red-rimmed, but dry. The hatred was still there, but it was a cold, distant star, devoid of the energy to flare. "Back to what? The butchers who discarded you? The Prince who broke you? You are a fool."
"I am a survivor," Kakarot corrected, a flicker of impatience in his eyes. "And you are going to help me."
He knelt, bringing his face level with Moori's. The intensity in his gaze was terrifying. "You will hide. You will suppress your energy so completely that not even Frieza's own scouter on that ship will find a flicker. You will be a ghost. You will wait here, in this tomb you chose for them."
"And if I refuse?" Moori's voice was a dry whisper. "If I reveal myself? If I tell them what you are?"
Kakarot's lips peeled back in a smile that held no warmth. "Then you will die. And it will be a meaningless death. They will not see you as a victim. They will see you as another native pest I failed to exterminate. They will execute you as a matter of course, and I will spin a tale of how you were the leader of the resistance I just heroically defeated. Your death will become part of my legend. Your final act will be to make me look stronger."
He let the horrific logic of that sink in. There was no winning for Moori. Resistance was not martyrdom; it was posthumous propaganda for his tormentor.
"Your only value," Kakarot said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "the only reason you are still breathing, is your knowledge. You are a library. And I am not done reading. I will return for you. When I am stronger. When I have a ship of my own and the freedom to use it. You will be here. And you will continue to teach me. That is the only future you have. The only purpose left to you."
He stood up, his decision final. "Now. Hide. I can feel the ship entering the lower atmosphere. It will be landing soon. I need to prepare my welcome."
Moori looked at the bodies of the children one last time. A profound, soul-crushing weariness settled over him. The will to fight, to resist, to even care, evaporated. What was the point? The Saiyan's calculus was horrifying, but it was irrefutable. He was a resource. To be anything else was to be discarded.
Without a word, Moori pushed himself to his feet. He moved like an automaton, walking to the deepest, darkest fissure in the cavern wall, a narrow crack that led into the planet's unlit depths. He did not look back. He simply stepped into the darkness, and as he did, the faint, unique energy signature that Kakarot had learned to feel vanished completely. It was as if he had ceased to exist.
Kakarot nodded, satisfied. One problem contained.
Now, for the performance.
He moved quickly. He went to the ruined pod, the one that had carried him back to this world. He used a focused, low-power ki blast to scorch the earth around it, to make the crash look more violent, more catastrophic. He ripped away more of his own damaged armor, leaving only the most scarred and battered pieces on his torso and legs. He rubbed dirt and soot into his skin and hair, matting it down. He needed to look like he had been through an ordeal, not like he had just been honed into a peak-condition weapon.
He chose his spot carefully: a high, rocky bluff overlooking the vast, empty plain, with the smoldering wreck of his pod visible in the middle distance. He stood in the open, a lone, dark figure against the orange sky, and waited.
The ship descended. It was an ugly, functional thing, a fat, grey beetle with sweeping sensor wings and multiple landing struts. It settled a kilometer away with a ground-shaking thud and a hiss of hydraulics. A ramp extended.
Kakarot didn't move. He let them come to him.
A squad of four emerged. Not soldiers. Technicians. They wore the standard grey Frieza Force uniforms, but without the battle armor. They carried bulky scanning devices and data-slates, not blasters. A squad leader, a tall, thin being with bulbous yellow eyes, led them, a scouter fixed over one eye.
Kakarot watched them approach, his expression carefully crafted: a mixture of wary exhaustion and simmering Saiyan pride. He let them get within fifty meters before he spoke, his voice deliberately rough.
"Took you long enough."
The technician squad froze, their scanners whirring in surprise. The leader's hand went to the blaster pistol on his hip. "Identify yourself!" he barked, his voice reedy through the scouter's speaker.
Kakarot remained still, letting the scouter get a clear read. He consciously forced his power level down, suppressing the vast new ocean of energy, letting it register as a tired, depleted 850. A believable number for a Saiyan who had been stranded and fighting for survival.
"Kakarot. Saiyan Army. Third Class. Attached to Prince Vegeta's command," he recited, the words dripping with bored formality.
The leader's bulbous eyes widened. He tapped his scouter. "Kakarot? The log has you listed as… terminated. Medical failure. Jettisoned."
"The log is wrong," Kakarot said, a hint of a sneer in his voice. He gestured with his thumb towards the wrecked pod. "Crashed here. Scouter shattered on impact. Been here ever since."
The technicians exchanged nervous glances. The leader took a cautious step forward. "For almost a full cycle? Report. What is the status of this planet?"
Kakarot shrugged, a gesture of supreme Saiyan nonchalance. "It's clean. Or it is now. Took care of the last of the natives a few days ago. A stubborn little nest of them, hiding in the caves. Been picking them off one by one for weeks." He looked the leader directly in his yellow eyes. "You're welcome. The place is ready for its new owners. Just like the Prince left it."
He was layering the story perfectly. The crash. The destroyed equipment. The long, gritty, solo campaign to "finish the job." It was a narrative Frieza's bureaucrats could understand and even applaud. A story of grim, relentless efficiency.
The leader was clearly out of his depth. He was a clerk, not an investigator. He looked at Kakarot's battered state, the wrecked pod, the suppressed power level. It all checked out. A more suspicious mind, a warrior's mind like Vegeta's, would see the holes, but this man only saw a problem that was solving itself.
"I… see," the leader stammered. "This is highly irregular. I will have to report this to Command."
"Report whatever you want," Kakarot said, starting to walk towards them, his movements deliberately slow and tired. "But get me off this rock. I need a real meal. And a new scouter."
He walked past the stunned technicians, not waiting for an invitation, and started up the ramp into their ship. He could feel their eyes on his back, a mixture of fear and confusion. He had taken control of the situation completely.
As he stepped into the sterile, brightly lit interior of the Lodestar, he allowed himself a single, cold, internal smile.
The first move was complete. The ghost was walking back into the machine. The Frieza Force had just welcomed a predator back into its midst, and they had no idea that the weakest Saiyan had returned, not as a grunt, but as a patient, calculating, and utterly ruthless enemy. The game had just begun.
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