Chapter 3

The next day, the spaceship was all set for blastoff, and everyone was
packed and ready to go. Although Bulma and Kuririn had packed rather
lightly, Chichi had brought all kinds of unnecessary items for Gohan.
On top of that, he was sporting a brand new bowl-haircut, and was
dressed in the most humiliating outfit Bulma had ever seen. And boy
was he embarrassed!

After they had packed all of Gohan's luggage onto the entry deck, they
all said their last farewells.

"Be careful, Gohan," Chichi sad, trying to hold the tears back. "Always
remember that I love you very much."

"I know, Mom," Gohan said. "And please don't worry. I'm going to be
just fine."

"I'm going to hold you to that," she said, straightening a loose strand
of his hair.

Bulma shuffled her feet uncomfortably. She hated goodbyes, and she had
a bad feeling about the possibility of this being their last. She
didn't want to rush Gohan and Kuririn, but she was anxious to get going.

Good luck, Kuririn," Roshi said, shaking Kuririn's hand firmly. "You
three be careful. And don't do anything I wouldn't do. It's not good
for you to take to many risks, you know."

"Don't worry," Kuririn said. "We'll be fine, sensei. Besides, we'll
have a good head start on Vegita when we get there. He was way worse
off than we were when he took off."

"Well, I guess you should get going, then," Roshi said, adjusting his
shades and glancing at Bulma. "I wish all of you the best of luck, and
Goku said to tell you he'll catch up with you as soon as he can get out
of that hospital."

"I'm sure my dad will have Goku's ship ready in a jiffy," Bulma said,
glancing back toward their own craft. The discoveries we've made from
the rebuilding of this ship have really improved his design, too. He
should have it finished within a couple of weeks if he takes off from
work."

"Take care of Gohan for me, okay, Bulma? And you too, Kuririn?" Chichi
said, kissing her son one last time.

"Don't worry," Bulma said, patting Gohan on the head. "We'll watch him.
But we'll need him to watch us too. Believe me, Chichi, Gohan can take
care of himself."

They all waved goodbye as they began rising into the ship. When they
were finally inside, Kuririn lost it.

"Ho boy, Gohan!" He laughed hysterically. "Where'd your mom buy those
clothes? Or no, wait, let me guess! The store paid her to take them,
didn't they? Hwa ha ha!"

Bulma glared angrily at Kuririn. She had wanted to be tactful in case
Gohan was sensitive about his dorky garb, but instead of being hurt,
he just laughed with Kuririn.

"I don't know," he chuckled, "but they would have had to break the bank
to make me take these awful things! But I had to wear them, anyway. My
mom was so dead-set against my going in the first place, so I guess I
kind of owed her something for giving in and finally letting me go. But
hey, just because I'm wearing it now doesn't mean I can't change it
later. I have a much better outfit that I'll put on once we escape the
earth's gravity.

"I hope you aren't expecting to experience weightlessness," Bulma
warned. The effects of that would weaken our bodies too much. My dad
and I invented a machine that simulates Earth's gravity. We have one on
the ship and as soon as we've escaped the Earth's atmosphere I'm going
to switch it on with the rest of the ship's instruments. Anyway," she
added, buckling herself into her seat, "you two had better get strapped
in. I'm about to take off."

Kuririn and Gohan got into their seats and fastened their restraint
harnesses. "All right! We're ready for blastoff, Captain Briefs,"
Kuririn said, with a brisk salute and a silly grin.

"Knock it off," Bulma said, laughing. "Now hold on. This could get
really intense." She called out the Namek command for blastoff and
instantly the ship began to ascend at an incredible rate of speed. They
were roughly pressed down into their seats by the awesome force of their
velocity. Bulma grit her teeth and kept her eyes on the controls. So
far so good. They were leaving the Earth's gravitational field now.
She pulled the ship into its preprogrammed flight path, switched on
the gravity machine, and put the ship on autopilot.

"There," she said, unfastening her restraint harness. "Now all I have
to do is check our coordinates every eight hours to make sure our
periodic error corrector is functioning properly, and we should reach
Namek in about two and a half weeks."

She got out of her chair and turned around, beaming triumphantly at
Kuririn and Gohan. She took one look at the two "warriors" and fell
over laughing. Gohan was as white as a sheet and was dripping with
sweat. He looked as if he were about to faint! Kuririn was hunched
over in his seat, gripping the armrests. He was holding them so tightly,
in fact, that even though they had been constructed out of solid,
treated titanium, he had pressed large dents into them with his fingers.
He looked up weakly at Bulma, who was still trying to regain her
composure.

"Are we there yet?" He asked her woozily.

"No," she chuckled. "But don't worry. You won't go through anything
like that again until we reach Namek."

Kuririn nodded and took a couple of deep breaths. Bulma glanced at
Gohan again and noticed that he was beginning to get some of his color
back.

"Are you okay?" She asked him.

"I guess so," he answered, unbuckling himself from his seat. "At least
my stomach isn't in my feet anymore," he added, grinning at Bulma.

"How far away from Earth are we?" Kuririn asked, getting off his seat.

"Come on. I'll show you," Bulma said, leading them to the rear of the
ship. She led them to a small window and pointed toward the middle of
it.

"You see that really bright dot there?" She asked them.

"Yeah," they both replied.

"That's the sun," she explained. "D'you see that faint, bluish spot
just to the right of it?"

"No," Kuririn said, squinting at it.

"I can just barely make it out, Bulma," Gohan said.

"Well, I can't see it anymore," she said, shrugging. "But that was
Earth."

"Whoa!" Kuririn exclaimed. "We're going fast!"

"Yeah," Bulma said, as they walked back up to the front of the ship.
We're past the solar system now, and in a few minutes we'll have exited
the Milky Way galaxy's gravitational pull. Then we'll go REALLY fast."

"Wow!" Gohan breathed. "So what do we do now?"

"Anything you want," Bulma replied. "As for me, I'm going to work on
learning more Namek phrases. I've gone through that entire notepad
twice, but I want to keep it fresh on my mind, so I'll go over it some
more."

"Hey, Bulma," Kuririn said, looking around. "Umm... do we have beds on
this ship?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, guys!" She exclaimed, digging through her travel bag.
"I completely forgot! Ah! Here they are!" She handed Gohan and Kuririn
each a small booklet.

"What are these?" Kuririn asked her.

"These are detailed maps of the ship, telling you where to find what
you want and the Namek command for each one. Since you two haven't
studied Namek, I've written each Namek name beside each item in the
book. They're spelled like they sound, so you'll probably get the hang
of it with little difficulty. All you have to do is say the word and
what you ask for will come to you by one way or another. I won't go
into too much detail about that, though. Anyway, I'll sleep out here
by the controls, and your beds are in the rear of the ship, as you'll
see in those little booklets. Feel free to explore all you want, but
don't ever touch any of these controls. They're the only things off
limits to you."

"Thanks!" Kuririn said, amazed.

"This is sooo cool!" Gohan said, flipping through the pages of his
booklet. "You've thought of everything, Bulma!"

"Well, Dad and I worked really hard on this ship, but since we rushed
through it, the chances are pretty good that we forgot a few things.
But hey, we've got all the necessities, at least," she said, giggling
as Gohan got to the page with the instructions for the video game
system. That had been her father's idea, but she still wasn't quite
clear on his reasoning for it, though.

"Do you have any more questions?" She asked, pulling out her Namek
study aid.

"I guess not!" Kuririn said, still amazed. He and Gohan turned and
walked back down the hallway to go test out a few of the Namek commands.

Bulma sighed. She tried to begin studying again, but her mind wandered.
What was Yamucha doing now? Did he know what she was doing? Was she
ever going to see him again? She wished she knew the answers. She put
Popo's notepad away and listened to Gohan and Kuririn laugh as they
tried out each Namek command. They were depending on her to get them
to Namek. She hoped she wouldn't fail them.


On to Chapter Four...