Growing Pains - Chapter 76 (Patreon)

“Hi there!” I chirped at the tableful of whatever species the bug guy was using as minions for his ship. “Mind if I take a seat?”

“If we say yes?” One of them grumbled.

I just ignored him and sat down with my loaf of… actually, what even was this?

I wasn’t expecting three-star meals in what was essentially just the crew cafeteria, but I was hoping for something at least a little more appealing than purple-grey blocks.

Maybe it tasted better than it looked?

I took a quick bite and it was… pretty bland actually. A decent amount of crunch with every bite, but beyond that – not much texture or flavor. A solid meh at best.

“Did you come to bother us for an actual reason, Saiyan? The Overlord won’t pay you if you break anything or kill one of us, so don’t try anything.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved off casually as one of the minions dragged my attention away from the block of… whatever. “I’m not here to pick a fight with a bunch of weaklings anyway. Any of you have an idea of how long it’s going to take to get to wherever we’re going?”

Batman infiltration lesson number forty six – if for some reason you couldn’t sneak around whatever environment you found yourself in, act like you belong there. People are much more likely to let things slip or ignore the person acting normally out in the open to the person trying to avoid everyone’s notice.

Sure he didn’t exactly mean for when you accidentally impersonated another Saiyan after you and a bunch of your friends were kidnapped, but the spirit still applied.

Everyone here expected a stereotypical Saiyan. So I would give them one while openly walking around and planning my next move.

“We dunno. The Overlord hasn’t mentioned anything just yet.” One of the minions answered my question. “The trade station usually skirts around the edge of the sector, but it could move if some of the big factions start posturing. No one wants to get in between a pissing match between the Citadel or Warworld or someone like that. Still, it shouldn’t take longer than a few days and hopefully we can find buyers for all the merchandise before we start needing to figure out if they need some sort of special diet just to stay alive, yanno?”

I hummed at that and took another bite out of my mystery bloc.

Okay, so intergalactic slavers.

Not exactly great, but better than some of the options we could have run into. Donna and the others would at least probably be safe for a bit since no one usually paid well for half-dead slaves and if the goal was to sell them off they shouldn’t be pressed into anything until we got to that station.

At least until they manage to escape or someone realises that I’m not the mercenary they hired.

So the next thing to do was figure out how to turn this ship around or steal a smaller shuttle to get back to Earth before we got to that station. But before that…

“Okay, seriously, what is this?” I asked, holding up the last bit of my bloc.

One of the minions leaned forward and grinned. “Only the best for us. Standardized blocks of blended nutrients and a fungus based binding agent. What do you think? Tasty, right?”

So it was basically just a mushroom cube?

To their visible disappointment I popped the rest in my mouth and chewed slowly, trying to pick out an actual flavor but nope. Still pretty bland.

“Not really. But the texture is fun at least.” I said, stealing another couple blocks from one of the nearby minion’s trays. “Anyway, I’m gonna wander around a bit. I’m getting pretty bored.”

“Oh, ah, you can look at the slave pens or the technical deck if you have nothing to do!” One of them said in a rush of someone who had an idea of how dangerous a bored Saiyan could be. “You won’t be allowed to touch anything but it could be interesting?”

“The technical deck?” I asked.

“Its where we categorize any technology we pick up on merchandise runs. Hard to sell something for the right price if we don’t know what we’re selling, right?”

“Yeah.” I halfheartedly agreed. That sounded like the natural place any of the Sidekick Squad’s gear would end up and a perfect spot to create a distraction if we needed one.

I’d swing by there first. And if the others hadn’t broken out by then, I’d check in on them next.

-o-

-Robin POV-

“So… your friend betraying us for a quick buck. There any chance that’s true?” Artemis asked from where she was leaning on a wall, doing her best to project being unbothered about their situation despite definitely being bothered.

Robin didn’t blame her.

A sudden trip to space hadn’t been in his plans for the day either. And he’d been in the game a lot longer than she had.

Still, the monkey selling them all out to a random alien?

“Not a chance, New Girl.” KF spoke up before anyone else could. “That's not Cali’s style. Besides, you saw her. She was just as surprised as the rest of us.”

“Yeah well, excuse me for thinking the same girl that tried kidnapping the mayor to fight Superman might have a few screws loose.”

“Psh, that’s tame for her. Like I said, she’s solid.”

Robin tuned out the developing conversation to look around his cell again.

All things considered, it was pretty bare. A single bench bolted directly to the floor, empty metal walls, and an opening covered by the same clear material as the domes they were captured in earlier.

Not much to work with, but he still had a few options their captors had overlooked when they were stripped of their obvious gear.

“Do you think Califa is coming to help us?” Miss Martian asked from her own cell.

“Probably not,” Robin replied as he pulled off his gloves and began tearing open three hidden compartments that on first glance looked like normal padding. And to some extent they were.

They just also happened to be components to a three part explosive compound Batman designed for situations like this.

“We’re on a ship going who knows where and for who knows what. She’s the only one that can move freely around the place for now so she should be trying to either figure out a way to turn us around or find a way back home.”

“Hope she figures out a way back home quick.” KF said, breaking off his conversation with Artemis. “I’ve got a math test this week.”

“So we’re stuck here until then?”

“Relax, beautiful, we got this. Right, Rob?”

“I don’t know about we, but I’ve definitely got something. You guys might want to cover your ears.” Robin said as he finished smooshing the compound against a faint seam in the panels by the door opening. Then all he had to do was move to the back of the cell, cover his head with his cape, and wait for the–

BANG!

– that.

Robin quickly rushed back to the door and pulled the now-loose panel from the wall before taking a look inside. Obviously none of the insides were familiar, but at its most basic all tech was pretty much the same. Power and information go in, and things happen when they do. A little messing around with the wires inside and he was able to force the door motors to open.

After that, it was easy enough to just open the doors to the rest of the Team’s cells.

“Okay, we’re out… now what?” Artemis asked. “Meet up your other friend and find a way back to Earth?”

“Maybe.” Aqualad spoke up, taking charge. “Robin, Wondergirl, you know her training better than we do. What will she do if she hears we’ve escaped?”

Robin waggled a hand. “Depends on if her cover’s intact. She might keep trying to find a way to get us home.”

“And if it isn’t?”

Wondergirl was the one to answer this time. “Then she’ll try to join up with us as quickly as possible, but considering we haven’t heard any alarms go off–”

As if the universe was just waiting for her to say that, alarms began blaring throughout the ship.

“Was that us or her?!” KF shouted over the noise.

“Doesn’t matter, we need to move!” Superboy shouted back. No one disagreed and soon the whole Team was running through the alien ship.

-o-

-A little earlier-

I found the technical deck easily enough. All I had to do was grab a passing minion and demand directions and they were happy to point me in the right direction.

Though once I got there, I realised they might have had ulterior motives. Because the person running the area not only seemed to be the only other person besides the Bug Overseer to not be terrified being in the presence of a Saiyan, but also one that seemed to ask about five questions at once.

“I don’t know why.” I repeated for what felt like the twentieth time. “I don’t ask every person I fight why they chose a certain weapon. If someone wants to use a bow then the only question I care about is if they are any good with it.”

“But this could give us so much insight on a primitive species’ culture!” The scientist objected. “They obviously have the technology for more advanced weapons, so why a bow? Is it significant to their martial traditions? A status symbol? Something imposed on them from their ruling caste? There are so many things a simple weapon can tell us!”

“If you say so.” I said, unenthusiastically. “So are all the things from that group in here?”

“That gro… oh! You mean the new subjects. Yes, yes. All in here.” The minion nodded, waving a hand at a corner of the room I suspected was where the rest of the Sidekick Squad’s gear was.“I’ve just been focusing on the more engineering focused things first. Much easier to identify their use than something relying on metamaterials or alternate energy forms.”

Okay, cool. Found everyone’s stuff.

Now how to get it out of here without–

I paused as one of the nearby monitors lit up and suddenly had Bug Overlord’s face on them.

“Overlord! How might I serve you?” The scientist said once he noticed the bug’s placid face.

“Inform the Saiyan the specimens he collected have attempted to escape. If he wishes to collect what remains of his payment, he will recapture them without inflicting severe injury that will reduce their value too much.”

“Of course, Overlord.” The scientist bowed while I waited for the call to end.

I could just knock him out real quick and grab everyone’s stuff before going to meet them.

“Though, just one minor correction, Overlord.”

“Oh?”

“You see, this Saiyan is female.”

Both me and the Overseer froze at that. Likely for completely different reasons.

“Impossible. I clearly verified when I established the contract in the first place the Sayian was male.” The Overlord objected, but I could tell by the way he started looking at me the game was probably up.

“I can see why you would think so but unlike proper insectile or reptilian species that use pheromone systems to differentiate between genders, many mammalian species females have prominent flesh sacks on their torsos that they use to nourish their young. Of course this is not universal as some species such as the H'lvenites lack these features.”

The Overlord did not visibly react.

“I see.” He said simply, and abruptly cut the connection.

Well… crap.

Maybe he wouldn’t make a big deal of it?

Almost immediately alarms began blaring, which pretty much killed that hope.

+Attention, this is the Overseer – the specimens have escaped the holding cells and the Saiyan mercenary is an imposter. Capture the specimens in the best condition you are able. Destroy the Saiyan.+

“Welp, I’d say I’m sorry about this,” I said to the suddenly wide-eyed scientist before blasting him into a nearby wall with a Ki attack. “But honestly? I was looking forward to this part.”

On the bright side, I no longer had to worry about sneaking the Squad’s gear out of here.