The pod was too small for him. He had insisted that they give him a larger ship, but would they listen? Nooooooooo.

Taurus shifted uncomfortably in his tiny ship, still simmering over his assignment - to go to some stupid planet called 'Earth' and find some stupid things called 'Dragon Balls' that would supposedly grant one wish. And that wish was to give his leader immortality.

Taurus was not a smart man, so it had never occurred to him to wish HIMSELF into immortality.

He looked down at his console. Good; Apple and Blueberry were still in formation. For inferior soldiers who had defected from Freeza's army, they were acceptable traveling companions - weak, but then again, the people of Earth were wusses.

There was nothing to do but sleep, so Taurus leaned back and closed his eyes.

-----

"I want to see that attack again," Rikum told Raditsu as they stood together in the gravity room. The gravitron was set to twenty-five, and it was all Raditsu could do to keep from stooping.

"Right," Raditsu nodded.

Rikum backed away, dropping into a defensive posture as Raditsu began to charge the Hidoku Dan in his hands. The powerful pull of the gravity machine seemed to lessen as he charged up the beam. finally releasing it with a loud yell.

The beam slammed into Rikum's raised arms and began to struggle to batter down the huge man's defenses. Raditsu grinned a little as the pulses blazing along the beam forced Rikum backwards. However, the huge soldier didn't fall. Raditsu's body protested with sharp jolts of pain as he poured more power into the attack, but he ignored the outcries.

Rikum's defenses were finally weakening, but Raditsu weakened first. Letting the beam stop, he fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

A tall purple alien with a fin on its head had been watching in shock, its scouter flickering rapidly. Now, it stepped forward, still looking awed. "The Saiyajin was reading at fifty thousand," he reported. "He's settling to twenty thousand now."

"Let's up it to thir-"

"RIKUM!" came a bellowing voice from outside. Dodoria. "Open the damn door!"

"Open that," Rikum ordered the purple finhead.

The finhead leaned towards the door and touched a single button.

Dodoria lumbered into the room. "Freeza's got orders for Raditsu," he announced. "Well, more of a request."

"What is it?" Raditsu frowned.

"We've intercepted a transmission from a Saiyajin spacepod to Vegetasei. There's a Saiyajin named Taurus headed for Earth to find some things called Dragonballs to wish King Vegeta into immortality."

"Taurus?" Taurus was Raditsu and Kakarotto's half-brother, the son of Bardock's first wife.

"Yeah. Freeza wants you to go to Earth and put a stop to his little plan."

"Why me?"

"I dunno," Dodoria shrugged. "Just pick three guys and go." "Alright, I'll do it."

-----

Twenty minutes later, Raditsu and his team had boarded the spacepods assigned to them and blasted off for Earth.

Raditsu was confident that the team he assembled could handle anything Taurus decided to throw at them - his own power level was twenty thousand. Kakarotto's had been boosted to fifteen thousand, while Bardock stood at sixteen thousand and Kiwi had advanced to twenty-five thousand - huge increases for all. According to the records, Taurus was an elite, with a power level of eighteen thousand - Raditsu could defeat him without a real problem.

"We should reach Earth in a day," Raditsu told his team via the intership comm system. "Kiwi, you know the ships best. What should we do in the meantime?"

"Strap on the rejuvenator and rest," came the reply. "We didn't have time for a proper refresher after the training, so with the rejuvenator we should get at least an extra thousand on our power levels."

"Right." Raditsu reached for the mask and placed it over his mouth, leaning back in his chair and going to sleep as the healing gases seeped into his nostrils.

-----

Taurus stepped out of his pod, surveying the area around him. His space pod had made a fair-sized crater in the brown rocks. Apple and Blueberry's ships had also made impact craters; the two low-level soldiers were emerging from their ships and readying their arm blasters in case of any eventuality.

And then Taurus noticed the local.

The being was quite short and quite bald, with no nose and six dots branded onto his forehead. He wore an orange gi and black boots. And he looked VERY scared.

[This little whelp will tell me where the Dragonballs are.] Gathering a small bit of ki, Taurus floated up out of his crater and landed in front of the shocked bald midget.

The midget gawked up at him in sheer terror.

"What a fragile breed of people," Taurus said with a fake smile. "Good afternoon, little man. I'm looking for a certain set of Dragonballs. Perhaps you can tell me where they are."

"W-what? I don't... know!"

Out of curiosity, Taurus touched a finger to his scouter and almost laughed out loud as the small screen registered a six hundred and thirty. "Don't try and keep secrets from me," he told the bald guy. "I could crush you without breaking a sweat if I desired to."

"Y-yeah? Well, listen mister, you came here! I-I have no interest in starting a fight...!"

Taurus smirked a bit and said simply, "I do."

"Just bring it on, mister!"

"Blueberry, take him."

The doggish Blueberry shuffled forward, aiming his energy rifle at the bald man. "Ready to die, midget?" he rasped.

Knowing full well that it was hopeless, Krillin steeled himself and prepared for a fight he couldn't win.