The planet loomed in front of them, a glowing white orb amid absolute blackness, perfect and untouchable. Light blue and purple storms swirled around the outer edges of the planet, stretching across its pristine whiteness like flowing strings, taking along bits of color with them. The storms were all over the planet, covering nearly three fourths of its vast area – looking ominous and frightening, thick and un-penetrable. The ship circled around the planet several times, and Tayhei examined its surface with intelligent eyes, surveying the storms, looking for a reasonable landing spot. As far as she could see, there wasn’t one. The atmosphere was anything but inviting, and though she knew the ship could hold it’s own against any rage of war or weather, she wasn’t so sure she was capable of landing in such adverse conditions.

Bulma was sitting nearby, strapped into her seat, and Tayhei wanted to ask her for help, but Bulma had looked so sad and tired that she didn’t even want to bother her. There were a lot of people counting on her now, not just Bulma. The lives of several other people were actually in her hands, and one wrong, stupid move could kill everyone. She had been asked to pilot the ship, a bigger responsibility than she had even thought of before. It was up to her to land them safely, and to be able to take them all home when the mission was finished. Without her or Bulma, they couldn’t get back home. She was beginning to realize just how important it was that she stayed alive, stayed safe. At the moment though, her own safety was not a concern. She had to land the ship in a very difficult landing place, and the pressure was building. If she took a chance and dived through the atmosphere, she could end up getting tossed about like a ping-pong ball in one of those storms, crash into the snow, and kill everyone. The landing had to be precise, exact, and intelligent, and the pressure was building up in her stomach, rising into her heart rapidly.

Luckily though, Tayhei had always done well under pressure.

“It doesn’t look very friendly, does it?” Gohan asked, looking at the wicked storms swirling around the planet’s atmosphere.

“Neither does Vejiita, but he’s virtually harmless.” Tayhei replied, and she caught Vejiita’s glare out of the corner of her eye. “We just have to find the right place to land; a calm moment between all of these storms. Although, I’m not so sure that’s going to be an easy feat. I think it’s storming everywhere….The places where it looks calm are actually not that calm --- it just looks that way in comparison to the big storms. And on that note, it’s very hard to see where the bigger storms are. They’re moving quite quickly around the planet.”

She thought for a moment about storms and temperatures, then suddenly brightened and flipped open a glass fixture on the panel to her left and selected a small red button labeled “thermo”. The window in front of them was slowly covered as a screen came up from the control panel, blocking out the beauty of space that lie before them. The screen flashed once, then a thermal diagram of the planet was before them, colorful splotches all over the screen indicating the different temperatures around the planet.

“Brilliant.” Bulma spoke up from behind her. “A thermal reading will help us land in a fairly calm area without having to guess by the look of the planet.” She pointed at the screen, to the upper part of the planet where the color swirls were a light purple. “Areas of that color are warmer and will be better areas for landing, since the storms you saw before would be generating freezing temperatures. It’s by no means bikini weather, but warmer at least.”

It had been Bulma’s idea originally to put the thermal reading equipment on the ship. The last minute touches on the airship had been rushed and hurried, but definitely thought through by Dr. Briefs himself, Bulma, Tayhei, and many others on staff. While most didn’t see the need for a thermal reading, Bulma kept insisting on installing one into the ship. Her thoughts on the matter were not however, pertaining to the situation at hand. Bulma’s reasoning for the thermo was so that lifeforms could be identified even under the cover of the snow. Snow, especially snow storms, could hide enemies that would otherwise very noticeable in normal temperate conditions. Because the inhabitants of Sukuashi had been there for so long, they would be accustomed to the cold and the snow, and be ready for camouflage and ambush. The last thing they needed was to be shot down by Saiya-jin snipers right at the beginning of their journey. Once the ship had entered Sukuashi’s atmosphere, they would seek an area with as few lifeforms as possible and land in secret. Capsule Corporation staff worked long and hard to fulfil all of Bulma’s last minute demands, but as it seems, it was paying off. Not only the thermal equipment would be needed, but also special food supplies, vehicles and snowsuits, all in the very lovely color of white.

“So, if the purple swirls are good, what do the red swirls mean?” Goten asked, squinting up at the screen.

Tayhei looked back at him and winked. “They mean ‘stay the hell away’. That’s definitely not where we want to land. I agree with Bulma. That area colored light purple, almost a sky blue, is where we want to land. It isn’t very large, so this landing has to be pretty exact.”

“What are you waiting for then?” Vejiita demanded from behind her. “Get on with it.”

Tayhei clenched her teeth, determined not to say anything in return. Normally she would have snapped with an extraordinary comeback that would leave jaws hanging open and eyebrows raised sky high, but she was in mixed company and didn’t want to drop her image in front of anyone. There were very few select people who saw the evil side of Tayhei, and though a handful of them were in the room with her, most of her companions were people that she actually liked and respected.

“Hai.” Tayhei simply said, and flicked several switches to signal a descent. “Hold on everyone. We’re about to become heroes.”

The others began situating themselves tightly in their seats, checking seatbelts and gripping the arms of their chairs. There was a light amount of chatter as she checked the readings once more and angled the ship just right, adjusting the controls while watching the thermal screen with intelligent eyes. After a moment of concentration, she released the thermal screen and it fell back down into its rightful place, revealing the beauty of space once more. This caused the voices behind her to grow even louder, with comments on the stars and the movement of the storms in the atmosphere. When she finally grabbed the steering of the ship, and felt the engines rumble with her command however, the chatter fell silent and all watched with wide eyes as the planet before them grew ever larger. Stars and colors seemed to blur as the airship shot forward with a sudden blast of speed, and they were thrown against their seats slowly, with the strength of the force.

Tayhei’s hands held the wheel tightly, knuckles turning almost white with her grip. The ship gave a slight shake, as if it were just entering through a rough spot, and all around them she could see shoots of weather rushing past them violently. Then before her eyes, everything turned to white, darker shades of it, fairer shades of it, but all the same endless, threatening white. The ship gave another shake, then started rumbling, and the steering wheel began to jerk around in her hands. Biting her lip, she gripped the wheel even tighter, and narrowed her eyes, trying to see something, anything through the storm.

“What’s going on?!” Bulma asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rumble.

“I don’t know!” Tayhei cried. “It must have been a heavier storm than we thought!”

Fear crept slowly into Tayhei’s heart, and she thought again that the lives of all these people were in her ready hands. They were all depending on her, and things were not looking good. The wheel jerked in her hands again, and she nearly lost grip with the entire ship started to shake violently, just as it had when they were under attack. She bit harder down on her lip, nearly drawing blood and strained to see further ahead of her again. In the distance, she could make out what appeared to be several darker lines swirling colored bits of wind together into a spiral. A blast of snow and ice hit the window and shaded her vision, but she ducked her head and stared harder, trying to make out what it was.

Just about the time she realized that it was some sort of a blizzard, she lost control of the ship completely.

“Kuso!” She cried.

Something slammed into the side then, which she guessed was merely the force of the weather, and the wheel was ripped out of her hands, shaking so hard that she didn’t dare grab it again. The ship flipped several times, bouncing along with the blizzard, and her passengers let out several startled cries. The window in front of them was instantly covered in snow, caked with spiderwebs of ice, and they were tossed about in the air, bangs and booms heard from everywhere on the ship. Distantly an alarm began to sound, and the ringing pierced her ears and made her hands even shakier, her heart beating a thousand times faster than it normally should. Tayhei stared openmouthed at the window, at the pure whiteness before her, feeling a stab of deep fear in her heart.

For once and her life, she wasn’t so sure of herself anymore. There was always a layer of ice around her heart, a protective coating that kept her cool and calm during the most unnerving situations. She had depended on that coolness hundreds of times in her life, took it in like the air she breathed, drank it in like water. There were times in life when hurt was evident, when fear was not an option, and it had always been those times that Tayhei had succeeded above everyone else. She was ice cold, and damn proud of it. Now though, it wasn’t just herself that she had to worry about. She had an entire ship full of people to care for, and entire ship full of people to save. The pressure built up in her throat, burned at the back of her eyes, and everything suddenly seemed to go into slow motion.

There was another slam to the side of the ship, and it set it into a full spin, and whiteness before them tumbling wildly, bits of ice swirling around into spiral shapes before them. Several people behind her cried out, and more alarms on the ship went off, signaling that they were in a lot of trouble. They rang loud and clear, piercing Tayhei’s mind straight as one of the shards of ice whipping through the storm outside.

“Grab the wheel!” She heard Bulma shout, amid all of the other noises. “You have to pull us out of it, Tayhei!! Grab the wheel!!”

She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering all of the strength and courage that she possessed. There was a great strength buried within her soul, not that of physicality, but that of spirit. She had to do this for Bulma, for Trunks, to prove herself to Vejiita, to prove herself to everyone. And most of all, she had to do this for herself. Just to know that the strength existed in her heart wasn’t enough --- she needed to use it. Her body tingled lightly, as the energy gathered, coursing through her veins like a rushing wave of icy water. A light blue glow began to surround her as she gathered all of her ki into her heart, and released it as energy. Hands now as strong as steel, she quickly reached for the ship’s controls one more time and grabbed with a strong hold.

The ship straightened out, but the wheel still shook heavily beneath her hands. The storm held onto the ship just as tightly though, and it tossed them around violently through the wind and snow, it if it were just another insignificant snowflake. Wind slashed against the ship, howling hard and loud in her ears.

In her heart however, she was calm and determined. There were lives in her hands, and she wasn’t about to let her friends perish because of little bit of bad weather. She didn’t care if the snow wanted to kill them, wanted to punish them for invading its territory. She didn’t care if shards of ice as big as trees were flying at her, cracking against the window right in front of her face, as if they were aimed at her. She was going to land this ship, fly through this ice, and fight this snow until the storm just fucking gave up.

She flicked a switch on her right and ignited the final burners of the ship, rocketing them through the storm with amazing speed. Everything rushed past them in a blur of lines and colors and Tayhei cried out an incompressible string of profanity at the storm as they passed through, dodging the ice and debris.

They burst through the blizzard with one final slam and blast of snow, and suddenly, they were flying through the most perfectly pristine and white place, calm and relief washing over all of them like rain. There was silence for a moment, as everyone gathered themselves once more, their heartbeats returning to normal.

“Sweet Kaiou….It’s a good thing we didn’t land in one of the red swirls!” Goten said to Trunks in a shaking voice, his eyes still wide as saucers. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his thick hair. “And I thought this was going to be easy!”

Trunks didn’t say anything, but nodded in agreement, his blue eyes large and his hands clenched on the arms of the seat he was sitting in.

Tayhei cut the engines slightly, and let the ship linger for a moment, staring through the ice on the window. Snow fell hard yet beautifully, whipping through the air on streaks of blue wind, gathering on the already white ground in soft mounds. Before them and to the sides of them, all they could see for miles and miles was simply white. Ground met sky seamlessly, white blending in with beautiful white all around. And the snowflakes sparkled brilliantly, as if each of them had been sprinkled with a dusting of glitter and magic.

“Ara!” Videl cried, craning her head to look out the window. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

“Like a dream.” Bulma said softly, though her eyes were troubled. The others began to lift their heads up, still shaken from the battle with the storm, and looked out the window.

“Land the ship and let’s get this over with.” Vejiita muttered, and Bulma looked over at him sharply, then gave him a crooked smile.

“I think that’s the best suggestion you’ve had all day, Vejiita.” She said, and for just a moment, her eyes looked a little less tired and her face a little less strained.

The ship traveled on for a few more minutes, as Tayhei surveyed the area, watching for any other storms that might appear before them. When all appeared to be calm, she dropped the landing gear and lowered the ship slowly to the ground. Snow flew up around them in a flurry, adding to the snowfall in the sky, and the ship’s engines rumbled at the descent, roaring in their ears. They landed with a resounding boom, and after a few seconds, Tayhei cut the engine completely off, flipping the appropriate switches before her. Her hands fell on the controls once more and she closed her eyes, silently thanking Kami that they had all survived.

Chapter 48
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