Inside the main control room of The Dalles.
Dalles stood before the observation window, his arms crossed over his chest.
“How much further to the target?”
Rez immediately swiped a finger across the console, bringing up the navigation chart.
“At our current speed, we are estimated to arrive at the docking coordinates provided by the Heeters in three days.”
“Three days.”
Behind him, Armond muttered the number.
His reddish face could no longer conceal his anticipation.
“Finally, we get to pull off a real job.”
He clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking.
Ever since joining the Frieza Force, their days had been spent familiarizing themselves with the environment, studying the systems, and killing time against simulation targets in the training room.
For someone as restless as him, it was pure torture.
Daiz opened his eyes.
“Don’t celebrate just yet.
We’ve been in the North Galaxy for a while now, so stop acting like a bunch of country bumpkins.
The boss was right; we really knew far too little about this universe before…”
“Hahaha.”
As soon as Daiz finished speaking, Dalles’s laughter rang out.
“It seems you’ve grown quite a bit recently, Daiz!”
“Armond, didn’t you fancy yourself the second-in-command among us?
I suggest you figure out how to handle Daiz first.”
Armond waved his hand dismissively, though his body honestly settled back into his seat.
The atmosphere in the control room relaxed a bit.
Dalles then turned to Lakasse.
“Based on public navigation data, what’s the situation around these docking coordinates?”
Lakasse’s fingers tapped rapidly across the console.
A star map expanded, highlighting the docking coordinates in red.
“It’s on the outskirts of Sector N-4.
Commercial traffic density is low, and the Frieza Force doesn’t have a large garrison in this area.”
He paused.
“However, it’s still quite a distance from Planet Caren itself.
They chose an uninhabited star system right in the middle for this rendezvous point.”
Dalles gave a nod.
These Heeters were quite meticulous in their methods.
Setting the meeting point in an uninhabited system far from the target at least showed they didn’t want to alert the enemy before the operation began.
“What about intel on the Heeters?
Is there anything useful in the public records?”
Rez chimed in.
“I checked.
There aren’t many entries for the Heeters in the Frieza Force’s public database.
Their registration category is ‘Commercial Partner,’ and the cooperation duration is marked as ‘Long-term.’ But there’s no information on their specific business scope or organizational structure.”
“They even lock the data of an external partner?”
Dalles fell into deep thought.
Meanwhile, on a nameless, barren planet in the same star system as Planet Caren.
The surface was parched and cracked, covered in rock formations weathered by countless years.
Canyons crisscrossed the landscape.
The wind howled up from the valley floors, sweeping up fine gravel that rustled against the exposed cliffs.
By the edge of a cliff.
Four people stood there.
The leader was a slender man with short, silver-gray hair plastered back by the wind.
With his hands clasped behind his back, he stood perfectly straight.
His gaze swept over the canyon hundreds of meters deep, past the dusty surface of the desolate planet, and up toward the dark, heavy expanse of the cosmos.
A plump, dark-skinned man standing behind him took a step forward.
“Boss.”
“The last batch of data was transmitted back five days ago.
We have the deployment map of the planetary defense system, the military rotation cycles, and the civilian population density of all major cities.”
The wind howled again.
Crushed sand pelted their clothes.
On a nearby rock, a woman with twin tails leaned back, chewing on a piece of candy she had gotten from who knows where.
She crossed her legs, idly twirling her left pigtail with one hand.
“Boss.”
She shifted the candy from her left cheek to her right, speaking with a muffled voice.
“Are we doing things the usual way this time?
Just letting Frieza’s men handle the invasion directly?”
Elec shook his head without a second thought.
“Of course not.”
His hands remained behind his back, his eyes never leaving the direction of Planet Caren.
“It won’t be that simple this time.”
Maki tilted her head, pausing her chewing.
“This is a fully developed interstellar civilization,” Elec said, turning his body slightly toward the group.
“They have their own starfleet and a planetary defense grid.”
“More importantly, they possess the communication capabilities to send a distress signal to the Galactic Patrol.”
Maki furrowed her brow.
“And?”
“And so, we cannot afford to be sloppy.”
Elec lowered his hands.
“Unless you want to spend the rest of your lives being hunted down by the Galactic Patrol.”
She threw her hands up.
“Then what do you plan to do, Boss?”
“We wait for our reinforcements to arrive first.
I need to see exactly what kind of guys they sent.”
“Alright, alright.
So when are these reinforcements getting here?”
Maki kicked at the loose gravel at her feet.
“In three days,” Oil said.
“The docking coordinates have already been sent.
It’s in orbit around this planet.”
Maki kicked the gravel again.
“Three days?
We have to stay in this dump for another three days?”
She wrinkled her nose, looking around the dusty wasteland.
“There’s not even a single blade of grass, and the wind is so strong it’s ruining my hair.”
…
Three days.
For interstellar travel, it was essentially the equivalent of a quick nap.
The engines of The Dalles switched to deceleration mode right on time on the morning of the third day.
Outside the observation window, a dusty, barren planet emerged from the dark curtain of space.
Rez’s fingers danced across the console.
“Scan complete.”
“Detected a large spaceship parked at the bottom of a canyon.”
Armond leaned in from behind, staring at the blip of light hidden in the canyon on the screen.
“These guys sure know how to hide.”
Dalles glanced sideways.
He took in the layout of the canyon, the surrounding terrain, and the elevation differences of the weathered rocks.
“Land on the high ground to the east of their ship.”
“Understood!”
Rez and Lakasse nodded simultaneously, already adjusting the course.
The Dalles entered the low-altitude orbit of the barren planet along a smooth arc, then descended toward the eastern high ground.
When the hull touched down, a dry tremor traveled up from the floorboards.
Dalles stood up from the commander’s seat.
“Armond, Daiz, Cacao, come down with me.”
He glanced at Rez and Lakasse.
“You two stay on the ship.
Monitor the communication frequencies and any detectable movement in the area.
If there are any anomalies, notify me immediately.”
Rez nodded.
“Copy that.”
Lakasse was already bringing up the full-frequency monitoring interface.
The cabin door opened.
The surface of this barren planet was even more desolate than it appeared from orbit.
Cracked rock formations stretched out in all directions, and the wind blasted up from the canyon, carrying sharp grit.
The four men set out from the high ground, making their way toward the canyon along the weathered rocks.
Armond walked half a step behind Dalles to his right, his thick braid whipping behind him in the wind.
Daiz flanked the left, his steps steady, maintaining a fixed distance from the group.
Cacao brought up the rear, the optical units on his metallic torso scanning left and right.
The edge of the canyon was already in sight.
The wind surged up from below, sending gravel crackling against their battle armor.
Right at that moment.
“My, the people Lord Frieza sent this time certainly know how to make an entrance.”
A voice drifted out from behind a rock to their side.
Armond reacted the fastest.
He instantly pivoted toward the sound, his right fist clenched and his center of gravity lowered.
Daiz shifted his stance in unison.
Cacao’s optical units locked directly onto the target’s location.
A woman stepped out from behind the weathered rock.
She wore twin tails that were blown askew by the wind.
Still chewing on something, she idly twirled her left pigtail as she walked.
A half-mocking, half-amused smirk hung on her lips.
Her gaze swept over Armond and Daiz first, lingering on Cacao for an extra second.
But when her eyes finally landed on Dalles…
The candy she was chewing dropped from her mouth, hitting the gravel at her feet with a soft clack.
“You’re—!”