Disclaimer: Standard ones apply.

Author's Note: I'm trying one more time to rewrite this fanfic, hopefully it'll turn out to be excellent this time around. Several things have been altered from the Dragon Ball Z original, most of it takes place in the Bardock Special (or Bardock: Father of Goku as the dub is called). This basic story of the "empire" series remains the same as the other two before.

A Note About My Titles: The entire saga is called "Age of the Empire". There are probably going to be three trilogies within the entire thing and the first one's called "Shukumei", or destiny. The name of this story (which is part one of the first trilogy) is "Ghosts from the Past". Is anyone still confused? No? Good.

Warnings: Profanity, graphic violence, death, mature subject matter, one instance of non-consensual sex, and pathetic descriptions of things related to outer space. Reader discretion is advised. I really don't consider alternate universe a warning, but this fanfic is 99.9% A/U. While based from the original series, things *have* been changed. There is also a special Vegeta angst/torture warning. He will be both physically and emotionally harmed so if you are unable to handle that, I suggest you read another fanfic.

Acknowledgements: A big domo arigatou to Madoka for catching all of my goofy mistakes as my beta reader and G-Kun Son for giving me advice. I also want to thank all of the reviewers and the people who took time to read this fic.

Annoucement #1 (11-25-02): Ghosts from the Past is an award-winning fanfic! Check out my awards page on the Suto-ri Denkaku (http://denkaku.gokugirl.com).

Revision Note: I looked over this again from 11-3-04 through 11-6-04.

Summary: Vegeta-sei is destroyed and its survivors scattered throughout the universe. One man seeks his lost people, in addition to his lost son, but there is little hope that they will be found. During his search, an evil alien stumbles upon his ship and does everything he can, trying to ensure that the Saiya-jin never succeed.

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Age of the Empire

The First Tale of Shukumei: Ghosts From the Past
Chapter 1
Planet Vegeta's destruction had been predicted long before the actual deed had been done. The ruler, King Vegeta, had been warned over and over again by his senior advisors about the dangers an alliance with Furiza would eventually bring. It was just too risky to conduct any sort of business with the Changeling. His most trusted advisors had done nearly everything underneath the sun to make Vegeta see reason and, though he acknowledged their fears, he still went on to sign the contract.

At that moment a clock had begun to count down. The Saiya-jin race had only a small amount of time left and, and if no one acted quickly, nothing of them would remain save a few occasionally told stories.

Prince Vegeta had only been a small child then, barely old enough to speak in a way that made sense, so no one listened to him. And at night, when the training was over and the lights were shut off, he trembled in fear beneath his blanket. Would everything still be here when he awoke in the morning? Would *he* still be there when the day dawned anew? Those very same questions he'd asked himself over and over again, hoping that he would somehow discover the answers to them.

A few months after his sixth birthday, he heard a man named Bardock announce that he had seen Furiza destroy their planet. Of course, no one believed him at the time since they were standing right on the very same planet he spoke of and dismissed him without a second thought, but Vegeta spoke to the man even though he'd only been a third-class warrior. Bardock told him of Furiza's deed, describing in detail the events that lead up to it. The child then looked directly into his eyes and believed every single word. There was nothing insane about him, he spoke the truth.

His father was a lost soul, destined from the moment he agreed to join Furiza's side in planetary conquest to die by Treachery's cruel hand. There were few Saiya-jin who had tolerated the Changeling and even fewer who had trusted him. Between the two of them they gathered a large force and prepared their departure from the planet. Bardock told them all that there were only a few hours left in its existence.

Bardock had a son that they sent off planet only minutes before he returned with his prophecy. Kakarotto was also in his visions, exacting vengeance for his race (whether he was aware of it or not) by murdering Furiza. Bardock had been searching for the planet they sent him off to ever since that day.

He would probably never see him again, the universe was just too vast.

Bardock was in his quarters marking off the galaxies they'd recently searched. It was an easy thing to check for life energy similar to his by using a device one of the other Saiya-jin had developed. But, after searching twelve galaxies, there seemed to be no other choice but to give up hope.

'Do I look for my father in the off chance that he survived the explosion of our planet?' Vegeta asked himself. 'I don't care if the old man's being tortured by Furiza, he doesn't matter to me at all. Kakarotto matters to Bardock, though, so that's probably why he hasn't given up yet even though we all know he's a lost cause.'

Vegeta stood before the door of Bardock's cabin, a little tired of the endless mission they'd been on for years. He had come of age on the ship and was starting to think that he'd die on the ship without ever setting foot upon land again.

The door opened before he could knock and Bardock stared at him from tired eyes. "I'm not going to find him, am I?"

He looked at the man that had become like a father to him and nearly kept silent. How could he tell him that the chances of finding Kakarotto had been next-to-impossible in the first place and that the last seventeen years were just a stretch of completely wasted time? He didn't want to speak but also couldn't lie. "You've done your best, Bardock."

"Yeah," he sighed, "and it wasn't good enough."

Bardock was a tall man whose body was in perfect shape from daily training sessions. His dark, often unruly hair was kept back from his eyes by a green headband and a cross-shaped scar marred his right cheek. He was quiet the majority of the time, not bothering to voice his thoughts to Vegeta or anyone else -- not that any Saiya-jin really expressed himself verbally. The prince had become used to long periods of silence between them over the years so they didn't bother him that much anymore.

It was soon time for dinner. One of Vegeta's unofficial jobs on the ship was to let Bardock know when it was time for a meal; otherwise, he would just let himself starve to death. His mind was often so preoccupied that the growling of his empty stomach went unnoticed.

"What do we do now?" Vegeta asked, eager for more information about their journey. For seventeen years he'd been kept practically in the dark about why they were on the ship in the first place. The search for Kakarotto was one reason, but there was another. Bardock would never say anything to him, only stating that he would tell him "someday". When was "someday" going to come? "We've escaped Furiza's tyranny. Are we just going to roam through space for the rest of our lives?"

Bardock didn't look at him as they headed down the hallway to the mess hall but at least he answered his question. "We're going to find the other groups that fled Planet Vegeta."

"If they still exist."

A severe look wiped the slight smirk from Vegeta's face. It wasn't one of his infamous deadly gazes but it was close enough. "They're *your* subjects, Vegeta. I just gave them a friendly warning."

He snorted. "Friendly, my ass. Saiya-jin don't know the meaning of the word friendship. I still don't know why you bothered to warn everyone in the first place but I guess I thank you anyway."

Vegeta remembered the large hall where the third and second class soldiers ate when they were on planet. It had been ugly and plain with rough-hewn tables and chairs laid out in a grid-like pattern. The one they had on the ship wasn't as hard on the eyes, but it wouldn't win any awards, either. It was... functional.

Saiya-jin, typically, would eat any animal that stood still long enough for them to catch it. If it did decide to run, they tended to chase after it until either they became tired or it wasn't breathing any longer. After killing their prey, they'd roast it over a fire if they were patient enough. But if hunger became too great, they wouldn't hesitate to eat it raw and bloody. The visiting dignitaries that Furiza often brought to the royal palace tended to be disgusted with their table manners as well as their appearance. They just were not civilized enough for them. In Vegeta's opinion, "civilized behavior" was defined by whether a group of people had a spoken and written language, could usually live and work together without murdering each other, and were capable of technology as well as rational thinking. Those dignitaries had just been snooty.

"What's on the menu for today?" Bardock asked the nearest Saiya-jin who had kitchen duty for the week. He was slightly older than Vegeta with short-cut hair and a long, pointed nose. Beibak despised the prince and everyone knew it. It was okay, though; Vegeta hated him as well.

"Chili," he answered and made a face. "Again."

The ones in charge of cooking changed every week. Some made fairly good food while others made stuff that couldn't be identified by even their best scientists. They begged Vegeta to talk Bardock into allowing the bad cooks to do something else for their turn, but, so far, he hadn't altered the schedule one bit. Bardock and Vegeta had their turn together and usually did a decent job. There was one incident when the older Saiya-jin had wanted to try a recipe he had found on their bi-weekly trip for supplies that resulted in a fire that had taken nearly forever to put out. From then on, the prince made him promise not to ever cook anything again without describing the steps in detail to him first.

"Tounas! What the hell are you doing in here?" Bardock violently pushed open the door to the kitchen and Vegeta caught it before it knocked a server unconscious. "How many times are you going to make us eat your poisonous chili?"

Tounas, a three-hundred pound man covered in scars and wearing a white apron, pointed his spoon at Bardock. "It's the only thing I can make halfway decent. If you want somethin' different, do it yourself!"

Vegeta stepped aside and waited. It wasn't long. Bardock grabbed the man by the front of his apron and lifted him into the air.

"I guess I didn't make myself clear enough," he growled. "If you make chili one more time I'm going to tear off your fingers one-by-one and feed them to you. Do you understand now?"

He nodded, sweat breaking out onto his face. Bardock allowed him to drop to his feet and marched out of the kitchen with a quick motion for the prince to follow. The dead silence that had overtaken the Saiya-jin was eliminated almost as soon as the shouting had stopped.

"Don't you think that was a little bit unnecessary?" Vegeta asked him, already aware of the answer.

He snorted. "Unnecessary, hell! I am so goddamn tired of eating that crap I could kill someone!" He looked around the room as if searching for a suitable victim. The mess hall emptied quickly of its occupants, all eager to get out of Bardock's sight lest they be chosen. Vegeta knew the chances of dying by his hand were slim-to-nil so threats like that didn't worry him at all.

He wandered over and got a bowl of Tounas' steaming chili. Despite its every day occurrence, the dish wasn't bad. Shooting Bardock a look, Vegeta pointed at the serving line. "You need to eat."

"I'm not touching that shit!"

"If you don't eat then you'll lose strength. You don't want me to kick your ass when we spar later, do you?" he knew exactly the right words to get him to eat something. Bardock was the only family he had. Sentimental or not, he didn't want anything to happen to him.

He grinned and allowed a member of the kitchen staff to dish him up a bowl. "You always kick my ass and I know what you're doing."

"Yeah? Well, you know you won't eat unless someone watches you do it." They sat down at the nearest table and dug into their meal at the typical Saiya-jin speed of super fast. It took four large bowls each to fill them and then they were on their way to the training room.

Vegeta considered fighting one of the greatest things in the universe. There was an art to defeating and/or completely slaughtering your opponent and it was a mental challenge to find an acceptable strategy. Truly excellent fighters were as graceful as they were deadly, as polished as they were skilled. It was the ultimate dance.

He took a traditional defensive stance and faced off Bardock with a blank expression of concentration. He could easily lose himself in the motion and energy of a battle, going to what others termed "his own private little universe". Combat was what he was made for.

Bardock, in comparison, thought of fighting as only "a necessary survival tactic". Although he enjoyed the planning and the killing, he could really do without the actual battle. Vegeta's focus overwhelmed him just a little. How could he beat someone so driven and passionate about his art when he consider it only a chore?

Fists raised, Vegeta leapt at his opponent with a single-minded intent to render him defenseless. His speed was amazing as he tested Bardock's defenses again and again. He would observe, first, and then he would strike.

Preoccupying him with high punches, he kicked low and with great force. Bardock noticed the almost undetectable shift in his movements and hopped into the air just as his foot was nearing his kneecap. Using Vegeta's outstretched leg for leverage, he vaulted high over his head to land behind. The prince spun before he could gain an advantage and phased from view.

"SHIT!" Bardock cursed with feeling. Vegeta knew how much he hated when he did that. He was already too fast for him and nearly too strong. If he accelerated to a speed where he couldn't see him anymore, then there was really no point in continuing the battle, in Bardock's opinion.

He looked around as quickly as he could, trying to find something that would pinpoint Vegeta's location in the room. He froze when he felt the tap on his shoulder and glared at Vegeta's smirking face as he vanished again.

"BOY, IF YOU DON'T SHOW YOURSELF *RIGHT* NOW I'LL-" he yelled. His voice floated to him from above.

"You'll do what when you can't even find me? Scream at me until you pass out?"

Bardock roared in both anger and annoyance. He looked upward towards the ceiling and found nothing but air. "That's it! Vegeta, when I find you I'm going to kick your ass!" He immediately noticed when Vegeta's speed slowed and he threw himself in his direction just as a great vibration shook the entire room. Bardock froze in mid-air as did Vegeta and they both stared at the floor.

"That definitely wasn't good," Vegeta muttered. He saw a flash of light through the thick glass of the viewing window and ran over to it. Another one of the glowing beams of light flew through space and they felt it impact with the hull of the ship. "Someone's attacking us!"

The two of them headed off to the command center as fast as they could. Unofficially, Bardock was the commander of the ship even though Vegeta, technically, was ruler of them all due to his royal blood. In the event that an enemy decided to take them down, he was the one who faced the daunting task of issuing orders that decided whether or not they lived or died. Vegeta was glad he wasn't in his shoes.

He could have been had certain events not occurred a long time ago. If Furiza hadn't blown up his planet, taken his father, and scattered his people to the four winds. Vegeta would never truly be king because he hadn't earned it by fighting his father to the death. "Prince" was a title you were born into, "king" was one that you killed for.

Panicked Saiya-jin were everywhere, with some of the calmer ones at the ship's controls. Beibak sat at the radar screen, a grim look on his face. "A ship is trying to prove dominance by blowing us to pieces."

Bardock glared at him. "Really? I wouldn't have ever figured that out unless you had told me first." The heavy sarcasm in his voice made Vegeta smirk.

His face grew crimson. "The other ship is approximately six-hundred sixty feet away from us and closing in fast."

"Identification?"

Nanka, an older man who had the job of communications officer, pointed to the image screen with a shaking finger. The visuals that were coming from the external cameras clearly displayed the enemy ship. "I know this ship, sir. We will not survive this encounter."

On Planet Vegeta, Nanka had also been in charge of communications. On the fateful day Furiza attacked, he had been on duty. The very same ship that had settled within their atmosphere was on the monitor now. Well, he'd survived years longer than he had expected to and he was grateful for it.

"Who's attacking us?" Bardock asked as he looked at him with just a touch of worry.

"Furiza."

"Fuck!" he cursed, something that many of the other crew members were doing either mentally or verbally. He began to pace back-and-forth, trying to come up with a solution to their current problem. "Can we outrun him?"

Another Saiya-jin, Outou, had pulled up a data sheet describing the attributes of Furiza's ship as it had been seventeen years ago. It had been hastily taken from a command office as the ship hovered in space and was now proving to be a priceless source of information and not just a whimsically stolen good. "We cannot, sir. Our weapons are also outclassed."

"We are not going to sit here and allow him to kill us," Vegeta said as he stalked toward Nanka. The man abandoned his post without a word and allowed the prince to take over. "This is Prince Vegeta. I demand to speak with your lord at once."

The reply was curt. "A person in your position can't order his enemy around. Either you surrender, or you die."

"I don't like ultimatums." His voice was cold as ice.

"You also don't like living, then." The voice was then abruptly cut off by a wet gurgle and a new, cultured voice took its place.

"I would like to extend my sincerest apologies for his rude behavior. It will never happen again, I assure you."

"Who the hell are *you*?" Bardock asked. He was ignored.

"We will first disable your ship and then we will board it. If you do not cause much of a fuss, I can guarantee that you will not be harmed. To do otherwise would be foolish. Are you all foolish... men, Prince Vegeta?"

Vegeta's dislike of the voice turned into hatred when he finally recognized who it belonged to. "Furiza," he hissed, eyes glittering with rage.

A collective gasp went up from the men in the room and Bardock's face grew stormy. He shut off the transmission and turned to the assembled group. There were thirty Saiya-jin on board the ship and all of them were capable of fighting. "We will go quietly, now, and then find a way to kill him once on the ship. I am not going to initiate the self destruct sequence when we still have a chance."

"A small chance, Bardock. A chance so minute that you would need a microscope to find it." Vegeta sighed. "But we really don't have any other choice."

He contacted Furiza's ship once more and told him of their surrender. "Why do you want us? We haven't done anything to you."

The small Changeling laughed, the sound sending slight chills up many Saiya-jin's spines. "Perhaps I would like to form a partnership with you."

"I doubt potential business partners are held against their will," he said dryly. Furiza laughed again.

"Maybe not, then. Dock wthin ten minutes or I will send my aides over to retrieve you."