increased one more time, to four, to five, and then to ten.


And then she was almost pushed to the ground.


She went down on her knees, her body ten times as heavy as usual. Maiju could barely move.Her breathing was quick. She hadn't expected such an effect.


> If I don't turn it off quickly, I'll soon be as flat as a flounder! <


Clenched your teeth and pushed yourself up. If she had stopped next to the desk, she would have one less problem now.


At a snail's pace, she stumbled toward the control desk. Just a few more steps - she fell full length, her hand caught the edge of the desk, she clung tight. When she tried to pull herself up she slipped and fell again.


With a tremendous effort, she straightened up, found the button that should normalize gravity, and simply dropped her hand on it. Immediately the unbearable pressure ceased. Maiju fell back and took a deep breath. Only now did she notice that her forehead was sweat and that her whole body was shaking like a leaf.


"Phew! Never again!" she sighed.


But then she was overcome by the unreasonableness that usually follows such situations.That would be laughable if she didn't make it again!


She got up, adjusted tenfold gravity again, and stood in the center of the room. Now she was warned.


This time too, the shock almost pushed her to the ground, she slumped, but suddenly straightened up again, fists clenched and teeth clenched. She wouldn't give in.


She stood like this until she noticed that she was getting used to it, then tried some exercises.


Which didn’t get her right away, but she didn’t let up until they worked.


After that she was completely exhausted, but very happy with herself. Turned off the increased gravity and left the room.


In her cabin she barely managed to get rid of the tank, then fell into her hammock and almost fell asleep.




It seemed to her that she had barely slept five minutes when her scouter began to beep in annoyance.She got to her feet, drunk with sleep, took the device from its shelf and answered: "Who is bothering you?"


"It's me !" came the answer.


"Who am I?" Maiju grumbled gruffly and suppressed a yawn, "There's a lot of me here!"


"Tell me, are you still asleep? The senior doctor is here. I should notify you when your command is back!"


"So they are back. Well, then I'll try to wake up and then I'll come down!" Without waiting for an answer, Maiju switched off the scouter.


Then she peeled off her combat suit and peppered it in a corner, tore open the window and showered first ice cold, then hot, and stood in the cold breeze while drying and getting dressed. It was a surefire way to wake up, and it worked this time too.


Wide awake, Maiju ran down to the station. Loé was already there and was informed about the further course of the mission by Turnus, who had just had a head bandage put on.

That wasn't good; No one had gotten away with injuries: Fir had his arm in the sling, Tiang was a single scratch and Tarkran had even been packed into the medi-tank. Aside from the head wound, Turnus had bandaged a hand and a plaster on his lower jaw. He didn't look at all like a military leader after a battle was won.


Maiju stepped up to him and saluted.


"Hello, little one!" he greeted her dejectedly.


"How did it go, captain?" Maiju asked in her disrespectful way.


"You can see that. Bad! The population did not cause us any problems, we wiped them out completely, but these giant birds made us look pretty stupid! The four of us could only deal with one at a time, and what do you think?" you, how many there were suddenly! At some point we had to retreat. "


He looked quite embarrassed. "Freezer will send us into space without a space capsule!"

"It won't get that bad!" Maiju tried to calm the captain down.


And Loé suspected: "At most he'll send us back. With a capsule."


"I hope you are right!" sighed Turnus and stopped the doctor, who hadn't even noticed because of the sheer professional zeal that he was about to blindfold his patient's eyes.


"We should definitely wait for Tarkran before we report to Freezer. That way I will at least have a little more time to think about what to say to him. And you will finally stop!" The last thing was meant for the doctor who seemed anxious to take care of every little scratch.


Turnus got up. "I'm going now. You two can do what you want as long as you leave me alone!"


> The good guy is very nervous!

She wanted to go out, maybe Jeice was there today. If not, she could go back to the gravity room.Just in case Freezer should actually send them back.


As always, she used extreme caution as she made her way to the meeting point.


Again nobody was there. Frustrated, Maiju let himself fall on the grass and wondered if Jeice had forgotten her because he hadn't shown up for a good two months. If that was true, he could be prepared - after all, they had sworn friendship to the death.


Maiju came upright and was about to fly away when she suddenly heard a noise and on the spot froze into a pillar of salt, ears pricked: someone was approaching from the air. She couldn't tell who, so she hid in the bushes, hid in the shadows and waited anxiously.


Who landed there in the clearing was none other than Jeice.


Maiju suppressed the sudden impulse to want to fall around his neck. Instead, she eyed him closely as he looked around the clearing.Like her, he only wore a combat suit, one knee was bandaged and his face was decorated with a plaster across his nose. Clear signs that he was just back from a mission.


Jeice was walking towards her rather haphazardly. Maiju ducked and got ready to jump.


> Well wait, my friend, I'll give you a big scare! <


Now he was close enough.


She pushed herself off.


Jeice screamed when something gray suddenly jumped into his face, threw up his arms, was knocked over and fell and felt an extra weight land on him. In a trained reflex he grabbed his attacker, hurled him away, jumped up and wanted to strike, when he recognized Maiju. And petrified in the middle of the movement.


Maiju giggled when she saw the look on his face.


He put both feet back on the ground, dropped the hand he had raised to strike and looked even more stupid, whereupon Maiju began to laugh out loud.She lay on her back in the grass and laughed and infected Jeice with it.


It took the children a good ten minutes to master the fit of laughter that broke out again over every little thing. Finally Maiju managed to sit up: "You should have seen your face earlier! Even Vegeta couldn't have been serious anymore!"


“But you are easy to cheer up!” Jeice put on the expression on her face that she found so funny. The desired effect was not long in coming.


The boy grinned diabolically, lunged at Maiju and pushed her into the adjacent pond. An indignant screeching, a loud clap and splash, then she was up to her neck in the cold water.


"You scoundrel!" The girl grumbled and crossed her arms over her chest, insulted, with the only result that she went under and came up again, spitting.


“I just couldn't pass up the opportunity!” He held out his hand, which she took after an emphatically skeptical look and pulled him towards her.Jeice managed a half somersault before he also landed in the water, triggering a veritable tsunami.


Maiju climbed out, gave him a haughty look when he reappeared, fringes stuck to his face: "You disappoint me that you fell for such an ancient trick! The ancestors of all known peoples already knew it!"


Seemingly contrite, he followed her on dry land, wringed out his long hair and fell like a board.


Maiju shook herself extensively and lay down next to him, her head on his stomach, as a sign of reconciliation.


"You just got back from a mission, right?" she asked.


"What makes you think that?" he asked back, picking at the plaster over his nose.


"Because of that." She dropped her hand on his bandaged knee.


"Hey, stop it, it's bruised!"


"So am I right?"


"Yes."


"How did it go?"

"Pretty good. The inhabitants were strong, but die-hard loners. It was a small thing to do them one by one, even if it took a long time."


“How long did it take you?” Maiju toyed with a strand of Jeice's white hair.


"Two weeks on the planet. Freezer was a little upset."


"I was too."


"How so?"


"Because you haven't shown up for two months. I thought you forgot about me!"


"What do you think of me ?! How could I ever forget you, Liel ?!"


The vehemence with which he said this convinced Maiju that he was serious. Still, she was able to mockingly say "Schleimer!" don't hold back.


"Take me for a slimy, I'll be mine the way I say it!"


"Don't be offended right away, it was just a joke!"


"Hmpf!"


Maiju sighed. "I wish my first mission had gone as well!"


"I heard that some things went wrong with you, but nothing specific."

"Some things are exaggerated, but an auxiliary expression went wrong! We had no problems with the population, apart from the fact that we had to find them first, but there was a kind of giant bird on the planet with a fighting power, you don't think so! Viech first killed Loé and then me, when I wanted to prevent it from ending up as a spot in the landscape. I was lucky again that the others stopped the bird in time, but then the mission was closed for Loé and me End. And today the rest of them