1. Stagnation
Year 7102, Day 36.
Old lamps flickered on in an empty facility. Dim light illuminated the orange dust covering pretty much every surface, no one cleaned it up in years. There was no need to do that, after all, this mess wasn't really a problem. And even if the lone inhabitant of this outpost had time to do it, the planet would quickly reclaim lost territory and send its dusty breath through every crack in old walls.
The main base of the gem mining colony was slowly falling into disarray. Every day there was a new little crack, new scratch, new dent. Despite all the effort that went into building this facility, there would soon be nothing left beside a pile of rubble. Not that anybody would notice. Everyone who cared already left, been shattered or were just gone. Cleaning and fixing damaged buildings was not the responsibility of ones that had stayed.
A light-orange skinned hand touched panel of the main console in the control room. The computer started with silent hum and slight delay. It took more and more time for it to turn on lately. But there was nothing to really do about it. Caring about electronics was outside of her responsibilities and her skill field. She wasn't a peridot after all.
A bright, holographic screen and control panel were the last things to turn on. Four-colored symbol of the Diamond Authority appeared in a burst of light on both just to fade into white a few moments later. In its place, there was a set of complicated icons and a list of automatically sent reports from different sectors of the planet fiddling aimlessly across the screen. There were no warnings. She technically didn't need to read any of those as long as there were no warnings.
With quiet boop, the communication program popped up on the left side of the screen. It took some time to load interface and then some more to download messages from the main server. Everything was old and extremely slow but that wasn't unexpected in the slightest.
There were messages from only one outpost, two of them by the looks of it and both from this morning. They were sent by Peridot who was administering one of countless mining facilities. The last living Peridot on the planet. And one of two last sentient creatures abandoned on this ruined rock.
MO-0274: Hello my Agate.
MO-0274: How are you feeling today?
It wasn't a conversation that would normally happen between Agate and her subordinate. But as last two gems on the planet, they could ignore formalities. They still followed last orders though. They didn't really know what else to do.
ColonyCC: Good.
ColonyCC: Computer still getting slower. Same for server connection.
ColonyCC: How is your situation, Peridot?
There was a long moment of silence and Agate decided to stand up and look through the window. The control room had a view of the main area of the base with a warehouse on the left and hangar on the right side. Free space between them was covered in heaps of russet sand.
Far on the horizon, there was a little speck of one of mining facilities. The sky behind it was still dark and covered in stars. It was also littered with remains of one of the planet's moons - completely destroyed in process of extracting resources. Good thing that all those rocks didn't fall to the planet's surface. Instead, they formed a neat ring around the globe.
The computer made a quiet sound. A few lines of characteristic letters appeared on the screen. The mining colony administrator moved away from the window and again stood in front of the holographic console. With two fingers, she stretched communication app window a bit. It took few moments for graphics and symbols to adjust the resolution.
MO-0274: Nothing unusual happened.
MO-0274: Nothing really changed since yesterday.
MO-0274: Except for sand.
MO-0274: There is more sand.
MO-0274: A lot more actually.
MO-0274: It got into reactor cooling system and triggered the alarm.
MO-0274: Again.
MO-0274: I managed to clean it up before sending a status report.
MO-0274: And before anything bad happened.
MO-0274: Also, I have similar problems with facility's computer and server connection.
MO-0274: I will check antenna today.
MO-0274: If there is some kind of problem, I will try to solve it and prepare a repair manual.
MO-0274: I am positive that problem is sand-related.
Agate smiled slightly, she never had any problem with the sand or dust that was laying all over the place since all of the planet's vegetation disappeared all those years ago. It hadn't bothered her even when it had begun to cover the console after a wild sandstorm had breached the facility and sent a never ending torrent of sand and dust into the place that had from then on made the surfaces of everything you could touch gritty with the stuff. But this particular peridot couldn't stand it, sand irritated her like nothing else in this world.
ColonyCC: Good luck with repairs.
ColonyCC: I'm leaving the computer turned on.
ColonyCC: It's time to start the daily inspection.
She hesitated for a moment and her hands paused over the console before she typed one last message and walked away from the computer.
ColonyCC: Have a nice day Peridot.
With humming machine behind her, she marched through the corridor that led to the stairs which would bring her to the lower floor. This section of the base was bigger than command centre. Its ceiling was higher - as if two floors were connected. This place served as a canteen where facility's security force members spend their free time between training and doing whatever they were ordered to do. It was empty and quiet these times. The last jasper had been gone for more than fifty years now.
From the canteen, the facility extended into two wings. The left one contained rarely used living quarters and on the right side, the infirmary and warp pad could be found. Spinning on her heel, Agate shifted her echoing steps and ducked down the elongated wing to the right.
The infirmary was probably the last room that was hermetic and cut off from the rest of the dying structure. It's doors opened with quiet noise and revealed a nearly empty space. The white walls glared back at her as most of the equipment used for repairing gems were gone. It had been taken when the colony formally got shut down after the last bits of resources got mined out.
One of the last pieces of equipment - a special kind of incubator used for speeding up reforming process after gem's physical form's destruction - was in use right now. In it, under the pulsating light, sat small triangular gem. She took a small breath and her hand ran over the surface of the pod in a familiar way as if she had done so for years. It was one of the defective peridots. It wasn't clear how she got hurt, but Agate found her like that after investigating the lack of communication with her outpost. Over one hundred years have passed since then. There wasn't even a shadow of a chance that the little technician will ever come back. It turned out that being really hyperactive and overly creative weren't only flaws of this peridot.
The next section of facility's right wing was a lot less… depressing. It was a quite large room with a round, crystal pedestal on the floor. Warp pad - technology allowing gems to travel enormous distances in a blink of an eye. She could just step on it and nearly instantly teleport to any outpost on the entire planet. It gave her the ability to visit Peridot from mining outpost number zero-two-seven-four. But… there wasn't need for that. This action would be unjustified and technically against orders. She couldn't do it. The Agate paused and the air around her seemed to pause with her, like a quiet breath as if it could hear her thoughts.
Or… could she? After all, she was the highest in command right now.
She shook her head. No. She would scare Peridot... She would scare her and distract her from her important tasks. Agate took a step back and looked at warp pad one last time and gave a slight sneer. Who would think that loneliness could do such things to one's mind. Breaking orders! What's next? Stealing equipment? Treachery?
She walked out of the room and went towards passage that was leading outside of the main building and into the hangar. It was the biggest structure in the complex. Carved in the mountainside, it could easily fit four medium sized military ships. In fact, one of these was still here. Broken and useless, but still present.
Agate completely ignored the ship as she walked past it. She had seen enough of it when her curiosity pushed her to explore the old, rusty thing. There had been nothing truly interesting in there for a gem like her.
She walked down the stairs that were leading from a catwalk to the main floor of the hangar. There were tonnes of scrap and many different parts of different machines scattered all around the area. The quickest way around this mess was a narrow path between piles of junk.
All those things were collected here by workers and technicians that had been left on the planet after closing down the colony. They used them to repair different systems around the main facility and in the outposts. Agate never understood why they preferred to keep all this junk here instead of inside of the warehouse. It prevented ships from landing inside and therefore made hangar useless.
Suddenly she stopped, her steps pausing as she turned back to look back at the rusted hangar.
Maybe… Maybe that's what they wanted? Did they want to prevent the landing of any ship? Maybe they tried to stop Homeworld's forces from coming back? But that would mean… That would mean that…
No.
Agate shook her head firmly, her subordinates couldn't be traitors. She knew every single one of them and was sure that they were loyal to the last moment of their existence… Loyal to a fault despite everything.
Agate nervously wiped off speckles of dust from her uniform and turned back in direction of the ship. What was happening with her today? Where were all those thoughts coming from? Maybe she needed to calm down and examine herself. It had been a long time since she had gotten herself this worked up.
Walking by the side of the ship, she found herself in front of the gate that lead to the main area of the base. It was over two times higher than her, reaching nearly to the roof of the hangar. The size of this construction allowed pretty much any cargo to be transported through it. The gate instantly reacted when the palm of light orange skinned hand patted symbol of the Diamond Authority engraved in its middle. The symbol lit up in a quiet white glow and the triangular door shuttered open, letting in a gust of wind. Some more russet dust gathered on the floor at her feet as she stared out into the open area.
It was like a desert in miniature. Countless little dunes were moved around by the wind, big heaps of sand gathered by the walls. Nothing was still, everything was constantly changing. Probably even scratches left by security personnel's training sessions were gone by now. Scraped away by the rough breath of this forsaken world.
She made her way through sand and dust, leaving behind deep footprints. The gate leading into warehouse was exactly identical to the hangar one. Well… In projects at least. After years and years of use and being exposed to severe weather conditions, it stopped glowing and sometimes had problems with opening up completely. Although this time it wasn't that bad - the opening was wide enough to fit a regular sized jasper.
The warehouse was pretty empty. The main fleet took most of the weapons and tools, some of the rest broke over time. Peridots were really mad about it because maintenance work without specialised tools was pretty much impossible. Or at least really hard - judging by how technicians still managed to pull off most of the conservation works.
Security forces, on the other hand, didn't complain at all. They just collected the remaining weapons and took care of them. Blades were always sharp and shiny, laser cannons always ready to shoot at anything that would require shooting at. Not that anything on this planet could harm gems. Everything starved to death after the vegetation died. An obvious weakness of organic organisms.
Agate walked slowly through the middle of the spacious room, passing lone weapon rack on her way. Stored on it were swords made for big soldier gems like jaspers or amethysts. One of them had been abandoned on the other side of the room. Only a part of the hilt was sticking out of the sand. She didn't even look at it. She didn't want to look at it. Simply being in this part of the facility was causing a wave of bad memories to flood her mind.
She blinked few times to stop the tears and took a deep breath, letting the hot, dry air flow through her speech module. Doing that, despite being completely pointless, always managed to calm her down a little. Sometimes she wondered why it worked. Gems don't need to breathe after all. Why would they even know to do that?
The thought was cut short - there was no time to ponder the nature of gems right now. She needed to finish the daily inspection, go back to the control centre and check on the colony. Peridot probably already found the cause of the slow connection and flooded the communication server with reports, messages and instructions. All this information will make for a pretty nice reading.
But first things first. There still were some places that Agate needed to visit to fulfil her daily responsibilities and next on the list was the reactor chamber. It was probably the only place in the entire facility that wasn't stripped of machines and tools when the Homeworld forces left. After all, without the working reactor, this place would disappear from the face of this planet in few years.
All this complicated machinery was hidden on the side of the warehouse, behind heavy gate made from pretty much indestructible alloy. It was heatproof, explosion-proof, corrosion-proof and it was just as thick as an Agate's arm length. It was also designed to automatically close in case of reactor breakdown, locking all explosive mess inside.
Inspection rules did not require her to go inside of vault-like reactor chamber. Specifically for such occasions, there were cameras installed inside. Agate touched a panel positioned on the wall beside the gate and instantly a holographic screen appeared. It was divided into four parts, each showing perspective of one camera. She glanced at the holoscreen and almost immediately turned it off. The reactor chamber was empty and that was everything that she needed to know.
Fortunately, the way back to the command centre was short - there was a staircase leading back to the living quarters. She went that way, briefly checking empty rooms and getting some more sand on her boots. One of the lights on the corridor's ceiling was blinking. Its light source must've broken in some way shape or form. Too bad that facility ran out of replacements.
Some light sources probably could be salvaged from abandoned outposts, but that was technically against the orders and colony rules. This fact effectively tied Agate's hands in this matter. Fortunately, it wasn't that much of an issue - outside of inspections, she rarely visited this part of the facility.
Inspections were always emotionally draining and it felt nice to finally get back to the command centre. It felt safe there. It felt like everything in the entire colony was under her control and that was very comfortable and natural for an agate. Even the silent hum coming from the computer was oddly calming. Although, that last thing probably didn't come with her faulty programming but was rather acquired through the years of repeating the same actions over and over.
Abandoning the thought, Agate looked at the holoscreen. It displayed a series of new messages from Peridot.
MO-0274: I just finished checking the energy supply of the antenna.
MO-0274: And wiring.
MO-0274: And I looked at the antenna.
MO-0274: From afar, because I don't really trust the external catwalk.
MO-0274: I will need to check it properly, eventually.
MO-0274: Anyway, I have several hypotheses about what is causing connection problems.
MO-0274: But I'm pretty sure it's the sand's fault.
MO-0274: All those cloddy sandstorms.
MO-0274: Why this planet have to destroy everything with sand?
She asked herself very similar question more often than she wanted to admit.
There we go - my first fanfiction written in English. I have no idea how regularly I will be updating this one.
Cover by Kalahari (pessimiist on Deviantart).
Big thanks to Mellium for beta reading this story.
~MS