Chapter 1: Hostile environments.
The stratosphere is violent with activity. Lightning dashes from cloud to cloud. A great sight to see, but very poor landing weather. Nevertheless, a saucer shaped spacecraft navigates carefully through the chaos. Its pilot, a tall slender woman with pale skin and a Pearl shaped jewel on her forehead, is confident in her ability to land in these conditions. The same couldn't be said for her engineer, a red skinned stocky figure who was barely thigh high to her pilot. She had seen what lightening does to those not unfortunate souls who had face to face interaction with it. "Hey!", the tiny red woman yells, "that one almost got us!"
"Relax Ruby, I've done this a million times." Replied the pilot pearl. As she steered the vessel deeper through the clouds, land was becoming visible. "See? We made it! Next time you'll think twice before-" her self congratulatory speech is cut short by a sharp striking noise at the back of the ship. They had, indeed, been struck by lightning. "oh no! No no no this can't happen!" Shrieked one of the crew members as she welded her hind parts to her seat. A calm and collected teammate with dark chocolate skin and hair as white as the lightening itself attempted to calm her down, "Oh shut up. I raised the shields. What kind of cretin do you take me for?"
Sirens blare and lights flash a thousand times or more as the spaceship careens through the sky, free from lightening but not from danger. The crew, for the most part, osculates from full panic mode to hopelessness. But the 4 in control: Pearl, Ruby, Onyx, and Amber, keep their composure. Or rather, their fear doesn't manifest in flailing arms and screeching cries. Pearl buries herself into landing the ship, so as far as she was concerned there was no time for fear. Ruby keeps a close eye on the engine and reactor levels, adjusting the temperature of each as needed. If any fear resided in her, she soon purged herself of this fear with fire. Onyx, the ship's gunner, and Amber, the co-pilot, simply sat back to enjoy the ride. They are cynical enough to appreciate the irony of the possibility of dying during a planet land. As time passes, the warning sirens recede. The craft comes close to the ground and deployed landing gear. The loud hum of its engine comes to silence. Around the ship, local life forms are thrown into a puzzling predicament: Investigate this strange creature and risk death, or run as fast as these sinewy legs can care. Most chose the latter, but two humans slink from behind rocks to investigate. As they approach the vessel, a door opens in the its side and a walkway descends. Pearl emerges first, her slender silhouette accentuated by the light emitting from the inside of the ship. "So much green." She says, patting herself on the back again. "This is really it? This place looks like slag on wheels" says Onyx, always ready to offer a retort to someone's good time. "Lets go!" Shouts Ruby as she all but shoves Pearl off of the ship to make her way down the walkway.
Pearl continues surveying the land. When her eyes cease to be effective measures of judgment, she signals to Amber for assistance, and Amber begrudgingly complies. She squats down close to the ground and lays her chubby yellow hands onto the soil, sending out pulses of light energy through the ground. The light bounces off of every rock, every grain of soil, and returns to Amber with a detailed report of its composition. Amber sends out waves for about 30 seconds until she has a comprehensive report of the surrounding 30 miles worth of land. "Fertile. Very fertile." Amber says in a monotone voice. "Here's a good enough spot. No. 100 paces west. And down into the valley."
"Now that's what I call results!" Pearl exclaims. She hurries her subordinates and partners in the aforementioned direction. As they proceed, they're met by a small band of humans who are frozen by fear at the sight of their new planet-guests. Pearl, being the most level headed of the group and its self appointed leader, approached the frightened humans. "What is she doing?! They could be hostile! The trip is all for nothing if they kill us now," one gem underling whispers loudly. "Do you do anything other than worry?" Onyx replies in her usual flippant candor. The humans inch back, unsure what to make of these colorful women walking towards them. "HELLO!" Pearl says to them. "WE-ARE-NOT-GOING TO-HURT-YOU! WE COME IN PEACE"
"They're not deaf, Pearl" says Ruby, eager to begin their project. Pearl resumes her introduction. "My name is Pearl. PEEAARRLLL. can you say 'Pearl'?"
The human mouths the word he's just heard. Then he says it allowed. "Very good!" Pearl congratulates.
"If she asks him to take us to their leader I'm throwing her off this cliff," Jokes Onyx with crossed arms. With a stifled grin, Ruby looks up to Onyx and the two snicker at the thought of Pearl flailing her limbs as she flies through the air. Pearl ignores her peanut gallery and continues cheering for the human and one reaches out to touch her, but he is yanked back by his fellow primate. "No! Too dangerous! Go back! Tell the chief," the more aggressive human says with a spear pointed at Pearl. "Looks like someone wants to get rowdy," says Onyx as she holds her right hand forward. Her fist flows and begins to form a crossbow when Pearl steps in and lowers it. "No," she interjects, "there is to be no fighting with the locals! Pink Diamond made that very clear. We don't want a repeat of Absolon2." Onyx reluctantly complies but grumbles to herself, "you don't want a repeat of Absolon 2. I had fun." As the two gems bicker, Ruby calls for crew members to begin unloading materials from the ship. A group of rubies exit the ship in a single file line, each one carrying a container of raw materials that will be used for the venture. Some contain what appears to be pieces of scrap metal, others house a colorful gelatin like substance. The humans, who are now severely outnumbered, take this opportunity to run off to alert their neighbors of the alien visitors. Pearl is shocked to turn around and see them gone, but also relieved to have one less conflict on her hands. The gems around her begin setting up the materials unloaded. One of the rubies dumps the scrap metal on the ground and presses a button on one of the pieces, causing it to assemble itself into a large cylindrical machine with 4 legs and a drill at its base. Two other rubies complete its assembly as one climbs atop the machine and places a large gemstone on its head, while the other opens a glass hatch at the from of the machine and places an organic bag of the colorful gelatin inside. The commanding Ruby, distinct with her red headband and sleeveless maroon uniform, looks over it to judge its assembly. "Not bad, 460. Hey, 227! Open that hatch and secure the temselen! It cant be injected if it's not attached properly!"
One last ruby exits the ship carrying a burgundy and gold stone almost as tall as she is and places at Pearl's feet. "Ah! A wailing stone! Perfect. It is about time I touched base with Home," Pearl says as she lays her hand on top of the stone and begins speaking into a round hole carved in its face.
Approximately 1000 light years away, on a planet 3 times the size of earth, a small blue gem with long flowing light blue hair receives Pearl's message. Her meeting with another gem is interrupted by Pearl's words;
"Calling Sapphire! Landfall successful! Construction of the Kindergarten underway. Met locals, not threatening. Inform Pink at once! Over!"
The neighboring gem leans down to examine the wailing stone. "You guys still use these things? I thought you would've upgraded to the visio-grams by now."
Sapphire sits calmly and replies. "We lack the necessary resources to construct them. The Pink Quadrant is falling behind the rest of the planet."
"You know the embargo still stands. Couldn't tell you why, though."
"Simple. Yellow Diamond doesn't approve of Pink's ruling to allow perma-fusion in our quadrant, so she protests the decision by refusing to send us support. The other Diamonds naturally follow suit. They can't risk being seen as fusion sympathizers."
"That's terrible! Difference of political views shouldn't sentence you guys to poverty!"
"Well its nice to know we have at least one sympathetic gem in the Yellow Quadrant. I'm sorry to cut this short, but as you've just heard, I have a message for Pink Diamond."
"Nah, its ok. We should meet up again, though. Come on, see me out."
"Of course, Topaz."
The two gem diplomats make small talk as they exit the designated meeting area and walk into a busy street. Some commotion is causing a crowd to form just outside the doorway. As Topaz fishes through bodies and near the center, she begins to hear voices. "This is insanity! The Diamonds have gone too far! This is cold blooded murder!" Sapphire levitates up to the top of the meeting house to get a closer look. She sees a four armed gem on her knees being held in place by two gems with huge wild hair and broad intimidating shoulders. One of them, covered in red and orange stripes, addresses the crowd. "Silence! This isn't Pink's country! This...thing knew the risk. She gambled and lost! And now its time to make an example of her!" Despite having superior strength, the fusion remains in place to accept her punishment. The large striped gem takes out a long rod surging with yellow bolts of energy and jams it straight into the fusion's temple. She jolts for a few moments with painful tear filled eyes and gritted teeth, then freezes in place. Her body de-materializes in a most grotesque way; her limbs crumble and fall away like old cake. The same colorful goo that was being handled by the gems on Earth oozes from her mouth. In her final seconds, she turns and locks eyes with Topaz, who has made it to the front of the crowd. Her body then vanishes in a large cloud of dust the same turquoise color of her skin. In its place lie two gemstones which are picked up by the large warrior gems. "Take them away for harvesting," says one of them.
The crowd looks on with a mixture of judgment and horror on their faces. Sapphire maintains her composure, but inside she is trembling with fear and anger. If these emotions were tangible she would burst. Topaz was far more visibly disturbed. She is shaken to the core of her gem. In an attempt to maintain decorum she hurries away to her transport to return to the comfort of her home. Sapphire follows suit with her wailing stone in tow. On the ride back to the Pink Quadrant her mind races with visions of futures imminent and potential. But her ability to see the future isn't assuaging the pain of what she's just seen. So she does what she always does when her mind is a hornet's nest, she sings. She sings low, but her beautiful voice resonates and soothes her racing mind and heart. The harmony parting from her full lips keeps her mind off of the anarchy in her mind long enough to get her back into familiar territory without having a nervous breakdown.
