Space, while not without its charm, was dull and largely featureless. Travelling without a warp meant slowly pushing through the blackness, and hoping for anything at all to break the monotony. Jasper had never been a fan of using ships because of it, particularly these days where she was assigned escort duty to scouts and technicians who only worked silently. As uneventful as space was, her companions tended to be even more boring.
She'd hoped this trip would have been different. The Peridot had a mouth on her, likely due to being so young, and they had a citizen in tow who insisted she could lead them straight to the rebel base. Jasper had figured at least one of them would have made for some conversation (interesting or otherwise), but so far there'd been nothing. The citizen moped about, outside of answering direct questions, and the Peridot had evidently forgotten that they had an autopilot feature.
It was nothing she wasn't used to, so she focused on maintenance training instead. They'd mentioned gems still around, and if by any chance one of them was Rose...
Jasper had become so used to silence over the past week that she nearly jumped when she heard a knock. She whipped away from her weights to find the technician, awkwardly rigid, in the doorway.
She immediately got herself back in order. "Yeah? Something wrong?"
"What?" Peridot shook her head quickly. "No, everything's operational. I just had a question before we made it to Earth."
"Shoot," Jasper said. She motioned with a jerk of her head to come in as she re-racked her weights.
She stepped just inside the room, back plastered against the wall. "My superiors said you were a veteran of the rebellion."
"That's what you wanted to know?"
"In part. They've never been very open about Gem loss-," She trailed off at the dark look she was shot. "I ask only because I'm hoping you know how these stragglers may be."
"May be how?"
"Technologically. How were they as programmers?"
Jasper grunted. "Not too good, I'd bet. Didn't have too many of those back in the day. Had a lot more use for tacticians and fighters than your lot."
"Yes, well. Then they wouldn't be able to, say..." Her brow pulled down. "Disable a Red Eye?" She stepped away from the wall a bit when Jasper stopped to look at her. "The Red Eye supported the original belief that all gems were wiped out on Earth. And, based on what Lapis has reported, it was positioned nearly on top of their base. It should have alerted immediately, but I've read over the data several times and there wasn't even a blip."
Jasper nodded and chewed it over. "So you think they did it?"
She shifted her weight. "No, actually. Their technology in the kindergarten was archaic and unmaintained. And I thought, maybe if they had someone like me in their ranks it would have been just an oversight on their part. But..."
"But if there's not, then the Red Eye just didn't work."
"It should have been fully operational. It was brand new," she said. "My scans should have alerted me to a malfunction of that magnitude before I put it into place."
"Are you saying we're being set up?" Her teeth gritted. "That's dangerous thinking."
Peridot looked nearly sick at the idea. "The enemy is likely to be more considerable than I'd originally anticipated. The ones I saw were incredibly hostile towards me completing the mission."
Jasper returned to setting up the lifting bar. "Rose Quartz was a resourceful commander. I wouldn't be surprised if she coulda figured out how to beat a Red Eye."
The technician looked relieved. "Ah."
"Did you see her?" Jasper asked.
"Rose Quartz?" She paused to think, but finally shook her head. "No."
"Well, she wouldn't have gone on grunt work, anyway," Jasper said with a confident shrug. "She'll definitely show up when we knock on her door. If she's still alive, that is."
"I guess we'll find out."
"Guess so."
Peridot left without excusing herself, and Jasper continued with her training. There was at least another day or two of floating through space with nothing to do. She needed to use the time to prepare, whatever was actually going on.