Missing Peace: Chapter 36
Sun Incinerator, en route to Human Zoo:
Li Jun stared around the ship; his eyes still boggling. He had been briefed on the Gem race prior to the mission of course, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight he now found himself faced with. The Gems which sat at the consoles of the Sun Incinerator were bizarre even by the standards he had been led to expect. One, or was it two, appeared to be joined at the torso, with only one set of arms and legs between them. Another, at quite the opposite end of the spectrum, had two sets of arms, and two sets of eyes. Perhaps most bizarrely, the Gem working on the lower floor would sometimes come up to chat to the others, revealing a massive, caterpillar-like body that scarcely fit inside the bridge. Li had tried to maintain his composure in the interest of looking professional, but in an environment like this even the most a master poker player would have had their mask slip.
He walked over to the back wall and sat down, propping himself up against the pile of luggage that had been erected there. It was all he could do to avoid showing how much his legs were wobbling. Besides, it helped him keep an eye on his briefcase without looking too suspicious. He was fairly confident that his earlier refusal to allow one of the Crystal Gems to take his luggage had simply come across as being impersonal, but it wouldn't have been wise to draw any more attention to it. The contents, and the portion of his mission which they pertained to, were classified. His orders were clear that not even the American President Dalton, much less a group of aliens, was to be allowed to become fully aware of the scope of the mission. His thoughts turning to said President, Li's eyes scanned the room, until he noticed Dalton, intently watching the ship's operators at work at the consoles. Since the negotiations between humanity and the Gems had begun, the American President had seemed increasingly fascinated by them. Li wondered whether this fascination was preventing the American's ability to appraise their threat rationally. Still, he comforted himself with the fact that it didn't particularly matter whether Dalton understood the danger or not. If the President slipped up, Li would clean up the mess himself.
Dalton peered over the shoulder of the Gem, or Gems, operating the console in front of him. Homeworld and Earth had exchanged cultural information following the Beach City Conference, while reading through the less-than-concise document, he had learnt about the process of 'fusion'; two or more Gems effectively merging their bodies together, becoming a being that was simultaneously the minds of the components, and a third distinct intelligence. Frankly, he hadn't really been able to wrap his head around the concept, and the Gem sat in front of him only seemed to confound him further. He had never heard of a fusion having two heads which were able to talk to each other freely. He feared it might be a rather private matter to ask about, but they were all going to be on this ship together for a while, and thus far an awkward silence had pervaded the room. No-one seemed fully comfortable with the human observers watching over them, as and one of said observers, Dalton felt partially responsible for the tension. Perhaps asking them something about themselves might get everyone to open up a bit.
"So, uh…" he began, leaning over to catch the eye of one of the two heads, "I heard about the, uh, thing you Gems do, but I didn't know you could actually have a conversation with yourself while doing it."
The two strange, chisel-like heads turned to look at him. "What do you- Oh, no no" one of the heads chuckled. "We're not a fusion" said the other, in a slightly higher-pitched voice. "We're just a Rutile that came out wro-… differently" The lower-pitched head then cut back in "Captain Lars told us there were some people like us on your planet too."
After thinking for a millisecond, Dalton realised what they were talking about. "Oh, right! Conjoined twins. Yeah, we do have those. It's pretty uncommon though; I've never met any myself." Smirking a little, he added: "though my wife and I have been described as 'joined at the hip' at times."
The Rutiles looked momentarily confused; one of them looking quizzically at his pelvis. "Is she…under your appearance modifiers?"
Dalton let out a chuckle of his own this time. "No, no. It's an expression. Anyway, I heard that you Gems are grown rather than born, so, if you don't mind me asking, how do Gems like you two even come about?"
Dalton and the Rutiles happily chatted from then on; the Rutiles explaining the finer points of Gem kindergartens, as well as what it was like to be two minds sharing one lower body. Another Gem; Rhodonite, chimed in to explain actual fusion, and Dalton shared some stories from Earth in turn. Before long, the tone at the front of the bridge had lifted considerably, as various Gems and Humans joined the conversation.
Garnet stood against the back wall, smiling slightly as she watched the discussion unfold. This human had a talent at winning people over. There were no prizes for guessing how he'd got elected. She'd seen it in a lot of Human politicians over the centuries; sometimes genuinely; sometimes merely a mask. Still, this kind of dialogue was exactly what Earth and Homeworld needed right now, so she resolved not to be too critical of it. As she looked around the room, she saw that pretty much everyone on the bridge had split off into small pockets of conversation. Pearl and Connie seemed to be going over some sort of sword technique, Peridot and Lapis seemed absorbed in whatever Peridot had on her tablet, and Bismuth and Amethyst were joining Dalton's conversation with the off colours; Amethyst taking great pleasure from blowing his mind with bizarre shapeshifting. There were only a few people not engaged in smalltalk: Lars was sat in his Captain's chair, observer Li was sequestered away next to the luggage, as antisocial as he had been on the beach, and Steven was over in an unoccupied part of the bridge, staring out of a viewing port.
Knowing that Steven wasn't exactly the type to avoid conversation unless something was eating at him, Garnet headed over to him. He saw her reflection in the viewing port as she approached, and turned to greet her. "Hey Garnet, what's up?" he asked, feigning a smile that might have fooled most of the others, but not her.
"Oh, nothing, I'm fine" she replied "but I'm sensing that might not be true for you."
"Oh, right, future vision" Steven mumbled, turning away and leaning his elbow on the ledge of the viewing port with his palm on his cheek.
"I don't need future vision to tell when something's bothering you" Garnet replied warmly, turning him back round to face her and kneeling down to look him in the face. "Come on Steven. You can tell me."
Steven looked away for a moment, thinking of how to articulate his thoughts, before finally replying:
"It's just… I'm so sick of having everything I do be connected to Rose. My mom, I mean. Everything that's happened to us since we started fighting Homeworld was because of her in some way, even the stuff that wasn't her fault… I was…just starting to enjoy everyone doing things that had nothing to do with her. Ruby and Sapphire decided to stay fused for their own reason, instead of just because she said so. Pearl's going out and being a cool single Gem out on the town, and she hasn't even talked about mom in weeks. I just…thought we'd finally moved on from everything being about her. I was scared when the Facet 31 thing happened, but I figured at least it was something new. But no; it turns out this new Rose is just another person my mom hurt. How many more times are people gonna get put in danger because my mom hurt someone's feeling Garnet? How long are we gonna have to keep doing this?"
Tears were beginning to form in the corners of his eyes, but Garnet wiped them away gently, and pulled him into a hug. Then she spoke softly into his ear:
"Steven, your mother isn't to blame for anything that's happening now, this new Rose Quartz is. Sure, our Rose didn't always think about peoples' feelings, but none of us started hurting people because of that. The person we're fighting now had a choice about how to respond to their pain, and they chose the wrong way. You can't just keep lumping all of the blame on Rose. It's not fair to her, and it's not fair to you. I know you're worried about Earth, and that you feel bad for Facet 31's Rose Quartz, but I think you're making this too much about you. You feel like your work isn't done until you've personally apologised to everyone our Rose hurt, but that isn't your job. The war lasted for centuries; it might take just as long to heal all the scars it left behind. If you try to do it all yourself, you'll spend your entire life on it. That isn't what Rose wanted for you."
Steven widened his eyes. He thought back to the tape his mother had left him; how she'd spoken about wanting him to live happily, on Earth, as a human. He'd decided a while ago that he wasn't going to obey that wish entirely; after all, it had stemmed from Rose's guilt about being a Gem; her belief that her people were a lost cause. Now that he knew better, he wanted to be involved with both planets. He was as much Gem as he was Human, and the Diamonds were as much his family as his dad and the Crystal Gems were. But his mother had been right in one way: the same way that Garnet was right now. She didn't want him to have the weight of two worlds' problems on his shoulders. He wasn't sure what he could do so start feeling that weight less, but he was willing to try.
Pulling back from the hug, he smiled up at Garnet; a genuine smile this time. "Yeah, you're right. Thanks Garnet."
"No problem" she replied; her golden visor twinkling. "Now" she said, turning them both back to the window "I'll join you watching those stars, if that's ok."
He squeezed her hand and smiled as she stood back up next to him. "It is."
The two of them stayed at the window for much of the rest of the trip, though Steven and Connie both left their respective conversation to have a nap after a few hours. Dalton and Li tried to do the same, but neither seemed able to relax enough to drift off. Lars however stayed in his chair pretty much the entire flight, only getting up and pacing around when his legs fell asleep. That was pretty much the only thing about him that did sleep. He was still human, so he needed sleep every once in a while, but with his bodily processes slowed as far as they were, he didn't get through energy quickly. Back on Earth, he tended to lie awake most nights, which suited him just fine; fewer nights that he could get frightened awake by noises that he had convinced himself were some evil Gem coming to kill him. On a long flight though, it did make the hours pass very slowly, and there were only so many times he could make a captain's log before he ran out of things to say.
He was finally shaken out of his boredom-induced trance when his console started beeping, indicating that they were nearing their destination. "Rutile, drop us out of gravity drive, and take us in slowly" he said, excited to finally see some action.
"Yes Captain!" "Dropping out of gravity drive now." Replied the two Rutiles one after the other.
"Captain!" yelled Padparadscha from her station "We're about to arrive at the Human Zoo!"
"Heh, thanks Padparadscha." He replied. While he felt kind of bad for being amused by his technical advisor's delayed predictions, her joy at receiving them always lightened his mood.
Garnet gently shook Steven and Connie awake, and the whole crew gathered at the front of the bridge; with even Fluorite poking her head up from the engine room. "Put it on screen" said Lars. A small brownish dot appeared on the screen; the planet which the zoo orbited. "Magnify" he continued. Rhodonite tapped a button, and a zoomed-in image came up, filling the entire screen. An imposing sight greeted them. Facet 31's fleet sat in orbit above the planet, though all of their ships were seemingly powered down, drifting in the planet's rings.
"That's how they've been hiding from Homeworld!" exclaimed Pearl. "With the power off, their ships would be indistinguishable on sensors from the metallic asteroids in the rings. I wonder if they-"
Then they saw it. As they rounded the planet sufficiently to see around its edge, the zoo came into view. Or at least, what had been the zoo. The familiar pink space station was now covered in large mechanical additions in various colours, connected together by massive snaking cables. Some were very clearly thrusters, which judging from their yellow and green metal, had to have been harvested from Facet 31's own ships. They were stuck onto the broad end of the station at various angles, randomly enough that they clearly weren't part of an organised drive system. Other parts, bolted on to the narrow end of station, were harder to pin down the purpose of. Either way, the augmentations made the zoo an imposing sight. The cables reaching from the modified sections into the body of the ship made it look as though it the additions had grown over it like great mechanical creepers. The jaws of everyone on the ship collectively dropped as they took in the ominous sight. After a prolonged silence, Dalton finally articulated what was one all of their minds:
"What they hell have they done to that place? And why?"
Author's Notes: Ok, we're back to the main story. I'd just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Ian_the_polarbear on reddit for drawing this amazing art of my
antagonist Rose Quartz!: post/183839330606/evil-rose-quartz-for-this-good-fanfic-over ( won't let me put an actual link, so you'll have to
type it in yourself, or search for 'ian-od' on tumblr.) See you guys in the next chapter!