Hey guys! So I'm back! really soon! And I had a lot of fun working on this chapter and I really hope you enjoy and... well time for stuff to start happening.
Thanks to squish for Betaing this chapter kind of late in the evening.
and I'll see you guys friday, that's right, friday, we're back on the crazy update train guys, choo choo
Yellow Diamond would be lying if she said that the transition from single-handedly running the empire to only being responsible for a small part of it was easy. She often found herself bored with less to do, but the relief of being able to truly focus on Homeworld's technological development and infrastructure made up for it. All major damage on the city-wide planet that had been sustained during Blue's brief rebellion had been repaired or rebuilt; but there was still structural wear and damage from tremors near the city's lower levels. Isolating those and attempting to determine the cause consumed most of her attention.
The rest of her focus was mostly concentrated on the 'point' of Era 3. The project on 23-T72 was radical. Not simply in terms of the goal to re-terraform the world, but also so many key components of the kindergartening process needed reworked. It was almost maddening trying to keep on top of problems that emerged; pollination, nutrient loss through the flooding that had happened when the atmospheric dampeners had initially been turned off, a visit from Steven that had inadvertently ended in injectors being tangled in semi sapient vines.
Which is why any calls coming from Heliodor 4KV, colony planet overseer, were routed to immediately appear on screen.
"Your Radiance," Heliodor interjected, her voice was panicked enough to push Yellow Diamond out of her knee-jerk disapproval of the use of her title. "There's been an incident."
Ten minutes after the call ended Yellow Diamond burst into the meeting room the pearls had commandeered.
"We have a problem." She said. Blue Pearl's mouth snapped shut and she turned from the peridot she was talking to, to blink at Yellow Diamond in surprise.
"Do you not know how to knock?" Jet asked from the opposite side of the door. Yellow Diamond rolled her eyes.
"What's going on?" Forest asked from her perch on the opposite end of the table.
"There was an incident at 23-T72. Is Yellow here? It's going to affect her timeline." Yellow Diamond glanced around the room but didn't see signs of her- of Yellow Pearl.
"She's off planet, talking with the Serpentine." Blue Pearl spoke up, the worry actually visible on her face. Yellow Diamond frowned, she should have known. She was the one who suggested that Yellow Pearl talk to Serpentine 8PL in the first place. She was in charge of combing through the remainder of White's files in case anything else universe shattering was lurking in them.
"Right, of course, I'll go by myself."
"I'm coming with you." Jet said, pushing herself away from the wall.
"That's really not necessary."
"It should just be more than you. Have you contacted Moss Agate?" Jet walked past her, already manipulating her screens. Yellow sighed and followed her, catching up to her with a few strides.
"I have not, I was planning on doing that after I told Domina," Yellow said, opening a communication channel to her fellow diamond. Jet didn't respond as they walked side by side to Yellow Diamond's ship.
"You know Yellow, I've got at least 3 hours before I have a meeting that requires me to be back on Homeworld." Domina said by way of a greeting. She had a lazy smile on her face that Yellow Diamond almost hesitated to break. Yellow could see lava in the background and hear Bismuth's voice in the background saying, 'Tell the upper-crust that you're off the clock! This thing is almost done.'
"I need you to meet myself and Jet at the test planet." Yellow Diamond said, ignoring Bismuth. "It's urgent."
"Why?" A twinge of concern caused Domina's smile to fade
"Someone fracked the kindergarten."
Theoretically Jet knew what fracking was. It was usually done on small asteroids, as a quick and easy way of breaking them apart to harvest their materials. You simply drilled a hole and had a Lapis Lazuli pressurize it until everything broke apart. That's how it was always described in books and reports.
It was very different from seeing it first hand, done on a kindergarten.
The damage was visible from the time they began the entrance into the planet's atmosphere. The canyon where the test kindergarten was situated was completely collapsed on one side. Mud and silt intermixed with twisted metal and crystal machinery. Every once in a while as they stepped through the wreckage on landing they came across a rough geode, split roughly in half with its unpolished interior sputtering faint light, not powerful enough to form anything but an unsettling feeling. Moss Agate had warped there directly and so met them at the far side of the canyon. The taciturn agate was disheveled from the trans-galactic warp but she hadn't even taken the time to straighten her cape.
"Where's Heliodor?" Yellow Diamond asked as they approached.
"Down in amongst the slag." Moss Agate said gesturing with one hand at a small pale yellow form in the thick of the frenzy of the gems at the base, trying to somehow clean up this mess and recover what they could. "I told her I'd notify her when White Diamond had joined us."
Jet recovered from the surprise first while Yellow Diamond continued to blink at the very idea of Domina being referred to as White Diamond by Moss Agate of all gems. "Did you review the security footage?" Jet asked
"I did," Moss Agate stated, not meeting either of their eyes. "No signs of any-" She was cut off by a warp pad and a very stiff breeze suddenly picking up.
"Are you telling me that in the hundreds of hours of planning that we looked through from those so-called 'shining stars of the fleet'-" Domina began stalking off the warp pad, her jacket was tied around her waist and whipped around her like a cape. Jet didn't like Domina generally but she felt like she had a good idea of the kind of reaction the gem would have to most disaster situations. This was... uncharacteristic. Uncharacteristic enough that she swore she heard Yellow Diamond mutter "What in stars name-" under her breath.
"-that we overlooked that none of those clods thought to include security!" Jet took a step back from Domina, usually, she made it a point not to be intimidated by any of the diamonds' nonsense but this was different. Yellow Diamond took a longer step, the expression on her face had gotten only more bewildered with a hint of recognition. Only Moss Agate stood her ground.
"Don't be ridiculous, They followed all the standard procedures."
"Oh really?" Domina asked, disdain thick on her voice. "Then, Moss Agate, care to explain why 1500 potential injection sites are gone?"
"Things like this happen, My Diamond."
Jet felt a hand on her shoulder as she was pulled slightly back by Yellow Diamond. She followed as the wind began to increase.
"Well, it should not have happened here! Those polishers should have known that something like this would be a target with all the problems we've had in this area."
"Oh really? Then why didn't you in your Brilliance think to request additional forces? Since you're obviously part sapphire too!"
"Don't talk to me like that, Quartz!" Domina snapped, the wind rose again, dirt clumps now starting to come loose now that the plants that had previously held it down were gone. "They should have known, We wouldn't have had to tell any of the old planning team what to expect! Where the frack is Heliodor?!"
Jet swore she felt ozone in the air as Domina rose in the air to leave, and Yellow Diamond's hand twitched seconds before Moss Agate's gem glowed and a whip emerged, catching Domina's feet and yanking her to the ground, throwing her off balance.
"How many times do we have to have this star's cursed conversation?" Moss Agate snapped, the whip disappearing. "You cannot act like this! It doesn't matter how they would have done, they're gone, Domina! What would your father say?"
And for a moment Jet wondered if she was about to see Moss Agate dissipate, she had heard about what Domina was actually like in combat when she wasn't cracked. And this situation had long since passed the point of 'civil argument' But the winds stopped, and Domina looked like someone had stabbed her through the gut, she glanced their way and Jet saw her scanning their faces. The diamond's eyes were wet and her face had gone red. There were a tense few seconds and then Domina stepped back on to the warp pad and disappeared into the stream.
Finally, as she felt Yellow Diamond relax behind her, Jet found the words to speak.
"What the shale was that?"
Usually after Domina went back to Homeworld, Steven didn't hear from her for a while. She usually said she was 'playing mustard' which made him wonder if she really didn't understand the phrase or just really wasn't a fan of ketchup. But less than 6 hours after she left, Domina called him on his phone which, between Bismuth, Peridot, and Pearl, could probably call halfway across the universe.
Steven was in the middle of packing the hotdog duffle bag for a picnic with Connie that evening, and had just slipped the ring box into the mustard compartment when Domina appeared on screen, or rather the inside of the Styx appeared. The camera was angled up from a toolbox at one of the myriads of panels and a few seconds later Domina stepped into view. She didn't look at him.
"Uh... hey, Domina." Steven asked hesitantly. "Something wrong with the Styx?"
"Oh the inertial dampener is acting up again," Domina said. She had rolled up her sleeves and was looking more upset than mechanical problems usually made her.
"Oh uh... Is that the part Peridot and Sabina tried replicating a few months ago."
"Yes, I think there's a wire loose, I just have to take it out and-" She descended into some kind of gem technobabble that Pearl might have understood but Steven didn't, so he just stood there awkwardly and nodded at what he hoped were the right parts. Kind of like how he did when Connie talked to him about her thesis on middle-grade novels and their message regarding revolution and war.
Eventually, Domina actually looked at him and frowned.
"I'm no fashion expert but usually a helmet and a bowtie don't go together right?" She asked.
"Oh uh, yeah," Steven said nervously thumbing his suspenders. "Usually, but me and Connie have a date tonight and Sabina's letting us borrow her motorcycle."
"Oh!" Domina said, suddenly looking embarrassed. "Sorry, I didn't think about this being a bad time for you, I can call back-"
"No, no! It's ok, I'm just waiting. Is something wrong? Other than the Styx's reaction to uh... the transfer of potential to ...active energy?" Steven asked hesitantly. Domina chuckled half-heartedly and was silent for a moment.
"Do you ever worry... that it's not worth it to get attached to people?" She asked.
"What?"
"It's just... I mean your not a diamond but you're still going to live for a long time. Is it- is it even..." Domina's mouth snapped shut and she shook her head. "Sorry, it's been a rough day."
"Oh I'm sorry, is... did something happen to Pink Pearl or Yellow Diamond?" Steven asked, maybe someone had gotten hurt? Maybe Domina was just being dramatic about someone getting poofed?
"No, no," Domina said, dropping one of her tools "Someone...The kindergarten on the test planet, someone sabotaged it."
"Oh no!"
"Yes. It's a big setback and... It's just been a really bad day."
"Well, I'm sure you guys will figure it out, we can come help if you want, or did you talk to Mossy? Maybe she has an idea of who did it, she knows like everyone." Steven asked, and it was true, Mossy knew like every other gem they uncorrupted.
Domina chuckled but not like it was funny.
"Yes, I talked to Mossy," Domina muttered. "I don't know, maybe I just need to take a walk... or a trip." She said louder.
"That could be good!" Steven said encouragingly, "You could go home to the fleet." He saw Domina's smile falter.
"I.. don't think I can go home but... maybe somewhere." She said with a shrug. "Anyway have fun on your date, tell Connie hello for me," Domina said.
"Yeah, I will! If you need to talk-" Steven started but Domina hung up on him. He sighed and looked at the lump in the mustard pouch, one particular thing Domina had said running through his head. Steven bit his lip, then took out the ring box and put it back in his nightstand.