Warning: Depictions of a substance abuse analogue for a synthetic species from here on out, along with the unfortunate side-effects and other consequences that come with it.
Deep Space
Time passed strangely when there was nothing to compare it to. Aside from the bleak, dark expanse, there was almost nothing to have a relative sense of how things moved. It could have been a week, a month or years for all those aboard were concerned.
While not terrible on its own, combining this fact with the divisions between many, and a growing sense of twitchiness at being left idle, meant most were left either feeling drained or easily irritable.
On the ship's bridge at least, in an unconscious effort to maintain some semblance of peace, everyone had taken to spending most of their time dwelling in their own part of the room; rarely straying away from their respective patches to avoid flaring up any tempers.
Morganite remained at the helm, where, even as the autopilot had already been activated, she continued to be utterly focused - if only to try and use work as a distraction from her troubles. For the most part, she had remained silent, the sole times she would speak being when she saw the other patrons aboard driven to conflict as idleness chafed at them too.
Pery on the other hand lay down on some cobbled together floating sofa bed of sorts in the back corner. The plates of metal and other scrap from the multiple spare chairs she took from the table were strewn about her resting place, for she could barely gather the will to turn her empty gaze away from the blank roof, let alone to get up and clean after the debris left by her tinkering. Since, after she had completed building the modified furniture piece, she too spent most days nigh unmoving, and unspeaking, aside from the occasional grumble as she tossed and turned in bed or when letting out an unhinged rant; usually in an unintelligible, raspy whisper.
Even the duo of Rhodonite and Bolt kept distant from each other. Though if anything, the enmity - if it could even be called that - among them was the least severe compared to the others, but all the same they each chose to stand apart. If for different reasons than the rest.
Rhodonite occupied the head of the table, laying backwards on a chair adjusted to hover at an angle. With legs that were left crossed one over the other atop the flat surface of said table, she put herself in a resigned position as she angled her head back to stare - eyes downcast and forehead creased - at the view from the one-way window at the other end of the room. Contemplating. The depths of space passing as fast through her eyes as her regrets did in her mind.
And as much as it dismayed him that he could not be there for her, Bolt, ever the emotionally perceptive one, understood that it was perhaps for the best to give Rhodonite space for now. So with much reluctance, his chosen niche were the hallways of the ship, where he often was drifting around the mostly empty corridors as a faceless, silver ghost. Never wandering too far to stumble into the haunt of the broken soldiers, but interacting with other escaped prisoners and exploring just enough to keep his mind occupied with something else other than… the fight.
It kept him aloft above the fog of misery choking the others in any case. Most of the time.
While there appeared to be the remnants of friction among everyone, it no longer did look to be as serious as it was before. At least on the surface.
Looking just below the enforced politeness and instead at the dour expressions on everyone's face, it became too clear what the truth was. To see how Rhodonite's far off gaze sometimes wandered down and locked onto the command chair at the front, or, more rather, at the one who sat in it. To see how Pery's rants sometimes devolved into mumbling of mutiny, or spiteful derision at how, in her eyes, the weak will of the duo led to her being forced into abandoning all she knew. To see these, it told of how dry and coarse the tinder of tension was, and of how little a spark it would take to ignite it all over again.
It would not take much to bring everyone into conflict once more.
And so when the lights began to flicker on and off, there was one person in particular who began to fret the most.
Despite knowing her position in the eyes of everyone else to be the most precarious, no emotion, except for an instant where her features scrunched, manifested on Morganite's face. But this did not mean she was not to act entirely, for if anything, this was a chance to gain at least a granule of trust from the others. And right now, with what she believed the foreseeable future would hold, trust was the most valuable thing if, at the very minimum, they were not to tear eachother apart as they all unwillingly spent more time together.
Nevermind about making sure of the plentiful other groups of escaped prisoners, each with their own clashing ways.
But for now, setting the future to one side, there was the present issue.
Morganite had an aching suspicion as to why, but to admit it was difficult, for confronting the consequences of hard choices was always difficult. However, when the alternative was to let the clique of broken soldiers bully and harass everyone else for territory, giving them a space as large as the reactor to congregate was a small price to pay, and she managed to console herself on that small, if now pyrrhic victory.
Checking that the autopilot was still on for the last time, she disconnected from the mental link and came down from the command chair. As an architect, though most of her knowledge was mainly based on the aesthetics and exterior of a structure, she still needed to command enough experience in the inner workings of buildings to balance form and function in her designs.
Stars willing that it be enough for her to know how to fix what, with luck, should only be a minor electrical fault. In any other case, she would have woken that peridot from their stupor, but with what she had heard of their opinion of her, it was probably best to leave them be...
But, as strange fortunes had it, before she could even take the first step forwards, a grumbling bout of incoherent muttering erupted from the corner of the room. That was then followed shortly by a loud crash of something, or rather, someone, colliding with the floor.
"Gngh, don't bother yourself," Pery growled out a half-focused response as she dropped out of bed and then rose slowly onto her feet, seemingly roused into action from her otherwise static state by the irritation induced by the incessant flickering, "I'll go… gonna kick this piece of crust back to order." She added, staring up at the veiny tubes on the roof from which the ship's energy was distributed.
Left at an impasse by the sudden development, Morganite had to make a quick decision. Ultimately though, she decided that it was best to let this Peridot have free reign. After all, with the things she had heard from the few times their ranting was audible, she felt it would be a small cost to give up a chance to prove herself, especially when the other option meant getting someone more competent to get the task done.
All without having had to go through the trouble of waking them.
"I believe the fault is somewhere near, or maybe in the reactor room." Morganite said, wording it so as not to sound too assertive, for even if she did wish to be, she knew she did not have any real authority over them whatsoever.
"Alright." Pery replied, tired, as she began to walk off.
Humming for a second, Morganite remembered something rather important. "Do you need any directions?" She asked, trying to be helpful; and mayhaps to curry some favour as well.
At that, Pery looked back to her for a moment, a look of weary vexation on her features. "No, I think by now I'd know the inside of a ship." She said before continuing onwards. Impatient as they sounded, that was all it was - impatience. There was no malice present in her, at least, not one strong enough to act on. Yet.
Nodding, Morganite let them go on their way, saying little more than a placating, "I suppose so," in a slight agreeing tone on the off chance that it might have Pery second guess any mutinous thoughts, "stars willing." She added under her breath a little while later, when they were further away.
In truth, Morganite had not much of an idea of anything about them. Not even any designation or nickname associated with them. But, strangely enough, the yellow star of the Crystal Gems' on the elbow areas of their outfit did do something to ease her worries. In the end, radical rebel symbol it may be, it at least told of how old they were, and as such, the amount of experience they would have in their respective field of work.
As they faded into the distance and took a turn and the lights flickered again, a vaguely discernable comment of, "damn architect, trying to do an engineer's job. What in the stars does she think she'll achieve..." could be heard floating back down the hall through the door - which by now Morganite had left many of them open at all times in a small gesture of trust to everyone aboard.
And perhaps because of the small parcel of guilt she continued to carry, the one given to her when she locked that Peridot out of the room despite their desperate cries to be let in.
Whatever the offence behind their words may have had a small part of her thinking, the rest of Morganite's mind could not feasibly deny the truth behind it. That, and there was another part of her that let her accept the derision coming from them, or that she might even have deserved it in some way.
Halting for a moment on her way back to the command chair, she almost called them back - to tell them the reactor was exactly where the broken soldiers had decided to make their territory - but decided against it at the last moment. It would not do to invoke the wrath of someone who seemed so close to snapping at her for being indecisive.
Whether it was true, or only perceived mattered not. Only what the results would be.
So with but a sigh escaping her lips, she quietly drifted back over to the chair and sat back down, resuming her vigil over the console. Hoping, in silence, that the peridot would deliver on the action promised behind the insult.
#####
Pery left the room, dour as always, and ventured out into the empty blue halls of the ship. Even as she turned the corner, passing by the group of halls containing hollow prison cells, illuminated by the infrequent cover of the now dimmed or flickering lights, it somehow seemed more lively than the ship's bridge.
Unable to endure holding in everything much more, she slowly began to vent her growing frustrations, "Damn architect, trying to do an engineer's job. What in the stars does she think she'll achieve…" She began speaking to herself, "It's a reactor for stars sakes! What's a Morganite gonna do with it? Sculpt a statuette on the tube? Or maybe draw a mural on the core!?"
Even if the fault was not in the reactor itself, she was still very much skeptical they could have done to help repair any fault complex enough to cause the lights throughout the ship to go on waning as they did.
And cynical as she might be, there was some merit in her derision. As an era one peridot, her already deft experience with machines was solidified by millennia of work, and she had the ferrokinesis capabilities that, as it happens, her era two counterparts mostly lacked. If even her successors lacked these, which so helped in managing heavy industrial equipment, then, in her mind, what hope did a Morganite have?
"Tch, she probably doesn't even do the work herself… just throws the designs over to a bunch of Bismuths or something and calls it a day." She continued, still with no one but herself as the audience to the berating.
Perhaps it was the encroaching madness, or perhaps she was trying to distract herself - the fault was in the reactor after all, a rather volatile place to have one - or perhaps being coarse and crass was merely something so ingrained in her after millennia spent at war and running from persecution. Whatever it was, Pery kept on muttering to herself, releasing more obscenities below her breath as she continued walking beneath fluttering rays of light.
Eventually, she got to the end of the halls and to a door - already left open courtesy of the same temporary captain she had been berating - and as she passed through it, Pery was glad to leave the prison block of the ship behind. Now, the walls here were bare, with little difference between the flat surfaces except from where they, on occasion, gave way to doors on the sides leading to another room, each usually their own motley crew of inhabitants. Or when, depending on the angle she looked at it from, the somewhat iridescent properties of the material made the wall's colours shift between hues of teals, blues or purples.
Passing by all of the rooms on either side of her, she tried ignoring the glances of those within some of them. Not that they were hostile, for they had been prisoners too, and most were likely convicted only on false accusations from the powerful, or of petty crimes; not anything violent. But all the same she tried not drawing attention to herself, as from last week's events, she knew a number of the broken soldiers from the slums were also aboard.
With their unpredictable nature, there was no telling where they could be, and it was safer to keep to herself for there was no way of knowing who was in the next room until the moment she was in sight.
Arriving to where she remembered the stairwell usually being, Pery was surprised to find that once she passed through the already open door, there was nothing. Smooth walls, smooth floor, smooth roof - all without any obvious mechanism that would let it move up or down as an elevator instead might.
Stamping a foot on the floor, she let out her grievances. "Tsk, for stars sakes, where am I supposed to gooo..."
Surprised into alertness, Pery looked down and saw a strange light beginning to wrap around her, the phenomenon soon engulfing her. Once it did, it solidified into an opaque blue ball of hardlight that she was now trapped in with no view of the outside. But that was not the end of it, for not a moment after, she began to feel a sensation so familiar, though she could not quite point her finger as to what it could be.
However, her answers soon came as the sensation stopped, and when it did, the ball dissipated into nothing and revealed the place where it dropped her off at, for beyond the door was the far more drab surroundings that she came to expect of the utilities floor.
"...then." She finished the sentence. Disoriented by the strange experience, yes, but by now, she had a tough enough constitution that she was little more than mystified by the new technology.
"Okay…" She said to no one while guessing what might be the cause before then immediately putting the theory into practice.
She put the thought in her mind that she wished to move upwards, then lo and behold, the opaque bubble encased her again, giving her that same strange feeling - which she now felt was similar to being in a moving elevator - as it phased through the floor and brought her back upstairs before dissipating again.
"Okay." She repeated to herself, sounding somewhat more confident now.
Taking a moment to look around at what was quite recognisably the top floor, she went back down. The process repeated itself, and afterwards she walked out into the empty halls of the utilities floor.
After that minor obstacle, it seemed her knowledge proved true and she found one of the maintenance equipment storages exactly where she thought it would be. Though as she walked into sight of its entrance, she found that, much to her displeasure, the door to it appeared to be locked.
She eyed the console at its side for a time, knowing there would be two solutions to it. But after a deep sigh, she threw away the idea of hacking, for that would have taken quite some time, even with her skills, and swallowed her pride and spite to ask for help.
After bringing up a menu on the console, she moved to the communications lines. Skimming the different options for a moment, having become out of practice navigating such things after thousands of years spent underground, she soon found her mark in the direct bridge line.
Selecting it, she leant her face closer to the console before speaking into it. "Hello? Morganite?"
It took a further moment of waiting, but soon enough a voice replied. "...Who is this?" They asked slowly, unsure of who was calling them.
"It's me, Pery…" Pausing, she remembered how barely a hundred words had been spoken between her and anyone else for a week, and with most of those having been earlier on, clarification was needed, "the same Peridot that was in the bridge." Pery added quickly and with an undertone of impatience, since, despite being unable to see them, she could almost feel that Morganite was about to ask a question, "I need access to the maintenance tools. Can you open the room I'm calling you from?"
"Oh. I see." The muffled sounds of buttons beeping could be heard from the other side for a time, and soon enough, the doors ahead parted with a whirr, "There. It should be unlocked now."
"Mhm, alright." Pery finished, closing the line without even a small thank you before walking in.
The maintenance equipment area itself was small, little more than a modest office in size. But with the needs of naval warfare, it made sense for a warship to have many small storage rooms rather than a single large one. Redundancies were necessary, after all, since should something be destroyed, then there would be many a backup.
Either way, if in smaller quantities, everything she needed was there, and so she wasted no time taking them. A tube with a hose attached containing the signature glimmering light blue of a more refined type of atomic reconstruction paste - at least, when compared with what she was accustomed to using back in era one - along with something recognisable as what was perhaps a more modern welding tool and what seemed to be a toolbelt, albeit with the advancements of era two tech. There were no details on its matte blue surface, save for the front where the magnetic clip was, there was a reflective azure surface atop it with the texture of marble.
Seeing nowhere else where on the smooth belt that she might be able to hang any of the tools from, she tried shoving the welder through the reflective surface, and as expected, it began glowing before it swallowed the item into a pocket dimension. From there, she took the tube and stored it aswell, along with an extra power pack she grabbed, in case the welder needed an extra boost to act as an impromptu cutter, should the need arise where she had to slice through the ship's plating to get at any fault that might be deeper within.
"Ready as I'll ever be…" Pery told herself as she clipped the belt around her hips.
So far, the fact that she had not seen any of the broken soldiers was of no comfort. Cold, hard numbers crunched in her mind, telling her that the more rooms she passed that they were not inside, the higher the chance the remaining rooms in her path might just be where they were dwelling. That, and simple odds meant that if she did eventually cross where their haunts were, then there would likely be more of them in each room, as there were less places they could have spread out to.
Passing by more doors on either side, she became curious of the fact that none of these ones were open.
'Good thing too…' By now, she had the sense to keep her ramblings within, for if her assumptions were true, then it was best that those who might be here not hear what she has to say.
The subtle hum of machinery was a perpetual part of the drab backdrop, and as she got closer to the reactor room, it grew in volume ever so little. As it did, it became evident to her well-honed senses that there was indeed something wrong around that area. The humming was too irregular, too hoarse, and prone to occasional sputtering and clanking.
However, there was another din of noise accompanying all of this, and it too grew in volume the closer she came to the reactor.
Though these ones came not from any machines. While at first, it was hard to discern what they were aside from the low, gruff nature of them, as she approached it became clearer and clearer what it might be.
And once she took a turn to the short hall leading into the reactor entrance, many of her suspicions were at last confirmed.
"...You?" Pery asked, genuinely intrigued at their survival.
She had, in the end, been bedridden of her own accord for near the entirety of the past week, and so had not much of a chance to learn about any new goings on. But with the hectic and brutal melees of the prison break, she half expected them to be among the dead.
The figure turned away from gazing at the reactor room to face her, revealing the glitching form and glassy eyes so typical of their kind.
"Hrr…" 5JQ began, slow, stalling for no discernible reason before continuing with a drawl weighing down her speech, "well, isn't it my favourite customer? Heh… so, what're you here for? Probably not to trade for anything I'm guessing."
Not knowing quite how to respond to that, Pery gave her intentions clearly, trusting that they of all the broken soldiers present would be the most capable of listening - though, that was not exactly a high bar to leap. "No… I was just checking up on what's causing the lights to flicker, and I was told that it might be here."
As innocuous as the statement was, 5JQ's expression visibly darkened as though it might have been a veiled threat towards her. "Who told you?"
Confused as she was as to why that was relevant, Pery answered in any case, thinking it to be of no significance. "Morganite did."
The second they were mentioned, 5JQ blinked hard, gritting her teeth and wrapping her right hand around her forehead and temples for a second, as though dealing with some sort of pain, before speaking again. This time no longer so amiable. "You're… you're here to snitch on us to that crat running the ship? Is that it!?"
"I-" Surprised at the unusual outright hostility from them, Pery was taken aback. But, she also stopped from saying what she originally intended, for from that surprise, a realisation struck. "Don't tell me you're on that schist now..." She stopped mid-sentence as her eyes drifted down, towards 5JQ's idle left hand, the same side of her face twitching as another realisation hit her again, "I swear… is that why there's a damn power outage?"
The source of her outrage was there, held in the Quartz's buzzing left hand. A rectangular hunk made from bent pieces of blue metal, disparate tubes and wires sticking out of its shoddily made body, all the while two sharp prongs jutted out on one end.
"What's it to you?" 5JQ dismissed, sounding both provoked and tired, while also making no attempt to hide her actions as she then proceeded to jab herself with the device. Shuddering while taking a deep breath and a hard blink, she let the sickly, yet so refreshing energy from the overcharge take its course through her form before speaking again, "That prissy 'captain' of ours isn't allowing us to do anything. No sparring, no brawling, no nothing. So what else are we supposed to get up to?" She added, sounding far more alive and energetic than before.
Perhaps too much so.
That prompted a number of the more lucid - those who had been given an overcharge hit more recently - of those in the room behind, in the area closest to the Pery and 5JQ, to stop conversing among themselves, if only for a moment, to give eager affirmations. Meanwhile the sleepier half, with their damaged matrices and a vicious craving reaping its toll on their minds as they waited for another hit, took some time longer to process what had been said between the feuding pair, but eventually then slurred out their own ayes and yesses.
Resisting the urge to slap her own forehead, Pery instead let out her emotions in a different way. "Is this what you do with all the spare tech we give you lot?" She whispered below her breath, harsh, and in dissapointed disbelief.
Never being one to take a liking to leaving for the surface, and with the suspicious disposition of many of the slum-dwellers to outsiders, Pery never got to see these kinds of… habits. Not in any significant capacity. And the few of those from the settlement who did go topside frequently scarce ever spoke of it, even when asked. Because of this, she had assumed the ill practice to be something rather rare, but now faced with such a sight, she had to wonder how widespread it really was.
And as she wondered, she realised again.
Pery never really thought about it until now, but trading between the two disparate communities had been done for thousands of years, and there were only so many people that could want the multitools before they owned too many and it lost all value as a medium of commerce.
That assumption, though, only holds true on the assumption they were using said machines for solely their original purpose, where in truth, only one was ever needed per person.
But with these new stark revelations, said assumption now seemed wholly false.
'...This entire time, we've been supplying them-'
"Again, what's it to you?" 5JQ replied before then taking another hit, causing her to shiver and grimace before regaining focus.
However, any sympathy that might have come from the revelation was already fighting a losing battle against her apathy. And after what 5JQ had said, Pery was spited out of contemplation and back into action, remembering that there was still a job for her to do - overcharge addled soldiers being in her way or not.
Never being the best at the diplomatic option in the first place, Pery was only further irritated by that response. "Tch, fine. You can keep cooking your circuits till they break, but please, at least do it somewhere else," She paused, waving a hand towards the source of the blue light that tinted the room, the enormous reactor core, on the wall at the far end to emphasise her point, "literally anywhere else. I have a job to do here."
Rising to their feet and stretching to full height, 5JQ marched forwards to her, each heavy footfall causing vibrations to shake the immediate area. "Yeah? And how do you think you're gonna make us?"
Despite this, instead of being intimidated by their display, the intensifying indignation Pery felt at their flagrant ignorance for common decency and basic safety regulations had her standing strong against adversity.
Crossing her arms first, her head then rolled upwards to meet their gaze. "Sure..." Pery began, and despite the potential dangers of the soldiers' activities, her expression was an unmoving block as she spun around the other direction and began to walk off, "I'll just leave and wait for something vital to be hit by a random spark flying out from that… that thing you've got there, yeah? Sounds good to you?" She said, leaving the challenge at that.
Hanging in the air, and in a cold enough manner to show she really was willing to leave them to their possible fate, even if the consequences were likely to be at her own detriment.
Bitter, but beginning to concede, 5JQ looked to the taser-like device in her hand. Even in her electricity-addled state, she could see, and more importantly, understand, that it was little more than some repurposed wires haphazardly covered in scrap. That, and the fact that while she was a good distance away from any machinery while taking part in the vice, not everybody behind her was so wise.
Despite this, it seemed some amount of stubbornness remained.
Throwing their free hand up in Pery's direction, 5JQ growled out something unintelligible. But after calming down, they then grumbled out a reply. "Alright. No need to get your rocks tumbled, we'll get going…" Just then, a puffed-up grin found itself working its way through their face as they thought of something clever.
Though there had been an insult thrown at Pery in the beginning, the second half of their statement had them halting in her step to show 5JQ that she was perhaps ready to listen.
"On one condi-"
But that. That had only further riled her up. Pursing her lips at the fact 5JQ still had the audacity to bargain in such a situation, Pery immediately turned back around and cut her off.
"What?" Pery said, severe and swift, eyes narrowing as she sent a tired glare their way.
Astounded that a Peridot of all things had found the grit to show up to them like that, 5JQ's mouth was left partially open, nothing coming out as any trace of smugness was wiped off of their face. While past interactions between the two were sparse, with the engineer oft deigning to even leave her garage or the other ship's construction site on most days, each time it did happen there was always a predictable dynamic. Pery may have grumbled and sent dark looks at 5JQ's way, but a certain amount of fear always kept her in line.
Whether it be fear of losing the favour of an influential trading partner, or the more primal fear of being surrounded by thousands of hostile people, it often made sure Pery never crossed 5JQ.
However, now, somehow something had broken that. Though whatever it was, whether it be the fact she had the captain's ear, that there were no longer thousands ready to jump her, or merely 'a nothing left to lose' attitude brought on by despair, it did not matter. What did was her actions, and the impact it had on the other denizens of the reactor.
Letting out a slow, quiet sigh, Pery briefly tilted her head in their direction and flicked out an open palm towards them. "Go on, tell me then, what's it you want?" She pressed on, impatience muddying her tone.
Gritting their teeth behind closed lips as a vicious and splitting headache wracked her, 5JQ worked past the overcharged state of her mind as she became more and more acutely aware of the dagger-like stares painted on her back from the others.
Right now, there was far more at stake here than her own personal pride.
5JQ knew her position was precarious, as any of the previous de-facto leaders of her number were. None would ever last more than three centuries, if they were lucky, before they were brought down by infighting, and she was nearing two and a half spent at the top herself. In truth, in the past she had been self-aware enough to understand that trying to reach and hold said position was folly, and so she spent many of the past millennia content in the more stable position as the most reliable broker in the area, leaving it at that.
But it was that same infighting coming to a brutal boiling point those years ago that led to her being pushed into this position by a populace, who while they never admitted it, were at the time desperate for someone to guide them. After all, the fighting had effectively decapitated the slum's 'upper class' as many of the more ambitious, hotheaded, or outright insane individuals within it were shattered as they and their cliques clambered and fought eachother for territory.
That is to say, almost all of them were dead once the dust settled.
Loss of purpose, all too easy access to scrap to make into overchargers, and the injuries to their gemstones indeed did do much to break those who found themselves falling through the cracks.
Yet, even with the unusual circumstances of her popular 'election' and unwilling ascension, the unspoken rules the leadership was bound by remained unchanged. Respect among the toughened soldier caste was always more easily lost than it was ever won, and so showing deference, or rather, showing weakness in the eyes of those below her, to one of the scientist caste would be a guaranteed way to lose mountains of it at once.
Though her original terms to Pery would have saved her from this - and were honestly rather reasonable - now that they had been so crass, so bold, in demanding to hear her, the stakes had to be raised. The shrewd part of 5JQ told her that the chances of her getting a greedier deal through now would be low. But she knew something had to be done to appease her underlings, lest her reputation, one of the strings keeping her alive, were cut.
She had to think of something to save her own shards, but the longer she did nothing, the further her grasp would slip from leadership.
And as the silence between them went on, as tempers both hot and cold clashed, something had to snap eventually.
But, as it turned out, the first breaking point would not crack between the two.
"Aw c'mon Fives, are you really gonna let this… hrrr… clod get away with... barging in and screwing with us?" Sounding jittery and stuttering because of their recent turn on one of the few overchargers, one of the other soldiers, this one a Ruby who had been near the open door and listening in this entire time, decided to speak out while passing the device on to the person next to her.
Her actions roused a concerning number of the ten-dozen crowd, who had thus far been ignorant - whether because they were more focused on participating in their addiction, or that they were on the other side of the room - towards the argument happening frontside.
And among those was the next voice, this one coming from a Citrine the Ruby had just passed the device to, joined the fray. "Yeah, how hard… hrrr… c- can it be? You scared of some techie, Fives?" They added, stuttering in the middle as they prodded their own stone with it, though it did not take away from the vitriol in their voice.
'Out of everybody, it always has to be you two schists, doesn't it? Idiots...' Now it was 5JQ who resisted the urge to slap her own forehead. The fact that the pair behind her sounded energized and ready to fight did not help either, as it told her it was likely that their already braggart and brash nature would be enhanced by an overcharged high.
And to add fuel to the flames, it seemed that the growing muttering of the rallied crowd showed sentiments in favour of Citrine and Ruby's prodding declarations.
Deciding it would be now or never, 5JQ chose to act now before it could escalate into violence, "HOLD IT!" Gritting her teeth again, though only for a moment, she powered through the next headache that struck her after the effort put into shouting. Then, she turned around to the crowd and delivered a quickly made up lie.
"It's only the captain's errand clod everybody. 'Sides, I was staring her down, y'know, toying with the weak," a pause, "and was just about getting around to tell her to screw off before these two," Emphasising that last part, she also made sure to shoot a deathly stare towards the errant pair from her glassy eyes, "decided on interrupting like the wastes of essence they are."
Then, building upon this small gain with a stroke of cobbled-together genius, as Citrine and Ruby began to open their mouth in protest, instead of slapping her own forehead in frustration or theirs in retaliation, 5JQ presented her original and less unreasonable demands of Pery as though she had just thought of it now.
"Actually… scrap that." She began again, a half real-relief, half faux-smug filled smile creeping its way onto her face, "You know what, sure, if she wants us to move, we will… but it won't be for free." At that, she raised the overcharger in her hand for all to see. "Whoever wants more of these can come follow me! Because temple-head over here is gonna make us more of 'em. Enough to have one for every five of us!" Pausing the proclamation, she looked over at Pery behind her, adding some boldness in the next words to play up on the idea of embarrassing them in return for their infraction of disturbing the group, "Isn't that right?"
At once, all the faces who were appalled or angered to hear of how she was supposedly acquiescing suddenly lit up. Even those who were struck low by hangovers because of not having a turn recently were unusually quick to respond to the promise, clumsy as their movements remained to be.
There were even boos, jeers and insulting chuckling hurled at the insubordinate pair by some of the crowd as they had been painted by 5JQ to be getting in the way of what was being promised.
And while the two did quietly sneer and glower at 'Fives' for some time, they eventually consigned themselves to slowly shifting to the sidelines of the gathered rabble, if still ungracious in taking their losses.
Though it was not exactly the most airtight fib, the fact that most of those listening were definitely less than sober meant that, so long as 'Fives' sounded confident enough in her assertions, most would believe.
This, combined with the prospect of putting the one who disturbed them into their place, and making said person craft more of the devices, meant the proposition resonated quite well with the addicted audience.
The fact they were a Peridot now was a positive too. For in their eyes, it likely meant a far better quality of the equipment which will provide them with their vices.
'You don't even know a ship well enough to know where you and your lackeys are supposed to go, you pebble.' Despite her inner thoughts, and the irritation 5JQ's addled attitude had dealt to her during this whole affair, Pery bit her tongue.
At this point, short of being a living punching bag, she was willing to put up with just about anything to get the broken soldiers to move it so she could fix any fault that had cropped up - in the reactor room of all places - from their activities.
Hatred for them Pery had in bountiful supply, but the prospect of facing a catastrophic meltdown meant that she could hold off on sharing with them that bounty for at least a little while longer.
Raising her arms with clenched fists over her head, Pery vented in a deep sigh before lowering her limbs back down to her sides. "Alright, yeah, sure. I'll do it." She replied, speaking quickly through a clenched jaw and in a harsh whisper before walking off, 5JQ following behind her, and then the rest following behind them.
The next minute or so was spent in silence as she thought of where to go, the only interruption to that being the dishevelled marchers behind her, and one quiet bit of extra venting under her breath.
"The armoury should be big enough a place to shove you pebbles into. No one, not even you stubborn fracks, should've found a way in yet."
Normally, that part of the ship was locked, at least until it was time to get ready to deploy people planetside, and for good reason. Without an Agate or another type of officer to watch over and discipline them, there was no telling what the regular army troopers would get up to among themselves. Nevermind the broken soldiers.
But Pery surmised they would be no more trouble being in there than being in the reactor room. That is, so long as she only asked for the first room to be opened, which, if she remembered correctly from the times she travelled on warships, was only a practicing area or troop bay depending on the model. Harmless, unlike its neighbour, the second door, which led into a smaller attached room where the weapons lockers were.
In any case, the practicing grounds or troop bay were the larger of the two spaces, so she guessed it would be enough to keep the broken soldiers from feeling cheated out of territory. That, and perhaps Morganite would ease up on restrictions and let them actually spar, even if it was the latter possible area, for they would no longer be doing it in somewhere so dangerous.
'All the more activities for them to get up to, and all the less time they'd have to disturb me, or anyone else,' Pery thought, derisive.
"That's where I was already going," 5JQ picked up on their whispering, dismissing them to hide her shortcomings on knowledge of the ship's layout behind - supposedly - unwavering confidence, "and watch your mouth."
Under normal circumstances, 5JQ would have asked for directions instead of waiting for Pery to move so she could follow, as she was rarely ever as brash or full of brute pride - though, that is to say, still relatively brash compared to the rest of gemkind - as most of her number, and indeed, even when compared to her squadmates while she was still in the army. But with how close 5JQ had come to losing the support of her clique, and facing the consequences that would have come with it, she felt compelled to act this way.
She was damned if she was going to let things slip again. Even if it meant, for now, having to act the exact kind of person she despised - the swaggering, bold idiot.
Feeling more of her composure slipping as they barged into her personal space, Pery held back on saying anything, for it would surely only provoke more demeaningness. 'Sure you were…' She thought, speeding up and only slowing back down once she was a healthy distance ahead of the over-zealous crowd.
While making more of the overchargers would be a waste of time, it would hopefully guarantee that they would no longer interrupt her - what with how obsessed some of their number appeared to be with frying their circuits using the malignant things - and that they would then be doing these things away from where what were already potential fire hazards could lead to something much, much worse.
Contrary to what Fives may have thought, fear of death, if not from an angry mob, then from a fiery explosion, was still very much an active force in Pery's decision making.
And so, Pery, seeing that the door was closed as she turned the corner and arrived at where the armoury was, she wasted no time in going to the console by the door to ask for Morganite's aid again - as much as it might have chafed at her to do so.
"Hello?" She mumbled.
"What do y-"
Cutting them off, Pery continued, unapologetic, "Okay, you pompous pebble, listen here. I know you can see through the cameras. I know you saw where these cracks were hanging out…" Breathing in, she held back her temper, getting past the insults and to the point, "I've somehow convinced them to move from the reactor though, but now in return, they need another place to… do whatever the frack it is they want. So stars help me if you don't open this door." She said, harsh and with haste, getting the point across and finishing before the broken soldiers could turn the corner and hear what she said.
A sigh came from the other side of the console before Morganite gave her reluctant reply, "What of the weapons?"
"Just leave the storage room closed then!" Pery half-snapped out in return.
Despite knowing the presence of weapons likely meant a temptation would always be there for the broken soldiers to merely use their strength to break in, Morganite sighed again, making the difficult choice of letting the primary door open. It seemed she understood the predicament Pery was facing too.
Though that did not mean Morganite was not irritated by their constant disrespect, for it took a while further before they gave their affirmation, and they did not sound so patient anymore, "...Give me a moment then."
"Shards, finally- ack!" Pery exclaimed halfway through the sentence as she was pushed forwards.
The very moment the door hissed open, she began to be shoved around as the arriving soldiers rushed past on either side of her in a veritable stampede, each one more excited than the last as they recognised just where they were now being allowed to stay. Already, even if she could not get a clear view while being jostled around, she could hear war cries and grunts ringing out from the centre of the room as the twitchy and pent-up energy of a number of those in the crowds began to be released in a number of spontaneous brawls.
Just then, the crowd began to part, giving her more room to breathe. But even as it did, it seemed that Pery was not to have any reprieve just yet, for a hand soon found itself slamming down a solid grip onto her right shoulder.
Resisting the force of another unexpected impact, she looked up to see the source. And, of course, it was none other than 5JQ, looking on rather pleased at the scene in front of them.
"Now isn't that nice?" 5JQ said with what was perhaps the most sickly sweet tone her otherwise gravelly voice could produce. Shaking her head afterwards as she listened to the sound of brawling, a similar aura remained in her smile as she met Pery's empty gaze, "But as nice as this is… there's still the other half of our deal."
Waving them off, Pery held back a scoff and only continued to stare, "Yeah yeah, I know."
Hitting her with a pat on the back so hard it could only have had some sort of malice behind it, 5JQ walked off to join the rest of the broken soldiers, a firm comment of, "Good, I'll be waiting," being barked out as she deigned to even look back.
For her part, Pery took the hit without buckling over too much. She stood back to full height, little more than a low growl and the twitching of her left eye as her reaction to the slight.
'Just one more job for her, that's all. Then you can fix the reactor and go back… Just one more job…' Pery kept telling herself as she walked back out in the search for another one of the maintenance rooms, all to find some spare machinery to scrap and repurpose into the accursed overchargers they so craved.
A/N:
Little note, when 5JQ/Fives is accusing Pery of being a snitch when they first meet again, I made up the word 'Crat' to be a catch-all term for anyone important in gem society, since it's a shortened form of bureaucrat, aristocrat etc…
Kinda just felt like expanding a bit on the in-universe slang or swears, since it just makes things seem a bit more natural or real.