Chapter Two: Ruination

The Peridot, Lefty, began her story. "All of this started about, what would it be, three, four hundred years ago? Yellow Diamond's scouts had discovered a new planet fit for colonization, teeming with resources. It was rich in ores, overflowing with organic life, and–well, this may not be that important, but I for one thought it was gorgeous here. Oh, before the flooding, you should have seen it! Colorful stone spires that reached to the sky, vast plains that glowed in the moonlight…"

"My friend, you are getting sentimental again," said Tanzanite.

"Ah, sorry," Lefty laughed. "If you couldn't tell, I've got a soft spot for this place. It's my first colony, see, so I might be a bit biased."

While the endless expanse of ocean did have a certain appeal to it, Moridius was certainly much less pretty now. "Did this place really used to be like that?" she asked, gazing out the window.

"Seems that way, yeah," Yooperlite answered. "I wouldn't know myself, but these two talk about it all the time. I got here much later, only about fifty years ago or so. Way after the floods."

Lefty continued. "For a while, everything was going exactly as it should have. We set up a few outposts, got the first Kindergarten running, got a handle on the local wildlife. That part comes into play later, remember that. But yeah, completely without issue for the longest time. It wasn't until the waters started rising that we realized something was up.

Back then, this planet's poles were almost completely covered with glaciers, with enough water combined to…well, I'm sure you figured that part out. Global temperatures were already warm enough to be worrying, so we had some outposts set up there to monitor them. That was how we got our first warning that they were starting to melt.

Nobody was really sure why they were melting at the rate they were. Global temperatures were rising, but not to the degree for them to melt this quickly. We should have been able to contain this, maybe get a Lapis Lazuli to redirect the oceans, but it all came too fast.

Near as we could figure out, it was something in the air that sped up the accumulation of heat, some sort of chemical: something that trapped the solar radiation within the atmosphere. We figure our mining must have released gasses that caused it, but…but it can't have been only that."

"Why not?" Emerald asked.

"Satellite imaging shows that heat seemed to accumulate at the poles, rather than being evenly distributed," Tanzanite explained. "We still do not have an explanation for this phenomenon."

"Do we really need one anymore?" said Lefty. "Not like it's going to help us now. This was all a perfect storm of disasters, all leading up to this. Just us three, alone on an abandoned world–excuse me, four.

We tried to find fixes, workarounds, any way to salvage what we had made so far. But things wouldn't be so easy. Remember what I said about the wildlife? Turns out, such a rapid deterioration of the ecosystem leads to an increase in competition, which results in heightened aggression. Now, in addition to dealing with global flooding, we had to contend with feral killing machines."

Only a small amount of knowledge relating to organic life came pre-downloaded on Emerald's base mind. "How did you get to know so much about organics? I didn't think a Kindergarten tech would have much experience in that field."

She smiled, if only slightly. "Organics have always been something of a passion of ours–er, mine. Back before I was deployed here, I looked up everything I could on them in every database I could access, even did some field studies on Valuris. I think there's a lot to learn about them, you know? I mean, we owe our existence to organics, don't we? And that knowledge did come in handy, at least for a time.

Basically, organics that are better fit for their environment are the ones that propagate more. So, with all this water, organics that were aquatic or semi-aquatic were becoming much more widespread. And now that there were less resources on land, organics that lived there became more desperate for food and shelter. Quite a large number of which had no issue with attacking Gems."

"Oh, and just 'cause the ones on land were scarier, that doesn't mean the ones in the water were friendly, either," said Yooperlite. "You ever heard of a thalassaraptor?"

"Um…no, I can't say I have," Emerald admitted.

"Let's hope it stays that way." Whatever those creatures she mentioned were, Yooperlite seemed to regard them as a serious threat.

Lefty shook her head. "For a good while, it was chaos. All sorts of different monsters and freaks were coming out of the woodwork, most of them completely unafraid of Gems. And the rest would attack anything that moved anyway. We had to call in some reinforcements from Homeworld just to keep our operation from falling apart all at once!"

"And instead," added Tanzanite, "all we were able to manage was the slow, inevitable deterioration of the colony."

"Ever the optimist," Lefty said.

"So, hang on…" asked Emerald. "If everyone was forced offworld by aggressive wildlife, why did you all stay behind? If there weren't enough ships, why couldn't Homeworld send more?"

After a short pause, Lefty stood up to look out the window. Her gaze was intense, as though she was looking for something rather than admiring the scenery. "Because that wasn't the worst of it. The animals? The flooding? Ha, I wish that had been the worst of our problems. No, what really killed this place were the storms.

They were a consequence of the rapid climatological shift. Imagine a wall of black clouds miles high and ten times as wide, with wind loud enough to drown out your thoughts and strong enough to pick up and fling a Quartz like she was a Pebble. Anything that wasn't ripped apart was fried by lightning, and anything that survived that was whittled away by the rain. Even the eye wasn't safe, because it brought freezing temperatures that made everything even more brittle. Being above-ground in anything less than a reinforced bunker was a death sentence, let alone being outside when one hit."

Everyone was quiet once again. "Much of the auxiliary expedition was lost to these super-storms," Tanzanite said solemnly. "My fellow researchers and I tried to warn those in charge, but we were ignored until it was too late."

"Can't say I'm not guilty of that, too," Lefty admitted. "This was our first colony, we wanted this. Nobody was willing to let this one go, so we stayed, we convinced ourselves we could handle things. But in the end…yeah, you can probably tell how that went."

Yooperlite patted her friend on the shoulder. "Are…are you comfortable telling her about…y'know…the accident? You don't have to go on if ya aren't."

"No, no, she deserves to know," said Lefty.

"Know what?"

The three looked at each other uncomfortably. "Eventually, one of the super-storms hit a Kindergarten. Not this one, we were in the process of setting up a second in another sector. By the time it had passed, what injectors hadn't been ripped to scrap had been carried off entirely. The…the same could be said of the technicians." Emerald winced. "That was about the time everyone else decided to pack it up and call it a day. But not us. We were stubborn, and we weren't leaving until this Kindergarten was fruitful.

Pretty soon, everyone else had either decided Moridius was a lost cause, or fell victim to one cataclysm or another. That just left us, in one last little outpost right there." Lefty pointed out the window, but there was nothing save for water.

Emerald was already sure of where this was going. "What…happened to it?" she asked.

"I happened." She hadn't expected that answer. Lefty continued to stare off into space for a while, before finally averting her gaze. "I, uh, should probably make sure the shielding systems are still working. Can't have them get too waterlogged again, yeah? I'll be back in a sec." And with that, she was out the door and down the steps before Emerald had any time to ask her anything. So, instead, she asked the other two.

"What does she mean by 'she happened?' And what exactly did she do?"

"Well, it's like I said," Yooperlite replied. "There was an accident, one she blames herself for."

"Lefty was in charge of managing the refueling of the ships," explained Tanzanite. "Every day, she would check the pressure to prevent leakage or buildups, and that day was no different. She confirmed that the pressure was stable…but either the gauge was mistaken, or she was."

"The whole place went up in a huge fireball. All the equipment, our ships, everyone inside…" Yooperlite shook her head. "She still thinks it was her fault, even after all these years."

Emerald tried to think of something to say, but she could only come up with one thing: "That's awful. Not only to have that happen, but to be stranded here for so long. I'm so sorry."

"It ain't all bad," said Yooperlite, smiling despite everything. "We still got each other, at least. And despite the constant storms and the vicious wildlife, the planet's still pretty!"

Another glance out the window confirmed that. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is," Emerald said, feeling slightly better. There were certainly worse planets to be stranded on.

Yooperlite got up and headed for the door. "I'd better help Lefty out. Poor thing's been throwing herself into every little task she can to make up for her one slip-up. She'd probably go all brittle if we let her."

"I will continue to monitor the surrounding area," said Tanzanite. "I will alert you all if I detect any anomalies." She activated the computer to do just that.

Emerald looked around awkwardly. "So…how long have you all known each other?" She inched closer to Tanzanite, unsure of what else to ask.

"Lefty and I had worked together, but were not particularly familiar until after the accident. Yooperlite arrived a mere day and a half before the explosion. It was only by sheer luck that the three of us happened to find ourselves in this control tower when it happened."

"So, wait…" Emerald said. "Lefty kept mentioning 'we.' I thought she was talking about you all. Was she just being rhetorical?"

Tanzanite looked like she was considering her responses. "Did you ever wonder where Lefty acquired her nickname?" she asked.

Emerald blinked. "I assumed it was because of her gem placement."

"It is," said Tanzanite, but where there is a 'Lefty,' there is also the implied existence of a 'Righty.' Or so statistics dictates. And that Was indeed the case here."

"Oh." Suddenly, Emerald felt somehow even worse for Lefty than she already did. "Another Peridot?"

She nodded. "QR7 and QR8. The two were inseparable, sharing many of the same passions and ambitions. They picked up the names Lefty and Righty because their gemstones were placed opposite from each other. Suffice it to say, Righty was…she was refueling the ships that day."

Emerald opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out. What else could she really say that hadn't already been said, especially with Lefty not here? She could offer her sympathy in person, but she had a feeling that, even after all this time, the Peridot would rather not be reminded of something like that. "S-should I go and help them?"

"If you wish. The shield generator is in the basement. I would advise caution if the water is higher than knee level."

"Thanks, will do." She stood up, and headed off to help her new roommates. It couldn't hurt to get a bit more familiar–after all, it seemed like they would be here for a while.