Welcome back! Please be sure and head over to my tumblr to check out the new artwork for this chapter, courtesy of clawrenceon!

And keep an eye out for some side stories that'll start getting posted this weekend.

"Are you sure we shouldn't check with Chroma before we use this? Every time I've asked her how it's coming along, she makes it sound like the whole thing's falling apart." The deep red Pearl ducked her head under the table to look at the tangle of wires currently keeping this corner of their communications room running.

Silver shrugged, dropping her gem hand to her knee to project where her friend could see. "Nah, it's fine," she reassured her cheerfully. "Everything here is falling apart anyway, no reason to worry about it."

"That unique blend of optimism and pessimism is inspiring."

"Why thank you, Crimson."

"I still don't want to mess this up though; she's worked hard on it." Crimson sighed and sat up, pushing her voluminous wavy ponytail back behind her so it was out of the way.

"You're just making up excuses because you're all nervous," Silver teased playfully, poking her in the arm.

"I'm moderately nervous," she admitted. "But only because I wasn't here last time they called."

"Hey, it's fine, they're not going to care. Besides, that was the day you brought Snow in, wasn't it? That's more important."

"Yeah, you're right." Crimson smiled. "And then once we got her settled in, I got to listen to the three of you gush about how cool they all were, so I assume they're good gems."

"They seem like it!" Silver paused. "So…can we call now?"

"You just want a chance to see the Renegade again, don't you?"

"Guilty as charged."

"…You know how to work all this stuff?"

"Most of it." Silver shrugged. "I mean, I know how to turn it on and use it, I just can't guarantee I can fix it if something happens."

"That's good enough for me." Crimson scooted her chair a little bit closer to the screen. "Come on then, I'm happy to indulge you."

"Thanks!" Silver settled in comfortably beside her as Crimson started the connection, legs pulled up criss-cross on the seat and fingers tapping a quiet rhythm against the chair.

The screen went a blank light gray as they waited for the transmission to be picked up on Earth. One minute, then two ticked by, nothing to listen to but the sound of Silver's fingertips and Crimson's automatic repetition of the same rhythm with her own.

"Maybe their end fell apart," Silver suggested lightly after a while.

"I suppose they must be working with very different resources over there. Maybe we should—oh, never mind!"

The screen came to life, a little static-y at first but then clearing up to reveal Blue, who was smiling warmly as she greeted them. "Oh, someone new! Hello!"

There was such genuine delight in her voice that Crimson was a little taken aback, smile beginning to spread on her own lips. "It's been awhile since anybody called me that," she laughed. "Hello, I'm Crimson. And I think you already met Silver."

"Hey, good to see you again."

"Yeah, it's great to see both of you." Blue lifted her fist to her gem in a quick salute. "Is that a greeting and parting thing?" she asked. "Or more of a serious-moment thing?"

"The latter two usually," Crimson said helpfully, "but that's hardly set in stone." She touched her own fist to the gem in her right shoulder. "It's a pleasure."

"Likewise. I'm sorry, I think we've met before, but…it's been awhile?"

"Yeah, that's right," Crimson replied, running an uneasy hand over her gem. "Uh, it was about eight hundred years ago when you showed me the projections? My hair was down and I wore that weird skirt thing that was all the rage back then?"

"Oh, good, I did remember correctly!" Blue leaned forward conspiratorially. "You look much better without the skirt; I thank the stars Blue Diamond didn't have me changing all the time. And it's great to see you're alright," she added, sitting back. "I kind of assumed the worst when I stopped seeing you around."

"Yeah, I ran away a while back," she explained. Her fingers curled briefly into the hem of her shorts. "Wandered around for a bit and then met Silver."

"She broke in," Silver said with a grin.

"The door wasn't even locked," she laughed. "You'd just shoved a bunch of old junk in front of it, and I assumed the mess meant it was deserted."

"Fair point."

"Anyway, it's great to see you again," Crimson said, turning her attention back to Blue. "I hope we aren't interrupting anything."

"Not at all," she replied. "We just got done with a little extra training, and Yellow went out to practice her summoning."

"You can summon?" Crimson asked, surprised.

"Oh! Yes. Or I can, and Yellow's getting close." She blushed a little. "I could show you, if you like."

"Yes, please!" Silver interjected.

She laughed a little and then reached to her gem, pulling out a long crescent-shaped spear with a pretty, winding design up near the blade. Crimson and Silver stared, impressed, as she held it up for them to see and then slid it back into her gem.

"That's amazing," Silver said, looking wistful.

"It really is," Crimson agreed. "If you're willing, we'd love some assistance with that whenever you get here."

"Yeah, absolutely." Blue paused, realizing something. "I'm sorry, I didn't even ask why you called. I hope everything's alright there."

"It is," Crimson reassured her. "I just wanted to say hello personally, since I missed you last time. I'm…unofficially in charge of things here, so I figured it would be best."

"She's totally official," Silver added with a grin, projection just out of Crimson's range of vision while still being readable on camera. "And great at it."

Blue hid a smile. "Well, it's an honor. I'm sure that's a lot of work."

"Oh, no, I'm happy to help," Crimson said quickly. "Anyway, I also wanted to tell you what we know about the Ruby squadron being sent to Earth. And maybe make a few plans about your arrival?"

"Oh, yes, definitely. Where would you like to start?"

"Well, in regards to your arrival… I hope this isn't too forward, but I've had everyone help draw up a list of some essentials we could use here—I know you don't have access to a lot of things there, but even if there's just one or two you could bring, it would be a big help."

"No, we'd be happy to bring some things along. And I can always ask Yellow, Pearl, and Peridot if there's something they could make with alternate parts for the rest. They've been doing a great job of it with the ship and everything already; I'm sure they could help."

"Thanks."

They spared a moment for Blue to copy down the requested items onto some paper. "Oh, and I had a question for you too," she added, twirling the pen in her fingers. "We're going to need a safer way to get back and forth between here and there than just flying a ship all over the place. The best idea we've got at the moment is building some kind of secure warp pad system to go directly between the two planets, but…"

"I don't know how we'd get access to that material without any gem noticing," Crimson said honestly. "You need pretty high authorization to even get close to some of it, and while I can ask White to try, I'd rather not. She's already rather prone to…pushing her limits."

"Oh, no, we've got most of it already."

"You do?"

Blue nodded. "There's a lot of old broken galaxy warp pads here. If we can take the scraps and melt them down somehow, then…"

"That I can help you with. We've got a forge. Or, well, we have a work-in-progress forge, but melting is definitely within our capabilities."

"That's perfect then," Blue said, relieved. "I've got the list the others gave me for the less difficult parts, if you're able to get ahold of them. If not, I'm sure we can still find a way to make it work."

"I'll pass it on to everybody here," Crimson agreed.

Silver nodded, quickly scribbling down the list that Blue held up to the screen. "We have some of this already."

"We do?"

"Sky dropped off some things just a little while ago. Lots of good stuff, according to Chroma."

"Oh, good for her," she said fondly. "And thanks," she added once Silver had finished and handed the data pad over to her. "We'll do our best," she told Blue.

"Thank you." Blue dipped her head slightly in gratitude.

"Anyway, let's see…I have the rest of the information for you on file; do you think you can receive it over there?"

"Um, maybe?" She shrugged. "I'd have to ask Yellow, can you give me a second?"

"Sure, no problem." Crimson watched her stand and hurry off out of sight, taking a moment to look at the room in the background. It looked like some kind of engineering workspace perhaps, but nothing like any she'd seen on Homeworld.

"I guess that's their ship, huh?" Silver said, pointing to the far left corner of the screen. "No matter how good a job they do on it, I can see why they don't want to be using it for any long space journeys."

"Well, it is an escape pod," Crimson agreed, projecting from her own gem. "We'll have to figure out where we can put this warp pad in…"

"Common room?"

"Maybe, but I want to get everyone else's opinions on it first."

"I vote maybe. Mostly because it means we'd have gems working in there for a long time before it's ready, and that's not the most relaxing atmosphere."

"Duly noted."

Blue came back on screen soon after, smiling. "Okay, Yellow says 'You can try it but I have significantly less faith in that old junk than Pearl does,'" she said, pitching her voice more like Yellow's for the quote. "So go ahead, we'll see how it does! If something goes wrong, we'll just call you right back."

"Alright, sounds good." She opened up the file she needed on her screen and glanced over it quickly before pressing send. "Here goes."

It took approximately two seconds for the terminal to whir noisily, make a disturbing sort of clunk, and then black out entirely, taking the rest of the power with it and leaving them in the dark.

"…Or something could go wrong on our end," Crimson sighed. "What was that you were saying about everything falling apart, Sil?"

"Oops, tempted fate." Silver kept her gem lit after she finished talking, projecting the light out a little further so she could see Crimson.

"Don't," she said, catching Silver's hand briefly in her own. "I can do it, no need to wear yourself out." A soft red light flooded from her shoulder, and she turned to take a look at the terminal.

"Thanks."

There was a small thump and a muffled curse from the doorway, Chroma stumbling in. "What in the stars did you two do? I was only gone a little while."

"Sorry, sorry, I think it just overloaded. The base's power should be fine, it just didn't know what to do with the overflow so it shut down."

"We were trying to send some information to Earth," Crimson added apologetically. "Next time we'll keep it simple."

Chroma nodded in the faint light, feeling her way over as Crimson helped illuminate her path as best she could.

"Thanks," Chroma said quietly. "Shine it down here?" She crawled under the table and rolled onto her back, long hair splayed out underneath her. "Okay, yeah, I think I can fix it. I'll have to replace this and this and…I have nothing to replace that with but we'll have to manage. Maybe if I strip down some of that junk White brought in last week that's just been taking up space… Sil, can you go kickstart the power everywhere else, please? I don't want everyone to have to sit around in the dark. And it would be nice to see what I'm doing too."

"I'm on it. And I'll bring your supplies too!" Silver smiled and slipped under the table briefly to kiss her.

"What was that for?" Chroma laughed as they parted.

"Being resourceful and cute. And also really hard to see right now; I think I got more of your chin than your lips."

"It's appreciated anyway."

Silver laughed silently and slipped back out, narrowly avoiding banging her head, and took off with a little wave. "Be back in a sec! Then I can aim better."

Chroma shook her head, smiling. "So," she asked Crimson, "want to take bets on how soon we can get this thing working again?"

"I'm sure Quinacridone would be happy to set that up for us."

"Too happy. Did you need to call back right away?" she checked.

"Well, a short call would be good; we didn't actually get the information to them, I don't think," she replied. "What's your best guess on the time?"

"Hmm…half an hour? Maybe even sooner if Aura's willing to come help out," she added hopefully.

"I'll go find her then."

"She's probably still in the common room with Viri; they were sorting through some of those old files."

"Okay, thanks." Crimson started to get up. "You okay in the dark?"

"Yeah, it's fine. Lights should come on any time now anyway."

"Alright, just checking." Crimson made her way to the door, moving a little slower than usual just to be sure she didn't trip over something. Once there, she walked straight through to the common room, where she found the soft glow of one gold gem. "Hey, sorry for the surprise."

"It's okay," Aura replied easily.

"Viri's not with you?"

"She was, but she went to go make sure everyone else is alright. Is there anything I can do to help? I can go get her if you like."

"No, actually Chroma said she could use her favorite assistant."

"Oh?" she giggled.

"I'm paraphrasing, but yes. Do you mind?"

"Not at all!" Aura got to her feet, trailing just behind Crimson as they made their way back. "So what did you and Silver do?" she asked innocently.

"How'd you know it was us?" Crimson protested.

"Lucky guess." She could see a hint of Aura's smile in the dim light. Then, in an instant, they were both blinded by the sudden blaze of the power coming back on. "Oh, that was fast."

"Silver went and restarted the main system. It's really just the communications terminal that we messed up, I think."

"Does that mean I get a day off?" Aura said playfully.

"You can take a day off whenever, no need to wait for something to break," Crimson returned lightly. "But sure, take one."

"Thanks," she laughed, flashing Crimson a bright smile before running ahead to find Chroma. "Reporting for duty!" she called as she wriggled in beside the other Pearl to look at the terminal.

Silver, meanwhile, met Crimson in the hallway on her way back and hurried inside as well, making a beeline for the other two.

Crimson caught her by the back of her leotard. "If you go over there, they're not going to get any work done."

"Fine, fine, make me miss out on cuddles." Silver stuck out her tongue.

All the same, she sat happily beside Crimson and watched the other two work, making light conversation and swinging her feet back and forth.

It wasn't long at all before Chroma and Aura squeezed out from underneath the terminal, Chroma giving them a big thumbs up. "All set."

"You're the best," Crimson said gratefully, giving her a quick hug. "Thanks, both of you."

"No problem, it wasn't too hard a fix." Chroma glanced down as Silver slipped a hand into hers and smiled. "Need me for anything else?"

"No, I think we're good. You're welcome to stick around though."

"No, it's okay. I'm just going to work over there, if that's alright."

"Sure."

Chroma checked things over one more time, set everything up for them, and then gave Silver's hand a quick squeeze before moving off to the side. Aura bade them a small goodbye too, giving the two of them each a little kiss on the cheek before slipping out to resume her previous task.

"Okay, let's try this again," Crimson declared. "Sorry we disappeared on you," she said as soon as Blue—and Yellow too this time—appeared on screen, much faster than before. "We're using a lot of old equipment where new equipment should be and sometimes it doesn't cooperate."

"Oh, no, it's fine!" Blue said quickly. "Maybe Yellow will be able to help a little when we arrive. She's really good with that sort of thing."

"She can have it all!" Chroma called from off screen, making the others laugh.

"Thanks," Yellow said doubtfully, not quite managing to conceal her smile. "And hi again."

"Hi!" Silver replied, Chroma speaking at the same time. "Blue said you were summoning. How's it going?"

"Decent enough, until I got summoned in here to be tech support."

"Sorry about that," she said sheepishly.

"It's fine," Yellow said briskly. "And, um, nice to meet you," she added, looking at Crimson. "I'm Yellow."

"Crimson," she replied. "Nice to meet you."

"Anything you need help with over there?" she asked, gesturing vaguely to the screen.

"I think we've got it figured out for the time being; we're just going to have to do things the old-fashioned way." She paused. "Should we pick up where we left off?"

Blue and Yellow nodded.

"Alright, I'll just hold this up so you can take a picture this time," Crimson said, lifting the data pad from the table and enlarging the font so they could see it better. "From what we know, there'll be five Rubies aboard a typical Roaming Eye. Their primary mission will be retrieving the Jasper that Yellow Diamond sent to Earth before. Secondary mission is a scan of the planet to determine the status of the Cluster."

Yellow nodded, holding up some kind of tablet to take a picture. "Got it. And they'll be reporting back any other abnormalities too, I assume?"

"Yes. Apparently your former Diamond was fairly…noisy about this trip, so tread carefully. They're going to want to bring back good news for her."

"We will," Blue said. "Do we know anything about the particular Rubies aboard the ship?"

"A little bit. We have three out of the five profiles; I'm afraid we haven't been able to gather more than that just yet." Crimson flicked to the next screen, double checking before holding it up again. "These three."

Yellow took another picture, then set the device aside to take a closer look herself. "They all look the same to me," she muttered.

"It can be a little difficult to tell them apart aside from gem placement," Crimson conceded. "The one you need to worry about is this one—gem in her left eye. Ruby 1F4 Cut 4ND."

"She's the oldest," Silver explained. "And she fought in the war for Earth, so she's going to be the most experienced one there."

"Right," Blue said, mouth set determinedly. "That's good to know. We'll have to ask the others if they remember her just in case."

"Yeah, we don't need any extra surprises," Yellow agreed. "Anything else we should know?"

"That's all we've got for now," Crimson said. "We'll call if we find anything more, but I'm afraid that'll probably be it. The full roster might only get to us when the ship is leaving, and that wouldn't really give us much time to get the information to you."

"Ah, good point," Blue murmured. "But, honestly, this is more than enough. We really appreciate it."

"We really appreciate you," Crimson replied a little awkwardly, smiling. "It's fine, it's been good practice for gathering other information too."

"Thanks." She blushed. "Um, we'll do our best and hopefully we can join you soon."

"Looking forward to it," Silver projected, a warm smile on her face. "We'll do our best too."

"Definitely," Crimson agreed. "And we'll let you go now; I'm sure you have a lot to prepare for. And we have some more repairs to help with."

"Okay," Blue laughed. "It was great to see you both."

"You too." Crimson saluted her smoothly, Silver doing the same. "I honor your service."

"I honor your bravery," Blue and Yellow said in almost perfect synchrony, then looked at each other in mild surprise and amusement.

She smiled as they ended the call. She was relieved, more than anything, that they didn't seem nearly as distant and grand as they had before, when Blue was whispering forbidden stories or news reached them of the two's daring escape. They were Pearls, just like the Pearls who'd gathered into their little home here. Everything they'd managed to do was just as possible for everyone else. Or all the important things anyway.

Crimson slipped out of her chair and began helping Chroma sort through her supply box. "We're a real rebellion now, aren't we?"

"Hey, we were real before, even when it was just three of us."

"Everybody's just more together now," Silver added.

"Yeah," Crimson breathed. "Yeah, we are."