5. The Spaceport.
There had been some discussion regarding the best way to get over to the spaceport throughout Homeworld's relatively brightly-lit night. Lars had lain on his back, arms behind his head, watching the disturbingly unfamiliar stars while he listened. The cape - folded neatly, unworn - lay beside him on the ground. Talk of them remaining street-level hadn't really appealed to him, but neither did scrambling across the planet's surface where there were potentially threats like robonoids and more of those amethysts - assuming they were even still down here. Man, they had lucked hard out there. It stood to reason that such a militant class of gem wouldn't suffer conscientious objectors in their ranks for long.
He soon noticed they were looking at him, as if awaiting his input.
"Uh.. maybe we find more awesome closed-off side streets like this one? Why is this one even closed in the first place?"
"There won't be many like this. They could be trying to make traffic more efficient. This is kind of a useless sidestreet. Nothing comes out onto it from the buildings. Pretty, though. The way it overlooks the Administrative Facet," Rhodonite mused gently. "I expect they'll demolish it and put something else here in the next few hundred years."
"Hah," chucked Lars. "That's about how fast local government works in my town too."
Fluorite sighed slowly. "We should hurry and make a decision. We'll be more noticeable soon in the daylight, and we can't go backwards."
"Well, the surface is too open," Lars reasoned. "Robonoids can come from any angle down there - there aren't any exit-holes to hide in, so it'd be way harder to protect you guys." He hesitated. "I... kind of want to use the streets. Besides, shouldn't we get used to being around other gems?"
His cohorts seemed reluctant, but he persisted.
"It just... seems like we'll be having to deal with a lot of them at the spaceport. Didn't you notice how crazy busy it's been all night?" He pointed over into the distance. "There's like, three ships taking off right now. That place will be crawling with gems."
"You're right," admitted Rhodonite, stunned. "We'll hide in plain sight. Aargh, but it's so dangerous!"
"But we'd need to look and act like a real crew anyway to even get in there in the first place," said Fluorite.
Lars frowned and raised a hand to his chin in thought. "But, yeah, not all of us can be in public so easily..."
Fluorite closed her eyes, smiling. "If I unfuse, the six of us can easily conceal the Twins."
"But, Fluorite, you said you can't stay apart for long-" Lars said, dubious.
"It's unanimous," started Fluorite, before Rhodonite took over in a much faster cadence.
"When Fluorite unfuses, it's for a reason. To complete a task bigger than herself," came Rhodonite's explanation as she stowed away Lars' old ripped clothes. "Same goes for me, but it's harder for Fluorite I guess because she is so many gems! But, any decent fusion can put themselves aside until the task is complete. Even if it's horrible and scary! Now, put on your cape and play your role."
"I knew it," smirked Lars, relenting and putting on the cape. "You only want me to lead figurehead-style."
"Whatever you'd like to tell yourself, Captain Lars," replied the newly-unfused Pearl.
Lars soon found himself reluctantly wearing the cape he didn't feel he'd deserved, surrounded by eleven alien women, his mind reeling. Most of the Fluorite components, all clustered together, were small enough to surround the Twins to the point where it seemed that they were two singular gems while Pearl, Ruby and Padparadscha took up the lead with Lars and he held the barrier open for all of them. Soon, they were walking in an orderly fashion onto the main street as Homeworld's daystar broke the horizon and the sky began to lighten.
From the outside, they seemed like a normal team of gems, with a purpose to go about. Lars was surprised to notice that they were almost consistently given right of way, except for certain rare situations that he couldn't see a pattern beyond whether the leading gem was bigger or more scared-looking than him. He noticed that Pearl and Ruby had fallen a bit behind - only Padparadscha was keeping stride. He turned and kind of motioned for them to come up.
"What are you doing?" He whispered. "Don't leave us up here alone!"
"Yes," chimed Padparadscha. "I have no idea where we're going."
"Oh, right!" muttered Ruby as she and Pearl stepped back up.
Pearl smiled. "Sorry Lars. The fact is, pearls are servants and rubies are guards. In reality, we're of no consequence. We would never be walking alongside a captain or a sapphire. Neither would any of the others."
"That's grim," said Lars, pretty surprised. "The Pearl who is like Steven's aunt on Earth seems super important."
"Really!?"
"Look at that," remarked Ruby, pointing in disbelief. "Look at that Jasper, she's even saluting!"
"Ruby," chided Pearl, nervously. "Where are your manners!"
Lars, unsure of what to do, nodded cordially at the Jasper in response, and then went back to quietly freaking out. "That big orange woman flippin' saluted me?! N-no... it was meant for Padparadscha, right?"
"I predict the jasper will salute Lars out of a vague notion that she is more important due to the size of her entourage and presence of both Pearl and myself."
Lars was super awkward, and not only because of the admittedly understandable odd pronoun choices the gems sometimes made regarding him. He made another mental note to address it later on when their lives were a little less in danger - whenever that might be. For now, however, their attention was grabbed by the chatter of a couple of passing aristocratic-looking gems.
"You haven't heard? A rogue gem and some organics - humans, they called them, giant ungainly creatures - were loose on the surface, but they haven't been found..."
A nearby crew of bismuths hauling a giant metal slab between them were conversing amongst themselves about the same subject. "An organic gem mutant? That's terrifying, I hope it gets found soon!"
"Too bad we weren't assigned to the task of capturing the hybrid creatures down in the ancient kindergartens," commented a passing Ruby to one of her fellow soldiers. "We would have found them all already, and brought them in front of Yellow Diamond before last daystar-rise! Because nothing gets past us!"
"Yeah!" the rest of her troupe hyped.
Lars laughed a little despite himself and caught the notice of the ruby who had been speaking. He abruptly stopped. She instantly saluted him and led her troupe onward.
In the midst of all these snowballing rumors and oddly respectful strangers, a wave of something resembling confidence appeared to settle over the crew of Off Colors. It was an odd feeling, a new one, and while all of them had a profound inkling that it was never to be taken for granted, for the meantime it made each one of them step with a newfound sense of purpose.
"Maybe things are gunna be okay," sighed Ruby, causing Pearl to smile and take her hand.
"Yeah," determined an emboldened Pearl, right before the moment was ruined by a passing Emerald who stopped, forcing her small personal entourage to grind to a halt behind her.
"My Emerald?" one of her subordinates inquired, confused by the abrupt stop.
"Do you realize," she began, addressing Lars, "That your Pearl and Ruby are holding each other? With their touchstumps? In a manner that serves no purpose what so ever?!"
The two gems in question immediately separated, embarrassed and ashamed. Lars was speechless.
"Aaahh-"
"It's disgusting," she continued, glaring at Lars. "You shouldn't have to tolerate it."
"Uh, sure thing, I'll, er, have words with them later, my, err, Emerald." stammered Lars in response. He heard Pearl clear her throat in a meaningful way, and he quickly tossed a diamond salute into the mix.
Emerald seemed mildly satiated by this act of deference, but continued to narrow her eyes at him, probing him.
"So, you're the captain of this crew? Impressive that you have a pearl, and a precious sapphire entrusted to your care. I hope they all don't act like that. What sort of gem are you, exactly?"
Lars racked his brain, and to his tongue came the rare type of gem Fluorite had mentioned. "Pezzottaite..?"
She was silent for a long moment, pondering this answer.
"Hmmm. Must be an Era Two Pezzottaite. Hah! That explains everything." She smiled, all sharp teeth. She waved him off in a dismissive manner. "Carry on. But don't ever let me catch you having to endure such a filthy display again."
The horde of Off Colors quietly watched Emerald and her posse disappear into the throngs of gem traffic. Being knocked down a peg or two after such a confidence kick was certainly demoralizing - Lars saw it written all over their faces when he turned.
"Guys," hushed Lars. "Don't worry-"
Padparadscha interrupted. "Don't worry, everyone. My vision tells me we're going to be... fine! We just can't afford to get carried away so easily."
Nods of agreement came from all around, and soon they picked up their gravity connectors and silently moved onwards, and bystander gems who had stopped to stare at the little incident turned away and continued about their business.
The rest of the walk was comparatively uneventful and eventually they came upon the spaceport. It was a massive, elegant and heavily guarded building situated on a high vantage point, receiving lavish views of the palace and other surrounding areas.
"It's big," a Twin commented, gazing up at it. "Really big!"
"And busy," commented Ruby, a little scared.
"We just have to play our parts," Pearl reminded them, pausing to watch an obviously high-ranking gem walk past them and enter the building. "Right, Captain?"
"Right, Pearl," smiled Lars, eye twitching slightly.
He took a deep breath, and led his crew up to the door. A Topaz guard looked him up and down before barring his way with her weapon. Lars stopped and looked her in the eye trying hard to look pissed, eyebrow raised. She stared back, face unreadable.
It was a tense moment, which diffused suddenly as the Topaz grimaced and backed down. She removed her weapon and looked away as if embarrassed. Lars held it together as he made his way through the automatically sliding door. Once inside, he leaned against a wall and breathed deeply, once, twice, and then a third time. Pearl followed him over and glanced around before placing a hand on his shoulder briefly.
"Captain! You did amazing," she whispered.
He looked around at the smiling faces of Padparadscha, Ruby and the components of Fluorite still clustered around the Rutiles, and felt a little better. And then he gazed past them, into the belly of the spaceport they had spent so, so very long working towards.