Missing Peace: Chapter 42

Steven just managed to roll out of the way of sword that swung his way as its owner, a Rose Quartz, lashed out at him with surprising speed. The Quartzes had appeared almost out of nowhere a short while ago, and frantic communications from Garnet and Pearl's teams had confirmed that the same thing had happened for each of them. There had been radio silence from the other teams ever since, and Steven had no idea whether his friends had succeeded, or failed. He tried to keep his mind clear, knowing that he needed to keep his focus on the Gems in front of him if he wanted to survive, but no matter how hard he tried, his thoughts kept drifting back to his own failure. The fact that these Quartzes had been able to jump them like this meant that Rose had seen their plan coming. She had probably become suspicious after he took control of her body to find Facet 31's location. If he had just been more careful; if he had just covered his tracks better, then maybe…

"Steven!"

Connie's voice cut through the cacophony of the battle. Steven wheeled around in the direction of the sound, keeping his shield projected behind him with one arm, to keep his own attackers at bay. His eyes widened in shock at the sight that greeted him. Connie was held in the grip of one of the Rose Quartzes, her arms completely restrained by the huge Gem soldier. Another Quartz carried Connie's sword, having evidently wrestled it off her during the fight. "Connie!" Steven cried out, moving to jump at the Quartz.

"Ah ah ah, I wouldn't do that if I were you" mocked the Rose Quartz holding Connie. Keeping Connie restrained with one arm, she raised the other, and wrapped her huge hand around Connie's head from behind. Connie was ardently refusing to cry out for help; she didn't want to give Facet 31 the satisfaction, and she especially didn't want to put Steven in a more difficult position than he already was. Regardless, her eyes betrayed her true fear, and Steven could see it clearly. "Put away your weapons or the human gets it" continued the Quartz. Reluctantly, Steven dissipated his shield. Bismuth took slightly longer to act, shooting death glares at the Quartzes around her, before finally shifting the hammers on the ends of her arms back into normal hands. The Quartzes moved in and grabbed the two of them. Two soldiers restrained Steven, lifting him off his feet by the arms. All the others focused on keeping Bismuth restrained, intent on making sure the large Gem wouldn't pose a threat to them. "Bring them this way" the Quartz said to her fellow soldiers. "Rose will want to have a word with them."

Steven wasn't sure how to feel about this. On the upside, they were being brought straight to Rose, which is where his team had been trying to go in the first place. On the other hand, this was not how they had hoped to get there. As he and the others were carried into the zoo's command centre, he glanced around the room. Groups of Peridots were frantically tapping away at various consoles, while Quartzes and Rubies stood guard at every entrance. A chair sat on a slightly raised platform in the middle of the room. It was turned away from them, but from the shock of pink hair visible beyond it, it was clear who was sat in it. "Well well well" the familiar voice spoke, "so you finally decided to grace us with your presence Pink. I've been waiting for the chance for us to catch up." Rose swivelled the chair to face them, before rising from it and walking down to the group of guards. The Quartz carrying Steven dropped him at Rose's feet. She bent down and gently lifted his chin, all the while staring down at him with a patronising smirk.

"Rose, please" Steven began, "the fighting has to stop. I know Pink hurt you, but we-" Rose put her finger to his lips, silencing him. The hefty digit was large enough to cover his entire mouth. It was clear to him that despite the fact that he was a lot more durable than a regular human, it would have been so easy for her to kill him. But she hadn't; she wanted him alive for some reason. He quickly found out why. "Hush now" she said, as though talking to a baby. "You're going to miss the show." Her tone reminded Steven of the time he had spoken to "his mother" in his Gem room back on Earth. But this time it was laced with a malice hidden just under the surface. Whatever this Rose Quartz was referring to, it wasn't good. "Now then" said Rose, standing up and returning her voice to a normal volume, "shall we get started people?" The Peridots at the consoles lining the walls nodded at each other, before one of them, presumably the chief engineer, nodded to Rose herself. Rose walked back over to her command chair, but didn't sit down. Instead, she just leant over and typed a sequence into the panel on the arm of the seat. As she hit the final button, the entire room began to shake. Steven, Connie, and Bismuth began looking around frantically, unsure of what was going on, but the Facet 31 Gems seemed unfazed (save for a couple of Rubies, who presumably hadn't been paying attention). Rose strode over to the viewscreen at the front of the command centre, raised her arms to her sides, and smiled. "This is where the fun begins."

Sun Incinerator, drifting in ring system:

Lars fell to the floor with a thud. He had been reclined in his chair, flicking through a comic book to pass the time, when a thunderous rumble had sent him leaping out of the seat with a startled yelp. He got to his feet, wincing and rubbing a sore patch on his head, and looked around for the source of the noise. "What the heck was that?! Fluorite, tell me you didn't switch on the nova….thrusters…" The last couple of words came out slow and mumbled as his eyes fell on the bridge's front window, and he saw the true reason for the noise. The large thrusters bolted to the sides of the zoo had flared into life, and those on the top and port sides of the station were firing with all their might, emitting spikes of while-hot flame. Under the pushing force, the zoo began to reorient itself, rotating in three dimensions, until the narrow end pointed away from the planet which the zoo orbited, towards some indeterminate point in space. Lars fumbled for his communicator. "Steven, what's going on over there?!" There was no reply. He repeated his question over every channel, hoping to get hold of somebody; anybody on the away team. Ominous silence was all he received. He turned his gaze back to the zoo, which was now slowing its rotation as the thrusters on its other sides fired to counter the previously applied force. "I don't understand" said Rhodonite from her seat near the front of the bridge. "Why go to all that effort just to turn the station around?" Lars couldn't figure it out either, but he knew whatever the purpose was, it probably wasn't good. "Just be ready to bring all the systems back online as soon as I give the word" he said, projecting as much confidence as he could in the face of such an imposing sight. "Steven might be needing our help pretty soon."

Human Zoo:

Once the station stopped moving, the rumbling subsided. Steven had seen the view of the stars changing through the command centre's main viewer, so he was aware that the zoo had turned, but he wasn't sure why. Had Facet 31 been trying to turn it into a giant ship and fly it somewhere? And if so, had what had happened just now been a success of a failure? The station had moved a little, but it certainly hadn't left the system. He turned his gaze back to Rose, who was still staring out at the stars.

Rose turned back to face him again. A wide grin spread across her face. "Well Pink, are you curious? Don't you want to know what I'm planning?" Steven didn't bother to reply. He knew getting response out of him would just spur her on, and he suspected she was about to tell him anyway. Rose quickly obliged. "Now, we could have just attacked Earth conventionally, but given how your precious Humans have advanced since I was last on Earth, that plan carried a good deal of risk. So, I decided to be more innovative; to find a way to strike at Humanity without risking our own. However, I ran into a snag. Do you know what the problem with Gem technology is, Pink? It's very impressive, yes; far more advanced than that of any other race we've encountered, but it has one fatal flaw: it just doesn't seem to know how to deal with organics." That much was true. Steven remembered how his half-human anatomy had allowed him to walk straight through Gem forcefields in the past, albeit with a rather unpleasant tingling sensation. A pure organic would likely have been able to pass through them as though they weren't even there. It wasn't just the forcefield either. He remembered how the robonoids sent to destroy the Off-Colours had been completely unable to detect Lars; their scanning beams blind to anything other than Gems. For a race that had spent millennia conquering organic worlds, their technology wasn't very well adapted for this purpose. Evidently their military might was advantage enough, so the Gems had no need of most of their innovations when fighting organics.

"So, I set about finding something that would be more effective" Rose continued, ignorant of Steven's internal musings. "I realised that there are a couple of pieces of Gem technology that are effective against organics. The first are our kindergartens, which can suck the life force straight out of organics, but all the colony worlds are under Diamond or Crystal Gem control, so I couldn't get access to any of those. That left only one logical option: your Human Zoo. I remembered the time I spent here, as I guarded you during your visits to your pets. Specifically, I remembered how this station's scanning beams were specially designed to interact with Human biology."

"I don't understand" Steven piped up, his curiosity overwhelming him. "You wanted the zoo…to scan us?"

Rose scoffed. "Of course not. Do you know how the station scans Humans? It uses incredibly small amounts of x-rays. But what if someone were to turn the beams up; augment the zoo to focus all its power into one giant radiation beam? I'll tell you: you'd have a weapon capable of destroying any and all organic life, across an entire planet! And with the ship components we've grafted on to the zoo, we can generate a beam more than powerful enough to do that. We can even fire it at speeds equal to a ship's gravity drive, so the Diamonds won't have time to stop it before it hits its target." Steven's eyes were wide in shock. The zoo was a weapon?!

Deriving great satisfaction from his expression, Rose continued. "When I was released from my bubble, I heard stories of the 'corruption attack' the Diamonds used to end the war; a beam of energy that was deadly to Gems, but harmless to organics. I'm going to do the reverse. I'm going to wipe your little pets from the face of the Earth, leaving only mineral life unharmed. Consider it karma for when you sacrificed Gem lives for the sake of those creatures!"

"That's ridiculous!" Bismuth shouted from somewhere behind Steven. "Even if you did manage to wipe out the Humans, what's to stop the Diamonds from swooping in and hunting you all down afterwards? Don't think they won't. The Crystal Gems found out first-hand how ruthless they can be."

"We don't care what happens to us afterwards" Rose replied in an icy tone. "Our lives ended the day we were betrayed. If we can rally enough support on Homeworld to overthrow the Diamonds, that's the ideal; but if we can't, at least we'll go out as true Gems." Around the room, every Rose Quartz nodded in approval, their faces the very picture of determination. Some of the other Facet 31 Gems seemed less sure, but nodded along all the same, trying to mask their obvious nervousness. Steven couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. He had known that Rose was driven, but this? This was insane. Was she really so angry at Pink that she was willing to sacrifice herself and all her allies just to get rid of Humanity? He studied Rose's face for any sign of deception, but he found none. If she was bluffing, she was very good at hiding it.

"Begin charging sequence!" Rose shouted to one of the Peridots. The slender green Gem obliged, typing a short sequence into the nearest console. As she finished, a low, electronic whine began to reverberate through the station, growing slowly higher in pitch as it went on. Steven could feel it vibrating through his bones. The weapon they were charging must have been huge. "Oh and…bring Earth up on the viewscreen" Rose casually ordered a second Peridot. A holographic screen appeared just in front of the main viewing port, obscuring a corner of it. As it formed, the unmistakable image of Earth flickered into life. "Sit back and enjoy the show Pink" Rose said with a wide, twisted grin. "I want to see the look on your face when your beloved Earth dies."