Alliance
"Faster! Faster!"
"I'm going as fast as I can," snapped the ship's Nephrite. Still, the pilot's hands flew across the control panel, dancing across buttons and levers, coaxing some last burst of speed from the engines.
Their ship gained on the Roaming Eye— finally within close enough range to catch it. The crew's Pearl lined up a tractor beam and fired it, a perfect shot—
— which nonetheless missed as the Roaming Eye swerved out of the way.
The Pearl did something very unpearl-like, and swore.
"How in the stars is it so fast?" their Flint wondered.
Nephrite didn't bother responding. Her focus was entirely on her duty, on the spaceship racing away from them. They couldn't let the the Roaming Eye escape.
They couldn't.
"They're heading to that planet!" their Ruby called out, as the Roaming Eye changed course. "Are they gonna land?"
The Flint drew up the planet's information on the ship's computer, and shook her head. "This planet's got like, twenty moons— one of them crashed into it about a thousand Cycles ago. Atmosphere is still filled with debris."
"They're trying to lose us," said the Pearl.
Nephrite tightened her grip on the controls. "Not happening."
Because it couldn't happen. It couldn't. If it did, it was all over.
The coup on the Carbonite System Planet 25x-6 had been risky. So risky, in fact, that the rebellion's leader— whoever she was— had argued fiercely against the plan. But her arguments hadn't been able to dissuade everyone. One faction had gone behind her back, disobeyed direct orders, and overthrown Benitoite G9-L5 anyway.
It had been an incredible victory. In a single move, the New Rebellion had sized perhaps their greatest asset yet. An entire colony, new that it was— along with all its moons, and the entire surrounding Star System. With it came state of the art Kindergarten injectors, wide-scale terraforming equipment, warp pad construction kits, an entire fleet of colonizer star ships… and, of course, huge swathes of natural resources.
At last, the rebellion had an actual base of operations, one free from the Diamonds' surveillance and supervision. They had a safe haven to send runaways and refugees, those too at risk to remain within the Empire. They even had new recruits! Approximately half of Benitoite's staff, as well as the Homeworld envoy which had been visiting the planet, had defected. And even if these recruits' loyalty to the cause remained untested, it was still a significant increase in their forces.
And all of it depended on the Diamonds never finding out.
As far as Homeworld knew, Planet 25x-6 was still under Benitoite's control. The rebels had meticulously maintained the illusion— sending regular progress reports, altered photographs of construction sites, even arranging conference calls with the captured Benitoite or her holographic image…
It had worked so far. But clearly someone had gotten suspicious. Why else would they have send an unidentified Roaming Eye sneaking through the System?
And true, a single squadron of rubies wasn't that dangerous. But who knew what they'd seen, what they'd repeat?
Whatever else could be said of these rubies, they clearly had an excellent pilot. The Roaming Eye ducked and weaved, dodging every blast and beam sent its way, using its smaller size to its advantage as it navigated through a tight sea of asteroids.
The rebels nearly lost it completely around the planet's fourth moon. Even once their Nephrite managed to get it back into sight, the Roaming Eye was ahead of them now, and getting further away by the second.
They were getting desperate. "If it gets into open space—" Ruby began.
She didn't finish. Everyone knew. Once the Roaming Eye had space enough to enter Hyper Speed, it was all lost. The colony, the resistance, their freedom—
Pearl took aim, and fired—
— and the blast hit.
It wasn't a direct shot. Not enough to destroy the ship, or even injure anyone inside. But enough to slow it. Flint activated the tractor beam, and now there was no fancy manoeuvring to avoid it. She caught the Roaming Eye and pulled it in with steady hands.
They briefly debated on who should contact the enemy ship, and eventually settled on Nephrite, at Ruby's suggestion. "It's who I'd listen to, in their position."
So Nephrite activated the inter-ship communication channels, put on her best Official Authority Voice, and announced: "You have been captured under the charge of unregistered travel. There is no escape. We will land on the nearest lunar body and board. If you do not resist, this can end peacefully."
There was no response from the Roaming Eye.
The rebel's were true to their word. They pulled the captive ship to the nearest moon, and prepared for boarding. They each drew their weapon— a blaster for Nephrite, a lasso for Ruby, a sledgehammer for Flint. Pearl was the slowest at summoning hers. She'd only learned how to manifest her crossbow a little while ago, and was still a bit uncertain with it.
That's why she was placed in the party's rear. Ruby took the lead. The Roaming Eye's crew would be less likely to attack one of their own, and the rebels truly did wish to get out of this peacefully, if possible.
Their group stood before the Roaming Eye. Flint pressed a button on her belt which over-rid the captured ship's controls, and its latch opened.
They were met by a wall of pink.
The wall was hard, and transparent, and through it the rebels could see the Roaming Eye's crew. They weren't rubies.
Nephrite's gaze was drawn to the weapons first. The entire crew was armed. Gauntlets, whip, sword, spear, blaster— and a pink shield, big enough to cover the ship's entire hatch.
Ruby tried to size her enemies up, pinpoint biggest threat. She couldn't. There was an Amethyst, but she was tiny— and everyone else was either a non-combatant or unrecognisable. A Lapis Lazuli, an Era 2 Peridot, a Pearl, some sort of hybrid fusion, two smaller figures wearing a mishmash of colours— and then other beings which didn't look like Gems at all. There was one, four legged, hulking and pink, with sharp teeth bared; and then others, long and green, twisting all over each other, spitting acid from their jagged mouths…
Flint tried to read the mood. The crew was wary, in various states of anger, fear and defensiveness. She watched all of that slowly fade into looks of mingled surprise and confusion, one which Flint was sure matched the expressions on her own crew's faces. All of them seemed to turn slightly towards the hybrid fusion— was she their leader?
Pearl barely took in any of this. Her eyes were locked on the other ship's pilot— or, at least, the Gem standing next to the pilot's chair, the one with a spear in her hand, and a bright white light blazing at her temples— like something from a vision, or from a legend, or from an ancient hologram—
The two groups stared at each other, slack jawed. Slowly, incrementally, weapons were lowered.
One of the Roaming Eye's crew—one of the small figures, the one with the shield— stepped forward with a smile. "Hello. My name's Steven." A cheerful wave. "And we're the Crystal Gems."
oOoOo
Author's Note: Last couple of weeks have been... hectic. Glad to finally get this one out. 3
*awkwardly dances around Steven's pronouns*