LOG-059.

  "Are you two...alright?"

  Rose certainly seemed calmer now, after whatever experience she'd just had with the cluster. Calm enough that she'd immediately gone from worrying about her own problems to worrying about ours.

  Pearl mumbled something incoherent beside me, even as I let loose a sigh.

  "As alright as we're gonna get after...that."

  The rebel leader opened her mouth, and I held up a hand, stopping her.

  "Look, I am very...very tired right now. Can we just go? Please?"

  "...Alright."

  From there, the next few moments passed in almost a blur. We made our way across the field of bubbles below us in silence, the short walk eventually ending in in all three of us steadily climbing back up the boarding ramp.

  "Jeez, what's taking them so long? Think we should go take a look?"

  Amethyst's voice echoed slightly from ahead of us, shortly followed by the Crystal Gem's resident permafusion.

  "They're back."

  I followed behind Pearl, even as she followed behind a contemplative Rose, ignoring the stares of the Gems around us. Even so, I felt something not unlike a chill pass through my lightform as Garnet glanced between me and Pearl, frowning in confusion.

  "Is...is it over?"

  It was Vermilion that asked the question, though just about everyone within the Roaming Eye visibly deflated in relief as Rose nodded.

  After that...well, aside from a brief bit of confusion over whether Pearl or I would pilot the Eye (with my counterpart eventually ceding control to me) the rest of the trip back up to the surface passed in a quiet and tired, yet largely celebratory mood.

  We'd done it, after all. Earth was finally safe from the threat of getting cracked open like a fragile egg.

  And I could finally, finally relax.

  ---

  "And the signal is going through...got it! Opening the doorway now!"

  Morion watched as the weird...machine the Peridot had apparently cobbled together and brought out continued to beam light into the door impeding their progress, even as the lights on said door continued to glow, blinking in some unknown sequence.

  Pink. Purple. Red. Blue. A lighter pink.

  And then, it finally settled on both red and blue, even as the door began to visibly distort, pieces falling away and revealing some dim space beyond.

  Tilting her head, the off colour Quartz glanced at the pair of confused Jaspers behind her, before taking a step forward.

  "Uh...alright. This is safe, yeah?"

  An annoyed sniff was her counterpart's response, the green technician waving a handful of detached fingers at the open doorway in indignation.

  "Of course it is! This is basic spacial expansion tech. It's old, but more than reliable. Stars, some of the original Roaming Eyes still use the same direct principles behind this stuff."

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The Peridot blinked behind her visor, bringing her limb enhancer's hand back to idly pat the top of the machine.

  "Expensive to make, though. This must have been some kind of...temple for Aristocrats, maybe?"

  It was 7XE that eventually stepped past the still somewhat hesitant off colour, crossing her arms at the open doorway, eyes narrowed and voice filled with disdain.

  "Nah, I recognized that symbol before it fell away. Whatever this place was, it belonged to rebels at some point."

  ...

  Crystal Gems. No one dared utter the name, but it passed through all three of the Imperials present nonetheless.

  Tensing her fists, Morion glanced back and forth, catching 7XE and the other Jasper's attention, before nodding her head towards the doorway.

  "Alright, we have our orders. Let's check it out."

  Passing through the portal (because that's what it was, from what little she understood), the first thing Morion noticed was the heat. Oppressive, and ever present. It almost reminded her of some of the hotter worlds the Retaliator had sometimes set down on.

  "What the-were they storing Rubies in here or something?"

  The second thing she noticed, was the Gems. She answered 7XE's question quietly, eyes flicking between the absolute army of bubbles stored around them.

  "...Whole lot more than just Rubies, I think."

  There was a sound, as if the other Quartz were preparing to question her, only for it to be aborted into a strangled gasp instead as she likely took in the sight ahead of them.

  Stepping forward slowly, Morion made her way deeper into the chamber. Judging by the sound of footsteps just behind her, the others weren't hesitating to follow, at the very least.

  "What...is this?"

  Glancing around, the soldier noted the lava pouring through dips in the floor, making sure to carefully step over them as she got closer and closer to the center of the room.

  "Not sure. Maybe...maybe these are prisoners?"

  She glanced up as as 7XE strode up next to her, hands on her hips.

  "I remember getting to read through a record once. Apparently the rebels liked to take Gems captive whenever they could during the war. Brainwash 'em into turning traitor."

  Taking in a breath, Morion glanced back at the mass of bubbles.

  "That's...sick. Have-have they been sitting here this whole time?"

  There was something strange about all of them though. Even to an inherently defective Gem like her, their gemstones seemed...wrong. With chaotic patches of colour almost seemingly splashed atop their surfaces.

  "Hey, I found another Jasper! Hold on, maybe she can tell us what's up with this place."

  Morion twisted around, hand lifted to try and stop the other Quartz (they were in what was possibly a rebel base, what if the Gems within were rebels?), only to watch in mild concern as the bubble was popped, the gemstone trapped within (why did it have streaks of blue running across it?) falling to the floor with a clink.

  The Jasper stepped back, loudly slapping her hands atop her knees.

  "C'mon soldier! Time to get back in the fight!"

  As if in direct response to the announcement, a bright glow erupted from the gemstone, the telltale lightform of the warrior held within beginning to take shape.

  Then something...happened. It glitched. Twisting and contorting as protrusions that had no right being where they were began to distort the foreign Jasper's lightform into something else.

  Slowly but surely, the usual form of a Gem began to devolve into something that looked more like some organic beast than anything else.

  The other two remained shocked, but Morion's hand was already going to her own gemstone, long ingrained programming kicking in and summoning her weapon just as the thing pretending to be a Gem roared, throwing itself at them like some kind of mindless defect.

  ---

  The guards got chatty when they were bored. It was how she knew they were above a world a Diamond had died on. How she knew the crew of this Imperial vessel were still looking for the Pearl she'd briefly gotten the chance to interrogate.

  How she knew this failed colony was apparently filled with water, causing their assigned jailors to focus on Brim, rather than her or Talon.

  "Hear what the Peridots have been saying?"

  Tap tap tap.

  "What?"

  Tap tap tap.

  "The fleshies are getting weaker or something. Those weird nutrition cubes have been keeping em going, but they aren't exactly healthy apparently."

  Tap tap tap.

  "Huh...they have been moving around less. Look a bit thinner, too. And not as much squawking."

  It was also how she knew they didn't have much time left. The three of them could afford to wait, probably. But their feathered kin? No. They had to leave. And they had to leave now. Lest the incompetents in charge of them allowed the 'fleshies' she'd all but raised to die of malnutrition.

  And she'd be damned if anyone starved to death when she could do something about it.

  "Hm, well, maybe they'll figure something out."

  The pair of guards turned, moving to complete the rest of their assigned patrol. The patrol that she had meticulously memorized throughout her time trapped in the cell around her.

  She would have approximately eighty five seconds to escape her personal prison, figure out the organisation of the other prisoners, and enact a breakout before the pair of bumbling Jaspers returned. With luck, the three flasks of water stored in her gemstone would be enough for Brim to do something.

  ...There. The footsteps were gone.

  For just a moment, her exposed fingers twitched, claws flexing ever so slightly. Then in a flash of light, a long, flat sheet of metal was drawn out from her gemstone, settling into her grip.

  The Emerald had been smart enough to order physical barriers attached to the cells containing the organic members of their retinue. But she had not been smart enough to realize that simple destabilization fields wouldn't be enough to keep a determined Gem prisoner trapped.

  Typical Imperial overconfidence. But she wouldn't complain, especially as she used the sheet to force a hole in the yellow screen in front of her, lithe form just barely slipping through beneath it.

  Another flash prompted several throwing knives to settle in her hands, even as her previous escape tool fell to the floor with a dull clang.

  Smirking slightly behind her gemstone, Quille glanced around for just a second, before making her way towards the nearest cell to her own.