Stevonnie Forever

Pod

    Stevonnie returned to the school with their small satchel of Rose's water, and their backpack. Seeing the pod strew across the ground, it occurred to them that such a pod might just have some valuable information. Investigating the wreck further, they found that the console was mostly intact. They attempted to boot it up, only to realize that the console, being reactive to gem magic, is unusable by them unless they use a vial. Judging it to be worthwhile, they splashed a vial onto their face and began to operate the console.

     Sifting through the files took a little while, as they had to filter through several days of irrelevant reports that space was still empty. Apparently policy was to report daily. Finding their mission, Stevonnie was taken aback. The gems had come in effort to wake up the cluster. They were a part of a planet-wide mission to attack any form of containment, terrestrial or otherwise, that could be inhibiting formation. It struck Stevonnie as odd, it was written as though it was known that their bubble was there, but as to not inform the gems on the mission. No greater information was present in the open access database, but luckily, it was an Era 1 model, which ment that there was an override of the Diamonds to let them view all files on the general servers, meaning anything short of what's on the Diamonds personal consoles. More important, as an Era 1 model and not an Era 2 model, it was configured to work for Pink; they could use it. Activating the override, they found a little more information. It would seem that the Homeworld forces were mostly unaware of any Crystal gem presence on Earth, present or past, as there was no files on them. Furthermore, it would seem that there was a secondary plan for if they couldn't get the cluster to reform; and it truly put them on edge. It said that should the cluster fail to form, colonization of Earth was to continue. The only thing that overshadowed even that however was a notable absence of every file from when Steven first arrived on Homeworld, to around a year ago, along with every file referencing Pink Diamond, the gem war, and Era 3. Something was being hidden. Transferring the data to their phone; they sent it to Garnet along with their observations. They then returned to the school before being swiftly called to the principal.

    They sat down, and the principal took a deep breath. "Ok, so at least the cafeteria wasn't destroyed again; the courtyard is easier to repair, and you did save the school, so you aren't in trouble; but I need to know, is the school in danger of future attacks."

    "Well at the moment at least, no more than the rest of the planet. Right now, the gems don't know I'm still alive."

    "Then why did they attack the school?"

    "They were attacking the whole planet to get to a geoweapon inside of it, that up until a month ago, my powers were keeping in check."

    "Should I be worried about that."

    "There's no point; no human can do anything about it."

     The principal took a swig from his water bottle, and dismissed them. By this point, the school day had ended, so they went to return to their dorms. Suddenly they got a call from Garnet saying to meet Peridot at the pod. Stevonnie hurries there

     "Hello Stevonnie; Garnet told me that you would need my help drafting a fake log entry."

     "Well I guess I do; I don't really know the conventions; that wasn't something I really had to do much of while on Homeworld."

    "Ok, what do you want it to say, and I'll help with putting it into formatting, and backdating the signal so it looks like a delayed transmission."

    "Well I guess I want it to give some reason that they ship would have gone down, without involving me or anyone else, yet not seeming stupid to the point of being unrealistic."

    "Well we could say the gravity engine regulator malfunction while exciting warp, causing the formation of a localized black hole. That would also explain the delayed signal."

    "This old era one ship has a gravity engine? I thought only the Diamond Ships had that kinda hardware back then."

     "It's been upgraded. Likely had its original solar wings torn in a cosmic storm. Now then, how does that sound?"

     "Sure, sounds fine." Peridot got to work, while Stevonnie made a little chat. "So I thought you were on reconnaissance on Homeworld; why are you here"

     "Garnet said that you wouldn't be able to finish before your powers would wear out, which would trigger the ships automated security. Furthermore the ship logs the rank of whatever gem uses it and sends that information as well. I'm the same rank as your average gem, so I won't stick out, but a Diamond, that would be noticeable."

     "Well couldn't any gem have done this?"

     "I was getting to that. My expertise in working with gem tech also means I am significantly less likely to get caught."

     "Wouldn't most peridots have similar enough skillsets to do this?"

     "I am offended that you would compare me to other peridots, but it doesn't matter. The Diamonds are aware of my presence and are trying to stop me; so they have singled out peridots in their attacks in hopes to catch me. I'm the last Peridot still allied with the Crystal Gems." Stevonnie shuddered at the thought, remembering the room of bubble Rose Quartzes. They knew that those Quartz had been released, but the thought still bothered them. Peridot finished writing the message, before bidding them farewell and warping off.