Lavender looked at Gold with a sad look to her eyes. "I-is there nothing you like to do?" she asked. "E-even the things Amber scolded you for."
"Oh, well...Amber scolded me for everything, so I never really got to do anything," Gold admitted, thinking about what Lavender had asked for a moment. "I...guess I don't really know what I like to do. I...like dancing, I think, and sometimes I played around with Amber's tech equipment, and that was fun? She never let me do fusion or anything, though. And besides, I don't...well, the kind of dancing I like is...not the kind Pearls usually do." As she admitted to doing something Pearls didn't usually do and doing something that was outright touching Amber's things, her cheeks flushed a bright orange. "B-but that's not--I'm not--I didn't mean that I would disobey Amber or anything! She left the things out sometimes and just assumed I wouldn't touch it, she never--she didn't explicitly tell me not to touch it, it's not like I was breaking any rules!"
Tektite's eyes lit up as Gold mentioned Amber's equipment. "Oh my stars, that stuff is really fun! I can tell you all about it if you want, I know a lot about it...it's kinda my specialty." She blushed and looked away, worried that she was being annoying.
Gold hesitated, glancing at Tektite, clearly torn. On the one hand, she definitely wanted to learn more about it all--especially if it meant she might be able to be more useful down the line. On the other hand, Amber had always said she was too stupid to learn anything about it... "A-are you sure you want to teach a Pearl about it?" Gold finally asked Tektite, her tone uncertain, as she was worried Tektite would realize she was talking to an idiotic Pearl and change her mind.
Lavender herself also lit up! She'd love to see Gold dance one day. Maybe dance with her. But she was also glad to see Tektite so open and enthusiastic and so she just grinned as brightly and warmly as she could and nodded encouragingly at both of them.
It is probably incredibly disarming to the Gold Pearl that Spinel is smiling at her. "No hidden self, huh?"
Melo giggles a bit at Spinel's comment, then proceeds to snuggle back into Lavender, glad the conversations in the ship had gotten a bit lighter.
"I am!" Tektite replied with a broad grin--finally, someone who was interested! "I mostly focus on the warp system, but I know a lot about communication devices too." She pointed to her headset. "I mostly used this for communicating with my supervisors when I was working away from them, but sometimes I'd use it to eavesdrop, even though you're not supposed to. Don't tell anyone, though."
Gold turned an even brighter orange at Spinel's comment. "U-um, w-well, I-I...I guess I do?" she said, a bit uncertainly. When Tektite spoke again, Gold offered her a tentative smile. "All right. Well...how does it work? I'm...afraid that fiddling around with Amber's stuff never gave me much of an idea. Also, what's it like working with the warp system? How do the warps work?" She suddenly realized she might be overwhelming Tektite with questions and promptly clammed up again.
Gray heard the defense drones before she saw them on her screens. The low buzzing was unmistakable, even underneath the humming of her ship. Um. Labradorite's ship. She bit her lip. Black Opal was still not on board. Gray had less than seconds to make this call and she hated it. But she had to do it. As far as she could tell, the Opal hadn't even left Tourmaline's ship. Gray set her jaw and pressed the control to shut the door. There were surprised shouts from the back, but they abruptly turned to shouts of surprise as Gray then slammed the ship straight forward, weaving deep into the slim back alleys, wrenching the controls side to side as she zipped through the crystal canyons. She was aiming for the newer sections of the metropolis - the shiny sections. Gray hoped that the rising sun would add an extra layer of camouflage to their escape, extra glinting being not only attributed to the massive and complex crystalline structures, but also hopefully throwing off the drones' (and any actual Gem-run ships') sensors off. As she moved into the maze, she saw Tourmaline's ship lifting into the sky on her main readout. Luckily, she also saw several smaller ships swinging around to follow it - not all of them, some kept criss-crossing the surrounding blocks - but it didn't look like any were directly following her. She had to cross a large open thoroughfare to get to the new section of the city. If any Diamond-loyal forces were waiting on the perimeter of this section, this was where they were likely to see her - the split seconds where the stealth systems recalibrated to match the new surroundings. The little ship shot out over the ground, far too close to the earth for most pilots' comfort. The cloaking flickered, then stabilized. Gray moved into a gentle swerving pattern, rather than making a direct line - harder to follow, if slightly easier to see. They were almost through the no-man's land when the stealth systems flickered again...and died entirely. Alarms blared through the ship, every light flashed red, and Gray felt her heart sink into her stomach as her brain went into overdrive. Check the systems. Ah. The main energy crystal had overheated. Why hadn't the secondary cut in? No time to run a diagnostic. Labradorite must not have wired it in, intentionally or not. The primary was built for long-haul low-power camo. That was what she had done. No need for the secondary to be on auto, she would have been able to switch it manually ninety-nine percent of the time. That didn't help them now, of course. Gray could see contacts appearing on her screen, following her. Shards. She shouted back into the hold. "I need someone to hook the secondary power crystal into the grid now!" She hit the throttle and shot forward into the crystal walls, as per the plan. This was considerably harder with the extra visual feedback - and while this was certainly making it harder for the other ships' sensors, it would be remarkably easy for them to follow her visually. A laser shot slammed into her aft port corner, rocking her. Gray swore under her breath and ducked further into the crystal. Easier to follow...but hopefully harder to hit.
Lavender shrieked but held onto Melo as tightly as she could. "I-i don't know how!" she said to the other gems present, looking around in panic. Who... Her eyes locked on Tektite and Gold. "Please!" she said to them. Both- Either of them. Hopefully one of them would be able to fix this!
Melo yelped and held onto Lavender in response. When she spoke her suggestion Melo's brain clicked "I think it might be back in the utility room, down the hallway and on the right side, its the techy room in the ship!"
Gold took a deep breath. She could actually be useful, but it was now or never, and she had to get over her panic and do something. She unbuckled herself, nodded at Melo, and dashed off down to the utility room, heading down the hallway until she reached a room that was full of flashing panels and wires. There was no time to ask Tektite to come--she assumed the other Gem would follow if she could, but she couldn't take the risk that Tektite was panicking too much to help. She had to know how to do this. She'd messed around with enough tech stuff--it couldn't be that hard! Her eyes surveyed the room, until they landed on a crystal in a corner. There--it had to be the secondary power crystal, right? "Well, here's hoping," she mumbled to herself, grabbing it and thrusting it into the hole that was clearly built for a second crystal. She waited until the crystal lit up, and then ran back out to the hold, calling out, "Gray, did it work?"
Gray, after shouting back to the hold for assistance, enters her own little world out of necessity for their survival in the incredibly tight maze of crystal she herself has put them in. This little world is made of flashing lights, lines of text scrolling by too fast for anyone outside this world to read, and the feel of the ship cradling her body. She is focusing on two readouts, which are layered overtop of one another, directly in front of her: the frontal camera view, and the immediate-vicinity proximity sensor data. Her hands are dancing over the tactile interface, fingertips controlling with flicks and glides the pitch, yaw, and roll of the craft via the maneuvering thrusters, while her feet, hovering over the secondary throttle interfaces below the console, tap the power flow going to the direct impulse thrusters. All she sees is angular facets of light in different colours. She is parsing the sensory data without being conscious of it, interpreting it as nuances of the visual datastream. She is rapidly running out of power in her main buffer. If that secondary power crystal doesn't kick in in the next few moments then they will run out of energy and Gray will only be gliding forward, and that will not last long, and she will not be able to maneuver the ship, and they will crash. There will not be enough space for the craft to lose much speed before they hit the crystals, and at the speed she has them going there will certainly be no incorporate survivors. She is not even sure there would be any disincorporate survivors. She can feel the ship losing its life around her. The controls are beginning to be sluggish - a shift that should take nanoseconds was taking microseconds. She taps the forward thruster and the ship pushes forward instead of jumping forward. They are nowhere near being out of this figurative minefield. Gray has opened her mouth to apologize to all of them, under her breath - none of them would have time to process anything and perhaps it would be better if they did not know it was coming - and then her right index finger twitches to curl the ship around a low spire, probably one of the last things she will ever do-- --and the little craft jolts midway through the turn, power surging through its wires, and Gray unconsciously catches her breath as she readjusts their trajectory to compensate. She feels the ship level out from the initial reconnection surge, and she risks moving her left hand millimeters further to the left to re-key the stealth systems into existence. A couple more hairpins and a short dive and the visual data streaming in front of her changes drastically as suddenly there are next to no reflections from their craft on the gleaming crystals. It's almost easy from there. She doesn't hear Gold calling in from the hold; she is still fully in her world as she loses their pursuers in the depths of the crystalline structures before diving gracefully down into the reclamation catacombs below the main city. These tunnels are ancient - reclamation is a far smaller, cleaner process now. This would be a sensible place for Homeworld to search for them, of course. There are levels upon levels down into the ground, and Gray suspects that Homeworld will think the Pearls would simply hide down there...but that would be an incredibly stupid and short-sighted thing to do, because of course, given enough time, the Homeworld forces would find them. Unfortunately for Homeworld, this bunch of Pearls was not short-sighted and stupid, and Gray knew precisely the best ways to navigate through the catacombs to find each of their destinations. Gray slows the ship into a gentle drift, aiming down a long narrow tunnel which will get them, in several minutes, to Onyx's neighbourhood. She kills the stealth systems, trusting that they are far enough down in the rock that their signature will be hidden. Even a few minutes' rest will be good for the systems. She sinks back into her chair, feeling her limbs loosen and her brain slow. "We made it," she murmurs. Then, realizing those in the hold are unlikely to hear her, she keys the intercom with her chin and repeats herself, slightly louder. "We made it," she says, "we're underground. We'll be at Onyx's in about ten minutes. Now you can all get dressed up."
Gold breathed a sigh of relief. She'd done the right thing, and they weren't dead. Fantastic. Wonderful! Then she collapsed back into her chair, mumbling a, "Good luck," in the general direction of Lavender. Diamonds, but panicking like that was tiring, and she just didn't have it in her to even care much what happened next anymore. She needed...to rest.
"Stars and Shards..." Lavender gasps. "That was awesome, Gray! A-and Gold." she gets out after a few more shaky breaths. She does not realize she's still clinging to Melo as if the little Pearl was literally tethering her to reality.
Spinel, as she'd planned, swings mostly freely as the ship swerves around, keeping her legs pulled up to her chest to avoid kicking anyone else in the little open space. Once the ship settles, she drops to the floor and stretches. "That's that, then," she says. "Let's get moving before they send someone to investigate."
Gray slips the stealth ship into the shuttle bay at Onyx's, remotely keying the doors in front and behind them. She then unclips herself from her seat and slowly lifts the straps off her shoulders and hips, letting them drop and slide back to tautness. It is only when she tries to stand that she realizes she's shaking, and she takes a couple breaths to steady herself before wobbling into the hold. "Here we are," she says. "We should have plenty of time. Onyx didn't employ anyone else, and I have full access to the whole living space. It's not as if a Pearl would get into any trouble, after all."
Lavender looks up at Gray and blinks a bit. "W-who do you want t-to take with you? M-maybe n-not all of us s-should go...?" she says, unsure if that's actually a sensible thing to say or not. Maybe she's talking like a stupid pebble again. She is kind of dub as dirt sometimes, after all.
Gold mumbled a quiet and slightly belated, "Thank you," in Lavender's direction, and then tried to calm herself and stop shaking. Diamonds, that was scary. But...but she'd done it. She...hadn't been completely useless.
