Chương 39: LOG-035.

The hum of the Retaliator's power core reverberated through the ship as it hurtled through FTL, the vibrant colors of the Warp stream swirling and dancing beyond the viewports. The crew bustled about in the midst of their duties, executing their tasks with the precision of well-practiced routine. However, a palpable tension hung in the air, a lingering unease that no one dared to voice.

Something she couldn't truly blame them for, especially considering they still didn't know why she'd become so tense since giving the order to leave. Her own thoughts didn't change the reality however. Emerald still stood at the center of the bridge, her cape billowing slightly as she paced back and forth in front of her command throne. She could feel the eyes of her crew, her subordinates, her Gems on her, even if they tried to disguise their worried and curious glances as casual.

It had gotten quiet now, with even the usual inter-ship chatter or mumbled conversations having disappeared in favour of a cold, uneasy silence. That silence could only last so long, however. Most of her expected and acknowledged that irrefutable fact, even as a stubborn part of her cursed the bridge crew for daring to ask questions she was in no way ready to answer. Citrine Facet 2I5C, Cut 7XA was a loyal soldier, and had been part of the crew near the beginning.

She couldn't quite remember a time without the Quartz, in fact. It felt like the bodyguard and her twin had been assigned to Emerald pretty much fresh out of the Kindergarten, back when she'd been given her first commands and assigned the Retaliator.

So it wasn't entirely shocking that it was one of her oldest and most experienced Gems that broke the apparent spell that had taken hold of the bridge, attempting to appear undisturbed next to her fellow Citrine as she leaned up against a nearby wall, her golden arms crossed.

"My Emerald, if I may... why are we heading back to the previous battlefield?" The Quartz almost shrunk in on herself for a moment as several incredulous looks were sent her way, before rallying with the supportive nod of her batchmate.

"N-not that I don't think we should be starting our search as fast as we can! But... shouldn't we be... you know... linking up with the rest of the fleet? Or whatever's left of it. We're just one ship now." At the latter half, murmurs of eventual agreement and confusion rippled through the bridge. Emerald clenched her fists once more, struggling to find the right words. She had known this moment would come, but that didn't make it any easier. White Diamond's Dead Star... she hoped this wouldn't break the-no.

No, they were tougher than that. They'd adapt. Like they always had. They had to. Taking a breath, the fleet admiral did her best to face her entire bridge crew. The news would need to be relayed to the Gems amongst the other decks as well. Normally she'd have Viridian or Sixteen A do that... but that wasn't an option now. She'd just have to deliver the news personally. They'd have time while travelling through the Warp, after all.

Realising that the entire bridge was still staring at her, Emerald bit back a hiss of embarassment and just... let it out.

"I need you all to listen... carefully." The green Gem began, her voice steady but strained.

"We're not going to rejoin the fleet because... well because we can't." And just like that, everyone fell silent once more, the crew staring at her with wide eyes. Confusion quickly turning to apprehension as her own expression remained more than a little stony.

It was one of the Jaspers that eventually spoken up first, their own inner programming demanding the conversation pick up the pace already, and Emerald would have reprimanded the infantry Gem for speaking out of turn if it weren't for just how cracked the situation was already. Besides, how could she possibly expect them to follow rules when she was supposed to be their ever shining example?

"What do you mean, we can't?" The question felt more like a demand from the Quartz, her teeth gnashing slightly from her position at the weapons console.

"We have our orders, don't we?" Stars damn it all.

"The orders have changed in such a way that... I can no longer follow them." Shocked looks were just about the reaction she had expected, a few gasps ensuing as the crew slowly realised their commanding officer was refusing to follow a command. It was one of the Peridots that stood up as Emerald repressed a wince at her poor choice of words, eyes wide behind her visor.

"B-but you can't do that! We have to follow the chain of comman-""I've been ordered to send all of you to Harvesting." At the very least, she was getting used to the lapses in silence as the entire bridge had their collective reality fall out from beneath them. In fact, she could almost even pretend she were merely toying with them, rather than acting as the harbinger of literally the worst news ever. Hastily bringing her hands together, the fleet admiral (with no actual fleet to call her own, now...) tried to put on a smile. Judging by the myriad of flinches that answered whatever expression she'd made, it hadn't come out quite right. Oh well.

"Blue Diamond arrived during my sentencing. I was to be spared, given a new ship even, and the rest of you were to be Harvested, to act as an example for the rest of the Gems involved in the operation." Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. It was both fascinating and horrifying, watching a Gem's entire world fall out from under them in real time. And then seeing that same process repeat for over a dozen separate, distinct individuals.

A few of them were mouthing her words back to themselves, while others were glancing around rapidly, most of them staring at the view screens, as if just remembering that she had ordered them into Warp space. The Jasper that had been so eager to question her leaned forward against her station, one hand coming up to desperately cradle her head.

"W-we did our jobs... didn't we?" Emerald nodded.

"You did. I... attempted to make a case for you all. Blue Diamond was adamant. She wanted the Retaliator scrapped as well." Another Peridot glanced at her own station in mild horror.

"But... but then shouldn't we be...?" Once more, Emerald nodded.

"In a scrapyard watching the ship get ripped open, and then having your forms discorporated before you all get sent off to processing, yes." It was massively innapropriate, but she really couldn't fault the technician Gem for letting her head impact the console in front of her with an almost comical thunk.

"But we're not. Which means you disobeyed direct orders. Which means we disobeyed direct orders. Which means we're... we're...!" Slowly, Emerald sat back down in the command throne, eyes inspecting one of the status bars hovering in front of her as the Retaliator began to hum with the usual effect of a ship preparing to exit the Warp.

"Completely and utterly defective. Believe me, I'm not at all happy about it either, considering I'm going to have to be the one to explain this to the Rubies." A singular eye turned to look at her, before the Peridot groaned the groan of a Gem who intrinsically knew she was well and truly cracked.

"Translating out of Warp space in three... two... one. Let's hope we're the only Imperial ship still here..." The familiar, almost disorienting sensation of her vessel sliding back into reality washed over Emerald, followed shortly by the dozen or so callouts that usually ensued after moving exiting FTL. The bridge crew responded with practiced efficiency, their voices blending into a familiar symphony of comforting precision and order.

Her eyes narrowed as the display screens began to accept data from the Retaliator's exterior sensors, relaying what they saw back to her. A slowly spreading graveyard greeted the cruiser, ship hulks drifting apart or sometimes into each other all around them, even as the Retaliator deftly manoeuvred past a trio of very visibly burnt out robonoid corvettes, their once gleaming hulls utterly charred from the previous skirmish.

Standard procedure would have a dedicated salvage fleet sent here in time, both to repair or break down what ships were left, and to recover any surviving Gems potentially still trapped within said ships. It was something she was very much thankful for, namely because it meant they had time to go about their own investigation without having to worry about contending with confused salvagers questioning what a fully functioning warship was doing loitering about in their operating zone.

She wouldn't dare order any rescue operations, however. It'd effectively be dooming any Gems they picked up to a similar fate as to what would befall her and her own crew, should the Empire ever get hold of them. No, any survivors would unfortunately just have to tough it out and wait for a proper recovery force.

"Mm." Her finger tapped against one of the armrests of her command throne as she considered the sight, before clicking her tongue in approval.

"Communications. See if you can establish a link with some of those nearby automated ships. Self repair protocols may have brought some of their more critical systems back online by now and if we're lucky, they won't have had time to connect to a proper network. To them, our credentials are still valid." Truly, even now, the wonders of modern technology never ceased to amaze. Robonoid piloted spacecraft were relatively cheap to construct, and far more robust compared to more traditional Gem crewed vessels.

The rather sharp trade off for those benefits was that they needed a dedicated overseer ship for anything beyond relatively simplistic tasks. No one wanted a mining drone chasing a civilian freighter around after accidentally classifying it as a resource filled asteroid, after all. Regardless of the admiral's inner thoughts, a quick affirmative answered her command, swiftly followed by the light tone of a console being accessed. If nothing else, her Gems were rather clearly more than eager to get back to work.

Anything to provide some temporary semblance of normality before they were inevitably forced to confront the fact that they were technically all rebels now. Emerald could very much sympathize with such a sentiment, even if it made her feel like even more of a dirt covered failure.

"Checking." A second passed. Two.

"... Nothing from the first one. Moving on to the second." Finally, her eyes turned to regard the displayed forms of several vessels that had belonged to the enemy fleet. The silvery things had been shiny, once. Something she could almost appreciate if it weren't such an utterly vile mimicry of proper Imperial designs. And yet those same mimicries were but mere husks now, all silently drifting through the void. No signals emitted from them, the primitive warships empty of any signs of activity.

Though it meant little, she nonetheless glared rather hard as she recognised the specific vessel that the Roaming Eye had escaped from during the first initial engagements.

"Second corvette is responding positively. Her engines are online at least, though the rest of the poor thing took a pretty bad beating. Weapons and navigational spikes are beyond fried. I'll... see if I can slave the core to our own sensors for now. That should help her out." Then she blinked, right as she noticed several smaller shapes holding somewhat steadily away from the husk. Far, far smaller, though they shared that same silver design and looked far more intact than their apparent mothership.

"Trying the third one... nothing. Looks like this one's power core was overloaded outright, likely due to all the violently energized material being thrown around that area from the agitated Essence blast-""Wait." The Peridot paused in the midst of her rambling, blinking as Emerald continued to peer at the smaller shapes.

"... Some of my view screens are displaying organic signatures aboard those smaller constructs. And Gem lifesigns. Sensors, confirm!" A tense moment passed as the Retaliator diverted its full attention to the slowly spiralling warship, alongside the broken vessel's small flock of satellite constructs even as the cruiser's newly slaved corvette took up a close escort position beside it. Well, at the very least she technically commanded a fleet of ships now. Even if it was in the most pitiful sense of the word.

"Confirmed, my Emerald! They're powered and practically stuffed with them. Yeugh... probably whatever amounts to escape pods for those primitives..." Slowly, the admiral felt an almost feral grin stretch her lips wide apart, her teeth bared in delight. After all, if her own memory wasn't betraying her, and she rather liked to think it wasn't, that meant the surviving crew of the vessel that her Pearls had likely been trapped on were all crowded aboard those flimsy looking lifecraft.

Leaning forward, the green command Gem waved a hand at the icons indicating her first true potential lead as to where her dear Viridian might have gone.

"Advance and activate the forward tractor beams. We'll take them in one by one. Have capture teams prepared as well. I want at least three squads worth of Quartzes and a swarm of Rubies waiting in the main hangar to deal with any unruly survivors. Prepare the brig for long term incarceration of hostile Gems as well. I'm certain interrogating those wretches will get us something out of this mess." Potential answers, hopefully.

Especially if they managed to pick up just where Viridian and Sixteen A might have jumped to in their panic to escape the blast while she beat some cracking answers out of her Pearls' former captors. She had a path to go down, now. A route to search. Alongside an entire breakeryard's worth of starships that she could pick apart to keep the Retaliator running far, far longer than it should without proper maintenance, refueling and resupply at an Imperial station. Truly, things were finally starting to look up.