Back to the Beginning, and Beyond (lapidot)

Waiting for Arrival

And we were on board the ship, no turning back now.  And of course now, it was back to business, for a little while.  As it was Pearl and I who had designed the spacecraft, it was also her and my responsibility to get it off the beach and pointed in the right direction once in space.  The rest of the gems followed us into the main bridge; I guess they were curious to see if we could do what we said we could do.  But I knew for certain that if anything, it would be harder to stop it once we got it going than it would be to launch. It was quite the marvel of a machine.  Everything I knew about modern gem technology - or at least modern the last time I was on Homeworld - and everything Pearl had learned about human technology had been focused into making the beautiful gem of a ship we were all aboard now.  On the outside it looked like any other metal device found on Earth, but on the inside it was the most advanced piece of gadgetry I had ever seen.  Ok, sometimes I get attached to the things I build, but it really was something special.  We had even figured out how to get around some of the "laws" of relativity by using gem warping capabilities, so instead of taking 50 years to reach Homeworld it would only take us 4 days.  

I sat down in the central control pod and honestly, it felt like one of the Star Trek movies Steven had forced me to watch with Connie a thousand years ago.  "Jasper, do I have the proper trajectory and flight course calculated for Homeworld?" I asked the orange gem analyzing the coordinates screen.  "Yes Peridot, everything looks lined up with where our planet should be at this moment in time.  I'd say we were ready for launch."  "Ok, if anyone wants to say goodbye to Earth for hopefully not the last time, now would be it."  I expected someone to say something, but there was complete and utter silence against my eardrums.  I looked through the glass at the front of the craft to see the ocean glistening with reflected light as the moon first crested the horizon, and I knew why they chose not to speak.  This was their home as much as it was mine, more so than Homeworld had ever been.  But the clock was ticking on our plan, and we couldn't draw out the moment forever.  "Right then.  Pearl, do you have the liquid fuel rocket ignition sequence ready?"  Pearl jumped to attention, "Yes Peridot, we're ready to use the human propellant to get outside Earth's gravitational pull, then we can activate the light cannon/warp crystal drive to begin the journey to Homeworld.  Just say the word."  Now it was really it, we were leaving.  "Garnet, Jasper, Steven, Amethyst, Connie, Lapis, Pearl...brace for lift-off in t-minus...

- 5 - The other gems strapped in.

- 4 - I secured myself in too, locking my eyes on the water that lay before us.

- 3 - My gaze drifted over to Lapis, how she seemed on the verge of tears.  I wanted to comfort her.

- 2 - She shuttered and blinked back her tears.  What was going on inside her?

- 1 - I pushed my yearning down deep, for the moment, and concentrated on the thrill that was about to happen."

"Ignition!" Pearl cried, and played the activation sequence on the piano keyboard installed at her station.

I breathed out, for a seemingly infinite amount of time.

My head was thrown back as Newtonian mechanics took over our bodies; I did the calculation on my finger pad.  A glow crept up onto the main display of the ship from the rockets being fired behind us.  Right at the instant my computer said the rocked would cancel gravity, the entire spaceship lurched, and we started moving towards the stars now dancing in the sky.  I turned and saw Jasper kneel where she was secured and place a hand over where her heart would have been on a human, and I understood her humility as a warrior.  Steven and Connie now faced each other, their eyes looking into the other's with solemn acceptance.  Garnet had removed her visor, which was rare even for her, and was staring without blinking into the vastness of the approaching cosmos.  Sapphire and Ruby must be sharing a moment.  There was nothing amiss with Amethyst save for the fact that she was not looking anywhere else except for Pearl controlling the rockets.  All of this I saw as we made our exit from the planet's atmosphere, and finally I stopped to look at Lapis.  She was staring right at me with an expression I could not read.  Everything else around me all but dissolved as we held each other's gaze, the intensity of it deepening.  Her eyes seemed to quiver for an instant and she looked away, only to whip her head back around to face me again, this time her soft cheeks running streams of tears that flew by us as we accelerated with the ship and the tears with gravity.  I was taken aback, and yet I couldn't look away.  I cared so much for her, and hated seeing her terror and sadness so much that it was almost unbearable for me to remain in my seat while doing nothing.  But our bodies remained in place as did our eyes.  What did all of her agony have to do with me?

The thought had only just formed when the heat from the engines reached the front of the spacecraft and I became blind to everything else except for the searing light.  I closed my eyes to my surroundings and thought of nothing as I felt the weight of gravity and our mission weigh down my resolve for the future.  We were en route to a deathtrap by our own making, that much was for sure.  But we had to do it, for the sake of everyone who was counting on us on Earth.  Almost instantly, just as quickly as the heat and light had caught up with us, it was gone, and my eyes flew open to see the display showing a clear view of space, perfectly aligned in the direction we needed to go.  "Peridot, the light-warp drive, now!" Pearl shouted to me.  "Affirmative!" was my response as my detached fingers manipulated the control board to enter the correct sequence for activation.  "Be ready, I'm not sure how fast this thing takes t..." My sentence ended abruptly as the entire craft stuttered to a hault, converting cosmic microwave background radiation into usable energy.  We were all shaken violently as the capacitors reached saturation, and with almost no warning the ship bolted away towards its destination, approaching the speed of light in the process.  Luckily due to some quirks of relativity, we had been able to create artificial gravity at near-light speed without rotating the entire ship around an axis, and this took effect almost immediately after our departure from Earth.  We were on our way, there was nothing else to it.  That simple.  Funny even.  "Jasper, I trust you can handle the landing procedures when we arrive?"  "Of course 'captain'"  She grinned at me, and I chuckled to my self.  Always the war hero.  Lapis had recovered herself, and was now looking shocked and dazed more than conflicted and torn, as she had been a moment ago.  Time seemed to slow down at that moment, and only one thought was able to make its way to my conscious mind.

Now we wait.