Rogue

Chapter Three

Marcasite

Warping back to my apartment, I start to pack a bag with everything I could need. I stuff it with a few notes I have and maps of Earth.

I look around my apartment for anything else I might need. My room is a somewhat rocky terrain, and has yellow geodes and crystals on the walls and floor. Then I remember something.

Running to one of the shelves on the walls, I pick up a small rectangular object. My trainer had gotten it from Earth and had called it a camera. He said that it could capture any moment and save it forever. Then he took a picture of me and showed me how to take one myself. I add it to my bag as well and my new destabilizer. I've never used it on anything alive.

I jump on to a warp pad, thinking of hangar 289.

I find myself in a massive room with small space ships that could fit ten gems to one. I look at a sign and read their names until I find the Scarlet. The ship is not small but it's not huge. It is a bright red, sleek and most definitely made for speed.

When I find the hatch open and the small walkway leading into the ship, I quickly make my way up it. When I get to the control bridge, I find Luna sitting in the pilot's seat, warming up the ship's jets.

"You were going to leave without me?" I ask jokingly.

"Well you can stay here," Luna replies, not joking. "I can do this on my own. It won't be easy, especially for your first mission. I am used to working alone."

"Are you kidding? Why would I ever pass up an opportunity like this? My first mission. Not to mention I just talked to Yellow Diamond herself," I say.

"How much combat training do you have?" She asks.

"I have over forty years logged." I tell her. "But don't underestimate me." I have a few tricks of my own, I think. Then I imagine Luna in my mind, and I feel my skin move and reform into a nearly exact replica of Luna. The only part that is different is that I can't get rid of my own gem.

She sighs, and turns around in the chair facing me, and gasps, "You're a shifter?"

"Yeah," I say in her voice.

"I have never seen one in real life, only read about them. I thought that they were nearly extinct." She says as she stands up and looks at me.

"They are, but I just got lucky that I was a defect," I say. Shifters can take on the form of anyone and anything, human or gem or animal. But it can take up a lot of energy, so usually it will make the user tired.

"That is amazing." She says as I shift back to my regular form. "Okay let's go." Then she sits back down at the controls, and pulls at her fingerless gloves. "This is the Scarlet, ship S-857 and pilot 0051, requesting permission to leave hangar 289." She says into a microphone on the ship.

"This in control center 0051, ship S-857 is clear to leave hanger 289." Replies a voice.

I jump into another seat and feel the ship jolt forward as it starts making its way to the door in the hangar that leads to open space. Soon, the ship is off the floor, and out the door, and we are in space. I look out the window at all the stars.

"Woooooow," I say quietly and hear Luna laugh.

"I was just like you the first time I went into space," she tells me. "It's a whole lot different from looking at it from the ground, isn't it?"

"Completely," I reply, and then we are quiet for a minute. "What sector of Earth are we going to be in?"

"Sector 73 of the Northern Hemisphere, in the United States of North America, and the state of New Jersey, in a town called Crystal Cove." Luna says while tapping a button, and a projection of Earth comes up to her side. There is a little dot in the United States on the coast, apparently where we are going.