*huff, huff* "Stupid planet! *argh* You have talent you should join the tech corps they said. It'll be easy they said. There's nothing out there, the dominate species is threatening to wipe themselves out they said *huff* but now I'm the one stuck here on this stupid freaking planet!"

Peridot reached for another rock and picked it up. "Stupid crystal gems." The rock slipped out of her grip and landed with a thud on her good foot. "OW! I swear the first chance I get I am going to blow this planet up."

It had been weeks since her last encounter with the aforementioned gems but the scars were still fresh. Peridot reached down and scratched at the edge of the stump where her leg had been just a few weeks prior. Her fingers bumped against the wood used to make her prosthetic. Granted, calling it a prosthetic would be an insult even to the pirates of old. This was, more or less, a block of wood she had strapped to her stump. Arts and crafts never really was Peridot's thing to begin with.

"Scratch that." She said. "First I'm going to get a new leg then I'm going to blow up this miserable planet."

There was still a phantom pain where the appendage had been but if she hadn't jettisoned it she would have been caught or worse, bubbled. Instead she was in the middle of nowhere on a remote planet digging through what remained of the communications hub with a crude, handmade prosthetic for a leg. Not the most ideal situation.

*gah* "If only Jasper hadn't been so focused on Rose and insisting we take prisoners. If only she had just broken their gems and helped me on my mission like I asked her to then I could be home by now, this miserable planet would be nothing but space dust, and she wouldn't-"

Peridot stopped talking. Something bright red glowed from within the rubble. She knocked away the surrounding debris and picked it up for a closer examination. Her normally green complexion lit up crimson in the light of the crystal.

"Finally, looks like I will be going home after all."

000

"W-wait, you're leaving?" Steven stopped in his tracks along the residential sidewalk. The afternoon summer air suddenly had a chill to it.

*GAH* "I know, right?" Connie shouted "It's like my parents don't even care about my development. Seriously, I am going to live and die alone. No friends, no marriage, no kids, just some old lady who lived in every small U.S. town on the map and nothing to show for it!"

"But it's not like you're leaving, leaving? I mean you're only moving down the block or something, right?" Steven asked knowing full well that he was grasping at straws. Connie would never have been this upset if she were just moving a few blocks.

"Far, Steven. I'm moving several states over. My dad got another security contract somewhere in Florida and mom was talking about opening up her own practice or something like that."

"B-but you like it here." Steven stammered. "I-I mean they have to see that…don't they?"

*Sigh* "Maybe Steven, maybe they do and maybe they don't but I mean my mom was talking about opening her own private practice. She was even going over real estate options with some guy on the phone the other day. I don't think it really matters if this is what I want. It's going to happen."

She punctuated her frustration by kicking the nearest pebble on the sidewalk. Her sandal sent it arcing through the air before landing on the hood of a very expensive looking car. It hit the metal with a loud *thunk* followed by a blaring alarm that echoed around the neighborhood.

Steven felt as if her words had punched the air out of his lungs. "We, uh we should…"

"Yeah" Connie said too angry to care about the car. "We should go." She took Steven's hand in hers and half guided, half dragged him through the suburban maze of houses till they were a safe distance from the car.

Finally Steven built up the courage to speak. "Connie I know this has to be hard but-"

*Argh* "This is just like my parents!" Connie shouted, her sudden outburst causing Steven to flinch. *sigh* "Uh, Sorry Steven I didn't… It just makes me so angry when they keep doing this to me and each time it's always "Don't worry Connie this will be the last time, we promise" but it never is. Look, I'm sorry for dumping all of this on you at once I'm just…I'm just going to head home. I'll call you later on tonight when I know more, okay?"

Without even waiting for a reply Connie turned and headed down the street towards her house leaving Steven on the corner feeling more lost than he ever thought possible.

000

"I can't believe she's leaving town!" Steven shouted as he flopped backwards onto the couch. He let his head fall back as he stared up at the wooden beams on the ceiling of his beach side house.

"Why do you even care dude? She's just human it's not like you weren't going to outlive her anyways." Amethyst said as she shoved a slice of pie into her mouth, swallowing it whole. No one was sure where she had found it or how old it could be. At present, Steven couldn't care less.

"I know you and your friend were…uh, are close but maybe you should start looking at this in terms of the positives." Pearl interjected as she tried to distance herself from the gooey mess Amethyst was making.

Steven stared at her with incredulousness etched on his face. "What good could come from Connie leaving!?"

"Uh, well…I mean I was only trying to…hm, okay think of it like this, you and Connie have spent the whole summer together to the point where she's the only person you hang out with any more. You know what they say: when one door closes another is just opening up. Maybe this is your chance to go out there and meet new people. You know, make new friends and really broaden your horizons."

Steven knew he should be mad. For all her smarts Pearl could be a little thick when it came to people and dealing with emotions. He could feel a small bubble of anger rising up in him but it quickly popped before hitting the surface. Really, she was just trying to help him in her own way.

*Sigh* "Thanks Pearl but I'm not so sure it'll be that easy. I…I don't know. Can't you guys like, you know force Connie's parents to stay here in beach city. I mean I'm not saying kidnap them or anything but at the same time…" Steven let the last of his sentence fall off.

Amethyst burst out laughing *ha, ha* "Dude, you did not just ask that."

Pearl's eyes narrowed "Steven! I am going to try and forget that you just asked us to use our powers on humans and I'll attribute it to stressed emotions but I swear young man, if you ever-"

"Enough!" Garnet shouted. She had been largely silent ever since Steven had burst into the house sobbing and told them everything. She walked over to Steven and put a hand on his shoulder. "I am sorry about your friend Steven I really am, but there is nothing anyone can do now. You heard Connie it's already a done deal and we need to respect her parent's wishes-"

"But-"

"I'm not finished, Steven. What I was going to say is that while there is nothing you can do to stop it you can ensure what time you have left is memorable and frankly that's better than most people can hope for." Garnet finished.

Of course Steven knew she was right. she was always right. He wasn't sure how much of that was future vision or just good instincts but ultimately this was just something he was going to have to accept. "Yeah, you're right." Steven sighed. "Maybe I can't stop it but I'm at least going to make sure that Connie has the best last day in Beach City ever."

000

Dr. Cline Kessler took another sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup and grimaced. Straight black. He hated the taste but his wife insisted no sugars of any sort in his new diet and he wasn't about to give up coffee.

"So anything show up on the screens while I was gone?"

Cline's co-worker Phil snorted as he sat reclining in his black leather office chair. "Heh, has there ever been anything on these screens, ever?"

It was true. NASA's deep space probe program had not sent any long range data back to command since its initial launch back in the 70's. As of this moment most of the probes were supposed to be floating somewhere beyond the rim of the solar system and were long thought to be dead. Still, NASA needed the probes and about a dozen other projects looked after if only to waste tax payer money. Kessler was the newest in a long line of project directors which really meant that his superiors had no idea what to do with him for the time being.

Cline scratched the bald patch forming on the top of his head. "So…how are the wife and kids doing? Jake should be graduating any time now right?"

beep

"What the hell was that?"

"Nothing" grumbled cline's subordinate. "Probably just another glitch in the system. You know we don't have the best computers down here. The higher ups don't think-"

beeeeeeeep boom brom

Unconsciously cline let the styrofoam cup slip from between his fingers. He didn't notice the cup crashing to the floor or the hot coffee that spilled over his pant leg. "T-that wasn't a glitch. That was a response! Quick before we lose the signal. Which probe did that come from?"

Before for he could even register the significance of the signal Phil was typing away on the keyboard. "It looks like deep space probe AD998 sir."

Cline scratched at his bald patch again. "That probe went offline ages ago. What the hell? Try sending a response and see what we get."

Phil typed in a sequence of numbers and issued a command for the probe to respond in the affirmative.

bing bing brom

It was a full fifteen minutes of waiting with baited breath before they got a response. What the tiny basement office in NASA's Kennedy Space Center received was a screen full of static.

Cline was stunned "My god, this might be it! Holy crap … Uh, I mean try running it through our video filters the signal might not be audio."

Cline was right, as usual. The green tinted figure that appeared on screen made him smile for the first time in many years. He was going to be known as the first person in history to communicate with an alien civilization.