"Here in this court today, the Diamonds will decide upon who will acquire the planet, HL-D-8911 of the Lepidolite Galaxy" announced Yellow Pearl. The hardly lit room was illuminated by large holographs of the different planets and moons in the Lepidolite Galaxy and a few holoscreens were held in front of the associates of the Diamonds.

Blue Diamond arose from her throne to say her asseveration. "For someone who has never owned anything above a star cruiser," she paused for a moment to look at Yellow Diamond, who knew what she was going to say next "I believe that Pink Diamond should own this new blue planet" Private discussions rose up in the court while Pink Diamond jumped up from her throne in excitement.

"For me to own and harvest 30,000 colonies in just a galaxy that I have owned, I don't want one of our sistren out of the picture" Blue Diamond added and sat back down.

Yellow Diamond calmly arose from her throne. "Why should we give a faulted diamond or any gem of matter, a planet" she said "Doesn't she already have a large enough army?"

"It's only one planet, one of 100 Billion, this could be her test that she can handle such a responsibility" responded Blue Diamond.

"Yeah!" Pink Diamond chimed in "If I can sustain my own army, I can handle my own colony" Yellow Diamond lunged forward toward towards Pink that made Pink's guards pull out their swords and shields to defend their Diamond.

"Nobody," hissed Yellow "Interrupts our debate"

The guards stood stationary and held their swords prominently and made quick jabbing movements. Yellow looked down at them and was lightly tapped at the chin by the guard's sword, which was blurry at first, but the guard herself and weapon began to come into focus. Her shield was composed of a simple but robust design, something that resembled the certain carbon-based fungus that grew on her colonies if they weren't kept well before.

"You can sit down now, Yellow" Blue Diamond said while her hand was resting on her gem. Yellow swung her head over to Blue, then back to Pink. She walked backwards still keeping her eye on her, then sat back in her throne and Blue took her hand away from her gem and as did the associates of all the diamonds.

"So then," sighed Blue "lets have a vote, all in favor of Pink colonizing HL-D-8911 of the Lepidolite Galaxy, say 'I'" Blue, about half of her associates, Pink, her associates and a third of White Diamond's associates voted "I". The votes were then counted by Blue Pearl.

"The decision has been made," Blue Pearl said "Pink Diamond will take the planet and create her own colony" Yellow slumped in her throne and placed her palm on her forehead halfway through Blue Pearl's announcement, it was the worst news to her ears. The rest of the court clapped and approved of the news and Yellow Pearl finally announced the end of the court session. Pink got from her throne to be greeted by her sweet Pearl with pages and pages of information present on her new planet and behind her impatient Rose Quartz guards tried to get past her in order to protect their Diamond.

"Pink Diamond," chirped the Pearl "The gravity on this planet is almost identical to the gravity on Homeworld, so no need to change the architecture or technology of any sorts. There is a process of cooling periods and warming periods that change within 165 sunrises and-"

"Don't worry, Pearl!" laughed Pink Diamond "We can look over it on the ship"

"Sure, okay" laughed Pearl. As everyone headed for their ships, White Diamond walked over to Blue Diamond, whispered something into her ear and they both walked into a private discussion room as their associates boarded onto their ships. White looked around the room and placed her hand around the mic and collapsed her fingers around it.

"I thought I told you that I needed to colonize that planet in order to work on," White looked around the dark room the back to Blue "the Inter-dimensional Project"

"I'll applaud you for creating wormholes to get around our colonies faster," Blue said " but inter-dimensional travel is impossible, and it's not worth any gem's life"

"Just give me another 200 sunrises and I can make this equation possible, there just has to be that one spark-"

"I'm not giving you any more scientists on your foundation, White" responded Blue "that's final" She exited the room to her ship where her Pearl was waiting for her with White Diamond still in the room with a broken microphone in her hand.

"A shack of mystery huh?" said Nephrite half amused.

"Yeah, or what used to be the rest of my lab" Ford said glaring at Stan.

"Well what stuff does it have?" Nephrite asked "Not that I'm interested"

"Oh all sorts of amazing stuff!" Stan said "Skeletons, beasts, rocks painted gold - I mean, gold nuggets..."

Ford looked up at Nephrite as she was being half-interested by Stan's words. It's been a while since he saw her attack him and Stan on Earth that he never took the time to notice her features. Although she was tall and muscular, she had spiky, dark green hair that reached down to her mid torso. For her clothing, she wore a short, light green robe that was held together by a black belt with her gem as the buckle and dark green shorts.

"So, why are we here?" Nephrite asked.

"We're looking for Steven" Ford said "He's our friend back on Earth who got abducted and sent to this planet"

"Well, Homeworld has never abducted aliens unless they had something against them, like a crime has been committed" she explained "That's not my purpose though, it's royal guard, but I think I know where I can find him" She took a knee to the ground and looked up at the twins.

"What?" asked Stan

"Hop on my back," she said "we're heading up to the surface" Stan and Ford piled onto Nephrite's back and without warning, she sprung herself forward to the light escaping from the ceiling. The twins hung on for dear life as the hole was 180 feet off the ground, but they finally made it to the surface. They looked around and found themselves in an empty hall inside an abandoned building with the ceiling caved in. Skysrapers decorated in statues gem warriors towered over the three as they walked through the hall to a long bridge that also was sunk under the height of the structures. The sound of thunder could be heard before they came to bridge and it was then when the twins and Nephrite witnessed a sea of gamboge on the bridge beneath their bridge.

"What are those gems?" whispered Nephrite "How many rotations have I been gone?"

"Is that a year?" asked Stan

"What's a year?" asked Nephrite

"Those are Chrysoberyls, and what are you doing here unattended?" said a gem standing behind them. The three turned around and saw a medium-sized, light gray gem who carried a holoscreen and impatiently tapping her foot. "Which department are you apart of?" she snapped.

"White Diamond Guard," Nephrite said while she saluted to her Diamond "uh.. and these two are... barons"

The security gem looked up at Nephrite from her screen and looked down at it again with a smile on her face. "The White Diamond's guards have been replaced 1385 rotations ago with new gems. Plus, guards are supposed to be with their Diamonds protecting them, aren't they?" she asked

"Well..." said Nephrite "It's been some time" Ford currently had his hands buried in his face as Nephrite struggled to answer the security gem.

"Never mind, we'll just send you and the two "barons" to Protocol Center H1782" said the security gem "Entomo, redirect them to the nearest warp pad" A small robot hovered out of the gem's sleeve in four pieces then combined to become a chrome sphere with several spots of light on it's shell. "Thank you Concrete, I'll take it from here" spoke Entomo in a feminine voice. The robot guided them to a wrap pad on the other side of the bridge.

"Well, it's not threatening us" said Stan and ran in the opposite direction of the warp pad and to the ledge of the bridge. Entomo acted quickly and shot out a tractor beam, reeled Stan back in and continued to the warp pad. "Don't try to test me, clod" hissed Entomo "My systems can track the paths of a thing like you". In less than a second, the four were transported to the front of a three story tall dome with several large windows with many gems going leaving and entering. Nephrite and Ford were pushed along by their escort with Stan stiff in his tractor beam prison to the front desk while getting dirty looks from gems as they saw Ford and Stan's tattered clothing.

"Who are the gems today that need to be redirected to new job?" asked a Concrete gem who was behind the counter with a few hundred holoscreens between her and Entomo, Nephrite, Ford and Stan.

"Just this one" said Entomo nudging Nephrite closer to Concrete. The gem looked at the green gem and pointed a device at her gem which turned white for a second, leading Concrete to look at her holoscreen.

"Nephrite 1B2 Cut-3MC," spoke Concrete "Guard of the White Diamond, last used for use was 1385 rotations ago. Sent on a mission in the name of White Diamond, known skills: combat, gem healing and strategy" Nephrite waited patiently as Concrete typed up a few holopages and sent them to Entomo. "Nephrite 1B2 Cut-3MC will be sent to the Central Gem Archives as guard which suits her well." Concrete said to Entomo.

"And the two aliens?" the robot asked.

"Oh," Concrete thought out loud "send them to Cremation."