Untitled Steven Universe/Ratchet and Clank Crossover Project

“This is Stone Stonefield, coming to live with another Polaris New Update. Today marks the beginning of the Polaris Defense Force’s ‘Operation Intergalactic Dash-n-Rescue’, with intergalactic heroes Ratchet and Clank at the helm. For those of you not affected by brain-robbing space gnats, you will recall that the Polaris Defense Force intercepted and decoded an emergency subspace transmission coming from the Orion arm of the far-off Milky Way Galaxy three days ago. Will Ratchet and Clank find some lost souls on this mission or will it be a complete waste of taxpayer money the likes of which Polaris hasn’t seen since President Qwark’s liquid helium fountain and wave pool? This reporter’s going with the latter, because you’d have to be insane to go the Milky Way Galaxy and expect to find life intelligent enough to create that kind of transmission. We now return you to this station’s regularly scheduled programming already in progress.”
_______________________________________________________________

It was nightfall in Beach City with just a couple of hours remaining before the annual Summer meteor shower was supposed to occur. Despite the lack of local enthusiasm for the yearly event, a young boy named Steven managed to convince Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl (his three guardians and mentors) to watch the skies and enjoy a picnic with him.

“C’mon, guys!” shouted Steven, “We’re gonna lose our spot!”

“Steven, we’re the only ones who come out here.” said Pearl, “Our spot will still be there for us if a few minutes late.”

“And besides,” said Amethyst, ”If Ronaldo shows up again we can always kick his butt again!”

“AMETHYST!” shouted Pearl, “We don’t have to resort to such barbaric actions just to reclaim our spot!”

This one exchange, like so many in the universe involving beings with vastly different personalities, quickly turned sour in a manner of seconds. As time passed, Steven’s mood dropped into mild state of depression. Garnet only stood there with her arms crossed in annoyance.

But her attention shifted from her two squabbling teammates to Steven, who at this point was hanging his head in despair.

“Steven, why don’t you go on ahead and get everything set up?” she said to him in a calming and reassuring tone.

Steven perked up and his spirit, almost as if Garnet’s very words blocked out Pearl and Amethyst’s quarreling from his sight.

“Caaaaan do!” he shouted as he gathered up the supplies and made his way up the lighthouse.

Pearl and Amethyst continued bickering, the topic now about
_______________________________________________________________

Two heroes were traveling through hyperspace, on their way to a middle-aged star in the backwater part of the Milky Way’s Orion arm. One of them was reviewing the request they got from the Polaris Defense Force and the other was contemplating the situation at-hand and checking on the ship’s autopilot.

“I wonder what the Defense Force is going to ‘reward’ us with after this mission?” said Ratchet, “I wasn’t too fond of the gift basket they sent us for dealing with the whole Nether issue a few months ago, but the champagne was nice…”

Ratchet was a Lombax, a bipedal cat-like entity well known for their resourcefulness and their technological prowess. And to the surprise of no one Ratchet was also the last Lombax in the universe, a survivor of a planetary assault that forced his race to escape to another dimension.

“We should be more focused on the details of the mission than what we will get afterwards, Ratchet." Clank responded, "The distress signal that the Polaris Defense Force picked up came from a galaxy that isn't known for any native space-faring civilizations. This situation seems rather odd to me."

Clank was a small Zoni robot originally built to take care of a device called The Great Clock, which kept temporal normality throughout the universe. But instead of taking is place as the clock's caretaker when the time was right he decided to stay by Ratchet's side, claiming that he could not leave Ratchet until he found a family of his own.

“Not really, remember those crank calls we got from those idiots in the Sombrero Galaxy? That was a heckuva week…” said Ratchet, “You’re just a bit jumpy from being out the hero thing for a while, Clank.”

Clank shook his head, annoyed by Ratchet’s lack of caution.

“Most of the stars in that galaxy’s arms are too young to support a civilization that is capable of sending a subspace transmission to another galaxy,” he said, “not to mention that the star in question is around 4 billion years old and has an Oort cloud surrounding it.”

Ratchet ignored his friend's comment and rested his feet on the controls.

“Well, they did find some information on the star and galaxy in the Polaris Hall of Knowledge.”  he said, “That has to mean something, right?”

“I suppose...” said Clank, “But that does not explain what the signal contained. Intergalactic standard distress signals require audio and video, this one was strictly an audio transmission when it was analyzed by the Terachnoids.”

“Good point,” Ratchet replied, “I was surprised with how high the frequency was, every display screen in Meridian City was THIS close to breaking…”

Their spaceship started to slow down a bit and the ship’s main display started to display some preliminary information on the star system they were entering.

“Now arriving at your destination, exiting hyperspace in two minutes.”

Ratchet corrected his posture and placed his hands on the controls. Since they were going into a poorly-understood system, they would have to navigate through any asteroid fields the old-fashioned way.

“Hold on, Clank,” said Ratchet, “this exit’s gonna be a bit rough!”

_____________________________________________________________

“They really exist!?” Steven shouted, "How do know this, Peridot?"

"I know because I'm an expert Kindergartener, Steven." Peridot replied, "And knowing what kinds of lifeforms exist out there in the universe is part of a Kindergartener's job. Did you really forget that?"

Steven was hanging out at the barn with Peridot and Lapis Lazuli, its only residents, after finishing a short mission with the other Crystal Gems. Steven had wanted to talk to Peridot about what Pearl and Garnet said about other life-sustaining planets outside of Earth and other sapient lifeforms outside of humans and Gems the night before. He tried to get more information during the mission, but badgering Pearl and Garnet about the details proved fruitless.

"Sorry, I guess I did." Steven said in an apologetic tone.

Peridot let out a small sigh. It wasn't exactly fair of her to chastise Steven for not knowing that Kindergarteners are required to know about the viability of planets, especially considering the fact that the Crystal Gems didn't teach him anything about Gem Kindergartens until recently.


_____________________________________________________________

“OK, let’s go over the data the Defense Force gathered for us again,” Ratchet said, “I want to get this job done before the ship runs out of fuel...”

“The ships gelatonium reserves were completely full when we left, Ratchet.” said Clank, “We can stay in the system for as long as we need to.”

Ratchet was mildly annoyed with the situation, they’ve been flying through interplanetary space for hours and they still haven’t found any sign of what could’ve sent the distress signal. He was starting to think that the Defense Force was just overreacting to another bogey for the 42nd time this year.

“Can you just tell me how many planets this system has and if it has anything we should avoid if we don’t want to end up on a milk carton?” he asked.

Clank sighed. He knew that this mission was asking a lot, but there was evidence that the signal was genuine.

“Oh, very well…” Clank said heavily, “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to double-check.”

Clank skimmed through through the data before relaying it to Ratchet.

“It appears that the star is approximately 4.6 billion years old and currently classified as a yellow dwarf star with 8 known planets.” said Clank, “Half of the planets are terrestrial and the other 4 planets are split between gas giant and ice giant planets.”

“And?” asked Ratchet, “I remember seeing some more info outside of that.”

Clank double-checked the data to see if he missed anything.

“Ah, there are currently four celestial bodies in that can support life with another having the potential to up until the age of the system passed the 3.8 billion year mark,” said Clank, “two of them are ice-shielded ocean moons circling the larger gas giant and a hydrocarbon moon orbiting the other.

“Well we can rule out those ocean plants, they wouldn’t produce anything intelligent enough to send a subspace transmission.” said Ratchet, “And that hydrocarbon moon would have life that would measure lifetimes by millions of years.”

Clank sighed and continued.

“As I was saying,” said Clank, “The last two bodies are the two outer terrestrial planets. The one nearest the system’s asteroid belt lost its ‘heat of formation’, most of its atmosphere, and magnetosphere at said billion year mark. That leaves us with last one, it has the usual atmospheric signatures for life along with some other abnormalities.”

Clank showed Ratchet a map of the system with said planet highlighted.

“Okay, so the Defense Force wants us to investigate the third rock from the star.” said Ratchet, “I’ll prep the autopilot to get us over there.”

Ratchet punched the planet’s orbital data into the ship’s autopilot, the ship quickly responded with a ding.

“Orbital data received, generating planetary coordinates.”, the ship’s autopilot chimed, “Planetary coordinates obtained, estimated time of arrival is 30 minutes...”

As Ratchet’s ship approached the planet’s coordinates, a blue-green marble of a planet slowly came into view.

“You know, there’s just something about ocean planets that just takes your breath away whenever you pass by one…” said Ratchet.

“I agree, especially when you know that it is a known planetary nature reserve.” Clank replied, “That means life can develop without interplanetary interference.”

Clank’s attention shifted from the planet itself and and to the ship’s display when it started to relay information from the on-board scanners.

“That is odd…” he said, “The ship’s radio scanners are picking up signals from the planet’s surface.”

Ratchet glanced at the display and sure enough, there were radio signals coming off the planet.

"Okay, that not weird at all," said Ratchet, "When was the planet last surveyed?"

Clank checked the data thoroughly and found something unusual about the planet's last scan.

"According to the data we have, it was last scanned before the Great War of Polaris..." said Clank "That has to be an error."

Ratchet shook his head, these kinds of errors are usually caught and dealt with well before any information is sent to them.

"It probably is, we should contact Talwyn when we land on the pla-"

Before Ratchet could even finish his sentence, his ship lurched and tumbled towards the planet with a resounding "thump", it was obvious to the both of them that something struck the ship.

"What the heck was that?" Ratchet said as checked the ship's display to see if the ship's hull had taken any damage, "There's no way could've been a meteor."

Clank's focus was on the back of the ship, a look of worry and deep concern was plastered on his face.

"Um, Ratchet?" Clank said, "It appears we have company..."

Right behind the ship was object that was, despite years of traveling the universe and saving it countless times, a complete mystery to the duo. It looked like a perfect octahedron, but it too small to house any known life form if it was a ship. There were also five smaller units near it in the exact same shape with elongated ends of differing lengths at the front. The ship itself was an opalescent white in color at first, but shifted and mixed into various other colors. All together, the object and smaller units gave the grouping a hand-like appearance.

“What is this thing? Some sort of space squid?” Ratchet asked, “It’s really starting to creep me out.”

“I highly doubt it, it appears to be artificial in nature.” Clank said, “But if it is artificial, its technological level doesn’t match the data we were given. The planet’s native sapient life-forms are a T0 civilization, this device has to have originated from T2 civilization.”

One of the units near the object moved closer to Ratchet and Clank’s ship and shot a beam of light onto it. When the beam made contact with the ship, its communications channel was opened automatically.

“OK, that’s freaky…” said Ratchet, “What is it saying?”

Clank flipped a switch on the ship’s control panel and turned on the speakers. All that they heard was varying levels of static.

“Perhaps it is trying to communicate on a different frequency, let me scan the radio band to see if it’s...“

While Clank was trying to make out what the object was trying to say (if it was in the first place), Ratchet attention turned towards the object itself. The object started to shift into more redder hues and the smaller units, with the sole exception being the one that was communicating with the ship, began gather near the main object. The little voice in the back Ratchet’s head told him that hightailing it away from this thing, whether it be to the planet’s surface or away from the system in general, was starting to look like an option.

“Okay Clank, an answer and a response for this thing would be two REALLY good things to have right now!” He said with a hint of urgency and worry in his voice.

“I am trying to key into its communication channel right now,”  Clank replied, “But I am starting to think it is trying to communicate via an unknown method.”

And just as they thought that they were out of options, the communications channel was closed. An air of uneasiness fell between the two.

“Calling it now, it’s gonna ram us.” Ratchet said with a bit dry wit, “Autopilot, activate the boosters so that it just hits empty space.”

The ship remained motionless, Clank analyzed some of the data on the ship’s display.

“Um, Ratchet?” Clank said, “It appears that the object disabled our boosters when it closed the communications channel…”

And, almost as if it was on cue, the object rammed into Ratchet and Clank’s ship and launched it a fair distance.

“Oh great, now you tell me!” Ratchet groaned, “I’m activating the emergency boosters and getting us out of here before it rams us again!”

Ratchet flipped a few switches and the emergency boosters began to push the ship forward. They had a feeling they weren’t out of the woods yet, but this was a surprise that was thankfully in their favor.

“Now that’s more like it!” Ratchet shouted triumphantly, “Now let's land on this planet and see what’s going on. I’ve got a hunch that-”

But before Ratchet could even finish his boast, the object rammed the ship again. And to make matters even more worrisome for the duo, the smaller units pressed themselves against Ratchet’s ship and slowly pulled it towards the main object.

“Okay, I’m not sticking around to see what’s it’s going to do to us." Ratchet said as tried to get the ship out of the grip of the smaller units, "I’m activating the ship’s Tesla Barrier.”

“But the Tesla Barrier is an untested mod you added before we left!” Clank said, “How do we know if the electrical output will work?”

As Clank continued to list his issues with the modifications that were made to the ship before they left for the new system, Ratchet pushed a small button underneath the ship’s console. Two small prongs appeared on the ship’s sides.

“We’ll just have to wait and find out!” Ratchet said as the Tesla Barrier began to power up.

And a massive surge of electricity coursed through the ship that, to the relief of both Ratchet and Clank, affected the units pressed up against their ship. As the units released Ratchet’s ship, arcs of electricity could also be seen making contact with the main object. The object's activity ceased and both it and its units drifted away, as if the Tesla Barrier deactivated it.

“HA! That was SO worth it!” Ratchet shouted, “C’mon Clank, let’s check out the planet and get outta here before more of those things show up!”

“Very well, I will activate the ship’s landing protocols and find a suitable landing spot.”

Clank turned a few switches and the ship began to descend into the planet's atmosphere. As they continued onwards, Ratchet stretched his arms out and yawned.

"I'm gonna take 5, pal." Ratchet said, "You make sure the ship lands safely.

Clank nodded in response.

Very well, I will also keep an eye on the ship's scanners." Clank replied, "We need all the information we can get for this mission."

As sleep crept up on Ratchet, he could make out the continents on the relatively-uncharted planet. This mission was one that, he secretly hoped, wouldn't start another universe-threatening ordeal.