So, here's a new chapter. It seems that my writing stamina is increasing. Soon, I'll be back to full power, churning out a new chapter every week or something... or perhaps that's just wishful thinking?

Well, last chapter, team RWBY and JNPR began their journey to the Federation Stronghold in Vale 1. We're going on a somewhat episodic route with this fic. The plot will still advance forward, but the pace may be a bit slow.

Anyway, let's get on with the story. In this chapter, our protagonists will be traversing through Sector 1: Vale 13.

RWBY

Ever since the Federation began, strict standards were set for all spaceships in production. That includes uniformity of system and reactor power, fuel cell specifications, munitions storage space, weapon mount design, and system installation mounts. This allowed for easy trading of ship supplies and ammunition, convenient installing and upgrading of ship systems, and the mounting of weapons and ship augments between different spaceships.

Arms, robotics, and other such technologies were given a similar uniform standard.

RWBY

In the depths of space, the FTL beacon shined, emitting a weak but even glow all across its area of influence. The star system's sun was small and not particularly bright, so the ones who placed the jump beacon must have compensated for the lack of light. Thanks to Zoltan technology, the beacon was able to take the excess energy coming off of ships entering the area with FTL and convert it into light.

One such ship entered the beacon, sporting Rebel colors but brandishing a Federation seal. It was the Red-Tail.

At the helm, Ruby melted into the pilot's seat. She was not used to faster than light travel, not by a long shot. But that didn't explain why she couldn't activate the jump drive. It was the simple act of pressing a button. So why couldn't she do it?

Weiss sure wanted to know. In fact, she told that her over the intercomm "Ruby, we're having meeting in the mess hall. Now."

Ruby winced as she got up and made her way to the mess hall.

She was pretty sure Weiss was a regular human – no, she was positive – but something about her tone of voice sent a chill down her spine and made her actually afraid. Sure, she hesitated with the FTL drive, but she was a Mantis. She was of a breed and upbringing that made her a warrior who feared no one.

Perhaps just one other individual had been able to do make her fear. That person was a man of the Slug faction, who were known to break even the strongest of minds with the use of their own. She had simply looked at the Slug – an innocent look with no motives – but then suddenly she felt a foreign presence in her head, compelling her to move along and not look at the man. It took all of Ruby's will power to keep her eyes on the man. Of course, this caused the man to suddenly turn towards Ruby and glare at her. She felt the fear well up inside of her so she stopped resisting and left. She was merely twelve back then, and as a Mantis, feeling fear like that was shameful at best… and traumatizing at worst…

But Weiss was a human, no doubt about it. Why was it, then, that her mere words could cause her blood in her veins to freeze?

She'd have time to think those thoughts later. She had reached the mess hall.

"Ruby Rose. Take a seat." Weiss said, voice quiet, cold, and sharp.

That, she did, easing into the chair. There were two tables – the one they were sitting at and the one next to it. There were a total of eight seats – the standard for a crew of a space cruiser. To her right was Yang. Across the table sat Weiss and next to her was Blake.

The quiet air about the room was uncomfortable.

"What was that…?" Weiss broke the silence with three words, spat in a way that suggested that she was as far from amused as possible. "Earlier, your performance as pilot was a joke. You needed only to press a button!" She scolded, voice loud but controlled. "Yet, you waited until we were within firing range of that Rebel fighter before actually pressed said button. Tell me… Why?"

Ruby shrunk. "I don't know…"

Weiss closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was the girl whom Weiss had been nearly paralyzed in fear of mere cycles ago. Now, Ruby was shrinking at her stern scolding. Weiss did not understand. What's with this girl? One moment she's a Mantis girl out for my life, and in the next moment, she's like a little girl caught doing something she wasn't allowed to do.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what went over me. Suddenly the Rebels came and you began screaming… just…"

"Can you not keep your cool when the situation is dire?" Blake asked cooly. Her face was impassive and her voice had no passion but those words seemed to visibly hurt Ruby. "You are a Mantis, aren't you?"

"… half Mantis…" Ruby muttered quietly.

"Is that a no…?"

Ruby lowered her head. "… I… Yes, I'm a Mantis…"

"We're supposed to be ruthless. Show no fear. What happened to you?" The words were said in calm yet curious way. It gave off no feeling of malicious intent, at least not to Weiss' ears, yet Ruby looked so pained from hearing it.

Weiss took a glance at Yang, who seemed to be radiating heat and light with increasing intensity. Perhaps Yang had learned the trick from Ruby but her presence felt as hostile as a Mantis – it helped that her eyes began glowing, changing from a light purple to a deep red. "Hey, what's passed is past. Let's not dwell on it" She said, starting Blake down.

Strangely enough, the faunus backed down. In fact, she seemed impressed at Yang's intimidating glow. Blake gave a small smirk and nod at Yang before turning back to Ruby. "Ruby Rose, just make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Actually, I don't think I'm cut out for pilot" Ruby said meekly.

Weiss scowled. "Are you serious!? You're the one who yelled 'I'm driving' when we boarded!"

"I know, Weiss. I'm just… yeah, I'm not cut out for pilot…"

"Fine." Weiss looked around the room and asked. "Who wants to be pilot?"

After a couple minutes of back and forth conversation and a minor argument on ration allocations and meal times, the meeting adjourned. Ruby would man the weapons; Weiss, the shields; Yang, the engines; and Blake would pilot. The four left for their quarters and waited for the faster-than-light-drive to charge.

RWBY

The FTL beacon near a small colonized planet seemed to be experiencing a lot of traffic – a menagerie of ships jumping out en mass. It seemed like the civilians were all evacuating.

As was the observation by the pilot of one ship entering the space. It was a Federation gray splashed with the purple paint seen on more pirate ships. Of course, the crew were not pirates but Federation, as shown by the Federation emblem painted over the pirate one insignia.

"Looks like we're not the only ones running from the Rebels." Ren noted from the pilot's seat. "These people are smart to be leaving…"

The intercomm beeped and out came Pyrrha's voice. "Ren, come over to the mess hall. Jaune wants to talk strategy"

And so, the Zoltan stood and made for the mess hall.

Ren wasn't very worried about the meeting. Jaune, like most Engi, was part machine. Though he seemed to show more emotion than most, he was very much a robot in terms of his logic. His mind worked faster than anyone on board – something Ren found quite agreeable. If there was one person he trusted on the ship other than Nora, it was Jaune.

It helps that he's not good at fighting. Ren thought as he finally sat down at the mess hall. His Zoltan body was quite frail and Jaune posed the least danger of accidentally hurting him by accident.

At the table opposite to Ren was Nora, and next to her was Pyrrha. Jaune stood at the end of the table, fiddling with his scroll. He called up a holo projection the ship's specs which appeared over the table.

"We've got a standard cruiser on our hands." Jaune said. "It'll need a couple new systems and a lot more fire power," He paused, allowing Nora to grin and whisper to Ren how great the fire power thing sounded. He then continued. "but I'm pretty sure we'll be able to make it through this. At the very least, our chances of survival isn't zero."

Ren frowned at this statement. "What exactly is our chances of survival?"

Jaune took a breath and began reciting an infinite decimal sequence. "Sixteen point two five three two three three three three three three – I can stop at any time, guys, just say the word – three three three three…"

Ren sighed "Alright, Jaune. Please stop. We get it." When the Engi stopped, Ren commented on how unfavorable those chances sounded. "Those aren't very good odds. Your earlier statement sounds more like wishful thinking to me."

"Well… yeah, it is wishful thinking. I really don't want to die, you know…?" Jaune said quietly. "Anyway, like I said, our mission isn't completely hopeless. So let's talk strategy, try to keep our odds above the single digits."

After a few minutes of talking and explaining, the three other crew members agreed to Jaune's proposals.

Ren, as a Zoltan, would be better situated if he were to man the engines. His body naturally generated enough energy to power a system and being placed in the engine room meant the power from the ship's own reactor could be allocated to a different system. Nora, being the most trigger happy person on the ship, was delighted to be assigned to man the weapons. Pyrrha, being a fearless Mantis and defacto captain of the ship, would man the piloting. As for Jaune, he was placed in the shield room since that station benefited the least whilst being manned. As an Engi, he was in charge for most of the on-board ship repairs, which meant he'd need leave his station more frequently than the others.

Everything checked out so their meeting adjourned, with all the crew satisfied with their assignments. The four then went to their respective stations and familiarized themselves with the controls. They were already given basic training, but it would help if they practice.

Eventually, the FTL drive was charged and it was time for them to jump away. And jump away they did.

RWBY

As the Red-Tail exited out of hyperspace, a ship approached them. It was orange and fairly well armed, sporting a dual shot laser and a leto missile launcher. It brandished a Rebel insignia. It was a Rebel Scout!

The other ship hailed Blake over the ship-to-ship comm system. "Greetings, traveler. Nice to see a fellow Rebel ship here in this… wait…" There was a pause. "Oh, crap, you're that ship! Arm the weapons!"

Blake scowled and began rerouting power to the weapons. "Look alive, people, We've got company." She growled into the in-ship intercomm.

"You heard that, Rose. You're up. You better not mess up this time" Weiss voice blared through the speakers, shortly followed by Ruby's. "Yes, ice queen, I know."

Blake smirked at the interaction but instantly regretted being distracted by it. An enemy missile connected, rocking the hull with both the impact and the explosion it caused.

The faunus winced. Missiles had enough mass and velocity to ignore shields. The only real way to defend against them is either cloaking or a defense drone. Having neither meant she'd have to manually steer the ship to dodge the projectile, something quite difficult considering their unupgraded engine.

"Xaio Long, how's the engine?" Blake asked, managing to maneuver the ship away from the incoming laser burst from the enemy's dual laser.

"Having a little trouble with the evasive maneuvering?" Yang asked cheekily. "Sorry, this thing can only handle two reactor bars at most. Any more and it might overload."

Blake cursed under her breath. It had been a long time since she had piloted a ship, and the first time she had been on one so ill equipped. If she were still on the White Fang, they'd have already ripped apart that rebel scout.

"Rose, weapons!" Immediately, all four of the ship's basic defense lasers fired at once. All of them connected, one laser shot taking down the shield and the other three connecting with the enemy weapons system. "Well… For a rookie, you're a pretty good shot" Blake commented, mildly impressed. "How long til the next volley?"

"Eight seconds." Ruby replied curtly

"Good, target the shields next." Blake ordered. Shortly after, another volley of lasers hit the enemy ship, leaving them heavily damaged.

The Rebel ship hailed them once more. "Please, we surrender! We'll leave you alone! We'll even give you our supplies and scrap! Just don't kill us!" Accompanying the transmission was the data on how much they were willing to give.

Five missiles, three fuel, and fourteen scrap… That's a good deal… Blake noted. Maybe we should-

Right before she could ask the other crew members, another laser salvo blasted the ship to bits. "Eep! I'm sorry! The weapons fired before I could reset the targeting!"

Blake growled in annoyance. No matter. A win is still a win. She sent a transmission to the remains of the enemy ship. "We do not accept surrender…" She said coldly. If anybody was still alive in there, they would probably think it was a bit cruel for her to say that after the fact.

There was once again chatter on the in-ship comms. It was Weiss. "We're having another team meeting…" She said curtly

Blake closed her eyes and sighed. She had been partnered with Weiss for well over a year but she doubted she'd every get used to how uptight she was. Then again, they did just kill some people. She sighed once more and stood. She might as well go. It wasn't like she had much of a choice.

"Tell me" Weiss began as she and the other crew members sat at the ship's mess hall. "Tell me, why did you choose to kill them, Blake? You've made us murderers"

"Actually, according to galactic law, it was self defense" Yang muttered. Weiss gave her a look. "What? Just saying."

Weiss sighed. "In any case, I did not want to kill them. The fact that they were rebels aside, that was a good deal."

Blake stared at the albino quietly noting with some amusement at how Weiss was staring back with an almost equal amount of intensity. "Look, we at least managed to salvage more scrap than what they were offering – as well as two drone parts and a fuel cell. This was a successful battle regardless of how you look at it."

The staring intensified. Weiss slowly buckled under Blake's gaze. "Fine! But next time, we'll take time to consider what they're offering us." She stood and walked away awkwardly. Blake continued staring even as the door closed behind Weiss. She was still impressed by the girl's willpower.

"Hey, Blake…" Ruby said quietly, to which Blake raise an eyebrow to. "Thanks for taking the blame…"

"You're being very careless, Rose. You need to fix that." Blake said quietly before she too stood and left the room.

Being a faunus, she still heard the conversation in the mess hall long after she walked out the door. "Seriously, Ruby, you're gonna end up pissing off every single one of us if you keep this up" Yang said.

"… even you…?"

"Yes, even me."

"I'm sorry, okay…?"

"I know… you're just doing your best… just… I don't want people pissed at you, you know…"

Whatever Ruby Rose is feeling right now, let's hope she uses that as motivation to get better. Blake thought. Eventually, she walked far enough that the echoes of their conversation could no longer be heard.

They waited for the FTL to charge.

RWBY

The Swallow drifted within range the nearby jump beacon, enjoying a glorious view of a binary star system. A giant red star burned brightly, with spirals of flames coiled towards a smaller yet brighter white dwarf like a titanic space sink.

"The FTL drive is charged." Pyrrha's voice announced over the intercomm. "Are you guys done with the ship upgrades?"

In the ship's reactor maintenance duct, Jaune called out to Ren. "What's the ship's power reading?"

"Two extra bars of reactor energy" Ren answered curtly. "The upgrades were successful."

Jaune pulled himself out of the duct. "Great." He said, sounding chipper. He closed the hatch and walked out of the room with Ren, contacting their pilot. "Pyrrha, upgrades comeplete. Let 'er rip."

"Engaging FTL. Prepare to jump" With the spine tingling hum of energy, the ship jumped to the next FTL beacon.

"I'm quite interested at how we're able to convert scrap metal into an upgrade to the ship" Ren stated. "If find the technology simply amazing"

"Yeah, I know right?" Jaune said with a grin. "It's actually a system created by the Engi. The scrap metal is broken down and reconstituted into a new ship part that can be used by the ship. Nanobots facilitate the whole process."

"Fascinating" Ren said with wonder.

"Yeah, it is. It's a shame this ship still uses the version 3 upgrade system. Version 4 increased the number of upgrades a system could have. Having enough system power for four halberd beams would have been great"

"A weapon system with twelve power bars…" Ren breathed. "Yes, that sounds quite impressive"

Another hum of energy signaled that they had just exited hyper space. The intercomm sounded once more. "There's a civilian ship being harassed by pirate." Pyrrha announced. "Wait, they're hailing us"

A new voice blared from the speakers. A gravelly tenor, probably a man. "If you stay out of this, you can make a profit. Here's my offer. I hope you make the write decision."

As the connection was severed, a data transmission was sent to them. "Wow, this is a good deal…" Pyrrha breathed.

Ren looked at the data. Fifteen scrap, two fuel, and six missiles. Truth be told, that wasn't a lot. But Vale 13 wasn't a very rich sector. That was the best they'd get while they still stayed there. The value of supplies they'd get would probably get better as they got closer to the Federation sector.

Ren turned to Jaune. "Looking objectively, it would probably be best if we take the offer." He then frowned. "But I feel a somewhat inclined to help the civilian out…"

Jaune looked out the window, noting how the harassed ship was a mass of metal barely held together. He'd know what kind of ship that was immediately. "That's an Engi ship…!" He exclaimed. "We have to help!"

Ren nodded. He then asked, over the intercomm. "Nora?"

"Let's blast 'em!"

Ren smiled and shook his head. "Well, looks like it's the majority vote, Miss Nikos. We'll engage the pirate"

Pyrrha chuckled, static filling their ears from the speakers. "Okay, looks like it's time to be a hero. Alright, everyone. Battle stations!"

RWBY

"Guys, look! It's a weapon floating in space!" Ruby said excitedly from the window in the weapons room. She quickly put on a space suit and opened the airlock.

The a voice called from the intercomm. "Rose, the weapons room is depressurized! What the hell are you doing, you dolt!?" Weiss yelled.

"Didn't you hear me? I found a weapon floating in space. I'm gonna go get it." Ruby said, checking her tether to make sure she wouldn't drift off. "Alright, I'm off!" With that, she jumped out of the ship.

Inside the ship, in the room adjacent to the weapons room, were Weiss and Yang, watching Ruby from the window. They saw it too. A Burst Laser Mk. II in perfect working condition just floating there. It was obviously the remains of a ship as it was still attached to a piece of hull.

"She's reached the weapon…" Weiss noted.

"Aw. Look, she's waving at us." Yang said with a grin. She waved as well.

"Tell me, how was she planning to get it onto the ship?" The shorter girl asked dryly.

The taller girl was silent for a beat before she went wide eyed and quickly put on a pressure suit. Shortly after, Yang entered the weapons room and began pulling at Ruby's tether.

Weiss sighed and pressed her palms to her face. "Idiots. The both of them…"

RWBY

The decision to use scrap as the standard intergalactic currency was met with a fair amount of skepticism. However, due to the Engis' role in standardizing the Federation's various technologies – and the creation of their scrap based upgrade system – the reception ultimately became a positive one. The practicality of using scrap metal as a currency became quite apparent when the various technologies of the then new Federation were considered. By the time all of the Federation became fully uniform, scrap had become universally accepted.

Though certain space colonies still cling to the archaic tradition of artificially giving value to pieces of paper with numbers and people's faces on them.

RWBY

I hope you enjoyed reading that. I for one enjoyed writing it. Especially the latter half of the chapter wherein RWBY and JNPR were just traversing through the sector, jumping from beacon to beacon and experiencing some of the events seen in the FTL game. Also, I kinda like how this chapter addressed the tense situation last chapter: They blamed Ruby. Yeah, Ruby's getting a lot of flak in this chapter.

The next chapter will be the one where they reach the long range beacon. 'Til then, I bid you farewell.