Shattered Stars

This is a work of fan fiction, created for entertainment purposes only and with no claim to the characters depicted. Ownership of RWBY characters and concepts belongs to Rooster Teeth. Imago and related concepts belong to Landon Porter and Paradox-Omni Entertainment.

Shattered Stars Episode 01 – The Derelict and the Lost

'Analysis of Local Atmosphere Complete.'

'Passed 23 of 23 Parameters.'

'Atmosphere is Safe For User.'

"Oh thank the Founders and the Makers." Jaune Arc reached up and went through the complicated mechanisms that kept his helmet in place. First he turned off the atmosphere generator on his back and closed off the valves on the hoses feeding into the back of his helmet. Then he popped the four seals under his jaw.

Air hissed as the pressure in the suit equalized with that of the ship. The helm deflated a bit in the process, the OLED screen that let him see the outside world distorting in the process. Finally, he flipped the tabs on either side of the hoses and pulled them around to beneath his chin, then levering them up to pull the helmet up and off his face like a hood.

The comparatively cool air hit his face and almost took his breath away and the darkness fell over him like a shroud. All dead ships were dark, but most of them were hot; their coolant systems having failed while the lack of matter around them making it all but impossible to radiate heat into the environment.

Only thirty years dead and this one was actually cool—as if its heat sinks and cooling towers were still active. It wasn't uncommon for even older derelicts to still have some systems active well after everything else failed, but that also meant security measures and failsafes might still be active.

He decided it was better safe than sorry and touched the comm in his ear. "Nora, is there a reason it's so cold in here?"

"Yup!" Came the chipper voice of his engineer and current partner in crime. "What brought this baby down was a direct hit to the primary fuel cells. She went dead in the water inside a cloud of xenon, then spent the last thirty odd years radiating all her heat into it. So. Cold."

Jaune let out a sigh of relief and once more took hold of the handles of the dolly he'd brought with him, navigating it through the narrow alley between the long tables and benches that populated the room he was in. His destination was the set of double doors behind a low counter located in the rear.

"Good. I was getting worried they might have left something on when they launched lifeboats." It took some finagling to get the dolly behind the counter, but he did so after a while and made for the doors.

"Nothing but life support and resource preservation." Nora replied, the sound of metal on metal clanking coming through from her end. "The old Empire didn't like to waste anything and always expected they would win the war and just scoop everything back up."

Over the comms, someone snorted and gave a sardonic laugh. "Yeah, that worked out well for them. Not that it worked out better for anyone else." That was the voice of Yang Xiao Long, self-proclaimed 'ship's security officer'.

At last, Jaune had arrived at his target. There were rows upon rows of metal cases with glass doors. The holographic displays that kept running tabs of what the cases contained long since dead. Unlike the rest of the ship, this room was filled with an ever-present hum indicating that the cases were still powered and running.

"But we are all the better for it," Jaune declared, fumbling in the pack at his side for a thumb-sized device which he plugged into the nearest display unit. A temporary burst of power took the place of the display's inner batteries and it flickered to life.

More importantly, the display reconnected with the security protocols on the case.

"Come here, beautiful." He placed his hand on the display unit and closed his eyes briefly.

"Have I mentioned how creepy it is when you talk dirty to the machines?"

There was a heavy thumping sound as the magnetic security locks on the case disengaged and the seal failing. A delighted grin spread across Jaune's face as he opened his eyes. "Oh Yang, you're such the jealous type. But don't worry, I love you both the same..." He pulled open the heavy glass door to reveal shelves upon shelves of boxes, plastic containers and cans. "...even though she can make me dinner and you can't."

He took a moment to admire all the foodstuffs contained in the stasis chest. It wasn't the entirety of what a ship like the one they were on would carry, just what the kitchen staff pulled up from the general stores for the day's meals and hadn't been eaten before the ship met its demise. A fraction of what was meant to feed that shit's crew complement of over one thousand for a day could feed Jaune's crew of five hungry bellies for a month.

"Ladies and gentleman—not forgetting about you Ren buddy—stow your nutrition blocks and tubes of supplements, we're going to be dining on something that looks a lot like food tonight." He started grabbing things with wild abandon, stowing some choice bits in the satchel around his neck and the rest on the dolly. All the while, a cheer went up over the commlink from the rest of Jaune's crew.

Actual foodstuffs were at a premium offworld, not even the stations could afford the extra costs of not removing all water, excess fiber and any other unnecessary weight from cargo before launching it into space, so most food came in dense blocks and pastes that only resembled food. During the war, however, the various militaries promised career spacers consistent meals of the genuine article to fill their ranks and had the money and facilities to launch it and keep it fresh indefinitely.

After looting one case, Jaune became more discerning, touching the holodisplay to find the high-security cases—those from which the officers' meals would have been prepared from. There, he started filling the baskets on the dolly once more, only this time he was on the look out for special treats for the crew.

A handful of individually wrapped cookies for Ruby, smoked gaudon legs for Yang, pre-cooked hotcakes and a bag of syrup for Nora, a small wheel of good cheese for Ren. He didn't neglect himself either, making sure two large cans of halved pears made it into the satchel.

"Hey Nora, it's the Festival of First Fall up here. How're things down in engineering?"

There was more metal clattering over the comm. "Oh Jauney, I love it when you take me shopping! They've got everything down here! I'm taking two of every spanner!"

Jaune couldn't help but chuckle. "Keep the shopping list in mind, Nora. Your baby needs spare parts."

"Oh don't you worry! I've already got my eye on an inverter coupler the Beacon's just been dying to get. Oh, and she's going to just love having brand new plasma induction coils for the bloom array. It's a happy day for everyone!"

"Just don't overdo it, okay? Right now no one knows this hulk is out here, so we might be able to pick at it for months. We owe Sun his weight in canned goods for this tip." Something caught Jaune's eye as he continued looting. "Oh my Founders and Makers... guys, I just found peppers. A Zero crate of actual fresh peppers. Some officer probably bribed someone his whole check for these."

The squeal came of the comm, not Yang this time, but her younger sister, the ship's primary gunner, Ruby Rose. "For real? Ohmigosh! I don't know if we should sell them or eat them! How many? Are there enough to eat some and sell some?"

It was hard to count the shapes inside through the translucent top of the Zero crate, so Jaune shook it lightly. "I'd say there's six... maybe eight if they're small. But hey, I see a couple more Zeroes in here, so maybe—"

"Jaune, I'm reading a gravity fluctuation near your location." The new voice was that of Lie Ren, the Beacon's pilot and unofficial lookout. "It's consistent with a very large ship blooming in."

"What?" Ruby sounded almost outraged, "Who would be blooming in here? We're weeks from any decent stations, let alone any planets."

Ren grunted in reply. "No idea, Ruby, but they're not alone. A second fluctuation's appeared. They are right on top of you. Less than sixty miles."

"What?!" Unlike Ruby, Nora sounded almost panicked, which usually wasn't one of the emotions she tended to swingshift into.

Jaune pulled the door to the chest closed carefully. "Calm down, everyone. No one has any idea we're here and it's not likely any big fish are going to want to bother with us. Ren, run dark and silent. Keep the channel open, but no contact once you relay me their ID after they bloom in. Nora, pack it up and move quietly and carefully back to the shuttle. We'll camp out there just in case we have to run."

Except running was clearly already Nora's plan. At least that's how it sounded over the comms as there was a great crash followed by the pattering of weighted space boots on metal stairs. "Nope! Gotta run now! Gotta run right now!" She shouted.

Nora Valkyrie didn't panic. It was hard to tell if she was even capable of fear half the time. This was a woman who performed space walks for fun, climbed through the Beacon's engine and bloom core without a scrap of safety equipment and picked bar fights with every species that looked like they might be a 'fun' challenge.

Hearing her being afraid was warning enough for Jaune. After an obligatory attempt to push the dolly back through the double doors only for it to get stuck behind the counter, he grabbed whatever he could carry and vaulted over said counter, bolting back the way he originally came.

"What's the problem, Nora? What are we running for?"

"Unstable xenon!" she bellowed. "This ship's in the middle of a two-hundred mile cloud of unstable xenon. It's a waste product of the bloom drive. Normally it's recycled, but this big ship got shot up and leaked it into space! If whatever ships are blooming in here bloom out while they're in the cloud—BOOM!"

That got Jaune to pick up speed. "Why didn't you tell use this before!?"

"Because we didn't have plans to bloom out of here! It's perfectly safe unless something as hot as the plasma discharge from a bloom core sets it off! I mean you can even breath the stuff. It's really that safe."

"Right up until 'BOOM', right?" Jaune replied dryly, trying to keep his terror in check. "How did this day go so far downhill so fast?"

Ren cleared his throat to regain their attention. "I'd hate to pile it on, but the first ships re-entered real space. ID is HKSS-1037 Paladin. They're an... Atlasian mobile base? Here?"

"Oh noi-jah," Yang cursed. "I thought we left them far behind—separate galaxy far behind."

RWBYRWBYRWBY

Time and space folded, collapsed and were then reconstructed, 'blooming' as it were with new matter from elsewhere in the universe. Fittingly, the Paladin was shaped like a flower: a central shaft centered around five spokes, each of which attached to a bow-shaped tower. The whole thing rotated around the main shaft while countless smaller structures clung to the spokes.

It would have been a thing of beauty if not for the fact that one of the towers was cracked nearly in half and was now surrounded by an expanding ring of dense, black smoke while lesser damage could be seen marring the other towers and central shaft.

On the bridge, there was pandemonium as damage and casualty reports came in as well as emergency sensor readings as the result of the blind jump they'd made with their bloom drive. Commander Leif Waldorf stormed to his command console amid a veritable cloud of officers all shouting their reports at him.

"Decks nine through seventeen of Tower Penta are sealed off. Ninety-three crewmen are MIA from there."

"Thirty-five Xiphos fighters out of commission."

"Lost power to Trika Sectors Gamma, Delta and Rho."

"Primary life support failing on core decks five and six in their Quatra sections."

"Long-range scans detect a derelict Imperial Capital ship fifty-eight miles, nine degrees off of Tower Penta. Looks like scavengers, sir."

"Fluctuations indicate the Ex-Laws have followed our bloom. Arrival in ten minutes."

Leif was mustering ever iota of his strength not to shake like... well a leaf. Never in all his twelve years as Commander of the Paladin had he ever been involved in such a pitched and—he would grudgingly admit—lopsided battle. It would reflect poorly on him that he'd ordered the ship to flee blindly, but the Ex-Law warship's firepower had been overwhelming.

Atlas prided itself on being on the cutting edge of technology even for a system that was part of the Zact core worlds, but what the bandit Ex-Laws, once considered relics of the war piloting antiques were now bringing to bear? Well it made him and his base look woefully inadequate.

Still, he couldn't let that show in front of the troops. Atlas was Strength. The Zact were Peace. They were the Law in the galaxy, the shining Justice that brought down the corrupt and vile Empire.

He let those ironclad facts stiffen his shoulders and straighten his spine. "Mister Valencia!" He bellowed, "Orders to engineering! Prepare to bloom again as soon as the drive is cycled and recharged! Random safe heading!" It was for good reason he didn't ask for an estimate of how long that might take—it might have been longer than the ten minutes they had before the Ex-Law ship arrived.

As soon as Valencia signaled that the order was received, he moved on, finally reaching his command console. There's he slammed his hands down on the glass surface and shouted, "Now who allowed these bandits into our skies! We may be in battle, but we are still the sole arbiters of true Order in the void! Madame Lazuli, I want an on-call squadron of Xiphos on the pads ten minutes ago to support an Adjudicator to go out there and arrest that garbage."

"Sending the request to Tower Segunda now, sir."

RWBYRWBYRWBY

Weiss Schnee fiddled nervously with the toggles on her Adjudicator uniform. It didn't matter that it was only because most of the senior Adjudicators on board the Paladin had been in council in Tower Penta when the Ex-Law ship had bloomed in less than a mile from it and opened fire and as such, she might well have been literally the only able-bodied Adjudicator left. No, this was her first official mission and she wanted to look as official as possible.

With that in mind, she aimed a glare at the woman beside her. The duty roster identified her as Blake Belladonna, a certified capture pilot. It hadn't warned her that she was a cast-off; a result of the Trinion Empire's genetic experiments. In Belladonna's case, this left her with a set of feline ears atop her head and nothing more. More importantly, it marked her as not a native Atlasian as Atlas's ancestors were part of the original stock that eventually led to cast-offs as well as more... useful races like the spacelings.

She clenched her fists at that thought. That was the sort of thing her family engendered in her and she'd joined the peacekeeping forces to get away from all that. Being a cast-off was no hindrance to being a perfectly excellent pilot.

Probably she shouldn't be using the word 'cast-off' either. Was there a non-insulting word for them? She would have to look it up once the Paladin came back into range of a data trunk. With that resolved, she decided to focus on the ship looming ahead of them. Shaped like a flattened egg with a complex trapezoidal structure extending from the one side, the craft was designed for one purpose only: the engage in electronic warefare with criminal spacecraft and bring them under control to be transported to a carrier like the Paladin for arrest ad processing.

Up above on the gantries, she saw the long, sleek Xiphos fighters that would be their escort. Short range and highly maneuverable, the Xiphos was the workhorse of the Atlasian starforce. Five of them were arrayed on their pads as their pilots, Atlasian marines sealed in powered armor, rushed to position themselves into the insertion cages extending below the fighters.

She could just make out the House crests they wore on their backs. Another bit of her family's training allowed her to rattle off the names of each military house as she saw them: Valentine, Stavros, Nikos, Jaelae, Freitag. That made her feel a bit more optimistic: a Valentine and a Nikos, both Houses of the Valorious; celebrated military lines recognized not just in Atlas but across the Zact core.

With that kind of skill backing her, her first mission was far more likely to be her first success.

RWBYRWBYRWBY

Jaune dropped his satchel and dropped an armful of pilfered food on the floor of the shuttle, right on top of the pile of parts already there. He hit the switch to close and seal the hatch before rushing to the front of the shuttle's single compartment where the pilot and copilot seats were.

"'Bout time!" Nora was already in the pilot's seat, hurriedly running the pre-flight checks. "Another minute and I was gonna leave you, Cap'n!"

He laughed nervously. "Y-yeah right. You wouldn't do that to me."

"Wouldn't have thought it either boss, but look!" She pointed at the forward screen, which featured a zoomed-in view of the Atlasian ship. A flight of six craft were emerging from one of the towers and angling directly for them. The ships's HUD identified them as five Xiphos fighters and an ECM Interceptor.

To make matters worse, an alert came up onscreen that they were receiving an incoming communication.

"Nora, get us moving ASAP." Jaune said, pretending to be calm. He then confirmed the communique in voice-only mode.

"This is Adjudicator Weiss Schnee of the Zact Protectorate of Atlas. You are hereby formerly charged with illegal salvage, graverobbing, piracy and unlawful modification of a cargo-class vessel into a weapon of war. Power down your shuttle and disable all onboard defenses of your ship and prepare to surrender helm control remotely."

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen." Jaune muttered at almost the same time Yang said the same over the comms. Taking a deep breath, he toggled the communication system to reply. "Adjudicator Schnee, this is Captain of the freespace ship Beacon, Jaune Arc. Please check your navigation: this is not Zact space. You're out of your jurisdiction."

As soon as he switched the reply mode off, he looked to Nora. "You've modified this shuttle, right?" It was more a rhetorical question. Between Nora and Ruby, everything on the Beacon had been pushed way past the original specifications. She nodded, grinning madly. "Good. Can we outrun them?"

"Oh you bet!" Nora said excitedly. "Do you know what an Orion drive is?"

"Terrified to guess."

Nora throttled up up the shuttled and decoupled from the derelict. "Probably a good idea on your part. And even better for us, we have a Nor-ion drive! Less nuclear, but more explosive!"

"Attention suspect shuttle. This is Colonel Luciano Valentine. This is your final warning. If you attempt to flee, your craft will be overtaken and destroyed."

The maniacal glint in Nora's eyes were warning enough for Jaune to pull on his seat harness and brace for rapid acceleration.

Reaching past him, Nora hit the reply toggle. "Come and get us, chumps!" Hands flying to the control yoke, she throttled up and accelerated to the distant Beacon.

Meanwhile, Jaune re-assumed control of the communicator. "We are not in Zact space. Repeat, we are not in Zact space. Firing on us will be seen as an act of war by the Freespace Authorities." There was no such thing as the Freespace Authorities—that's what made freespace freespace, but he was hoping that Atlas's obsession with propriety would lead them to stop and check.

"The Zact do not recognize Freespace." Weiss replied almost immediately. "Our Alliance serves as a force of law wherever we travel. Now surrender or be destroyed." Two of the Xiphos fighters had broken off formation and were accelerating toward the shuttle while the main force continued on toward the Beacon.

"Nora, now would be a great time for that Nor-ion drive thing right about now," Jaune urged, pulling up different angles from the external sensors of the approaching ships.

Nora was doing the same, but with a hard-set look of mounting amusement. "Wait for it..."

Shooting a glare at her, Jaune pulled up scanner information on the other ships, the ones on a heading for the Beacon. "You do realize these Xiphos fighters aren't a joke. Once they're within eighty miles of us, their physical driver weaponry will chew through the shuttle's shields in seconds."

All the reply he got was a tiny laugh and, "Wait for it..."

"Come on, at least throttle up the conventional thrusters." He reached for the lever to do just that and earned himself a smacked hand.

"Not yet!" Nora reprimanded him sharply.

If she wasn't such an amazing engineer, Jaune would have... well he wouldn't have done all that much. Ren wouldn't stay if Nora was gone and having Ren as his pilot was key to Jaune's 'not dying' plans for the near future. So really all he did was glare at her and wait for whatever shenanigan she was up to to bear fruit.

On the panel he was reading, Jaune watched the pair of fighters cross the ninety-mile mark and braced himself for impact.

"Showtime!" Nora crowed, pushing the throttle full forward while at the same time mashing a button she'd jury-rigged under the main console. The shuttle bucked and lurched forward with frightening acceleration as a powerful explosion emanated from a heavy metal dish fitted between the shuttles three primary thrusters.

The two fighters closed to within firing range just in time to be met with a cloud of shrapnel and an exhaust plume that carried equal and opposite to the trust of the shuttle. One skipped off the edge of the plume and was turned broadsides into the debris field. Most of it was smaller than the end of Jaune's finger, but at the speed those bits were traveling, the craft might as well have come under fire from mass drivers. Hundreds of thousands of projectiles battered the weaker broadside shields until they gave out and deadly flying metal and ceramic filled the cabin, killing its pilot.

Luckier, or just plain more stubborn than its second, the other Xiphos bulled forward, depending on its more powerful forward shields to plow through the debris. A flare of red flashed above the shuttle as its pilot opened fire on them.

"Suspect shuttle," the new voice on the channel was female and sounded strained compared to the cold, impartial tone of the previous one. "This is Pilot First Class Pyrrha Nikos. You are now charged with the murder of Colonel Luciano Valentine. In accordance with Atlasian Aerospace law, I am within my rights to destroy you and your craft as I see fit. You have a choice: stand down now, or perish in the Void."

Nora hit the comm controls at her console before Jaune could say anything. "Hey! That was self defense, you lousy Zact! And you're out of your mind if you think you're ever gonna take us alive!" Her free hand pulled up a scrolling list of the shuttle's meager armament and activated the magnesium flares.

A series of sealed canisters poured out of the rear of the shuttle, exploding thereafter into blinding flashes of light. This was answered by a series of mass driver shots that thankfully missed thanks to Nora's wild steering.

"Jaune, I'm going to assume comm silence isn't a priority anymore and let you know: the second arrival is incoming. From the readings, it's an Ex-Law capital ship—class unknown," reported Ren.

"Because my day's been going way too well already." Jaune pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to think with all the chaotic jigs and jukes Nora was employing to keep them from being blown out of the Void. "Okay let's cut our losses. Already wanted for murder, let's go for kidnapping and hope Atlas negotiates for hostages. Get Ruby up at spinal gunner and Yang at the forward array. Have her warm up the Attractor Beam and have Ruby prepare to shoot out that Adjuicator's electronic warfare antennae as soon as they're in range."

"I take it you have a plan?"

"I have a very stupid plan, yes. Let me know when they're in position." Then he set the comm back to broadcast to the Atlasians. "Atlas fighters, I apologize for the loss of your man, but my pilot is right: we killed in order to avoid an unlawful arrest by authorities outside of the Zact sphere of influence."

"Stop lying," snapped the fighter pilot, Pyrrha. "We bloomed to the fallback point, which is well within Zact space."

Jaune grit his teeth at Zact stubbornness. "I know damn well where I am. Unless things have changed in the last month, this system isn't even on any Zact maps. Not on Ex-Law maps either—so thank you very much for bringing them here, by the way."

In the trailing Xyphos, Pyrrha had a moment of confusion before checking long-range scanners. She was just in time to see the Ex-Law warship that assailed the Paladin earlier bloom in not twenty miles from the wounded capital ship.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Shaped like a flattened crescent with a dozen spars extending above and below, the Ex-Law ship was almost half the size of the Paladin, but the memory of its firepower was barely an hour old for her. The primary weapon; a cluster of mass drivers, had cut the Paladin's shields to ribbons, making a mockery of Atlasian defensive technology while sending people she'd known all her adult life or longer to the grave. All she really had left were her squadron and Colonel Valentine too was now among the dead.

Whether it be by the scavengers or the Ex-Laws, she now stood to lose everything. She switched channels to the mission link to the Adjudicator. "Adjudicator Schnee. The Ex-Law ship has just bloomed in near the Paladin. With Colonel Valentine dead, you are now mission lead and I am squadron leader. Please advise."

A long, terrible moment passed as Pyrrha waited and watched as the Paladin deployed fighters and the Ex-Law craft responded in kind.

"Pilot Nikos," Weiss sounded on the verge of panic, though she was clearly trying to disguise it. "I am sending my escort back to aid the Paladin, but we are not about to allow the law or Colonel Valentine go unavenged. Please continue your assault on the shuttle while we move within electronic warfare range. I doubt these savages can survive a full minute under my attentions."

"As you order, Adjudicator." Pyrrha tried to throttle up but found her acceleration was already at maximum. A shuttle from a so-called 'savage' ship was keeping ahead of her, even if only just. She'd never really believed the prevailing attitude that the worlds on the Zact fringe were all backward, but now she had proof.

Back inside same shuttle, Jaune had been watching the same events as Pyrrha had, only his thoughts were toward preventing loss rather than mourning it. The Atlasian ship had sent out what appeared to be all of its available fighters to sally forth against the newcomer.

"They're stalling so they can recharge their bloom drive," he said aloud as it dawned on him.

Nora stiffened in the pilot's seat beside him. "Not good, Jauney! Not good! We're still in the cloud! If they try to bloom now, it'd be like we were flying through the corona of a star! You've gotta make them stop—or slow down. We need two minutes to get out of the cloud!"

He'd never heard such terror in her voice. Fingers moving on their own, he started scanning channels until he found the Atlasians' global frequency. After a few false starts, he began broadcasting. "Attention Atlas ship and fleet. I am Captain Jaune Arc of the freespace ship Beacon. I'm sure you've got your hands full at the moment—"

"Get off of this channel!" boomed an angry male voice.

"And you may not understand the import of what I say, but you are currently floating in a cloud of contaminated waste xenon from the derelict ship. If you attempt to bloom now, you will ignite the gas and kill everyone in the area. Do not bloom. Repeat: do not bloom!"

As if responding for all of Atlas, Pyrrha finally managed to correct for Nora's flying and a mass driver shot shook the shuttle.

"Right dorsal stabilizer's hit!' Nora called out, though she was smirking. "That'd be bad—if we were in atmosphere. Ha-ha!" She threw the ship into another juke, then straightened out and lined the shuttle up to approach the Beacon from below.

The comm crackled and the voice of Adjudicator Schnee came on the line. "A sad ploy, 'Captain' Arc. One that will not save you from you fate. No true Atlasian would give a moment's thought to a 'warning' from a desperate man."

"Why would a desperate man not want the ny-jani Zact to leave the system? That's my fondest dream right now! If your Commander blooms now though, everyone dies!"

"Quite a believable fiction when I am just moment's away from engaging your ship in electronic warfare." Weiss snapped. "You rimward barbarians probably haven't even heard of the sort of people you would need to defend against me!"

Jaune smirked as he sent a text-only message to Ruby's comm. "Correction, Adjudicator: this rimward barbarian—who was born on a core world by the way—just can't afford the kind of person who traditionally defends against you. However, out here in freespace where we don't have all the fancy facilities of the Zact or even many bones to pick off a fallen empire?"

Right on cue, an explosion rocked the Adjuicator's ship, shearing off the ship's primary antenna array.

"We improvise." He finished triumphantly. "Nice shot, Rubes. Now let's see if we can pull ourselves out of this pile of shit that landed on us. "Nora, Ren: to your jobs. Yang, Pull the Adjuicator's ship to the shuttle docking clamps."

Yang squawked over the comm. "As much as I'd love to argue that I should be blasting her to debris, the more important thing is... don't you need those clamps to dock?"

"Nope." Jaune popped the 'p' in the word, a habit he'd picked up from the sisters. Ahead of them, the belly of the Beacon was opening up to reveal the ship's primary docking bay. "We're doing a barn swallow."

"Coming in hot, Renny!" Nora squealed, throwing on deceleration thrusters as the shuttle arrowed toward the bay doors.

Jaune placed his hand on his console and tapped the shuttle's computers to run calculations. "Ren, start closing the docking doors on my mark. Ny-ja do I hope someone is willing to pay full price for what I managed to get off the derelict because this is going to be one monster repair bill."

On the main screen, he watched the cargo bay move closer and closer while on another, he saw the Adjuicator's ship lurch violently under the invisible sway of the Attractor Beam. Finally, he switched to a rear-facing camera and found the Xiphos closing fast. Its pilot wasn't slowing down at all.

Then there was no more time. Nora fired port and starboard thrusters, narrowing the shuttle's profile just enough to pass through the now-closing cargo doors. It looked like they were clear, but then, like its namesake weapon, the Xiphos thrust in through the opening, destroying its spinal and dorsal weapon arrays, but forcing itself into the bay alongside the shuttle with the sound of screaming metal and cracking ceramics.

The cargo doors clanged closed and the automated systems reasserted gravity, causing the two ships to fall into one another in another cacophonous impact. The harness bit into Jaune's chest as he jostled in his seat with the impact.

"Ny-ja! That woman is crazy!" He shouted as he hurriedly unlatched said harness.

"I'm starting to like her!" Nora said, looking no worse for wear from the crash.

Jaune just shook his head. "Let's hurry up. I need you down in engineering making sure we're clear of that cloud." After untangling himself from the harness, he dragged himself out of the co-pilot's seat and to the emergency hatch. A sharp twist of the handle and a firm press blew out the seals and caused it to fall open.

"Hurry up," He called back to Nora as he climbed out into the chaotic cargo bay. "We don't know how long—urk!" An armored hand wrapped around his throat and pulled him clear of the hatch. Another caught his shoulder and slammed him against the outer hull of the shuttle hard enough to make stars explode in his eyes.

When his vision cleared, his first thoughts of how the designs of Atlasian marine armor certainly earned high marks in the highly coveted 'make your enemies shit their pants' category. Colored somewhere between rust and dried blood, it boosted the wearer's height to a little over seven feet. The ceramic plates were styled to mimic exaggerated musculature complete with bulging veins and an eight-pack of abdominal muscles. But the prize went to the helmet. It was a wolf's head with the sensor array arranged to create a pair of glowing red wolf-eyes that bored into his soul and accentuated the howling (pun intended) black void that was the helm's opaque face plate.

"Hello again." The suit's respirator—likely by design—distorted the words into a bestial growl and Jaune had no illusions that the woman inside the suit meant it to sound that way.

"Jaune!" Nora called, boiling out of the hatch like a one-woman anthill. She'd found a spanner the size of her arm somewhere in the cockpit and now brandished it with malice of forethought.

"Get down to engineering!" He snapped, willing himself to stay calm.

That got more difficult as the left hip of the armor opened and from it was drawn a heavy pistol. He was able to get well-acquainted with it as it was pressed into his forehead.

"For the murder of Colonel Luciano Valentine, I hereby sentence you to death, Jaune Arc."

There came a time in every man's life where he had to take responsibility for what he'd done and face the consequences bravely and without flinching.

This was not that time in Jaune Arc's life. "W-wait! Please!" he actually whined and tried to push the gun away with a bare hand against the strength of powered armor. "Let's talk about this! I'm sorry your leader died, but we weren't trying to kill him. My engineer's just... enthusiastic when it comes to high explosives. I don't even know where she gets that much!"

The grip on his shoulder, which was holding him up, tightened. "If Colonel Valentine were merely my leader, I would be happy to bring you to trial, to allow you to speak your piece. However, I am not facing you here and now as a good soldier of Atlas, but as a protege avenging her mentor. If it were not for Colonel Valentine, I would be nothing; not even a citizen regardless of my house name. He saw potential in me, helped me hone it, sponsored me at the Academy. That man made me who I am. And for his sake—for the sake of the wife and children you've forced him to leave behind—I will unmake you now."

Jaune cast his eyes downward. "I'm truly sorry for your and their loss," he said with genuine regret, though his eyes burned with defiance and determination. In the next moment, he released her weapon and lunged for her head with his now-free hand.

Instinct made Pyrrha squeeze the trigger. She expected her weapon to send a thumbnail-sized ball of plasma through the skull of her mentor's killer. What she didn't expect was for the weapon to eject its battery out the back, then the housing to come open in maintenance mode.

Meanwhile, Jaune slapped his palm down on on the back of her head where he prayed the suit's communications antenna was located. His prayers were answered by an instant connection to the suit's operating system.

He always had a hard time explaining how his technopathy worked to his crewmates, since they didn't have it. Doing so was something like explaining having a conversation to someone who doesn't understand what language is. What he did was between playing an instrument and having said conversation at the speed of thought.

Right now, he was screaming lies about Pyrrha being injured and needing immediate medical attention.

Emergency protocols then did his work for him. Latches and seals throughout the armor started to come undone. At the same time, the face plate separated and retracted into the cowl. "But," he continued what he'd been saying earlier, "I've got lives to save."

Then he punched what he'd admit was the prettiest face he'd punched in years.

He'd led an interesting life.

What he lacked in strength or technique, he made up for in surprise. Pyrrha stumbled back, releasing her grip on his shoulder. He capitalized on this by bulling forward just as her chest plate split open, slamming his shoulder into her sternum and knocking her off balance.

Almost falling over too, Jaune managed to stumble to a stop before dashing for the nearest wall of the cargo bay. Spying a spot on the wall where an old shipping decal had been placed, he slapped his palm on it and applied his technopathy. The weapon cache opened, an actuator extending a loaded plasma pistol which he immediately trained on Pyrrha. Even with her burdened by her now-dead-weight armor, he didn't want to give her a chance to spring a surprise on him.

"Do. Not. Move." he said sternly as soon as he was sure he had her attention. Green eyes blazed with rage, but she stopped trying to rise, remaining on one knee. Whatever she'd been wearing to tame what must have been a full meter of flame-red hair had come loose in her fall, leaving it to fall wild across her back and face.

When he was certain she wasn't going to try something, he spoke again, but not to her. "Ren connect to the local ansible and broadcast my voice as a full-spectrum emergency message."

"Connecting now. But Jaune, do you even have a plan about what to do with either of those ships?" Ren's voice came over the cargo bays spearkers.

"Not as such. Just set it up." The discussion distracted him just enough that he barely dodged the metal fist that came flying at him. He watched as the black-glowing thing slammed into the metal wall next to him and managed to make a small dent. What really concerned him was that it wasn't attached to Pyrrha.

Following its trajectory backward, he was just in time to see her rising to her feet. The chest, back, shoulder and lower torso plating from her armor was on the ground behind her, leaving her in her flight suit, her armor's gorget, boots, upper arm pieces and one gantlet.

As he watched, she snapped her hand forward in a knife-hand strike. The second gauntlet glowed black like its sibling, then slipped off her arm, sailing right at Jaune's face.

He ducked, only to watch his enemy swipe her hand downward, followed by the gauntlet come down hard across his back. That was just a feint though, as suddenly his pistol was glowing black and trying to wrench itself free from his grasp.

"So I'm not the only one of the Empire's leftover special snowflakes in freespace anymore. Good to know." He planted his feet, trying to ignore that her polarity was strong enough that she was starting to pull him toward him and started squeezing the trigger.

The pull on his weapon disappeared as the white-yellow plasma bolts now took on the black glow, deflecting around the Atlasian pilot as if she had a personal shield.

"Right... plasma, magnets. Should have expected that." Jaune hung his head over that miscalculation.

"Ansible connected. Go ahead, Jaune," said Ren's voice.

"Now?!" Jaune asked. He knew Ren had no way of knowing, but he was clearly in mid-peril. The look of murder in Pyrrha's eyes had redoubled and was enhanced by the remaining armor on her arms becoming overshadowed by the black glow and disassembling itself in a cacophony of screaming metal. The pieces began to orbit her slowly, their glows making the air seem like fire.

"You wretched, dishonorable savage! You pretend to have remorse for the death of my mentor in order to ambush me!?"

A piece of armor launched at him, causing Jaune to take cover behind an empty shipping crate. "I didn't—you know what? I don't have time for this." On hands and knees, he started to crawl from cover to cover to avoid more shrapnel. "Attention Atlasian and Ex-Law fleets within the sound of my voice. Your ships are currently inside a cloud of volatile waste gas. The bloom ignition process could ignite this gas and destroy all of you. The commander of the Atlasian fleet has already ignored my warning, so I am now appealing directly to you: if you are an engineer on any bloom-capable ships, I beg you to ignore any orders to bloom while you remain inside the cloud. If you are a pilot or navigator, I suggest you move with all speed to an area outside the cloud. My engineer will be making her findings available on the ansible.

"Life is short out here in freespace. We don't need to add thousands more deaths to our balance. Please, listen to me." He came up short as he nearly crawled into a piece of jagged, black-glowing metal that pressed itself firmly and insistently between his eyes.

Looking up, he found Pyrrha Nikos standing over him, hand upraised to apply the last little nudge to the shard that would make it the last thing to go through his mind. Her expression however, was slowly showing more confusion than rage.

"Stand up," she ordered.

The potentially deadly piece of shrapnel followed him up as he complied. He kept his hands up and his eyes crossed as he tried to keep an eye on the method of his execution. "I wasn't lying when I said I was truly sorry. If I knew what Nora's trick back there was going to do, I wouldn't have let her use it."

"You are a pirate and a grave robber. What do you care about another body on the pyre?"

"Who said that? I'm a scavenger and an errand boy for the actual players out here in freespace. I don't want people to die needlessly."

Ren's voice then cut in. "Jaune, incoming communication from the Paladin."

"Please be good news. Send it down, Ren."

"-as will not be intimidated by some spacer criminal no matter what pablum he spews." the voice of the Atlasian Commander was saying. "Perhaps the Ex-Laws will be more receptive—like attracts like after all—but as for us, the Paladin will bloom the moment all recoverable craft are tucked in."

Completely forgetting the threat to his life, Jaune dropped his hands. "No! Look here you Zact drone; we are talking about the lives of your people here, not some contest to see who's swinging more in his pants! If you bloom, they will all die!"

A scoff came in reply. "As if we have any reason to believe you."

Casting around for something—anything-that could stop what was coming. He search ended with a pair of vivid green eyes whose fire was being dampened by inner conflict. "Then believe this, you ny-jani pig. I have one of your Adjudicators, her pilot—and Pyrrha Nikos. That name ring a bell? Because I think it might. No way the Zact wouldn't keep a close eye on a spaceling from the Emperor's private bloodlines."

There was sputtering from the other end of the connection before the commander returned, all abluster. "You sir are in violation of the Writ of Official Secrets. There is no truth to that old legend."

"You sure about that? Because I just happen to have a souvenir in my genetic code from the Emperor's tinkering too." He swallowed, knowing there would be repercussions for what he said next. "Cadre Three Zero Zero One. Technopathy. Are you listening too, Ex-Laws? If you can catch me and don't use your bloom systems, I'll turn myself over to you and serve faithfully."

Silence. It was an offer no one could just blithely turn down.

However.

"We will not be delayed or diverted by your chicanery any longer. The crew you've decided to take hostage are deemed acceptable losses."

The link went dead.

"No." Jaune said. "No! You stupid bloated—get back here! Ren, hit the ansible again!"

"It's not going to do any good. I'm moving us back as far from the cloud as possible."

Jaune ran his fingers through his hands. "Ruby, get up to the spinal gun. Target the Paladin's bloom core as soon as it opens!"

A second later, Ruby's voice came over the speakers. "We're too far. I mean, I can hit it, but space and time don't work that way."

"Someone do something!" he shouted, voice echoing through the cargo bay. He moved over to the wall again, completely ignoring Pyrrha at this point. He found one of the projector's for the ship's holographics suites and brought up the Beacon's visual scanning of the area around the derelict, superimposing Nora's estimates for the cloud over them.

None of the smaller crafts had moved to escape and the Ex-Law ship was still pouring plasma and mass driver fire onto the Paladin. Several degrees of magnification later, and he was looking at the central spire of the Atlasian ship expanding open to expose the ships bloom core to the vacuum of space.

"You were completely honest about saving them, weren't you?" A voice asked from behind him.

"At least someone realizes it," He muttered, eyes transfixed as the central core opened and the plasma channels started to flicker—each pre-ignition just a tiny bit too bright as it burned through the volatile gas.

A pair of strong hands grabbed his shoulders. "Then don't look." He was turned bodily until her was face-to-face with Pyrrha Nikos. It felt like he'd known those eyes forever, seen that welling sadness before. He started to turn away—to watch in morbid self-flagellation—only for her to release his shoulders and grab either side of his face, locking his gaze on hers.

"There's no reason to watch them die," she said quietly. "Neither of us needs to see that."

The holographic image flared white as the plasma lit and so too did the gas. It washed one side of her face out completely and cast the other in impenetrable shadow. Together, they stood there, desperately focusing on each other until the light faded and a heavy cloak of silence fell over them.

Neither knew who it happened to first, but eventually, their strength and resolve failed them and their legs gave out, sending them collapsing tot he ground, each with only the other keeping them from falling over entirely. They sat there, panting as they fought against their own tumultuous emotions.

"I can never forgive you," Pyrrha whispered after a long time, "But I can't seek vengeance on you now. Not after what I've seen and heard of you."

Whatever Jaune might have replied with was drowned out by Ren coming back on over the speakers. "Preliminary long-range scans suggest the Paladin has sustained eighty-percent damage. The primary spire is... it's gone. The rest of the craft suffered a complete hull failure. Even if it hadn't, the area experienced temperatures comparable to the corona of a star. Chance of survivors is three percent assuming there were any environmentally shielded compartments. No rescue beacons yet."

"The stupid peacock," Jaune muttered, "Letting others die for his sin of pride. And the Ex-Laws, Ren?"

"Seventy-three percent damage estimates, but an even lower chance of survivors. It suffered catastrophic structural failure—nothing out there of it larger than a person for the most part. It's like it was designed to disintegrate upon destruction."

Jaune squeezed his eyes closed. "Any lifeboats? Fighters that made for the edge of the cloud?"

"Just the Adjudicator craft you had Yang pull in with the attractor beam. What do you want to do with the crew? It's all I can do to keep Yang from purging their environment."

Pulling away from Pyrrha, who was watching him with a calm intensity, he forced himself to his feet and dusted himself off. "I guess technically they're prisoners." He offered her a hand up and after some reluctance, she accepted it. "Nora, go prep the spare crew quarters we use for passengers—remove anything that could be a weapon. Ruby? With me, we'll bring the Adjudicator and her pilot in."

"What about me?" growled the voice of Yang.

"There's a Xiphos down here that's basically tried to mate with Shuttle 1. How about you see to that?"

"Ny-ja. You know I should be the one handling the prisoners."

Jaune shook his head even though she couldn't see it. "Not if I want them alive." He turned to Pyrrha as he rechecked the pistol he'd miraculously managed to hold on to. "We both know you could just take this from me and try to fight my crew."

"Even if I managed to commandeer your ship, where wold I go?" She asked, "I don't know what the headings were when the Paladin bloomed and according to you, we're far outside Zact-controlled space. My best option is to surrender to your judgment, which I do."

He nodded to her, grateful. "Let's hope your shipmates see it that way." He started making his way toward the stairs leading up the the cargo hold's gantry, glancing back periodically to make sure she was following him. "You said the Paladin was blooming to fallback coordinates? How does a navigator khag things up so perfectly that they bloom into an entirely different spiral arm of the galaxy?"

"I have no idea," Pyrrha admitted. "Fallbacks are pre-programmed in any case, so operator error shouldn't even be a an issue." She hesitated at the doors leading into the ship proper, casting a sad look back to her Xiphos. "I suppose we will never know. With no surviving command or navigation staff and very little in the way of remains of the base itself..."

She let her point hang in the air as they transitioned from the cluttered and industrial-looking cargo bay into a cheerily lit hallway with faux wood floor and wall panels. It terminated in a room shaped like a stretched octagon. Four of the walls featured ladders leading up and down. The others featured bulkhead doors.

A woman with a voluminous mane of blonde hair was climbing up from below as they entered. She wore a brown flight suit with the jacket open over an orange tank top and had a pair of chunky pistols of a make Pyrrha wasn't familiar with hung from a thick leather belt at her waist.

Her violet gaze turned murderous as she saw who had entered the intersection with her and one hand immediately went to a pistol, drawing it out in a single fluid motion.

"Yang!" Jaune's shout bounced off the walls as he interposed himself between the two women.

"One reason." Yang ground out. She took two long steps and ended with the barrel of her weapon just a hair's breadth from Jaune's eye. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't paint the juncture with that lousy Zact's brain right now, Jaune."

Jaune leaned away from the weapon. Standing up to Yang was a lot easier when it was via the comms where he didn't have to stand directly in the eye of the storm of palpable rage that swirled around her. "Yang. Listen to me."

"No you listen to me," the furious woman growled. "You promised me. It was my only demand when we joined up with your crew: You promised to keep Ruby out of the hands of the Zact. Now you've got one on your ship and," she looked past him, "ny-ja you don't even have her cuffed or anything."

"Yang, we are over a thousand light years from the edge of Zact space, the only Zact craft within a parsec are a completely thrashed short range fighter in our belly and an ECM ship without a mast clamped to the shuttle dock completely at our mercy. They're not a threat, okay?"

"Did you catch a case of stupid on that derelict? Zact are always a threat! They can't help themselves. They've got to pick and dig and twist to force things to be the way they want them to be. They don't care who it hurts to do it either. You don't think I heard that asshole you were talking to? He sent out a patrol to arrest you while they were fighting for their lives, then killed everyone under his command to spite you."

She shot a hateful glare past Jaune to Pyrrha. "You don't think this one wouldn't rip out our life support or hijack the controls to bloom us into the nearest star just so she could see 'justice' done? Because that's what they're like. Every ny-ja Zact in the universe."

"Yang? What's going on?" A young woman poked her head out from the hatch at the top of one of the ladders. As she was hanging upside down from said ladder, her red-tipped black hair fell in her face as she tried to survey the events happening in the juncture.

"Ruby, go back up and lock yourself in the gunner's nest." Yang said, not taking her eyes off Jaune or Pyrrha.

Curious silver eyes squinted at the three of them. "But the captain said..."

"I don't much care for anything the 'captain' has to say right now."

That just made Ruby laugh. Her head disappeared and a moment later, she came sliding down the ladder feet first, landing heavily. She was wearing a long sleeved black shirt with a red vest, black leggings and a long red skirt and heavy boots. A pair of black fingerless gloves with roses printed on the back completed the outfit, as did the plasma rifle on her back. "So. What'd Jaune do now?"

It was only then that she seemed to notice Pyrrha's presence. "Wait a minute. I thought I was supposed to help you go collect the prisoners, Cap'n."

"You are," Jaune said, starting to sound tired. "We're collecting the pilot and the Adjudicator from the ECM ship. This is Pyrrha—she'd from the Xiphos that was shooting at us and she's already surrendered."

"Then how come she's not cuffed?" Ruby asked the obvious question.

"That's what I want to know!" Yang shouted.

Now heedless of Yang's gun in his face, Jaune rubbed his temples. "For one? We don't have cuffs."

"Then get some wire or rope or something. We can't just let her run around loose on the ship," demanded Yang."

By then, Pyrrha had had enough of having her people disparaged. "Why?!" she demanded, stepping up next to Jaune and getting the barrel aimed at her forehead for her troubles. "Why do you hate the Zact so much? We bring order and civilization to the three galaxies. We defeated the Empire and brought peace. Every world we touch is allowed to join in the benefit of our technology, medicine, culture. And to fight that, you would turn on your own captain? Threaten his life after he just put his all into saving even his worst enemies?"

She could have sworn she saw Yang's eyes turn red for a second. "You arrogance piece of khag!" The next thing Pyrrha knew was a blur in her vision and all the sound in the juncture giving way to a roar that became a terrible ringing in her ears.

It took her a moment to realize the blur in front of her was the sleeve of Jaune's space suit. He'd pushed Yang's gun aside, sparing her a bullet between the eyes, but not the explosive noise of its discharge. Then Jaune's sleeve moved and the next thing she saw was Jaune and Ruby trying to wrestle the hand cannon out of Yang's hand. The blonde woman was shouting at the top of her lungs, but deafened as she was, Pyrrha heard none of it.

Then Ruby was talking with Jaune chipping in what appeared to be a heartfelt support. Little by little, Yang started to calm down and the tinnitus started to subside for Pyrrha.

"...old man has to say, but you better keep a guard on them every second they're on this ship." Yang was saying, easily shrugging off both her crewmates now that he'd collected herself. Then she glared at Jaune, who was holding her pistol. "And give me my ny-jani gun back."

"Just promise not to fire this thing in the ship again. Nora threatens us with enough hull breaches as it is."

Yang just snatched the weapon back and checked it. "Whatever. Let's go get the other two."

"Right. You and Ruby take point and flank the docking hatch. I'll stand front and center with Pyrrha. Seeing her should at least give credence to the idea that we mean them no harm."

"I mean them harm," Yang grumbled. All the same, she and Ruby went on ahead, moving through the doors opposite the cargo bay.

Meanwhile Jaune hung back with Pyrrha who was watching the two women go, looking slightly shellshocked. "You okay? Did you get hit?"

"Why does she hate us so much? We..."

"You don't want to repeat the Zact sales pitch on this ship. I mean, I understand. My parents were in the same place you were before they actually had to be on the front lines of all that 'bringing civilization' stuff. We don't have time for a history lesson, but believe me when I say that Yang lived that lesson. Ruby... Ruby was too young to remember. And the only thing Yang wants in this whole galaxy is to make sure Ruby never has to learn herself."

Reluctantly, Pyrrha followed as Jaune continued through the doors into a short hallway that then gave way to a lounge of some sort, complete with a dining table, meal preparation appliances, and other homey touches that made one almost forget one was in space. "I don't understand..." she murmured.

While the implication was clear: that the Zact had done something deeply terrible to the sisters, it didn't track with what she'd known all her life. After all, she was living proof of the dark experiments performed by the Trinion Empire on its subjects. That didn't begin to cover the decades of terror and pain they'd inflicted as they annihilated dissidents, scoured worlds of their resources and plundered their cultures and treasures.

The Zact didn't come to new worlds as conquerors but as saviors; bringing law and therefore peace to a galaxy left lawless by the power vacuum left by the Empire's fall at their hands. They provided science, food, culture—the means to become something greater. How could that possibly harm anyone? Every history lesson she'd ever been taught said the Zact were welcomed with open arms by everyone but the power mad X-laws and the most backward and suspicious backwater worlds.

She had to find out what it was Yang was so angry about—to fix the misunderstanding or if the unthinkable was true, make amends.

Besides the doors that led into this room, two ladders on either side led upward while another set of doors led further on. Jaune picked the ladder on the left and swiftly scaled it, leading them into a cluttered chamber filled with equipment lockers, supply crates and a single heavy set of airlock doors.

It didn't take a lifetime in space to recognize a shuttle embarkation bay when you saw one.

Ruby and Yang were already there, camped out as if they were expecting a tactical assault from a dozen fully armed and armored Zact Marines. Ruby had arranged crates at the back of the room to both grant her cover and to give her a place to unfold what was now clearly no mere plasma rifle. The telescoping barrel and stock were both fully deployed as well as the tripod at the end of the anti-armor heavy plasma cannon's barrel. The younger sister was sighting on the airlock doors like she expected to have to blow the wings off a blau-fly two miles distant.

Also behind cover, but on the opposite side of the room (the better to make the enemy split their fire), Yang was hunkered down and holding both her handcannons akimbo, ready to blow some very large holes in whoever or whatever came through the airlock.

Jaune nodded to both women and touched his hand to the wall next to the ladder. Another smuggler's panel opened and an actuator extended an armor vest and a light pulse rifle. He put his pistol in a holster at his side and proceeded to don the armor.

"Is every wall in your ship full of weapons?" Pyrrha asked. She honestly never seen anything like it, and she'd participated in boarding actions against actual weapons smugglers.

"Welcome to freespace," was all he said as the armor vest cinched around him. He reached into the cavity and pulled out a mask. It wasn't as terrifying as the Xiphos pilots' wolf helms, but it was still discomfiting: looking like it was pounded out of pig iron with big, black bug eyes for a sensor array, an exposed respirator that looked like a set of clenched needle teeth at the mouth, and spurs of no discernible purpose forming a horned crown around the forehead. Any sense of symmetry was broken by a pair of golden arcs inlaid into it so they crossed the left eye down to the cheek.

Even more discomfiting was the wholly organic way its plates and rubberized collar seemed to move to swallow up his face as he donned it. There was a metallic squawk as the external speakers came on, which didn't help. When Jaune spoke next, the respirator and speakers combined to make it sound like the bark and whine of a hellhound. "Game face is on. Connecting to docking bay comms."

A control panel next to the airlock doors came to life, scrolling through diagnostics on the ship as well as information from the sensors including detected living crew and cargo. After a moment. Jaune started speaking again. "Attention crew of the Atlasian ECM craft. This is Captain Jaune Arc of the Freespace ship Beacon. As you no doubt already know by now, we have your helm, security and environmental controls. For all intents and purpose, you are our prisoners and you are far out of range for possible attempted rescue.

"In fact, like I kept trying to tell you; you are far outside of Zact space. Wherever your base was trying to bloom, you overshot by at least a factor of ten, maybe as much as a hundred. And believe me: there's no one here in Freespace willing to give anyone a lift back into Zact space. Long story short: you're stuck here. Lucky for you, My cr... most of my crew doesn't have an appetite for killing you and I really don't want prisoners either. So here's my offer: put down your weapons and surrender. In exchange, we'll take you with us to the nearest station where hopefully the man in charge will have work for you. The safe approach distance to Vale station is eleven days sublight, so we just have to coexist for just under two weeks. Pilot First Class Nikos has already accepted my terms and is here to confirm the legitimacy of this offer.

"Those are our incredibly generous terms considering your showing up and trying to arrest us just cost us fuel food and funds to stay independent for the next year at least. Take it or leave it." He broke the connection then and the four of them stood in silence watching the console for the reply.

After a long minute, Pyrrha had to ask; "What if they 'leave it'?"

Jaune shrugged. "I suppose we lock down this airlock and make them the problem of whoever buys their ship."

The comms crackled and a stern female voice spoke. "This is Adjudicator Weiss Schnee. I suppose I am now the Commander of the remaining Atlasian forces in the area. I wish to open negotiations on the terms of our surrender. First: for the duration of our stay on your ship, we will be treated as guests, not prisoners."

"Oh like hell are you going to have the run of the ship!" Yang roared.

Jaune muted the feed on his end. "How were we even going to manage that, Yang? Side from locking them in their ship or Shuttle 2 with the dockside controls, every room on this boat locks from the inside. Do you volunteer to lose two weeks of sleep to keep them locked up in the spare crew quarters?"

It was almost enough to make Yang take her sights off the docking doors. "You're really pushing it, Arc. We could just pull their O2 right now and be done with it."

"Yang..." Ruby took her face away from her weapon's eyepiece to look at her sister. "We can't just kill them. They didn't really do anything to us. I mean what we do is all kinds of illegal, so it's only fair someone should probably try to arrest us..."

"You don't get it Ruby. Just leave this to me."

"Not if you're going to go around killing people in cold blood," Ruby said, standing her ground.

Yang ground her teeth. "I'm trying to protect you!"

"Mom and dad always tried to protect us and they never suffocated people who didn't do anything!" Ruby snapped back. "Who would do something like that?"

The words hit Yang with almost physical force. Her eyes widened and her jaw worked, trying to force out a retort, but none came because she had no defense for that. Taking them prisoners, killing them in a fair fight, these were all justifiable. But shutting down their ships environmentals and life support? That was the stuff of bandits. And X-Laws.

And the Zact.

Her hands were trembling and the weight of her hand cannons seemed like it was finally making itself known. "Don't say that, Ruby. Don't say that!"

"Then don't do it!" Ruby shouted. "I don't know what's got you so afraid, but this isn't like you." Her expression softened. "You're always looking out for me, so let me look out for you just this once and tell me what's going on."

When it looked like Yang was having a hard time finding something to say, Jaune stepped in. "It's complicated Ruby. We'll all have a discussion about this later. In the meantime: Yang head down and grab Nora and Ren for the lounge. We're going to have a full crew meeting in about ten minutes."

"Jaune." Yang said sharply.

"Yang. Please. We don't have better options." Jaune looked at her through the bleak expression of his mask, but the pleading was still clear in his voice.

Another tense moment went by before Yang jammed her weapons back in their holsters. "Fine. But when they turn on you, I'm taking Ruby and bolting. To every hell in the galaxy with you." That said, she stomped her way down the ladder.

Jaune groaned, but then unmuted the mic. "We agree to that term. What are your other terms?"

"It took you long enough," Weiss replied almost instantly. "That was not so unreasonable a demand that it required that long to deliberate."

"Do you know this woman personally?" Jaune asked Pyrrha, who shook her head. "So there's no telling if she's this unreasonable normally or if it's the fact that she's backed into a corner."

"I heard that!" Weiss's voice said.

Jaune clenched the fist of his free hand. "You were meant to. Your other terms?"

Weiss hemmed and hawed a bit before saying, "You will not sell my ECM craft or the Xiphos you captured. I will not be responsible for Atlasian technology winding up in enemy hands."

"Do you have any idea how much you and your pals cost us when you bloomed in, tried to arrest us, and then atomized that huge cash cow of a derelict? We barely going to make enough off this to justify the trip out here. If one of our fences wants it, we are going to sell everything. Weapon systems, engines, hull plating. If you brought toiletries on board, I will sell those too. I've got crew to feed, water and xenon to buy, and debts to way too many people with bigger, meaner ships to pay off. No deal."

"Then you have no deal with us then," replied Weiss. "Step on foot on this ship and you will be shot dead."

There was an electronic squawk and a new voice came on, this one nearly monotone, almost bored. "This woman does not speak for me. I accept all terms of surrender."

"Wha—how did you break into this channel? And how dare you say I don't speak for you. I am your Commander! In fact, if there really are no other Zact or Atlasian forces in this system, then I am Supreme Commander."

"Of three people. One who's been captured, and one who is yourself. What exactly are you going to do to me? Court martial me with? Oh no, you need a triumverate for that and I'm not going to find myself guilty."

Weiss snarled. "T-this is insubordination! I'll see you busted down to... to..."

"I'm an envoy pilot already. Because Founders and Makers forbid Atlas has the Empire's 'mistakes' in officer positions even if they tested for full qualifications to pilot capitol ships."

"I...grah! Captain Arc, I have a new term. I will surrender unconditionally as long as Pilot First Class Blake Belladonna is not extended the guest privileges I negotiated earlier."

Jaune rolled his eyes inside his mask. "Granted. Are we done now?"

"Done." Weiss sounded incredibly proud of herself. "Also, I am officially dishonorably discharging Pilot Belladonna from the Atlasian Fleet."

It was a very good thing that Yang wasn't there, Jaune decided. While Pyrrha and apparently Blake were proving to be way more reasonable than the standard image of the Zact, Adjudicator Schnee was living up to every bad thing said about them. Except murder. But then the day was young.

"Whatever." He finally said. "Ren? You there buddy?"

"Right here, Captain."

"Blow the hatch if you will."

"On it in three, two, one. Blowing hatch." A powerful hiss preceded the airlock opening and then the ECM ship's own hatch being forced open. Against the internal lighting of the adjoining airlock stood a tall, lean woman with long, black hair wearing white Atlasian flight suit. Seated on the bench normally meant for marines going through decompression was a woman in the formal blue and white officer's uniform of the Atlasian fleet. She had her arms crossed in defiance where her companion had hers raised.

Taking a shooters stance and sighting with his pistol Jaune ordered, "Please step into our airlock."

The black haired woman did as commanded, keeping her hands up as she did so. As she drew closer, it became clear that she was something other than the Imperial stock that populated most of the universe, but also something different from spacelings like Jaune or Pyrrha. Slightly glowing amber eyes with slit pupils like a cat's surveyed the scene inside the embarkation room.

"Blake Belladonna, I presume?" Jaune asked, "Formerly of the Atlasian Fleet?"

"Yes I am," she said with an affirming nod.

"You're an amilacara." Jaune tried to wrap his tongue around the proper term. The Empire and the Zact that followed them usually just used 'castoff' to describe the descendants of the first generation of genetic experiments that eventually created the spacelings. While spacelings had artificial genomes, amilacara were spliced with the genetics of whatever fauna that particular scientist liked the characteristics of.

Blake nodded again, but then added, "I prefer faunus, but that's better than the other word, Captain."

Beyond her, Jaune could see the officer—Weiss's-mounting annoyance at the exchange. He was not above pushing her buttons just a little more. "I can imagine how you've been treated. I heard a little bit just now, but I've heard stories from my parents. Doesn't sound like it would take much for you to renounce Atlas, huh? Especially now that you're out of their reach."

"No, it certainly wouldn't take much."

"Well, I image Yang would be thrilled to hear that and be okay with you at least. Buuuut we already have a pilot. Any other special skills?"

The faunus woman started counting off on her fingers. "Small craft repair, navigation—those something you need?" Jaune shook his head. "Well... I can cook."

"I do all the cooking on this boat," Jaune said just a little too defensively.

"Okay..." Blake gave him an odd look. "Before I got drafted, I was raised on Kyltus—one of the Ex-Law planets before Atlas captured it. I was in a gang there and I was pretty good at breaking and entering. Is that—"

"And you're in. For a thieving band of scum and low-lives, we are embarrassingly bad at anything that requires subtlety and we're starting to get a reputation."

"Mostly because of Nora." Ren pointed out over the comms.

"Yay!" Nora added from somewhere deep in the ship.

That was the last straw for Weiss who leapt to her feet and stormed into Beacon's airlock. "Now that is enough! Insubordination is unforgivable enough, but this—this is treason! Technically I would be within my right to exec..." she froze in place as the unmistakable red line of a laser tracer lanced into view to center directly over her left breast. "cute... oh."

"Yeah, you better not move because I can intensify the beam and burn a hole right through your heart literally any second," Ruby sang out.

"Commander Schnee, it's not too late to take me up on my offer," said Jaune. "Though if you want to take Ruby's I won't be jealous."

Weiss was steaming by now and her ire swung from the impassive Blake to Pyrrha. "I thought the blood of House Nikos ran thicker than this," she spat. "Standing by passively while your Commander is under threat? Do something!"

Pyrrha winced at the implied accusations, but held firm. "There's nothing we can do. No doubt you've checked your navigation by now and you know what they're saying is the truth: we are nowhere near Zact space, much less Atlas. Everyone in this sector hates us and no one is going to take us home. We have no choice but to go along because offer we're going to get out here. So doing nothing is the best service I can do for you."

The two women stared each other down for a long while before finally the Adjudicator's shoulders sank in defeat. "Very well. In the face of a total mutiny of all the forces in the sector, I surrender."

"Finally." Jaune muttered. "Alright then: permission to board. Welcome to the Beacon. Ren, button up the ECM ship for me, then start bloom calculations to the approach radius around Vale Station. Once that's done, all hands to the lounge. We need to have a meeting before we leave this place."

RWBYRWBYRWBY

"So you're the traitor." Yang was back in full form, if not a bit less aggressive now, doing her best to loom over Blake. "And somehow Jaune thinks you can be trusted?"

"I'm a traitor toward the other side, remember?" Blake deadpanned.

Yang folded her arms under her chest as if showing off her bosom was going to intimidate the faunus. "And what's keeping you from flipping on us the second it's to your advantage?"

One slim eyebrow rose. They were waiting for Nora and Ren to join the rest of the crew and their 'guests' in the lounge, sitting around the table. "Do you or any of the other have a problem with faunus?"

"No."

"And did you notice how the 'other side' is just one bossy little bean counter?"

"Yes."

Blake stared at her for a few seconds hoping something would come together on its own. When it didn't and Yang's stare remained equal parts belligerent and blank, she sighed. "Then what would even be the point of me turning on you then?"

The blank stare turned completely belligerent. "Well I don't know, now do I. That's why it'll be completely unexpected when you slit all our throats and fly off in the night, huh?"

"I give up." Blake buried her face in her hands. "Think whatever you want. You captain made me crew, so you're just going to have to deal with it."

Yang scowled and sat back, folded her arms behind her head. "Yeah, yeah. I just wish I could deal with it by sending you three dirty Zact on a little walk outside—suits optional."

"Whatever." Blake looked away to survey the rest of the lounge. Ruby was at the end of the table, opposite Blake, field stripping her rifle for cleaning. Jaune was watching Yang, who was sitting catty-corner to Blake and beside him. Looking like a mother expecting a tantrum, he had a pistol sitting on the table in front of him in case something started. Pyrrha was sitting next to him, casting fervent glances past him at Yang, clearly expecting the blonde woman to snap and attack. Weiss was alone on the other side of the table, nearer to Ruby, brooding.

One set of doors opened, admitting Nora and a man with dark hair set off by a single magenta lock who could only be the pilot, Ren. "Sorry it took so long," said Ren, "There were some odd errors being returned by the bloom nav. Some sort of outside interference I managed to trace to the remains of the Ex-Law ship and isolate."

With Nora skipping along beside him, he came to the table and sat down across from Jaune and next to Weiss. "I think that's what forced the Atlasian base to bloom so far off course."

"Impossible!" Weiss almost shrieked. "Bloom navigation is hardened against all forms of Electronic Warfare. One simply cannot tamper with them from outside the ship."

"That's just it," said Ren, "Whatever this was, it was sending ghost scanner images to make the local stars look different to the navigation system. Everything was external. The implications of the Ex-Laws having this and a ship that could make a mobile base cut and run from it... they're terrifying."

"The existence of that technology at all is terrifying," Blake spoke up. "It would mean no one could ever trust bloom drives ever again, because an enemy, a rival or just some sick monster could make you bloom directly into a star. It would mean the end of intergalactic travel as we know it."

It was Ruby who broke the heavy silence that followed that. "That... doesn't sound good."

Jaune rested his forehead on his knuckles. "As if we needed more complications. I'm... I'm honestly too tired to even try. We'll tell Ozpin about this when we get to Vale station. Let him sort it out. Taking on the whole of the Ex-Laws isn't something we can do alone anyway. Would you mind writing up everything you found so I can give it to him, Ren?"

The only other male crewman aboard the Beacon shook his head. "Not at all."

"Thanks." Jaune said with a grateful nod. "Alright, on to something we can do something about. Not gonna call them 'prisoners', especially since I offered one of them a job, but I'm sure everyone will feel just a little bit better if I took a few security measures."

"You're ny-ja right we would," Yang added.

Ignoring her, Jaune continued. "First off: no free weapons. If your personal arms aren't on your person, they need to be secured and locked up at all times. Second, I'm putting lockdown restrictions in place. Only crew is allowed on the flight or gun decks, the engine room, shuttle docks or the cargo bay unless escorted by armed crew."

"Well are least you're not being completely stupid about all this." Yang chimed in again.

Jaune made it a point to visibly brace himself. "And third, we're changing bunk assignments because I don't want the newcomers alone. Ren and I can bunk in my quarters—"

"Nope!" That was Nora immediately latched on to Ren's arm as if protecting against someone physically taking him from her.

A long suffering sigh left Jaune. "Nora, come on, Not this again. Look, there's eight people on the ship and only four usable crew quarters. There's only two men here, so it make sense for me and Ren to—"

"I said 'nope'." Nora folded her arms. "It's in my contract."

Jaune looked to Ren for help, but the other man just shrugged. "In fact, sharing a room with me is the only thing in her contract. Technically, you don't even have to pay or feed her." He said that while giving Jaune a look that promised long suffering if he ever actually exercised that technicality.

"Right..." Jaune heaved a shrug. "Okay, so with that in mind, Blake since you're the one Yang is least likely to either goad into a fight or take exception to, you'll bunk with her." The two women locked eyes, two lionesses sizing one another up. Blake nodded.

Yang grunted and shot a glare at Jaune. "Hold on. You don't mean to make Ruby bunk with one of them? That is totally out of the question."

"Look, there's no other way around it if we want to keep an eye on the newcomers. Besides, I was going to have her bunk with the Adjudicator. She's clearly a career officer and therefore pretty useless without soldiers to shoot her guns for her."

"Hey!" Weiss protested. "Is this how you treat guests?"

Jaune found the energy to smirk at her. If one good thing had come out of the hideous cascade failure that was this day, he could at least find pleasure in having a high born officer to torment. "This is how we treat crew, actually. We don't usually have guests."

Weiss pouted. "I cannot sleep in the same room as someone who almost shot me!"

Ruby scooted her seat around the corned of the table and ambushed Weiss by throwing her arm around the Zact officer's shoulders. "Aw, I was just painting you with the laser sight to terrify you into surrender. It's no biggie."

"Unhand me!" Weiss quailed, trying and failing to get Ruby's arm off her as she laughed and babbled on about how they were going to have fun rooming together.

"See?" Jaune asked Yang. "She can't even fight Ruby off hand to hand. Frankly, she's safer with the Adjudicator than she is with you and your sleeping with guns under your pillow."

While Yang growled and grumbled under her breath, Pyrrha spoke up. "Then would that mean I'll be bunking with you?"

He shook his head. "No. Regardless of situation, I don't want anyone to be more uncomfortable than they need to. My quarters have their own head, so there won't be much of a problem locking you in during night cycles."

She gave him a curious if not sympathetic look. "Then where will you sleep?"

Jaune just shrugged. "Flight deck? Shuttle Two? I've slept worse places."

After too-long a silence, Pyrrha spoke again. "I don't want to put you out. And the dorms at the Flight Academy were unisex and six to a room, so this won't be anything I haven't dealt with before."

"If you're sure it's alright." Jaune replied, scratching the back of his head. He reminded himself it was only two weeks. He could keep himself from doing anything embarrassing for either of them for two weeks.

"I'll be fine."

Yang grunted again and stood up. "If we're done forgetting who our enemies are, I'm going to go lock up my guns."

"Yeah... dismissed. Everyone should show their new bunkmates to their new quarters. Ren, Nora? Please run the ship through full diagnostics and have us ready to bloom inside the hour."

"Aye, Aye captain!" Nora threw a clumsy salute before scampering off toward engineering. Ren gave a nod and was off as well. Soon, almost everyone was gone from the room save two.

Jaune stood next to Pyrrha, watching the fighter pilot quietly staring at the surface of the table, one finger tracing an old scratch. "The others... they don't seem as affected by what just happened as you."

There was a long silence before Pyrrha saw fit to reply. "Adjudicator Schnee is a new transfer on top of being an officer. She's had neither time nor need to bond with anyone. Blake is a cast-off—pardon my language, I just don't know a better term. To be painfully honest, she's probably well aware that she'll be treated much better here than anywhere in the Zact core worlds."

Hunching her shoulders, she continued studying the table. "Since it may be years before anyone even knows what happened to the Paladin, I'm alone in mourning those who were lost."

Jaune drew in a long breath and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I may not have known them but—"

"Please stop." Moving faster than Jaune could react to, Pyrrha knocked his hand off her shoulder and stood, turning to lean back against the table. She avoided his gaze, looking anywhere but him. "You aren't helping things."

Completely at a loss as to how to respond, Jaune gaped for a second. "I'm... sorry?"

"I know you are. I know you wanted to save those people. I know that you're sorry they died even if they were your enemies. And I know that you're going above and beyond to help us. That's the problem. If you were just the monster who killed my mentor, I could focus myself on getting revenge, but... but you aren't."

Tears were starting to form in her eyes. "And now I'm starting to wonder if what you've told me isn't true... if the Zact... if I haven't been on the wrong side all along. I thought I lost everything today, but it might be that everything I've ever accomplished has been all for nothing."

"Hey." Tentatively, Jaune stepped forward and put his hands on her upper arms again. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes now and she was still refusing to meet his eyes. He stooped to put himself in her line of sight, finally locking eyes with her. "Hey. Look, I... don't really know what to say. But I do know what it's like to have lost everything—there was a time I didn't have this ship or this crew. I know the feeling of being alone, wishing you had something you could just lose yourself in..."

He sighed, seeing that his words didn't seem to be helping. "I just want to let you know that you aren't alone. As long as you're on my boat if there's anything you need, just ask—" he was cut off as he was pulled into a fierce embrace.

Pyrrha didn't say anything and Jaune didn't try to coax anything out of her. They just stood there for several long minutes, taking solace in one another against the cold indifference of space.

RWBYRWBYRWBY

Less than half an hour later, the diagnostics were done and the Beacon bloomed out, headed for Vale Station.

A few hours after that, the void rippled some six thousand miles from the epicenter of the derelict's explosion. From the vast nothingness emerged a ship about twice the size of the Beacon. Of Ex-Law make, it was built in two sections: the upper section shaped like a stretched horseshoe with the lower half shaped like a vast, legless beetle.

"Subspace cocoon has now fully been retracted. Heat damage was minimal across all systems, Captain." The first mate of the Ex-Law scout Wilt was a cast-off woman with a set of short, branching antlers. "Another successful test of another of Dr. Volero's designs."

The captain of the Wilt, another cast-off with a pair of bull horns sprouting from his forehead, clasped his hands in front of him as he surveyed the read-outs from his console. "Too bad it was at the cost of the White Fang. Three years of construction on top of all the research and development... The only positive is that the explosion annihilated all evidence of it—as well as any Atlasian witnesses."

He contemplated for a moment before asking, "What of the ship that gave us forewarning about the xenon explosion? Was it destroyed as well?"

The first mate shook her head. "It was outside of the blast radius. In all likelihood, it survived."

"Then it's possible there's still a witness to the White Fang's test run. Scan for residual bloom patterns. We can't let word get out about the Fang's new technology. Not yet. Inform the men: our objective before we return home is the annihilation or capture of Captain Jaune Arc and everyone with him."

RWBYRWBYRWBY

AN: So this is part of a project I've been working on on the side called All The Myriad Ways, where I basically do 'pilots' of fics to see how much demand there is for them. This one is a space opera concept I'm playing with putting some different spins on the various character relationships from RWBY and putting them before an epic space backdrop.

As for the setting, think Firefly meets the old Star Wars EU where parts of the fall of the Empire weren't necessarily a good thing.

If the series continues, it would be an episodic space pirates series with a myth arc about the Ex-Laws gaining new tech via captured scientists.