OSIRIS SYSTEM ASTEROID BELT
A cutlass drifted lazily just above the field of rock and debris that made up the Osiris system's asteroid belt. 'Autumn's Fire' was stenciled in a light orange just behind the cockpit and above the wing, followed by a black stylized heart shape. Both were lightly faded from wear. All along the wing and main fuselage where vibrant orange designs, practically glowing against the dark, steely red of the hull. A symbol adorned the outer pylon at the end of each wing: a circle interrupted by three white slashes; the symbol of the notorious White Fang pirate fleet.
Populated by the ruined husks of a small UEE fleet as well as some destroyed Vandul scythes, the asteroid belt was the site of a Vandul ambush. The remains of four UEE ships drifted around the system's F-class star, Osiris Prime to commemorate the event.
Inside the cutlass where two beings; both human, both in their early 20s. One wore a light grey flight suit, coupled with a jacket in a pattern of dark grey and black. He had silvery grey hair coming to just under his eyes, also grey, in a disheveled 'I just woke up' look, which he ironically took a great deal of time to craft. His black flight boots tapped against the bulkhead, annoying his partner.
She wore a similar grey flight suit, but hers was only worn up to her waist, the rest tied down to keep it out of the way. She wore an olive green tube top, complimenting her green hair while contrasting her darker skin and her eyes, a vibrant red.
"Would you cut that out? You're pissing me off." The girl glared at her annoying counterpart, practically wishing he would spontaneously combust just so he would stop bothering her.
"But Emerald I'm booooored." The grey-haired boy swiveled around in the gunner's chair that was his usual seat.
"Well tough. Cinder's off drinking or screwing or whatever with her contact, so we're stuck waiting." The identified Emerald retorted. "And I swear to god Mercury, if you keep that tapping up, I will cram you in the airlock and take great pleasure in watching you freeze and drift with the rest of the garbage." Emerald growled, forcing Mercury to stop.
Mercury turned to face the turret station, hoping something there would entertain him. "Bet you can't hit that insignia." Mercury highlighted a chunk of scrap that used to be a UEE frigate, indicating the frigate's faded ship patch.
"You're on. How many credits?" Emerald brought up her targeting display, feeding in the scrap's bearing, then manually shifting her gun's aim. "Let's say 50. 100 if you can hit the other side in the same place as it swings around."
She fired once, waiting a scant second before firing again, just before her first shot hit. The first shot connected directly on target, swinging the former hull plate around from the force of the impact. The second looked to hit just a few inches to the right of where she aimed. She gave an exasperated huff, but her smirk returned quickly. "At least you owe me 50 credits. Pay up bitch."
"All right, all right." Mercury opened a pocket on his thigh, bringing out a small pouch. He pulled out a handful of small zirconium bars, about the size of his pinkie. He tossed them the five feet to Emerald, then returned the pouch to his pocket. "Wanna try your luck again?"
"You're going down laser brain." Emerald's grin widened marginally before she swiveled back around to look at her display. "There, that Vandul hull at long range. 30 says you can't hit it." Emerald sent over the targeting data, a light ping emanating from Mercury's console when she did.
His display zoomed to an old Vandul Scythe, almost completely intact. The cockpit was blown out with some small scorches around the edge of the cockpit, having been inflicted by S1 fighter craft energy weapons. A few burns were larger than the others, approximately S4, meaning the pilot who scored the kill was most likely in the standard F7C Hornet. Not very surprising as it's the standard fighter craft for the UEE.
Mercury fired a pair of shots, the first passing just next to the wing, the other hitting in the wreckage of the fighter's cockpit. Mercury stuck his hand out expectantly just a few seconds before either shot hit.
"Oh now that doesn't count. That first one didn't even hit." Emerald protested.
"I beg to differ." Mercury pulled up the short playback of the shot, zoomed in to get a good view of the hits. He slowed the footage down to show that the first shot had in fact vaporized the very edge of the wing, a small semicircle a mere centimeter in diameter into the curvature of the wing.
"I still say it's horse shit." Emerald grumbled as she dug out three of the credit chit's she had just won and handing them over.
After a few more rounds of target practice, only a few of which Emerald won, a shrill beep was heard from the cockpit. Emerald got up and moved to the command chair, Mercury following behind.
A new ship, a heavily modified Idris-M class frigate according to the display, had exited a quantum jump within a few kilometers of their position, and was hailing them. When Emerald answered the comm, she was greeted by the face of her boss, Captain Cinder Fall.
"Stop slacking off and get over here. We've got a new mission." Mercury plopped down in the pilot's chair and brought the engines online. He maneuvered over and latched onto the ventral docking ring. The airlock engaged and pressurized, then opened to reveal Cinder herself. Mercury deactivated the internal gravity for a moment so that she could drift up from the floor-mounted airlock, then reactivated it as she positioned herself upright in the ship.
Cinder wore an orange undershirt, covered by a dark, reddish leather jacket. Her pants were a similar color, cut off by her black, calf high heeled boots. Her knees where covered by a pair of black armor plates, slug along her belts where a pair of heavy ballistic pistols, both reminiscent of old 19th century revolvers. As her arms swayed, two more holsters could be made out, both containing much more modern energy pistols.
"Remain docked and power down non-essentials." She ordered as she struts to the fore of the ship.
"Where're we going and what are we doin'?" Mercury questioned as he followed her order, shutting down the engines, long range sensors and weapons.
Cinder leaned over Emerald and switched on the HUD's navigation overlay. "We're heading for the Larunda system. There we will link up with a White Fang cell and do everything we can to harass and eventually capture a UEE Bengal carrier, the Beacon." The Odin star system flashed for a few moments as the tiny arrow that indicated the Fire's position turned and accelerated for it.
"Is that really a good idea? I mean I don't think the White Fang has anything much larger than the hull we're currently latched to. How're we supposed to take a whole carrier?" Mercury threw his arms out, making his exasperation with the plan known.
Cinder stared at Mercury, her malicious smile giving him a tiny chill. "Have a little faith. We have a plan already set up. Besides, almost all of Beacon's pilots are trainees. We should have little trouble commandeering her."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So I know I said I would work on other stuff but about 6 hours ago I had a genius idea. As most of you may not know, I am one of the founding members of the RWBY Star Citizen organization (Huntsmen for Hire is the current name if I recall correctly). I had a thought when I was deciding on what to write for this month's MonCon (that's this, by the way) and realized that the story of RWBY could quite easily be converted to be what I believe some of the Squadron 42 story to be. How I hadn't thought of this in the near year I have been in the org, I have no clue. What really surprised me is that so far, no one on FanFiction had the idea either.
So here I am. This is a taste of what's to come, sorta the prologue. I'll provide more info on the world when I release the first 'official' chapter. I have a moderate amount of notes already, with just some minor character details. I'm not working for the next few days, so hopefully I can lay some more of the foundation and get to writing soon. I wrote abit more for VNS Arc, as well as figured out the ship naming/influence deal. Sometime soon (once MJ gets off his lazy shebs [also in the SC org, FYI]) I will have the next chapter for that done and released. I don't really have anything new on my Cole-centered fic at the moment, so it may still be awhile before that gets ready to be put up. I guess you'll have to make due with some radical (do the kids still say radical these days?) RWBY x Star Citizen crossover. Don't forget to tell me what you thought of the story!
[The stylized heart is Cinder's symbol BTW, as I couldn't think of a better way to describe it. Also Cinder's outfit is gonna be her usual outfit, while Mercury and Emerald only have kinda basic flight suits because they've been stuck in the ship so long. When they're more out and about they'll have better smuggler/pirate esque outfits]
01/16/16 EDIT: Did some minor cleanup of the story, since I missed a few minor spelling mistakes. I also changed 'hyperspace' to the in universe 'quantum jump'. I'm fairly certain I wrote this before I actually looked a lot farther into the lore. Since it's still not really out yet, I can't just play the game and get used to the terms. I switched it over to a crossover as well, in case you didn't notice. Also updated the stars and star systems to fit with the fancy new SC galaxy map I found out about awhile ago.