"Captain on deck!" Commander Goodwitch called as the new captain stepped up to the podium that had been placed in the hangar deck. He had short, grey hair, brown eyes that seemed to watch your every move, and a face that was filled with a mix of emotions, from sadness to pride.

"I'll...Keep this brief," Captain Ozpin called, his voice ringing out clear and true through the hangar. "You are on this ship because you among the best men and women in the Navy. I am here to tell you that your best is not enough. Your skill has carried you far, but it will not carry you all the way. You must constantly strive to be better that your best was yesterday. If you do not, you will surely fall. You are the only one who can do this, so it is up to you to take the first step. Dismissed."

Ruby looked at her sister as Ozpin walked away.

"Well, that was...bracing," Weiss said with a wince.

"Anyone else think he didn't seem all there?" Yang said.

"He did seem a little distracted," Ruby said as she turned to follow the others out of the hangar deck. "Come on, we're going to be shoving off soon, so we should probably get ready. From what I heard, we're starting rotation with the Bravo shift for this deployment, so Blake, you and Yang may want to go ahead and get to your fighters."

Blake nodded as she turned to walk to the pilot's locker room. "Of course, ma'am. Have you heard where the Beacon is going to be on patrol?"

Ruby shook her head. "No, sorry. I guess we'll find out when we jump."

Ruby rubbed her forehead as she closed one of the panels on her fighter when suddenly the intercom blared.

"Attention all hands, this is the captain speaking," Captain Ozpin called, "We are going to be patrolling the Vega system, as there have been a number of attacks reported there over the past week. Stand by for phase jump {A/N} on my mark."

Ruby sighed and gripped one of the landing skids on her fighter. I hate this part, she thought with a grimace.

Suddenly she was overcome by a massive pulling sensation, as if she were being pulled towards both the front and back of the ship at the same time. Shaking her head as it stopped, the intercom blared again. "Bravo shift on duty. All other shifts, on stand by."

Ruby let out a sigh and went back to tuning her fighter. She climbed on top of the craft and pulled off a panel on one of the maneuvering thrusters.

Just as she was about to continue her work, a voice behind her called, "I thought I'd find you here," startling her just enough to fall from her fighter and to the deck.

Ruby turned around to see Weiss standing behind her trying to hold back a laugh.

"Not funny, Weiss!" Ruby said with a frown. "You nearly killed me!"

Weiss laughed. "Be more careful next time, you dolt."

Ruby sighed as she stood up and climbed on to her fighter again. "Was there something you needed?"

Weiss sighed as she slowly stopped laughing. "Just looking for you, ma'am. I thought you might need to take some time and relax."

"But this is relaxing!" Ruby protested.

"Why don't you come on down to the officer's mess? Ren is making pancakes."

"Nah, sot too much to do still," Ruby said as she leaned in to take a closer look at the thruster.

"Not even if I offer you another drink?"

Ruby rolled her eyes and turned to look at Weiss. "You do remember what happened nearly two weeks ago when you did that, right, right?"

Weiss blushed. "You said I was, and I quote, 'really pretty,' then I had to carry you back to your quarters and wound up sleeping there with you."

"My point."

Now it was Weiss's turn to roll her eyes. "Whatever. You're going to burn out if you spend all of your free time working on your fighter. Besides, haven't you made enough modifications to it?"

"Always more I can work on though," Ruby quipped as she pulled out a few wires and stared at them intently. "Besides, in that last engagement before we went on shore leave, the number three maneuvering thruster wasn't putting out as much thrust as I needed it to, so I wanted to take a look at it."

Weiss climbed up beside her. "Here, let me take a look," she said.

Weiss leaned in closer to the thruster and started to look at the complicated arrangement of parts. "Ah, I think I see your problem. You've got the thruster itself working just fine, but your coolant system isn't hooked up properly. Without that, you ship computer is artificially limiting your thrust to prevent any damage from overheating." Weiss shifted a pipe, and twisted it in place once she had it where she wanted. "There, should be fixed now."

Ruby leapt down from the fighter. "Thanks Weiss!" she called. "I thought I had the coolant set up correctly. Guess I kinda messed that up, huh?"

Weiss shrugged as she jumped down beside Ruby. "Common mistake. The first several prototypes of the Paladin, which were hand-assembled, had the same problem."

"Well, thanks all the same," Ruby said with a smile. "Glad to know the second most beautiful girl on the ship is back in fighting shape."

"And who might I ask is the most beautiful?" Weiss asked.

Ruby just smiled at Weiss and walked away.

"Dunce," Weiss muttered under her breath as she started to blush, before following Ruby.

Ruby yawned as she sat back in her fighter and waited for Black and Yellow squadrons to launch. Two weeks patrolling this sector so far and not even a single pirate fighter has shown up. she thought to herself with a bored frown.

"Hey, Ice Queen?" she called "Is every patrol this boring?"

She could almost hear Weiss rolling her eyes. "You clearly have no idea what shipboard life is like, Reaper," she replied. "Ever heard the saying 'the military is ninety-five percent boredom and five-percent sheer terror?"

"No?"

"Well, guess what? This part is the ninety-five percent. You're just going to have to get used to it."

"All right," Yang's voice echoed in Ruby's helmet, "You two lovebirds can go ahead and land."

"Yang!" Ruby yelled.

"What?"

"Ugh, never mind. Red squadron, White squadron, form up for landing. Beacon control, this is Reaper. Red and White squadrons requesting landing clearance."

"You're all clear Reaper. Welcome home."

Ruby sighed heavily and lowered her fighters landing skids as she lined up with the cavernous landing bay. She felt the craft shudder gently as it landed on one of the elevators mounted in the deck of the ship. She unbuckled her restraints, and looked around behind her to watch the other craft follow her down. As the last fighter touched down to the deck, she felt her own craft shudder again as it was lowered down into the hangar. As soon as she stopped moving, Ruby popped open the canopy and jumped out. She walked across the deck to where Weiss was just getting out of her fighter.

"What do you need, ma'am?" Weiss asked as she speed out of her cockpit.

"Just wanted to see how you were doing," Ruby replied with a smile. "And, I already told you that when we're not on duty, you can just call me Ruby."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Come on, I'm headed down to the officer's mess for lunch, if you want to join me."

"Sounds like fun!" Ruby replied as she and Weiss walked towards the hangar deck's exit.

The two pilots walked in silence for a few minutes before Weiss spoke up.

"Have you heard where we're going to be going when we're done patrolling the Vega asteroid belt?" she asked.

Ruby nodded. "Vega six. We'll be there for a week. Arctic world. Atmosphere is breathable, but it is beyond freezing there. A number of ships have been reported to have disappeared there."

"How many ships have disappeared?"

Ruby thought for a moment "At least one civilian freighter and a cruiser."

Weiss shook her head. "Where do they keep going?"

"Beats me," Ruby said with a shrug. "If I knew, they wouldn't be disappearing anymore. Oh well. Only thing we can do now is just wait until next week."

Ruby and Weiss continued walking for several more minutes before they finally arrived.

"Hey Weiss, can I ask you something?" Ruby requested as they sat down.

Weiss simply replied with a nod.

"Okay...ummm...What would you say if...hypothetically...I asked you out?"

Weiss started to cough heavily. "Well, aside from nearly choking on my lunch," she said as she recovered. "Why would you ever want to go out with someone like me?"

"Well," Ruby replied as she stared at her own food. "Yeah, you can be a bit of a pain sometimes, but you're also very beautiful, smart, and you're an excellent pilot. I'm not sure why you don't have guys jumping you everywhere you go."

Weiss blushed. "Well, most people are actually intimidated by me and my family's reputation. Most people don't feel...worthy of my attention and those that do tend to be the type of people I try to avoid." She sighed heavily before giving Ruby a sly smile. "Well, anyway, to answer your original question, I might just say yes. Depends on how I'm feeling at the time."

Ruby laughed. "I'll keep that in mind, then."

Weiss and Ruby ate in silence for several minutes before Weiss spoke up. "Ruby, I have a...personal question for you, if you don't mind."

"Go ahead. I'm an open book," Ruby replied.

"Well, it's about you and Yang..."

"You want to know how we're related, right?" Weiss nodded. "Pretty simple really. We...share the same dad. He was a bomber pilot assigned to the carrier R.F.S. Aura. That's where he met Yang's mom, who was an engineer on the ship. She died giving birth to Yang. Our dad was really broken up about it. It took him about a year before he recovered. That was when he met my mom, back when she was still just an ensign. She had just been reassigned to the Aura. He died during a battle with a pirate carrier about three months before I was born. Anyways, long story short, both Yang and I grew up as spacer kids raised by my mom, and here we are today."

"I'm," Weiss paused. "sorry to hear about your father and Yang's mother. I was not aware that had happened."

Ruby shrugged. "It's all right. Yang was pretty broken up about it when she found out a while ago, but we both have had plenty of time to heal. It does feel good to talk about it though."

"Glad I could help," Weiss replied with a small smile. "I know a can be, as you said, a pain, but I do consider you a friend."

"Or maybe more," Ruby said with a light laugh.

Weiss simply rolled her eyes as her face became tinted with a light red.

"We're wasting our time," the Beacon's helm officer called from his station. "We've spent four weeks in the Vega sector now, and we haven't seen any sign of pirate activity."

"Six civilian and two military ships have gone missing here in that time," the sensors officer replied from her post. "Something had to have happened to them."

"Yeah, but we've seen absolutely nothing from the ships that disappeared. Not even a trace of the ship's black boxes. Besides, we've already passed the location where most of the ships vanished, and we didn't find anything."

"Look, all I'm saying is...Wait a minute...Got a new vessel on long range sensors...Doesn't match any known signatures, but the size class would put it on par with a battle-carrier. Captain? What are your orders?"

Captain Ozpin sighed. "Reaper, this is Beacon Control, do you read?"

"Reaper, this is Beacon control, do you read?" Ruby's helmet crackled.

Ruby sighed. "I hear you Beacon control, go ahead."

"We detected a new contact at the edge of our sensor radius. I need you to go and check it out," Captain Ozpin said.

"Aye, sir," Ruby replied. "Ice Queen, form up on me."

"On my way," Weiss replied.

Ruby watched outside her canopy as the shimmering form of Weiss's fighter flew up next to Ruby's and matched her speed. The pair of craft flew in silence for a minute before Ruby finally spoke up.

"Private channel Ice Queen?" she called.

"Private channel, go ahead," Weiss replied.

"Weiss, I was wondering, the next time we're planet-side, would you like to go-"

"Hold that thought, I just got a lot of new contacts coming from that ship that the Beacon pointed us to," Weiss interrupted.

"Yeah, I'm seeing them too," Ruby replied as she studied her sensors display. "IFF is registering them as..." she paled. "Beacon control, this is Reaper! Numerous pirate fighters inbound from the ship!"

"Affirmative. Stand by, we're scrambling fighters," Ozpin replied.

"Ice Queen, come on, let's get back to the ship and form up with the rest of the wing."

Ruby and Weiss flew nearly wing tip-to-wing tip as they sped back to the Beacon. Ruby watched as a number of small ships surged away from the the ship. When they were finally in position, Ruby and Weiss flipped their fighters around and joined the formation.

"All fighters, this is Reaper," Ruby called, "Form into a skirmish line and hold just outside the Beacon's flak envelope. Fire at will as soon as the pirates are in range."

Ruby's helmet echoed with a chorus of affirmatives. She gritted her teeth as she rubbed her finger along the trigger of her flight stick, watching as the distance measurement on her selected target counted down. Finally, the counter flashed green, and Ruby flashed a grim smile as she depressed the trigger, causing her fighter to begin to shake a little under the recoil of its weapons. All around her, the other fighters assigned to the Beacon followed her example, and soon space was alive with the flashes of various weapons. The pirate fighter turned quickly to try and avoid the barrage that was being thrown at them, and several of them collided, resulting in a series of brief explosions.

"All fighters, break now!" Ruby called.

The formation broke apart as the Beacon's fighters surged forward. As Ruby wove around the dogfight, occasionally firing a burst of gatling cannon and particle gun fire at an enemy, she saw several military-grade fighters. Suddenly, there was the distinct bright flash of a missile passing by Ruby's canopy. She watched it for a moment as it followed another fighter, this one painted a shimmering white.

"Weiss, you've got a missile incoming!" Ruby's voice yelled through Weiss's helmet.

Weiss grunted as she pulled her fighter into a tight turn in an attempt to evade the deadly projectile.

"I can see that you dolt!" she yelled back as her vision began to tint grey due to the strain the turn was putting on her body.

"Pop flares!"

"Can't! I'm out!"

Weiss looked back and saw the projectile continuing to creep closer and closer. Suddenly, another fighter sped between Weiss's craft and the missile, and the projectile broke off its pursuit, choosing instead to follow the target that was generating more heat. Weiss turned her fighter to follow where the missile had gone, and saw it pursuing Ruby now. She watched with horror as the missile exploded against the shields of Ruby's fighter, followed closely by a barrage of fire from a nearby pirate fighter, which began to stitch its way up towards Ruby's cockpit. Nearby, Yang's fighter turned and opened fire on the Pirate, slamming a barrage of neutron cannon and particle gun blasts into the pirate's fighter causing it to explode.

"Reaper, are you alright?" Weiss called worriedly.

"I-gah...I've...been better," Ruby replied, strain obvious in her voice. "My main thrusters are out, I've only got the bottom side maneuvering thruster still working, and even that one has stopped articulating. I'm also-hnn...I'm...also drifting towards the planet. I've only got about fifty seconds before I hit the atmosphere."

"Reaper, punch out!" Yang yelled.

"Can't. One-agh...One of the rounds punched through the ejection lever," Ruby struggled out. "Also took one myself. Guess It's-ah...Guess It's a good thing these flight suits are both full EVA rated and self-sealing eh?" she gave a pained laugh.

"Dammit, Reaper this is no time for jokes!" Weiss said, beginning to tear up.

"When I get into Vega six's atmosphere, I'm gonna try to pull Crescent Rose into a glide. Not gonna be able to communicate though. To much interference from the magnetic field. My distress beacon might be able to punch through the interference though."

"Ruby, please..." Yang begged.

"Don't worry guys," Ruby strained. Weiss could almost see the pilots face pulled into a brave smile even as she spoke. "I'll be fine. Oh, and Weiss? I just wanted to tell you that I l-" Ruby's transmission broke off into static.

"Reaper? This is Ice Queen," Weiss choked out, "Come in. Reaper, come in please."

"All units, this is Captain Ozpin, we have additional pirate warships jumping in, and our position is compromised. We are falling back. All fighters, return to base. Repeat, all fighters, RTB. Emergency landings authorized."

"Ruby...please...don't leave." Weiss whispered. There was no response.

A/N: Story notes:

Phase drive (phase jump): "Phases" a hole between two parts of space, allowing the ship to move through without completely breaking physics. How does it work? Well, to quote Michael Jones: Shut up. Don't ask questions.

Anyways, MOAR DRAMA! What happens next? Does Ruby survive, or will she freeze to death alone on the icy cold surface of Vega VI? You'll all just have to find out when I post the next chapter after I finish and post the next chapter of A Lone White Rose!

Also, I'm doing a lot of time skips in this story, even mid-chapter, as you saw. This entire entry takes place over the course of about four weeks total, because, as Weiss said, the military is mostly being bored out of your skull with extremely brief but intense moments of absurd terror. Never been in the military personally, but I have a few friends who are.

Look out for Chapter 14 of A Lone White Rose within a few days!