"Hey Ruby, can I grab you for a moment?" Blake asks, poking her head in through the door of the dorm room.

Ruby looks questioningly at Weiss – their get out of studies card expires starting tomorrow, and Weiss insisted that Ruby get started on studying early. Weiss looks at Blake, seeing she looks oddly nervous before sighing and saying "Fine, it was almost time for a break anyways. Just be back here in fifteen minutes."

Ruby leaps up, the rolling chair she'd been in shooting back a few feet before hitting the base of Weiss's bed and stopping, stretching as she says "Thanks Weiss I'll be back before you know it!"

Weiss is much more restrained in her stretches, nodding in acknowledgement and muttering something under her breath as Ruby leaves the room.

Ruby and Blake walk in silence for a few moments, Blake's nervousness obvious even to Ruby. Finally, Ruby speaks up, asking "So what's up?"

Blake opens her mouth, closes her mouth, and stops walking before she finally asks "Do you want to go to the movies this weekend? Maybe get dinner after?"

"Sure! I've been meaning to do a team outing for a while, we haven't-"

Blake interrupts, her bow nearly flat on her head. "I meant just us, Ruby."

Ruby is silent for a moment, looking down at her feet before looking up at Blake, her face growing red. "You mean like a date? You're asking me out on a date?"

Blake seems to shrink into herself, the bow flattening further. "Yes?" she says, questioningly.

Ruby's mouth flaps a few times before she finally sputters out "But I was going to ask you out tomorrow!"

Blake is caught off guard. "What?" she asks.

"I was going to take you to Vermillion next weekend, and there's a book café that Pyrrha said she goes to pretty often after that," Ruby says.

Blake blinks. "But, Yang said you hadn't mentioned having a crush on me?" she says, confused. "And wait, isn't Vermilion that expensive sushi place?"

"You think I'd actually tell Yang about that?" Ruby says. "I told Yang about one crush I had at Signal. She spent the next three months trying to set us up, even though it was pretty clear after the first attempt that she wasn't into girls!"

Blake starts recovering, chuckling a bit. "That does sound like Yang. But, Vermilion, Ruby? That place is expensive, how are you able to afford it?"

"I saved up my allowance for a month or so. That should cover it easily," Ruby says, rallying.

"But isn't it reserved seating only, and only a month or more out?"

"Yeah... If you turned it down, I was going to do a partner dinner with Weiss. She was actually the one who suggested Vermilion."

Blake rolls her eyes. "Of course she'd recommend the most exclusive sushi restaurant."

Ruby smiles. "So... Wait until next weekend, do the movie and then go to Vermilion?"

Blake also smiles. "Absolutely. You pick the movie though."

"But I picked the restaurant," Ruby objects.

"Ruby, you picked that restaurant because of me. Don't lie."

"I do like sushi!" Ruby says, shaking her head. "But you really liking it may have played a role," she mutters.

There's an awkward silence between the two now-dating girls before Ruby looks at the clock on the wall and yelps in alarm. "I've gotta get back to Weiss!" she says before disappearing in a cloud of rose petals.

Blake shakes her head, removing the rose petals from her hair before starting to walk towards the library. A minute later, her scroll vibrates with an incoming text message. Pulling it out, she sees it's from Weiss, and she can practically see the annoyance in her question:

Weiss
What did you do?

Blake
I asked her out on a date.

Weiss
Could you have done that *after* she finished studying? She's bouncing off the walls and we aren't going to be able to do any more studying tonight. Maybe not tomorrow night either.

Blake
… Sorry?

Weiss
Don't be, do you have any idea how often she was bothering me about this? You've made her very happy. If this means that I get to hear less plans of "here's how I'll ask Blake out," it's still overall a win.

Carefully, the Operator uses her Ivara to replace the last of the broken fuel lines. "How's the flow, Ordis?"

"Testing. We are at 105% fuel flow."

"Good," the Operator says, shortly.

"With the main thrusters having fuel and the steering thrusters mostly repaired, we are now flight capable," Ordis says.

"Not space capable, though," the Operator says dourly.

"Not yet, but we're close." Ordis says happily. Suddenly, his tone shifts. "Hmm... SO THAT'S Operator, Ozpin has just finished installation of explosives on the ceiling directly above us."

"Can you stop the signal?"

"Not without either a full spectrum jamming or knowing what the code in specific is. No, our best bet is for you to disable them."

"Get the Fang Prime ready, please."

"Moving to bin now, Operator."

The Operator leaps into the airlock, with it shutting behind her. Walking to the arsenal, she pulls out two master crafted long daggers, holding them in one hand as she places the Sheev into the bin. A quick inspection finds no faults in the emerald inlaid blades nor the jade pommeled grips, she slides them onto her back and turns to exit the Orbiter.

"Hold on a second, just need to hook into Ozpin's camera feeds... Got it. Now looping footage from the last 30 seconds. Opening the airlock now."

The Operator leaps out of the airlock, casting Prowl in the air with it finishing as she lands. "Where to?"

"The service ladder in the elevator shaft. Take it up one floor," Ordis says, opening the door to the currently empty shaft.

The Operator rolls forward before leaping onto the ladder, immediately beginning her ascent at speeds that would impress a firefighter.

Immediately upon reaching the next floor, the door opens and the Operator leaps through, hearing the door shut behind her. Stalking forward towards the place where the explosives must be, the Operator hears nothing as she approaches the door into the room directly above her Orbiter.

"Any cams, Ordis?"

"No, and I didn't realize what they were doing until they were halfway done so I don't have a headcount."

The Operator nods before quickly checking up and down the hall and stepping out of her 'frame. Placing her ear to the door, she listens carefully for nearly a minute before she steps back and into her 'frame again.

"I didn't hear anything," she says to Ordis. "Entering now."

"I will only have your camera feed once you're inside there," Ordis cautions. "My overwatch will be USELESS."

"Understood," the Operator says, carefully easing the autopick into the locked door, gently applying pressure until it turns. Carefully opening the door just enough to slip inside, she enters and finds a network of charges.

"Ordis, what am I looking at?"

"Ooh, clever, clever," Ordis mutters appreciatively. Louder, he says "It's a collection of shaped charges, designed to go off in sequence so as to drop the roof onto the Orbiter while minimizing the chances of debris damaging the VIP's life support system."

"Would it have killed us?"

"Unlikely, but possible. At minimum, it would have rendered the Orbiter inoperable for a while until more repairs could be effected."

The Operator nods. "What next?"

"There should be a transmission receiver on the shaped charge at the left center position. Do you see it?"

The Operator nods. "Pull it off?"

"ABSOLUTELY No. It's likely that this will be regularly checked upon. If you get me access to it, I can change the activation signal, but make it still look normal if checked."

"Got it," the Operator says, bending down and wrapping a contact around an exposed wire. "That work?"

"Done and dusted, Operator. Are we going to do anything else about this?"

"Honestly, I'm more insulted that he thought he could handle us in direct combat and didn't have a failsafe in place beforehand. This is just him taking responsibility. So, I'm not planning on it."

As Ruby finishes the last weld of the day, she turns off her welding torch and pulls up her facemask, face streaked with sweat. It had been a long session to begin with, and this one was filled with challenging and intricate welds. Grabbing a water bottle that she'd started keeping nearby, she splashes some on her face before guzzling the remaining contents. Wiping her face of the water, she asks "That was it for today, right?"

The Operator doesn't respond for a few moments, looking over what's been accomplished so far. Ruby does the same, noting that they're about halfway done with replacing the torn-up bottom. Finally, the Operator says "Yes. That'll be all for today. Give me a moment to grab the weapon."

Ruby nods. "I was wondering why you didn't have an extra weapon today."

"Sorry," the Operator says as she enters the Orbiter. "A little bit scatterbrained today."

Ruby nods at the closed airlock, waiting impatiently for the Operator to reemerge. Finally, she does, holding a long silver and green blocky rifle in her hands. Jumping down, she walks over to the table and gently places it down. "This is the Lanka, a Corpus man-portable railgun."

Ruby's eyes go wide. "Wait, really?! A railgun? Atlas hasn't figured out how to get more than 20 shots out of ship-size railguns before the rails are bent out of shape enough that it's not functional! And this is a man-portable one? How does it get enough charge to accelerate the projectile to necessary speeds out of such a short barrel? How does it not tear itself apart?"

"To be fair, the ones the Corpus actually use do have the durability problem. You get roughly 100 shots out of a standard Corpus Lanka before the rails have to be replaced, because a more durable design was regarded as, and I quote the project lead, "too expensive to justify." The Tenno modified design is three times as expensive, but is rated for 15,000 shots before a rail change is recommended, and there are stories of Tenno who were stuck planetside for weeks who put over 20,000 rounds through without a failure."

Ruby, confused, asks "But if it's 150 times as durable, surely the upfront savings isn't worth it?"

The Operator shrugs. "To you and me, no. To the Corpus cred pinchers? They say 'Training can be done in VR, the likelihood of any one rifle being used 100 times in a single battle is low, and if I save money on this months weapon procurement I'll get a bonus.' The Tenno did some math based off of stolen data, and the Corpus would be better off with the more durable design, but even if we were to tell them that they'd ignore us because that lowers their short term profit."

"But… that's…"

"Stupid, yes. I think I've mentioned before that the Corpus literally worship Profit. They kneecap their long term strength by focusing solely on the short term, and cheap out in numerous stupid ways. The number of times I've nearly gotten sucked into space along with a dozen of their brainwashed crewmen and proxies because they cheaped out on viewport glass is ridiculous, and the fact that they have security measures in place that that don't automatically close the breach is monumentally stupid."

"But that's… Why? If you're sending someone to fight for you, wouldn't better equipment give them a better chance of success?"

"The Corpus care more about fighting economically then fighting to win. There was a commander of a battle group who managed to get the drop on a group of Grineer commerce raiders. Practically flawless operation, he managed to pick them apart at range with minimal casualties. He was busted down several ranks because he used too much ammunition."

"But, isn't ammunition cheaper than crew?"

"In theory, yes, but the budget allocation for ammunition was much tighter than the budget allocation for crew replacements. The commander was thus under orders to use boarding tactics whenever possible, but he disregarded that when he found himself having the drop on the raiding fleet so as not to lose the element of surprise."

Ruby shakes her head. "I don't understand at all."

"If it helps, I don't either. Now, as to your other questions," the Operator says, pulling out a small tool and pressing a recessed button on the side of the Lanka, just in front of the forest green cheek pad, pulling the cover off and revealing the actual barrel. "As you can see, the rails are not straight, and actually twist around twice. Can you tell me what this does?"

"It acts as rifling and spins the projectile?" Ruby says questioningly.

"That is one purpose, but it also adds roughly another foot of rail length for the projectile to speed up in. It also helps with durability, since some of the energy that would be trying to pull the rails out of alignment is instead turned into rotational energy," the Operator says.

"But five feet of barrel length shouldn't be long enough to push the velocity into a range where a railgun would be preferable to a standard cartridge? You're still fighting the inertia of the bullet to get it started in the first place."

"You'd be correct if it fired solid shot," the Operator says. "The Lanka does not. Instead, it fires toroidal plasma."

Ruby looks confused. "Toroidal what now?"

"A toroid is a surface of revolution with a hole in the middle," the Operator says. Seeing Ruby is still confused, she adds "Think of it like a doughnut. Plasma is the fourth state of matter, and happens when you rapidly superheat air – you end up breaking off some electrons from the air molecules and while it remains electrostatically neutral, it acts like a pseudo-solid. Did you ever play with cornstarch and water as a kid?"

Ruby nods. "Yeah, that stuff was weird."

"Think of it like a slightly more pliable, burning hot version of that."

Ruby nods. "So you're firing a doughnut of burning cornstarch and water at the enemy? What speed does it reach?"

"Point-oh-one C. And it's for that reason that you will not be shooting this today; I do not have a backstop that I trust to stop the projectile cleanly."

"It reaches one percent of the speed of light?" Ruby says, boggle-eyed. "Can I at least see a video of it firing?"

"Ordis, can you convert the video of the Corpus test firings to a format that Ruby's scroll can display?"

Ordis's voice comes from the speakers. "Most certainly, conversion should be finished within 15 seconds."

Ruby pulls out her scroll, accepting the video call from the unknown number. It opens, and she sees a group of Corpus scientists with what looks to be just the Lanka's working bits clamped down on a table aimed downrange. They say something in a harsh sounding language that Ruby cannot understand before she hears the hum of the capacitors charging and the rifle fires.

The slow motion video of the toroidal plasma hitting the 6 inch thick steel targets is gratifyingly visceral. It blasts through two such targets before the third manages to stop it, but the third target is still heavily buckled from the impact and knocked off of its perch.

The video call ends, and the Operator nods. "There's a reason why this is one of the few weapons that I seek to neutralize before it can be brought to bear against me. Getting hit by a Lanka shot seriously ruins your day, and because of the speed it travels at your likelihood of dodging it once it's fired is practically nil. Your best bet for avoidance is to never stop moving in the first place so that the shooter can't line up a shot on you."

"That was awesome!" Ruby enthuses. "Can you help me make a railgun modification for Crescent Rose?"

"No. And not because I'm incapable of it, but because you don't actually have the technology level to service it once I leave. The battery and capacitors this fires from are so many generations of development beyond what you have it's not funny, and some of the materials the rails are made of literally don't exist on Remnant as best I and Ordis can determine."

"Aww," Ruby says, crestfallen.

The Operator starts reassembling the Lanka, much to Ruby's disappointment. "When are you next available?"

"Uh... I think three weeks out? I'm going on a date with Blake this weekend, and then the Vytal Tournament will be going into full swing. Oh, are you going to watch the tournament?"

"I might. I'll see you in three weeks."

Ruby gathers her welding gear and enters the elevator. As soon as the door closes, the Operator asks "Ordis, what's a date?"

Ordis's voice appears in the Operator's ear as she moves large hull plates outside of the Orbiter. "Operator, about the tournament. Something... odd is happening."

The Operator enters the airlock, carefully hopping down. "What's happening, Ordis?"

"I was watching the seeding process, and everyone seems convinced it's random, but I saw someone manually set the matchups for the first round."

"So an organizer has money on the winner. Standard Corpus activity; if you aren't cheating you aren't trying."

"That was my first instinct, too, so I checked recent bank account movements of the organizers. There has been no movement to or from any gambling house, nor a substantial withdrawl in cash, from any of them."

"So they're not betting cash, then."

"I don't think they're betting at all. After the quick gambling investigation, I tried to trace where the data was entered."

There's silence for a moment as the Operator puts down the hull plates. "Well? Who was it?" she finally asks.

"I couldn't figure it out."

The Operator bolts upright. Alarmed, she says "I thought you were better than any hacker on this planet?"

"I AM," Ordis bellows, offended. Calmer, he continues "But in this case, it looks like there is a MASSIVE backdoor that was either in place when the system was created or was patched in. Now that I knew what to look for, I was able to find traces of to it EVERYWHERE. It's referred to as the Black Queen in some stray comments that weren't deleted."

"Define 'everywhere.'"

"The program is in nearly everything related to the CCT. Anything sent over the CCT, it can intercept and change. In this case, the system that was supposed to randomize it was a CCT server."

"Can you remove it?"

"Not without causing a multiple hours long downtime. Even when I know what to look for, I'm still getting surprised by finding more and more of the code. I thought it was just an all access used for testing that they forgot to remove when I first saw it."

"Wonderful," the Operator grumbles sarcastically. "This is your domain, your call on what to do."

"I'm going to leave it for now. It doesn't seem to be doing anything of note yet, but I will keep an eye on it."

"And Ozpin?"

"Letting him know would compromise my ability to acquire intelligence."

"So, no?"

"Not yet."

"A bladed hoverboard that splits into a pair of guns. Really? I think that might be the most impractical weapon that I've ever seen."

"But Operator, couldn't that be used for a skirmisher?"

"It's a poor decision even then – she doesn't have any ranged strike capability while in motion, and getting that ranged strike capability locks her down temporarily. She also can't effectively hit and run, as her strikes have to start from the same location each time. See, Ruby's got Blake working on boxing her out of the fight already, and the higher speed doesn't matter when the opponent can easily prepare for any attack from you. Arslan is being a better skirmisher even while engaged in close combat with Yang."

"I see," Ordis says. "Ooh, that ice dust attack by Weiss was inspired."

"It was. Ooh, and there's the combo from Yang and now they're both trapped."

"Hoverboarder's grabbed fire dust – ooh, that was a good shot by Ruby."

"Blew the fire dust up in her face and knocked her out of the match, now effectively a 1v4. Leave Yang and Weiss to guard the trapped while Ruby and Blake hunt down Arslan so she can't free them."

"JUST BEAT THEM UP NOW-that should work. But she's hiding in the ice half of the arena as she tries to sneak around and free her team, that should help neutralize Ruby's speed while she can still move effectively with her rope dart."

"If Ruby finds her first, she just breaks contact and gets Blake in. Her chained sword lets her engage on even terms, and then Ruby can provide sniper support. Blake found her anyways." The two are silent as they watch the broad, sweeping movements of the pair of combatants for a few seconds before the Operator chuckles and says "Match in 10, Ruby's in position."

As soon as she finishes talking, Ruby fires – not targeted at the enemy, but at the ice where Arslan's rope dart is embedded, knocking it loose.

The sudden lack of force on the other end of her line causes Arslan to lose her footing and slide uncontrollably into an icicle back first, winding her and letting Blake pounce – but she pulls up as the elimination buzzer sounds three times, signaling the end of the match.

Ordis shuts off the transmission. "No activity detected from the Black Queen in that match, Operator," he says.

"That's fine. Just keep an eye on it. That this person has access to all of the information being sent and is using it to rig a tournament is… worrying."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

On the "disciplined for using too much ammunition" thing: I read somewhere that this was an actual thing that happened in the Japanese Navy during world war 2. A Japanese Admiral won a victory against the American navy, but was disciplined for using too much ammunition in the victory. Spent hours looking for a source on this, but haven't been able to find it, so take it with a massive grain of salt.

Contrast this with the American ideal, which was probably best exemplified by the attack on the IJN Yamato, where more planes than were used in the entire Pearl Harbor attack were used to attack one ship.

Maxim 37: There is no overkill, only "Open fire" and "I need to reload."

Much shorter chapter than normal, but I got hardstuck on it and needed to get it out of my face. This should be the last interstitial before the end of act 1.