Ren looked at his panel. There was the bleep on the subspace sensors again. It was incredible brief, and he wondered if that was a failure, a glitch or an event he wasn't aware. It seemed to be random, since they didn't detect it every time they warped, but it appeared in long travels, in apparently random moments. The best he could decipher of it was that the sign was some type of radio echo, like the one used in old radars. It was bothering him more than he liked to admit, so he decided to run all the sequences to try and find a pattern or source for it.

"So, what's the plan now? Just… fly around aimless?" Coco questioned the captain, and Jaune sighed. Since they met Yang's mother a few days ago all they did was jump in and out of warp, visiting random star systems. Certainly it was nice on the scientific side, but that didn't make them close to home. Not with the people that created the Grimm after them. He certainly needed a plan. Or at least an objective.

"A shame we can't just expose the bitch hunting us. If everyone was hunting her, we could use the fact her eyes is somewhere else to go home." Sun commented, and Jaune's eyes opened wide.

"Sun, you might be a genius! All we need to do is expose her!" The captain smiled and got up his sit. "Neptune, how far to the nearest The Club?"

"The Club, sir? Wouldn't this info be useful to someone with a real military force?" The helmsman questioned.

"It would take a lot of bureaucracy to even approach a proper government, but if we deliver that to The Club, they will spread the news faster than anyone, and we might get a chance of putting that 'queen' so busy dealing with it to keep herself hidden to just chase us." Jaune smiled brightly. "We might be able to go back home sooner if this works."

"Well, what we are waiting for? Warping to the nearest The Club!" Neptune said as the Nagato Kai once again entered warp.

Ren observed his panel. The bleep happened again, this time.

…

Emerald walked through the corridors of the palace. As usual the sound of laughing, music and the moans of pleasure being had could be heard. She arrived to the garden, and many people was there living in debauchery. Many were consuming food, others drenching in alcohol while dancing and singing. Others were going into what many species would consider public indecency.

She didn't care. Everyone in the queen's domain were free to do anything they wanted, as long as they obeyed her orders, and no one would dare to disobey her powerful ruler, one whose live spanned thousands of years. Emerald didn't care about debauchery, she was beyond that, and found pleasure in serving her queen. She arrived to her throne in the middle of the garden, where Mercury and the beautiful queen waited.

"Ah, Emerald, dear. How about our little ship? Have they returned home yet?"

"No, my queen, still doing random warps. I believe they know we might be chasing them." emerald suggested, and Mercury laughed aloud.

"Those primitives? I'm surprised they even survived our last encounter, and got a better ship. I honestly am more interested in who helped them after our last encounter."

"I suspect my dear sisters might have something with this. I know they're hiding somewhere, out of my mind's reach, out of time, probably. But I get glimpses of them from time to time." The queen stated as she ate a piece of fruit. "That's why you won't destroy that little ship right away, Mercury, or their planet. I want to know where those two little birds flew to."

"Of course, my queen. But wouldn't they spread the knowledge of our existence to the galaxy? While none of the lowly species could pose a threat to us, they can become an annoyance." The silver haired boy wondered, and the queen laughed loudly.

"You don't need to worry, Mercury. If anyone of them tries to go after us, we just launch our dark matter spores on their planets. I doubt they will decide to find us when their planet is being devoured by the darkness in their hearts." The queen made a motion of hand, and a crystal cup filled with a dark liquid appeared. She drank of it, and her veins become black as her eyes shone a fiery light. "Nothing and no one is a threat to me. Emerald, we are going to pay a visit to the little ship's crew. Once you locked their last position, move the palace close to them."

"The… palace, my queen?" Emerald was surprised with that order.

"Let's invite them in." The queen laughed loudly as she drank more of the dark liquid.

…

"Jun'ee'or! I'm so glad you're alive!" Yang celebrated with her feet on the alien's throat. They had the lucky to stumble upon him in The Club, and were now thanking him for the last piece of info he shared.

"Come on! It was just business!" He defended himself as he tried to get her off him. The rest of the people there didn't react as fireteam RWBY pointed their guns towards them.

"Yeah, of course it was. How much he paid? Eh, doesn't matter. Roman's toast, and now I'm deciding if so should be you?" She pressed her feet on his throat harder.

"Sis, remember we have our orders. I think he is more useful to us alive." Ruby said as she kept the security drones at bay with her plasma scythe.

"Yeah, yeah. So, Jun'ee'or, we have a little piece of info for you, one that we believe will make you indebted with us for life." Yang said, and he really wished they didn't wear helmets that hid their faces so he could analyze them better.

"Get out! I have no more business with your kind! I lost one of my clubs thanks to you! And now the clients are afraid of coming here!" The alien protested.

"That's your own fault for trying to sell us out." Weiss stated plainly.

"Besides, you'll love this info. We know how the Devourers arrive into a planet, and who's behind it." There was a moment of stunned silence, and Jun'ee'or evaluated that situation in a different light. If the information they had was truthful, he was sitting in a gold mine.

"I don't believe you." He decided to risk playing their game.

"Hmm, maybe one of the gentlemen around will." Yang wondered as she played with a data chip in her hand.

"If it's true, what do you want in exchange?" Jun'ee'or asked as he eyed the chip.

"Oh, a few things. First, you will feed misinformation about us to anyone asking. I don't care what you say as long as you keep anyone after us in the dark. Second, you will never, ever set us a trap. We have a battleship, we know where your clubs are and this time we'll be the ones to blow shit up. Got it?" Yang threatened and he nodded, so she dropped the chip by his side and left with the rest of the team.

…

The Nagato Kai floated in a trinity star system, collecting data from afar. Jaune decided with their primary and secondary objectives finished, they could just use the time to get some scientific information on the side. The fact the vision was gorgeous helped out with the crew boredom. He decided to give a month for the information to start to spread, and then they would risk going back home. Suffice to say that pleased everyone and the situation were fairly happy as far as he could tell.

"So, where do you want to live? Cold planet with mountains or wet planet with islands?" Yang asked him, prompting Velvet and Pyrrha to look at him too.

"Anywhere is fine as long as I have my own room. Living with seven sisters is hard. Besides, it's not like I'll be able to stay in the house for long." Jaune commented and the girls gave him questioning stares. "I'm a captain of the Spacy after all. Even if we end as celebrities, I'll probably have to command a ship during the migration. I mean, it's not easy to move two million people."

"Well, I hope we move to the nice summer planet. I'd love to have lovely beaches and fun all day." Yang commented.

"The cold planet seems better for colonization, though, with agriculture and all that we will need to do for survival. But sadly it will be the Council that will come with a decision." Pyrrha said with a dejected frown. "Knowing them it will take a decade before they settle which one."

"Can't we just go there, deliver the info and the warp cores and move ourselves? I mean, we do have a ship and all." Velvet suggested, and the other girls agreed with the idea.

"Well, for more that I think of the Nagato as ours, I'm sure that would be classified as treason." Jaune explained, but kept smiling. "But you know, exploring the unknown space doesn't feel abed either, if you had the right people with you."

…

"This makes no sense…" Ren muttered as he checked the data on the bleeps he had being detecting with Penny and Nora at the dock.

"Maybe it's the radio signature of a pulsar star bleeding to the subspace?" Penny wondered.

"No, it's too clean." Ren answered as he checked the data again. "And don't match any registered pulsar frequency. Besides, it doesn't have a frequency, it's so random."

"No, it's not." Nora said absent minded as she messed with some type of rocket launcher. Ren and Penny stared at her.

"Nora, would you kindly elaborate?" Ren asked, and Nora took her eyes from the weapon and stared at the data on his screens.

"It happens every time we warp from an inhabited star system, then roughly every cycle. It's like it have subspace sensors that fire every time it detect our signature, and then just automated do it." Nora explained, and Ren stared at the data again. If he considered the signal artificial, that would make sense, but…

"Nora, why do you believe it just detects us?"

"Oh, here, the last bleep at Jun'ee'or's. There was lots of ships coming and going, but only when we warped in and out our sensors detect it. If it was trying to find a random ship, it would fire every time a subspace disturbance occurs. Then the constant bleeping feels like it is sending the signal between each other." The energetic girl finished like she said something without importance. Ren on the other hand clenched his fists.

…

"Someone is trying to find us?" Jaune asked as Ren and Nora explained their finding to him and the rest of the crew.

"We believe there's some type of subspace buoys in key points of the sector, trying to find the Nagato Kai signature." Ren explained. The signature of a ship was composed of its electromagnetic waves, unique to each ship, so it was possible to use it to identify a ship. "This means that not returning home was the right decision, if they could use this data to find our star system. But it also means that they can try to pinpoint where we are based on our patterns."

"And here I thought we could just lazy around here before returning home… Suggestions?" Jaune required as he sat back on his seat.

"We can just keep moving away from home, but they could just use it as a clue. Going home right now could either throw them off our tail or lead them straight to our home planet. I believe we should go to the subspace and randomly navigate there until the effects of our little visit to The Club can be felt." Glynda said, and Jaune nodded.

"Seems like the best way to keep us safe. Ah well, it's…"

"Subspace anomaly detecting… A rather large object is warping out." Penny stated all of sudden, and Jaune put the ship in red alert. They were relatively far from the safest warp point, but the object was warping out awfully close of them.

The ship moved far from the anomaly as an object the tenth the size of their own moon appeared. It was a half sphere at first, until they realized what it was, a colossal artificial colony. In the top of the half-sphere were rivers, forests and even hills. They could see a small city in the center, with the other half of the sphere being actually some type of transparent dome held by thing columns. Light was being provided by a structure in the top of the sphere, provided by something they could only describe as a castle. As the structure finished warping out, it launched three saucer-like vessels in their direction.

"Sir, we're being hailed." Velvet exclaimed from her terminal.

"Pass them through." Jaune ordered. The main screen showed an incredible beautiful woman in a red dress. She had fierce yellow-reddish eyes and luscious black hair. The image showed her in a kind of throne in the middle of a garden, showing her full body. "I'm Captain Jaune Arc of the Nagato Kai. Please, identify yourself."

"My, I never expected you to be cute. Usually you'd expect captains to be old rugged men, not a young, charming boy like you." She stated with a smile, one that was at the same time sweet and dangerous. "I'm Queen Cinder of the Galaxy. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Captain Arc."

"That implies we had previously knowledge of each other's existence." Jaune inferred, trying to keep her busy as he planed how to deal with the situation. No matter how much upgrades the Nagato Kai had, he still believed that to be a very disadvantageous situation to them.

"Oh, but I'm sure you saw my vessels before, and I do know of you due to a common acquaintance. An exploration vessel, trying to find a new home for your people as your planet is being devoured." She stated, and she smile at the subtle reactions confirming her suspicious. "There's a reason of why I'm allowing your little ship to fly, Captain Arc. I can sense on you, you met my sisters, Melanie and Miltiades. See, they have being naughty little girls and not obeying their big sister, so I hope you could tell me where they are. I might even… reward you if you do."

Jaune didn't believe she could offer any kind of reward he could be interested in. Any kind of deal with that woman offered felt like a contract with a devil, and he knew sooner than later he would come to regret it. At the same time, he saw an opportunity there. If he could discover how to end the menace she poised to them, they could all go home.

"A reward?" He asked, mildly curious.

"Ah, yes. See, there's only one thing that make all things in this universe equal, and that is death… or at least, it was. We conquered death, I've being alive for longer than many civilizations have being dreaming of conquering what I have. This…" she showed the cup with black liquid. "…is immortality, the gift of living forever without worrying about tomorrow, to enjoy ourselves for eternity. It's not a gift I keep to myself, though. I share it with my loyal subjects." She waved at Mercury and Emerald one on each of her sides. "And I might share it with you and your crew too. Maybe even with your entire world if you swear allegiance to me, and answer my questions."

They knew of course at what price that immortality would came. Jaune knew his government wouldn't mind sacrificing countless lives across the galaxy if it meant their own safety, and the immortality 'gift', if one could call it that. It was tempting, he couldn't deny, and the fact that could put his family in safety was a thought that crossed his mind. But he remembered the planets they visited, he remembered Calinora's planet, and decided it wasn't worth it. But he needed to deal with that situation now.

"I see. Your offer is tempting, but I need time to talk with my crew, if that's fine with you."

"I'll give you a few moments, Captain Arc. But don't make me wait. I hate waiting." With that the communication ended.

"You're not really thinking about her proposal, are you? First, I think she has no intention of complying, and second, that would make us murderers." Blake commented, and Jaune nodded in agreement.

"Coco, Neptune, can we escape them?"

"Well, I think we could outrun them. The Nagato Kai, in theory, could defeat one of those saucers, but not three, and we even don't know what else they have on that colony." Coco answered.

"Sir, if we run, we will keep running forever. It's clear they have ways to find us. If I might suggest, I think we need to use this chance to eliminate the biggest threat to our survival." Glynda suggested as she fixed her glasses.

"Yeah, if we have barely a chance of escaping them, how do we expect to win against them?" Sun questioned.

"There's a way… If you trust me." Jaune said, and they were all ears.

…

"I didn't expect him to come to meet you, my queen." Emerald commented as the screen showed the saucers escorting the Nagato Kai towards their 'castle'. "I figured him to be one of those honorable types that believe in silly things like honor and pride."

"They all act like that at first, but deep down, they all fear death. Give them the chance, and they will sell everything they hold dear for what we have." Mercury dismissed the issue.

"I'd not count on that so soon, Mercury. I think he might believe he can convince me of my 'wrong ways'. Little fool, thinking such naïve way of thinking would make me give up in an eternal life of pleasure." The queen answered while sipping from her cup. "In the end, they are all little greed creatures only looking for themselves."

As she said this there's was a flash of light from the screen, making the trio to stand up and approach it. When the glare subsided, they saw the Nagato Kai firing against the ship, but instead of running away, it was going in their direction while firing against the vessel.

"What are they doing?" emerald asked as she accessed another screen. "They're coming directly at us!"

"Don't waste your time! Launch the other vessels to intercept!" Mercury ordered.

"They won't arrive in time! Are they… Are they planning to crash on us?"

Cinder watched the events unfold and grasped her cup till her knuckles turned white. She underestimated the crew of the Nagato for the last time.

…

"I hope this work!" Neptune yelled.

Coco and Sun kept firing against the vessels, the surprise attack allowing them to damage one of their pursuers beyond enough to make them stop pursuing, but the other two kept firing, forcing the helmsman to evade. The new shields were resisting, but that would not be for long, and they couldn't withstand the enemy fire for longer.

"Stick to the plan! We are going to pay the queen a visit!" Jaune shouted.

The Nagato approached the colony and started firing against its dome. Using the MASER and the front cannons, it cracked the structure. Apparently the colony itself lacked some type of self-defense system as the saucers were the only ones firing against the approaching ship.

As the distance got smaller, the Nagato fired a round of missiles, and they exploded in a circular formation, making the outer layer of transparent panels crack and explode in pieces. In seconds the ship hit the opening, its bow perforating the internal layer and allowing them inside the colony. One of the saucers followed them inside, while the other maneuvered and used its own body to close the hole the Remnant ship made.

The first saucer was clearly having difficulty maneuvering in an atmospheric space with gravity, its format not being the most correct for that type of fight. This allowed the Nagato Kai to out maneuver it, making a loop and getting above the saucer, firing its belly cannons and sinking it.

"Well, that worked… I didn't doubt it for a minute." Sun commented as he left out a relieved sigh.

"Let's not get cocky here. We still…" Jaune started but couldn't finish it as the ship shook violently.

"Gah! They hit us! Firing coming from the ground! It hit our engines!" Ren shouted from his terminal as the Nagato started its long decent towards the ground.

"What was THAT?!" Coco yelled as the ship kept trembling all the way down.

…

Cinder smiled as she gave her bow to Emerald. The Nagato Kai was falling down with smoke coming from its wings. She admired their courage in attempting a direct assault, but now they knew that wouldn't be so easy. Still, she was angry over the fact they proved her wrong, and would try everything before submitting to her. She would prove they made the wrong choice.

"Mercury, Emerald, bring any survivor here. Kill them if they prove too much trouble, but I want their captain alive. I'll show them the consequences of challenging me." Cinder said before returning to her throne.

"Why not just killing them all?" Mercury questioned; a mistake he was prone to make.

"Because your queen ordered, or do you think I'm wrong." Cinder threatened as her eyes glowed.

"No, my queen, never." The silver haired boy submitted.

"Let's go, smart ass. Maybe now you will make the sound we love the most, you not speaking." Emerald smirked as she threw the jab, making Mercury growl at her.

…

The Nagato Kai fall fast, the wind howling in its decent, whistling loudly enough to be heard for many kilometers away. It was clearly going to have a hard landing, as it approached the ground with its tip pointed down. It was then that it started firing its belly cannons, using the impact of the explosions to push its tip up and reduce its speed.

Even so, a few seconds later the ship hit the ground hard, destroying many trees along the way, digging a deep ditch in the ground along its path. It only stopped after a good ten kilometers of destruction, a cloud of dark smoke coming from it.

No signs come from it when it finally stopped, its bow pointing towards the huge structure in the top of the dome.

…

A.N.: Thanks for your patience. I had some personal problems recently and only know felt in the mood to write this chapter. Of course, now it's time for the crew to fight the ultimate… mid-bosses!