Chapter 8

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in, and hold it.

Kansen had access to all of their vessel's weaponry, whether it be their largest main guns or their small Anti-Aircraft guns, they were truly masters of their own self in a manner of speaking. However, a less known fact about them were that they also held everything else that a ship needed to function. From large kitchens stocked with food to radio and navigation equipment, they manifested those things as well, though their use was somewhat stunted on account of not needing to use them. Ruby could send a message out by using her mind alone, so why did she have to go into the communications room to do the same thing? The latter required her actual vessel out, and it took much more time to do so.

Holding steady a rifle she pilfered from her onboard armoury, it was one of the hundreds of small arms she carried on her, enough to probably arm a small army if they shared neatly amongst each other. Last night's fight against a veteran huntress told her two things. One, she was rusty, really rusty. Nearly fifteen years of next to no combat experience did that to someone, and she found herself often getting hit by attacks that she could have dodged.

Two, she was tough, but not completely invulnerable to regular huntsmen and huntresses. A deep cut on her leg and Schwarz's multiple injuries were proof of this. Against a single huntress like Goodwitch? She was confident in her ability to win, collateral damage not a factor of course, but against several?

Her odds were too close for comfort, therefore she had to rectify that issue. Namely, by training her skills once more. Right now, she was practising with target training in order to ensure that her marksmen skills were up to par again, she noticed several of her attacks losing accuracy or Schwarz misjudging how much of a lead he needed to place a shot. Riggings were a reflection of their owner, and Schwarz's poor performance was an indication of skills atrophied.

Zeroing in on her target, a small rock some five-hundred meters away, her optics confirmed the distance, and the weather was in… favourable conditions. In theory, all she had to do was squeeze the trigger, and the rock would fall.

BANG

A trigger was pulled, but the rock still remained intact and standing. Her shot had missed. Grunting in frustration, she racked the bolt back on her rifle, and chambered another round to be fired.

BANG

Again, a miss. She had probably run through several clips by now, yet the rock still stood defiantly, as if it was mocking her. She was tempted to blow it away using her rigging, but with her close proximity to her house on Patch, unless she wanted her father to run out and investigate, that was a bad idea. In all honesty, she should have realized something was wrong when her broadside at the horde of Blackjaws missed by half a kilometre. It had the intended effect of driving them off, sure, but the fact that it had landed that far off of the predicted point of impact was unsettling. Half a kilometre meant an enemy missed, and a friendly unit being annihilated if she was conducting shore bombardment.

Ruby had to start somewhere before moving onto her Scythe, even if it was her main weapon. The two turrets on it were powerful, but with how much her marksmanship had regressed, practising with it may instead be a very dangerous affair. What if one of her stray shells landed on the town that Patch had? Or worse, her house? No, the safer thing to do was to practise on small arms for now and then move up in size gradually.

Bzzzt

Her scroll suddenly buzzed in her pocket, causing her to frown. It was in the early hours of the morning, and usually, only one person contacted her this early. Flipping her scroll open, it was indeed as she suspected, Junior had another job for her. It seemed that after she left his bar the other day, it got completely trashed by some no-name huntress. There was no bad blood between them however, it was not her business to meddle, and he respected her decision. Though he was definitely annoyed that she didn't at least offer to help out. Junior was short on cash right now, repair costs and disruption to his business and all, so it seemed that he needed to use all the avenues of potential revenue he could.

The message he sent was simple, as were all of his job requests so far.

'Shipment from Northern Vale to Southern Vale. Urgent, needs to be done by tonight. Game?'

An urgent job? Ruby knew how those usually went, so she needed to know more before deciding. She texted back her response.

'Fees charged?' She didn't do these out of charity, and with it being an urgent job, it was bound to pay much more than usual.

'Thrice your previous. No middleman needed.'

Now that got her attention. This meant that it was a pickup and dropoff job, with no weird requirements needed in order to get past customs and the like. One of her last jobs required transporting livestock in order to get illegal car modifications into Vale, needless to say, it was one of her most interesting, and most-foul smelling jobs so far. She hated having to deal with middlemen, so this situation was ideal, but it also sounded too good to be true.

'Cargo?' She always asked this question, just in case Junior tried to trick her into transporting something illegal, like guns, never mind the fact she was a walking armoury already. It wasn't hypocritical if no one knew about it, so was she really in the wrong?

'Atlesian Army surplus. No weapons.' Junior's reply caused her to raise an eyebrow, that certainly made sense at least. Atlas was famously stringent about anyone getting access to its technology, which included a lot of its military equipment naturally. Hell, a Vacuoan man was arrested in Atlas a few months ago for trying to purchase surplus gear from a low-rank officer. It made sense that the client wanted it to be smuggled, as Vale had strong links with the Atlas council if Uncle Qrow's drunken political ramblings at the dinner table were to be believed. This much surplus equipment moving around was bound to raise suspicion, even if it wasn't illegal in Vale. So, this was where people like her came in, she assumed that it was the last leg of the journey before it ended up in the hands of whoever wanted it. Of course, she was going to have to check if Junior was telling the truth, but he had not tricked her yet.

'Game. Port of call?'

'The usual up North. location for delivery will be confirmed once you have received the cargo.'

Great, one of those types. Usually, they were reserved for extra paranoid clients who thought every smuggler was a potential customs spy or informant. Regardless, the terms were acceptable to her. Texting an affirmative back to Junior, she prepared to head back home, a new job needed to be prepared for, routes planned and other things needed to be done. She could just use the same excuse of missing the last ferry again and needing to stay at Molly's until morning this time, but she began suspecting that Qrow was onto her. That was something to be dealt with later, however, and she turned towards a gravestone nearby her, overlooking a cliff with a clear view of the ocean.

She didn't know why the gravestone was built there, but her father said something along the lines of a 'calming ocean' that appealed to her mother once. Sighing, she put her rifle back into her armoury, and walked to the gravestone, crouching down as she neared right in front of it. Her lips felt dryer than ever before, but she still managed to force out her words.

"Hello, Mother…"

Sea of Vytal

0200 Hours

VNS Sovereign

Owing to Vale's strategic location as the 'centre' of Remnant, the kingdom enjoys much more maritime trade than others. Though that also came with drawbacks, as Vale's smuggling network in its criminal underbelly used their ports as a halfway point for any shipment of illicit goods. A Vacuoan drugs shipment for example may stop in a port in Vale, which then gets handed off to another smuggler for its final journey into Mistral. These days, more and more goods were being transported by airship, and that resulted in a higher uptick of airships being used instead for smuggling. Though the maritime route remained as popular as ever, primarily owing to the fact that smuggling by sea was actually quieter than doing it by air. At least, that's what Sovereign heard from her Captain's reports.

Standing upright on the bridge of her ship, Sovereign overlooked her early morning patrol once more. Yes, she may have been one of the oldest ships in the Valean coast guard, hell, she even served in the Faunus Wars back when there was still a Royal Valean Navy, but she liked to think that her age made her unique. Though her juniors often teased her for now knowing how modern technology worked, Scrolls were fine and dandy, but they could never replace a good old-fashioned telegram in terms of reliability.

Brushing aside her green hair, she wondered if the airships high up in the sky also had their own spirits, they were sufficiently large enough, and some of them could traverse through water, so they should technically qualify, right? Regardless, her duty right now was to patrol Northern Vale for any signs of smugglers, their activities were increasing heavily as of late, and this route she patrolled was one of their most popular.

Ping

"Captain, radar contact off of our portside, you may want to see this." A radar officer called out behind her, and she felt it too. She wasn't originally built with radar, that was an addition added during one of her many retrofits over the years.

Though she couldn't interact with her crew, she could still 'feel' everything her hull does, from shifting rudders to rotating her turrets, all of it was felt by her.

"Bloody hell, it's massive…" Her Captain, an old man by the standards of most other officers called out while his eyes remained glued to the radar.

The radar contact that came back showed an absolutely massive vessel south of their position. If she had to make a rough estimate, it was at least two hundred and eighty meters in length. She didn't even know what its total displacement was, but such a large vessel could only be a cargo ship of some sort, but most of them had been retired for a few years already, air cargo had overtaken them by that time. A refitted cargo ship used for smuggling? Impossible, most smuggling ships were small, low profile tugboats and fishing boats, not massive capital ship-size vessels.

Tensely, her captain went to the communications officer and picked up the radio, intent on hailing the large vessel before any action was taken. Maybe it was a Vacuoan cargo ship? Saved at the last minute from the breakers yard by an enterprising small company perhaps?

"Unknown Vessel, Unknown Vessel, this is VNS Sovereign of the Valean Coast Guard, you are in Valean national waters. State your name, class of ship, and purpose."

A reply came almost immediately, and to her surprise, the voice on the other end belonged to a girl, probably teens to early twenties if she had to guess.

"VNS Sovereign, this is…Schwarzbraun, a humble fishing trawler. I am currently returning to Vale with a full catch."

Her captain looked around, disbelieving looks on all of the faces around him. "You sound awfully young for a fisherwoman, Schwarzbraun."

Nothing was heard on the other end for a while until her voice came back on again suddenly. "I am helping my family, we are a family business. My father is manning the fishing nets."

Hogwash, and her captain knew it as well, judging by the small smirk forming on his face. "If that's the case, you must have one large family. Considering that your vessel is larger than mine. We're requesting to come aboard, how copy?"

Silence. No reply was heard for a dozen seconds, until the radio operator shouted again from his station. "Sir! She's increasing speed, twenty knots and counting!"

"Course it is, all engines ahead flank! We're running her down if we have to!"

"Aye sir!" The helmsman nodded, as an enthusiastic grin plastered itself on her face. Being in the coast guard meant that she saw less action sure, but it also meant some exciting chases every once in a while, and it seemed that they were about to experience another one. She had never chased a large cargo container before, but then again, there were firsts for everything.

"Do we really need to sail that fast, sir? It's a cargo container, can't sail for more than twenty-five knots on a good day." A commander asked her captain off to the side, causing him to sigh in response.

"Might as well get it over with, we've been patrolling for days now. Besides, I don't think we've ever captured a cargo ship before, it'll give us something to brag about back at base."

True, that was always worth more than any small ships they intercepted. It was a cargo ship, and she was a gun cruiser, despite the difference in size, it didn't even come close to a fair fight. She was looking forward to hearing that ship's story when they escorted it back.

AN:

If you don't already know, this site disappeared my MCU fic with Bismarck overnight a couple days ago. I've emailed support but I have zero faith in them resolving the issue. Heck, I haven't even gotten a response back yet. So, I've moved it to Ao3, you can search for me there using my profile, BeiYang_1. Ao3 will now be my 'main' account, with all fics currently on this site just being a backup. More works are posted on my Ao3 account anyways, so ideally I prefer if you read it there instead. Editing on this site is one giant pain in the ass, why did I ever decide to post here in the first place?

Also, I've had to remove a couple of very uncivilized comments in some of my fics recently. I put the requests there for a reason, and I will remove comments that break the rule.

Be civil in the comments below.