Chapter Text
“Woah...” Ruby said looking up at the behemoth before her. She had seen plenty of airships in her time, they were common enough, but Atlas’ ships tended to stand out among their contemporaries and this monstrosity stood in a class of its own. Despite which it was actually just about the least dangerous of the vessels in the busy dockyard. Unlike the various cruisers, carriers and flagships of Atlas’ fleet, all of which called this port home, the massive vessel Ruby stood in awe of was not a warship at all. What it was, was the single largest airship ever built and it had one purpose, to carry as much cargo as absolutely possible. The resource poor nation of Atlas had always relied on trade for it’s survival and this new class was meant to ensure that their ships not simply controlled but dominated that trade. There were those, even in industry driven atlas, though who claimed the ships represented arrogance on the part of their designers, surely something so massive could never fly and even if it could it would be too tempting a target for pirates or other vagabonds. The amount of dust a single ship could carry, if loaded with nothing else, represented an entire years’ worth of production from even the largest mines of the SDC. There were entire businesses worth less then that and it wasn’t as if something this large could be kept a secret, every criminal on Remnant would swarm it the moment it left Atlesian airspace. They could hardly pass up the opportunity. Which was exactly why Ruby was here. As a huntress, she had been hired to supplement the already considerable regular military forces provided to assuage these fears. Long term Atlas intended to use exclusively their own troops on the ships and hoped to move to primarily if not exclusively automated troops before long, but this was the maiden voyage of the first ship of this class and they weren’t taking any chances. In addition to Ruby, there were 8 other professional huntsmen and 30 soldiers led by one of Atlas’ famous huntsmen trained military “specialists” and that was just on board the cargo ship. The full convey would include two heavy cruisers and a few dozen lighter ships. There were also a handful of other cargo ships, but they were really just opportunistic merchantmen who figured they could attach themselves to the convoy for extra protection after all they were going that way anyway.
“Watch it you idiot!” a voice cried as Ruby tripped over a few crates she hadn’t notice in her path as she admired the ship.
“Oh sorry!” Ruby said “I wasn’t paying attention”
“You weren’t paying attention?! You moron! These are dust crates you could have blown us up!” The voice continued Ruby looked up to see it was coming out of a young woman in a white dress, carrying a saber at her side.
“Geez, I said I was sorry. Who do you think you are? bossy!” Ruby replied defensively
“Me!?! Who do you think YOU are? How did you even get in here this a restricted area we’re getting ready to launch and I will not have you messing up my first command!” the woman retorted furiously
“I’m Ruby Rose, professional huntress” Ruby answered proudly “I was hired to help protect this ship. You must be that what was it Lice Schmee? Person”
“IT’S WEISS SCHNEE” Weiss shouted back “I am the Atlas military specialist in charge of that protection detail, and I do not believe for a second Atlas would hire someone like you.”
“Listen ms. Specialist” Ruby sassed back making the title an insult “I didn’t even particularly want this job it’s just one my way back to Vale.”
“What nobody in Atlas would hire someone as incompetent as you so you’re running home?” Weiss shot back
“NO!” Ruby screamed “I got this job didn’t I? Besides I only came here in the first place because of rumors that a crime boss I’ve been tracking was making deals to acquire a bunch of dust but your police are so incompetent, especially when it comes to the Faunas quarters, I didn’t learn a thing “there are no dust smuggling operations in Atlas” psh yeah right! It’s coming into Vale from somewhere.”
“Why you little… dolt!” Weiss shouted glaring angrily back at Ruby. Her rage was only made worse by the fact the infuriating red hooded younger woman had a point. She knew many of the police in Atlas were hopelessly corrupt and the only “police work” which was done in most of the Faunas quarters was to harass the residents not aid them. Which made countering Ruby’s attack difficult. Instead Weiss simply held her glare hoping to intimidate her supposed subordinate. Unfortunately, Weiss had very little formal authority over Ruby. She was in charge of all of the forces on the cargo ships which theoretically included the huntsmen but that was based more on the assumption that those huntsmen would willingly cooperate and coordinate with the military commander then any true power over them. It was Ironwood and the national treasury which negotiated their contracts and while it would be easy for Weiss to ensure Ruby was never hired again, Ruby clearly didn’t care. In theory, Weiss could probably still call up Ironwood and get her fired from this trip, but it was unlikely a replacement could be found at this point and it would reflect poorly on Weiss. Ruby was annoying and disrespectful, but Weiss didn’t really have any hard evidence, besides one clumsy trip, that the younger women wasn’t a competent huntress and without that evidence it would just look like Weiss didn’t work well with non-Atlas personnel. In any case, Ruby responded to Weiss’ glare by simply glaring right back. The two stared at each other for a moment, anger floating between them, before Weiss turned her back to Ruby with a huff and said “Whatever just go get on the ship. I shouldn’t need any of you huntsmen and I want the regular men to get in the habit of doing their patrols without you so just find a place to sit and stay out of the way, and out of my sight.”
“Fine by me.” Ruby answered and stomped off to board the ship.