Re: The Skull and the Axe
"From one thing, know ten thousand things."
Dizzy twisted her body and stepped to the side at the choppy overhand swing of her sparring partner, turning on her heel as she stepped around to his shoulder. She'd had the strange runes along the skana's blade translated for her after the end of the Shackleton's mission. It was an inversion of an ancient earth philosophy, the Tao, which was unknowable but all the things of the earth reflected elements of it. Supposedly, as one came to understand the whole of the world, the shape of this great force would make itself known. For her part, the Proven Warrior Primus found the Shivari's take much more agreeable.
The raw soldier wrenched his momentum forcefully back, a wide back swing arching up towards her as he tried to take advantage of the double-edged nature of the blades the Gareshi preferred. Still perched on the balls of her feet, Dizzy shifted her footing back, the short edge coming up short as he twisted awkwardly at the waist to brake his momentum. War. War was her idiom, her life. Since she was a child, orphaned by the constant battles that wracked her homeland, she had given her body over to its practice. She had devoted her mind to its secrets. She had tempered her soul to its harsh realities, to accept it into her core without the comfort of blinding herself to its cost. She was the willing instrument of a harsh, pitiless god with only the promise of greater battles and the strength that such tests granted as her rewards. Not the only god, perhaps not even the greatest god, but the only one with a claim to her.
"You're dead." she intoned, the flat edge of her sword slapping against the thick cords of muscle that were her subordinate's neck. She saw his teeth grit, her knuckles turning white along the grip of his short blade, and she fixed him with a flat stare as she waited to see if he'd actually contest it. Shaking his head, clearly angered at the loss, she turned to the rest of the circle, "NEXT!"
So, from one thing, from War, she would learn ten thousand things. Perhaps she could claim that Commander Farhenra had been the one to set her on this path, the day he'd handed her the sword of the traitor Meyrink, who had, in truth, perhaps been more devoted to the Hedgemony than them all. It had been his trophy, won through bloody combat, but he had passed it along to her. He'd probably never known precisely how much loyalty he'd bought with that gesture, but she had learned to use the light, single-edged sword, and it had opened her up to a very different kind of fighting than she'd learned in the cold stone houses of Serntiaari. Faster, requiring greater speed, absolute control, fought at greater distances and demanding greater endurance in a duel.
And absolutely useless on the ice. Learning this form had, indirectly, reinforced the values of her classical training. The need for solid footing, the quick, sharp jabs and close-quarters stabbing and slashing that characterized close quarters combat in her homeland. The fine sandalwood grip on the gift passed down to her, beautiful and treated though it had been, had swollen and cracked when she'd returned to her homeland, splintering in her grip as she'd demonstrated the forms. She'd had it refitted to something more modern, more robust, and layered in leather straps to ensure her grip. To this day, she still carried both blades.
"You'll not cross this line." she said, her face hidden behind the impassive skull helmet of her creed as she lightly drew a line across the deckplating halfway across the duelists circle as the next recruit stepped up. She saw the look he favored her with, full of impetuousness, and allowed herself a private smile. She had immersed herself in the bloody flow of war, fighting where the carnage was the thickest, and it had earned her scars and glories she could be proud of ... that yet, paled against the value of the insights granted her by her faith. She learned the logistics of the Hegemony, and through it she learned what was valued by the soldiers on the front. She listened, truly listened to the songs sung by the warriors of the Hegemony's other worlds, and learned something of their hearts and for what they would fight. She studied battles fought on other fronts and in the past, and gleaned insight of the convoluted pattern of attack and counter-attack that dominated battle. Her prowess had seen her promoted to Primus under a Knight with some diluted noble blood ... which of them truly lead the platoon was sometimes less clear that some would like, though there was no doubt to whom the commendations would gravitate.
The fight was joined in earnest. This grunt knew his way around the blade, the ragged edge of an ear suggesting he had some practical application rather than the raw untrained methods of the majority. There weren't many occasions in which it was advantageous to use a sword over a rifle, after all ... however, the Unified Brotherhood issued swords to all of their men, and Dizzy wanted her men drilled and up to date if they ever had cause to engage the invaders on that level. It was only her own experience that had seen her lose only a lung to one of their Dekarchos's vibroblades rather than her life, and the blade he'd carried was significantly longer than the nine and a half inch blade issued by the Gareshi Military. Her blade flashed this way and that, but never was there the clang of steel on steel that normally accompanied these bouts. While the broad double-edged blade issued to the Gareshi was largely a defensive tool, the Skana was light, if used like a blunt instrument it was likely to fracture and break ... which is why she relied so heavily upon her footwork The current recruit had apparently noticed this, he was trying to box her in, but she kept her blade out towards him to keep the threat of injury fresh in his mind.
In the deck lighting, blades flashed as they stepped around one another, Dizzy paused with her sword thrust forward, grip in both hands. The other warrior had switched to a reverse-bladed grip to try and confuse her defense, but she'd kept the range. She stood up straight and flicked her blade as if to clear blood from the monomolecular edge.
"You're dead." she said, the shallow silver crease along the abdomen of the man's armor showing where she'd have spilled his guts in a real fight.
"Ah, but I have crossed the line." he said in return, sounding smug under his helmet as he spun the blade back into a forward grip.
"And yet, still dead." she said, raising her arm and sliding the blade back into her break-away shoulder sheathe, the smooth black exterior sealing along one edge and going to work honing the mono-blade's edge, "You became so fixated on the goal of proving me wrong, that you never questioned if there was anything to be gained in crossing that line. You need to retain your objectivity." she waved her hand.
"Continue your drills until the turn of the hour, then break for sustenance. I have duties to attend to." she said, unhooking the helmet of her armor and taking a deep breath of the ship's recycled air as she shook out her golden hair damp with the weight of sweat. Her finger lightly brushed against a slight knick along her right brow ridge, and she smirked slightly. Perhaps she hadn't quite maintained distance as well as she'd thought.
"Proven Tulius. You will take my place in the circle ... pass it on, once you're at your limit." she shrugged her shoulders and strode towards the cramped officer's space that she shared with the Platoon's CO, casting a disparaging look at the pile of forms that had gathered on one corner of her desk. The damned Indari certainly did love their paperwork, always another form to fill out, time sheets here, requisition forms there, personnel and medical evaluations. All of the wondrous niggling little duties that were expected of an XO, but made far more onerous by the use of language on the forms. It was almost as though some Hegemony bureaucrat had set out to make everyone in the 4th Fleet feel like a simpleton ... whoever he was, she'd have liked to string him up for increasing the amount of time she spent behind this desk, rather than on drills or leading prayers.
Ah, but there were perks, she admitted as she spied the heavy brown envelope post marked from Fleet Intelligence. She knew herself well, she knew the fighting methods of the Gareshi as a whole and had studied drop insertion protocol upon being assigned to the company. As she untied the twine binding and began unfolding the brown paper, a wolfish grin settled on her lips, causing her scars to stretch along with her glee. As much as she knew herself, however, the Unified Brotherhood was still something of a mystery to her. Their strategies, their tactics, the insignia that denoted rank and division As the Gorumskagat taught, if you knew yourself, but not your enemy, you would find a defeat for every victory. They'd been in the grips of total war for nearly two years, but there was still so much she didn't know about the invaders ... their fighting strength, their tactics, the nature of their martial honor. She'd had to pull some strings to get this from Fleet Intelligence, and she expected it to be heavily censored even so, but she was eager to help put the bits she'd managed to glean from her own time on the battlefield into a wider context.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:39, Sat 26 July 2014.