Jude: 1130 hours, 150 klicks above Pluto
Sparring was a sweaty process. I hated feeling like I was behind, or worse than anyone else in the room, but there were also lights dancing in front of my eyes by the time Fraser called a halt. It was brutal, muscles ached where I didn't even know I had muscles, and a shocking dizziness hit me every time I stopped moving like my head was made of lead and gravity was tugging it towards the floor. My stomach was jumping like I was going to keel over any second and smash my face off the concrete floor, which also felt as if it was moving underneath me. I cursed Mai softly under my breath. If she had just let me train with the other cadets, I wouldn't be this far behind.
"Don't worry Junebug," Odhran flopped down beside me and handed me his half-drunk bottle of water.
I smiled at him thankfully, too out of breath to speak and tipped a stream into my mouth without touching the lip of the bottle, God know what that boy had, and the icy stream hit my throat. As it did so my head began to feel a little lighter.
"Thanks," I said hoarsely, "life safer."
Odhran gave me a smug expression. I whacked his knee solidly enough to knock it off of his face.
"I won't say thanks next time," I grumbled annoyed.
He swatted me around the back of my head knocking a couple of braids into my eyes.
"Oi!" the hypocritical complaint was out of my mouth before I could stop it and Odhran laughed.
"Oh, pipe down that didn't even hurt Juno."
I glared at him and made a big show of guzzling down the last few drops of his water before passing the bottle back to him with a smug smile.
"Very mature," he said dryly getting up to go and refill it from one of the fountains in the corner.
I lay on my back placing a hand over my sternum like Odhran had taught me to regulate my panting. Although I was behind in training I had never seemed to be out of shape the way I felt out here. I measured my breaths in an out for a few moments feeling the air shift from my lungs to my diaphragm and back out again swirling into the recycled oxygen and carbon dioxide surrounding us all. I was forced to exhale my current breath a little more forcefully than I desired as Odhran came back and lightly rested his foot on my ribcage. With a spluttering sound I sat up and tried to sweep his other leg out from underneath him which he dodged with a laugh and sat back down beside me.
"Nice try Junebug," he poured some water into his mouth.
"Must you call me that?" I frowned at him. The nickname hardly encapsulated what I was trying to become, after all I'd only joined the army to be able to gain a little independence. The only way to become an adult these days was to put yourself on the neck in the line of fire it seemed, and the only way to earn respect was to bring home a head.
Odhran who was watching me think patted my head a little condescendingly. "It suits you kiddo," he said finally throwing the empty water bottle at me. I put up a hand to catch it but too late and it bounced off the side of my face.
"You've got to work on that," he said without much reprimand behind his tone, "reaction speed can literally be the difference between life and death down there Juno."
I pulled a face at him and threw the bottle back, "yeah because the Scuttlers are going to be throwing plastic bottles at me Odhran." I flopped back down shaking my head and took in a few more deep gulps of air.
"Did you struggle adapting to the ship's climate when you came out here?" I said into the silence after a moment. "It feels like the air is denser out here than on the Saturn V."
"Nah mate," Odhran stretched his legs out and stood up, "you're just unfit."
Fraser made his way back around the group and as he did say everyone hauled themselves to their feet. I joined them still feeling like I was somehow getting seasick – or was it space sick – from the slight movement of the ship under my feet.
"Come on then don't just stand there," Fraser waved his hands towards the middle of the room again, "let's have another round."
Another round? I already felt like I was going to die. Odhran saw my face and less-than-gently stood on my heel. I saluted with the rest of the group but didn't fix my look of distaste. As we took up our positions again with the sparring poles Odhran murmured "you know you don't have to like everything, but you do have to do it."
"They can't just expect us to be ready to go the second we arrive from home!" I protested. "That's unreasonable I mean some people have been here for years and they expect us to just immediately be at their level – it's not fair – we're being chucked in the deep end!"
Odhran shrugged and took a few half-hearted swipes at me which I parried. "It doesn't have to be fair," he said after a few more metal clangs discharged from our sticks connecting, "but it's reality Junebug."
I threw a few strikes back, to the right, then the left, then the head as taught. "Hand to hand tactics are so inefficient anyway," I wiped my sweating palm on my top and blocked an incoming bonk to the head from Odhran. "I mean we have blasters for God's sake, we have GUNS, when am I ever going to choose to be face to face when I could send a hole through it's skull from safely out of pincer distance?"
"It's not about efficiency," Odhran spun his stick and made a couple more mock strikes at me, one which I blocked and the other one which bounced off my ribs, "It's about expecting the unexpected and being prepared for when things go wrong."
"Ugh you're such a stickler for boring parroted textbook advice now!" I complained as another of his shots bounced off my shoulder, "I remember when you used to be fun."
Odhran didn't say anything to counteract my insult, instead he just spun his stick and thunked me a couple more times in the leg and side, so I took that one as a victory to myself.
I straightened up, rubbing the spot just above my knee where he'd tagged me feeling yet another bruise start to form.
"This is bullying," I muttered, "abuse, all luck."
"Luck has nothing to do with it," Odhran said, tone even and with maddeningly calm breathing. "You're just predictable."
"Oh wow, now you sound like Maia," I snapped back, lunging again—too wide, too slow.
Whack.
Stick to ribs. Again.
"Well Maia is right about a lot of things."
I let out a breathless laugh. "Okay, that one was cheap."
"That one was deserved, and for Maia."
I scowled, adjusted my grip, and kept going, attempting to keep up with Odhran's blocks that felt as if he was putting in no effort at all to keep me at bay.
"Are you even trying?" I burst out lunging again.
"Eh, there's certainly volume to your attacks." He dodged my incoming lunge, "but I've been doing this longer than you, you can't expect to master a skill overnight."
I sank onto the floor leaving a large smear of sweat where I'd leant my arm. Odhran pulled me back up to my feet in one swift motion.
"Just keep training," he ran his hands back through his dark buzzed hair as if pushing away the phantom fringe that had once been there. "You'll get there eventually, probably."
I swatted at him with another strike and this one finally connected against his knee. "You look like an egg," I said with no intent other than to throw an insult, "you looked better before."
"I like not having to push it out of my eyes every time I want to take a shot" he shrugged, "and I like being able to see my prey when it comes for me."
"The damn Scuttlers aren't here though, are they? It's not like we're on the ground – it's been quiet!" I exhaled hard putting force into my inflections with each strike.
No sooner had the words left my lips when an alarm started to blare across the ship, red warning lights spun on the walls and the sudden piercing wail over the intercom made me drop my sparring stick in surprise. A code of numbers that I didn't understand was being called out and Odhran laid his stick down on the floor before grabbing me by the shoulder of my uniform and dragging me into the hall with the rest of the sea of bodies moving like a finely tuned dance recital to their destinations.
"That's something else you've gotta learn Junebug," he yelled in my ear as he towed me through the hall after him. "Never say the bloody Q word!"