While the members of the Cloudjumpers Sword Company were either resting, preparing or informing themselves on the details for their next mission, Pierce received an order from one of his commanding officers.
The message was neither signed or sent over a known familiar communication stream and yet the style of the writing was undeniably familiar.
After getting up from his bed, he got dressed in his casual fatigues. A set of compression leggings and a long sleeve top, colored a deep blue, with a blue-gray synth-weave bomber jacket and sleek boots that sat below his knee, comfortably linking the attached knee guards to the respective area around his leggings.
If you took a step back, his simple style was no different from the youth that paced the many cyan-lit streets of Procella.
Pierce eventually slipped out of his room, leaving the Camp and making his way to the Lunar Drydocks.
Thinking about the message he received as he cut between the corridors and taking the stairs to avoid the many main elevators to the surface, until he reached the subsurface tram connecting the Camp to the main Lunar city of Procella.
The same one he used after meeting with the IDF, its tram cars ran constantly, which meant that for a Blade or Enforcer to be moving in and out of the Camp so late hardly seemed out of the ordinary.
"Captain?" The voice was barely registered as a whisper, but he heard it clear as day.
The next tram car hissed to a gradual stop, as its surface sizzled, evaporating the creeping vines of frost and chill on its glistening hull. The doors gently whizzed open while the operation's voice sounded through the station, indicating the tram car's next destination.
"Captain-General Thalia."
Pierce answered, but he didn't turn to face her, allowing passengers to disembark or to board the tram car while he waited. The doors eventually whizzing closed before the car began to take off, accelerating with a static buzz, carrying a distant hum as it launched out of the tunnel.
"You're late." The commanding officer stepped out of the shadow cast by one of the towering support beams.
"I had to avoid the elevators if I wanted to move unseen." His comment fell on deaf ears.
She just moved towards the platform as another tram car slowed in its approach to the station. A gentle hiss and the light coat of ice on the train's chassis vaporized before the doors slid open and the next stop was announced.
"Come along now. We have a bit of a trip ahead of us, and the planetary shuttle isn't going to wait for us."
"Ma'am. Where are we going, and why was it necessary that I come to meet you alone?"
His question went unanswered with her simply seating herself in silence the moment they entered the car, folding her arms and crossing her legs while they waited for the tram to take off.
Pierce waited until the last call for the next stop echoed throughout the subsurface station. Eventually stepping in, to meet her smirking and self assured expression.
"Enough sulking. You have not sat in the Captain's chair long enough to be frowning like that." The Captain-General, knowing well that she hadn't answered his question, set the tone for an awkward silence until they arrived at the Drydocks.
Away from the starships bound for interstellar space or the transport vessels bringing their cargo to port, a certain subsection of the Drydocks was reserved for specialized spacecrafts, an area so exclusive even private star yachts that belonged to planetary oligarchs were denied entry.
Here, near the GATE - N 00A, sat only a handful of standard sized spacecraft, one of which the Captain-General walked up to as its aft opened up.
"Looks like they were just about to leave without us, let's go" boarding a mid ranged transport ship and waiting at the door for Pierce.
Once they were in, and the aft doors shut, the ship hummed to life as its engines drank deeply from its reactor.
"Tell me something, Pierce. How would you describe your proficiency in Erythlason?"
"The Scarlet Tongue, ma'am? It is serviceable. Why do you ask?"
"Well, take this time to get your rest, we'll be touching down in Ma'dim in no time and I expect you to be a little less rigid when interacting with locals. I see no need to cause a panic among them."
She pushed him on his way, until they arrived at the cabins, finding only eight other passengers, some enjoying the starlight show from the windows as the ship cruised through the stellar sea, others indulging in the complementary bar's offerings and Pierce, he sat quietly in his seat.
But his mind was still unsettled.
The Captain-General sat beside him, placing a chilled bottle of an electric blue drink into his lap before opening her own and downing the entire drink, then and there.
"It won't fix your problems, but it will certainly help take your mind off this."
"Rayce would attest to the use of drink, ma'am. But Blanks are not permitted to indulge."
"And? You seem to have no trouble breaking the rules when that idiot, Kord asks it of you." Pouting as she snatched the drink from his hands to enjoy it.
The trip took a few hours, making use of a short-ranged trans-light jump to Ma'dim space.
Spatial jumps of this nature so close to planetary space were limited only to special crafts using particular routes that have been cleared for immediate transit without limitation.
This meant that planetary translight jumps were incredibly expensive and largely reserved for those with the highest influence or wealth in the United Empire, to travel along those given lanes, a benefit that the Captain-General enjoyed with quiet pride.
The dispersing roar of the spacecraft gave way to the gentle hum of the sublight engines, noting their approach to the Martian world of Ma'dim, carrying the craft for the remaining journey over the planet's Float Rings.
These megastructures acted as hardpoints for other advanced technologies beyond terraforming purposes
And there that they make for the Cultural epicenter of Olympus Mons.
She finally revealed that when she needs a moment away from everything, she would come here, to be free and not on her guard.
"So you travel to Ma'dim, for the drink?" Pierce wondered, while he gave his data slate another glance before putting it away.
Instead of sleeping through the trip, to the Captain-General's annoyance, he kept up with this tick. Every 12 minutes, he pulled out his data slate, going through it like he was expecting a message and then putting it away.
By the time they were approaching the planet, Pierce's focus turned to the window, while she reached over to snatch his data slate before he could perform his check again, tapping on it for a bit on its opaque surface before handing it back to him.
"What did you do–"
"Only what was necessary to keep your attention. I thought I could show you the last Yada highlights first but you've annoyed me." Her voice returned with its usually dismissive tone.
But it was already too late,
"Amateur-Class Yada Title. Contest 23, Christian Ophe. Please report to the Culture Belt Arena before midday" The text scrawled across the panel, next to the digital poster of the participation sheet.
He was already set up for his first match at the Northern Rupes Escarpment as they arrived at Olympus Mons.
Pierce didn't talk much and she didn't press. Taking a cab from the spaceport to the interior of the mountain's base in the northern region.
Finally they stopped moving horizontally and began descending. Within Olympus Mons, the entirety of the mountain has been hollowed out to form a network of layers connected by tunnels forming an inverted pyramidal structure.
As one of the first colonized regions on Ma'dim it also stands as its oldest territories, with much of the planet now verdant plains and forests of red hills and lush greens near sapphire blue coastlines, very few new arrivals sought to live below the surface after seeing its splendor.
Inside the 20th level of the Inverted Pyramid, the ground-scraper megacity was a region known as the Mons Culture Belt, a place that did not discriminate in the kind of cultural beliefs and religious ones of the Her'deh'Shari.
A strongly enjoyed pastime for the last 4000 years has been the sport of Yada, a mixed martial arts, straight unarmed melee. Anything goes as long as you don't have any weapons.
The trip took 15 minutes before ending up on their desired level. The first punches that hit him wasn't of another person, it was the smell, vivid and pungent in so many new ways that felt as if he only just became aware of his sense of smell.
Captain-General Thalia eventually pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to him.
But Pierce respectfully refused. He took in deeper and deeper breaths, each one more overwhelming than the last but his mind was already at work, fine tuning the sensory input, learning and accurately muting the intensity.
"You need to learn how to accept gestures if you want to get better at playing human."
"It is not that difficult to manage the sensory overload. So there was no need for the gesture, you would find far better use with it than I."
"Yes, but humans tend to rely on each other when they are incapable. It offers a chance for connection between them and that connection strengthens how human you are to them."
She walked over to him and placed the handkerchief in his hand.
"And I think you know that too." Giving him a knowing look.
"We're close to the Arena. I hope you're feeling limber"
"Arena, so it was no mistake. You truly intend for me to participate?"
"Yes, you could probably be hearing the cheering if you listen closely."
They pushed through the crowded streets of green and auburn colored lights, the sounds of mechanical cogs driving the in-road trains as they carried people through the winding streets of the underground tunnels.
Being pulled off the tracks by her, Pierce watched as the train met the incline in the cliff. Casting a rust colored shadow over the settlements of the Culture Belt below and the Inverted Levels even lower, the edge of the cliff was twinkling like a guiding star.
The Arena, Pierce discovered, was a mash of cultural motifs and technological artistry.
An amphitheater shaped out of a cavern, comfortably seating a ten thousand in the audience. The stage and the stages were made of an ashen-colored stone, while the rest of the structure was held up by the reinforced pillars meant to resemble the designs of the Phoenicians from the ancient past.
"The first bout will be a ten-man battle royal , the remaining four will be moving on to the next round. All you need to do is survive until you're among the last four. Go on" She pushed Pierce before he could protest all the way to the participants corridor, before she left for the stands.
As he was about to call out to her to stay, an armored figure walked down the corridor from the opposite end. Clad in bronze-greaves and gauntlets, black leather straps were wrapped around their hands and feet, forming crude sandals and gloves while his face was covered in black wrappings.
The figure moved like a walking statue of black marble. Coming to a stop in front of Pierce, he asked for his name.
"Christian Ophe…"
Giving him a nod, before he knelt down. With his stature even more impressive now since he was still about to look him in the eye despite being on one knee. He produced a satchel and started taking things out of it.
By the time the Captain-General sat comfortably in the II tier of the seating area, outside any reserved boxes but still close enough to the Arena floor to make out the action, a horn was blown. In the silence that followed, a dust storm began to pick up in the Arena while the audience could see the show unimpeded through specialized projectors.
The horn blared once again, and this time, the sound of dense chains running over heavy pulleys, lifting the metal gates of the many corridors space on the Arena floor, welcoming the participants into the storm.
When Pierce stepped onto the crimson dirt, he wore nothing but robes for his lower half and wrappings over his face, arms and legs. Onto of those black wrapping, were various designs marked with the red Erythan Clay.
Pierce recalled the armored figures' reason for the marks after he emptied a vial of oil onto the red sands and mixed it into a thick clay.
"For protection and maybe victory, if the Speakers deem it so."
Tracing his wrapped finger over the marks, a thought arose, silencing the cheers rising from the stands, the passions of the emerging participants and the growing ferocity of the crimson dust storm:
'Some traditions follow not art or science but instinct, I wonder if this is what humans call faith? If so, would there be a god that would look upon creatures like me?'