Ajax woke up with a start to his chrono ringing. It sounded like the ringing had in Kjarricks ears. He shut off the alarm. It was 0300 ship time. He had slept for maybe an hour. Ajax put on his uniform with military precision. It felt mostly natural, but there was an odd sense of disconnect as he performed tasks by muscle memory he hadn't done before.
Muscle memory from a life that wasn't his own. He began to feel an odd sense that his body was a meat puppet dancing to the strings of an unseen puppet master. Shaking his head, he forced himself to focus on the sensations of his body, to ground himself in reality. He remembered these exercises from his treatment in his first life.
He took the opportunity to study the Dark Eldar tome on human anatomy and inducing pain using said anatomy. His eyes began to burn and hurt after only ten minutes. He had to ground himself to reality even harder.
Ajax began to study the Eldar tome on the Path of the Seer and began to cross reference the information with the scant info on Imperial psykers that he could. It seemed that each psyker, human or xenos, had to form a psychic core, a base structure, from which they could build their psychic power in an orderly manner.
The psychic core, as the Imperium understood it, was the center of emotion and needed to be firmly rooted in powerful, positive imagery that could allow the psyker to resist the madness of the warp and fight against it.
The Eldar took a starkly different stance to the Imperium when it came to the proper understanding of the psychic core. The Eldar used runes to form the basis of their psychic core. The runes of Eldar were psychic creations that they built to call upon archetypal emotional resonance from the warp.
In essence, the Eldar didn't seek to create something from nothing. They used the emotional energy imbued into the Warp by every sentient species by creating runes that resonated with a certain strand of emotion. An Eldar psyker would first empty themselves of emotion, then call up a rune that resonates with a certain type of emotion, using that rune as a base to build a 'spell' related to that emotion, before finally finding that emotion within themselves to empower the spell further and then casting it. The Eldar had a seeming infinity of runes related to every unique feeling possible. The tome, that Ajax had found, only contained a small portion of their runes, yet it filled dozens and dozens of pages.
They struck Ajax as being quite similar to a programming language, while being more vague and open to interpretation. It was systematic, while being full of edge cases and confusion. It was clear and also vague. It was damn confusing. Ajax set the tome down in frustration. 'It's like they imposed structure onto reality,'thought Ajax to himself.
'These runes seem arbitrary just like a normal language, yet they allow Eldar psykers to use their powers in a far more complex manner than human psykers.' He stood up, put the thoughts from his mind, fixed his uniform, and left his small officer's cabin.
Ajax had navigated his way through many access corridors and taken many lifters to end up in the section of the ship designated for Imperial Army training. Ajax had made his way to the small hall that had a small track, firing range, close quarter battle training facility, and gym. The confines were tight and every ounce of the space was maximized. The dense pack of all the facilities made Ajax feel like there was a small weight sitting on his chest. 10th company formed up in the center of the track.
"Officer on deck!" shouted Bashaw Vaareb. The entire 10th company stood at attention. "At ease, everybody!" called Ajax in response. All of 10th company stood to parade rest."Alright ladies, I'm back and still breathing. I'm sure you're all heartbroken." joked Ajax. That earned a small chuckle from the men in his charge.
"Apparently, the 'uniquely' sourced amasec someone got a hold of was quite poorly made and is able to cause seizures." commented Ajax pointedly. A chill and a tension seemed to pass through the regiment, they were worried that punishment details were incoming.
"From the mouths of the Uxor and the Chief Medic, no alcohol may be consumed or sourced from any source other than rations. There will be no second chances on this, you've been warned. I have already taken the hit, so none of you will be busted down ranks or have liberties suspended." said Ajax. That earned a small cheer from the men.
"All right, cut the noise. Instead of punishment, you men owe me 50 laps. Followed by a vigorous calisthenics session, am I clear, Bashaw?" asked Ajax. "Crystal, Sir," responded Bashaw Vareeb. Ajax could feel his words gaining a certain flavor as he talked.
It was different from when he started speaking other languages, but he could tell the words swayed the men easier than their eloquence had any right to. It discomfited Ajax to be playing with the minds of other men so easily.
He did not know how to be a good officer that was convincing and that men wanted to follow, but because of his psychic ability, he came across like one. He only hoped his unnatural persuasiveness wouldn't get his men killed someday.
Ajax felt that he needed to learn to control his logokine abilities, and develop a moral code to control his usage of them. Rampant use and abuse of psyker powers was a good way to end up burned as a witch or becoming corrupted by Chaos.
As 10th company began its exercises, Ajax went to the firing range and began to go through the marksmanship drills Jast had taught to a young Drogant Kjarrick. The dissonance between the muscle memory of Drogant Kjarrick's body, the memories Ajax inherited from soul alignment with Drogant, and Ajax's own understanding began to ease.
It became trivial for Ajax to hit moving targets at two hundred and fifty meters with las-rifle, las-pistol, auto-gun, and auto pistol shots. Drogant had been a truly talented soldier, one brought low by the memories that haunted him.
Ajax was reaping rich rewards from Drogant's abilities as he aligned his soul with engramtic abilities of the man whose body he now inhabited. Ajax may not be a true soldier in mentality, but he was quickly learning to shoot and move like one.
Ajax placed down the weapons he had been practicing with at the firing range stations and walked over to the close quarter combat training facility, colloquially known as 'The Hellhouse'. It was a small warehouse that could be reformed into the halls of a spaceship, the warrens of a hive's lower levels, the interiors of Imperial fortifications, and many other locations where troops would have to fight in tight confines with little time to react to the many variables in their environments.
Ajax walked up to the control board and selected a randomized level. He heard unseen machinery moving in the warehouse, rearranging walls and corridors to present a randomized challenge that tested a soldier's technique, reaction time, and marksmanship.
Ajax picked up the sim-rifle and found it to be weighted and balanced exactly the same as the real las-rifle he had been firing on the range. Ajax repeated the mantra of the CQC drill Jast had taught to Drogant so long ago to himself, 'Sight, Kill, Move. Sight, Kill, Move. Sight, Kill, Move.' Ajax hit the start button on the control panel, a countdown started on an overhead monitor. When the count struck zero, Ajax burst through the entrance, firing.