10th Company completed their company run and calisthenics session and entered the firing range to requalify on weapons and train their marksmanship. Dozens of troopers fired both las-rifles and autoguns at the moving mechanical targets down range. All troopers were able to hit moving targets at 75 meters with ease. Only half were able to maintain that same level at 150 meters.
Only squad designated marksmen with their specialized long lasguns and powerful scopes were able to hit the moving targets with an accuracy above 80% out at 250 meters. There was a scoreboard maintaining a leaderboard with a weighted score based on distance and accuracy percentages for all the troopers.
The only non-designated marksman amongst the top 10 scorers was Bashaw Vareeb. Out of curiosity, Bashaw Vareeb opened the data history to see the Hetman's scores, only to find they had been deleted. Bashaw Vareeb closed the terminal and ordered the company to form up and march to the 'The Hellhouse'.
Upon 10th company's arrival to the 'The Hellhouse' across the field, Bashaw Vareeb noticed that a mission was in the process of running. The scoreboard showed only the current run and not the recent history of missions run, like it normally did. 10th Company stood at parade rest waiting for the Hetman to finish his mission run. Bashaw Vareeb raised his eyebrows when the Hetman exited the mission hall with only a time of 10 minutes to complete the mission. It usually took a squad of 6 troopers five minutes to clear a mission.
"Building up a sweat Hetman?" joked Bashaw Vareeb. The Hetman was breathing a little hard as he walked out of the 'The Hellhouse'.
Ajax had been focused. His mind had felt like it was fitting into a comfortable and familiar zone of focus. 'Sight, Kill, Move. Sight, Kill, Move. Sight, Kill, Move. One mind, One muscle, One movement.' The mantra repeated endlessly in his head as he moved, and shot without conscious interruption. He had started to understand why combat had ironically been a reprieve for Drogant from his haunting memories.
The Bashaw's voice broke him from his reverie. Looking up seeing the whole of the 10th Company formed up, Ajax replied to the Bashaw, "Oh I was just getting her warm for you all, Bashaw" laughing jovially to misdirect attention from his hand reaching to the console to delete the data from his latest run.
His logokine powers enabled him to be a master at communication in all forms, body language included. He used his body language to draw attention to his exhaustion, so most troopers didn't catch the data that was coming up before Ajax had deleted the data entry.
The Bashaw was pretty sure that he had seen a one hundred percent shoot decision accuracy and ninety five percent shot accuracy crossed the screen before it disappeared as the Hetman deleted the entry. The Bashaw was stunned. 'The Hetman did that while he was tired and on his last run? He must have been running solo missions for at least an hour! It's been a long time since he performed this good!'
The Bashaw felt buoyed by the return of the old reliable Hetma, instead of the miserable drunk he had been in the past year or so. He hoped this version of the Hetman was here to stay.
Ajax left the company to finish up with their CQC drills, and decided to go abuse the privileges of his rank a little. Ajax left the training hall and caught a grav lift to another deck of the ship where the training halls of the Astartes lay. One of the privileges extended to the officer ranks of the Old Hundred Imperial Army units aboard the Truth's Razor, was the ability to spectate Astartes in their training.
Ajax entered the training halls of Dark Angels. It put the halls allocated to the Imperial Army to shame. This hall had a ceiling dozens of meters high. The hall was filled with multiple CQC simulators that Ajax could see actively morphing their height and configuration.
As Ajax passed near one of the simulators, he could feel his body become heavier from the active grav plates inside of the simulator increasing gravity inside. From inside, he heard the krump of autocannons firing and the roar of bolters.
'Fuck, they're using live ammo!' Ajax rounded the corner of the simulator and saw three other simulators actively changing their floor layout and even changing the number and size of floors contained within. He could see walls shifting and rearranging themselves into new rooms and hallways.
'With those you could simulate taking a whole hive tower! A normal human wouldn't even notice they'd been in the same building the whole time! Well, as long as they don't hear the walls moving'.
The CQC simulators formed an outer ring around center rings of training cages. In each training cage, unarmored Astartes faced off with at least one six armed battle servitor. Each of the servitor's arms ended in wicked blades.
The Space Marines dueled the training servitors with blunted swords, axes, spears, and even barehanded. Some of the Marines closer to the center of the hall faced off against multiple training servitors at once. It was really odd to see mountains of men dancing nimbly between the dancing blades of the servitors that were trying to remove their heads from their bodies. The alacrity with which the Astartes moved was startling.
What really shocked Ajax, however, was how quick the Astartes could transition from stillness to exploding forth at high speed and transition back to stillness just as suddenly. It reminded Ajax of the way robotic arms could precisely move at high speeds and then precisely stop on a dime. It was frankly confusing to see that from 'men" whose biceps were similar to the size of Ajax's torso.
The forces and accelerations would tear the ligaments of an unaugmented human to shreds. The mechanical precision of the Astartes' movements would be impossible for a human to pull off. Human senses and muscles were simply too imprecise and variable to achieve such consistency. Their movements were explosive and dynamic, but not altogether as fluid and graceful as their nimbleness might suggest.
A small arena sat in the heart of the hall. It was circle depressed four or so meters into the ground, with a diameter around 20 meters. In the arena, four Astartes dueled. It was not a two on two fight or a free-for-all melee. It was clear that it was three on one battle. And the one was winning.
Of the three Astartes battling the one, two were wearing black robes emblazoned with the stylized roman numeral one upon their right shoulders over their bodyglovers. One's head was shaved, the other wore close cropped blonde hair. Both had the dark, deep set eyes and the angled, chiseled features that were emblematic of the Space Marines of the 1st Legion. Both had scowling, saturnine expressions across their faces.
The third marine also wore a robe over his body glove, but his robe was muted dark blue with the stylized roman numeral thirteen emblazoned on his right shoulder. He wore his blond hair in a high top fade. He had regal features and a square jaw. He had a stern, focused expression across his face.
The one Marine battling all three stood in a black robe as well. He had long flowing blond hair and a blond beard. He had an slight prideful smirk across as his feature as he fended off the three attackers with a large two-handed practice broadsword that was longer than Ajax was tall. The bald Dark Angel blocked the chop of the sword with a practice spear, as the other Dark Angel and Ultramarine cut in at the long haired marine with their practice chainswords.
The long haired Marine artfully disengaged from the spear wielder, dodged the Ultramarine's blow, and used the Ultramarine's body to prevent the sword wielding Dark Angel from pressing his line of attack. The match continued for another 10 minutes.
Ajax was unable to fully follow the movements of the three attacking Marines, as their swords move far faster than the human eye could follow up close. Even standing 20 meters away, Ajax saw their arms and blades blurrily.
The lone Marine was actually quite easy to follow, surprisingly. Perhaps it would be hard to do so up close, but from this distance all of the lone Marine's movements were slow and almost languid. Yet, his sword was always intercepting the blades of aggressors as they pressed their attack. The way the Marine controlled space and angles of attack using his blade and the positioning of his attackers to prevent attacks and stifle their movements was simply brilliant. He was like a conductor and his foes were the instruments of his orchestra.