The Service of the Sword

sideways. She managed to break his grip on her arm, but not in time to keep herself from going down hard. She hit the mat on her left shoulder and rolled quickly, just managing to avoid Stevenson as he dropped, arms outspread, to pin her. He'd misjudged her speed, and he landed hard on his belly as she spun sideways, pivoting on her buttocks, and her scything legs slashed his arms from under him.

She rolled onto her side, snapping her torso backward, and her elbow slammed hard into the back of his head. The protective headgear they both wore shielded him from the full force of the blow, but it was still enough to knock him ever so briefly off stride, and Abigail used the opportunity to continue her roll. She twisted, supple as a serpent, and landed on his back. Both hands flashed, darting up and under his armpits from behind, and he grunted as they met on the back of his neck. She exerted pressure—not very much; the hold she'd secured was dangerous —but enough for him to recognize the full-Nelson.

His right palm slapped the mat in token of surrender, and she released her hold, rolled off of him, and sat up. He followed suit, and shook his head, then removed his mouth protector and grinned at her.

'Better,' he said approvingly. 'Definitely better that time. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought you were really trying to hurt me!'

'Thank you . . . I think, Sir,' she said after removing her own mouth protector. Actually, she wasn't entirely certain how to take his last remark. Despite her natural athleticism, hand-to-hand combat had been the hardest course for her to master at Saganami Island. She'd enjoyed the training katas, and the way in which the training had sharpened her reflexes and coordination. But she'd had problems—serious ones—when it was time for her to apply her lessons.

The reason hadn't been difficult for her to figure out; it was fixing it that had been hard.

Grayson girls were reared in a culture in which actual physical confrontations were unthinkable. Unlike boys (who everyone knew were rambunctious, obstreperous, and generally ill behaved), well brought up girls simply didn't do things like that. Grayson girls and women were to be protected by those same obstreperous boys and men, not to demean themselves by engaging in anything so crude as fisticuffs!

It was a cultural imperative which had been societized into Graysons for the better part of a thousand T- years, and Abigail had been aware of it—in an intellectual sort of way—long before she reported to Saganami Island. She'd also thought that she'd prepared herself to overcome it. Unfortunately, she'd been wrong. Despite her determination to wear down her father's resistance to her decision to pursue a naval career, she was still a product of her home world. She didn't mind the sweat, the exercise, the bruises, or even the indignity of being dumped on her highly aristocratic posterior in front of dozens of watching eyes. But the thought of actually, deliberately attacking someone else with her bare hands, even in a training situation, had been something else entirely. And to her chagrin and humiliation, her hesitation had been even more pronounced against male sparring partners.

She'd hated it. Her scores had been abysmal, which had been bad enough, but she wanted to be a naval officer. It was all she'd ever wanted, from the night she'd stood on a balcony of Owens House, staring at a night sky, and watched pinpricks of nuclear fire flash among the stars while a single, foreign warship commanded by a woman fought desperately against another ship twice its size in defense of her planet. She'd known what she wanted, fought for it with unyielding determination, and finally won not simply her father's grudging permission but his active support.

And now that it was actually within her grasp, she couldn't overcome her social programming well enough to make herself 'hit' someone even as a training exercise? It was ridiculous! Worse, it seemed to confirm every doubt every Grayson male had ever raised about the concept of women in the military. And, she'd been humiliatingly certain, it had done precisely the same thing for all of the Manticorans who believed Graysons were hopelessly, laughably benighted barbarians.

But worst of all, it had made her doubt herself. If she couldn't do this, then how could she ever hope to exercise tactical command in a real battle? How could she trust herself to be able to give the order to fire—to go all out, knowing her own people's lives depended upon her ability to not simply hurt but kill someone else's people—if she couldn't even make herself throw a sparring partner in the training salle?

She'd known she needed help, and a part of her had been desperately tempted to seek it from Lady Harrington. The Steadholder had made it quite clear to all of the Grayson middies that she was prepared to stand mentor and adviser to them all, and surely she, of all people, was uniquely qualified to advise anyone where the martial arts were concerned. But this was one problem Abigail had been unable to take to Lady Harrington. She'd never doubted for a moment that Lady Harrington would have understood and worked with her to solve it, but she couldn't bring herself to admit to 'the Salamander' that she had it in the first place. It was impossible for her to tell the woman who had fought off the attempted assassination of the Protector's entire family with her bare hands and killed Steadholder Burdette in single combat on live, planet-wide HD, that she couldn't even make herself punch someone in the nose!

Fortunately, Senior Chief Madison had recognized the problem, even if he hadn't immediately grasped the reasons for it. Looking back, she supposed it was inevitable that someone who'd spent so many years teaching so many middies had seen almost every problem by now. But she suspected she'd been an unusually severe case, and he'd finally solved it by finding her a mentor closer to her own age.

Which was how she and Shobhana had come to become friends. Unlike Abigail, Shobhana had grown up with one older and three younger brothers. She'd also grown up on Manticore, and she'd had no compunctions at all about punching any one of them in the nose. She wasn't anywhere near as athletic as Abigail, and mastering the techniques of the Academy's preferred coup de vitesse had been much more difficult for her, but there'd never been anything wrong with Shobhana'sattitude towards diving right in and bouncing someone around the salle!

The two of them had spent more additional hours than Abigail cared to recall working out under Senior Chief Madison's critical eye. Shobhana insisted it had been a fair exchange, that she'd gained at least as much in terms of proficiency and skill as she'd been able to give Abigail in terms of attitude, but Abigail disagreed. Her training scores had gone up dramatically, and she still treasured the memory of the first time she'd taken down a male classmate in just three moves in front of her entire class.

But even now, the ghost of her initial self-doubt lingered. She'd overcome her hesitance to tackle friendly opponents in a training environment, but would she be able to do the same thing in real-world conditions if she had to? And if she couldn't—if she hesitated when it was for real, when others depended upon her—what business did she have in the uniform of the Sword?

Fortunately, Lieutenant Stevenson was unaware of her self-doubt. He'd approached her as a sparring partner on the basis of her raw scores from Senior Chief Madison, and she'd accepted with every outward sign of enthusiasm. That accursed hesitancy had reared its ugly head once more, and he'd twitted her gently about it for the first couple of sparring sessions. But she was getting on top of it again, and this time she intended to stay there.

'I especially liked that variant on the Falling Hammer,' he told her now, rubbing the back of his protective helmet. 'Unfortunately, I don't think I'm limber enough to twist through it that way. Certainly not straight out of a sitting leg sweep like that!'

'It's not that hard, Sir,' she assured him with a smile. 'Senior Chief Madison showed me that one one afternoon when I started getting a little uppity. The trick is getting the right shoulder back and up simultaneously.'

'Show me,' Stevenson requested. 'But this time, let's take it slow enough that we don't rattle my brain around inside my skull!'

'So how did Ms. Hearns' sparring session go this afternoon?' Lieutenant Commander Abbott asked.

'Looked like it went pretty well, actually, Sir,' Senior Chief Posner replied with a slight chuckle. 'Of course, coup de vitesse isn't really my cup of tea, y'know, Commander. But it looked to me like the Lieutenant thought he was going to take her down fast, only it didn't quite work out that way.'

'I take it she's gotten over that shyness of hers, then?'

'I don't know if 'shyness' was ever really the right word for it, Sir. But whatever it was, yeah, she seems to be over it. In spades, actually! Seems like asking Lieutenant Stevenson to work with her was one of your better