Ghorza

Ghorza gritted her teeth, whatever she did, however she did it, what came next was going to hurt. A lot. Red lights start to flash, and a klaxon sounds. The one Gravia who was occasionally on hand as part of the shipyard staff had been sent on a month-long vacation, all just to more safely use the galaxy's most dangerous substance.

For training.

Ghorza resists breaking bearing to let herself have a victorious little snicker. Damn if she hadn't hooked herself and her girls to one hell of a band of soldiers. Casual null use, not even on the enemy but on their own? Shit the most hard core space pirates Dark Cabal didn't pull shit like that.

Admittedly, those witches didn't want strong warriors. They wanted compliant, dangerous slaves. These Undaunted wanted something far scarier. Not machines who could only obey orders, but hardened men and women, sharpened to a razor edge of ferocity, tempered by discipline and passionately loyal to their new nation and their brothers and sisters.

"Stand by! Null!"

The Drill Instructor's call precedes a series of disks of malevolent hatred being flung into the room. They'd been trained on the basics of tactical light null launchers. They made the girls nervous, but the humans handled them with impunity. It was one thing to hear or even know humans didn't really interact with null like most species did. That they grew up, even evolved drowning in the stuff, it was another thing to see them do it.

"Ghurk!"

Then the null hits Ghorza and drives the thoughts from her head as it puts the proud warrior woman on her knees. Her body was heavy. So very heavy. There were new itches and aches as the world swam before her, firebugs dancing in her field of vision. She knew null’s measure now, but for some reason it seemed like null had been hitting her harder than her first exposure a few weeks ago. She could almost feel her body shutting down as her vision swam for a moment, threatening to go black.

Ghorza bites her lower lip with a snarl that probably sounded more like a whimper. She couldn't pass out. She had to set the example for the sake of her new position as commander of the Undaunted Marines aboard the Tear... and to show her worthiness as Jerry's wife. Not that she felt she had to prove it to Jerry, but she wanted to make sure the whole crew knew exactly who the latest Mrs. Bridger was and what she was about.

Ghorza wouldn't settle for anything less. She'd refused to settle for anything her whole life, and she didn't feel a desire to change that particular tenet of her behavior any time soon. She was a mercenary commander who would sell her sword no longer. She had a clan to defend, Marines to train and enemies to fight. Soon there would be daughters and nieces to raise. A husband to keep safe and happy, and all of that lay on the other side of this fucking null.

Ghorza would be damned to one of the twenty seven hells before she let this mere element get the better of her!

With another snarl, Ghorza regains her feet and surveys the area around her. She's first up, which pleases her. Several girls are right on her heels. A few others are still fighting it, and some more axiom sensitive individuals are still flat on their asses. They had a ways to go with null drills, but they were getting there, and everyone was conscious at least.

Quickly, Ghorza rounds up the standing women, and gets them to assist the others. Then she forms them all up, and sets them to calisthenics in the Null even as it finally starts to dissipate.

Through it all, Gunnery Sergeant Ramos watches like a hawk. She hadn't interrupted Ghorza's moves to organize the platoon and carry out physical training, which meant that Ghorza had carried everything out according to Ramos’ intent.

This platoon was a bit different than the others, and as a future leadership cadre of the Undaunted Marines on and off the Tear, Ghorza and her other veterans were expected to show a bit more initiative than just your average shave tailed officer candidate or enlisted recruit.

The physical training to get to this point had been grueling. Ghorza knew exactly what the human Drill Instructors were up to. They'd identified where the majority of the galaxy were weakest, and were hammering them there over and over again till they broke or got stronger. They would all be born again hard... or they'd go roll with the naval troops or some other still martial role in the Undaunted. Though Ramos did regularly threaten candidates or recruits she thought of as slacking by sending them to be a cook or something.

The idea was almost enough to draw a smile from Ghorza, even as she called the cadence of the exercise with an echoing boom. After the first couple weeks of training, they'd have all preferred death to even being naval troops or an MP. With the constant stories of legendary warrior saints like Chesty Puller, Dan Daly, John Basilone, and Jason Dunham. Now legendary to them, battles like Derna, Hue City, Chosin and hundreds more.

It would put fire in any would be warrior's veins, that was the intent of such oral history teaching in training. To make a civilian a Marine, and just because Ghorza knew the score didn’t mean she was immune to the indoctrination of First Sergeant Hightower and Gunnery Sergeant Ramos. Most of their team were former DIs too.

They had combined decades of experience of making Marines out of everyone from gang kids to hardened combatants from overseas out to earn citizenship with the only real skills they had to their name.

All that said, it was the stories in particular that made Ghorza's band of bitches want what the Corps offered. Horchka warrior culture was big on boasting and tales of courage or impressive feats of skill or daring. It was part of the hierarchy, how a warrior made a name for herself to her fellows. To be honored amongst your brethren and community was an important part of Horchka outer honor. Inner honor was how you carried yourself. Not murdering non combatants. Dealing fairly with people. Not stabbing people in the back in an honor duel. That sort of thing. Outer honor on the other hand was how the world saw you, and perception was reality.

The complex interplay between the two drove most of the soul of the Horchka warrior culture. It left all of them with a deep want. They want to be recognized. Want to be known as worthy. To be elevated to a celebrated band of warriors for their skill and feats. It's what most of them had always wanted as the have nots of the Horchka warrior caste. Few were the mercenaries that made their way up the hierarchy from being mere sell swords.

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Now they had all been offered a chance to prove themselves. Been given a standard to measure themselves against. It was a tantalizing opportunity, enough to distract all but the most disciplined just a touch. The excitement that such a chance had happened... and the fear of not measuring up. Well. Some of the girls.

Ghorza didn't have that problem.

What she did have was a painfully hot desire burning in her chest, not for the chance at title and membership in an elite warrior cult, but to ride her man's hips till they broke, heal him with axiom and then do it all over again. The distracting memories of steamy make out sessions and some very kinetic sex carry Ghorza through the rest of the morning calisthenics. Once you got past the null it was just working out, even without using axiom to reinforce yourself. Ghorza was no stranger to hard work and sweat. Even before the humans had shown up, she had made a point of training her flesh, not just her magical muscles.

The tickle of desire, the giddy school girl joy of being married, the warm sensation in her core that made her want to do terrible, wonderful things to Jerry Bridger all damn day and night were with her on the march back to the barracks, into the showers, into her duty uniform for the day, and marching back down the corridor to the firing range. When her rifle was pressed into her hands, she slipped out of her mental auto pilot, and cleared the weapon.

It was a small example of rank having its privileges. The rest of the recruits had been issued their rifles, and would be permitted to change things up once they'd mastered the weapons. Ghorza on the other hand had been shooting with her husband regularly prior to joining boot camp, and had been allowed to use her intended service rifle, an MDRX like Jerry's, and her sidearm, one of the oversized hand cannons that seemed to be a staple of the Bridger family.

It was good to be the boss, even if she was still earning that position.

The rest of the girls had been handed a rifle called a Robinson XCR, which had been chambered for the same 6.5 Creedmoor round that Jerry favored. The ship's command staff had decided to standardize for their primary ammo, and standardizing on the preferences of the skipper seemed like a decent enough idea considering they were manufacturing their own ammo. 6.5 Creedmoor was the battle rifle and DMR round. Bigger girls like Horchka had all been given battle rifles, to take advantage of their larger size and stature.

The more human sized crew members, Marines, naval masters at arms, sailors who wanted more than sidearm, and so on had adopted the latest gen X99A7 upgrade to the now somewhat venerable Tavor assault rifle. An almost tiny little package of ballistic violence that still had a full length 20" barrel, and made moving through the tight confines of a spaceship significantly easier.

The Tavors came in 5.56 for most folks as standard. The elite FAST breaching teams, or the ship's security response team, had their weapons changed over to .300 Black Out, a round optimized for suppressor use. The slower subsonic rounds had been discarded pretty much immediately on the new suppressor rings being installed but the heavier .30 caliber ammo remained.

Standard issue pistols were in 10mm post suppressor rings, the power of that round considered optimal for last ditch use against most aliens in the galaxy. Ghorza believed it. The issue Sig Sauer pistols kicked like an irritated Mrega without the rings active.

Pistols were where the humans of the Tear showed off a lot of their individualism, using unique models and set ups for those models. Then having Wichen modify them, either with runes, or mechanical upgrades ranging from the mundane to the insane.

One man had gotten Wichen to make him a pair of bespoke revolvers in a massive round called .454 Casull. Not revolutionary in itself, though the man had claimed that the round was used for killing 8' tall terrestrial carnivores that weighed as much as a Cannidore back on Earth. What made the pistols interesting was the under barrel plasma launchers he'd had Wichen add. Being able to fire powerful kinetic rounds and either lead or follow up with a hefty plasma based punch was appealing indeed.

Wichen was building Ghorza one to add to her own kit when she graduated. It's matching twin was being customized for Jerry as a belated wedding gift. He'd gotten her a couple guns after all, so Ghorza wanted to return the favor.

The usual safety brief goes on in the background of her mind, shouting when prompted to respond as she reviews her weapon. Like all the recruit's weapons, the optics they'd normally be using had been stripped, and iron sights had been mounted, then zero'd by the ship's armorers. Jerry was normally a "practice how you play" kind of man, but it had been decided that learning with irons was best for rank amateurs to really pick up the theory of marksmanship.

Once they'd all gotten used to the sound and recoil, Ghorza's girls hadn't so much picked up the theory as they'd passionately embraced it. The loud, aggressive weapons might have had weaknesses in requiring you to bring ammunition with you, but they were so goddess damn fun that there wasn't a woman worth her tusks that wasn't an enthusiastic convert. While they knew the utility of rifles, most of Ghorza's former mercs had fallen in love with the loud, metal spewing monstrosities that Jerry had taught her was called a shotgun, and the belt fed, high rate of fire machine guns.

There were a few would be snipers in the ranks, mostly using 20mm anti-materiel rifles and similar woman portable cannons. Not exactly stealthy, but then, you didn't really call Horchka, or most Marines for that matter, for stealth. Not the regular grunts. Loud was just how both tribes did business.

Ghorza's string is called to the firing line, and she dives into her firing position, quickly building her shooting stance. While the others shifted their slings to a shooting sling, Ghorza deployed the built in bipod to her rifle. It was actually something of a disadvantage, it was hard to beat the stability and tension afforded by shooting prone with a sling.

"Shooters on the firing line! Loooooooad! One full magazine! Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaake ready!"

The Primary Marksmanship Instructor's voice rings out across the line as the two dozen women shooting this round lock magazines into place and charge their rifles before resettling their shooting stances. The anticipation was palpable. This wasn't practice. This was the actual qualification course.

They were getting close to the end.

Getting close to the Crucible.

Ghorza could practically taste it. They just had to keep pressing.

"Shooters! You may commence firing when your taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarget appears!"

A silhouette target pops up at the far end of the range and Ghorza starts to regulate her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Half out... squeeze. Bang. The round hurtles down range and rips the center out of the so-called "T box" in the silhouette's head. Perfect.

Ghorza begins to make minor adjustments, using the next rounds to neatly remove the T-box entirely from the target. Right up until a boot lashes out and strikes her on the soft armor over her ribs. Gunnery Sergeant Ramos looms over her, an odd sensation considering how short the woman was.

"Candidate, the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Firing the required string ma'am!"

"Well quit showing off and shoot center of mass. You're already married, you don't need to impress anyone. We're grunts. We shoot center of mass. Leave the head shots and the like to your squad’s designated marksman or the black ops guys like the skipper, you get me?"

"Yes ma'am!"

"Good, keep killin that paper."

The begrudging amusement in Gunny Ramos' voice was a reward in its own right. The tightly wound human woman had been relaxing a bit more with her platoon now that they were past some of the initial training and "forming". The raw material needed to be heated and prepared, then shaped... and in the crucible would come the forging. Ghorza fights down another smile, she couldn't wait to really test her metal by the standards of her new community.