Sorry for the delay in posting; other stories demanded their fair share of my time.
Game Day final
When it came down to the last three competitions, it got weird. The fencing could have been a dozen teams, since the four Sidemoran ships could have fielded two teams each. But they had agreed to limit themselves, combining teams ruthlessly so that they only supplied two teams, making eight for the finals. The Coup was merely four as Witch Maiden delivered two, and the other Witches one each. Kendo was again profligate, as each Sidemoran ship delivered one, Witch Maiden two, Manhattan one, and each of the other Witches one, meaning nine, but the Sidemoran ships again combined ruthlessly, and sent three teams instead. They joked that whichever team of theirs won, all of the ships were represented.
Sidemore took fencing with Shelby taking the honors. With four of her competitors all with between three and eight knots in their belts, Witch Bride took the Coup. That left kendo.
There were enough coaches to have the required three judges, and the first elminations were brisk. Two of the Sidemore teams, Witch Bride and Manhattan were eliminated. In the second Witch Queen and the last Sidemore team were defeated. That left both teams fromWitch Maiden.
Competition kendo techniques are comprised of both strikes and thrusts. Strikes are only made towards specified target areas on the wrists, head, or body, all of which are protected by armor. The targets are the men, sayu-men or yoko-men (downward straigh cut, or against the upper left or right side of the helmet), the wrists or kote, the right kote at any time, the left kote when it is in a raised position, and the left or right side of the dō. or breastplate. Additional armor called tare consisting of three thick vertical fabric flaps or faulds protect the waist and groin which is not a legitimate target.
Thrusts are only allowed to the throat on the armor flaps called tsuki dare though slashes are allowed on the flaps called men dare that cover the neck and shoulders. Since an incorrectly performed thrust can cause serious injury to the opponent's neck, thrusting techniques in competition are often restricted to senior dan graded kendōka, though that wasn't a problem; the two junior people, Ensign Phiratcha Konagawa of the Witch Maiden's com section and Lieutenant Claude Javert of the Republic contingent aboard were both 5th dan, with the Klumbach-Dollaryde twins both 8th Dan.
The captains, Mordechai Rubens and Commander Duval came out, already dressed in kendogi (Jacket) and hakama (Wide pants) beneath their bōgu (Armor) and bowed before they shook hands. Then they stepped back to join their teams To assure no links to the past, the Republican team was in white, and the Witch's in red so no one would link the hated State Security with their former homeland.
The Vanguards; the lead fighters folded their tenugui into cloth hats that cushioned the men, or helmet. Cao Mei had been chosen as Vanguard, and she pulled on her gloves, picking up her Shinai. Her opponent Patricia Keeler, a woman fifteen centimeters taller with bright red hair and cat-green eyes slid on her helmet, came forward, and both knelt at their positions. Then they stood at the ready.
"Begin!" Cao Mey had sparred with the woman before, all of them had. Keeler liked to push hard, and she blocked immediately as Keeler tried to strike her head. She struck back herself, both left then right, then as Keeler went for another head strike, Cao Mei cut in, chopping down on the glove on the woman's left hand.
"Hidari-kote!" a judge called, raising the red flag. He was mimicked by another judge. Keeler backed away, and they resumed their start positions.
Cao Mei considered. Keeler's biggest problem was her temper. She would get frustrated, and when she did she'd begin flailing around. "Begin!"
Cao mei blocked a strike at the side of her head, then another. She backed in a sprial, merely blocking, but forcing Keeler to shift constantly to attack. After about fifteen failed attempts Keeler began flailing at the opposite sides of her head with each strike. She was forced to back away by the pressure. Then she saw an opening, knew it was a ruse, and raised her sword as if going for it. Keeler gave a scream of triumph, raising her sword again, and Cao Mei cut right, her blade slapping into the side of Keeler's helmet a split second before Keeler's smashed down on her helmet, driving her to her knees.
"Sho-men!" The judges called. Keeler backed, removing her helmet. Though she had gotten a good hit, Cao Mei's had beaten her by almost three tenths of a second. Cao Mei removed her helmet, bowing, and they returned to the lines of waiting teammates.
Chin Li finished his tenugui. He was the Deputy Vanguard, facing Michel Le Clerc. They both walked forward, kneeling and putting on their helmets. Then faced each other as they stood. "Begin!"
Michel stood, waiting. Rubens groaned. Krueger tended tp be impetuous. He moved forward, sword coming up. At the same instant, Michel dropped forward, thrusting. The sword struck his tsuki-dare, driving Krueger off his feet. "Tsuki-bu!"
Chin sat up, gasping. Rubens ran forward, kneeling beside the boy, removing his helmet. "How are you?"
"Hurts." He gasped.
"Can you go on?" Chin nodded, but began coughing. Rubens went to the judges. There was a brief discussion. He turned. "Forfeit."
The Center, Ensign Phiratcha Konagawa put on her Men, moving forward. Her almond eyes were cool as she faced off against Duval. They stood for several seconds, their shinai barely moving. Then they came together. Both were power fighters, slashing attacks meeting parries. Both struck and hit within a tenth of a second of each other, with Duval' cut at her wrist barely beating hers at the side of his head.
They stepped back, and on command came at each other again. The crowd watched as it went on and on, neither able to get past the other's guard. "Time!" They stepped back at the mandatory five minute break, kneeling again to face each other as they removed their helmets to gasp. Duval grinned, winking, and a slow smile spread across Phiratcha's face.
"Prepare!" They slipped their helmets back on, standing at the ready. "Begin!"
They came together, strikes moving like lightning. But again, neither could find an opening. "Time!" came the shout three minutes later. The judges huddled. Then the match was called as a win for the Republic.
The team captain Mordechai Rubens came forward as deputy commander, facing petty officer Chartaine. While the largest of the Republican team, the man moved like oiled steel, and Rubens had decided to face him personally. The bout, ended in a tie; Chartaine was a master at defense, and knew his limitations. He was able to avoid every strike, but was unable to score himself.
"Fengniao!" The woman began shaping her tenugui. She was starting out at a disadvantage though. The team stood at one win, two losses, and a tie. She put on her helmet and came forward.
Javert stood, and they faced off. Begin!"
Fengniao raised her sword, charging forward. Javert dropped, his blade shooting out in a thrust as she dropped her blade, blocked him aside, and came over it to smash her own into his head. "Sho-men!"
She stepped back. He was a bit faster than Keeler. They stood engarde, her blade at middle, his at low. He seemed to think he was weaker than her. No, she grinned, her own blade dropping to low.
Begin!" Javert struck toward her right side, and she blocked it, both slamming their blades in a pas et duex too fast for the eye to follow. Then Javert made a downward cut toward her head, and Fengniao stepped back, dropping low, and her thrust took him in the throat. He had been moving forward, and between them, the force of the impact was enough to flip him over to slam on his back as if he had been clotheslined.
"Tsuki-bu!" Fengniao retreated as Javert was helped to his feet, then returned to her team. The judges conferred, then one stepped forward holding a mike. "The captain has told us we must hurry if we are to celebrate this competition before we depart. This match has been declared a draw." He raised his hands as their a frustrated roar from the crowd. "Both teams are on the same ship, and can have a second bout at any time before we arrive in the Congo system. We promise to record the bout and winner for the squadron."
While not happy, the audience applauded.
Embarrassment
Rebecca had been a bit worried how the crews would take the announcement,but it seemed to be all right. She stood as did the rest of the audience as crews came to break down the bleachers. She noticed the Sidemore captains in a huddle, then Kelly came over to her. "Your ancestors came from what was called Scotland on Old Earth, correct?"
"Yes, captain. There have been Duvaliers in Scotland since the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. Several dozen families from there relocated to Sphinx and Manticore." She looked proud. "We were among the first colonists to settle on Gryphon in the early 16th century PD."
"I thought so." Kelly nodded. Rebecca noticed an odd glint in his eye. "Are you up on the ancient Scots proverbs?" She nodded, and the glint became a gleam. "Good. We'll see you at the party."
She was still wondering what that was all about when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Oscelli was standing there with a garment bag. "You just have time to change, Ma'am."
"Change? Into what?"
"The captains of the Sidemore ships asked me about your lineage." He motioned to the screened off area the competitors had used to change into their assorted sports gear. Rebecca walked alongside him into one of them. "They also asked if you remembered old proverbs."
She looked at him coolly. "What is going on, Os." He unzipped the bag, and she shook her head. "I am not going to wear that. For God's sake, that's mess dress, and I didn't tell anyone it was required!"
'The Sidemorans commented that 'if you call the tune, you have to pay the piper."
"When did I call the damn tune?"
"When the pipers were playing and you shouted-"
"Scotland the Brave." she finished, sighing. Then her eyes widened as he moved the tunic out of the way, and she saw the rest of it. "It's a conspiracy." She growled. "You're all conspiring to make me look like an idiot!"
"Conspiracy is such an ugly word, Ma'am. We see it as an agreement for our mutual enjoyment."
"At least someone will get to enjoy it." She replied darkly. "I won't be among you." She sighed again. "All right, let's get this over with."
An historical discussion
"I wonder where the captain is." Jinhua murmured. She and Fenghua had come dressed for the occasion, and had drawn a lot of eyes. One effect of Honor Harrignton becoming both Steadholder and Duchess had been a revolution in the fashions worn. Women in the Star Kingdom, now Star Empire, had been dressing both comfortably and fashionably in slacks and doublets until Harrington introduced the clothing of Grayson, but altered to showcase a tall statuesque woman as she was. Grayson's female fashions had been heavily into brocades and voluminous skirts, and the Graysons had pretty much not changed it in over a thousand years. Harrington had ruthlessly traded on the fact that she was not only a Steadholder, but a woman as well, and had used fabrics and cuts to set fashion instead. Her mother Allison had followed with clothing more appropriate to Beowulf to blindside the Manticoran people.
No brocades, rather more modern fabrics in jewel tones and natural colors. Harrington had kept the skirts (Didn't want to give the entire male population of her second home planet attacks, did she?) but converted them into it, one skirt that brushed her ankles, and as close to form fitting yet flowing as possible. One Manticoran designer had scornfully called it 'caveman retro'. But it is a fact of human society that a lot of fashion trends begin when celebrities wear something they like, and people ape them.
It gives a whole new meaning to the ancient story of the Emperor's New Clothes.
In the Anderman Empire, the Quipao, or what they would have called a chengosam back on Old Earth had never really gone out of fashion, so the Sapphire blue of Jinhua's outfit set off the Cerulean blue of her daughter's matching outfit. Both had the Sedlow Family crest on the breast over their hearts, and the few retainers were dressed in similar outfits.
"Mutti?" Fenghua pointed, and Jinhua turned. As someone raised to eventually be a noblewoman of her nation, her jaw did not drop in amazement. Nor did she burst into giggles at the sight.
Captain Duvalier had stepped from a curtained enclosure. She wore the short jacket of Manticoran Navy mess dress, medals gleaming, braid bright as gold. However beneath the jacket she wore a white ruffled blouse with lace at the throat and wrists. Below the jacket, she wore a Scots Great kilt in Duvalier tartan, with the end looped over her right shoulder so her decorations were not concealed, knee socks in the same sett with a Skean Dub in the right stocking, and flat shoes with tassles.
The basis of any tartan is a simple two-color check to which the designer adds over-checks, bands and stripes in contrasting colours. These are arranged to result in a balanced and harmonious pattern. Where two stripes of the same color cross, a block of solid color is formed. Where different colors cross, the two colors are mixed in equal proportions to create a new color. Ideally, neither colour should 'swamp' the other. The two together should make a new intermediate shade.
The Duvalier tartan was the green of spring oak leaves, countered by the maroon of oak leaves before they bleach, with the bronze of autumn leaves before they fall as bordering around the checks.
There was a sudden spread of silence through the crowd as the people turned to witness her sartorial statement. Then suddenly there was a wild cheer followed by applause.
Rebecca walked toward where the captains of her squadron stood. "Satisfied, Captain Kelly?" she asked.
"More than you can imagine, Captain Duvalier." He held out a glass of wine, and she took it.
She turned to the crowd. "To all of our competitiors, I give a toast. May we fight only on the competiton floor, and save our hate for those that deserve it!" The crowd raised their glasses, and while there was happiness in their answering shout, there was anger as well for the ones who had pitted them against each other for so long.
Kelly, resplendent in the long dress uniform frock coat of the ancient Confederate army motioned. "Captain Duvalier, may I present my fellow captains. Sonya Campbell of Shelby.," The tall titian redheaded woman, dressed in a short jacket and wearing a kilt in Campbell tartan, bowed. "Her ship is nickname Jo. Micah Dwyer, captain of Forrest. Nicknamed Buford." The stout man bowed. His hair was prematurely gray, and his eyes were those of a predatory bird. "Samuel Koshigami, captain of Lee, her nickname is Fitz." Koshigami was a dark man with hazel almond eyes, and a wicked grin."
"And what is your ship's nickname, Captain?" Rebecca asked.
"Rafe."
Jinhua walked over to her and the captains, and was greeted by them. "Captain Kelly, what confused we in the Empire was your nation's decision to become a member of Manticore's alliance only after the Solarians attacked them in Spindle-."
"Manticore saved us from Warnecke." Koshigami said. " Captain Harrington could have left him in charge rather than find a way to get him off our planet, and she did. After she did, they didn't just blow him and his men to hell, and say adios. She suggested using us as a base."
"And Sonya's uncle is in our State department." Kelly commented. He motioned.
"We've had... feelers from the League." She said. "They're suggesting that changing sides, ordering Manticore out of our system will keep them from deciding to consider us an enemy as well." She sipped her drink, and shrugged. "They already intend to grab Silesia as soon as they've put Manticore down, just to save them from the 'horrible occupiers'. But there are rumbles about other things, and it means they are lying through their pearly whites. Warnecke was selling the goods pirated in Silesia inside the League. One thing he did right before the Manticorans arrived was clear cut five hundred acres of our local post oak."
Rebecca remembered seeing just the edge of the Post Oak Forest during her time on the Sidemore Station. It resembled the tree of the same name in North America, but unlike that small tree; which averaged 10-15 meters in height and had a bole that was 30 to fifty centimeters in diameter, the full grown Sidemore tree stood a hundred meters tall, with a bole between one and five meters thick. When humans had first settled there, it had covered the central portions of three of Sidemore's continents in massive forests, each a thousand kilometers or more across and wide. The wood was a dense hardwood with a beautiful grain that was as unique to the tree it came from as a snowflake.
"Ah, the Emperor has a furniture set made from your Sidemore post oak." Jinhua looked around the group. "Seventeen pieces of furniture from a nine piece bedroom set and wardrobe, to a dining table and six chairs. All made from one tree. But the Silesian trader that brought it to our attention was unwilling to tell us where he had obtained it. When we found out where the wood came from, the Empire signed an agreement for half of their yearly production for the next fifty years. That would be what, almost a thousand trees he had stolen?"
"Closer to 1100. We only cut and sell about fifty trees a year because our population is still very small. We don't need more than the acreage cleared that desperately. Besides, the trees only flower and breed every five local years, and it takes five local centuries, almost 750 T-years for it to grow back to that size from an acorn. That production had been sold primarily in Silesia, though it was also marketed in the Anderman Empire and recently in Manticore.
"But after that illegal supply stopped, we had a visit from Salkind trading of Earth. They obtained the lumber Warnecke sold in an auction after the recievers were convicted. Unfortunately the auction house also published where it had come from. Fifty acres worth of it merely whet their appetite. They want more, try fifty acres worth a year. We love our trees, and cutting enough to satisfy them will only increase the amount they want. Salkind has a bad record of dealing with the OFS in the Fringe and Shell. We estimated it would take them less than eighteen T-months to get OFS involved." Shr shrugged. "We were wrong. Less than a T-year after we signed the initial basing agreement with Manticore the first offer came.
"So once Manticore goes down, we're next, all for the sake of greed." She gave a sad smile. "Having a love of history as we all do back home, we remember what happened to the Giant Sequoia when the old United States of North America removed that forest from their National Park Service's protection. The only survivors of it were a few dozen declared monument trees right before the Diaspora. We're not letting it happen on our world."
Jinhua nodded." I also wondered about the names of the ships you're sending to the people of Torch. How are they going to react when they find out they are named after men who fought for a nation that supported chattel slavery?"
"Now wait a minute!" Dwyer protested. "Admittedly the richest one percent of the old Confederacy were slave owners, but even if it had become a part of their constitution, the Boll Weevil would have ended the practice only about half a T-century later!"
"Oh god, you got him started." Kelly laughed. "Next he'll be bringing up the Litchenberg documents found in 5 AD."
"Thank you, Duane. The Litchenberg documents clearly showed that the North intentionally pushed the South into that war..."
Rememberance
"Come on, Francis, sing." One of the Sidemoran ratings begged. His medal for Fencing swung. The crowd, made up of people from every ship, also pressed him.
Dollaryde waved his arms. "All right. I learned this from our Sidemore contingent. It's dedicated to all of our people from the Republic and Manticore. It's based on an actual incident in 1914CE where the soldiers on both sides of a section almost seven kilometer long of what was called the Western Front decided that Christmas was a time of peace, not killing. They refused orders on most of that frontage for almost two weeks." He waved to the midshiman at the piano. "Christmas in the Trenches." Midshipwoman Jessica Riyal played the into riff, the Minstrell boy, and Dollaryde faced his audience.
"My name is Francis Tolliver. I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here,
I fought for King and country I love dear.
It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen field of France were still, no Christmas song was sung.
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
their brave and glorious lads so far away."
As generations of Sidemorans had before them, the audience fell silent. In the crowd, Manticoran and Republic personnel looked at each other as that tale of sharing first songs, then gifts with pictures from home examined and praised, then, as today, sports with their enemies unfolded.
"Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more.
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war.
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night
"whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung.
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
had been crumbled and were gone for ever more.
My name is Francis Tolliver. In Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas come since World War One I've learned it's lessons well.
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
and on each end of the rifle we're the same."
The people looked at each other as the last music, again the Minstrel boy, played sadly. The clumps of what had at first been different sides in this last war had moved closer, and now were mingled. Duval was the first to react, his arm going around Phiratcha's shoulders. Instead of pulling back, she returned the embrace.
For one group of people at least, the war had ended forever.
Prohibition Strikes Again
After singing the Minstrel boy, then a sadder song named 'And the Band Played Waltzing Madila', Dollaryde begged off. He had two hours before his shift in Fusion One, and wanted to check the brewing. It should only be a week before it was ready to put in kegs.
The first warning he had that something was wrong was the sight of foam overflowing the beer vats. He ran over, and almost tripped over a bucket that lay there. He picked it, and smelled what remained. Cleaning solvent. He walked over to the first vat, and as he opened it he flinched back from the stench of the same solvent. With trepidation, he checked them one by one. Every vat had the same smell. Finally he checked the Schnapps still. It had also been fouled. Beside the smaller still a data pad lay.
We'll keep this up until you stop