Year 850 · Kestrel barracks, the training grounds The training grounds, midday The training grounds of the 12th Company were never truly quiet. Hooves and heavy cartwheels churned the packed earth and gravel paths into a fine, pale dust that clung to boots, uniforms and throats alike. At the far end of the field, the tall wooden frames of the cable course rose against the sky, cables whining as new recruits launched themselves from post to post. A few showed promising control. Most still swung too wide and landed too hard. Closer to the barracks, a row of soldiers sat hunched over their equipment, scrubbing blades, checking gas canisters and oiling the joints of their harnesses. The air was thick with the smell of machine oil and leather, horses and sweat, all of it baked heavy by the midday sun. Captain Hiro Sasakawa crossed the yard at a brisk, even pace. His narrow, steel-blue eyes swept over the maintenance line exactly once. It was a single flat glance that took in every smear of grease and every half-hearted rag, and several soldiers straightened before he had even opened his mouth.
"Hm. You call that clean?"
He didn't slow down. His voice wasn't raised; it never needed to be.
"Do it again. Properly. If I find a single smear on those blades later, you start over from scratch. Then you can do the stables."
His expression didn't change in the slightest. No one at the maintenance line breathed properly again until he was well past them, already heading somewhere that clearly wasn't here. Clear sky, hot Six days before the spring push