Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Kastarak (Doctor / Counsellor) in Sparring in the Gym (Kastarak/Dawson)

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Quentin “Q” Dawson (Chief Weapons Officer) in Sparring in the Gym (Kastarak/Dawson)

Posted by Ensign Kastarak (Doctor / Counsellor) in Sparring in the Gym (Kastarak/Dawson)
Thursday had come. A few minutes before the appointed hour of Kastarak’s and Quentin Dawson’s sparring, Kastarak arrived early to inspect the empty gym room that he had booked for them.

He had after some bureaucratic difficulty with Dawson’s department (that would be a conversation for another time) managed to get clearance to take a lirpa from the ship weapons cabinet (why did it even have a lirpa) to the gym for training after some paper-pushing petty officer had been convinced that Kastarak was indeed trained to use a lirpa and that he was not going to use it either “ceremoniously” or “violently” on other people, but rather use it for physical exercise. Had he not suppressed his emotions at this stage (it was quite necessary!), he might have been tempted to use the lirpa on the actual petty officer in question instead.

In any case, here Kastarak was, in ship-issued gym wear – dark blue sweatpants and that hideous-looking dark-nlue t-shirt imprinted with CHRNV (why lose the vowels?) in silver.

He did some warming up exercises while waiting for Dawson.

– Kastarak

Dawson came in with a long gym bag slung over his shoulder. He had been pleased to find that Chernov gym wear was already issued to his quarters when he arrived. When he entered the gym, he found Kastarak already there, doing warm-ups. “Well hello there!” Dawson said stepping over to a table that sat against one of the walls. He laid down his bag and began unpacking the various swords from it. “Any trouble getting the Lirpa?” Dawson asked absently as he took out a rapier from the bag, followed by a bastard sword, a saber, and a broadsword.

“I am impressed with your office’s scrutiny of who uses weapons and for what reasons and when,” he said flatly. “It is a testament to safety on board this ship.”

He looked over the Lirpa a bit and decided on the saber. The blade was thicker than the rapier so it could better handle parrying the lirpa, but also wasn’t as heavy as the broadsword or bastard sword, so Dawson hoped it would grant him a dexterous advantage. He took the saber and headed to the center of the floor around where Kastarak was warming up and went into Meyer’s Square, a drill of strikes based on diagonal strikes.

Lt. Q Dawson CWO

So it was sabre versus lirpa.

“What are the rules?” Kastarak asked. It suddenly dawned on him that combining two fencing arts would require a compromise in rules.

– Lt jg Kastarak

Dawson paused in his drills a moment. He had actually forgotten to consider how the sparing session would go. “If we suit up,” He began, we can work off of a points system, as used to be done in historic duels. Each successful strike leads to a point, after each we reset, and the first to reach a preset number of points is the victor.” Dawson looked over the Lirpa and considered unarmored combat, but since he was unused to the weapon and was unsure of Kastarak’s familiarity with his own saber, he thought better of it.

Lt. Q Dawson CWO