He nodded with a smirk as Wu-Han basically called out his intentions. Yeah, it was obvious that he didn't want to be jet-lagged, space-lagged, or ANY-lagged once they got their asses to Mars. This wasn't gonna be a walk in the park, going to or returning from Mars. He wanted to benefit from the opportunity given here, no question. They might need it, especially since the opposition would be armed and Niko hadn't had possession of even a
pistol, lately. So, with them getting somewhat acclimatized to the somewhat-stronger-than-Earth gravity, they would essentially be ready for lift-off as the hatch was closed and Mirai got on the built-in communications channel. She asked them how long they wanted to be in space. They had resources for 3-4 weeks, depending on how it got stretched out.
"I think three weeks, so we have an emergency supply to ration in case of trouble sounds about right."The number was entered and the craft took off, with the two occupants nar'ly feeling a thing. The sensation of motion, surely, but no more than you would if inside of a car. It would vanish, pretty much, as soon as they left the atmosphere. Space travel was weird like that. He'd studied some of the effects in his spare time after his parents died, learning the practical aspects of the whole thing. That book wouldn't have much application for what came next. This flying sphere was to be their world for the next 21 days, a counter which displayed on the status screen of the main console now. Niko would spend the next hour or two looking over the console and its functions while he'd asked Han to look over the ship itself to see that everything was alright. With the auto-pilot engaged, the ship would guide them to Mars in the allotted time, making minor course corrections on its own according to sensory input to avoid any objects in space. All of this was perfectly fine and normal. In a pinch, Niko knew
basically how to operate the maneuvering controls, but his brother was the real pilot.
Training began later on. After making sure the console was locked against accidental input - You'd have to just hit a couple of keys in sequence to undo it - so nothing could change the settings of the machine while they worked, they got going. The two fighters would grant each other a further look into one another's schools of fighting. Soldiers and assassins had one thing very much in common, especially for Niko because of his sniper background: They were taught to eliminate a target as quickly as possible, and knew the weakpoints of a human being to achieve such ends. To that end, the thing that Niko and Wu-Han had in common was that they were both effectively holding back on one another, preventing themselves from going immediately for a killing blow.
Also, specialty techniques were definitely forbidden inside the ship, especially Niko's.
In the beginning, Niko was more obliged to talk about his background in fighting and how he came to be under Athena's tutalege, and he would ask Han about his own situation so he could better understand the other man's approach to fighting. This worked out with the fact that the two of them first had to exercise themselves so that their bodies could better function in the increased gravity. Niko was in charge of organizing the actual training regimen because his military background was well-suited to divide up the time. Any input the assassin had to modify it was heard out, of course, but it was clear that he had a fair idea of the scheduling and took this all rather seriously. No half-hearted attempts here. He'd been waiting for this opportunity and he was taking it.
Actual spars would only occur when the two men could jump at all without hurting their ankles upon landing. Once that was out of the way, it was Niko's school of speed and attack versus Han's school of defense and wearing your opponent down. There were discussions about trying out each other's methods of combat, but it became clear early on that neither of them was suited for it by instinct. Niko had it engrained into his being that staying still could mean death, because standing still allowed an enemy to draw a bead on you, and then you get shot. Wu-Han, on the other hand, was of the habit of never wasting too much energy, and that most opponents did just this when fighting him. Neither of these styles were inherently wrong, just that it meant that overcoming it to train an entirely-different means of combat would be essentially like starting fresh from nothing, or almost nothing. It wasn't worth their time. To understand the other's style and be prepared for it was enough, as the two of them would continue to do. Was the gravity raised even more as they approached Mars? Not above Mirai's recommendations...mostly.
There was
one day, once their bodies had caught up well enough to the Earth's-gravity-times-two, that Niko suggested at least
trying out a little higher than 2x. Not by much, maybe like 2.25, just to see if they could get use to that before landing, to push a limit towards the end. He'd only go with it if Han agreed, and they wouldn't go further than that, and they'd quit that if the pressure seemed to be getting too much for them at once. He was keen to try, but he wasn't going to play the fool on this. In any case, that was how they would spend their time in space.
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