I upped the quota today, to 3700 a day, in the hopes of finishing at the end of next week instead of the week following, to give me more time for a read-through and polish, but still managed to make a few words over the line.

56,358 / 90,000 (62.6%)

Today's reason I am grateful to the internet: For providing not only the US Marine's Close Combat manual in handy PDF form (MCRP 3-02B), which was invaluable, but also a text on Krav Maga pressure points, which was almost as useful.

The chapter I wrote today largely revolved around an altercation in the ship between a few of the reprobates, at a time when the ship is in weightless conditions. That meant that I had to adapt hand-to-hand close combat techniques for microgravity situations. Hopefully I did a believable job (and if I do, I've got the MCRP 3-02B to thank for most of it, since it provided the bulk of the terminology I used).

But, having said that, here's a sample from another part of the chapter entirely, when the trouble has just started.

It might have ended there, with Fukuda squeezing the life from Cai in a rage, with no one moving to intervene, but for the simple fact of physics. There were there other men in the common area, scattered around the room. The collision when Fukuda struck Cai had done little to burn off the momentum the Nipponese had generated when launching himself off the deck-plates, and that remaining inertia now carried them forwards, spinning end-over-end at a high rate of speed. And, as luck would have it, napping directly in their path, his hands folded over his ample belly and his eyes closed tight, snoring gently, was Guardsman Paik.

And then, the trouble was well and truly started.

And it was shortly after this point, as the now-awakened and enraged Paik sought to revenge himself on whomever had disrupted his slumber, that Yao entered the scene.