Renegade Flight by Andrea Tang

Author:Andrea Tang [Tang, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781984835147
Google: nQvlDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1984835122
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

8

PHYSICAL CONVERSATION

One week wasn’t much, but Vi made it work for her. By the time she was due to fight Nick, Vi had had a good long time to consider the benefits and drawbacks over the different fields of combat she could propose. Like any respectable Park, she’d studied weapons and fighting arts alongside academic curricula, mech piloting, and classical-music lessons, but unlike some of her cousins, she’d never chosen a signature style of engagement. There was cousin Richard, who’d been a boxer before the Academy, and cousin Jocelyn, who’d been a fencer, and even Aunt Anabel herself, who took a disturbing amount of delight in general close-quarters combat, but Vi had no such calling card. She’d learned to fight without a mech because it was what one did, and useful cross-training besides, but so far as she was concerned with herself, when push came to shove, Vi had only ever had the cockpit. Which meant she had no obvious way to angle for an advantage against a bloodied-up veteran of both hand-to-hand and piloting fights.

Damn the Headmaster for figuring that out so easily.

Remembering Rosalyn’s advice, Vi tried studying tape of some of the other fights from the first matchups, hoping that inspiration would strike. If anything, that only made her feel worse. The movements she saw in those matches confirmed what she’d already suspected based on the rumors she’d heard: Vi might equal half or more of her fellow winners in pure skill, but she’d never faced this level of naked aggression. Rosalyn was right. There was a difference between a friendly match among cousins and a showdown with a stranger who harbored genuinely violent intentions.

In the end, Vi went with the best option in a bad situation. If she couldn’t place herself at an advantage, she’d at least force Nick to fight from a disadvantage.

If that worried him even remotely, he certainly gave no indication of it when she submitted her choice of combat format for his approval. He’d barely given a passing glance at the request, shrugged, and signed off on the matchup forms. To be honest, Vi wasn’t even entirely sure that he’d actually read the text she’d entered on the request ballot.

Headmaster Winchester, meanwhile, had offered Vi nothing but a sharp, catlike smile when Vi submitted their choice. “Sure, if that’s what you both want,” she said, with the sort of gently amused cadence that suggested that what you wanted was all wrong. “You understand the rules of engagement?”

Vi had, in fact, studied what Ros called the “state the obvious” fine print on the tournament regulations. She nodded.

“The match is six minutes long. It can be won three ways: by knockout, by forfeit on the part of one of the competitors, or by the decision of the supervising instructor. That same instructor can also declare a no-contest at will.”

Vi blinked. “No-contest?”

The Headmaster had the gall to look amused. “What happened to ‘I read all the rules’?”

“I did,” Vi protested, a little miffed. To prove her

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