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“One,” I said, and released her.

She came back immediately. I caught the wrist again. This time her knuckles struck the nerve line in my forearm; my grip opened, and her heel came down toward my instep. I moved my foot just in time. She hooked my knee, trying to take the balance she’d bought.

I caught her at the waist before the hook could finish and lowered her to the mat under control.

“Two.”

She looked up at me, annoyed and interested. I was enjoying myself far too much.

Her official file listed no combat certification. “You left this out of your record.”

“Protection block was mandatory. Certification meant field duty.” She got up. “I needed archives. I failed the optional test.”

On the next exchange she slipped under my reach, turned my wrist against my chest, and trapped the elbow before I could follow her around. She held the joint there without forcing it.

“Two-one,” she said, and let me go.

“You lead with the same shoulder on the counter. Every time.”

“Then take the shoulder.”

She tried. I turned with her, took the supporting leg out of reach, and held her off balance until she tapped my arm.

“Three-one.”

She backed away, studying me. When she came in again, she drew the same counter and changed her entry halfway through it. Her hip crossed mine. I tried to recover the step she’d taken from me and found only air.

I landed on my back. She stood over me, breathing hard and delighted.

“Three-two.”

I had been looking forward to beating her. Now I wanted to keep her this happy long after we left the mat.

“Who annotated your syllabus?” I asked. “The instep stamp wasn’t Conclave.”

“Derev Station, level nine, before Soren’s wages moved us up a deck. The Conclave taught me to protect a principal. Derev taught me the principal is me.”

She offered her hand. I took it and got to my feet.

“Play on,” she said.

The next exchange went long. I fixed the shoulder tell; she noticed inside two passes and hunted for its replacement, probing with jabs, refusing to commit until she had it.

She’d stopped fighting the syllabus and started fighting me. I stopped holding back.

She feinted the eye strike, sold it fully, turned it into a grip on my collar that nearly took me over her hip; I broke the grip, gave her the counter she’d expected, then changed it mid-motion. The surprise bought me half a beat, and that was enough.

The bay narrowed to breath and impact and the squeak of the mat. I caught her mid-spin, folded her momentum into mine, took both of us down, and pinned her.

Match point. My hand around her wrist above her head, my knee outside her hip, her body under mine, both of us pulling air like it was rationed.

Sweat at her temple. A strand of hair stuck to her cheek, and my free hand wanted to move it with an urgency completely out of proportion to hair.

The mat held our combined heat. Somewhere the ship’s engines continued their steady burn. I had used this training bay four thousand times and never been this aware of another body in it.

Neither of us called it.

Her pulse ran quick under my grip, and climbing. Not exertion. Exertion falls. This climbed.