“Weaver! Johnston!” the trainer’s voice called out across the yard. “You’re next!”

Violet looked over her opponent from head to toe. He was a big son of a bitch, from one of the wealthier inner system planets where they had plenty of money to feed their children and the best food and drugs that GR credits could buy.

Johnston was nearly a foot taller than Violet and outweighed her by a hundred pounds, if not more. With a toss of his head, his long blond hair swept back out of his bright blue eyes—the shade of blue that reeked of genetic manipulation in the womb. And Violet was certain there had been plenty of that.

After her return from the outer rim, Violet had been poked and prodded and debriefed more than she ever cared to be again in two lifetimes. Every day for a week straight, the same questions, over and over.

And then they just stopped…told her to report for field training at 0600.

So here she was, about to get her ass kicked by some hulking behemoth of a man, wondering how old he was under that genetically perfected skin of his.

“First to draw blood wins?” Johnston asked the trainer.

The trainer appeared to think it over, looking back and forth from Violet to Johnston. He nodded and gave the signal to start.

“I’m sorry…first to what?” Violet asked, not entirely sure she’d heard correctly.

Johnston slowly closed the distance between them. “Come on, make this easy. I don’t want to have to chase you down. Little smack across the mouth, spit out the blood, and we can both sit down in the shade and wait for the next round.”

Violet had no such intentions. She didn’t see a good reason to let anyone smack her anywhere.

“Nah, you look like you could use the cardio,” she said.

Johnston huffed and cracked his neck, once to the left and then to the right. “Suit yourself, Barbie. Just trying to be a gentleman.”

He charged in with surprising speed. Violet barely managed to avoid his looping roundhouse right. She ducked, her hair gusting in the wind from the near-miss. He was bigger, and the jury was out on who was stronger, but Violet knew one thing for sure—she was quicker.

She circled to her left and threw a roundhouse of her own. It connected with a loud thud and she dug it deeper into Johnston’s lower back, just below the ribs, where one of his kidneys lived if she wasn’t mistaken.

Johnston let out a scream that made Violet’s day.

“How did that feel?” she asked, her lips pursed in a mocking manner. “Hope I didn’t hurt the big strong man wiff my whiddle Barbie hands…”

The hulk shook the pain and tension out of his torso and charged again. Same move, same result.

Violet held her arms wide as the man gasped for breath. “I could do this all day, tough guy… You want to stick to the same side, or should we mix things up a bit?”

Johnston roared with rage and charged a third time, only this time he stopped short and when Violet went to duck under and around him, he met her with a forearm that tried to cave her chest in.

She flipped head over heels and landed on her back. What little wind remained after the forearm, the ground removed as she made contact with it.

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She heard the growl of Johnston as he prepared to finish her with another blow and rolled out of the way, forcing her lungs to work again. She got up to her feet as her anger began to rise.

“That’s no way to treat a lady,” she dusted herself off and shook out her arms.

Johnston’s head cocked to the side. “Is that what you’re supposed to be?”

“Oh-hoo…” Violet couldn’t help but laugh. She beckoned the large man on with her hands. “You’re gonna pay for that!”

Johnston laughed back. “Doubt it.” And he rushed in.

He led with the same feint as the last time, expecting Violet to duck and circle again like he’d caught her last time, but Violet’s mind was in high gear. Johnston was still playing checkers and she was three moves ahead.

She stood her ground and snapped off a push-kick to the inside of Johnston’s right knee.

The big guy yelped in surprise and pain as his knee hyper-extended with a not-unpleasant crack to Violet’s ears.

Johnston tried to reverse his course, but it required all his weight being put on the now compromised right knee. Instead, it buckled just as Violet followed up the kick with two straight punches and an uppercut.

She barely felt the pain register in her knuckles as the big man dropped to his knees and face-planted on the dirty duracrete floor.

A strange snorting sound escaped the large man’s lips, somewhere between a choke and a snore.

Violet turned the big man over onto his back with her boot. Johnston’s face was smeared in blood from where his broken nose had sprung a leak. Violet raised her eyebrows at the trainer. “That work? Or should I open one of his veins?”

Several cries of laughter went up from the peanut gallery that consisted of the other trainees.

The trainer looked up at the man with one eye who stood watching the proceedings from the balcony that overlooked the training yard. The one-eyed man tilted his head in a nod.

“That will be all, Miss Weaver,” the trainer said. No sooner had he made the pronouncement than several members of the medical staff raced out to check on Johnston.

Violet’s victorious expression changed to one of doubt. “What? Did I do something wrong?” She turned with arms held wide at her sides. “I thought the whole point was to win…”

She locked eyes with the trainer, searching for any signs one way or another whether she’d done well or disappointed, but Violet saw nothing upon the man’s blank, expressionless face. Finally she gave up trying and joined the other recruits on the sidelines.

A young woman with dreadlocks named Trace leaned over and whispered in Violet’s ear as she rejoined the group. “Enjoyed the show! Prick had it coming…no matter what da boss man say. Or don’t say for dat matter…” She nodded in the direction of the trainer and the one-eyed man, leaving Violet to wonder which one was da boss man.

“Thanks,” Violet muttered, glancing at the other recruits who glared at her like she’d punched out their mothers and not some over-clocked behemoth of a meat puppet. “I’m not so sure everyone else appreciated the display.”

Trace leaned in close. “Dat’s because you’re cheating.”

Violet’s eyes flew wide and blood rushed into her cheeks. “What? That’s ridiculous! I beat him fair and square…even more so if you ask me. Putting me against the biggest meat head here—I don’t see anyone else taking on the giant.”

“My point exactly,” Trace said. “No one else here could take on the lab experiment that be Johnston—but you—you just use whatever kind of juice they got you on to out brute-strength the beast. How is dat not cheating?”

Violet’s initial reaction was to open her mouth to protest some more, but she stopped herself and considered what the dreadlocked woman had said.

Trace watched Violet as she thought about it and continued, “Everyone else here has to actually learn the strategy and techniques that the instructors are teaching, but you just walk through the obstacles like they not even der…” Trace shrugged. “Like I said, cheating.”

Violet cracked a smile. “Maybe you’re right…maybe.”

The mirth melted off of Trace’s face and she straightened up. Violet felt a tingle run down her spine and spun around to find the trainer’s intense gaze staring her right in the face, so close she could feel his breath on her lips.

“So you need a challenge, Weaver, is that it?” the trainer asked.

Violet swallowed hard. “That’s not what I was saying—”

The trainer cut her off, barking out the names of three different recruits. “Please show Miss Weaver here a good time.”

“Aaah—shit!” Violet said as the three recruits encircled her. This was going to hurt.