Three seconds later Harry was confronted by the fact that he had absolutely no clue what he was doing. The Korban had set on him with a slashing, dizzying array of bongka maneuvers; Harry blocked about a third of them and avoided the rest by stumbling backward as the Korban pressed his advantage. The Korban was whirling his bongka like a rotor blade. Harry realized that having the longer bongka was not an advantage here; it took longer to swing, block and attack. The little Korban had the upper hand, as it were.

The Korban lunged at Harry and appeared to overextend; Harry swung his bongka overhead to try to tap him on the backside. As he did the Korban twisted inside the arc of Harry’s attack; Harry realized he’d been played just as the Korban viciously whacked both of his ankles. Harry went down; the Korban jumped back just far enough to begin enthusiastically tenderizing Harry’s midsection as he fell. Harry rolled and blindly thrust his bongka at the Korban; somewhat improbably, it connected, poking the Korban in its snout. The poke fazed the Korban into stopping its attack and taking a step back. Harry poked it back a couple more steps and then stood up, testing his ankles. They complained but held.

“Keep poking him!” Schmidt yelled. Harry glanced over to snap something back, giving the Korban an opening. He took it, whacked Harry hard upside the head, then reapplied himself to Harry’s ankles. Harry stumbled but kept upright, wheeling in a drunken fashion toward the center of the gym. The Korban followed, swinging merrily at Harry’s already bruised ankle bones. Harry got the distinct feeling he was being toyed with.

Screw this, Harry thought, and stopped, planted his bongka firmly into the gym mat and hurled himself up the staff. A second later he was doing a handstand at the top of it, balanced by dint of his finely calibrated if disused motor control, courtesy of the Colonial Defense Forces genetic engineering.

The Korban, clearly not expecting this tactic, stopped and openly gawked.

“That’s right,” Harry said. “Come whack on my ankles now, you little prick.”

Harry continued to feel smug about his plan right until the moment the Korban crouched and launched itself into the air with a push of its powerful legs. The Korban didn’t make it as high as Harry’s ankles. He did, however, get right on level with Harry’s face.

Oh, crap, Harry thought, before the blinding crack of a bongka smashed across the bridge of his nose and robbed him of any further capacity for reaction, commentary or thought. All those things came back to him with blinding pain as Harry’s spinal column compressed into the gym mat as he fell. After that there were a few moments of curiously distant sensation as the Korban’s bongka dug into various parts of his body, followed by an even more distant blast of a horn. The first round was over. The Korba strutted off to the sound of belching applause; Harry propped himself up on his bongka and staggered over to Schmidt, who had found him a water bottle.