Free Son of Justice by Steven L. Hawk Page A

started going off. He didn’t see any good coming from a match with his training sergeant. Unfortunately, he also couldn’t see any way out of the match without sounding like a coward. “Just a friendly match, little one.”
    Little one .
    The very first Minith he had ever met, Treel, had called him Little One. From Treel, one of his most trusted friends, the name was an endearment—a nickname earned as a five-year-old learning to play chess. From Sergeant Twigg, it was an affront, and felt rotten. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to hand the sergeant’s ego to him on the end of a staff. But that was a dangerous emotion, especially when going up against someone like Twigg. Eli thought about Treel’s son, Arok, his best friend since the age of seven. He had sparred against Arok, and numerous other Minith over the years, many of whom were experts with the staff, but none of them had wanted to do him serious harm. He wasn’t sure that was the case with Twigg. He had no doubt the sergeant wanted to get even for their earlier confrontation in his office.
    Regardless, even if he had really wanted to, Eli couldn’t think of any way to get out of the match. So he set his mind to winning the contest instead. There were two good approaches he had discovered for gaining an advantage over a Minith fighter. The first was to downplay your own abilities from the start and lull the alien into a false sense of superiority. This often caused them to take chances that they normally wouldn’t or to make a move that they wouldn’t typically make against a better opponent. In other words, the trick was to get them to play down to the suspected level of their competitor.
    The second approach relied on taking advantage of their tendency to anger easily. It was a much more dangerous game, but Eli had found that if he could anger his Minith opponent from the beginning, they usually responded with a fighting style that relied more on wild aggression and less on solid reasoning and technique.
    Eli suspected Sergeant Twigg would be more susceptible to the latter method. He was emotional and seemed to be someone who angered easily. On the other hand, except for the last fight with Crimsa, Eli hadn’t revealed much actual staff-fighting technique. The Minith sergeants had no idea of his experience level, and he could use that to his advantage.
    Unsure if he was making the correct choice, he decided to flatter his opponent while downplaying his own abilities.
    “Of course, Sergeant.” He tore his eyes away from Twigg, bowed his head and stared down at the ground as he replied. If he was going to act like an unworthy adversary, he might as well go all the way. “I’m probably no match for a Minith, but I’ll try my best.”
    “Excellent. Let us begin.”
    * * *
    The men and woman that formed the ring around the human and Minith combatants buzzed with curiosity and excitement. Word was passed around the circle of what was taking place, and when Sergeant Twigg picked up the staff and spun it quickly and expertly above his head, all eyes turned his way. A few of his platoon-mates offered whispered words of encouragement as Eli took his place and waited for the contest to begin.
    In Twigg’s large hand, the lengthy weapon looked much smaller than its true size—like a human twirling a mop handle. But Eli knew that to be an illusion caused by his opponent’s size. It was a simple matter of scale. In contrast, the staff he held in his hands suddenly seemed heavier and more awkward.
    The young fighter struggled to prepare in the few moments before the match started. This was his eighth match with no rest, and he had no doubt that it would be the toughest by far. He rolled his head and neck in a circle and forced the buzz of the spectators out of his mind. He twisted his torso side-to-side in an attempt to loosen the accumulated soreness and fatigue from his back and shoulders.
    He took a deep breath, held it, exhaled slowly.
    As ready