Naysha's preparation timer ran down while she was still testing how the controls responded beneath her one free hand.
When the cockpit display finally flashed the beginning of the assessment, she pushed the Rank 1 Mecha forward into the asteroid field without the hurried burst of acceleration that had marked nearly every one of her previous attempts.
Outside the pod, the class watched her machine leave the starting point at a pace that seemed almost cautious compared to what they had seen from her before.
A few of the students who knew her scores glanced at one another, as though wondering whether she had lost her nerve.
Ning knew better.
He could see the way her Mecha angled itself slightly upward long before the first drifting wreckage had come anywhere near her route, and he understood that she was already looking several obstacles ahead rather than waiting for the debris in front of her to force her hand.
