Elliot and Svetlana stood frozen in the center of the room, no longer pretending to steer the ships. No one was looking at them right now anyway. Then Tom soared back into the vessel and messaged Medusa as he blew up a Harbinger, then a Nobridis board. Be honest. Are you impressed?

I’m awestruck, Mordred.

She knew it was him. The realization made his head spin. He took out two more skyboards with one shot.

Awestruck, huh? Then you know how I always feel around you, he thought back.

Cheesy?

Tom’s distant lips smiled. Extremely.

His distant ears picked up on the confused voices all murmuring around him as people in the crowd outside the Capitol tried to figure out what the Indo-American Combatant was doing this year.

For what it’s worth, he messaged back to her, I could kick myself for the way I acted the last time you dropped by.

Medusa began playing a game of sorts with him. She’d dodge behind one skyboard, and the next. Tom enjoyed this one, too. He took potshots not meant to hit her, and saw them ricochet off the orbiting advertisements. Through Heather’s ears, he heard someone in the Rotunda say, “That girl is a terrible shot,” which about killed Tom as he blew up a Stronghold Energy board Medusa had dodged behind and then one belonging to Matchett-Reddy.

And soon the atmosphere above the Texas battle site was a glittering ring of debris, burning away in the atmosphere as it plunged downward. Tom and Medusa’s ships circled each other through the endless blue sky.

Want this one . . . Chun Li? Tom thought at her.

He almost felt her laughter. Beat me in an honest fight, and I’ll tell you my real name.

Tom felt a surge of excitement, both at the offer and at the reconciliation it implied. He soared toward her ship, needing to win. But this wasn’t the satellite competition; it wasn’t a game. This was combat, and Medusa wasn’t just a fully trained Combatant, she was the Intrasolar Combatant, the one who could sway an entire war single-handedly. She banked downward to dodge the heat-seeking missiles, swept around in a graceful arc, and flew straight toward him, leading his own missiles back his way.

Diabolical, Tom messaged her.

I thought so, Medusa sent back.

He swerved, but in avoiding his own errant missile, he gave her a chance to launch her own, which narrowly missed blasting in his side.

Tom couldn’t handle her in the open air. He needed obstacles. Those mountains. He aimed toward the stretch of Texas, and found himself temporarily disoriented without the skyboards there to illustrate the zone of combat. Heather may have been given the coordinates for the fight and the lay of the landscape, but he hadn’t.

So be honest, Medusa messaged him. Would you prefer your end to be swift and terrible or slow and terrible?