Do your worst, Tom messaged back.

He led Medusa in a spirited pursuit through jagged columns of mountains, twisting through the sky, her vessel always flashing up in the sunlight behind his, utterly relentless. Tom kept awaiting some nasty surprise, but she maintained that steady pursuit. He fired back at her, and she swerved gracefully to avoid each missile. She returned fire at him, and he swerved rather more clumsily, but he was scraping by pretty well, he thought. A few times, he flew low to the ground, blasting up masses of dirt to send billowing clouds in the air, hoping to blot out her view of his ship and rises in the mountains long enough for her to collide with one—but Medusa anticipated this and always soared high into the air to avoid the traps.

And then it was her turn to surprise him. As he rounded a peak, he discovered that she’d passed straight over the mountain this time, and there were three missiles already fired off, more soaring his way, all homing in on his ship. Tom’s mind flashed over her strategy, and he realized she’d deliberately lulled him, set up an expectation in his mind about where she’d be, so she could shock him when she deviated from that.

You’re amazing, he sent her, dodging the first three missiles.

I know, she sent back, as the fourth one destroyed his ship.

Tom snapped back into himself, and was amazed to hear the roar of approval swelling from the crowd outside the Capitol all around him even though the Russo-Chinese had officially won Capitol Summit. He blinked to clear his vision, the resounding cheers vibrating his eardrums.

The screen flashed to an image of the Rotunda, where Elliot and Svetlana still looked to be in shock, and the voices mounted to a thunder in Tom’s ears. People began chanting a name, and it grew louder and louder, for the hero of Capitol Summit.

“Ramirez! Ramirez! Ra-mir-ez!”

As the image flipped from the Rotunda to the combat site in Texas, then zoomed in one last time on the smoldering remains of Elliot’s ship—and above it, the skyboard debris. The voices in the crowd grew deafening, vibrating Tom’s chest. Tom was utterly confused, because he’d lost the battle. As far as the crowd knew, Elliot had failed to beat Svetlana this year.

Then he saw the exultant, wild faces on all sides of him and he understood that the battle had lost its meaning as a showcase skirmish between countries. People were exulting in a victory of a different sort.

They’d seen Elliot Ramirez destroying all the Coalition skyboards.